July 23rd Weekly Update
Added 2017-07-22 18:01:21 +0000 UTCThis week, I did focus on building a landscape shader, as well as a few additional props for the environment.
With a little help, I was able to build a modular landscape material, that is easy to change and adjust layers for. In addition, it has settings for tessellation and height maps, as well as allows me to paint puddles onto the landscape.
Instead of adding textures directly in the material, it uses Unreal Engine's material functions to create landscape layers. The benefit here is that the layers are fast to swap out, but that I can also set them up to use different texture set types.
Painted puddles
The material layers:
Landscape material as a whole:
I also built a fence that I can control the length of. By defining the length and curve of a spline, I can build a fence to cover that length, and scale it to any size that I want.
I finally built some generic rock faces to use some of the textures that I had made for the ground materials.
This rock uses the same slate material I would use for steep ledges on the ground plane had I any.
The first half of this area is meant to be more of a pretty environment. Now I need to start building the actual level!
I've also come up with what I think will be an improvement on the combat more inline with my original vision, but I will be implementing that very slowly. This week I built an input buffer for it when it is ready to go in.
As I get these assets in place, things are starting to speed up, so I'm getting kinda excited about that!
Thanks for your patience and support, and if you have any questions or comments, I'd love to hear them!
Comments
i just love these technical descriptions of what your doing and how, its the most interesting part for me, and your results are beautiful
PoshOctavia
2017-08-02 19:51:31 +0000 UTCSo cool
2017-07-28 06:03:54 +0000 UTCGame is looking just gorgeous!
PsychoDelusional
2017-07-24 16:27:54 +0000 UTCI like how this is turning out, sometimes a shader really adds to the load on your computer, so, is it well optimized?
jin
2017-07-24 13:16:19 +0000 UTCGreat work
Illuminati Games
2017-07-24 12:23:08 +0000 UTCI can try to document things in more detail, sure
Mithos56
2017-07-23 23:14:09 +0000 UTCNice to see you still ongoing and creating new stuff man. Is it possible we could see your timeline from the beginning of the making of the game, also tutorials or breakdowns as how you make these assets and environments?
Felix1
2017-07-23 23:08:08 +0000 UTClandscape is important but big boobs is more important...
Kamos
2017-07-23 10:17:16 +0000 UTCDefinitely. I can't guarnatee its gonna look great at lower resolutions, but I do have culling on, and the foliage will be able to be scaled like other things are. I don't know if you can see it in any of the screen shots, but I'm keeping close eye on the fps as well. This scene is running around 30-40 fps better on my computer then the other forest level did, and in rebuilding the forest section, optimization is a big concern.
Mithos56
2017-07-23 04:43:58 +0000 UTCLooks really good. Beautiful textures. I really like your half cartoonish half photorealistic artsytle. Also, good choice of colours, very pleasing to look at.
2017-07-23 04:28:57 +0000 UTCLooks lovely! Are there considerations in place for graphics scaling? As in: can people just squish a slider down to make the game run on their potato? It looks lovely and all, but you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot by accidentally making a game 90% of your audience can't play. I'm mostly bringing it up because I don't remember if you've ever said what anything about it, and it's certainly an important feature if you want lots of people to be able to enjoy your work.
Tinybone
2017-07-23 04:27:14 +0000 UTCThis game looks insane!!! I love the direction it's going!
Rizo
2017-07-23 02:20:49 +0000 UTCLooks much better than the previous environment!
Lascivious Gnome
2017-07-23 01:33:44 +0000 UTCSounds good
Kravenar Games
2017-07-23 01:33:21 +0000 UTCJust looks incredible! Cant wait to see even more progress.
Dianaranda
2017-07-23 01:12:41 +0000 UTCThat's some outrageously pretty scenery. Not sure if it's been asked before, but were you planning on having day/night cycles in the finished game? (As opposed to certain areas being set at certain times of day)
Alliterative Acolyte
2017-07-23 00:23:33 +0000 UTCLooks like you're setting yourself up for efficiency as far as laying up and changing your environments! These looks great and should hopefully lessen the load as far as the amount of work needed in the environments.
Voodoo Monkey
2017-07-22 20:27:36 +0000 UTClooking good!
MuamerkkiGaming
2017-07-22 18:31:37 +0000 UTCI love me some technical porn
Rexx
2017-07-22 18:04:12 +0000 UTCLooking good
MikeMasters
2017-07-22 18:02:52 +0000 UTC
