Some Quick WIP stuff

Haven't worked a ton on the UDK with Ren comming up etc, so I thought I'd share what I did do.

First off I learned what kismet and matinee are and a little of how to use them, that combined with the vocal powers of Mike and Ren produced this:



Another thing to note is that is that I found the CustomTimeDilation actor property ^_^ so I made a gun that puts up forcefields which slow the projectiles to a crawl, then when you alt fire they all go back to normal.

Secondly I've been idly creating some weapons, I was going to have a kunai and a fireball, but the fireball ended up getting a little out of hand ^_^



This shows off some other stuff, like getting character animations working (albeit a bit crap) and a weapon that correctly uses the arms meshes in tandem with the weapon. This was something that I wanted to get working entirely before I did a tutorial to make sure that I knew the ins and outs.

Also thanks to the kunai's melee attack I'm using traces etc for collision.

So that's one thing checked off the list, and two halfs of things ^_^

Next up is to finish (and slightly balance) the weapons a bit more so we can have another multiplayer session, then do the arms tutorial, then start working on a little self contained project, nothing too big, something doable within a week methinks. When I start that I'll create that new enemy and tick that off my list too ^_^

I have things, soon to share !

Progress ! Sweet progress ^_^ Also I've got Mike and Matt into the UDK which means that we're all gonna become fucking pimp-wizards together.

So what have I learnt? After a good amount of rubbing my face all over the UDK source code and internet I've got a number of the things that I wanted to understand understood. I now "get" pawn animations along with a decent understanding of AnimationTrees, plus how to get the first person character specific hands that come along with the UDK Liam model ingame and working. I'm gonna record a tutorial soon as it's something that I had to dig for.

That's a hand ! A Robot hand of my robot character ^_^ It might not look it but this pic represents a lot of win for me especially considering that I was trying to tackle things at an odd angle. For some reason I'm determined to learn the tools to make a fully functioning custom main character, so that includes things like importing custom 3d models, custom 3rd person and 1st person animations.

For the most part I have all those pieces working, now I need to put them together and hope they don't break ^_^

I've also been playing around with APEX destructables which are fun if not a very unfinished feature, not being able to set mass is a good example of something huge missing.

When I got too frustrated with figuring out that stuff I took a break and learnt a few other things + did some light 3d modelling/rigging. I've been trying to rig a frickin' awesome model of Fei Long that was ripped from SSFV but I've never done any proper rigging so it's hard ^_^ For the most part I have it working but his hand's skin weight is a mess. The good news is that the udk imported the skeletal mesh + materials no problem (including bump map) so he looked awesome ingame ! He's rigged to the default UDK skele too so he can use all the default animations, but the skinning isn't finished so it spazzes out every now and then :(

I modeled a crap flat in half an hour ! Here it is in all it's basic semi textured glory. The next thing that I model I'm going to put everything I have into it and stop hiding behind how little time I spend on it ^_^ I used to be "not totally newbie" at modelling stuff and I'd like to get better than I was. I think I'll put aside a whole day soon and model something.

Also I'm noticing the lighting seems a little off on some of the triangles underneath the windows, any idea how to prevent that?

What else... Oh I watched the tuts on soft body and cloth simulation so that's added to my bag o tricks ^_^ Plus I spent an hour today getting the hoverboard ingame and I'd like to release a tutorial on that too (the old ones no longer work) plus explain why you have to do certain things to get it ingame.

Also I've started to take a proper look at how the pawns plus controllers work, starting out with writing my own basic enemy, which lead to this:




At the moment it's very simple stuff, making them move toward me a little then making them go into ragdoll mode briefly.

One thing I am noticing is that in UTDeathmatch the bots are accessing the SQUAD variable lots and comming up with an exception:

ScriptWarning: Accessed None 'Squad'
SSEnemyController DM-Test.TheWorld:PersistentLevel.SSEnemyController_1
Function UTGame.UTBot:HearNoise:020E

This isn't just in HearNoise either. I need to figure out if assigning a default squad is the right solution or simply overriding the functions is a better bet as I bet the exceptions are eating into the performance and I'd like to know how many of these I can get running around the game.

So what's next?

• Release a firstperson arms tutorial
• Learn more about the pawns/controllers + make something cool
• Learn another random part of the UDK
• Create a new enemy including : New model, new skeleton, new animations, new animtree, new AI

This post marks the start of me getting closer to obtaining the rank of "Not totally crap" at the UDK.

