The Level

The level is the part of the project that I am focusing on. We decided early in the project that I would be in charge of the overall design of the level and what packs we would use to populate said level. Since I have done levels like this one in the past with me creating a haunted house for an older unit, I think this style of atmosphere is perfect for me and lighting is something I have had a lot of practice in so it would be easy for me to fall into.

To start the level off, we used the Unreal Advanced Village Pack on the Unreal store and placed the assets generally around the map in order to set the foundation of the level to work on. Once the main assets like the houses and wells were placed, we worked as a team to define the placed assets to make sure that things were in the right place for the character.

Since we are using more or less the same sequencer events as our previous units, the only thing we had to be weary of what making sure assets did not interrupt the sequencer, so to make sure this didn't happen, we painted the ground with a dirt texture to show where the sequencer took place. This made is easier as well when we took out the QTE pathway and instead used Emma's level as a guide to creating an alternate route, this made it so we could use the place better and change up the map a little bit.

We used the ruins from my level but will later replace them with more detailed models and debris.

In terms of the fog and other particle effects, I first looked at mists with physics on youtube, ones where the mist would ripple and move when walked through much like fog in real life, but these mists did not have any tutorials nor any real example on how to make them and the ones shown had to be bought so instead of using those, I used particle bases from existing packs and changed them in order to get the effect I wanted. I used the main mist to corner off the level and make it so dark that the player could not see through the level to the skybox. The fog was also made so that the lights in the level would shine through and light up the mist in order to make it so the level was still bright enough even when shrouded with the mist. The main purple fog was also made this way but it was difficult to make the fog big enough so that it looked like it was growing and following the character so I made it so it spawned 4000 particles, which lead the level to run incredibly slow but it was a good alternative to the fog we used last time and we can always improve on it from here.

With the lighting of the level, we decided to go for a horror approach and keep it rather dark, only using minimal light sources, we did this by using lanterns from the advanced village pack and turning up the intensity but dimming the colour, making it more atmospheric. We were worried that the dark level might be a little difficult for players to navigate through so we used things like glowing mushrooms and placed them along the pathway for players to follow. To brighten up the level were the village was away from, Emma found some hanging lanterns on turbo squid (https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.turbosquid.com%2F3d-models%2Fcandle-lantern-3d-model-1177724&t=MTZhOTVjZjYzN2NlNDdmNTJiMDgxMGIwYTNlNmNiYTE5ZmViZmI4ZSx4S3VHbUF6MQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AVnJ7lLmn_bfi5TEWwiylGA&p=https%3A%2F%2Fgamedesignunit5.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F174952316200%2Flevel-creation) and I used them and hung them from the trees along the alternate pathways to lighten up the level. With the ruins, I placed torches to light the area, but with the fog underneath the level, it also gave the area a purple glow which made it easier for the player to see.

This is the finished level:

The last finishing touches of the level were to replace the rabbit with one from Turbo Squid (https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fsketchfab.com%2Fmodels%2F3f8b61e440fe43059226a57f269b9b53%3Fref%3Drelated&t=OTUxNzRjMTFmZWI5MWM4ZGUwZjJhOWJkNWE0ZjVlY2QzNGQ1NGY3Mix4S3VHbUF6MQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AVnJ7lLmn_bfi5TEWwiylGA&p=https%3A%2F%2Fgamedesignunit5.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F174952316200%2Flevel-creation) and implement the character, but we faced a lot of problems with the level towards the end. With the high amount of lighting and with the large area of the level, the lighting took a very long time to build each time and with the stress on the computer, the level became increasingly harder to work with. It became so bad that moving a mesh would often cause the UE4 to close down completely and when the sequencer was opened, it immediately crashed and the program had to be closed anyway. This made it difficult to work with and a lot of the time spent during the final days of the project were spent trying to fix the level enough to even work in it. This made it so we did not have enough time to implement a character or even replace some of the meshes like the ruins and also paint the terrain.