Blog of an Aspiring Game Designer

Networking is Important

2012-05-13T16:59:00.002-07:00

This post is long overdue. I shall try to update this blog a bit more frequently in the future.

So GDC is a major event in the industry. It's where we share the latest technology, share the latest techniques, talk about the latest trends, and where we network.

And when I say networking I don't mean, hey I want to meet you so I can get a job, but networking as in making some new friends. Jobs are good, but friends are better.

Too many people do I see go to GDC just to try and make contacts to get a job. It's ok to do this, but this being the sole goal of networking makes you output a different perception of yourself. Plus making friends that last much longer than a job contact can pay off in the future.

When people want a job, they try to be the person you want them to be so you will hire them. It's just human nature to want to appeal to others and create a safety persona in fear of people not liking us, but it also can hide the best qualities of you that really make you an awesome person.

So I believe networking to just have great contacts is important. We're all in this industry because we love what we do. We love games. So what better than to talk about our passions? Just get out there and connect with people. Have fun and keep in touch with them. Go ahead and inquire about internships and jobs. In the end we all do, but doing so in a natural way after connecting with a person will create that much better of an impression.

By being yourself at events like these, people will get a better sense of what kind of person and worker you are. Your portfolio shows what your talent and skills are. Work hard and show off, but make sure you don't have an ego. The industry is a chill place. There really is no need for that, unless you truly are just that amazing.

So get out there. Talk to people. Go on forums, look up local events, and be active. You never know who could give you a job.

Until next time. Thanks and have a great day.

Blog of a Game Designer

2012-03-31T23:20:00.000-07:00

Hello all,

I will be posting about things from GDC soon. After GDC I was hit with finals and graduation.

Now I have officially graduated the Art Institute of Portland with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and I am beginning work at LucasArt as a Game Designer on Monday.

So I guess I can really say I'm not aspiring to be a game designer anymore, but am one. It has been a journey and I hope people who have been following along with my journey have enjoyed it.

A new journey has begun though and I can't wait to share it as well. As I said before, I hope to spread the knowledge I gain to help others out. Also with what I'm allowed to talk about, I will write a little bit about my project when the time comes.

I am getting settled in San Francisco so detailed posts will take some time, but they will come.

Thank you all the support of my friends and family. Without it, I wouldn't be here today.

So stay tuned and as always,

Have a great day.

Matinee Practices

2012-02-06T16:42:00.000-08:00

Matinee Practice

By: Patrick Wren

Matinee is primarily used for simple animations and sequences in the Unreal Engine. However the depth of Matinee goes a lot further.

Some of the other cool things we can do are timing events. The event track in Matinee is a secret gem. This allows you to create complex sequences at precise timing.

You key frame events just like you would key frame animation. You can name the events as well. When you create events in matinee, the matinee node creates outputs with the name of the events.

You can then do whatever you want. The possibilities are endless. And being able to tie this into timing with animations.

Creating groups is what creates the links for you to connect things on the bottom.

Reusing things is the name of the game. And luckily you can reuse whole sequences in Matinee as well. All of the information is stored in the Matinee Data variable. Just copy the variable and hook it up to a new Matinee Node and everything is good to go.

The best part is that every link will be created automatically so all you have to do is hook up` your new variables.

Here are some more examples of Matinee use that I used for Global Game Jam.

More Kismet Practices

2012-01-30T16:22:00.000-08:00

I'm always learning, or forget things when writing about them. So I definitely plan on keep things updated.

I talked a little bit about Sub Sequences being like functions before. One of the fun things we can do is treat them exactly like that. We can make Sub Sequences into our own little Kismet nodes.

You can create complex functions and hide it all the way. You can then copy and paste these and give them to other designers to use. We can do this by using Sequence Activated and Finish Sequence. They are powerful nodes that are easily overlooked.

There is also no limit to how many ins and outs there are. Remote events are great and still useful for many things. It really depends on what you want to do with your Sub Sequences.

Thanks and have a great day.

