Level Design
Updated Level
Technical Summary:
A piece of feedback I received about the design of our level, was rearranging the grid style layout to make it more unique and force the player to explore the level further. Most notably with this, the street with the player's house (1) ends in two directions, giving the player the choice to go further into the town, or discover what's around the corner. To further push the attention of the player to other places, we added a temporary text render to the Cantina (2) so that the player knew what was over there and maybe catch their interest straight away. I also swapped out the Meridian out for the Goliath at the spaceport (4) since the sheer size of the ship was so large that it looms over the player, capturing the new and improved lighting and creating brilliant god rays when looked at.
To achieve these new lighting effects, I removed the original lighting components (Directional Light, Height Fog, Sky Atmosphere) and using the Environment Light Mixer, created new unchanged lighting components. To achieve the more orange tint in the sky, we changed the directional light to an orange colour and increased the intensity, we changed the Height Fog to a bright red and decreased the density of the fog to not be as strong as before. Finally, we changed the Rayleigh Scattering to a peach colour and increased the scattering, which paired with the MIE and Absorption, we can create some excellent god rays.
As seen by the end of Beta, we also included a large monument at the town centre (5) as a way for the player to know where the centre of the map is at all times, helping them navigate and understand where they are on the map. At the beginning of Beta, the Market was very bare and had barely changed at all through Alpha, so when we developed that location, we pulled the walls and market (3) further in to remove some of the blank space we had, but the new design of the Market Stalls really helped to build on intriguing the player into exploring a location, especially with some of the more odd shaped stalls. During this period, I also developed a blueprint that would move one of the vehicles around the town centre to add some more moving parts and help bring the town to life even more.
Reflection:
The improvements made between the end of Alpha and Beta are very substantial and positively impact the direction of the game. This version helps the player navigate the level a lot more, as well as having several places that can help bring the player's interests over to a specific location. Another big factor that I think adds to the level, is the reworked lighting to add a more orange tint to the world and the addition of intense god rays really makes the environment stand out more. I think the level could benefit with some more static assets to fill in the blank spaces, similarly to the night map.
Market
Technical Summary:
By this point, the basics of the game's code was complete, it just needed to have the style and flare applied to it as well to make it fit in with the rest of the level. We spent some time thinking of different stands that we could include to add some style and continue the trend of pulling references and parody real world elements. We took this as another opportunity to expand what we are able to do and present to the player, this including the TV's that change between different advertisements, using the same method as the Inventory Animation.
However, doing the animation for a model presented a different challenge. We used already made 2d elements for the advertisements inside of After Effects, before exporting them out as individual PNGs. For the animations, I didn't make the model they were being attached to, so I had to make sure that the image I was going to add fit with the UV of the TV Screen. To do this, I separated the screen faces by giving it their own material, and changing the material to show a frame of the advertisements. Using this method, I was able to scale the UV to fit the advertisements and reimport the model into UE. This allowed for me to assign a new material to the screen without effecting the rest of the model.
We also used this as an opportunity to add some more fun elements for the player, letting them purchase hats or spending credits to make one of the Martians Dance, these are unhelpful mechanics to the player, acting more to help build immersion and fun to the player's experience.
Reflection:
I think this is a vast improvement on the original design of the Market, and has some immersive and fitting additions to really add to the fun nature of the game. I think to really improve this further, I could include more market stalls to fill out the area even more giving it a more cramped and crowded area, even by adding more moving NPCs as if they are purchasing and inspecting goods, helping to make it feel more alive for the player.
Cantina
Technical Summary:
The Cantina also had a dedicated model created for it in the style of the alien houses, to fit with the consistency of the other locations. We wanted this spot to be a location that we could populate with several fun references, helpful mechanics to aid the player, and a stand-out location for the player to explore. The Cantina is a very atmospheric place, and really adds the belief of the town being populated through the variety of characters inside the level, and accomplishes this alive and busy feeling that the Market doesn't quite get.
Reflection:
The only issue with this location is that the player camera can go outside the building if they are inside. This is because the models walls are being treated as planes, and I should have added some thickness to them to stop this from happening. The other issue with the design of the Cantina is that it's quite a large model, but feels very empty above the ground floor, it could definitely benefit from some walls to break-up the layout. The only real issue with this is that because the model is one whole piece, it can't really have these changes, in future, I should do large buildings as a modular collection or even have the interior as a separate level. I think to also create a more realistic depiction of a cantina, I should include more empty glasses around the Cantina, use some decals to create spilt drinks and even dirt along the floor to add a more lived in feel to the building.