Realtime Assets and 3D Creation
Unreal Engine 4 - Environment Level Design
Object Manipulation
1. Moving Platforms and Curve Editor
2. Triggering Sequences and Reversing a Platform Blueprint
Assignment 1 - Puzzle Level Deisgn
To begin with, the idea about the Level Design. The Design of a games level is a difficult prossess. Most of the time, logic is the key element in it, and as important as the whole environment.
For my Level Design that I have to create in Unreal Engine 4 I 've chosen to use Polygon Nature - Kit. It can be easily found in Unreal Marketplace.
Ideas for Designing puzzles for the level
First of all, the ideas for my Level are based on 3 different choices with 3 different areas.
1. The first area is with 3 choices. The player has to choose between 3 doors -> the right door shows the second area. The other 2 doors reset the player to the beggining area when he steps on a certain point.
2. When the player is done with his introductional 3 choices he will enter the zone, which is a lake with 3 main rocky platforms. Here is the second choice with 3 variations. Stepping on the right platform will let him get out of the lake and reach the third area. The other two main rocky platforms will immediatly reset him to the beginning of this area which is in front of the lake and the player will start again.
3. For my third area, I have managed to create 3 different paths which are the third choice with 3 variations. The right path will let the player reach the last part of my Level - A physical puzzle which is a Maze. The other two paths will be a dead end and at a certain point the player will be reset again in front of the third area and will start his journey with the paths again.
Ending - When the player starts his journey in the Maze he will reach a lot of dead end paths in it, but when he reaches the middle of the maze there is the end of the level.
Unrealengine.com. 2020. POLYGON - Nature Pack By Synty Studios In Environments - UE4 Marketplace. [online] Available at<https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/polygon-nature-pack> [Accessed 17 April 2020].
Pinterest. 2020. Enchanted Adventure Garden...Amazing Fun To Be Had! Melbourne's Very Own 'Enchanted Adventure Garden' Down On The Morni… | Enchanted Adventure Garden, Garden Design. [online] Available at: <https://www.pinterest.com/pin/184084703494632411/?autologin=true [Accessed 17 April 2020].
Logic Diagram of Puzzle Level
This is the main diagram needed. My logic diagram for my level. It shows all that is wanted for my level. I already described my idea for the logic of the game and this is the visual example of it.
In summary, it starts with Start Area where the player will be in front of three doors and have to choose, the right Door 3 will let him continiue his journey to Area 2 where is a lake with rocky platforms which will be the main attraction - when the player steps on the wrong one the platform will make him fall in the lake and reset, if the player steps inside the lake he will reset too.
The right one will let him go throught the lake and reach Area 3 where he will be in front of his third choice - three paths, but only one of them is the right one.
After going through the right ''path 2'' he will reach the Physical puzzle and the player reaches the middle of the puzzle - END of the level.
Assets concept sketches and modeling
Assets: 1. Cairn; 2. Double Door; 3. Rocky wall; 4. Waterfall from rocks; 5. Runestone; 6. The Maze; 7. Wooden Single Doors
1. Cairn
Very easy low poly model of a cairn. My Kit's assets are not really complexed and look really friendly to be modelled. I researched for Low Poly Modeling and the easiest thing to do are rocks. I modelled the Asset in Autodesk Maya using polyhedron figure from the software and then all the other things are scaling, rotating, duplicating and assigning new material that is capable with Unreal Engine - Lambert. Exported it and sent it to my Unreal project's folder and it appeared in my Meshes folder in my Project. So it is easy to be found.
The model is uploaded in Sketchfab.
Reference image:
2018. Stone Cairn Tower, Poise Stones, Rock Zen Sculpture, Light Grey Pebbles - Stock Image. [image] Available at: <https://depositphotos.com/218478532/stock-photo-stone-cairn-tower-poise-stones.html> [Accessed 1 May 2020].
2. Wooden Double Door
The second asset is the Wooden Double Door in Low Polygon style. The easiest way this door to be modelled was to create a beam from polyhedron figure and to add lambert texture with 3 types of colour. After adjusting the whole figure to look like the style of my Kit, I send the figure in my Unreal project( in content -> geometry -> mesh -> import ) .
The design is all mine, there are no reference pictures used.
Wooden Double Door in sketchfab:
3. Rocky Wall
The Asset is modelled in Autodesk Maya in Low Polygon Style. Very easy only with rotating, duplicating and scaling.
The model in Sketchfab:
4. Waterfall from rocks
For my waterfall with rocks I have done only a construction in Autodesk Maya form rocks, about my waterfall. The actual water needs to be done with Unreal Engine 4, so that is why I have done only the construction. It was easy, but took 1 hour to be modelled. A lot of details are done and it has a lot of polygons. I sent it to Unreal after finishing in Maya and it look really good. The rest of it will be shown through the process of placing the Assets and building the environment.
The model in Sketchfab:
5. Runestone
The 3D Asset - Runestone is done with the software autodesk Maya. The model is low polly. The textures are done in Substance Painter.
The model is uploaded without textures because the texture maps are exported from Substance Painter to Unreal Engine 4.
6. The Maze
The Mesh and textures are done in Maya and exported in Unreal Engine 4.
Unreal Engine has problem with the Mesh, so a correction in the Collision is done. Both Simple and Complex Collisions are unabled because the player can enter the maze and cannot go through the walls of the Maze. Without those adjustments it is impossible to enter the maze.
7. Single Double Doors
A Low Polygon style asset created with the software Maya. This door is inspired by the model of my Wooden Double Door and the sketch of it is my reference for this door.
Level Design
Level Design Sketch
The Sketch shows the whole map of the level and where all the modelled Assets by me are placed.
It is designed to be with four areas. Area one - Start Area; Area two - Lake with platforms; Area three - Paths; Area four - The Maze.
On my sketch it is visible where are the right choises to go through the level.
Every 'X' in my sketch means that is a wrong choice. Every time when a wrong choice is picked, the player will go to a sertain poing in the beggining of the area where it is at that time.
I have three cutscenes in my level. The firs one is before starting Area two; the second one is before starting Area three; the third one is at the end of the level.
The whole level design is inspired by the Kit which I chose - Polygon Nature. I designed a forest level and its name is - The imaginary forest.
The functionality of the game
1. Moving platforms
They are made with coding instead of using a Sequance for each platform. One of the platforms is the right one and the player can step on it, the other two are with code - when the player steps on them he fells in the water and teleports in a certain point.
2. Opening of the Doors - Sequence
There are four doors in my level. Three of them are the same - Single Wooden Doors. Their funcionality is when the player needs to go through one of them, the certain door to open. I have done it through sequence. I created three animations, one for each door because of the different angles of the doors. For this purpose I imported in Unreal Engine 4 the frame of the doors and the actual doors, in this way I can manipulate only the door without any issue and to create a sequance. When the Sequences were done I dragged and dropped a triggerbox in front of each door and created a blueprint foreach box. Soon after I dropped the Sequence inside the triggerbox.
The same process was done for the Wooden Double Door in front of the maze.
Every time when the player goes through one of the doors they will open because of the sequance and will be triggered from the box.
3. Cutscenes
There are three cutscenes in the level. Two of them are introducing cutscenes for my areas. The third one will be played when the player reaches the end of the level in the middle of the maze. For this purpose I used camera, triggerbox and blueprinting. Also, for the final cutscene I added a text ''END OF LEVEL'' and connected it to the blueprint. When the last cuscenes is being played, the text will appear.
4. Main Menu
The main menu I being created through blueprinting and designing visually. I used picture from a site named ''Polycount''. There are three buttons - Start, Options, Exit. Inside the Options button there are options for the resolution.
