I have the platform broke in 9 different pieces that I unhide with a random time between them and when all the pieces are revealed I hide them and unhide the full (intact) version.
As for the flash, that’s just the bloom picking up on the emissive material from the inside part of the pieces.
Hope it makes sense 
later edit: btw the environment is fully 3d
Haha, nice one I always think there has to be fancy ways to do stuff but thats a great solution, is this desktop only? (thinking about drawcalls)
Yep, desktop and who knows if turns good hopefully next gen consoles as well. Developing for mobile involves so many extra - time consuming - steps that I’m not sure its worth the effort. Unfortunately it’s almost impossible for premium apps/games to make a profit on mobile these days.
The 1st implementation for props that can be pushed and dragged - not pretty without animation support but it works.
I tried different approaches, starting with physics objects that quickly proved too unstable, to pawns that lacked gravity and finally settling on using a character for the props that can be pushed/pulled - they are stable (don’t tip over), react to gravity and can go over small obstacles like buttons.
And while their physics is not accurate in this case I prefer stability over looks.
The player character speed can be affected by the props that he needs to push/pull, so for heavier props he will move slower.
fullsize:
A quick video about how to create a procedural starfield in Houdini.
This video is intended for people that are new to Houdini, if you’re already familiar with the software you’ll find it quite basic. The scope is to show the advantages of a procedural workflow that offers a high degree of flexibility and since Houdini just launched the indie version for just 199USD/Year I recommend to take a closer look at it’s capabilities: http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2853&Itemid=66
Recently I needed to create a star-field for a pet project of mine - the starts needed to have a stylized look and a parallax effect between them so basically it needed to be a 3d mesh.
fullsize: Procedural Starfield in Houdini on Vimeo
[=;115397]
A quick video about how to create a procedural starfield in Houdini.
This video is intended for people that are new to Houdini, if you’re already familiar with the software you’ll find it quite basic. The scope is to show the advantages of a procedural workflow that offers a high degree of flexibility and since Houdini just launched the indie version for just 199USD/Year I recommend to take a closer look at it’s capabilities: http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2853&Itemid=66
Recently I needed to create a star-field for a pet project of mine - the starts needed to have a stylized look and a parallax effect between them so basically it needed to be a 3d mesh.
fullsize: Procedural Starfield in Houdini on Vimeo
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Pretty cool, I was unfamiliar wit Houdini until now. Would UE4 integration be simlar to just bringing in a mesh?
Yep, Houdini can export fbx files in two ways: from the file/export fbx menu similar to other 3d apps or you can use a Geometry Render Operator (node) that offers a lot more flexibility since it can be part of a network and supports expressions.
I guess when releasedHoudini Engine for Unrealcould a good alternative to the fbx format - if I understood correctly (haven’t followed the development too close) I would be able to bring inside Unreal the entire startfield system and tweak there all the parameters like changing the volume, number or stars or even replace the stars with actors that I created in Unreal. So in theory this should allow for a lot of flexibility and interactivity directly inside Unreal, eliminating the need to constantly export/import fbx’s when doing iterations.
And honestly, as indie devs with limited resources to produce assets having access to a procedural and flexible pipeline can be a huge time saver so I’m really looking forward to see how Houdini Engine will turn out
Looks great, love the style and it reminds me a bit of ‘Another World’ type game play / logic problem solving wise. Look forward to future updates
Thank you xrouter!
The beam particles are my new favorite toy as you can see in the Mechanical Platform implementation - probably I over done it a bit but they look so cool 
This looks fantastic! Your lighting is incredible! I especially like how you lit the character. Do you think you could share some thoughts on how you achieved your lighting on the character?
Hi Syntaks,
Glad you like it - lighting is often overlooked in videogames development but it’s super important and I’ll probably tweak the values until the end of the project.
In this case I’m taking advantage of the side-scroller perspective - I know this is the only angle the player will see the game so I’m focusing mostly on the left and right rimlight.
I have two directional lights - one for the sun and one for the lightshafts. The light used for the lightshafts has a slightly different angle compared with the one used for the sun so I can force the lightshafts in the scene. The color of these lights are controlled by the Day/Night Cycle Actor.
In addition to the two directional lights, every material has an emissive color from the left and another one from the right (rimlights) - this two colors are also controlled by the Day/Night Cycle Actor using the Timeline and a color variable - and they have a greater impact on the scene look than the two real lights.
Hope makes sense
Lately it’s been quite busy at my job so I didn’t had much time for my pet projects. I managed however to start working on the portals - used to teleport the player and other close objects between dimensions.
The portals have 2 states:
Wow…The portal effect looks amazing and your art style is very pleasing to look at, and the Unity gameplay already looks great so I am sure in Unreal it will look even better. Great job!
I agree with vitaliy 100%. The portal effect looks fantastic! I have been watching this thread closely and, with all of the updates that you have been provided, I have been very, very impressed. Keep up the great work and can’t wait for the next update!
Love the portal! Super smooth, overall great effect
Thanks a bunch guys, glad you like it.
Hopefully by the end of September I’ll be able to show a longer gameplay video
I have only just found this thread. I have read through it all, watched every video and I must say, I love what you have done so far. However, I am very disappointed that there isn’t anything else to read or to watch! I felt very sad when I realised that I had seen everything in the thread! I need more!
Cheers
Jay.
Haha that’s sweet of you to say Unfamillia - I’ll try to update this thread as often as possible
From the moment I started working on this project I wanted to add clouds but I kept pushing back the task because I feared it would take too long time to find a matching style. Also, before rebooting the project in UE4 there was only night time and the stars were doing a good job filling the empty sky.
But now with the day/night cycle I needed something on the sky during day time as well so I started working on the clouds. I quickly tried some stylized / hard edges shapes and while they didn’t looked bad they pushed the entire image a bit too much towards a vector look that I’m trying to avoid - I find it too tiresome on the eyes and it can become boring after a while.
So reluctantly I rendered some more realistic/fluffy clouds in Houdini and to my surprise they actually complement the hard edge environment quite well - I’m still not happy with the overall ratio between hard and soft looking props but with time more soft effects will be made so hopefully in the end the game will have an unique art-style.
Here are a few screenshots with the clouds during different time of day:
http://www…com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/GrowingUp_31-08-14_01.png
http://www…com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/GrowingUp_31-08-14_02.png
http://www…com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/GrowingUp_31-08-14_03.png
http://www…com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/GrowingUp_31-08-14_04.png
http://www…com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/GrowingUp_31-08-14_05.png
And here is how the clouds textures look - inspired by an old “relight in comp” trick I used back when working in post-production:
http://www…com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/GrowingUp_31-08-14_cloudsrender.png
The idea is very simple: render the 3d object using 3 light colors: one pure Red, one pure Green and another pure Blue. In this case I have the Red and the Green light acting as strong rim-lights (Right and Left) and the Blue light as a general weaker rim-light. Then in Unreal I separate the RGB components and I use them as masks to drive the color changes during the day/night cycle.
I’ll try to post a video tomorrow showing how the clouds react to the sky changes.
Awesome method! I like that a lot. Looking forward to the vid.