Creating detailed assets for UDK:

Initial stages:

Out of the three assets I was going to make for my scene in UDK, I only needed to sketch out ideas for the Pillar. the wall and the door were modeled from reference from the internet. As I had the basic shape down for the door and wall I wanted to make sure I had a pillar that would fit with the straight lines and rigidness the other two objects had. I sketched up a small selection of designs. 

My original plan was to model a damaged pillar to go alongside it, but unfortunately I didn't have time to do so. That's why there's a damaged pillar on every sketch. After I looked at the selection I drew, I took features from the ones I thought looked the most appropriate and combined them.  It was then brought into photoshop and re sized so that it could be used as an image plane when modeling took place.

Maya:

It was important to me that I modeled everything using as little poly's as possible. I wanted to get the most out of normal maps but not using too much uv space. There wasn't a massive amount of time taken in maya, it was more about prepping the three objects for mudbox as that was where most of my time would go.

The objects were all uv'd and stitched together as normal.

Mudbox:

When it came to sculpting the pillar it wasn't about adding too much to the object. Adding the little insignia on the bottom was important, to give it more of an ornate/ancient look like i originally wanted. The rest of the sculpting was bring out the stone work at the base of the pillar. Making sure there was a number of scratches and age marks was very important, every object had to look old, but they had to look as old as each other. If i had time to sculpt and make a damaged pillar this look would have been easily achievable. When I was happy with the sculpt, I extracted an ambient occlusion map to bring out the natural shadowing on the object, this also made the texturing a lot easier, and assisted in the overall look.

It was important when sculpting the door that the metal had wear to it. Overall I was happy with how the texture in the wood came out too, To sculpt on all these objects I created a stamp tool using photoshop. The stamp was applied to the blank surface first to set shape and act as a guideline. I then went into the object and sculpted in all the individual details using the wax tool.

This method gave a better result than when I last used sculpting in my 3d work, the only issue I had with sculpting that way was the sheer amount of time it took to do it all. The door and the pillar roved rather tame and I sculpted them steadily, but the wall piece took an extremely long time to sculpt. However, I'm extremely happy with how the wall turned out in the sculpt so it was definitely worth it. 

Texturing:

Texturing is something I still need to work on, among other things of course but I feel like my texturing needs to be far neater. Right now I can still achieve results, but I think I'll run into less problems if I tidy it up.  As I stated before, the ambient occlusion maps made texturing far easier, not only could I see the natural shadowing, but I could see where all the ridges and dents went in so I could bring them out with a brush tool.

Normal mapping:

Extracting the normal maps was as simple as extracting the ambient occlusion, However, I had to bring each normal map into Crazybump to lower the intensity, when I brought the normal maps into maya for previewing the strength was far too strong, and it greatly affected the quality of the maps on each object. The normals would give me normals later on unfortunately.

UDK:

Fortunately, the actual importing of all my assets didn't take as long as I knew what to do, once you remember to bring everything in as a package and what file type everything has to be etc it's a lot easier to know what you're doing. My packages were as follows. 

From there, I just made a test scene, created a basic brush to stand on and placed my assets accordingly. Because i made them to scale in maya beforehand there was no need to re size anything in UDK. Which made life a lot easier. From there I put everything together to get a glimpse of how big everything was. 

Once everything was correctly sized I then went into the material editor and combined everything together. To add normals into UDK is easier than I thought it would be. It's a simple matter of importing them like you would a regular texture, make sure it's a TGA file and it imports without issue. The biggest obstacle I had was making the normals show properly. they would apply without any problems within the material editor, but when I put them in the environment the light completely drowned them out and they weren't visible. I had to create a multiplier and a Vector3 tool to strengthen the power of the normal maps within UDK. They had to be increased rather substantially to make them show. I have a feeling there was something I did wrong but That's something for next time. They looked good enough for me to use. 

Once everything was compiled together, i experimented with lights and placed the lights carefully as to show the textures and normals but keep the mood I originally wanted to set at the start of this project. Here are 

the results. 

And to finish off the scene, I added some basic kismet to make the door open, and I edited a sound effect I downloaded from a free sound effects website called freesfx.co.uk and timed it with my door animation in audacity. I added some music from an old game called turok 2 to test atmosphere music and to see if it worked well together, in my opinion it does so I'm very happy with the mood I was able to create. As a level designer that's the number one thing I personally always want to achieve.

