- Dialogue - 8 February 2023
Hi there! It’s been a decent while since we got a devlog out, since we’ve been kept busy with playtesting, polish, bug fixes, and general business endeavours. A lot of the things that has happened since last deserves dev logs of their own, to be honest — but today I’m going to talk a little about a subject that is very important to Mechanical Sunset, and really almost any game: dialogue! It has been clear to us from the beginning that Mechanical Sunset will require a fairly advanced system for handling dialogue. Robots in the City should feel alive and responsive, react to the player’s actions, offer advice and hints, and generally behave in a humanrobot-like manner. --- Author: Fredrik "Olaxan" Lind --- A lot of people are familiar with the concept of a dialogue tree: a branching set of character replies, and options for the player to choose between. A dialogue tree allows you to offer…
- Chaos Destruction - 7 February 2023
Hello people! I’m sorry for missing last weeks devlog — this week I got reminded of it. Right now I am working on creating destructible meshes with the new Chaos destruction tool that has been added to Unreal Engine 5. The idea behind having destructible meshes in this case is having throwable and fragile items in the world (maybe a coffee mug, or a window) which you can break. It adds a lot of realism and interaction to a scene! It would also be possible to have larger structures crumble for cinematic effect. --- Author: SImon "Vito" Gustavsson --- Chaos is so cool and satisfying when you get it to work — the keyword here being “when”. There are dozens of settings for each component in the item which need to be tweaked in order for it to feel even slightly realistic. The Chaos destructible meshes are built using something called a “geometry collection” — basically a collection of meshe…
- House & Platform Tools - 6 February 2023
Hey everyone! Welcome back to another devlog! Today we’ll be taking a closer look at some of our level design tools. Lately I’ve been spending time on different Houdini tools, which we implement in our level workflow. The two tools which have received the most attention recently are our house tool and our platform tool. Which both work in a similar fashion, the user of the tool simply adds boxes to the scene, adds the tool to the boxes and then uses the parameters provided by the tool. --- Author: Lukas "Gås" Rabhi Hallner --- Houdini Engine is a plugin which allows you to package a node network from Houdini, expose desired parameters and then bring it over to another software, in the case Unreal Engine. Since the cooking and simulation is handled by Houdini it allows us to use a lot more solvers, functions and methods that wouldn’t be possible in Unreal. A scene comparison before and a…
- Sound Redesign of Fusebox - 3 February 2023
Hello! Hope you all are doing fine! Welcome to another weekly devlog: this time about sound redesign of our current red fusebox! Back in May we exhibited a demo of our game at the Nordsken convention in Skellefteå. From there, we managed to gather some helpful data on several aspects of the game — both on things that worked, and on things that could be improved. Touching upon the latter, one such thing is the tricky part of conveying information to the player regarding the state of an active puzzle (or part of it). An example of this, and what we will talk about in this devlog, is the fusebox. --- Author: Pontus "Sparkles" Andersson --- At the moment our fusebox doesn’t have that many sounds connected to it — which doesn’t aid a players understanding of what’s going on and what they have to do. Thus, the aim of this redesign is both to improve on the feedback given to the player, as wel…
- Making a Scene - 2 February 2023
Hiya folks! TGIF. For the next 15 or so minutes I thought I’d share with you the gist of our current level design process. Or should that be environment design? The scene I’ll put together isn’t very thought-out from a level design perspective, but mostly intended to look good and carry that “Mech-Sun feeling.” We currently work “Dallas style”, meaning I do most everything related to putting together a level — from blocking out the basic route, to ensuring it looks good and pleasantly cluttered; to optimization, level streaming, and collision. It can be a fair bit of workload, but also fairly liberating. --- Author: Fredrik "Olaxan" Lind --- Blackest Blackness This is a completely empty scene in Unreal. Absent of light, skybox, post processing, birds, clouds, and joy. We’ll throw a boring directional light in there and call it a day. I’ll turn off auto-exposure too (using an unbound pos…
- Inverse Kinematics - 1 February 2023
