Singmetosleep (atmospheric exploration narrative protoype)

S I N G M E T O S L E E P

website | playable prototype | videos | twitter @acatalept

Your name means
“song of remembrance…”

You are our memory,
the memory of a dying world,
a world that lost its way.

The world around you
is so very big,
and you, you, my child,
are so very small.

singmetosleep is an atmospheric,
exploration-based interactive narrative.

Vast minimalist forms, a stark color palette,
and an evocative soundscape.

There are no real monsters.

Not really.

Download playable prototype (May 4th, 2014) – with optional Rift DK1 support – from itch.io!

Updated prototype with Rift DK2 support coming soon!

story details

singmetosleep website

follow @acatalept on twitter

Some kind words from those who’ve played the prototype:

Indie Impressions video preview

Kill Screen Daily

Alpha Beta Gamer

Warp Door

Game Sphere

Zockah.de

VIDEOS

2015/02/28: minimalist soundscape:

2015/01/31: alternate visuals without dynamic lighting:

2014/10/17: realtime global illumination (LPV) and soft shadows (DLSS):

2014/09/18: ArchViz flythrough:

2014/04/29: early Oculus Rift walkthrough:

2014/04/16: early exploration:

website | playable prototype | videos | twitter @acatalept

I’m new to UE4 (coming from Unity), but I’m very impressed with the tools and workflow. And of course the out-of-the-box visuals (for a non-artist like myself) are just incredible…

Wow, it’s really coming together in the second video :slight_smile: Keep us posted!

I have to say, this is probably one of my favorite things I have seen in UE4 yet. Everyone gravitates to the usual fps, 3rd person, sidescroller, or flying game. Most of them are spawned because the developers were inspired by something they played or a game series they enjoyed. (Not saying this is terrible), however it causes a “stale” monotonous repetition that can get discouraging. Unique games don’t really come out anymore. But I have to say, it looks like you might be on to something very unique :slight_smile:

BRAVO!

Looking great, the atmosphere in the second video is very nice. Will be keeping an eye on this.

Looks awesome - that kind of desolate snowy atmosphere is something i’m trying to achieve myself (I’ve only had the engine for a couple of days thought, and a few hours to play with it - hoping to get some real time with it soon)

This is pretty neat I like it. keep at it. :slight_smile:

Do you use atmospheric fog with a density gradient in order to achieve that foggy look at the edge of the terrain?

Amazing and unique. I’ll be following this project. Love the 2001: Space Odyssey Influences.

Cool stuff man, that second video has a lot of atmosphere. The sound adds so much!

Looking great!

Thank you all for the compliments! I’ll continue to post as I progress.

I’ll post the exact details when I next get a chance to sit down and crack open the project. I do remember spending a lot of time playing with a combination of atmospheric fog and exponential height fog to get where it is now, and it’s still not totally obscuring very distant objects/scenery (which is my goal).

fantastic! Looks super creepy and intriguing. Kept expecting a slenderman or something to scare the banana pudding outta me.

Alrighty im looking forward to that post.

Regarding the fog settings, I was misremembering: as it turns out, I had high hopes for atmospheric fog giving me a sort of “distance haze” as shown in the image at the top of this page: https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Actors/FogEffects/AtmosphericFog/index.html

But after a lot of experimentation I could not get more than a negligible effect. As it turns out, I’m currently only using an Exponential Height Fog. And even with this, I spent a lot of time playing with the Height Falloff, Max Opacity, and Start Distance, and ultimately left these at default, instead simply jacking the density up to 1.0 and dropping the fog actor way below (-25000) my ground plane to get the current look:


Like I said, I still aim to have scenery/objects beyond a certain threshold gradually disappear completely into some sort of fog, but I haven’t found a way yet.

Perhaps using a depth buffer that effects the alpha of objects in the distance?

Someone asked for details on the camera shake implementation - I got started with this post: https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/11025/camera-shake-question.html

First I created a new Blueprint based off the CameraShake class, and changed a few values in the Defaults:

I compiled and saved that blueprint (as “BP_CameraShake” which we’ll need to reference in a later step).

Then I opened my “MyCharacter” blueprint (this is created automatically with a New Project based off the Blueprint First Person template), and created a “Play World Camera Shake” node to be triggered on Event Tick, with the “Shake” input dropdown set to my “BP_CameraShake” blueprint I created earlier, the Epicenter input set to my current player location, and the Falloff input set to a range based on whether the player was moving or stationary (since I want a more exaggerated shake while moving, but still a small “baseline” shake while standing still).

Coming up with the right Falloff is a little complicated, since it seems to adjust the curve that scales the BP_CameraShake class’s values based on the distance from the Epicenter to the camera you wish to affect, where Inner Radius is 100% shake, and Outer Radius is 0% shake. In my case, my Epicenter is always set to the center of my player’s collision capsule (the location returned by the Get Actor Location node), and my camera is vertically offset from this point by 64. Again, this is the default setup when using the Blueprint First person template when creating a new project:

I’m definitely not doing this optimally ;), but considering my target camera is 64 units from the Epicenter, and I’m using an Inner Radius of 0, and an Outer Radius of 150, my shake is always scaled to roughly the middle of the curve defined by Falloff (100 / 150 * 64 = 42%). Where this falls on the curve I haven’t really visualized, but I get pretty close to desired results (using the above Camera Shake class values) by generating a Falloff range of 1.0 - 3.5, where the lower Falloff value (1.0) is more shake, and the higher Falloff value (3.5) is less shake. When I don’t offset the Falloff input by 1 (instead generating a range of 0.0 - 2.5), I get pretty strong shake both moving and at rest, and not as much difference between the two. And when I get a Falloff input a little higher (say 4.0 or so), the shake disappears completely.

Here’s my camera shake setup inside my “MyCharacter” blueprint, running on every Event Tick:

I’ve created the variables MoveForward, MoveRight, MouseTurn, and MouseLookUp, which are used here as modifiers to create a Falloff input for the camera shake. These are set by modifying the pre-existing Input sections of the “MyCharacter” blueprint to save the mouse and movement inputs to these variables:

Sorry for my completely hopeless lack of math skills, but I continue to be amazed at how much I can accomplish with blueprints alone. Hope this helps!

You, Sir, are the best!

Hacking suggestion.

I can see that the Exponential Height Fog has both a location and a rotation…

Could you fix it to your camera so to speak? so it twists and turns with your camera… so instead of looking at the fog in a horizontal way, you’d lay the fog component down… and look at it from the top, rotating and moving it with your camera etc.

This is absolutely amazing. First thing I thought when I saw the second video was “OCULUS RIFT EXPLORATION GAME!”

The atmosphere just screams at me, I love it.