The Global Game Jam Has Ended

2012-01-30T14:50:00.000-08:00

Another Great Jam has gone by. And boy was it a learning experience. Using Kinect was a crazy idea, but we managed to do something with it, which was honestly better than expected.

Compared to last year, this was a little bit more rough. We were working in 3d using technology we have never used before. Yet the group was extremely talented and we did quite a bit in such a short amount of time.

We learned techniques, adjusted our ways of thinking, and worked hard to achieve what we did.

The biggest thing is learning when to alter the design somewhat. We were trying for 1 to 1 tracking on a mesh, but that cost us a bit of development time. We were able to change early enough to have motions trigger actions instead of tracking 1 to 1 so that we had something playable at the end.

It's hard when you want to get something in so badly, only to cut it for the sake of the project. We maybe should have cut it earlier, but it all worked out.

We all learned. I keep drilling that into this post, but that's what it's all about. I know a lot about the Unreal Engine, but even then working under a time constraint such as this lets you learn how to do things quickly. Working closely with people who know other aspects of the program allows you to learn more as well than from a big studio. Everyone is connected the whole time trying to push through it to the end.

Even if the game isn't what you would call complete, we still had fun. And that's what's important. Even with the bumps, program crashes causing lost work for the 3rd time, and road blocks, you look past that. And remember what you all did together.

For those who missed the opportunity, go next year. Try and start local Jams if you don't want to wait that long. It is worth it and I cannot recommend Jams like this any more.

I hope those who followed along this weekend has as much fun as I did. For those catching up right now, I hope you seeing a little bit what we went through inspires you.

Until later.

Thanks and have a great day.

Global Game Jam Night 2

2012-01-28T19:47:00.000-08:00

I haven't been updating the blog as frequently as I thought because we have been hard at work. I hope you have enjoyed the occasional twitter updates.

So work continues to progress. Art is going fantastic. The game will look pretty at the very least.

Kinect has been a challenge, but we continue to move forward. Our programmer has been working hard and doing an awesome job getting stuff done. We aren't sure if the Kinect stuff will get done, but this has been a great learning experience whatever happens.

So our artists are doing awesome, our programmer has been doing awesome, and I've doing some awesome stuff as well.

Our enemies are going to spawn coming out of particles. I've been animating the particles and explosions and linking them to the events we need. We have it so what spawns isn't predictable now and it's great.

I will guarantee one more blog post, and try to post a little bit more on twitter.

The final stretch is upon us. Wish us luck, we're going into the belly of the beast.

Have a great day.


Explosion


Scenery

Making Awesome Particles


Hands and Airplanes


More With Kinect

Global Game Jam Update 1: The night is finished

2012-01-28T07:41:00.000-08:00

So last night started off the Global Game Jam. We all got acquainted, we broke up into teams, and then we got the prompt. The prompt this year was a symbol, which we will go over late in time.

Right away we grabbed a white board and started working. We brainstormed for a good 30-40 minutes and then chose one. You could call us a little crazy this year. We're making a Kinect game.

Eric finishing a concept on the board.

However I have a team of allstars and we can do it. We have back up plans to go to just in case this blows up right in our faces.

Team Allstar

Art work progressed no problem. We designed a level to scale reference and that was that. We're all feeling good.

White box.

The kinect took sometime to set up, but the drivers are working and tracking us.

First Kinect Test Complete

However Kinect was harder to integrate to the UDK than we first thought. It took longer than expected, but by the end of the night, we could control a character on screen with out body.

Taylor is Dancing

So so far so good. We're off to a good start but we have a long way to go. Today is important because we need to make sure that we are solid by the end of the day. If we aren't then crunch time is going to be quite a pain. I made everyone got some sleep last night so they can come in bright and early to work a full day.

In my next blog post I will be posting more about the game idea itself. But now it's back to work. To keep with up to date posts.

Follow my twitter at: twitter.com/witdarkstar

Thanks, and have a great day.

