Zolaris Functionality | Nix Narrative

FUNCTIONALITY

ZOLARIS

SOFTWARE:

Unreal Engine 4 | Blueprints | Maya

INSPIRATION:

1st person stealth | RPG | Fallout | Bioshock | Dishonored

JOB TITLE:

Creative Director/ Lead Level designer

TEAM SIZE: 13

DURATION: 8 Months

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FUNCTIONALITY

On The Zolaris Project, I also worked on multiple blueprints and systems to enhance the player experience and gameplay. These Blueprints included: Interactive Systems, Guiding Systems, Dynamic and Emissive Textures, and Dialog/Audio Systems. Below I outline in detail my thought process when making these functions.

GUIDING SYSTEMS

Within the Crypt Owl, I was responsible for creating guiding systems to help them navigate the maze as well as creating the system that would reset the player at the beginning of the maze if they took the wrong turn. I accomplished this by creating trigger boxes in between columns the player needed to pass through.

The trigger boxes leading to the correct path would light 2 new torches for the player, symbolizing 2 new pathways they could go down. Sometimes these trigger boxes lit colored torches as well. The color of the torch in front of the player would symbolize which path they should transverse.

The trigger boxes leading to the incorrect path were less complicated. If the player collided with them, the player's screen slowly faded to white to symbolizing the fog around them becoming thicker. After 2 seconds the fog faded away and the player found themselves back at the beginning of the maze.

ETHEREAL SYSTEMS

I also worked on Ethereal Objects throughout the game. These objects worked together with the player's ability called Etherealness. When the player used this ability, they could move through specific objects on the map or even hide within them to stealth and avoid capture.

To accomplish this, I cast the Ethereal blueprint to the player character to check when the player was using Etherealness. Then in the blueprint, I duplicated the object and turned off the collisions on the duplicate. I added the ethereal texture to the duplicate and turned off its visibility. Finally, when the player activated Etherealness, it would call an event within the Ethereal object causing the original object to become invisible and the duplicate object to become visible.

The player could pass through the object and hide within it. When they're Etherealness ability finished, the collisions on the ethereal object would return to normal.

EMISIVE BLUE PRINT

These Emissive Blueprints I created were to give players visible feedback on their actions and improve the overall game feel. When a player interacts with an object, it will react by slowly illuminating a timeline. Another version of this feedback is when a player switches their abilities. The crystals on the character's gloves will respond and change colour to match the ability they have selected.

The major obstacle I encountered was getting the emissive to change during gameplay since Unreal emissives are baked at the start of gameplay. I was able to bypass this problem by making a dynamic material that could be accessed in the Blueprint coded.

INTERACTIVE SYSTEMS

At the beginning of the project, I was responsible for creating an interactive blueprint that could be the parent to all interactive objects within the game. This interactive system had to work in tandem with our reload, which was on the same button and had to have the right prompt show up when the player was in the range of an interactive object.

I accomplished this by creating a hit box around the player that collides specifically with a hit box made for interactive objects. When the player's hitbox overlaps with the interactive object a prompt is presented and pressing "X" to interact is prioritized over reloading.