Explore a mysterious landscape hidden among valleys and mountains. Let the weather guide you or destroy you

Update - 1.3

Deleting underworld geometry, Section seams, HLOD and Menus Player Character

At this stage of development I have especially cleaned up the environment. This means creating flowing seams that create transition points between each section. This makes the overall map feel tied together and seamless. Adding to this I have deleted underworld geometry that you cannot see which will help with performance overall.

I have worked with creating HLOD for the assets in the level, however when applying this to the trees issues arose where the textures wouldn't render even at a close distance. So I have reverted the changes and HLOD is not used completely to aid performance.

Asher and I have implemented his Menu/pause system which adds nicely to the over design of the game.

Unfortunately we were unable to implement the new player character, with animations. Me and ales had spent a lot of time creating and pushing for our own player character model and animations yet came short in the actual implementation of the model. Having made the initial template myself for the animation states and inputs - transitioning ours was too time constraining near the end of the project. The total count of character iterations Was around 18 and work was extensively made to have this implemented.

Update - 1.2

Temple and cinematic sequences.

I have pieced together a temple - The top consisting of an asset Alex made and pillars from Megascans. In the center is a shrine with an orb that triggers a end cinematic sequence.

Each shrine(orb) now has their own cinematic sequence that views the player collecting the orb. This gives a sense of progression and shows a bit of the environment of where they collected the orb.

Each sequence is made with individual corresponding cinema cameras that place the player in perspective of the orb.

However, creating the final cinematic sequence there is an issue with the duration - it seems to cut out a quarter of the way and no possible work around has been made to fix this bug. The cinematic is set to run from the temple all the back to the start showing the passage.

Update - 1.1

Mountain sculpting, snow and temple.

For the final mountain, up the the temple, I have sculpted a path most of the way up. At the beginning of the arguably long and hard journey up the mountain I have added Melina's snow particle system. This adds another layer of visual aesthetic and realism to environment. I have further go into the material blend and painted the rock texture of parts of the mountain that matches what a mountain would be most characterized as visually.

I have added A bridge Alex has made along with some Megascans steps assets to visually assist the player up the final stages of the mountain.

Update - 1.0

Second Village.

This second village I created to host the second orb. This has the same assets as the first village with the addition of some of Alex's assets such as the fences.

Another collision plane was added underneath the water so the player cannot pass through and sink to the bottom of the lake.

Update - 0.9

Implementation of Alex's assets.

We have added the assets Alex has been working on to add to the distant scenery. This adds character the the level and makes it feel lived in.

Update - 0.8

Rain and weather - clouds/sun implementation.
Moving on from the village, Melina's rain is added as a visual effect that adds to the journey. This has no impact of the players movement as we ran out of time - it is used to add to the visual aspects of the weather component.

Me and Asher have added a system from the Ultra dynamic sky component in the level blueprint that changes the cloud density as the player progresses through the game. In the sand dunes the sun is fully exposed which matches the sun movement component. The player hits a trigger box after the sand dunes that slowly increases the cloud density so when they reach the rain trigger box, visually, the rain starts when their is dense clouds. this is subtly enough that can go unnoticed but if noticed adds well to the overall dynamic weather that is at the games core.

Additional trees and assets are added along the path.

Update - 0.7

First village implementation and Orbs.

This is the first village the player comes across after the sand dunes where the player will collect their first orb. Using the advanced village pack from the Unreal Marketplace, I have placed buildings and various accompanying assets to create a believable small village. Particle effects such as leaves and bugs/dust and smoke have also been added to add to the overall composition of the village. In the center of the village I have placed a shrine where the purple orb is placed for the player to collect. Sculpting the material blends around the village meant applying gravel and grass appropriately. Warren has done an amazing job at creating the orbs and accompanying cinematic camera template for later implementation.

Update - 0.6

Trigger boxes and sound queues are added for the in-game audio.
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These components are sound queues that add ambient and queued sounds to the level - This includes the ambient soundtracks I have made in FL Studio. These tracks are - Descent_1, Descent_2 and Early_Arrival_1.

