I am looking for people to give me a quote ($) via PM on how much it would cost if a person would work on my project completing various small tasks Generally, the tasks are not hugely demanding and as far as I can tell do not require C++ as they can be made with blueprints. Many of them are akin to Unreal starter example content. Basic 3D modeling skills are required to fix lightmap issues on existing models. Besides that, no other skills are required.
The list of work that needs to be done is clarified below:
Tweak existing Game Menu and add “control master volume” option. [Note: we have a functioning menu that only requires tweaking and testing and the addition of control master volume option and testing.
When player presses ESC, opens a menu with a Continue, Save / Load and Quit feature [This can be based on the a functional, existing menu we have!]. Just needs to be tested and implemented. Same menu should also open when player dies as “death menu” (without Save option naturally).
Simple random mission structure (the game selects mission based on predefined random chance). The random mission structure can lead to two different types of missions: repeated missions OR to a missions which can occur only once per game (of which each has an equal random chance.
Implement simple drone (please note! this can be based entirely on the Example Content alien ship which is used to pick up cows example with the exception that in the game it would be on 1st person view).
Implement a mission for drone where it has to drop objects or shoot water on plants / or on an area for few seconds (effect for this is already available).
Implement roughly 7-9 predefined simple missions on a level. These involve, cleaning a wall / floor, hunting a flying bug, watering plants, putting out a fire or similar “simple missions”. All models and levels are made or in any case do not require making per se. This would have to be tied to the third task of making a random missions structure (non repeatable missions take place on different levels which are done and require no work form you). // I understand this is somewhat vague so you can give a rough estimate, extensive details will be provided.
Make a computer within the game.
When the player uses the computer, the camera concentrates on the computer.
Within the computer, player can type, scroll and choose through options which can trigger external actions. The computer can also display simple images. Computer model is ready in the game. This will be used a lot in the game and with many many variations, hence it should be “dev friendly”. You can create just one computer actor that has example of all these functions working, then I will edit them for all levels with the example as guide.
Make a simple letter and book system within the game.
The player can scroll through pages of a book or hold a postcard for example to examine them more closely.
Make a very simple inventory system. The game has no UI so the items are just displayed in front of the player in his hands. The player can switch between the objects but only one is “in hands” at a time.
There are only few objects within the game so this system can be rather simplified. As of today the player has no model so I am not sure how to implement that the object appears in hand. Maybe it can just appear in front of player on lower right ieg. This is used only with few objects.
Correct lightmaps on several 3d models.
No modelling required, only correcting.
Create a gravity system for one level where gravity is draws towards spherical planet like object. This should also pan the players camera so it stays same regardless of the player characters angle which too would have to turn according to the gravity.
Create footstep sound fx system roughly for 4 or 5 different material types. All sounds will be available, only the system needs to be made.
Optimize support for virtual reality headset. Add menu option to adjust settings for VR goggles if necessary.
Make so that the one game level serves as a “hub level” where from the special random mission levels are accessed. When player enters one, the main level has to be saved as it is and then loaded when player re-enters it after exiting the hub level.
All the tasks can be done “as is” so no extensive testing is required, this will be done by us. They just need to work as explained in these requirements (only exception that requires testing are the simple missions which will be explained in greater detail.) There will also be some more paid tasks for you which will be discussed later once these are completed.
This is going to be the most difficult task. I don’t think the game allows changing the direction of gravity according to the shape of an object. Even simple tasks like some of the other ones you mentioned can become difficult if you only have one person handling all of them. I’ve been building a dynamic footprint system for years now, and it’s still not exactly at the level where I want it to be. It can take one person about a year to program everything you’re asking for and make it polished enough for a game. The ambition and size of the game will vary the amount of work that needs to be done greatly. A book system, for instance, would require automatically wrapping text to multiple pages, and I don’t think UE4 is capable of this by nature. A custom setup might have to be used for each book.
Just don’t be surprised if people give you figures in the 10-20k range to do all of this. It takes a lot of work.
Although it was initially scheduled for April and got pushed back to May, and I still haven’t heard anything about it. Waiting eagerly myself.
But yeah, this is a phenomenal amount of work for that system, I’ve looked into it in the past. UE4 is bound to it’s movement plane, not just the movement of the character itself but everything else like physics.
Just to let OP know he’s not completely out of luck depending on Epic’s schedule.
The drone is easy, UMG menus are super easy, footstep FX with physical materials are easy (unless you’re trying to use the hit normal to align the decal, something I was unable to accomplish after years of experimentation), missions are easy (depending on complexity: SM64 “missions” are very easy, something that would actually restructure and change the level design might be more difficult), lightmaps are easy, the computer may be more difficult, inventory system can be more difficult, the books will definitely be difficult, and the gravity system might actually be impossible.
It should be said it took Nintendo and its team of expert programmers YEARS to create the gravity engine used for Super Mario Galaxy. The early versions of the spherical gravity engine actually began with Twilight Princess, allowing players to walk around walls. It was more difficult to let players run and jump from planet to planet. The gravity system works not only with the player character, but with AI, projectiles, the camera, boss fights, and physical objects as well, for everything from land-based navigation to swimming and flying and even (I can’t even begin to wrap my head around how they did this) a dynamic platform-spawning ice power-up with a hexagon configuration that also follows the curvature of the surface. What?! If this spherical gravity thing was easy, there would be a lot more games with it. But I can count on one hand the games that don’t even have a fraction of the features SMG’s gravity system has, made by excellent teams of programmers, and many of them are well-known for just being terrible. Metroid Prime and Twilight Princess have very rudimentary tracks, Sonic Adventure 2 is infamous for how buggy the implementation is in Mad Space, Ratchet and Clank has a lot of limitations with the gravity system (can’t jump), some shoot 'em ups have round worlds but are constrained to the surface of the sphere.
Only Super Mario Galaxy made spherical gravity work properly in a good physics engine for a polished game. I would not attempt this until after Epic finishes their internal solution, which could take months, if not years to perfect. I’ve seen that Trello card for over a year. Nothing has been done on it so far. I’d be surprised if Epic actually finished it this month.