Sunday, April 26, 2009

Overrun - WIP Update

It's been a while since my last overrun update and after GDC, getting an internship at Vigil Games, and moving, I haven't had the most time to work on the mod. I've had time to sit down again and am dedicated to keep production going on this project despite the fact that I won't have as much time anymore to work on it. Anyway, here's what I've been looking into and am trying to make happen (I'm getting more familiar with Uscript, and so it's easier to ACTUALLY do the things I've had in mind and implement them):

Completed tasks:
-Fixed 3rd person cam: generated through Uscript now, and doesn't clip through walls or have to be set up in Kismet for each individual level
-Changed player's and NPC's lighting environments: they now are reactive to light and become dark in shadow (very cool affect :))
-Also, did the same treatment to all of the pickups -- since they aren't full bright, the player will have to do a little searching for them, and they won't break the immersion (as evident in the earlier Resident Evil games).
-Made the interface simpler, took out the scoreboard, changed the interface color
-Changed the weapon range and strength of both guns in the mod -- one is now more of a shotgun, the other: more of a rapid-fire low-damage weapon
-Disabled respawning on pickups -- so player couldn't cheat and keep going over ammo pickups (also, would break immersion in the more realistic setting)

What's in the works:
-Have level auto-load at beginning (it still requires player input each time, and lets them fly around in "spectator" mode...unnecessary for our game)
-Replace streaming triggers with dynamic streaming volumes -- so the content can be loaded while the player is playing, rather than having to wait it all out at once
-Adding on the previous: could create a simple loading UI scene so that player knows at least that the game hasn't crashed ;)
-Splash screen/UI background for level select screen (different from the main game selection logo)...will have to wait until the game is polished to get some good screens for a collage

Pipe dreams?:
-Have guns keep same amount of ammo that player died with at respawn
-Get custom animations for character and enemies so that they don't look awkard when running and can have a melee attack; also, body language adds so much extra information to the atmosphere that dialogue alone can't cover
-More dialogue??-- would have to get same voice actors again
-Create a custom front-end and loading screen?

As anyone could decipher from this information -- the mod is still in need of a serious amount of work. I am almost done with the major design edits, and would like to now focus on finishing up my level.

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