Weapon and Engine Effects

Something that has been weighing on my mind greatly recently is as to how the weapons in my game are going to operate and how they will appear visually to the player. I feel it is important that the weapons convey a correct sense towards the player as to what they are firing and as to what is being fired at them. When this is not clear it can have a great impact on the experience of the game.

More Concept Art

Heres some more concept art, soon follow are the designs for enemy ships/fighters, capital ships, frigates and general environment designs in space.

Another cruiser design, this more sleek and reminiscent of a transport vessel for between larger and more capable ships.

This a much more agile and ordinance-heavy type of cruiser, much more like a bomber-type vessel. Where it sacrifices top speed, it makes up for it in evasiveness, armour and damage dealing capabilities. I could actually see this being a great enemy-type vessel.

This cruiser has a much more 'classic' design, for me personally there is a very early 70's style of design to this cruiser and harkens back to an earlier vision of space travel.

 This cruiser has massive engines and access to the ship is granted from behind one of the nessels to the spaceship, this element being implemented to the design provides an opportunity for interesting docking animations and also for other cutscenes.

 Here is the top-side of my orthographic for the player-ship. It should be clear where turret and missile hard-points are located. A great deal of care was taken in ensuring the measurements are precisely correct as any mistakes would greatly influence the outcome of the 3D model.

Next on my list is to produce the Front and Side views so that I can get some definate progress made on the main assets for my game.

This started as more of a doodle for the player-ship in action in the game and then became a conceptual impression of what it could look like within the game. This is yet to be painted but hopefully gives a starting impression of what direction this project is heading towards.

 Soon to follow, along with the concepts I have detailed at the start of this post are storyboards for various cutscenes in the game and ship animations.

Concept Art (A 1000 shades of grey)

Here is an update on the concept art for Pulse, there are still quite a few more images to come, they are currently still being worked on in Photoshop, for now though these are what have been finished recently.

Hopefully they convey a general feel for the universe of the game and what can be expected in terms of art direction and what direction the 3D modelling side will be going towards.

These are all potential concepts for final designs and for each I have tried to explain how they could be used effectively according to the way that they are designed.

This is one of my main ship concept for the Player. I have a few more that are still in development for final painting but currently this is my personal favourate of the selection of player ships that I have designed. It hails towards the decommisioned shuttle in a sense, except with wings, pulse generators (star engines), a good scope and agile design with enough visible cargo space for the player to feel a realistic sense of scale when ferrying goods between places in the game.

There are multiple hardpoints for weapons while not being overloaded with them, making it, in my opinion, an ideal starter ship for a player in this type of game.

 The above is a painted concept for a shipyard to be included as an asset within the game, for interaction with and to also help create a believable world within which the game operates.

It is proposed that a player can get repairs/upgrades by flying into the large hangar section through it's middle portion prompting a quick and easy solution to a damaged vessel.

 

Here is one of many space station concepts in a stage that should convey a reasonable amount of information about having interesting assets within the level. What makes this design quite unique is the large biome placed above the space station. I feel this adds a very unusual element to the vista's of space and would create a very different scope for the player to see when traversing the game.

 

 With this space station concept I have tried to give a much more industrial impression to the player. It is clear this space station has been operational for quite some time in the sector, perhaps operating as a mining outpost in a rather distant quadrant.

 

 Another space station concept that I have tried to mix something quite industrial with something unusual (the pyramid-shaped biome) that rest's on top of the station. This is could quite easily be active as a trade-port near a bustling trade route or as part of a group of stations that serve various needs for travellers and military-based organistations that are within it's established sector.

 

There are some more concepts to follow shortly and once they are also brought to a similar stage as those above, I will make some final decisions on my chosen asset designs and then begin the modelling stage with due prompt! I am fairly confident of 'what' I am making now. The general look and feel of the world is becoming much clearer.

Soon to follow, after being further developed in Photoshop (in terms of concept art):
- A few more 'Player' ship designs
- Capital Ship designs (to be used as large asset within the game)
- Enemy Ship designs (Fighter and Bomber class)
- Planet / Asteroid viewscapes (Environment designs for the game)

In terms of the environment designs, I have some fairly standard ideas that would be quite effective but I also have some ideas that may be difficult to implement. I will try to get these designed in a way that conveys my intention and can give me an appropriate indication as to the feasibility of them.

Stay tuned!

UDK Spaceship Progress

This is where I'm at currently with my flying vehicle code, there is still a considerable amount that needs sorting out, namely the wonkey flight controls.

It did take some working out but I'm glad I finally got it operational, the fine-tuning will come later.

The guns do respond but since I chose to not make the bones in the skeletal mesh (this was a test for movement) they do not fire as there is no place for the required sockets to attach to in response to what is written in the code.

I created my own rig based off the one inside of the skeletal mesh of the Cicada so that my own custom skeletal mesh would respond with the code for the Cicada's bones.

I enountered a few strange issues such as the vehicle randomly exploding upon entering, or just raining down from the skybox in flames of glory. I tried to remedy this initially by simply giving the vehicle an incredible amount of health, however when this did not work I then looked at what could be causing the issue and found the collision in the Physics Asset to the be the problem. This was resolved by creating a better boundary box than the one I had used before.

There is a suprising amount involved in getting a vehicle functional in UDK. There is a plethora of required items that must be produced ranging from Animsets, Animtress, MaterialInstanceConstants and MaterialInstanceTimeVariables, Physics Assets, Physical Materials, Morphers, Sockets and probably some more I've forgotten to mention here.

I aim to now focus on designing and producing a spaceship that will be used for the Player and get it running and fully-functional now I have made progress in understanding how to get one working.

UDK - Vehicle Creation

So these past few days I have been focusing purely on getting the mechanics of my game to work and really just trying to understand how it's done in UDK.

The 'fruits of labour' are starting to show and by the end of today, I hope to have a fully working vehicle for all to see!!! But don't hold out your hope, it is a fickle business!

Suprisingly it seems to be a considerable amount easier than I previously thought and now I know what I need to do to make it work I am feeling very positive about the progress of my project.
(I can now actually focus more on design for the next week then once I have some basic functions working within my game i.e a working spaceship!).

What can be learned from user 'geodav' is extremely helpful and his knowledge of UDK is vast and concise for learning from. Below is a link to his profile page whereby a plethora of tutorials awaits for pretty much anything you can think of.


Geodav's website, containing tutorials and many other things not just for UDK but UT3 as well :

http://sites.google.com/site/ut40kmod/

What is great about these tutorials is that they are kind of modular in the sense of, what can be learned in one is then used in the next video, so what I've found helpful about his tutorials is that it lets me be able to focus on the core elements of what I wish to learn and not be constantly hit with redundant information, which can cause you to miss what it is you wanted to learn in the first place.