I finally decided it was time to talk a bit about my game. Maybe some of you are already aware of it. I never been very active on the EpicGames forum when I was using the UDK (I was quite busy). I hope to fix that now that I’m using and porting my game to the UE4 !
Quick Story (might change) :
Lena is a young woman who has committed suicide. She wakes up deep inside the dead’s world. Disoriented, alone and without any memories before her death, Lena run around the lonely world under her feet. A voice seems to know more about her than she actually do. The voice propose his help to find the right path to the answers of her questions and a way to get back her memories.
Gameplay :
EXIL is an acrobatic game where you can do specific actions to solve puzzles and access parts of the world that were unreachable normally. The universe and the gameplay will allow interactions and exploration of a giant environment in all three dimensions (with depth, verticality, and so on).
Core gameplay features :
[In development] Procedural Parkour system (wallrun/ledge climbing based on automatic detections, no level design restrictions)
[In development] Puzzles and objects interactions (wall, doors, sand/liquids)
[Planned] Monster/Colossi climbing system
[Planned] Multiple gravity (wallwalking)
[Planned] Oculus Rift support
Dev-Blog posts :
(Warning : some links are not safe for watching)
[UDK] Dev-Blog 1 : “Physics in UDK and Colossus” : http://www…fr/blog/2012-02-exil-dev-blog-1-physics-in-udk-and-colossus
[UDK] Dev-Blog 2 : “Physics and Concept Art” : http://www…fr/blog/2012-03-exil-dev-blog-2-physics-and-concept-art
[UDK] Dev-Blog 3 : “Movable ledge and specific AO Maps” : http://www…fr/blog/2012-06-exil-dev-blog-3-movable-ledges-and-specific-ao-maps
[UDK] Dev-Blog 4 : “Roll, Jump and Menu” : http://www…fr/blog/2012-07-exil-dev-blog-4-roll-jump-and-menu
I had some very basic features in UDK with it : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0cZeJ6Ebvg&list=UURsVot5_0sWP08JeF7PXfvw (the climbing points were sort of “hardcoded” and I was using a console command to attach the player on the colossus).
Currently in my UE4 version you can’t. Since I’m still working on the normal climbing system, I would like to finish it first for then later work on top of it to support the monsters (I ty to be modular and as clean as possible, in UDK I rewrote my code something like 3 times). There is also a lot of design that I need to do for that (such has how can I generate a grid to decide where the player can climb on the monster ?). I have some ideas but I need to do some research.
Yeah, my team will have to do the same thing in UE4 for a future game, I was thinking of just using traces and attaching the player at whatever normal the trace hits. I cant imagine that bieng very reliable though and probably buggy, maybe a mixture of fixed points and some free areas will work. I can imagine climbing where a joint bends will be buggy. Shadow of the Colossus might be good reference.
On my side I was thinking about checking the nearest vertex regarding the current player position to compute a bunch of points. This way I would also get the vertex normal. Also using vertex colors to decide where the player can climb or not. Maybe computing additional point in the middle of the triangles with an averaged normal (only in case I see I don’t have enough precisions with vertices only, see what can append with stretching of the skinning). My biggest fear is the collisions. From what I have read here and there, it seems a collisions system based on a low-poly skeletal mesh will be possible (which is exactly what Shadow of the Colossus did).
The problem with just a trace is that you need to keep a location when the player is not moving. In UDK I was using sockets, but adding them manually was… painful. The UI was not designed for that.
Got to agree with Chance 100% on this one. That dissolve effect looks fantastic. I can’t wait to see what else you have in store for your project. Keep up the great work!
I don’t have much to show as I spent a lot of the last few days working on my own rigging tool (mostly updating some parts and converting Lena to the UE4 scale). The most time consuming was to create a non-destructive face poser to be able to update any facial animation later on. I also took the time to analyze some other game rigs to improve my skeleton setup. So It was a bit long in the end, but totally worth it. It’s done so I was able to re-import the improved version of Lena. I still have some shaders and textures to recreate however.
I have also added my old code that I was using during the beta that create some random eyelids blinking : Vine
You can see below the new head of Lena now integrated in the game, I also imported her new outfit.
Bonus : some bug with the shadows, not sure why my physics asset behave like this on the body.
Awesome upgrade in the character model…and that’s without textures yet which I imagine will look great due to your experience with Substance…(I’m guessing there)…
Looking good!!!
Some little progress. I started doing some advanced shaders.
I finished the eyes (until one day I woke up and want to add something) and I will soon go over the skin of Lena (I plan some complex blending and opacity effects).
This looks amazing! I really like the procedural parkour idea, though it sounds challenging, I hope you pull it off
FYI, I came across Exil a while back on IndieDB: http://www.indiedb.com/games/exil and those environment shots look great, reminds me (in a good way) a bit of Andrew Yoder’s Hubris or some of the desert areas in NaissanceE, or even some of the indoor parts of Journey.
Is this project still in progress? I’d love to see more…
Thanks for the comment ! The names you mentioned are all part of my references (and much more).
The project is still in progress. I’m working on a cinematic that I want to keep as a surprise. However with my daily job it’s sometimes a bit hard to work as much I want on the project. So that’s why I didn’t show much lately. Hopefully after the GDC I should be able to post the video. For the moment I’m in crunch mode.
Now that I’m back from GDC I’m able to focus again on EXIL.
I was able to re-tweak a bit my main character (Lena) and finish some textures in Substance Painter. I’m now refining some animations for the cinematic. I plan to release it by the end of the month. Hopefully with some gameplay with it too.
