Summary

This project has forced me to find out how unreal engine 4 works. I started with little knowledge as all of my previous experience with game engines has been with Unity. So learning how to make objects look good proved to be quite the obstacle. I did however, come out of it knowing more about importing/creating landscapes, tiling textures, and basic blueprints.

I started by creating a really simple height map in Photoshop. The height map being based on my initial sketch of the map. And then imported that into UE4's landscape creator. What I got was a little rough, but with some sculpting I was able to create a mountain that you could easily travel from point A to point B.

sketch and height map

Landscape results

Then there was creating some textures to breath life into it. Just importing them was not going to work. And it turns out that using blueprints, you can create painting layers you can apply directly to the landscape. At first it was awkward and stretched strangely, but using the Landscape Coordinate Node fixed that nicely.

The grass and Stone textures

Final result + Houses

Now that I had a basic level I needed some sort of game play. So I figured I'd add some simple AI and have those attack the player, my next step was to give the player a fighting abilitiy.

However there really is no such thing as a simple AI. even following seemingly easy tutorials using blackboard. I am only left with characters that sit there in their idle animations. I am sure the answer to fixing my blueprints is simple, I just need to take a step back and really look at what I need to do.

 AI is waiting

  Nav map is set

Update + AI

Found a better solution for landscape textures. Turns out there is a landscape coordinate node that adapts the tiling textures based on where the camera is. This is extremely useful.

And here we have that extremely simple blueprint

Added flat base color textures to houses and imported them into the game.

Now, since the player can run from point a to point b no problem, I am adding some simple AI to give this little mountain village some sort of challenge to it. Following the unreal 4 tutorial, I am figuring out blackboard.

Tiling textures

To add some color to my mountain I had attempted to figure out how landscape painting works. As it turns out, it's sort of complicated.

The first set up in the material editer looked something like this. Which allowed painting, but with crazy tiny textures.

Here is the result of my first attempt

 Playing around in the editor, I found that the texture coordinates worked just as well as long as the layerblend was applied to all textures involved in the painting







So below is the before and after. Which still has plenty of stretching, but I will be trying another technique to fix it.

I also have basic houses built, to replace the blocks

Other than editing the the terrain to make it easier to climb.  I decided to give the player a more clear goal to reach. Before you could barely see the top of the mountain, so I changed the position of where the island (the goal) is visible right off the bat.

Blocking Out The Level

Here we Have the front and initial view of the level

Right off the bat the player encounters their first enemies.

A bit further they have their 2nd enemy encounter

Up the mountain they have a third encounter

The fourth encounter will be the boss at the top of the mountain.

The Player will then proceed to the island above and the level will end

A view shot of the level at an angle

Wire frame view of  the level

Height Map Testing + House Placement Blocking

First time experimenting with height maps. Created in Photoshop.

Final result imported into Unreal Engine 4

Game Description (draft1)

Based in an old Mountain Village in a fantasy land, your character is a poor villager unsuspecting as the rest of your kind. Suddenly everything goes quiet as demons start taking over the town. You have to race to the top of your village, to reach the shrine floating above. You intend to wake your villages’ gods and plead for them to save their faithful followers.

A third fighting/action with a fixed camera. Camera moves upwards as you move up the mountain to get to your goal. But does not get closer as you reach your goal. Your goal is to reach the floating temple above your mountain village. The game will feature fast paced fighting, magical upgrades and a chance to replenish health after each fight.

Fantasy- Old Tibetan style village spread across the side of a mountain. Will have the artistic style of games like Zelda: Skyward Sword. At least in terms of structural style and general feel. The color palate will be different. Dull gray-ish environment with a bright character to keep track of him better as he distances himself from the camera.

Flow and Encounters

Initial Sketch

Reference-Style

Reference- Real world inspiration