Global Game Jam This Weekend

2012-01-26T22:39:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone,

So this weekend is the Global Game Jam.

Last year I posted a live blog going through our development and this year I will be doing the same thing again.

Some of you may not know what this is. So what is it?

Global Game Jam is a world event where teams across the globe make games in a 48 hour period. The event promotes networking, experience building, and most importantly to have fun.

This will be my third event and I have a feeling it will be the best one yet.

Blog posts can take some time to write, and I won't always have that time. However, this year I will be posting on twitter for small updates of what is happening in between blog posts. So besides just watching here, check out my twitter at:

www.twitter.com/witdarkstar

So for those who will be following, I hope you enjoy. It's going to be a fun ride.

Thanks and have a great day.

Kismet Practices

2012-01-24T16:05:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone,

For the project I am working on, I am the lead designer on the team. Part of what that means I have to do, is make sure the other designers are on the same page. So I've been creating some documentation on Unreal stuff and decided to post it here. These documents aren't so much tutorials as they are references on how to improve workflow in Unreal and little tips and tricks to help create cool stuff.

So this first post is a post on good Kismet Practices.

Kismet Practices

by: Patrick Wren

This document is meant to show some good habits while creating scripts using Kismet. It isn't a tutorial to show how to make anything.

A good common practice is to treat kismet like a programming language. It is scripting, even if it is visual. So thinking of it this way, creating a place for your variables will help keep you organized and save time.

Variables

As you can see, we have a nice space set aside for our variables. You may notice there are duplicates and are asking why that is. The answer is because just like in programming, we call variables later on. think of the named variables as the calls to the original. In kismet we can't duplicate the same variable over and over. Each time it would hold different data, even if it has the same name, and would screw everything up. There are two ways to reuse the data.

One, we can duplicate those named variables all over the place. They will update the original and all of instanced variables. The other benefit of this is it can be used across levels. Meaning if you are streaming levels, this variable will not break kismet. The second way, which I do not recommend, is to connect everything to the one original variable. It is super messy this way, and harder to keep track of things.

Comment everything. If another designer can't figure out what your web of scripting does, then it will slow things down. To create a comment box perfectly around everything, select all of your kismet nodes by holding down CTRL-ALT and left click to drag a box around everything. Once selected, right click to create a comment-box wrapped.

Right-click Events, Actions, and Conditions to access more information. Most kismet nodes will have their options and variables set internally, but sometimes you may want to have it accessed externally.

You can expose variables to accomplish this. Here you can see we have exposed a variable on the event. Also this picture shows how the variable created earlier was easily copied and pasted for us to use.

Sometimes we don't even need to show variables. Exposed variables also make nodes bigger and add to the clutter that can happen. We can hide all the unneeded connections by right clicking the node.

The Event is now a lot smaller in size and now allows us to more easily organize our script.

Next is a quick way to create variables of objects that exist in the world space. When trying to add a bunch of objects, it can usually be time consuming. But you can add and connect this objects, in one swift click.

Just like nodes, you can right click connections. They have quite a few options associated with them as well.

The most useful one is to create new objects right there. The top one will create a blank object. The second one is however the one we're interested in. It creates objects with the actor data instantly connected to the node.

If multiple actors in the scene were selected, they would all be lined up and connected.

Use subsequences like it is a function. A good rule of thumb is to build in your normal Kismet space first, and then turn it into a subsequence. After you create what you want for your subsequence. CTRL-ALT drag to select them all. Then Right Click to create a new Subsequence. All of your nodes will automatically be added.

The benefit of making subsequences this way is making sure variables are correct. Think of variables in the overall space as Global Variables. While variables created inside subsequences behave just like Local Variables and will only work in that subsequence. This is another reason why we create named variables.

Subsequences don't have to be self contained either. You can trigger a subsequence anywhere. You can even trigger them from another subsequence. You do this by using remote events. The fastest way to create all the necessary pieces is to hold R and left click in the kismet screen. Name it and all pieces are named correctly. Remote events have two parts an event, and an action.

