(Dev Log) House Level - Githubissues

I (David) have written this with Eira's permission. HOWEVER, they may still want to add something, so I will be leaving this open in case they would like to add something.

This is being made since Eira and I are both on call, and instead of pushing every little change, we've decided to just make a Dev Log.

David's Work

So I started off with the house-asset from the Epic Games Marketplace (EGM); this was under the standard "free" license which means we are free to use it within the bounds of Unreal Engine. However, the room really didn't suit the tone of the game, nor did it look particularly good. Which means we needed to alter it.

So I began to remove all of the unnecessary assets, build a foundation for what the level was meant to feel and play like, using knowledge from videos which had been recommended to me by Doctor Mike Reddy. This was a large help as I was able to formulate a clear path, and collaborate with my fellow Level Designer in making sure we are able to bring out the potential and ideas that the team had for this game.

Speaking with Eira, I was able to make some changes to this map - however she was responsible for the bulk of the aesthetic changes which have been found within this map - including redoing all of the textures; along with helping with the lighting of the level.

Eira's Work

Eira was responsible for all of the work done retexturing all of the assets, designing the level based on colour-scheme and listening to my ideas and implementing them. Since we are not in person, we decided this workflow would be the best. Eira took care of aesthetics and placement while I took care of the level design itself - i.e where the player needs to interact, what is the trigger, etc.

Starting from the walls and floor, she had retextured it based on the vibe I was trying to portray; and something we both spoke and agreed on extensively. This was then added to by herself, making sure the lights were positioned correctly, moving objects around and implementing extensive colour-theory which means our level would fit the necessary vibes and style we were going for.

Shared Work

Since we are both level-designers, a large amount of collaboration and perfect execution was required. Which meant that we would both need to adapt to one another and formulate a plan. The plan ended up working, and is as follows.

I (David) would work on the structure of the level. This includes the room, and how much assets were put in. Along with some maintenance such as organisational work.

Eira would then receive the project file from me, and work on the aesthetics, and the layout of the room while screen-sharing her progress to me over Discord which means we were able to work on and input our own thoughts

(Just a screenshot of what

Some time passes, and we ran into an issue - which is logged on a separate issue

https://github.com/PlaceholderGames/2022-yr1-team-peach-pie/issues/22 <------ Refer to this link if you need anymore information.

While Eira decided to redo the level and rule it out via process of elimination, I tasked myself with trying to look at documentation given by Epic Games; which suggested we compile the "Lightmass" module. However, upon further research it didn't seem like this was possible - as we did not compile UE4 from source (We're using the Epic Games Client - so no modules in VS)

So then we began troubleshooting - which included

Eliminating machine error - Eira sent the file to me, and we wanted to replicate the issue The issue was replicated exact - so this means there was something wrong with the project itself I then tried duplicating the level - it did not work However, light-baking worked on another level; which ruled out the possibility of "World Settings" being at fault We now knew it was something within this level.

Eira was working on recreating the work done, in the case of me not being able to fix it - this meant that either way we would have something playable and workable.

I then started deleting objects we had retextured one by one It started working.

Currently at the time of writing, only polishing touches are being made along with bug-fixes. This is otherwise complete, and work on the first proper level will begin

PlaceholderGames / 2022-yr1-team-peach-pie

(Dev Log) House Level #23

I (David) have written this with Eira's permission. HOWEVER, they may still want to add something, so I will be leaving this open in case they would like to add something.