Like any new zone, a starting point was needed. In some instances, I might just place a couple of tiles. In others such as Eternal River, it was started with a landscape layer that I could add to or subtract as needed.
One of the first things I like to work out is the scale of things. Since this entire map is a cave and I have used all the assets before that I’ll be making this zone out of I have a decent understanding now of the scale of the meshes to the player.
I did play around with a few different sized landscape layer grids. The first couple of attempts I felt were too small for an entire river to be flowing throughout the main path the player would be following to the end. As a result that ended up being a major factor in the overall size, I worked further on.
While it is a bit basic there will be many other elements to bring the entire zone together. I also don’t have to worry about it playing a major impact on preference down the line if I need to make adjustments to hit some FPS goals I have in mind.
This was done by using the scalping tool in Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) and digging a trench with an erosion tool around the map itself. I spawned in as the player several times to ensure I was not making it too deep.
I don’t have an actual swimming system and animation set up in this game. I also don’t intend to do so. As such I wanted to make sure most parts were no deeper than waist-deep. While I could always add in such a system later on it’s not in my original plans and adding time-consuming items to an already multiyear plan is something I want to avoid at least for now.
The water itself is quite a disgusting cave looking water that I use in almost all of my maps when there is a water feature. I had layers of water sheets that I simply adjusted to be under the landscape layer itself so they would be seen.
The above screenshot does look a bit patchy. This is due to several factors from being so far away from the different water sheets and several settings I have set up. Once spawned as the player and much closer this is not the case.
This is also part where I spent some time playtesting run time. Without any monsters or anything else for the player to encounter it took me around 10 minutes going in different and rooms and down the main pathway.
This above screenshot I ended up taking after some time. I will not say if this was the final outline of the zone itself as I do like to in a few of them add in a secrete area from time to time. I don’t always though so that should not be expected either. Such things always get added in later once I know I have all the screenshots for sharing that could give them away taken.
The final step was adding in the roofing to all the areas the player would have access to. Thankfully this is a rather quick process of just copying large sections and pasting them along. While I do try and break up some of the patterns that doing it this way can cause. There will be other factors to draw the eye away from it added in later on.
With a zone like this possibly having 5k meshes (actors) in it. I always try and do it in as neat of a fashion as I can. I don’t want to have too much overhang and just meshes the player will never see taking up space.
Once everything is done I went in and start deleting unused sections of the landscape layer itself. Along with resizing the water sheets. There is nothing else beyond the walls if a player somehow found themselves outside anyway. I also don’t’ want to waste performance resources or time rendering unused areas either.
I also did add in a few evaluation changes to the landscape layer to give the cave floor a bit more character. While it will be quite small and I suspect unnoticed by most. It’s all the little things that make something come to others.
While it is a bit excessive and I might remove some at a later stage. It is easier for now to add them while I go than having to redo everything later on. I can always just delete half of them in areas where I feel it’s not needed. This is also not a cave I’m looking to make dark so I’m quite fine with a lot of light.
I also added in a couple of post-process volumes to the zone. This gives me some quite advanced features for controlling the lighting itself from color grading to lens effects. I make some adjustments to the film options for slope, tope, and shoulder and more or less leave everything else alone. A lot of the other options have a heavy impact on performance and some even require other software to get full advantage out of.
Lighting was worked on for several days as it can be quite a boring task of placing endless amounts of light sources. I usually try and break that up by doing other tasks. It can also take many hours per lighting compile and I do usually like to know how things are coming along so I can make adjustments as needed.
Thankfully UE4 has quite an amazing tool called foliage. It allows you to set a few parameters of items you place in it like a paint bucket. Then with a brush just paint them onto your world with your mouse. As you move around they spawn in randomly with the parameters you gave them.
There are some pros and cons to doing something like this. It can be quite easy to go overboard and kill your FPS and the overall performance of a zone. You could for instance place down a million blades of grass in a matter of moments if you wanted. That would be quite a lag fest.
I went over different sections of my cave in different phases. I wanted to finally control the madness as best you could. Some places I wanted to go heavy with some things and others not so much.
I first added a layer of cave mushrooms to just about everywhere but the river itself. I didn't want them to be very dense either. I also knew I could turn off shadows on them to save on performance and the player is not going to care much or notice. They are small enough that would t be darn annoying running into them all the time as a player moving around the zone so I disabled collision on them as well. In total 1,700 mushrooms were placed.
After that, I went lightly over a few areas with a few dilapidated walls. Since these are bigger objects they would cast shadows and have a collision. I did add a few areas of interest as well manually without the foliage tool. With the size of several areas and the zone overall it needed a few points of interest and areas to work with later on.
Finally, with it being a cave it was time to add in stalactites and stalagmites to give the overall look and feel I wanted. Many zones ago I would have done this process manually one or a couple at a time. They would just never work the way I wanted them when using the foliage tool.
Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar. Screenshots are from Unreal Engine 4.
Game roadmap.