However. I am extremely disappointed I ran out of time to do everything I originally wanted to achieve, as my plan was to try and replicate the prehistoric vs futuristic style of visuals there isn't much of a sign here of that. And I feel like I have let myself down somewhat by not achieving everything I wanted to. For the future Planning my time better is an absolute must. I'm happy with the look of what I have made, but I would have loved to make more.

All in all, a fun project, my next one must be bigger.

Can Video games change the world?

Can video games change the world?

I really want to base this report on the people themselves, more specifically how games effect them to change things around the world, and cover some of the good effects but also go over the bad cases of how games can manipulate someones mind into in their own world.

Introduction:

This document will cover the possibility that electronic games have the power to change the world around us, this particular document will focus more on the effects video games can have on everyday people, and in turn, can make and have made some serious changes to the world and our way of life. These effects have had positive and negative effects throughout the history of electronic entertainment. These events are always up for debate as to whether certain repercussions from games are a good thing and this document will state a number of these events and compare the negatives with the positives.

The first set of examples I'm going to give could be considered the most obvious examples. When people commit crimes due to the influence of video games, or when games are seen to be so influential it's easy for the public eye to be convinced that games are the cause of said crimes.

In Febuary 2004, 14 year old Stefan Pakeerah was stabbed and beaten to death by 17 year old Warren LeBlanc. It was believed that Warren executed Stefan in an identical manor to one of the “execution moves” in Rockstar games Manhunt. Although the Police announced that robbery was the motive behind and not the video game itself, the entire country and other parts of Europe came together and their awareness into the world of video games was raised, although this had a negative effect for developers due to other violent games being banned the same year. And as many public interviews contained comments such as “There is sustained and cumulative casual sadism in the way in which these killings are committed” the public eye as a whole turned a negative eye to many mature games.

The video game Manhunt 2 was rejected for its "unrelenting focus on stalking and brutal slaying", the British Board of Film Classification said.

It means the Manhunt sequel cannot be legally supplied anywhere in the UK.

The parents of a Leicester schoolboy who blamed the original game for the murder of their 14-year-old son said they were "absolutely elated".

The last game to be refused classification was Carmageddon in 1997. That decision was overturned on appeal.

David Cooke, director of the BBFC, said: "Manhunt 2 is distinguishable from recent high-end video games by its unremitting bleakness and callousness of tone.

"There is sustained and cumulative casual sadism in the way in which these killings are committed, and encouraged, in the game."

'Morally irresponsible'

The original Manhunt game caused huge controversy and was blamed for the murder of Stefan Pakeerah.


Police said robbery was the motive behind the attack on Stefan in Stokes Wood Park on 26 February 2004 - and not the video game blamed by Stefan's parents.
Manhunt's maker Rockstar North has always insisted its games are geared towards mature audiences and are marketed responsibly.


Leicester MP Keith Vaz, who campaigned with the Pakeerahs against the original version of Manhunt, praised the decision to ban Manhunt 2.


He said: "This is an excellent decision by the British Board of Film Classification, showing that game publishers cannot expect to get interactive games where players take the part of killers engaged in 'casual sadism' and murder."

However, the actions of Anders Brehivik are 100% linked to video games, as he admitted this himself. It's been said by many that Brehivik was a “product of the internet” due to how he isolated himself to the two games he played the most. Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. Call of Duty “trained him to kill” Although World of Warcraft didn't raise his violent tendencies it did immerse him into the world of video games. It was when he turned to Call of Duty when his fantasies of murder rose. Because of these tendencies, he tragically murdered 77 people in Oslo Norway. In my opinion, this is the extremely unfortunate circumstance of a man who is not mentally stable in possession of violent entertainment. And due to events like these video games can have the power to at least encourage actions of individual people. 

Norwegian extremist behind the country’s worst-ever peacetime massacre, spent an entire year immersed in World of Warcraft, an online multi-player fantasy game.

He claims to have used the internet for 70 percent of what he said was 15,000 hours of self-study. And, on the second day of his trial, he admitted that the Knights Templar National and pan-European Patriotic Resistance Movement he claims to represent was “merely a few individuals,” a likely reference to like-minded people he met on internet forums.

