Blog

3/17/23 - A period of 14 days: 2 weeks.... Creative

Over the past few weeks I've continued to work through creating a portfolio for this website. I'm looking at options for; What might best demonstrate my skills? Where I can learn the most? What would potential employers like to see? - and also - What is fun for me to pursue? I think it's important to keep my eye on fun - games are meant to be fun (even if they are difficult to make).

A secret of mine. I've never been a big fan of Fortnite. That seems strange considering I love games and I'm obsessed with Unreal Engine - Fortnite's development platform. Some of my favorite moments gaming were the days of Doom, Unreal tournament, Duke Nukem and Golden Eye. The original FPS'ers. 

The rift with me and Fortnite? It's something about the building during combat. That and the need to know seemingly an endless amount of different controls. Those minor complexities ruined the simplicity I want from this genre. I did however, love the concept of the storm forcing players into combat. What an awesome solution to drawn out encounters. Long gone are the minutes of aimlessly running around large maps without encountering an opponent. 

Alas, even with the extreme hype around the game and the great storm mechanic, it wasn't enough to keep my interest in Fornite.

Fortnite - Duh..

Come get some!

Monster growling, light flicker

Epic!

Fast forward to last week. After my successful jaunt with Portal level design I was looking to expand my portfolio of games that contain in-game editors. Low and behold I found Fortnite creative. Whoah! Now we are cooking with gas! Perhaps this was my path to finally enjoying the renowned title! 

I've spent the last 2-3 days figuring out the Fortnite UI and toolset (ugh why is it so hard to navigate the first few times??). It's not necessarily intuitive, and the path to finding good tutorials and instructions is a bit cumbersome BUT luckily I'm extremely persistent because I'm now in a place where things are really smooth. 

The options are extensive. 

This will be a great platform to build another portfolio piece demonstrating level and game design skills. Stay tuned as my portfolio page will grow with any progress I make. I'll also provide some links for getting started and share quick tips so you can avoid some of the challenges I run into.

UE Editor for Fortnite - The announcement.

Coincidentally, yesterday I also heard about Unreal Editor for Fortnite. Talk about timing! 

I believe the business intention is to spring board off the success Roblox has made allowing users to create content for their application. Meaning opportunity for creators to create games, models and other experiences and monetize with in-game currency WITHIN the Fortnite ecosystem. 

I'm not sure how invested I'll get into the entire eco-system but it's definitely a really interesting and powerful move for Epic to make into this space. I could see Roblox quickly taking a back seat here. 

Epic will be able to leverage many of it's advanced systems and the fidelity of UE5. Specifically they have mentioned the following:

I can't see how Unity or Roblox can possibly compete as this will funnel so many future developers into the EPIC and UE ecosystem. 

Exciting times! 

3/9/23 - AI and the gamedev Pipeline

AI, and more specifically AI "art" is a contentious and polarizing topic. I'm a big fan of the technology. I also understand the challenges with how it's been rolled out and the moral dilemma it presents to artists and those who seek to profit without consideration of the original works. As someone who often sits in the middle and tries to find the grey area of any argument - it's exhausting trying to have a nuanced opinion or perspective in the current climate. Social media is often wrought with only polarizing and emotional viewpoints. Not to say that isn't warranted, people should be passionate.

For what it's worth, my stance is that the technology (machine learning) is going to be critically influential - to near the same extent that google, social media and the internet have been influential on tech. I also believe legal precedent will be set. Once the courts have decided, the path forward will be much clearer. Until then, I'm going to pursue the technology with curiosity and respect for everyone involved.

I've been following the blog Echoes of Somewhere (link). This project is run by Jussi Kemppainen, a industry veteran with more than 25 years experience in game, VFX and film development. The project is dedicated to using AI to enhance the workflow used in game dev through the creation of a classic point and click adventure. I've learned so much about the traditional 3D art pipeline just from reverse engineering several articles from the blog.

