Posts by Beck

  • Dead Island 2

    I'm the same as Puddy. Generally like my zombie games to be a bit more "realistic" and such.


    I did Enjoy Dead Island 1 for a while though and hopefully this one is an improvement over that so it could be good fun! I'm never a fan of crafting silly weapons though. I know some people are but it doesn't appeal to me

  • Learning UE4

    I've not tried to actually look at a trigger and pressing a key to activate but I guess I've done something similar.


    Place a trigger around the object you want to "press" like so:

    [Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/MNfWNiN.png]


    Then within the blueprint (I made a class blueprint for the light), when the player overlaps the volume you enable the input from the player. Then tell the input where the input is coming from (i.e. the player). You can also disable input when the player leaves the volume. Like the script below:

    [Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/5R47xis.png]

    (After the player enters the volume I've also made some helpful text (a message saying "Press F to toggle light") become visible and it will also hide when the player leave the volume)


    Then you basically set a key you wish to use for the "switch" and toggle the visibility on the light like the script below:

    [Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/uLxWJZH.png]

    (I am toggling the visibility on two lights since the light has a directional light and an omni light for some ambience)


    So with that script, whenever I'm inside the volume, I can press F to toggle the light on and off


    I hope that helped a bit. If you'd like a professional tutorial not wrote before I'm about to go to bed then check out this video (I'd recommend watching all of them in the playlist):

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    Any questions just ask and I'll try to help out


    Edit: Thanks for the links Paul. Didn't know they had more tutorials on the wiki!

  • Learning UE4

    Hi all,


    Recently I got myself a subscription to Unreal 4 with the aim to learn the engine and eventually create a small game by myself using the skills I'd have learnt along the way.


    So, in this thread I aim to show what I'm currently learning from tutorials and by myself. I guess I will talk about each tutorial, like what problems I may have had and how I overcame them and hopefully it may be of some use to some of you guys too. Hopefully you guys will join in the discussion too


    Anyway I'm trying to learn one new thing in the engine each day. Be that materials or creating a simple pick up. I'm currently working through the tutorials on Epics YouTube channel.


    Below are some examples of what I've learnt so far:


    Creating a small scene. (Included use of geometry tools, material and prop placement, lighting and some blueprint work to create a moving door.)

    Tutorial followed: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=…JVrEGiLIploeF3F


    [Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/ZmPwM6Q.png]


    This was a pretty straight forward tutorial at the end of the day. If you've used other editors in the past, such as hammer, you'll pick up the geometry tools in no time. Simply drag in a box and set it's dimensions and you have a wall etc.


    All of the models you see in the scene come as part of the engine so there's no need to worry about that kind of thing if you want to give this a try. The only downside with UE4 is there's not much content you can use from the get go. Unlike Source which has years worth of props and materials from established games which you can dive right into and create something. But as a whole, I felt the tutorial was worth it to get used to the way a simple scene is created in the engine.

    Overall it took about an hour and half to do this tutorial.


    Flashlight (Included use of class blueprints)

    Tutorial used:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPuBZYPEr4k


    [Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/2ot7WoW.png]


    This was a nice and quick tutorial which gave me some quick results whilst still teaching me a fair bit which is always nice!


    Basically, the tutorial introduced me to attaching a flashlight to a character which can be toggled on and off.


    The great thing about UE4 is it's easy to assign a button to your project for use within blueprints (I'm not sure how easy this is in other engines like Source). Simply going to Edit> Project Settings> Input you can create a key which you can use in your blueprints. Alternatively, you can just place an input for any key you wish straight into the blueprint but you can't name it and quickly call that button press in another blueprint without assigning an input in the project settings.


    Anyway, didn't really have any problems with this tutorial and as mentioned taught me how to attach something to the character and also ensure it was aligned to the players aim.


    Material Instancing (Included creating parameters which designers could edit, material editor)

    Tutorials sued: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=…DwZNYe_N8IcYWS-


    [Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/Y8GkwZN.png]


    This was an interesting tutorial. I'm not a great texture artist by far so it was nice to play about with the material editor with some nice premade textures to see what it is capable of. What I really liked was you could instance a material to create a completely different material with just a few adjustments. These are apparently great to use since the calculations for the material are only done once, and any instances of a material don't need to be calculated again.