The deaths of the 77 people Breivik massacred in Norway are sadly all too real. But the killer himself looks more and more like a product of the internet. As prosecutors skillfully drew out details of Breivik’s failed life in the run-up to the attacks, it seemed that from 2006 — when he wound up his business selling fake diplomas and moved in with his mother — Breivik had retreated into an online world.

Of course, in turn with the negative effects games can have on people, they can also have positive effects too. Staying on the topic of World of Warcraft, a 12 year old boy in Norway called Hans saved himself and his sister from a Moose attack “Using the skills he acquired in game”. The second the Moose went in to attack them, Hans “taunted” the moose, this is an action in game that attracts enemies to you and protects weaker team members. He then proceeded to “fake death” which caused the Moose to lose interest and wander off back into the woods. This is another case of video games directly influencing somebodies actions, but this time two people were saved by doing so.

Video games have the power to influence and change peoples lives in terms of hobbies and pass times. For example, airsoft is becoming a much more popular sport due to franchises such as Call of Duty and Battlefield. Many fans of modern/realistic shooting games have turned to airsoft as an outdoor hobby due to how similar the two pastimes are. To the point of airsoft sites marketing themselves as “call of duty in real life” as a smart business ploy. 95% percent of airsoft regulars are avid gamers, this section of the document doesn't have quotes or article posts. This is coming from a personal side, as I've been an airsoft player myself for a few years. It's also a chance for players to let out their competitive side to a larger setting.

 Whilst certain genres of game can be believed to make certain changes to the world such as violent video games causing crimes etc the biggest impact into the world of media has come from competitive gaming. With games like Starcraft 2 and the entire fighting game genre becoming more and more popular when it comes to televised tournament style entertainment, video games are becoming more and more like a sport. This is true when it comes to the top Starcraft players, getting payed as much as certain sports icons per tournament. With players winning hundreds of thousands of dollars for every tournament they win. Hence the term “E-Sport” that everyone uses now. This stands for electronic sport.

 

However, what I want to touch upon in this document is the effects competitive gaming has on the players themselves, as this document is about how it individually effects people, which in turn, effects the world around them.

My first example is my brother Jake, for the longest time, throughout most of his growing up. He suffered from severe anxiety and panic attacks. This ended up becoming severe, to the point when simply stepping out the front door was too much for him to cope with. But since playing Mortal Kombat competitively was introduced into his life, he has done a vast amount of travelling in the space of a year. Something he would never have dreamed of doing a small number of years before. The idea and knowledge that video games have the power to change someone's outlook on life also suggests that video games may well have the power to change the world in some way shape or form. Even if the game doesn't change the world for everyone, it's changed their world at least.

A certain milestone of video games changing the world is based on the “games for health” program established in 2010. This mainly includes the Playstation Move. Which focuses on funding ideas that may lead to significant breakthroughs in the future of health care. With the playstation move being used in healthcare now to assist with helping patients deal with Alzheimers there is no denying that video games can have a positive effect on parts of the world. The same example applies for things such as the nintendo DS with games like Brain Training that are largely bought by elderly people wanting to keep their minds active. And middle aged women buying Nintendo's Wii Fit to try and stay in shape.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Games for Health Conference, it is an event that’s held in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Pioneer Portfolio, which focuses on funding ideas that may lead to significant breakthroughs in the future of health and health care. The conference creates opportunities to develop innovative solutions that empower individuals to better manage their personal health. I’m honored and excited to take part in the event so I thought I’d give you a sneak peek at some of the things I plan to talk about.

A project was started called “The wounded warrior project” Which involved 5 US troops stationed in Afghanistan playing Call of Duty with the Los Angeles Dodgers. This was a non profit organized event. The two teams were connected Via Skype and the event organiser Greg Zinone stated “The troops loved it, we couldn't get them off!” QJ.net states “It's nice to see video games and technology bring normality to the lives of those that live 7000 miles away from their loved ones”

US soldiers stationed in Afghanistan played Call Of Duty online with Los Angeles Dodgers who volunteered to compete in the non-profit organized event, part of the Wounded Warrior project.

Former Great Lakes Loons Nathan Eovaldi and Josh Linblom also played, as the two teams faced off online while also connected via Skype. The US soldiers apparently waited 5 hours to play with the Dodgers, with many fans stationed in Afghanistan, and the event organizer Greg Zinone said that the soldiers ‘loved it, we couldn't get them off.’

