013 The Never-ending Graveyard Level

Friday 18th Jan 2019

8:25am

In the office and ready to roll! I double check the roadmap, I’m down to start plugging in another level that Ant has been working on (one of the City locations) today, but I’ll get on that this afternoon after finishing off plugging in my graveyard level. I also need to update the blog post, which I’ll do at the end of the day.

12:40pm

I have massively underestimated the complexity of this track, but the functionality is 85% of the way plugged in now. This could take another hour at least to get finished, but all of the following is now in; Level Blocking, Race Positioning Waypoints, Stampede AI Waypoints, Stampedes (setup to work with the track now), Weapon Pickups, Spawn Points, Next Spawn Point Detectors, the Time Trial Start/Finish Line, the End of Race Podium, and Open Grave Death Triggers.

Placing down the Race Positioning controllers

Race Positioning controllers & Spawn Points

Open Grave player death triggers

Time for some lunch. When I’m back I need to finish mapping down the route signposts (I’m about 65% of the way through this already), add some ambient sounds, add the level music, take some screenshots for the main menu UI.

13:15pm

Only a quick lunch today so I can keep momentum going. Back in the office and determined to finish this level before 2:30pm!

3:05pm

Well I’m still on the graveyard. I had the sign posts done by 1:25pm and the ambient sounds in by 2:20pm, but I’d forgotten to map down some ‘Height Ignore’ zones for the Ghost Chili Perk, and found a few bugs that needed fixing with the implementation of things (mostly just layers matrix stuff).

I also forgot to add head lamps to the main player prefabs (I’d only been using it on a test character thus far), so did that and wrote some code that turns them on if a player is on this level.

So, so close to finishing it now! Stopping to go and get my daughter from school.

3:50pm

Back in the office and ready to wrap this level up once and for all!

5:30pm

Finally got the graveyard in a fully playable state! It still needs some minor tweaks and refinement, mostly around shaders and how things are displaying in the darkness, but also things like audio balancing, VFX & audio for falling in the swamp water, and a nicer shader for the swamp water too. But it’s in, I’m done! Quite pleased with the results so far. I never did get round to plugging in the next map like I was meant to do today, so I’ll have to make up for lost time next week.

Time to put the events of this week up on the blog!

7pm

Turns out that updating a blog -even when you have all the assets ready to "copy and paste" - takes frigging ages! But the blog is updated, and my week is done.

Time to enjoy the weekend with the family!

Adios amigos!

Signed by my face

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