The way they work is using the remote action to launch the remote event. This will allow for more complex sequences and open up possibilities.

As with programming. Reusing something you have already done will save time. Luckily there are some easy ways to just replace variables and ID's.

To replace the value of the node, first select the actor in the world space that you want to apply in kismet. After that you simply right click on the node you want to assign the value to, assign it, and you're done.

These are just a few practices to help speed and organize your scripting.

I hope there was some useful stuff in there for you. The next sequence will on Matinee.

So have a great day.

A PreProduction Post Mortem.

2012-01-18T11:20:00.000-08:00

Last term I lead a preproduction for the first time. It was the first time I lead a bigger team. It was quite a learning experience for me.

It was a rough term. A lot of good things happened. A lot of bad things happened.

What did I do? I am the lead designer for the project. I came up with the game idea and design. It was my job to get things ready for production. There was a team of artist, a programmer, a producer, and me. Things started out really smooth. What I wanted to do with the team, is let everyone contribute. I wanted the game to become a joint effort in its creation. I didn't want to say we are doing things my way and that's that. I learned however that I was too open and I needed to be the one to make decisions sooner.

I was also distracted by other things. Life can take away from your work sometimes. It can be a really terrible thing. My whole schooling suffered a bit. However I'm not making excuses. I never did. I know I messed up what I was supposed to do and production suffers a little bit for it. If a person makes a mistake, then that person has to own up to it. And that's what I'm doing. And I'm doing my best to make up for it in production.

Leadership is important to get things done in a group. Especially when specific roles are involved. I am a designer. I know my role. I know what I focus on. I'm not in charge of art. I can have an opinion, but unless I was specifically made a Creative Director, then it's not my job to decide. So it was a bit frustrating trying to get artists motivated. The thing that was hard was they were all talented and would show something cool, but then wouldn't finish it. I was thinking about how important structure and heiarchy is to get things done. And why real life setting will succeed more than in a classroom generally.

Disagreements slowed things down as well. Part of this was my fault not making a final decision soon enough. I wanted people to become involved and feel like they owned the project, but I realize without someone calling the shots, nothing gets done due to various opinions.

So yes it was rough. Things got done, but there are holes to fill. I'm thankful that something like this happened in a school setting. I was able to learn, without a huge consequence that could have happened with a job. And that is precisely what school is for.

So thanks for reading. And have a nice day.

A New Year. Welcome 2012

2012-01-12T01:02:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone.

I've been on hiatus for a while. But it's a new year and new beginnings. I have started my last term of college and once that's done, I'm off to San Francisco to begin my life.

So what does that mean for this blog? These next 3 months might be the most updates it will ever get again. After that I have my NDA signed and won't have much to post in terms of work. However I may change the way I write this blog by writing some posts about networking, schools, etc. to future aspiring game developers. I want to create a resource that is helpful for people.

What do we have in the coming months?

Quite a lot actually. Jan. 27 - 29 we have the Global Game Jam again. I plan on blogging updates of the process again like last year. It is always a great experience.

I have been accepted into the Conference Associate program for GDC this year. This means I will be working 20 hours of the conference then have an All Access Pass for the rest of it. I plan on having more live updates either on here or my twitter, which I will post around the time of GDC. We will talk more about GDC as time gets closer.

And finally I have class projects. I am redoing my reel. Instead of just posting the final product, I think I will go through my process of what I think makes a successful reel. I have a programming class on C++. We will see what I can share from that. Finally, I am part of production team again. I was part of the preproduction for the project last term. It was a pretty hectic and stressful one and didn't feel it was necessary to update on it at the time. However I do plan on writing a postmortem on it within this month. So stay tuned for that. I will be updating status on the production cycle of the project in the coming months.

So that's the plan. I created this blog as a way to my process of work to give context to my creations. I wanted it as an extension of my portfolio to get me a job. And now that getting a job has been fulfilled I wish to continue updating this as an educational tool. I hope those who have kept up with it, have enjoyed the journey. And future readers, I hope you get some useful information and insight.

