Modular Design

I've been putting together a level using Bethesda's Fallout 4 Creation Kit. It's my first time using the Kit and my first time using modular pieces to make something, needless to say, it's been a learning experience.

Modular stuff is great in it's own right, I feel like to could pump out level at an incredible speed this way. That being said, I've run into a few problems typical of modular kits. While I won't list the others here, I've just discovered that somewhere in the level, a piece got tilted about 0.9 degrees. Every piece placed afterwards followed the trend because when you're snapping things together, you really only care if they are snapping together. Now that I'm doing some more precise work, I'm trying to duct tape a solution that doesn't leave holes or cause noticeable Z fighting.

The lesson here. Check the transform details every once in awhile. Probably every time you save.

BP Homework 2

So the homework had some ups and down. I managed to put together a pretty night scene, but a some of the terrain ended up rough, and it took a lot longer than expected. This was my first real foray into making rocks from smaller rocks. Honestly, that was a lot of work, or time at least. The finesse that goes into making them smooth and realistic looking is significant. Overall, I was pleased with the blueprints I put together, and I learned a lot about getting different blueprints talking to each other, in addition to getting rock blending experience.

A glow light you can throw that illuminates dark areas. You only have one, so the BP destroys your old light if you throw it again.

Allows Mushrooms to be picked up.

Spawns a bounce mushroom if the hit surface is "mushroomable."

All of the Player Blueprints for throwing things, making the HUD, and others.

Color Picker

I know I'm a few posts behind, but I'm up to my arms in work, you'll see it soon.
I just wanted to pop in to say that Photoshop can color pick from anything, including an open UE4 project. Fantastic. Very useful when your sky sphere won't tell you what color it is (because it's hooked to the sun height).

Blueprint Homework 1

So, this week I'll be working on a level design homework that is all about blueprints. The requirements are simple. Make a level with 2 areas, and 5 different functions blueprinted, that's it. I've decided to make a level where the player traverses a tropical forest by collecting and deploying bouncing mushrooms.

BP 1 will be something like a grenade, except it will spawn a bouncing mushroom.
BP 2 will be that mushroom
BP 3 will allow the player to pick up these mushrooms.
BP 4 will display the number of reserve mushrooms on the UI
and BP 5 will be a light source that floats up into the air and illuminates an area after it hits the ground

The trickiest part, so far has been the grenade component for which the tutorial I followed was severely lacking. So, instead, I'm going to start from scratch and steal bits and piece from the premade FPS level that Unreal has. The gun projectiles are similar enough that if I reimagine the blueprint with my new mechanic in mind, I should be able to make something work.

Wish me luck.

New Side Project

Decided to start a new side project. I'm going to build a Fallout 4 mod because working for Bethesda is a not-so-secret dream of mine. I've come up with a unique an interesting mechanic too. The game includes some power armors that can gain a jetpack upgrade. However, the jetpack is weak and lasts for maybe 5 seconds at the best. I am going to make a special jetpack armor that allows significantly increased flight time, and then design a fun and vertically inclined area to play with it.

The concept for the map is based on the Boston Aeronautical Society which, unlike in real life, stayed open up until the nuclear war. At the time, they were prototyping the fun new jetpack that the level is built around. The reason that no one has yet found the jetpack (or building remains) is that during the war, a massive chasm opened up below the building and most of it's contents fell down into the hole. I'm going to have the player use their new found toy to ascend out of the chasm fighting super mutants, ghouls and a behemoth along the way.

In anycase, this is the first small piece of the grey-box, and I wanted to share:

Though they are hard to make out from this angle, the 2 tilted rectangular prisms are hollow and represent actual chunks of the building that has split into a number of pieces which I will use to guide the player up and out of the chasm. The rest of the flat surfaces are chasm floor. As to the colored objects, Player's start on the blue space, green and bright green are ghouls, pink is for super mutants, and yellow is for junk/loot. Not visible from this angle are 2 spots where I have used a blue box to demarcate more valuable treasure.

This will make a whole lot more sense when I'm done. I promise.

Race Car Finale

Managed to get the shaders working and to properly render my car in Maya with mental Ray. This may have been due last week, but I'm glad I, at least, got it done.

Oh the places you'll go.

Decided on a ice rink course. This is the beginning.

Looks kind purdy.

The general curves laid out. Lots of texture to add.

A texture blend with Landscape Coordinates so I could scale things up to an appropriate size.

Such texture.

A nice track. Laid stone, cause I'm fancy.

Some beauty shots post foliage and asset placement.

Race Car UVs

Today I leaned that Maya Bonus Tools don't work in Extension 2. This is probably for the best as doing UVs the proper way was probably a worthwhile learning experience. It took a little while, but was relatively stress free. I forgot to take pictures on the way, so these pictures are all of the final results.

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Model tuned with spoiler. Look at those clean clean lines. No retopoing here.

Collapsed a few lines on the bottom. It's not like I'm animating the underside.

UVs. I know some weird lines are straggling. Those are the inner linings of the windows where they were extruded inward. Would you say intruded? Probably not...

Probably definitely my final texture. Totally. What a beauty.

And here it is matched up to the UVs.

Finally a photoshop image with some basic colors painted under the UVs. I left the UV lines visible for now but they will be hidden for actual texturing.