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level design various points of view?

Development Discussion Content Creation
#1

hi

i am about to start working on a game, and i firstly am not sure whether to do it in unreal or unity, i do have both of the programs and subscriptions

now a few things i would like to clear up if you guys can help me out

the game i am making is going to incorporate various views for different aspect of the game/levels with both top down view in a 2d style

as well as third person view looking down at the level for certain aspect of the game

firstly i would like to know if this is possible because i can see that when choosing to create levels you get given a choice of the various views, and if you do go ahead with them does that make it written in stone as to the game view

so that if i design a level i am not able to view t in any other view except the view in which i started in

second question i have

i am coming from a programming background and i will be working with an artist for my character designs, terrain, architecture, etc

so i would like to know which of the two engines is more programmer orientated with more freedom given to the programmer

for example i can see that in unity when creating classes they start not from a constructor but rather from a Start() method and there is an update() method and other such methods, which to me feels as if it is very constricted

however UNREAL seems to have a different and much more programmer orientated approach(it seems so far unless i stand to be corrected and perhaps it also is similar to unity) i can see also in unity that you have to attach a rigid body class/object in order so that the physics engine can access it and manipulate it

i imagine similar case will be with unreal, but i have not looked into the details of it except they have an actor class which again feels as if it has more freedom to it

so anyhow if you guys can help me out here and inform me about the differences and which one favors the programmer

the more attention to detail and the more control the programmer has in the script/programming i feel is the more open engine

so please if you can kindly give me your experience and understanding of the subjects in question

cheers

#2

Camera

Hi

“the game i am making is going to incorporate various views for different aspect of the game/levels with both top down view in a 2d style”

Problem with 2d are mostly just made of flat sprites. So have no thickness, UE4 can make a 3d Side scroller, where top down would work fine.

Changing camera is possible. Just make the blueprint change the camera you are using.

Camera feeds are also possible and easy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWRkM-95k2I

Cut Scene

https://youtube.com/watch?v=mrCEtE5RnHw

Also here are some basics about cameras : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7OpsBgBjeGKZrRUFMgfEXLuXoGNbj9cN

Many many more tutorial available for cameras

Narg

#3

Well from the content side of things UE4 is the logical choice due to the availability of constructor type blueprints. Most blueprints already contain a lot of data driven variables that once wired in as part of code can be continued to be worked on by the content creators as to making it game ready. A character blueprint for example can start out with a simple stick man with default settings as to movement and physics control giving the coder something to work with and over time the art asset can be developed as to design specifications. In most situations I found that there is no need for one to catch up with the other if a basic requirement is in place and most times a ready made template is more than enough to get things started.

#4

thank you for the response

also i would like to ask you

if i wanted to load an entire different level which is for example in a different view style

so if i have a base game in top down third person view

and then say i wanted to change the level to enter a mini game inside the game and in the process also change the view so that its 2d top down and completely load an entire different level and unload the current level etc and once that mini game is over load back tot he original base game view

is this possible?

#5

My game is primarily a third-person action game, which also switches heavily to TPS… And there are also zones where it switches to a 2D sidescroller and also a top-down shooter thing.

I actually do this by defining zones with special behavior that cast to the character BP when he overlaps with them to convert his movements and camera to 2D. It’s not EASY but it’s quite doable. Basically, you set the character to Constrain Movement to Plane and set the plane normal to 0,0,0 (which disables constraints). When the player enters the zone, the zone casts its defined normal and origin to the player and Sets the planar constraint values. It also fires a timeline which lerps the player cam to the sidescroll view, and flips a bool flag for Is2D which branches Input Events to a separate logic which makes controls work differently.

I do a similar thing with my top-down zones (though the player must enter them while dashing for the effect to fire).

Once you’ve established the behavior of this zone as a BP, it’s pretty trivial to add it to the level in many places where you want to temporarily switch the game’s control system.