Thank you and have a great day.

Internship Post Mortem

2011-08-21T15:00:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,

It's been a long time since I last posted. I was extremely busy with my internship at LucasArts and unfortunately couldn't show anything off or talk about anything I've done. However I did want to write about the overall experience to give an idea of how important something like this is.

When I got there, they threw me right in to see if I could sink or swim. Every internship is different and allow for different participation on the respective projects, but I could not ask for a better way of starting off. When you're just thrown into a fast pace project, you really see what you can do. I'm not going to lie. I even surprised myself by the end of it all. My skill set has improved drastically and it allowed me to create an impact. Did I make mistakes? Yes. Did people help me out? Yes. However I made sure I learned everything I could.

With that said, I had people depending on me. I had to make sure I gave it my all. It was a very humbling experience working with amazingly talented people and you learn a lot from them just working with them every day. School does a good job with laying down a foundation, but you won't really start learning until you start working.

Internships are an interesting thing in the industry. It feels like a requirement to get a job after school. So go out and get one if you're really serious. It doesn't matter how big or small. And internship shows you have some working experience in the industry. I would think of an internship as an extended interview. It doesn't matter if you get hired at the company you interned for or not. If you did an amazing job, people don't mind recommending you for other jobs. Down the road when opening happen, you may even get called back. Just know it's a small industry and there are connection everywhere. Just give it your all.

However this was also a unique internship. I really need to recognize Anita Stokes and Ryan Howe. They are the University Relations for LucasFilm and they went above and beyond to provide us with the most beneficial education we could get. They lined up speakers to talk to us, set up events like baseball games, and took us on tours. My internship would have been great no matter what, but they really provided that next level to create a memory of a summer that will now never leave me.

So this was my experience from my internship. Results will vary, but it will give you a good look of what it's like working in a professional environment and confirm whether this is what your really want to do or not. For me it was a confirmation.

My last words for this entry are to go after any opportunity presented. If you don't try, you won't be known. If you have to say no to something after being accepted, well it's better that you have the power to say no instead of them saying no to you.

So I will be finishing school starting October 3rd so I will be taking time to updated this blog more frequently with more work. As always. Have a great day.

Survival

2011-06-05T10:59:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,

I said I would update with a little something and here I am. I bring you a little video of my survival map in action. Sorry about the no sound. I didn't notice until it was uploaded.

This project was a real learning process for me. I had started out with a desert map and want to play around with a more natural landscape. I learned how many problems that can cause unfortunately. Bots just wouldn't work on it, so I had to create an entirely new map within a week.

However this wasn't all bad. All the research and work I had done on that desert was able to transfer over to this Urban style map. So that cut down creation time a lot. It was also good practice I felt to see how fast I could work and I'm pretty happy with the result. Not everything finished the way I would have liked, but I got pretty close. So I hope you enjoyed the process of the few posts of me this and seeing this final result. So have a great day.

What to Expect from me this Summer.

2011-06-01T22:20:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

I've settled nicely in San Francisco and have completed my 2nd day at LucasArts. It has been a fantastic experience so far. With that said, people are wondering what I will be posting.

I will be posting the school work I finished and anything on the side I'm working on. That's it. So it may be a slow summer due to me not being able post anything I'm learning or doing. I may be able to post some of my experiences, what I learned, what I did to a minimal degree in the future whenever the NDA lifts. I'm still learning the legal side and will know later what I can share from my experience. For now though it's going to be silence.

So I hope you enjoy the personal stuff I'm going to post this weekend and have a great summer as I won't be popping in much.

Have a great day.

An Update for the Lack of Updates

2011-05-21T17:48:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone.

Times are just crazy right now. I'm trying to finish projects early, pack up, and getting ready to move down to San Francisco for my internship. So things have just been hectic and I haven't had a chance to to post things.