It’s nice to see videogames and technology bring a bit of normality to the lives of soldiers living iover 7000 miles away from their families.

Have online games kept you connected with people who you would otherwise never see?

 The US military doesn't just use video games for entertainment however, sources state that before the assault of Osama Bin Laden's home, The navy seals trained using a system that created a mock environment of what Bin Laden's hideout was structured like, and troops would attack it using a mouse and keyboard. There are talks of the Cryengine 3 development kit making something called the “Dismounted Soldier”. This would involve the soldier holding a replica of their weapon in their hands, and would react to all of the soldiers basic strategic movements to provide the most realistic simulation yet. Which is a testament somewhat to the positive side of gaming influences in a form of practice that isn't gaming oriented.

 

A large factor as to how much of a powerful grip video games have on the general public it's time to go further into World of Warcraft. A large number of press articles and news reports linking things like child neglecting, bullying etc are often linked to this franchise. The way Blizzard have managed to create a game with the levels of immersion world of warcraft offers the statistics are frightening. Here are some statistics recorded from a national poll.

“Taking just the United States and Europe into account, the game engrosses 800 million dollars per year. Which is more than the GDP of Samoa. Which doesn't include the 5.5 million players in Asia who often pay by the hour. “

“In the United States, the average play time per week is 23 hours. The average work time is 35 hours. “

“More players play world of warcraft around the world than the population of Cuba.”

It's statistics like this that lead me to believe that video games are powerful enough to make a difference when required, or when an individual believes it's required. Unfortunately more often than not, the individual commits a criminal act with a deluded imagination. There have been many bizarre acts of cruelty due to world of warcraft, there have been outlandish reports of children being neglected by parents, children committing suicide, shootings and other crimes. Personally, I think it's scary just how much of a grip electronic video games have on people all over the world. It's common knowledge that for the most part, it's not purely the video game itself that causes these unfortunate events. Many of them have some form of mental defect, but the game can have the ability to push that individual over the edge in my opinion.

To conclude, I believe that video games alone may not necessarily have the power to change the world, but The power video games have over people is enough to make change in certain areas. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing is always going to be up for debate, there will always be the casual gamer who will never understand how games affect a single person so severely. There will always be someone who becomes too immersed in the game and wants to take it that one step further, or one step too far. And there will always be the outsider who believes that video games in general are a bad thing, the type of people who will pin A light-hearted game like advance wars on the game boy advance on an act of deluded violence.

To quote Penn Jillette the world class magician “The cliché of the typical nerdy kid who doesn't go outside and stays to play games is completely true, and it's also true for the nerdy kid to read comic books and turns into this genius.” Just because video games are influential to some people doesn't always mean they're going to turn into a criminal, or end up performing a criminal act. That “nerdy” child could always grow up to work on the cryengine 3 developer kit and design military simulation for our military. 

Move.me

Introduction:

Motion controls have somewhat taken the video game industry by storm as of late, with the success of the Nintendo Wii, it was inevitable that it's competition would attempt to cater to the family audience that buy motion control oriented games. With the Sony playstation 3 using the formula of an object the player holds that the console detects, and with Xbox using Kinect to recognize the players body. There have been successful games on both systems and many failures. With there currently being games set to be released that that they will "re invent kinect/playstation move"

Taking everything into account, Sony have decided to release a newer version of the playstation move, but this time round, allowing the player to go within the development kit. And create his/her own applications or games by doing so. With the hope that more creative options can be opened and stretch the motion control market even further.

This will be called the Playstation Move.Me

The history of Sony:

The beginning


"Originally called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo (Tokyo telecommunications Engineering Company), Sony's roots go back over half a century to 1946 when it was founded by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita."

During the aftermath of post world war disaster that overtook Japan, Sony was creating new inventions and electronic devices that would pave the way for their future success. their first innovative device being an electronic rice cooker. Although it had limited success, it would be one of the first in a long line of creative and revolutionary devices in years to come.

The two engineers knew that they would need to create a brand that could be recognized overseas, to assist with this. A new name would have to be created. As the name "TTK" was already in use by another company, the name "Sony" was then conceived. The name "Sony" comes from the latin word sonus. Which means sound, and the english word of Sonny boy. A word used by americans in the 1950's to denote a bright youngster.

