[UE4] Western Recall (VR Robo Recall Mod)
Hello there!
Today we are showcasing what is going to be our next project for our Master at FX Animation as Art & 3D design for Videogames.
This project will be called: Western Recall, and it will consist in a mod for the VR game Robo Recall. It will have a duration of 2 months, and the goal is to create a fully playable mod for the game.
As we are 3D Artist students, what we will try to achieve is an outstanding project in the visual part. Programming and design is also important for us but it is not in what we will focus our efforts.
The team is composed of the following people:
Project leads (Teachers):
-Aitor Rider (3D) ( https://www.artstation.com/aitor_rider_3d )
-Alberto Martinez (Programmer)
Lead Environment Artist:
-Pau Sanchez ( https://www.artstation.com/bubucela )
Lead Character Artist:
-Alex Martinez (
Producers:
-Irene Cruz ( https://www.artstation.com/truenaike )
-Elisenda Ferrer ( https://www.artstation.com/elisendafr )
Level designers:
-Jordi Oller ( https://www.artstation.com/jordios )
-Marcos Romero ( https://www.artstation.com/maroag )
Community managers:
-Pau Casas ( https://www.artstation.com/itzomega )
-Francesc Xavier Gonzalez ( https://www.artstation.com/fitngo )
Characters team:
-Nuria Sanahuja ( https://www.artstation.com/nuriasanahuja )
-Elisenda Ferrer ( https://www.artstation.com/elisendafr )
-Martin Cebrian ( https://www.artstation.com/idestined )
-Claudia Vilanova ( https://www.artstation.com/kineko )
-Edgar Provana (https://www.artstation.com/ndredg )
-Alex Martinez (
Enviornment team:
-Pau Sanchez ( https://www.artstation.com/bubucela )
-Jordi Oller ( https://www.artstation.com/jordios )
-Marcos Romero ( https://www.artstation.com/maroag )
-Aitor Garcia ( https://www.artstation.com/aitorg )
-Carlos Martinez ( https://www.artstation.com/phyco49 )
-Pau Casas ( https://www.artstation.com/itzomega )
-Irene Cruz ( https://www.artstation.com/truenaike )
-Hao Jin ( https://www.artstation.com/jin_h )
-Francesc Xavier Gonzalez ( https://www.artstation.com/fitngo )
Western recall is going to be created in UE4 using the Robo Recall mod tools that Unreal Engine provides for the developers.
This project will be set in a Western Town, where outlaw robots have taken the control of it, and we will have to restore law and order. The aesthetic is going to be mixed with old and futuristic assets.
For now we just started with the project looking for some ambientation and creating some moodboards for the scene, guns and characters.
Some Environment moodboards:
Some characters moodboards:
We have also started with the Top Down Layout, to see how big the scene is going to be, how are the buildings going to be distributed, and what is the path that the player is going to take.
Town layouts:
Saloon layout:
For now we know that we are going to do 2 scenes, one in which the player will have to move around the town killing enemies, and the other where the player is going to be inside a Saloon and waves of enemies will try to kill him.
What we will try to achieve in this project is to work as much as possible as a Company producing a real Videogame.
The ultimate goal is to have a fully playable mod that people will be able to download and play. We as a team think that this is an amazing opportunity to have a great project in our Curriculum and something that we can be proud of.
We are going to update the project developement every friday, so any comments or feedback will be appreciated!
Replies
Some really early blockouts for the Saloon level. Looking for general measures and spaces. as it's going to be a VR game we are making everything a bit bitter than what it should be, so you can get a nice feeling of everything. (Blockout made by: Jordi Oller). What are your thoughts?
[Update]
The project is going in the right direction and we already have what we need to start production. For now we just finished the GDD for environment and characters (Which unfortunately I won't be able to share), and we have already done some tests with VR with the basic blockout to see how the gameplay feels. For now we are trying our mod with basic guns and enemies from the main game, so we can already get our hands on how it's going to play. In the final mod scenario, player gloves, guns and enemies will be replaced with our own custom assets.
Testing the Saloon level:
2nd Blockout pass for the Saloon level:
2nd blockout pass for the Town level:
Some of our concepts for the robots:
For the guns, our player will have a set of futuristic pistols, as he comes from the future, but we will also be able to take other guns from the robots that will also be futuristic but with parts from the western universe that robots have tweaked in order to fix their guns.
Main pistol concept:
The goal now is to start production as soon as we can and create everything we need for the game. The characters team is going to research on rigging and skinning for our custom robots, as we have to use the exact same one as the ones we already have in the game.
Level designers will be testing general gameplay and tweaking the level itself to adjust it.
Environment team will start creating the main kitbash and all the assets and props for the level, and by the time we get them start developing our final level.
Hello!
The project is alive and kicking. For now all members of the team have played the game with basic blockout and default enemies, and there has been a lot of feedback for us to consider, from basic scale to general flow from gameplay itself.
Some of the main guns are now in developement. We are trying them with a basic blockout while we work on the final ones.
Main pistol
Laser gun
We also just finished all the assets that we are going to use as a resource as we create all the buildings from the town. There are all king of assets, from metallic fans, to electric poles, solar panels or antennas.
Character team is also working really hard with the enemies, using all the concepts that we set as reference.
We are also preparing a tutorial for custom character import in UE4, that we will share once is finished so it can be usefull to anyone that wants to create a custom mod for the game.
For now the project is going great and we are excited as it seems it’s going to have a great result. We will update the project as we game some gameplay video to show and everything that we are woring or right now gets in a good state.
Custom gloves blockout
Flying bot low poly
Female enemy blockout
Basic blockout from the church
Hello again!
As we move forward to the 5th week of the project, we are just 3 weeks ahead for the delivery day. Most of the big work has already been done but we still have a lot to do in these days that we have left.
First of all the main levels are already in a good progress and most of the blockout has already been replaced by the final meshes. The Saloon level, as it’s smaller than the main village, has had more improvement and most of the kitbash and main props have already been created, so we are now working on set dressing and smaller props to give to the Level more variety and to make it more beautiful. We are also working on the lighting part to try to give it the ambience we want.
For the village level we already have all the main structures and houses with the final mesh, but we are still working with textures and shaders, so that everything that we have created has the same visual style. Also all the enemy waves have already been set and the game is already fully playable.
We are trying to get to a same artistic style for all the level, as 8 different people are working on it, and sometimes it is difficult as each one has his own way of working and his own style.
Some screenshots from the Main village:
The church is one of the main buildings that we consider it has the style we are looking for, and it’s what are we going to use as the main reference for the other buildings.
For the characters side all the Robots have already been implemented and are fully functional. The characters team is still working on them, as we have the main blockout already in the game to test everything.
Female biped:
Big bot:
Flying bot:
Speed bot:
Bird bot:
Custom gloves for the player have also been implemented in the game. We are working on the HP + Bakes, and they will be replaced once the texture part has been completed.
And finally for the guns, they have also been implemented in the game and are fully functional. Shotgun, Laser gun and revolver are completed, and we hope to finish the automatic pistol this week.
Revolver:
Laser Gun:
Shotgun:
Automatic pistol:
This next week we are going to playtest the game with some people to see how they feel about the whole game, and to change what we need based on the feedback that we recieve.
We are also going to work on finishing characters and creating some bigger hero props and some smaller ones for detail and set dress.
There’s still a lot to do but we think that we are doing a great job and we expect to have an amazing project by the time we finish it.
Have a great day!
On monday we did our first playtest with some people that came to our school! They realy liked the game and we had some really good feedback.
We have also done a lot of progress in the game. These are some of the most important things:
Custom player hands are finished and fully implemented
Automatic pistol and Revolver are also texturized
Church is also in the final process. In this module we tested most of the main Materials and shaders, so by the time we have all the other buildings and sets created it’s going to be a lot easier to implement everything.
We also created a Silo to give more variety to the Town
And a team photo so you can see us
Robots are still in progress. We will try to show them when we have good renders.
All the main buildings from the Town level are already finished and everything has a much better look now! We are now working on smaller assets to create as many variety for the set dress as possible.
We have also finished the main bar from the Saloon level.
More soon!
Hello again!
Our project is getting close to the final part and most of it is already finished. All our custom robots are implemented and fully functional, and both out of our levels are going to be finished very soon.
For now we are testing everything to see if we need to change anything or if something is not working properly.
On both levels we still need to do a lot more set dress, but the playable part is finished and the game itself is fully playable from start to end.
Some WIP Village level screenshots:
On the Saloon level, the 1st dressing pass is completed, and we are now working for a proper lighting, while we test everything is working good.
The character team is now working to texturize all the robots in the planned time, so that we they are finished we will only have to import the textures to the editor and will be ready to go.
These are the ones left to share with you guys:
Male biped
Big bot
We have just 10 days to finish this project and everyone is working hard to get everything in time. Once it is delivered we don’t know if the school is going to do something with it, but we surely try to get it to the official Robo Recall page, and will also post it online so that anyone who has Oculus can try it.
Back again!
We have almost finished the project and everything is now being prepared to show all the work we have done. We are going to post breakdown, assets and all the stuff in a few days so that you can see the way we developed this project and what we have achieved in these 3 months that lasted.
The game is now fully completed and playable, and we have finished all the robots and tweaks.
These are the last robots to show fully texturized
The mod is going to be uploaded very soon so that everyone can play and test it.