Some screenshots

Some final screenshots of what everything looks like.

The essay

I just finished building my level in UDK Editor and I’m very proud of how it turned out. I came into this class actually fearing the program and hating the thought of learning yet another new program. Although I wanted to work in the video game industry I never thought I’d have to deal with a game engine. Now I’m glad I learned because this program is very fun to mess around with and when I want to make a level in the engine, it’s always like solving a puzzle. Almost anything is possible in this engine, you just need to figure out the way to make it so.

            I began with the idea from reading the short story of Armilla in the book assigned to us. It spoke of a city that was all pipes. No houses or people or walls of any kind. Just pipes and water fixtures. And occasionally, you would see nymphs bathing in the tubs or standing in front of a mirror and you get the impression the pipe world was made for water nymphs.

            So my idea was that the whole level was just a puzzle itself. You started looking at a valve and turn it. This turns on a shower to your right and a nymph shows up to play in the water. Then, you move along the pathway where you find more nozzles that will turn on more water but turn off other water, thus showing you that the goal is to turn on the water for all of the nymphs.

            I began with placeholders for important things such as, the water fixtures (pump, tub, sprinkler, and shower), the pipes, the valves, and, of course, the nymphs. This way, I could begin the kismet network process (and believe me, mine is long and involved).

            Almost everything I wanted to do in my game, I did not know how to do by just the tutorials the teacher gave us. I took what I could from the lectures and warped it in a way I could apply it to my game. My triggers became the valves that are the MOST IMPORTANT thing in the whole game. They are what you need to complete it. The valves would turn up when you interacted with them and would turn back down so you could use them again.

I replaced my placeholder pipes with pipes I modeled and textured and, of course, used collision detection on them considering they were the very things that kept you on a defined path.

Along the way, I model, textured, rigged, and moved a biped (the nymph) to import into the game. This is actually what took the most time (go figure) but I do believe it is work to be proud of and something usable in my portfolio with some tweaks.

When everything was all imported in and materials were applied and lookin all nice, I began work on my particle emitters. Actually, I only used one in the entire game and copied it over and over to work as I needed. It worked rather nicely. I had some issues with not being able to make the particles look like droplets but I found that if I put a bunch of tiny balls as one particle is looked pretty water-like.

When that was complete, my biggest problems came to light: How do I make my nymphs and water appear when I hit a valve? I already had lights set up that would toggle the lights on and off depending on which valve you hit but you coukln’t toggle an actor or particle emitter could you? Well I looked around on the internet a bit and the answer came from a tutorial on opening a door by picking up a key and making the key disappear when you pick it up.  I just used it in reverse.

It turns out all you need is to make your mesh a mover, the particle can stay the same. Go to the display in the properties of the mesh, then the particle and make them hidden so they will not show up in game.  In kismet there is an action called Toggle Hidden and this is the key to it all. You can toggle you hidden object or particle when you hit the necessary trigger now and it was seriously as easy as that. You would not believe the way I rejoiced when I figured that out. I wanted to cry.

I have to say that was my biggest obstacle to overcome and everything else turned out nicely. I think the one thing I could not figure out was how to end the game. You have to meet certain conditions and I couldn’t figure out how to end the game when those conditions are met. So as of now, you can run around and hit those valves forever without knowing you finished the puzzle and that’s disappointing. Later, I’d like to add sound but that’s not an option at the moment.