The take off of Sony's success was the invention of the worlds first pocket radio. An invention that would act as a stepping stone to the global success that sony would later receive, as Sony became more popular overseas they marked their place in the uk electronics world. By opening a factory in the United Kingdom in 1968, making them the first major Japanese company to open a factory there.

Becoming Sony Computer Entertainment

May 18th 1994, this was when Sony Computer Entertainment was officially launched in the United States to market the upcoming Playstation console. During that year, the playstation was well under development in japan, but SCE of America was founded to assist the development of the console in the US. Up to that point it had received very little headway.

Sony ventured into the computer gaming world during the time of the super nintendo/sega genesis. As Sega's popularity had increased and was owning 52% of the market due to the release of the Sega CD, Nintendo decided that they were going to compete with Sega and make a CD unit of their own. This would be carried out with the help of sony, who would manufacture the CD unit named the "play station". However Sony would be faced with an unforseen circumstance.

behind the scenes, Nintendo was having some second thoughts, it had occurred to them that they would not own any rights the the CD technology. And due to Sony being the company that would manufacture and sell the system, Nintendo realized that in terms of profit, things could be bad for them in the long run. Because of this concern, Nintendo went to Phillips and had asked them to make a CD unit for them at the same time, whilst telling Sony that everything was ok.

So in 1991, at CES, Sony had announced the Nintendo play station, being oblivious to the deal Nintendo had made with Phillips. However, at the very same show. Nintendo announced that they were going to be releasing their own CD unit, and that Phillips would be the ones making the hardware. Ken Kutaragi, the man behind the Sony playstation then had talks with Norio Ohga, who was one of the higher ups within Sony. After having discussions with his bosses, Ken was able to pursuade Sony to begin work on their own console, they were to keep their CD technology and build a whole console around that. And they would name this the Sony Playstation.

originally, Sony was dead set against making an entire console When Ken Kutaragi proposed it to them originally. They stated that they were not a toy company, and that they were not going to get involved in that side of the market. However, due to Nintendo's sudden change of loyalty behind the back of Sony, they gave Ken the green light to go ahead with production of the playstation.

Marketing


An important factor was to ensure that the console had games, the main problem initially was that many third party companies were scared to work with technology as advanced as the 3d graphics the PS1 was capable of. So at first, many companies didn't want to get themselves involved. However due to the success of virtua fighter, many companies realized that it was possible to make successful 3d games that would work on the console. From that point on, Sony found itself with 250 companies under their belt in japan alone.

Looking at how the Sega Saturn and Panasonic 3D0 failed was vital, and they found themselves asking "what did these consoles do that we have to do better?" Taking this thought into mind. Alongside a fierce lineup of games over the first couple of years. Sony was able to compete with all of it's competitors, and even surpassing Sega due to the failure of the Sega Saturn.

"Many other consoles at the time were advertising video games systems as toys for kids to play, we were serious in marketing our system as an interactive electronic entertainment device aimed towards everyone."


Move.Me:


In terms of the demo version that i was able to play it performed just like the regular play station move, Due to the camera picking up a light as opposed to the human body it was very responsive. Unfortunately the only game i had access to was a sword game, so having played a sword game on the Move prior to testing there was nothing new for me to experience. However, none the less. The game worked fine.

In terms of motion control, I feel that holding onto an object is the way forward, due to bad experiences with xbox kinect and the motion controls being unresponsive due to the camera having to detect your whole body. At heart the game play must still exist, if the game itself isn't fun, or is frustrating then the player will get bored quickly.

The issue i find that motion controls as a whole have, is that there are certain types of game that just don't seem to work well with the motion controls. This is where i feel that there is a large problem. And that many hardcore gamers turn their backs on motion controls altogether, why would they spend money on a console add on that allows motion controls, but offers them a watered down experience of a genre they could enjoy more with a regular control pad. A style of game will need to be created using the Move.Me technology that will only be accessible with the motion control method, instead of using body movements to just select motions on a control pad that many games are currently doing.

If not, then use the extensive controls to somewhat revolutionize the way a current genre is played, for example. It could perhaps be possible to take a strategy game, and move your selected units around the battlefield using motions with the remote. Or take a music game and the player could take the role of a conductor, and the player is in charge of an entire orchestra. this could give an interesting twist on the music game scene, which is dropping in popularity rapidly.