    The tutorial also taught me how to create properties which designers could use to quickly change the look of a texture. These are created in the material editor and can be accessed in the material viewer by the designers. On the left in the screenshots you can see fields for the base colour of the material, metallic and roughness settings and the textures used for the diffuse and normal.

    [Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/oGbKKUD.png]


    These can all be adjusted in real time to allow designers to get their desired material. So if you wanted wood floors with a slightly different colour or a polished look it would literally take a designer about 10 seconds to create without having to go ask an artist or create a brand new material themselves.


    I'm not sure if any of you guys are interested in this stuff. But in the engine discussion for the challenge UE4 got a lot of votes. So I'd thought I'd post my experiences so far with the engine to hopefully show people it's not as scary as some of you may think Also, it motivates me to do more work!


    Anyway, any questions or comments please feel free to reply to the thread. Would like to hear what you guys think.


    My descriptions of each tutorial might not be great. If you guys want to hear anything specific about the process I'm going through whilst learning, let me know and I'll try incorporate them into my posts!


    I'll try to update this thread whenever I've learnt something new.


    Cheers!

  • UE4 - AI tutorials needed

    This guys made a basic AI controlled turret which fires upon the player when it gets within a certain range. Hopefully you'll find some of it helpful!


    Part 1 (of 4) here:

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  • DayZ Mod for ARMA II

    Quote from shawnolson

    I played this last week. After an hour and a half of my life spent in the game... I have decided that I'd rather play Minecraft. But maybe I'm just not hardcore enough to devote time to looking for pepzi. The zombies didn't scare me. And the other people are ... far.... away... and when we find each other... what? Some of my really close friends are addicts to this game. I just don't get it.

    Most people find it addictive since you can be shot at any point by another player and lose all the stuff you've worked hard searching for. Seeing another player is always a "deer in headlights" moment since you don't know if they've seen you and you don't know if they're going to be friendly or hostile. It's the PvP people play it for.


    But yeah, the zombies suck. In the mod days they were much more of a threat and every gunshot sent every zombie nearby your way. Nowadays they are just a minor annoyance.

  • Mapcore Challenge - Engine Preference

    Quote from PogoP

    Get out of your comfort zones, people!


    This! I would love to see what Mapcore could do in UE4. The stuff you guys manage in Source is awesome!


    I decided I wanted to learn UE4 before this thread was brought up and I've tried to learn something new each day so far. It is a lot of fun to use. I agree, it was daunting at first. You load it up and there's all these new windows and menus you've never seen before. But after following a few tutorials it really isn't that scary. Most of the engine is context sensitive. Meaning, whatever you have selected the engine will probably know (or at least make a best guess) what you want to do with it.


    So far I've followed a tutorial and made a small office scene. It took about an hour and half to follow and create the whole scene:

    [Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/TUIpexT.jpg]

    (None of the assets are mine, it's all Unreal stuff.)


    Additionally I've learnt how to create moving doors, toggle-able lights, changing colours of objects, level and class blueprints, a flashlight attached to a character, and assigning a button to turn that flashlight on and off. It's been a lot of fun!


    I have a video on my Twitch account of UE4. Was showing my friend what it could do the other day. It's just me going flying around some of the demos and looking around different parts of the engine. http://www.twitch.tv/ren182/b/549431769


    Basically, let's all learn this engine together?

  • Mapcore Challenge - Engine Preference

    For me, I see this as an excellent opportunity for people to learn a brand new engine and have support from everyone on the Core.


    About the cost, you only have to sub once and cancel and you can use the engine for good, you just don't get the updates.

    There's also a ton of tutorials on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/user/UnrealDevelopmentKit/playlists


    In the marketplace you can download a ton of demo's and their source files to see how these things are made too!

    [Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/vG76Oct.jpg]


    UE4 gets my vote!