*Raises glass*

TO PROGRESS!

Hey ! What's goin' on ?

So it's been over a month and lots has happened, in terms of my goals I've been going to the gym almost every other day and feel a lot fitter so that's nice, I haven't played much tennis because of the bad weather which sucks, but the really good news is I found someone who's helping me learn the UDK ^_^

I managed to cook and distribute what I've worked on to Mike and Ren, I knew that in theory you can just press a button and out pops an installer for your game, but actually knowing that it works is reassuring, to be able to send it to some friends and have my changes working in multiplayer was hot sex too, things like that really bump up the enjoyment when learning.

At the moment I've got a better understanding of the pawn/inventory/weapon systems and I've been doing stuff like creating new weapons (like one that forces the victim into ragdoll mode etc) along with modifying the vehicles to get a handle on how they work. In a few hours I'm gonna be taught how to get proper custom animations playing nicely with the AnimationTrees, I think after I learn that along with a good approach to making an infestation-style enemy I'd like to make a small survival style mod, I think that'd be a good excuse to see how many actors I can throw at the engine and see how it handles in multiplayer etc as I'd like to make a small game that pits a load of almost over-powered players against hordes of really tough enemies, like Crackdown meets EDF.

Here's hoping that the next time I post something it'll have sexy screenshots of what I've worked on, in the meantime I'll leave you with a cool screenshot I managed to snap while we were testing, just before my face got blown off ^_^


Ninja-Edit

So a little bit of an update as I'm working on animation at the moment, I seem to be having issues when playing my animation in the AnimationTree. I've uploaded a video showing what's wrong so if anyone can figure out what I'm messing up I'd really appreciate it ^_^

Ninja Edit number the second

When I disable the "SkelControlLimb: LeftHandIK" the animation plays unhindered, but disabling something that's on by default seems silly and I haven't checked the ramifications... Time to read up on SkelControlLimb nodes and figure out what the hell that thing about my characters head does.

I have slightly less than 2 months. Let's do more things.

So I convinced Cindy, Cindy's sister, Mike and Matt to all join a gym with me, everyone except Matt went to our first session yesterday ^_^

The induction guy asked what we wanted from our gym time and I blurted out "Get Ripped", so now that's written on my public routine sheet in captial letters. So that's nice.

Also played a little bit of Tennis in which Matt danced around and I stumbled about for an hour. He'll fall soon enough.

UDK, UDK, Udk... So frustrating to learn as everything seems so scattered.
So far I've managed to get custom weapon models and script in-game, I can create really basic but functional levels, I also have an understanding of the sprite + lighting + materials systems.

The problem I'm trying to crack at the moment is custom NPCs. I'd like to create a terribly generic zombie enemy. That means building a rigged model, fine, but what am I supposed to do next? How do I get a rigged model ingame? I want custom animations etc and I can't seem to find any tutorials on this, other than the fact that it will include possibly creating an animation tree.

I'm sure I could start off with something a little easier, but I feel that getting this working would mean I'd be ready to do other cool things, for example creating player characters with custom animations and abilities etc.

I'd kill to be mentored by someone who's actually any good with the UDK ^_^

I have 2 months. Let's do some things.

So I have 2 months before I start full time work with the awesome Infusion Development ^_^ I figure that in that time I should be able to do quite a bit.

1) Get proficient with the UDK.

The UDK is a game engine. It is awesome and huge and flexible and free. The problem is there isn't a "Pro UnrealScript and the UDK platform" book you can buy, information is scattered far and wide across the internets. I think after a couple of months I should be able to get to the point where I feel fairly confident making things with it. Also this will help me get back to doing some 3D modelling which I've missed.





2) Learn Tennis. Beat Matt at Tennis. Hard. In the face.

It'll happen.

3) Get my body back to being a finely tuned killing machine.

*Sigh* I've slacked off. I'm still in decent shape, but not in ninja-who-could-break-fools-without-breaking-a-sweat shape. That'll take a while to get but two months intensive running and gym will help set me up.


Two of those goals are conducive anyway. Matt and I are gonna really hit that stuff, especially in the second month when he takes his holiday time.

Cindy has started a blog where she has a week to design a web page from a spec, then write it up and talk about what she learned, in that spirit I'm going to really try and talk about my progress.