Thursday, August 28, 2008

Past Deadline

Wow! Long time without updating but not long since I've been working: everyday I have been pouring more work into this level. I had set a pretty tight deadline on myself when I started this new project (which I calculated from the amount of time it took to complete the last level). Seeing how this level is exceptionally larger and more detailed, I have already passed the deadline by a week.
Here is a quick overview of what I've accomplished:
8/28 - Started adding sound
8/23 - Scratched the surface of adding pickups. Decided to save for once other areas were complete (I was still adding extra entrances in an out of areas)
8/25 - Found out that lightmaps severly increase file size. Too many unnoticeable meshes were being lightmapped or had too high of a resolution. I decided to limit lightmapping mostly to objects that had lighting hitting them. Objects that had silhouettes cast from other objects have the highest resolution.
8/27 - Added extra side entrances into garage, built a huge cull distance volume that covered the entire map, added post processing
8/28 - Added animated ground fog planes, finalized boundaries (which were kept at unlit BSP for the longest time), found out that when multiple players were added the current car system would only kill the player (not npcs) -- had to fix in Kismet

Current work that needs to be done:
- Find any holes or descrepancies in blocking volumes or static meshes
- Finish refining the interior of the main building, while making it more open all around
- Continue to optimize lightmap resolutions. Current file size = 90MB, desired file size = 50 - 70 MB
- Add pickups and balance player flow
- Finish scripting any additional cool features
- Surround level with kill volumes
- Add rain static mesh
I'll give myself another week to finish. For now, here are some screens of my current progress:








No comments: