[WIP] Escaping Deméter - Game/Personal project

Totozoos

Hello, my name is Gastón, I am a 37 year old archviz artist with nearly 15 years of experience working in the field. I never worked on the game industry and have 0 experience at making games or game art. That being said, games are my passion since I was a child and I would've loved to work in the game industry but when I started learning 3D, games related careers in my country were a no go so I ended up doing archviz unfortunately .
I have been learning Unreal for archviz stuff and its been about three or four years that I switched my learning sources from archiviz to game related content and I am so happy I did so, because I learned so much since then. 
So I got to this point were I know a thing or two about unreal, feel somewhat comfortable with blueprints (cero coding knowledge) and have a general idea of how to produce game art, that I decided to try my luck at making a game.
I started with a story, or guidelines to a story, to have something to start with and start blocking out some stuff. I obviously work on this on my spare time so my general workflow is "I do what I feel like doing at the moment"... 
The context is a mini openworld scenario and the idea for the game is about surviving to an alien planet harsh environment while solving puzzles and problems to stay alive, the ultimate goal is to escape the planet. You will have to go and explore various farming settlements and industrial sites on the map that will help you during your quest. I will show more about the story once I have more context to better explain whats going on (and mostly once I clarify some ideas myself).
I chose story, gameplay mechanics, genre and all the aspects that I could think of based on my current knowledge and what I think I somewhat can tackle. Truth is, I will have to learn a huge deal of stuff both art and technical wise and that is the challenge that really motivates me and have me hours in front of the computer.
So I will be posting updates for this project here in hopes to get critiques because I would really like to get good at this and I am willing to get even the harshest ones.
Currently I am trying to wrap my head around working with trim sheets, particularly trim sheets for normal details. This have me scratching the back of my head for a couple days now, but as long as I struggle I am learning, so I am ok with that!...

C&C as well as advice, are much appreciated
Thanks for reading
Gastón

Here is a YouTube video: https://youtu.be/xXup7eDYLec

 

Totozoos

Some other props and stuff

teodar23

Looks very promising. Keep it up!

Totozoos

Thanks @teodar23
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I was working on a gray box level for a couple of underground corridors which give access to various machines control rooms. I started working on the base meshes for one of them and also trying to figure out scale and color schemes. I was hoping to have this textured with trim sheets and decals but there are some things I can't grasp just yet so I decided I will bake everything down and once I understand this technique better I will come back to these assets and rework its textures. I spent a couple of days learning about this but at this point I rather have these looking good once finished than half done because I don't understand a specific workflow. These are just a couple of modular pieces so it shouldn't be much trouble. This is wip1 for this particular corridor base meshes

JUSTINJAGER

It's looking great so far, I really like the YouTube video you've made to show at what state the game is! I'm excited to see how this project will turn out! 

Totozoos

Small update. I added a couple more pipes and details and got everything ready to paint. I want to do a first pass on textures to get a better idea of what kind of details I will need to add later. This is layed out in 4 different texture sets eventhough the last one has a lot of free space. So I want to see if I will add more geometry details or optimize the density to make the whole thing in 3 texture sets. My main reference for atmosphere and texture quality is this awesome work https://www.artstation.com/artwork/o1eqm from Josh Van Zuylen. 

Totozoos

This is the first pass I did with some textures and lighting to see how to move forward. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq0Q76PFHzI

Totozoos

And some screenshots

Totozoos

Here is the final design (at least for now) for the underground corridor which will be the general design rules for all underground levels as well. Black metal and plastic, raw metal and the orange paint for dangerous stuff . I wasn't satisfied with the texture quality when all assets where baked and painted so I went back and learned how to work with trim textures and re worked all the textures. Now I have three texture atlases for materials from where I get nine materials in total and one trim sheet for mesh decals, so now everything is textured with tilling textures and trim sheets and I am quite satisfied how much texture quality improved by using this technique. Also I can see it will help me keep a consistent quality and design logic throughout the levels. I now it might sound obvious but being the first time I use this I am blown away about what you can do with this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNHaWB3xEGM

