UE4 - Game Devblog 3 - New Character Systems + More
tl;dr radiation + visual / audio effects + some interior design prototyping
ah shit i forgot to record the mouse and i was using it to point stuff out... oooooooooof
For this video I go over a bit of the character effects stuff I've worked on recently. It's basically a seperate component which is attached to my player character (like alot of other core character systems) and dynamically affects visual and audio the player experiences. It is made up of 3 main parts to start with right now, a mask overlay, a health overlay, and an audio component.
In the future all headgear which should obscure vision in some way WILL have an overlay type similar to the prototypes in the video, if appropriate they will also have a secondary overlay which is animated for breathing, mainly gas mask type facewear. When the player takes damage or dies the health overlay comes into effect as seen at the end of the video, damn near forgot to show it lmao. And the audio component which by default is using the breathing audio cue, will change from breathing to other sounds based on conditions fed to it by code, be it taking damage or coughing from inhaling radiation without a gas mask, and more situations in the future when i come up with it.
Radiation at current is also fairly straightforward, nearly every single 3d model placed in my game levels inherit from a base blueprint which has no code "BP_StaticActor" and only contains some basic logic for fast placement in editor (for me) and a few static variables (for player characters) to gain info about. players will on a loop query all static actors within a short range of 15-20 meters and will gather all the info on the max radiation value of them and do some math based on distance to each actor to calculate the total soaked radiation, then do a multiplier based on your current radiation defence to come up with the final radiation applied to the player. This info is send to a seperate function which adds or removes the radiation values similar to the other status' the character has, health hunger thirst stamina ect. In the future ways to reduce this value will come from useable items or possibly very slowly over time reduced.
Negative effects in general will not necessarily KILL the player because I personally dont think i want it to be that kind of tedious game constantly managing arbitrary values to keep your health from dropping all the time, but I will be coming up with tangible consequences for ignoring the characters status' values, something that will hinder your gameplay but not outright end it by ending your life, lol.
And finally I have been working a ton to incorporate more 3d models for me to use in the environment and inside/outside buildings, I showcase a few interior design setups from a pack of farm buildings and my current ideas for how to furnish interiors to be functional and immersive without impeding gameplay too much, right now it is a good balance of simplicity and detail and i plan to furnish all interiors in a similar manor going forward.
I believe that is all for a summary of this specific video, ill lurk in the comments and answer any questions if i have answers, ty for watching bros