Project Outline

This project was created as part of the UNSW course COMP3421 Computer Graphics. We had 10 weeks to create a game in Unreal Engine with a group of 5 people.During the planning phase, we created a 50-page project proposal document outlining all the features of the game, as well as all technical specifications.

• Project Proposal (PDF)

The Grab Ability allows the player to move and rotate interactable objects.It fires a line trace from the mouse position to the object in order to determine where the object is.It then attaches the object to the physics handle component, with this component moving with the first-person character.The player can hold right click and move the mouse to rotate objects. This was achieved by rerouting the camera yaw and pitch movement into the rotation of the physics handle, which in turn rotates the object.

The Scale Ability augments the size and weight of objects.The function Scale Object sets the World Scale 3D and Mass Override to the new scale determined by the float Scale Alteration.There is a limit on it to prevent objects from getting too big or too small.Pressing C will revert the object back to its original scale and weight, with these values being saved by the object itself.

The Rewind Ability freezes time and allows the player to move objects forwards or backwards through time.While the level is running, all objects save their world transform and angular velocity into a stack (FILO) array, keeping up to 30 seconds of history.Only significant changes in position is recorded, ensuring that duplicate data isn't stored.When the ability activates, Simulate Physics for all interactable objects in the level are turned off. The object's currently velocity is also stored.Once time has frozen, the player is able to hover over objects and see a line trace of its movement history.Selecting an object allows the player to scroll through its history to rewind or advance its position through time.When the ability is deactivated, time will be unfrozen. Each interactable object has Simulate Physics turned back on, and the velocity that was stored is applied to them.When time is unfrozen, all future positions of any objects that were altered are deleted, ensuring a linear history is stored.

The Fuse Ability allows the player to attach objects to each other, creating fused compounds.If the player is holding an object and presses the Fuse key, a check will be performed to see if the Grabbed Actor is colliding with an object.If it is, the new object will be attached to the Grabbed Actor, and the object will be added to the Grabbed Actor's array of fused objects.Whenever a fused object is grabbed, all objects fused to it will be detached from their current parent and then attached to the Grabbed Actor.This ensures that the Grabbed Actor is the parent of every fused object, allowing the entire fused compound to move with the Grabbed Actor.The weight of all grabbed objects are set to 0 to prevent them from pushing other objects around, making it easier to fuse objects together.Pressing the Unfuse key will unfuse all objects from the Grabbed Actor, which is achieved by getting the array of fused objects and detaching them from the parent.

Day 1: Started brainstorming game ideas, settling on a cowboy-themed 3D top-down arcade shooter.Day 2: Begun coding the project, creating the character blueprint, camera, collectable coins, coin counter, shooting mechanic, basic enemy AI and timer.Day 3: Created basic UI menus, worked on several bug fixes and created the Cowboy Sheriff.Day 4: Created additional UI menus, the scoring system and cowboy movement patterns.Day 5: Created more cowboy movement patterns, the enemy spawning system and collectable sheriff hats.Day 6: Imported Matthew's model and textures of the arcade machine into Unreal Engine.Day 7: Imported the cowboy, horseback cowboy and coin models from Matthew and implemented them.

Day 8: Improved the cowboy movement patterns, upgraded the enemy spawner and created the cowboy hat collectable.Day 9: Designed new versions of the UI screens, added atmospheric effects and implemented mode models.Day 10: Imported and implemented all building models, and planned out the level layout.Day 11: Imported and implemented all props, and created the level layout.Day 12: Refined collision for the props, finalised the level layout, updated the UI screens, implemented the options menu and added cowboy quotes to the game over screen.Day 13: Finalised all features of the game, enhanced lighting and particle effects and tested exporting the project.Day 14: Implemented a high score feature, volume slider, optimised the game assets and exported the final version of the game for submission.

Overall, I learned a lot from this project, as I had to create a complete game under a strict deadline. It taught me a lot about how to use Unreal Engine, and how to work well in a collaborative environment.

This project was created as part of the UNSW course DDES2111 3D Visualisation 3. We had 10 weeks to create a 3D game environment.The models for the androids had to have movable joints since they would be posed throughout the environment.This was quite a challenge, especially since it was the first time I attempted something like this.After a lot of trial and error, I managed to create the android, with it having over 40 movable parts.I then created two different textures for them, one for the standard android and one for the leader.Once the models were done, I positioned the androids throughout the environment.

Next, I created the driller tank and the spaceship models. I wanted the androids and their technology to have a consistent colour scheme, with this being silver, purple and black.The driller tank model was rigged to have the drill spin, adding more life into the scene.The spaceship is the hero asset of the scene, and was the largest model by far in terms of scale.I experimented with a lot of different body shapes and configurations for both models, and eventually landed on these design.After the models were textured, they were placed in the valley along with the androids.