Although the Move.Me allows people to create their own edits into existing software such as maya/3ds max for example, taking an object you've created and picking it up and looking at it. Although this is a clever idea, when it's broken down it may become an inconvenience. Why would the user plug in two remotes and move an object about when they could just use the shortcut keys on their keyboard and do it that way? This is an issue I think Sony will need to seriously consider if they intend this to take off.

One thought that crossed my mind was using the remote as perhaps some sort of mokap. As motion capture suits are extremely expensive and only AAA game titles seem to use them, with the right amount of knowledge in application creation, someone may be able to create a program that uses the lights on the remote and can be attached to animation that way. Even if the animation won't apply to a human skeleton, the recognition of two separate lights could lead potential for some form of motion capture involving the remotes. If this were to be successfully implemented, The playstation move.me could be considered a version of motion capture, as well as motion control. Which could not only prove that motion controls fit into the future of the games industry, but more serious hobbyists would be persuaded to try it out.

Conclusion:


Sony have achieved a lot over the years, and have always released their systems or add ons boasting the most advanced technology for the state we are currently in. However, for the Move.Me to really take off among gamers, it is going to need more than just responsive controls. To many, motion controls at this current state seem like a gimmick to snare families due to the success of the Wii. It personally feels that the ideas are all there, but the main issue is the format of how they are to be executed. Using motion controls to use in programs is a fantastic idea, however the fact the move controllers are so large, and that they seem very much like a gaming remote makes it hard to picture in practicality.

It feels to me that it will be a few more years until we really see motion control take off. Until that time, I feel like that Sony should take their own words into account. "They have the technology, but they don't have the games" In terms of the playstation, the games will always be the most important thing.

Interactive Narrative

Initial brainstorming:

When we had the very first lecture on angles and perspective I was faced with a dilemma already, how can I take this style of project and transfer it into a 3d based project? I have had no past experience with character design/modelling and I have always been more interested in the environment side of things. Due to these complications i was thinking of a number of options.

1. Model an environment and save screenshots of certain angles, then use programs like Iweb and photoshop to add slides accordingly. And then trace over all images in 2d.

2. Model everything in maya and take renders straight from the program

3. Use the Unreal development kit and make an interactive environment instead of a point and click one.

Due to just how much I would learn from doing so, I decided to go with the third option. To make a fully interactive environment and make the decisions and outcomes occur in realtime. This way, I can model a full 3D environment that the player can move around in for the first time. And i can make use of sound effects/ambience and voice manipulation to achieve the same result as 2D students can also achieve.

Starting the project:

As this would be my first time ever using the Unreal development kit, I decided that story was not going to be the main drive for me to finish. It was more that i could make an environment that seemed viable. And not sloppy. As I'm not experienced in making characters I knew that anything that a story could be based around in terms of character development would be impossible.

My best bet would be to make an environment that would speak to the player instead, this way instructions could be slightly more simple. And i could play on more traditional 3d gameplay.

I settled for the basic story of the player being inside a base, and the goal is to escape the base and not get killed in the process. This style of mainstream story would help make my first environment develop, Going for a completely original look/feel was not what i wanted. I wanted to make an environment that felt familiar and traditional. The narrative would come into play via a radio, this radio would talk to the player and give them instructions from the get go.

The narrative ends when the player escapes the base. The game restarts when the player dies by going into the wrong room/activating the wrong object.

Making the environment:


First things first I wrote a list of objects I would need to model in maya ready to export into udk, these would be small time assets like crates, pipes, lights etc. and more significant objects would be computers, doors etc.

I wanted the base to feel industrial, so everything would need to look dirty and worn. With these things in mind i sketched up some very quick overviews of what i would want my rooms to look like. I knew that I wouldn't have time to make a large building, and that it was far more realistic to base this project around a few smaller rooms that were connected to each other. This way the level could progress in stages, such as level 1 would be the first room. When the player makes the right choice, they would then move onto the second room and decide the ending from there.

Using sketchbook pro I sketched some top down views and sketches of what the rooms could look like.

After some other sketches i decided to base this environment around two main rooms, and a few smaller rooms that make the decisions come into play. The first room would have two doors, one would let you advance, the other would result in your death. The second room would be attached via a corridor, for detail and appearance there could be a blown out section on the wall of the corridor, and the player would be able to see trees on the outside. The second room would have a door that wouldn't open, and a room with two objects to interact with, one would open the door to let you escape, and the other would kill you.

