Alice in Wonderland Off the Map project - Early Playthrough

Week 26 : Conceptual Comparisons.

This week the level has reached a nearly finished point in the terms of level design. Almost every single asset is in the game, and the level is starting to look like the concepts, and like a real game.

So as we leave for easter this is where we are. I made some handy comparison pieces to show some of the differences and what we still have to work through. This was a pretty useful practice, helped me realise things I had to change and I had some time to do it. 

The trees are now in the forest level and it really makes it look alive. Not surprisingly, it took the trees to make the forest areas look good. A lot of the forest diverges from the concepts to add some more gameplay to the level. I think the gameplay aspects of our game a real highlight, and is basically complete now.

The Garden level had some issues. Due to mis-communication I had included a selection of assets not even meant for this level. But luckily the issue wasn't too bad and was easily and quickly fixed. But the colours and designs are all on track.  

I also constructed a castle out of several other assets we have. I think it's pretty snazzy. 

These are shots of the new and finally finished End level. Its meant to be a somewhat abstract and surreal, and I think I've captured that.

Much of the debris you see is actually moving within the scene, and does so due to being a mesh particle system. 

Like this, where every single letter moves seperately. This level is meant to be hard, as it's the last level and it's taken alot of level testing to get it right. 

Now it's easter I'll start planing my Reflective Essay and my Presentation project. Now the Presentation is too early to tell, but I think I have an idea on how to handle the essay. I'll be reflecting mostly on a combination of my character project and my container city project. I want to both look at how group projects worked, and the problems I had with my character project which were overcame by finding my place with engine and environment work..

Week 25 : Please wait rendering.

The level now is really starting to come together, as a whole new ground system is being put in place.

This ground is made out of dynamic small parts of earth, which are designed to slot together and and make a more interesting  environment than the terrain we had before. It also closer fits to the cartoony design we want for the level, making it more child friendly.

But the obvious issue is that the sharp contrasting shadows make it look really bad! Being designed to look like rock and sediment those little nooks and crannies catch all the shadows and make it look stripy and intense. So I took some time to fix that.

This is the fix, used by changing the default Unreal Engine 4 lighting with Distance Field Ambient Occlusion Rendering. It's something I was toying with beforehand, but works really well with the new ground and assets. 

It's a rendering technique meant for very dynamic games as it processes the shadows tick by tick, mostly for destructible objects or things that move alot. But I really like the kind of softer faded look it gives. 

This is due to the Ray Traced Distance Field rendering it uses, which is rather heavy on the engine but I think will be worth it. We don;t have many high impact parts of the game like high tri models so we may be safe.

Also as you may notice, you can change the colour of this lighting system far more. With this I can make the different levels have their own sense of atmosphere.

Other than just working this out I've been spending my time working on making the levels, putting assets within them and building this ground. It's exciting to really see these worlds come together. The issue is there is lots to still change. The ground needs constant work, and without textures everything may still be up for change.

It's an exciting time! There's lots to do, but the game is starting to come together. Also now begins the planning for our Reflective Writing challenge. This is exciting too me as I've not done any kind of writing since my English Literature days. Maybe i'll completely screw it up, but i'll atleast try and make this writing task fun. 

Week 24 : Populous

The work on assets has begun. The four levels of our Alice in Wonderland themed game are starting to be populated with assets of all shapes and sizes. While things are still extremely Work in Progress the levels are starting to hint at what they could look like in the future. 

Here's an example of the underground Rabbit Hole level. Rocks and mushrooms abound. One of the hardest things about this step is trying to get the style just right. There is a lot of back and forth between concept art, asset creation and engine. It's incredibly important to get every asset fitting the same kind of style that our concept artist has designed. It's always hard to get the game looking perfect comparative to a style.

Nothing has any textures yet but this is enough to give some idea of how the level will eventually look. I rather like how this looks with the white textures.

One of the main things we're now moving on his replacing the terrain system we've used to rough out our level design. While terrain works very well it doesn't quite fit the style we're going for and now is the time for a complete redesign. Yes, it may be our destruction. We will have to rebuild much of the levels and take some time to get everything working perfectly but the rewards will be far worth the risk.