I know it's not going to happen this next weekend either as I will be moving that weekend. So I will make up for updates in June. Also I can't just post this and not show you guys anything. So here's a little taste of what's been going on.

Click to Enlarge

Thanks a lot for all the people following me and interested in what I do. Stay tuned for June and have a great day.

Working with Triggers

2011-05-06T19:46:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,

It's Friday again. Time for a new post. So I've been working on a 2v2 map and was tasked with created some type of co-op gameplay. I decided I wanted something special to spawn if a team hit 2 switches. So far I have it so once both switches are hit, it spawns a bot with a rocket launcher. I was able to have it so you had to hit both triggers instead of hitting the same one twice.

Click to Enlarge

I made sure the triggers could only be triggered once, but that max count is reset once the everything is fulfilled. So far so good. Next step is to get functions set up that relate to each team instead of just anyone interacting with them.

So short update today. Other projects and progress have been going slow and are almost ready to show, but not quite yet. So stay tuned. Thanks and have a great day.

Fixing Shadows on Terrain

2011-04-29T23:33:00.000-07:00

Barely made the Friday update.

So today I'm going to show you how to fix shadows using terrain in unreal. If you hadn't noticed, the shadows were disappearing and looked rather crappy.

Here is from the newest build. As you can see the shadows are much more complete now. I'm still going to tweak with the lighting a bit, but there is a simple fix with shadows on terrain.

Click to Enlarge

So how did I fix this? Well shadows quality on terrain is determined by the amount of tessellation of the terrain. I didn't want to increase it though. Well there is a little check box that lets you override the shadow quality to go above the tessellation of terrain. This will at least fix shadows and keep them complete.

Click to Enlarge

So that's my small update from this week. I hope you all enjoyed and hopefully I'll get my next update out earlier and have a bit more to show. Have a great day.

Update on The Desert Map

2011-04-22T20:58:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,

I promised an update this Friday and I did it. So today I post some updates from my desert map. It's almost content complete in having all the static meshes in it. After that I'm going to optimize lighting, add particle effects, and post process effects. I've also been working on gameplay as you saw from the AI Waves script from earlier.

Things are going smoothly so far so good. Enjoy the newest batch of progress shots.

So I hope you enjoy. I plan to do weekly updates on Fridays at least from now on. If I ever have time I will post another blog another time during the week. So be here every Friday for a new update.

Have a great time.

Spawning AI in Waves

2011-04-18T20:22:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,

Wow it's been crazy. I've been hard at work and getting a lot of things squared away. The main thing that's been taking me away from blogging was getting ready for my internship at LucasArts. After applying back in February and going through multiple interviews and test, I finally got the call that I will be interning with them over the summer. What's going to happen with this blog when that happens? I'm not sure yet. I do know a lot of my work I won't be able to share until the game I help with ships so my blogging may be slow once that starts.

So something small today. I've been working in kismet with unreal to figure out how to create a survival map. I'll be posting updates of the desert map soon. I got pretty good system to create a wave system.

Every time a bot spawns, it causes an integer to count up once. When both bots spawn, death can then be triggered. Every time a bot dies, a new integer begins to count up. This script then checks to see if the number of deaths is equal to the number of bots that had spawned. After that happens, the numbers are reset back to zero and a new wave can spawn.

It took a little bit of tinkering, but it was actually a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. I can't wait to take it to the next step.

So I hope you all enjoyed the little update today. I plan on posting some stuff at the end of this week so stay tuned and have a great day.

I'm Back

2011-04-06T19:58:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,

I took some time off as thing went pretty crazy and just needed a break. I'm back though and ready to post more stuff. There is going to be a lot coming up that I can finally show and some I will have no clue how to. I am taking what I know of AI and am going to do it right. I'm learning unreal script and am going to program it and have it path using navmeshes. These are all thing I'm going to talk about in the future and it should be interesting and fun.

There will be more than that, but I don't know what they'll be yet, so it will be fun showing what comes up.