Starting on the models:
Due to complications with where I'm living at the moment, I had to receive an extension of my deadline for this project. This meant that I had 2 weeks to have my assets modeled and my environment ready to go. Obviously this was extremely worrying, not only because what I had planned will take a considerable amount of time to finish, but to have something I was happy with in that time would be very difficult. Especially as I had never used UDK before this project began.

Due to being on an extreme time limit I would not have time to make any of my assets next gen looking with use of normals and other maps, the details in the assets would have to lie within the texture maps and that was it, using a very useful website called www.CGtextures.com I was able to get all of the free textures I needed, I then edited them all in photoshop accordingly when my maya models were successfully UV'd.

Smaller objects such as levers and computer screens didn't take a large amount of time to finish, however larger objects like the computer unit took considerably longer. I personally found it difficult to make a computer that could look interesting and could be detailed via texturing, but didn't look over bland and blocky. As the idea was to try and make every object look interesting. Especially due to the meshes i make having to have as little poly's as possible so that my level would run smoothly.

Here is a small collection of assets i modeled for the environment, ready to export into udk.

Originally I had two objects ready to export into udk and had already been uv'd and exported. However when I tried to use UDK with them in the scene, the level wouldn't run smoothly at all, this was due to their high poly count. Although they looked decent and detailed. They would make the level suffer because of it. Having taken an extremely long time to model and UV it was a big shame for them to go to waste. But this is the price I payed for trying to use a high poly mesh in a game engine.

For reference, these were the objects that i described.

For the purpose of the game engine running better, it would be far better to texture in details on objects like these. Modeling things like bolts and screws is a bad idea when there is such little time to get everything finished.

Working with UDK:

It seemed like most of the time spent was on tutorials, and not necessarily putting everything in game. Every object i made in maya had to be exprted in the FBX format, and would need to be placed in a folder a created within the content folder. The folder layout i made was as follows.

Interactive narrative:

static_meshes
texture_samples
sound_effects
packages
maps

Everything would need to be placed into these folder before being exported into UDK, all meshes had to be FBX format. All UV maps or textures needed to be TGA format. And all sound effects would need to be WAV format.

From there, every time an asset was brought into UDK, it would need to be placed in a packages folder created upon import, or a respected folder created earlier by a similar object. This was the first problem i had when putting my level together, when it came to placing in objects outside of the program I would have a serious problem. Because I didn't know about using packages, and saving them once things were imported. I would close the program down after a days work, come back to it the next day and every object would disappear.

It was when i asked one of my piers for advice i realized what i was doing wrong, once i started saving the packages every time i made a change I was able to continue the level without issue.

The first thing I did when constructing my level was block it out using the builder brush, I would make a room according to the grid size first, then i would put myself in the map to change the size of rooms accordingly, eyeballing the construction of the building worked fine for me. Although I'm certain I should do another method next time, after receiving a lecture from Crytek UK I'm well aware they don't use the build brush for environments by the end of the levels development. However due to the time constraint I didn't have time to make the entire level in maya first. Although My assets were created with a cube built to a human size first, for reference.

Once the entire level was blocked out, the next step was to add texture. As i had no environment textures ready I used the preset materials within the content browser. Then when a material was added to the walls/floors/ceiling i used f5 to go into the material properties tool. From there i was able to stop the material from tiling.

Once the material was re-sized, I was able to use the texture manipulation tool to re-position where the textures were. Originally when the material was applied, they were crooked in certain places. Fortunately the re-alignment tool allowed me to fix it and make it look a lot more presentable.

Adding in my own materials/textures was a lot more complicated than i originally thought. Unlike simply importing in static meshes, importing textures that can be applied to your meshes is slightly different. Once the texture is imported, you have to make a material out of it separately. Using the material edit tool you can take your 2d texture and connect the image to the diffuse section of the editor. From there, it's simply a matter of saving your changes and then you can apply the material to your meshes.

You must do something similar when you want to import sound effects, once you import in your sound effects. You have to make a sound cue afterwards, without it, your sound won't be recognized when you try to add it to a kismet sequence.

On the topic of kismet, that was a challenge for me to learn about, especially as i have no scripting experience prior. It seems that every time an event or anything for that matter is set to happen, it must be done via kismet. Making things such as doors opening is very simple once you get your head around it. If you want to make an object move, you must convert it from a static mesh into a mover. From there you must bring up kismet. Create a new matinee, a matinee is a sound effect/animation/camera angle etc.

