So if there was any way to build a level fast and efficient its some modular building. I suggest if there are any of you artists out there that love environmental building, look into this because you will instantly make a level designer your best friend. Here below are a few pieces I modeled & textured out, with this set I can make hallways all day, throw in some rooms and clutter… Waala! You have yourself a pretty decent level to go around go play, tweak, and then refine.
If you are going to try to start making some modular pieces here are some tips:
- ALWAYS stick to the grid, make sure everything will snap just right.
-Try to work within the a power of 2 (specifically 256 or 512 sizes) .
Everything has to be extremely precise, otherwise it will end up not fitting correctly when you import it into your favorite editor. But once done right, can be super powerful. One good read about modular pieces is this. I will update the hallway above, maybe even with some game-play!
If your GFxMoviePlayer isn’t calling your Init function, I bet you are loading your custom GFxMoviePlayer class through Kismet.
Apparently Kismet fires Start but not Init, at least that is the conclusion I just came to. I didn’t find any documentation on this so I’m posting it here for reference.
If there was any reason I had any interest of games, or what inspired me to become a video game developer. It had to be the Command and Conquer franchise, BEFORE Electronic Arts took over. I’m talking about Westwood Studios, they probably had to be one of two main reasons why I love games and why I am where I am today.
As a result, I have a little drawn up sketch of a FPS Multiplayer map below is a building that you might see!
For those of you followers of the Allar’s Awesome Blog, you are in for a treat with a Savvy created hot key tutorial. The hot keys I cover in this tutorial are ones that I use on a regular basis, but there are many more hot keys that you could find useful for yourself. Using hot keys might be a bit foreign for you at first, but I suggest writing down the short cuts you think you’d use the most and make yourself use them until it’s second nature. Using these keys help cut down on time, and promotes focus on your illustration, concept, or texture.
Everyone has to start somewhere, even sometimes you will have to refer to your foundations when it comes to making something. Here in this topic I will give you some tips before it comes to blocking out or modelling your level. This is a workflow that I have used that can help you get started.
The Idea
Movies, games, history, music, photos; anything can be your references and inspiration to create these epic and memorable play spaces.
Once you have constructed your idea, there are a few questions that you have to ask yourself.
Is it single player or multiplayer map? Multi-Player
What is the gameplay like? Deathmatch
What kind of Engine will be used? Unreal Development Kit
What will make this map memorable? You are able to launch players in space
What is the story that this map will tell? A warehouse in the shape of a bio-dome controlled by a mercenaries now being raided by cops.
What is the deadline (if none give yourself one)? One week.
What is the theme? Sci-fi,
Where do my limitations lie? Shortage of assets
Draw it Out/Reference
Now comes to bring the look of what you had in mind. Start looking about on the internet on where you can grab photos on what you want your map to look like. When grabbing your photos you also want to try to grab some ideas of the lighting or maybe how you want your background to look. Here are some images grabbed from Google and Flickr.
This is the time you want to also draw something out. Personally I love doing a bird’s eye view of what the map could look like. Only start thinking about how this map is fun; there is plenty of time to worry about balancing out the map, placing power weapons, and making play spaces used more but that is to be done later during play testing. By the end you will have many iterations of your level.
This is the basic pre-production on how to create your level. Thanks for reading!
Hello reader! Whether or not you are brand new to programming in general, programming with UDK, this will set you up with the tools you need to have to make awesome!
At the end of this tutorial, you will have:
A copy of the Unreal Development Kit installed (at the time of writing, version Dec. 2011)
This video comes in two flavors. The first video is for people who are brand new or have no idea whats going on:
This second video is a much shorter rapid fire approach to the above, and is either for those without patience or who already know what they are doing but would just like to get Visual Assist X working properly:
Game music is, without a doubt, one of the hardest things to break into, ever. To put it into perspective: I had a friend start a band, get the band signed to a label, make an album, toured Europe, then left the band, all while I was still trying to break into the industry.
Unlike artist, programmers, and even sound designers, very few studios actually house full time composers. Your chances are already slim. Small time indie developers make the mistake of wanting a sound designer that can do both sound and music, or a composer that can do sound design. Add that to the fact that the director of the indie project has a brother with a cracked copy of Fruity Loops who now thinks he’s Mozart, and you may realize your chances of becoming a game composer, or even working on projects, are less likely.