Echoes of Somewhere is Unity and Blender based, as such, it's inspired me to dig into the pipeline for Unreal. I imagined the same possibilities were available between UE & Blender. *Spoiler alert* - they are.

Echoes Of Somewhere gameplay - All AI generated

MetaHuman - Generated with the help of AI

 AI generated facemap texture

 AI generated facemap texture

 AI generated facemap texture

With the recent introduction of ControlNet for Stable Diffusion - the power to more directly influence output image has been enabled. At a high level, ControlNet allows for the user to input a starting "control" image and then direct the output image based on various parameters or "controls" that pertain to the original image. Consider the below set of images. The original black and white image is the AO (Ambient Occlusion) of an existing "space wall". Using Stable Diffusion I was able to generate an unlimited number of alternative textures based on the input AO. Really powerful.

I haven't yet solved for the normal map. In most cases because we're generating using the existing AO, the original normals largely hold true to the output image. There is a feature within ControlNet that pertains directly to normals - I'll continue to spend time digging into the overall solution. That's for another day however...

Happy Dev'ing!!

Original AO

Generated Texture

Generated Texture

Generated Texture

Gallery of textures

3/1/23 Captains Blog - Level Design

One of the main reasons I started this website was to create a portfolio. While I'm interested in all things Game Dev and all things Unreal - I've always had a more specific passion for Game and Level Design. So my plan is to focus my portfolio on Level Design. I'll supplement this with a secondary section focused on technical ability. 

Digging into Level Design I found an interesting YouTube Chanel regarding the topic:  https://www.youtube.com/@SteveLee_GameDev 

Steve Lee is an experienced level designer with credits in the Dishonored and Bioshock franchises. On his channel he discusses showcasing Level and Game design through demonstration and playable levels. Not just with screenshots of block-outs. Following some of his content I learned about the Hammer SDK. It's a level editor provided with Valve games, and more specifically the in-game editor shipped with Portal 2. Coincidentally Portal & Portal 2 just happen to be on sale right now for ~$2.00 CAD, which makes the purchase a no brainer for me.

Armed with the new game (which is absolutely fantastic btw - I'm  so sad I slept on it all these years) I've made a decision to take a short break from my regular routine and demonstrate my level design skill by making the first entry into my Portfolio. <- Click the link and be sure to let me know what you think.

Happy Dev'ing!!

The start of a Dev Blog...

Let me introduce myself! I'm an Unreal Engine tech enthusiast, gamer and a family man in my early 40's. I've spent my education and career in tech. I studied both computer science & telecommunciations - utilizing those skillsets throughout my career in various Analyst, Specialist, Project management and Senior management roles. Only recently in my late 30's did I come to realize I could pursue a career where my technical skillset and interests align.

I found out about UE4 during a personal venture to learn Adobe After Effects. Youtubing (as one does) I stumbled upon a video demonstrating 3D compositing utilizing AE and UE4 together. My mind was blown away, and it started an obsession. I've spent the last 3-4 years dedicating any & every spare minute to learning the tools of the game dev trade. Most recently Blender and UE5. 

I grew up learning  programming through Q-basic as a pre-teen and later Java and C++ in my High school and University studies. Academicaly the material focus was never merged with graphics or game design. More consistently coursework focused on accounting and website type development. I'd spend countless hours as a teenager gaming, but I was always more interested in developing things. I found myself unpacking Doom and Duke Nukem texture maps and using the level editors to craft my own experiences. In Heroes of Might & Magic I was so excited when they released their own level editor. I'm not really sure why - but I never considered Game Dev, Game Design or Level Design as a potential career. I'd absolutely love to make that jump and switch careers in the near future.

Lets hope its true - that " its never too late! ".

My plan is to regularly update this blog with primarily technical updates. Sharing new tools I've found, or things I might be learning/stumped with. 

I've also started a sister blog which is dedicated to my 2.5D platformer here: Space Rogue . 

Keeping separate blogs will  ideally keep this site organized and keep the general updates separate from project specific ones.

Happy Dev'ing!!