PDP Week 2

I spent this week importing assets from the Unreal Marketplace into my game and started actually creating my level. To start with I had to install the latest update of Unreal 4.10, I then afterwards created a new project with third person game gameplay, that had the default starter content included. This will be the base of my level, and I will design it around the mechanics of this (with a few other things included like jump pads and moving platforms made by me).

I've imported various free assets from the Unreal 4 Marketplace, which I am also going to use to create my game, and they are all royalty free. These asset packs are: ParticleEffects, SunTemple, SciFiHallway, BerlinFlat,WaterPlanes, GameTexturesMaterialPack and Blueprints. I chose these packs as there's a lot of variety in what they have on offer, from various models to decorate my level with like water and particles, to plenty of textures and blueprint scripts to bring my game's world to life. Not all of these elements will be used in the final product though, and any that don't I can delete from UE4's content browser to free up space, and also lower my project's overall filesize as a good form of optimisation practise.

The migration of various assets took a long time, and I finally began to create my game's level. It's still in very early stages and I want to plan out the look of the level first, and then fancy decoration and particle effects can be placed in afterwards. First I added some flowing water into the scene inside a container, with the plan being to have the player walk over it later on glass. Likewise I also added flowing water with buildings below in the background, which will be viewable through windows later on but help give my level a sense of scale as it's suspended in the air.

An area of flowing water, a huge version will also be placed below the stage due to it being not very system intensive, which means it will be good for optimisation and to not slowdown the game too much.

I later added pipes around the water area, so when it becomes an enclosed space with a roof later on the water will feel more authentic. Likewise, you can see a cityscape background in the distance which will be visible through windows, to show just how high up the player is

As a limitation towards my work I've discovered Unreal 4.10 can be very temperamental at times, and there have already been plenty of bugs that have hampered my progress in some way: from glitching the mouse curser, to constantly scrolling through menus to no way to prevent it, to simply crashing when I've clicked the button to save the game. These numerous problems that I've discovered are something to be aware of as I continue to create my level, as I don't want to lose a substantial amount of progress due to a sneaky bug. To remedy this I will be making a separate backup to both my computer and my portable hard-drive at the end of each work session in the engine. Likewise, I will also be saving my game regularly to keep things safe, but not too often, as even saving for me occasionally risks freezing my computer for a couple of minutes at a time before it stabilises and continues to run. And in that time something dangerous could happen. It's good I'm encountering these bugs now though rather than later on in development, as at least I can prepare myself in advance for any issues that may pop up in the future.