Game Jam

By Jorge Amengol
Apr 23th, 2018

Description

This is the assignment for the "long-waiting" Game Jam. The Game Jam is the final assignment where students present their knowledge acquired during the GDP post-graduate course and have the chance to showcase the "toolkit" to the public, especially the Game Industry. The submission can be either a full game or a technical demo. However, some restrictions apply:

• Must Incorporate in the project six technical aspects;
• Using a third-party Game Engine such Unity, Unreal etc. is not allowed;

Elevator Pitch

From the Graveyard to the Forest
Revisit one of the most iconic games of the 80's brought to you in an electrifying depict. Fight the undead and beasts as you never seen before.

Description of the Visual Studio Solution

The Visual Studio solution for this assignment has two projects:

• GameEngine_101: The main "Game". This is the Game Engine that has being developed through the GDP course.
• Physics: The implementation of the Physics using the Bullet physics engine. It builds a Physics.lib file to be used in the GameEngine_101 project.
• PhysicsInterfaces: Physics interface used in the GameEngine_101.

How to build and run

1. Open the GameEngine_101.sln solution
2. Choose one x86 configuration (Release preferable).
3. Build the Physics project
4. Build the GameEngine_101 project
5. Run the GameEngine_101 project

The GameEngine_101 project has an include path defined to $(OutDir), meaning that, in case of a rebuild of the Physics project, it will be built in the right place.

Controls

Joystick
The Game starts with a Third-person Camera. To be able to control the character a controller is needed. The Only controller tested with the Game so far was the Xbox X controller. However, any Xbox controller should work fine. The joystick controls are:

• Left Stick - Rotate and move the character
• Right Stick - Rotate the camera
• A - Jump
• X - Slash Attack 1
• Y - Slash Attack 2
• Back/Start - Start (When on the Main Menu)

Free Camera
If Key 1 is pressed the camera changes to Free Camera mode. The controls for this mode are:

• W/S - Move camera back and forth
• A/D - Move camera left and right
• Q/E - Move camera up and down
• Mouse - Changes the camera LookAt

Other keys

• 0 - Change to Free Camera
• 1 - Change to Third-person Camera
• C - Set Day/Night Cycle to STEP/CONTINUOS
• B - Set Physics Debug Renderer mode on/off
• F - Fog mod On/Off
• G with Key Minus (-) and Key Equal (=) - Gama Correction +/-
• N - Next Screen
• M - Mute On/Off
• P - Drop/Get Props

Technical Aspects

Day/Night Cycle and Environment control
Implemented a fully Day/Night cycle with:

• Time of the day control
• Multiple sky maps seamless blending the scene
• Control for the Sun and Moon Light at the right position of the "Dummy Sun/Moon Texture"
• Moon and Sun lights change colours during the cycle to match the colour of the sky
• Shadows that also follows the Sun/Moon position (see next item)

Shadows
Implemented Shadows with transparency (foliage):

• Using Ortho projection, render to a Colour Frame Buffer using the Alpha textures (foliage) of the scene
• Using Ortho projection, render to a Depth Frame Buffer. Discard fragments of the Depth that are in a the alpha threshold
• Implement PCF (percentage-closer filtering) to soft the shadows
• Change the Shadow's camera position for rendering according to the environment control

Multi-layer texture
Implement a multi-layer texture for the ground

• The ground is a blend of 3 textures (with normal maps too)
• A forth texture with different texture coordinates commands the blend between them according its RGB channel. Take a look at the GameEngine_101\assets\textures\Ground_Overlay.bmp to see how it looks like

NPC System
Implemented a NPC system with "Guardians" behaviors

• The NPCs turn to the character correctly
• The NPCs use different attacks depending on the distance from the character

Scene Control
Implement a scene control to handle Menus, Background music and transitions

FOG Effect
Implement a fog effect that fades during the day and increases at night

Deferred Old-film effect and Menus

• Implement and "old-film" effect using a texture displacement combined with a Sepia tone base for the main menu (that is originally coloured). This is a Deferred render

Wave and Fade Menu Effect

• Implement a fade/wave effect at the end of the last screen

Sound Used FMOD to implement BG sounds

Gama Correction
Gama correction implemented to get the colours right

Decals
Some decals with "dirt" textures are places throughout the scene

Normal, Specular and Alpha Maps
The normal + specular + alpha maps were heavily used is the scene and are working fine

Physics
Physics is being driven by Bullet indirectly by a Physics interface

• Implement a debug drawing using a different shader
• Debug drawing is being called from own Bullet's DebugDrawWorld()
• Scene with various objects as convex hulls
• Various objects reacts to the character
• Characters implemented as a regular Bullet capsule

Animation
Several character animations such as walk, run, jump, attacks etc.