Thursday 26 January 2012

Student Project II - Making the Level more pretty

After the last milestone we desided to change the storage area a bit and to add blood decals as well as some corpses. The corpse models are taken from Gears of War but we have no intentions to publish the game or even make money with it, so it is okay to use some models that could be used in non-commercial projects.

Before:
This is a screen shot before the rearranging of boxes and adding of gore.

After:
The first view of the new arrangement

A view back to the entrance with the big hangar door that is rusted shut

Blood spatters in the floor and the exit barely visible in the distance

A view of the exit and the carnage in front of it.

Some blood and a destroyed lamp.

The last stand from another angle.

The last stand position and the aftermath.

Gore and blood splatter on boxes and shipping containers.

The entrance of the area with new lamp and shipping containers.

The last stand position with a lot of blood and gore.
As you can see, it looks more like a battle took place as the empty hall before. According to the story, all the security troops died or mutated so there have to be mutilated corpses, blood and bullet holes all around. It adds a lot to the atmosphere of the game and there are even some destroyed lamps that shoot sparks in many directions. Speaking of sparks, I started working with Unreal Cascade, the particle system editor in the UDK, and created some particle systems including sparks, floating dust and some puffs of smoke. It is an interesting tool to work with and offers many different options to play around with. I will post some screens of cool particle effects in the future.

Wednesday 11 January 2012

Student Project II - Background Story and Progress Report

The project is well under way and we have our second milestone in a few days.
The name is Helios and the background story is of a virus outbreak in a futuristic research facility.
The facility is owned by a paramilitary organization that does weapons research for the highest bidder. One of the experiments backfires and in a section of the facility a researcher is accidentally infected by a virus becoming patient zero. The mutated virus spreads quickly among the workers and they are turned into mindless monsters that attack everything in sight. The facilities security troops try to contain the situation but are defenceless against the virus.

The organization creates a soldier that is immune to the virus and sends him inside the facility to assess the situation and find some way to counteract the virus. The player takes up the role of said soldier and has to complete some objectives inside the facility.

The facility consists of three "rooms" connected by small hallways. The first room is a storage area filled with crates and shipping containers. The second room or set of rooms is a mix of laboratories and office space. The third and last room is the reactor or generator room.

A kind of theme is the conflict of fire and ice, the virus is fuelled by heat and the player's weapons shoot a kind of coolant that freezes the infected so they are easier to destroy.

Here are some screen shots of the progress so far:
It is one of the hallways connecting the rooms. Our HUD is mostly finished and the camera follows the player as it should do. The hallway is mostly empty at the moment but will be filled with crates and signs of fighting and destruction. All the assets apart from the UDK-robot are our own.
Here we have the storage area where monsters could lurk behind every corner. The big boxes are not final yet and it is also far to clean.
This is a look back into the second hallway (after the storage area) just before entering the laboratories.
This is the second block-out for the laboratories still with checker board textures and without much to see actually. The layout was changed just some days ago, so everything has to be rearranged. The stairs on the right lead to the office area and something like a cafeteria but the door are not ready yet and there is nothing there to see for now.
A screen shot of the generator room will follow soon.

Most of the progress is not visible in screen shots and the levels are unfortunately far from finished but there is still time.

So long.