Archive:
Been umming and ahhing about this, but sod it, I’m going to put another nod to Chimera in.
The first game had a single room, above the “Hold My Hand Very Tightly” lift, and the spanner you collected was used to unlock the conveyor belts. This time I’ll do something a little different and let you control the actual robot, and maybe the spanner can turn the electricity on, or something…
Anyway, I need a robot. Rather than do a 50p version of the sprite from the C64 game (like last time), I’ve made a version of the robot from the box art. The TV-for-a-head came out superbly! The ECG is animated, while the checker-board background slowly scrolls by, and it’s all done in the material. The glowing buttons on the chest buttons use noise to pick sub-sections of an 8x8 texture-page, which are then used to mask an emissive colour, that’s generated via sine waves. Looks like random buttons lighting up, and works really nicely.
Knocked up an Idle and a Walk-Cycle, so I should have everything I need to get going.
Modelled a new room based on the look of the OG Tardis’ control deck. Faffed about for a while trying to get a nice C64 model – cos I’ll need one for the intro – but kinda gave up. The control deck needs some levers, lights and buttons added to it, but it’s good enough to provide a button so you can transition over to the Chimera rooms.
Made a new character, animation blueprint and blend space for the Robot’s movement, and wrote the code in the GameMode to possess it. Modelled some of the obvious character blocks from the original game, and blocked out a few rooms. And then made them very shiny.
Spent the rest of the night laughing at the robot as it stomped around.
I’ve changed the camera angle (and prevented rotation) so you know you’re in a different modality. Although, I doubt anyone else will notice the camera change.
The Robot has audio, which makes a world of difference!
Created an Interface; ALU_PlayableCharacter that any Actor under direct joypad control (like the existing Player Character, or my new robot) need to implement. Then started going through things like Doors, and pick-ups, to make sure they looked for the interface, rather than casting to the old ALU_PlayerCharacter. A bit of tidy-up, basically, that I should have thought about at the start. Top-tip, UE gang: always hide your player character behind an interface. You never know when you’re going to want to possess something else…
With that in place, the Robot can now walk through doors, pick up paint, and interact with stuff. Woo!
And I’ve started messing about with electricity. I’m using the “Lightning / Electricity VFX Pack” off the Epic Marketplace, which I also use in Maenhir. It’s got some really nice Niagara emitters, that don’t need much fettling to be super useful. And they look cool AF, imo:
Messed about some more and ended up with 8 new rooms in total; any more than that and it started to feel a bit boring. The Robot moves slowly (purposefully), but I don’t want this section to drag. In and out, quick nod and a wink. Job’s a good-un.
There’s paint to collect, some electricity barriers to avoid, and a big button to unlock, and press:
Friends:
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