Today I have a map that was created for a 1v1 encounter. I created this in 30 minutes. It's not meant to look polished or good graphically, it's supposed to be fun and a good design practice. Making something playable quickly is a skill needed more and more and it is something I hopefully will continue to iterate on to refine my skills.

When coming up with this I decided I needed to make sure the rocket launcher wasn't in a high spot and was a risk to take. So I put it at the very bottom of the map. You can control the highest point with it, but you have to get it first.

The second thing I made sure was to make that highest point not to be unbreakable. I made sure it had a great advantage, but to block its line of sight and to be flankable.

Finally I made sure these weren't just a bunch of long corridors and broke them up with walls and objects to create more flow to try and outsmart your opponent. Overall the map was successful in what I wanted it to do.

I hope you enjoy reading my blog and stay tuned for future updates. I can't guarantee they will be frequent, but they should have a lot of content to view and I may start up some videos for the future as well.

Have a great day.

More Work on My Desert Map.

2011-03-17T21:58:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. I've been hard at work with finals and my design test, but I found a little bit of time to post a new WIP on my desert map.

I have a few new shots to show today. It has a few bots running around and has a high camera angle for the shots. I'm using these shots for a game play projection for another project of mine.

So that's it for today. Finals plus my design test are due Monday and Tuesday next week so it's going to be a scramble.

Thanks for reading and have a great day.

Small WIP update.

2011-03-14T14:11:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. I did a little bit more work on my desert level. I fixed the lighting because there were some major problems in the first two shots I posted. So here is a shot with some nice lighting.

That's all for today. Enjoy and have a great day.

Catching up

2011-03-13T13:57:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone,

I was meaning to post some more this past week, but unfortunately got really sick. So I've been just trying to get by. Finals are in two weeks so I wouldn't expect many updates until those pass as well.

Despite all that craziness, one amazing thing did happen. LucasArts called me and said I made it through the first pass of their internship program. This week I'll be taking a design test for them to see if I have what it takes. Hopefully it will be something I can post to go through my process and to show what I came up with, but there's a possibility it will be private.

The AI I've been scripting has become pretty scary. They're pathing around the level pretty well and are fun to play against. There's still 6 months to go on the project so unfortunately I can't show much at the moment. I will take screenshots to show what it looked like at proxy and as it approaches final.

This week I did start on a personal project. I really wanted to start refining my skills. I decided I'm going to make a survival map that I'll create and script. I went with a desert theme to test my environmental work.

So here are some really early WIP shots. I hope you enjoy.

A lot of this could change as well as I'm playing with meshes and tweak what will be fun to play.

So now I need to focus on getting better and getting my work done. Sorry for the lack of updates. So enjoy and have a great day.

GDC! The Place to Be

2011-03-03T21:06:00.000-08:00

So I finally have some time to talk. I'm exhausted and am just staying in my hotel tonight.

So my expectations coming to GDC were to mingle with people, get myself out there, maybe go to a party if possible, and maybe see if there was any chance at an internship.

What I've gotten so far. Have connected with some amazing people, really networked with other people and professionals, got invited to a party, and have multiple chances at internships.

It's been an experience like no other. This is my 3rd gaming convention, but first GDC. The others were more about the consumers and showing off games. Those are fun and I enjoy going to them, but just talking to your peers and really making long time connections is what has put GDC over the top.

First of all, just talking to anyone, people like to swap business cards. I have a stack of them on my desk and it's really cool. I remember most of these people too. Some are just from a few minutes of conversation in a line to some that I spend more than an hour talking to. It's been great. And not only that, we're talking about things we love. We look at each other's work and and they are just good and honest people. Just this part alone is why I recommend anyone working to get into the industry to go this. Get your work together and put yourself out there. Even if it's not the best, you will get some valuable insight on how to become better.

I was surprised by the number of internship that were available and more surprised that I could have a good shot at a few of them. And when I felt that I continued to just talk to designer and the various other developers to really make myself known. This is how I got invited by Riot Games to their party, which was also invite only. That was just an insane experience for me. I was among all these professionals who just loved games, were drinking and having a good time.