I believe these tracks create a surreal ambient soundscape and add emotion to the game. The initial track Descent_1 sets the tone of the game, at the beginning, while Early_Arrival in the middle of the game continues to add much needed ambience to the exploration of the first orbs. Descent_2 is the first track with added vocals me and my flatmate recorded - This adds a connection to the start of the game brings more emotion to journey you have taken to get to the temple at the end.

Along with these tracks I added royalty free effects for wind, sandstorm and rain which each have their own triggers throughout the level.

Update - 0.5

The Sad storm at the beginning of the game.

This particle system creates a sandstorm which does not affect the player, although reduces visibility so that when the player reaches the next section is knowingly entering a different stage of the level.
This particle system is made up of two materials - Soft and sharp - that spin in place creating a sandstorm effect.
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This stage completes the composition of the sand dunes. Trigger boxes and sound cues will be added later.

Update - 0.4

I have created a basic water material and placed that as a lake at the second village.
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Update - 0.3

Implementation of the Sand dunes at the beginning of the game and level sections.

- Added ultra Dynamic sky
- Removal of cell shader
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Having time catch up I decided to only create the landscape in the persistent level and remove the initial first cut scene and the cottage house. This landscape was made it World machine and then sculpted so the player cannot leave the zone and only progress into the next section. A basic sand texture from Megascans was applied. To finalise the sand dune zone I have placed indicators and functional shade for the player to be under as they progress.

I have added Ultra dynamic sky, from the Unreal market place, which has become the final lighting element of the game. This blueprint provides all of the necessary features for the dynamic sky we are after such as cloud density, time of day and overall lighting for the level. For our sun component that Asher has made - it takes the existing directional light and traces a line to the player and if interrupted (in shade) doesn't have player movement inhibited.

As the sun component slows the player if they are in direct line of sight with the sun, It was crucial to place these shade areas in accordance to game pacing as when you are slowed by the movement is drastically reduced. Further additions are the brick walls and gate that divide the sand and grass sections apart. These were made in Blender and textured with a Megascans brick texture.
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The shade areas are evenly spread apart to have the player guided to the next section at a pace that suites when not directly in the sun.

I have created all of the level section for the game. This is the sand dunes, first village, lake town, mountain and distance mountain - these were all created in world machine. I have placed them all in their appropriate locations per the core level design and have placed distant mountains for when the player is on top of the last mountain.

I have played around with the ulta dynamic sky and removed the seam that was in the sky at the horizon from the exponential height fog.
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Update - 0.2

- Custom Texture Blueprints (Master material - Grass, Gravel, Stone // Weight blending & painting)
- Custom UV scale with distance
- Grass asset on explicit Grass normal (with wind)
- Prototyping character with armature in Blender
- Third person character movement -( character animation states withing Unreal)
- Improved lighting with cell shader
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Implementation of a ground master material has worked out well - This material consists of grass, gravel and stone textures. The master connects the individual functions for each texture allowing for alterations to occur in each textre rather than changing the master node setup.

Being the master material I needed a dynamic/flexible solution to the intricacies of the distance UV scaling. Creating calls to the material functions meant I could easily visualise and blueprint the blends from each texture. These textures are pulled out from break attribute nodes for each blend based on the landscape height map and cant also be custom painted. Further implementation of the grass asset are placed only where explicit grass normal's are present.

Character prototyping - based on the main character in Journey. This is a simple mesh with cloth simulation in Unreal in mind. Basic armature has been created although Importing to unreal is not application at this stage as the bone structure does not match Unreal requirements.

Update 0.1

Early in the development an emphasis on the linear game world and dynamic weather has been established. The use of Skull.nz cell shader has provided the visual aesthetic for Passage and development of rain, snow and wind environmental systems are in construction.
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- Basic Blender 3D character implementation
- Height map with WorldEngine
- Basic texturing with Megascans
- Basic lighting withing Unreal