Frustrating and depressing at times? Yes. Without a doubt.
Does that mean you should give up? No, of course not. But knowing how hard it is will help put things into perspective.
Taking the music aspect out completely, being a game composer is so much more than knowing how to write music. Dare I say it’s an art to itself. Understanding interactive media and how that translates to the music is one of the differences that sets it apart from any other media. You’re not just writing a piece of music. You’re writing music that has to adapt and change with the player. Not only is it interactive but you have to understand that it is fluid, not abrupt stops from the ambient piece to the tension track. It has to evolve from one to the other. Which, in reality, might be a whole different “transition” piece you have to write all together. Being a game composer means understanding all of this and being able to write music according to these demands.
The Unreal Development Kit (UDK) / Unreal Engine 3 (UE3) and WWISE / FMOD are probably the best examples of how a game engine (or middleware in some cases) create an interactive musical landscape. If you do not understand at least the basics of these programs, and how they relate to, and handle, music you are doing yourself a disservice.
Do you understand when the tension track is played in UDK? How about the action track? Do you know how loop points get set in WWISE, how it can relate to your music, and how it’s incorporated into UDK / UE3?
If you have no clue what I’m talking about or don’t know the answers to those questions then I suggest downloading both UDK and WWISE and experimenting with them.
Not only will this give you an understanding of how these tools work but it’ll give you a better understanding of interactive music. How it’s created, applied, and possibly even change how you write you music all together.
Now on to the music aspect.
If you want to sound like Zimmer, do sound like Zimmer, or only write music that has staccato strings with horns playing fifths, and don’t even know there’s a woodwind section to an orchestra, then don’t waste your time trying to break into the industry. Zimmer clones are a dime a dozen and, honestly, not very well-respected in the musical community. Yeah, you might pull off a convincing Zimmer sound, but no one cares. We’ve all heard that style time and time again.
On a similar note, if all you write is “un-tis”, house, techno, whatever you want to call it, you might want to try a different industry as well. Everyone with their cracked copy of Fruity Loops is a “producer” and can write that same stuff. They too come a dime a dozen.
I can hear the angry mob forming, ready to lunge at me with their pitch forks and torches. I know it’s very blunt and may even be hard to hear. But the fact is, you’re applying for an industry that has some of the most talented and creative people you’ll ever be given the chance to talk to or associate with – people who aren’t a dime a dozen and could probably write that same generic crap ten times better than you in their sleep.
Do you think Kevin Riepl knows what notes are in a B minor scale? Without a doubt. Do you think Sascha Dikiciyan uses stock presets in Massive? Far from it. These guys have honed their craft and are damn good at what they do. Jesper Kyd, Sam Hulick, etc, these are, essentially, the same group of guys you’ll be applying against (or possibly even working with). What are you going to do if someone tells you, “Alright guys, we’re gonna write this whole soundtrack in A minor.” and you don’t know what A minor is, or what notes belong in that scale? (Red Dead Redemption’s soundtrack was all in A minor)
Again, this isn’t musical elitism. This is knowing your craft inside and out and being able to deliver on all fronts when asked.
So if you are reading this and are becoming depressed – good. But that doesn’t mean don’t try to break into the industry, just know that it’s something extremely hard to do and you really have to be on top of your game to get that foot in the door. Hell, things are just now starting to come around for me after many years of determination and growth.
So folks, this video pertains to leather. Painting leather, especially different types of leather, can be difficult and confusing. To make it easier for you humans to master, I have a two-parter to help fellow artists learn ways to create a nice leather look. In this video I cover sexy shiny leather. Cat Woman’s tight fitting, very snug leather suite might come to mind. The soon to come 2nd leather video will be a way to do a flat leather.
These styles of painting can also be crossed over into texturing characters, or even prop models, so give this video a go even if you’r not a 2D artist.
All of the ways of painting that I suggest in my tutorials are techniques that I go by, but you might find a way that works better for you, and by all means go for it. It’s about the final piece being AWESOME, not necessarily how you got there. As Tim Gunn says, “Make it work”.
You can check out the original post on Design3 here, or view the montage embedded at the end of this post. Please hit up #gamedevinoneword on Twitter if you’re also a tweeter or whatever these newfangled kids are calling themselves now. Side note, this post is my high score for links-to-total-text-density, whooo.
Enjoy