As much as I love to meet and converse there is actually a lot to do at the show floor as well. I played the 3ds and I can tell you it's awesome. The first time you put it in front of you and see 3d without glasses, it really is something else. It's impressive tech. It makes me want one. 3d in general was pushed with big actually. I'd say 70% of the floor were games in 3d. While 3d is cool, Crysis 2 is what really impressed me. The 3d in that game is a lot more realistic and less gimmicky. It was very awesome.

So yes GDC is must go for anyone who is studying or trying to get into the industry. I really wish I could of afforded a Summit and Tutorial pass to get into all the talks and learn a lot, but there is always next year for that.

If anyone has any questions please feel free to leave a comment at the bottom. I have one more day tomorrow that includes a portfolio review so I'm pretty excited for that. 3 weeks left are in my term too so work is coming close. Things are going to be getting a lot more serious. Thanks for reading and have a great day.

Scripting an AI behavior.

2011-02-26T16:18:00.000-08:00

So I've been meaning to post a new blog update and I finally have a chance. I've been doing a lot for school project for Sony this week and getting stuff ready for GDC.

So I'm not a programmer. I've taken a class and understand syntax and how to write code, but the best I could do is troubleshoot and edit a person's existing code.

Now I didn't program an Artificial Intelligence, but what I did do is take the existing UTPawn and Bot and scripted them to do what I wanted. Without script they aren't functional at all, but have the code to be able to tell them what to do.

Through many iterations I have finally produced a pretty solid system for AI for my school project for Sony and I want to take you through the process.

So before this, I knew how to script AI to move and shoot as was shown in my reel. I created a much more advanced version that needed to choose random paths, take cover when under fire, and to make sure they didn't shoot if they didn't see the player.

Spawn Sets

This spawning set came much later after getting the AI to work, but since I have all the final code I'll start here.

The game type is a capture point style Multiplayer game that has a third AI faction. So one thing that was important was to not have our AI spawn in the same spot every time you tried to capture a point. We wanted some predictability so that players didn't become completely overwhelmed, but we didn't want players to be able to camp where the AI is coming from every time.

This script above creates three different sets of spawns that the AI can spawn at. This happens when the level loads. We then create a trigger to spawn the AI. To randomize where they spawn, we use a random integer and plug it into a compare to choose one of the the spawn points.

This created a really great result. Every time the player tried to capture a point, they had to predict one of three places the AI could spawn.

AI Behavior Tree

Before I had them spawn like above, I had to make sure they worked. This is the tree for 1 AI bot. As of right now I need to keep the bots in separate trees. Having all the bots work within one set of instructions is possible, but is going to take a lot more work and research to get it to work properly. To get this working for the deadline at the end of pre production, I just need to focus on delivering something similar to what the player will see.

So when I made the AI spawn I first wanted to make sure they would take cover if they took damage. To do this I created a compare function that would create too possibilities. If a bot wasn't taking damage they would path normally, as soon as they took damage, they would move to path nodes that were considered safe. It worked, but I realized it would only work once if I didn't reset the counter, so I created a float that would reset after a delay.

Making the AI randomly path was actually really simple. I created and object list and had an access to that list every time it would move. It would randomly select a point and output that to move to actor so it wasn't a predicted path.

Getting the AI to actually see you was actually difficult. There was a function for seeing an enemy, but I could just not get it to work. My friend Chad and I worked on it and realized using a trace to trace sight from the enemy to the player worked out a lot better and fixed that problem.

So within a few days, I created an AI that will spawn at a random location, path randomly, engage the player, and take cover. I still have tons of work to do, but I'm pretty happy with what I accomplished. Like I said, I have no prior knowledge to any of this.

I hope you all enjoyed my small process of creating a functional AI. My goal is to document each major step instead of doing a lot and then waiting like I did with this. GDC is in a few days and I can't wait to share what I learn from there.

Thanks a lot have a great day.