Totozoos

And some screenshots. I don't know how to post them in the same reply with the video

SelwynPhillips

This is looking great. I look forward to seeing how this progresses

Totozoos

Thank you @SelwynPhillips


I've been playing around with blueprints, animations and AI. I learned to rig so I can import skeletal meshes with my animations. For now I just did something really basic like a door to learn the general workflow but it is cool to know how to do this stuff. All my previous animations ware made in engine through blueprints, not animation blueprints, but timelines and lerping floats and stuff. Now I need to lern how to use animation blueprints which is a bit confusing for now. So I did this test with a door for the underground areas. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqcZcwph_6M And the same door in engine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ByBh1qePsc Also I gave my first steps with NPCs and AI. I set up some basic NPC which will chase you on sight and kill you if the get you. I have some NPCs patrolling routes and others walking freely through the level. Besides this I created a simple stamina system which is related to the game context. Basically the environment is toxic for humans so you are on a vac suit, it filters air but if you consume it too fast you will fall unconscious. Also if you get tired and won't be able to run for a period of time, this works also with NPCs which, when they see you, they will change from walking to running and if you can run, you are dead ... Well basically testing and trying to learn as much as I can to put some gameplay together. Now I will continue to finish the first underground area, the first part of puzzles and try to wrap up a little gameplay including all the pieces together. Here is a video testing all this stuff, hopefully it makes sense And C&C is very welcome https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuRMUeU6dMw

teodar23

The stamina mechanic and the patrolling npcs (which are enemies, btw, not non-playing-characters) force the players to #stayathome... jk, they encourage exploring and stealth, which i like. Also, liking the door... cant wait to see more variations of it.

Totozoos

Thanks @teodar23 for the clarification on the npcs. It is usually common to look for specific topics when you are trying to learn about something and nothing pops up because of the wrong seach terms, and yes, thats something I am trying to achieve, exploration but with a sense of peril. Not the kind were you shoot your way through danger but rather the kind where you have a sense of helplessness because any encounter with an enemy, even though not frecuent, is most likely mortal and your only possible way out of the situation is to escape. The idea of the game is based on solving puzzles to move forward but also I want to add pressure to the player. There is a part of the game which will make you think to solve the puzzle, but there will be another which will add pressure to avoid let you think comfortably while you solve those puzzles. How I am going to achieve all that is a completely different story tons of stuff to learn. About the doors thanks, I will definitely need more variations as I move forward building the underground environment, mainly different sizes for narrower corridors. Anyways thank you for your comment.

teodar23

I like it. Reminds me of some hl2 levels. I think you shoud ease the player in, start with some light puzzles to get a feel for them and gradually increase the difficulty by adding enemies and, as you said, add pressure to the puzzles.

JUSTINJAGER

I really like it so far! the door animation looks pretty solid. I see you're also playing around with blueprints and animations more and more, lt's great isn't it! blueprints are really starter friendly to learn and you can get big results with only a couple of nodes, love it. I like how your game/world keeps getting more and more interactive objects like the elevator, NPC and the door. Keep up the good work!  

Totozoos

Hi, it's been a while since the last update on this project. I've been mostly learning blueprints and creating systems like crafting, stamina, items and so on as well as exploring gameplay mechanics. This is without a doubt the most challenging, fun and entertaining project I have ever embaked on. So after a while of solving problems, dealing with frustration and scratching my head with blueprints I decided to go back a bit to the graphic stuff and keep developing the story. Since the main character arrives to Deméter from Earth I needed a space ship, and I thought I could start thinking about the intro secuence (this is the good thing about being a solo dev in a personal project, you can do what you want whenever you want . So this is the third iteration on the ECG Athena, a scientific and planetary surveyor vessel. Anyways, any c&c is more than welcome as always.

Cheers
Gastón

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54qEsn-AIkM