Another week another devlog! This week has so far been a bit rough for myself as I have been struggling with the subject at hand, Inverse Kinematics(IK)! This and last week I have been getting into IK which stands for Inverse Kinematics. IK in this case refers to the calculating of skeleton joint parameters(location, rotation) needed for placing a joint in the right place depending on the skeleton’s surroundings(for example a hand and arm). That said, the mathematics behind IK can get very confusing. Luckily, using Unreal Engine, we don’t really have to care about what is going on inside the engine — however, some difficulties remained. The IK built in to unreal engine is very simple, which is very good thing for most use cases as the threshold for who can use it becomes lower, in my case however this lead me down a rabbit hole. --- Author: SImon "Vito" Gustavsson --- Using IK in unreal…
- Concept Art - 31 January 2023
Howdy! Hope you’re ready for the weekend (where applicable) — I am! But before that, stay tuned for a devlog which, this week, will be about concept art. Concept art is crucial for getting an idea across from my mind to Gås’ modelling prowess, as well as for planning regions and level design ahead; so that the rough layout of various levels will be known in advance, before getting stuck in with Unreal. --- Author: Fredrik "Olaxan" Lind --- We need concept art for a lot of things, actually; from robots, to regions, to buildings and general atmosphere. Here’s three recent pieces showcasing a different architectural vibe than the red cottages we’re used to seeing. We want these buildings to look like they’re built from scrap metal, which makes sense for our setting — while also feeling a bit familiar, like an RV, or a shoddy house extension one might have seen. Our game should feel cozy wh…
- Sounds of Footsteps - 30 January 2023
Hello everyone! It's time for another weekly devlog update, this time about footsteps and sound! But first, we know, we missed a week. We had our hopes up for our little Gumlin. We really did. But, unfortunately, it had found its way into a big supply of hallonbåtar, devoured them, and then dozed of for the rest of the week. Hopefully it has learned a lesson and next time it will actually deliver on that blog post. But let's return to the real update! --- Author: Pontus "Sparkles" Andersson --- SO, footstep sounds, something that can be very important for a video game depending on the genre and usage area. In many FPS games they give spatial cues about other characters location, which in many cases is a tactical advantage. Another example, as in our case, is that particular footstep sound can help with establishing the physical presence of the player's character in the game world. This…
- Errors, Packaging & Pain - 27 January 2023
A week fraught with hardship and frustration. Battling deadlines and the very essence of Unreal Engine 5 itself… But now, devlog time! --- Author: Carl "Floof" Appelkvist --- Hello everyone, this is a continuation of our new weekly devlogs. This week it’s my turn at the helm. My main focus this week has been fixing some pesky packaging issues with our game. We use a couple of plugins to aid in the production of Mechanical Sunset. We use FMOD for audio, Houdini for the creation of sick tools like our ivy tool and snow tool (check last weeks devlog) but none has been as problematic as Geometry Scripting. We use Geometry Scripting for our procedural machine walls and it’s an excellent plugin, when in the editor. Now, the hard part comes when trying to package the game for runtime (i.e taking the project files and turning them into the standalone game) as editor only plugins are not support…
- Devlog: Chaos Destruction - 28 October 2022
Hello people! I'm sorry for missing last weeks devlog — this week I got reminded of it 😄 Right now I am working on creating destructible meshes with the new Chaos destruction tool that has been added to Unreal Engine 5. The idea behind having destructible meshes in this case is having throwable and fragile items in the world (maybe a coffee mug, or a window) which you can break. It adds a lot of realism and interaction to a scene! It would also be possible to have larger structures crumble for cinematic effect. Chaos is so cool and satisfying when you get it to work — the keyword here being "when". 🙂 There are dozens of settings for each component in the item which need to be tweaked in order for it to feel even slightly realistic. The Chaos destructible meshes are built using something called a "geometry collection" — basically a collection of meshes. You then take a mesh and create…
- Devlog, House & Platform Tools - 13 October 2022
Hey everyone! Welcome to our first devlog plublished on Steam! This is actually devlog #15, so if you want to read our previous ones, join our community discord! https://discord.gg/9dGM4GT86A In this weekly devlog we talk about our level design tools and how we make and use them! Lately I’ve been spending time on different Houdini tools, which we implement in our level workflow. The two tools which have received the most attention recently are our house tool and our platform tool. Which both work in a similar fashion, the user of the tool simply adds boxes to the scene, adds the tool to the boxes and then uses the parameters provided by the tool. Houdini Engine is a plugin which allows you to package a node network from Houdini, expose desired parameters and then bring it over to another software, in the case Unreal Engine. Since the cooking and simulation is handled by Houdini it allow…
