As a lot of you may know Epic Games announced that they are working on a new Unreal Tournament title. They’ve been doing weekly updates through twitch to keep the development community involved. You can check them out here: http://www.twitch.tv/epicgames (http://www NULL.twitch NULL.tv/epicgames). Having been a big fan of the old Unreal titles I’ve decided to create a level to be released with the launch of the game. I signed up with Epic so I could download the new Unreal Engine and check it out. Wow is it great. I can’t believe how much the UDK evolved since its last release. It finally feels like a full-blown 3D app. Each week I’m going to post an update of the project through all it’s stages. First I have to finish blocking out the level. Then it’s onto simple meshes and lighting. I’m excited about this project because I think it’s a good chance to gain exposure in the development community.
The blockout is being done with the BSP volumes in the editor. They’re super fast and easy to work with. The “Geometry Mode” works the same as in the old UDK letting you edit the polygons that comprise the BSP volumes on the fly. I should mention that while the editor was stable most of the time it was very unstable while working in geometry mode. I crashed once for about every 3 edits I tried to make. In this particular stage my main concern is getting the spacing right between all the elements that will comprise the arena. I’m working with an early alpha so the only movement the player has is walking and dodging. While placing all the shapes around I’m trying to think of paths the player will take through the environment.
(http://www NULL.terrymatthes NULL.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/arenaBlock001 NULL.jpg)
The flow of the map is the single most important factor so I don’t want to create any dead ends where the player feels cornered. There should always be at least one other path they can use to escape an engagement. After the general layout is in place I’ll start to adjust volumes along the Z-Axis (Y-Axis in Maya) a little more. The player moves largely on a Horizontal plane so creating platforms at different heights and depressions in large flat expanses can help break up the monotony of that very planar movement.
I’m super pumped and I think this is going to turn out great so stay tuned for updates :)