Future Update
Originally published August 1st, 2020
The future is coming together.
Look upon my works!
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/search/?developer=Infinite%20Level
Itch: https://prof-smash.itch.io/
Let's take a break from the War Ender dissections and give an update on one of my current projects, shall we? I'm very excited to show off Future, now in a much more visually appealing state. It's still far from done, but it's beginning to look like something. A few things to note before we proceed: first, as mentioned, this game is still early, so don't get any hopes up for a release date yet. Second, all the screenshots are from the first area of the game. Third, despite the much improved visuals, there are still plenty of objects using default Unreal Engine assets or some other placeholder, including the player model. So while there is an improvement, you'll still notice a lot of “cubey” objects throughout these screenshots. It's simply the nature of game development. Finally, it should be noted that this is essentially a “first pass”. I'm not saying that I'll be redoing this over and over until I'm satisfied, but rather saying that models and textures may change and some additional objects will enter the mix.
I thought it'd also be interesting to talk more about how this was achieved, as opposed to simply showing off the screenshots and calling it a day. So let's begin there. The first screenshot posted above is an in-game screenshot with the UI hidden. You'll likely notice the player is inside some kind of cave structure, with an opening up ahead and light pouring in from the side. Compared to how Future looked before, with cubes littered all over the place, you might say that this new look “rocks”. And speaking of rocks, how were they made? These were put together in Blender by following along with this short one minute video on how to create rocks quickly. Basically, with the help of this video, I have a system in place for making rocks very quickly. There are some differences between my version and the one in the video though. For starters, I put my “Subdivision Surface” value at two as opposed to four or five as the latter would create so many triangles that simply looking at the rock would make the game chug hard, which I obviously don't want. I also have used what's known as “loop cuts”, which are basically extra vertices, to create more unique rock shapes.
Now onto the foliage. In this next screenshot you see an area with densely populated trees and some hills and mountains in the background. We'll cover the overall landscape in a minute. The trees were not made in Blender but rather in a program called Tree It. Fellow indie devs have likely heard of this software before. This helpful program lets you create trees by plugging in different values and seeing the result. To save a little time I started with some premade trees and made edits to them from there. This is most apparent in the willow tree, which is considerably taller and skinnier than what you may be used to seeing from a willow tree. You can't really see it in this image, but I also used some grass from the program to texture the land with some grass, giving it a little life.
The leaf textures in particular were interesting to figure out. I have my suspicions for the cause, but the leaf textures from Tree It wind up looking smeared and blocky in Unreal Engine. That would be a good look if I was going for an intentionally retro art style, but I'm not. I've never been a stickler for realism, but this is the one time where some realism is desired. The fix was surprisingly convoluted, so I'll share the info in the hope that it helps anyone out there with similar troubles. First, I had to pull up an image of the “clean” leaf texture in Tree It. I then took a snapshot of that texture, then opened my image editing software to get rid of the background and any stray pixels. Add an alpha channel to the image, save it, then import the new texture into Unreal. Do some material work from there (materials are the end result of plugging in a texture(s) and doing some coding to give an object its look), and the leaves look like actual leaves.
Closer to the ground, we get a better look at the landscape and see what looks like a wireframe wall in the background. First off, the textures used on the landscape come from CC0 Textures, which has been an absolute godsend for me. One of my big concerns in the transition to 3D game making was coming up with good looking textures, but this site alleviated seemingly all my worries. The ground looks good thanks to textures provided on this site, and I don't think I could be happier with the textures, especially considering they're free. These same textures are also creating those mountains and hills in the background. At some point I'll almost certainly have to start creating specific textures of my own, namely for the less organic objects found later in the game, but for many of the game's worlds the selection available will help me immensely.
You may have some questions about the wireframe wall in the background there. These are the borders of the various rooms in the game, and indeed the world entirely. I talked about going for some amount of realism earlier, so why put something here that has the potential to completely break the player's immersion? The answer may be considered odd, but it is simple – it's more or less meant to do that. Despite the realism portrayed, the worlds of Future are anything but real. They are, in fact, simulations of various planets. These wireframe walls serve not just as world borders, but also reminders that this world is not a real place in the context of the game. If games are simulations, then this one is simulating simulations. Now that's meta. You'll have to find out the story reasons for all this another time...
This last gif I've posted is not completely related to the improved visuals of a world in Future, but there are visuals involved so close enough. I recently added a blur effect to some abilities in the game, making the player feel more like they're actually dashing forward and to the left and right at high speeds. I'm thinking about putting an additional effect on top of it, like some kind of flash, to sell the effect even more alongside a powerful sound effect. For the time being however, this is a good start to selling the feel of the abilities. You'll also notice that the dashing left and right feels very “teleport-ish”, and you'd be right. This aspect of the dashing still needs some work. I want it to feel fast, but I also want the transition from the current location to the next location to be smoother. It's something I'll have to work on, I just couldn't finish it in time for this blog.
As far as the technical side of things goes, I think I've just about covered all of it. This is how I've been accomplishing these new visuals so far. Like I said, it's still early yet and there's many improvements that will be made over time, but for right now things are looking good. As an added bonus, I'll post the remaining collection of screenshots I have to further emphasize how much progress is being made. In addition, I’ll include an updated map document which should give you an idea of how much larger the world has become. These screenshots may show a few more blemishes, such as additional “cubey” objects and even some stretched textures (don't worry, that's a pretty easy fix, it's just another one of those things I didn't get around to in time for this blog entry), but it's all meant to inform you, the reader, how things are progressing in Future so far. And remember...this is just one world. There are others, which means more for you to play when this is done...and a ton of work for me.
Until next time!
-Lance T.
Look upon my works!
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/search/?developer=Infinite%20Level