By using keyframes you can make the animations in engine, and not have to do it all in maya/max first. From there it's a matter of connecting your events together using triggers.

Kismet can be used to create a number of events, here are some different situations i have set in my level.

Using triggers:

Triggers are vital in UDK, they are the key to making events take place, whether it's a door opening, a sound playing or even things such as a player death. They are created by right clicking your scene, and selecting Add actor > trigger, From there use f4 to go into the properties and change the size accordingly. Using kismet, you can then link matinee's to your triggers. If you set your trigger to "touch" the event will take place the very second the player enters the trigger area. If you set it to "used" the players will only activate the trigger by pressing the "E" key whilst in the trigger area. This key can be changed, but I didn't change it for my level.

I found triggers to be especially useful as you can trigger multiple events at the same time from the same trigger, from my experience so far it seems you still have to make a new matinee for them separately, even though they're happening at the same time. I tried to mix a camera animation with a sound effect and when i played it to test, I ran into some issues. Then i put them in different matinee's and everything worked fine.

An issue i also had was the "used" key having inconsistencies when linked to a console command, the command was set to restart the player back at the beginning, the reason for this is so the player can restart when he/she dies by making a bad decision. However when i layed the trigger over the trigger that makes the camera animation for the players death the "E" key wouldn't return the player back to the start. I had to remove the camera animation altogether. This annoyed me personally, as I was happy with how the animation turned out, and set a clear signal that the player was dead.

Collision meshes:

The best way to do collision meshes is to make the in maya first, you name them a certain way alongside your model, and then when it imports into udk it will attach as a collision mesh automatically. The player will not be able to go through whatever shape you created. When i first brought my static meshes in, they did not have any collisions. So at the start, the player was able to simply walk through everything. But because i had imported all my meshes before creating collision meshes alongside them in maya i decided to just make them in engine.

This was done by opening up the object properties in the content browser and using the auto convex collision tool. This is no way the advised way to make collisions, but as a small tool that i could use to make collisions without having to re-import everything i decided it was the best thing to do. 

Narrative within UDK:

Once everything was in place, it was time to add in all of my narrative style sound effects/subtitles into my level. My original plan was to use subtitles alongside the sound effect of a radio turning on when the player entered each room. However subtitles are a lot more hassle than i originally thought. To use subtitles for my level, i had to create them in adobe flash first. Then publish it into the "flash" folder within the "UDKgame" folder. Then trigger it to play GF movie at the desired point. However i could never figure out a way to make the subtitles then disappear, this is mainly because i's mainly used to make hud elements as opposed to subtitles. but it was the best i could do given the situation i was in.  So instead of using it for subtitles, i decided to use it as a small instruction on the top left hand side of the screen.

My alternative choice was to record my own voices and use them in game instead. I used audacity to record voice clips that my brother recorded for me. From there, i made a set of changes via a tutorial i found on www.youtube.com and made him sound robotic. This was able to replicate the sound effect of an automated machine speaking from the radio in the corner of every room. This personally added to it better than subtitles could in my opinion. It makes the narrative a lot more interesting.

Skybox and nature:

Adding a skybox in UDK was very easy, it was a simple matter of picking one from the content browser and dragging it onto my scene. The trees that are outside the base are preset within udk, I was originally planning to use speedtree to make my own, but again, due to time. I did not have time to add my own tress, this is something i regret as i was really looking forward to using my own tress in my first level.

Since this picture was taken i have tweaked with the lighting within the level so the center f the trees aren't bright any more. They show up as black silhouettes, which makes the outside look more isolated and in the background.

Personal thoughts:

As a whole, I'm happy with how my first level turned out. I'm disappointed i couldn't do more due to time reasons. And due to complications whilst making it, I had to leave some stuff out/make changes i didn't necessarily want to make. But so long as the main goal was achieved then that's all that matters. I'm not worrying about what grade I'll receive for this project, because I went into it knowing I wanted to use UDK for it. And due to how much I've managed to learn from this past few weeks I can rest easy knowing I've achieved my personal goal.

My next goal will be to place in some more detailed assets into UDK, ones that utilize maps such as normals. Something i was not able to do this time round.

Sound effects were gathered from www.freesfx.co.uk
textures were gathered from www.cgtextures.com