UI elements and never ending polish
With us now looking to build in a nice tutorial area for preliminary outside play testing, I decided to have a go at blueprinting out dynamic control GUI elements that would fade up and down based on player proximity as well as be able to switch out sprites depending on platform being used (such as Xbox, PS4 or PC). Now I’m a pixel pusher by trade and logic always makes me cry but I was quite surprised how easy it was for me to thump this out and I was quite pleased with the results.
http://i.imgur./Kve8grR.gif
I’m only so far along with it but the platform switching can be done within the blueprint via a simple variable so I’m assuming the code types in our team will be able to call that from a menu/option setup when the player decides what control system they are using and the game will adapt automatically. It will also eventually need to handles redefining the controls so it displays the appropriate button/key for the set action, but that’s beyond the scope of what we need for the initial demo (and perhaps my abilities)!
In other developments, I have always been a bit miffed that the dawn and sunset images worked so well and were far more interesting to look at (even though they are background visuals and shouldn’t really be distracting the player) than the night scene was, it came off as far more flat and dull. With this in mind, I went back to it and decided to give it a new lick of paint. I searched around the internet for ideas of how to make night scenes a bit more interesting and dynamic and looked to the sunset/dawn scenes already done as well. The strong light source is what really let me make parts of the scene pop out so I decided it’s a clear enough night time, why not have the full moon bounce a lot more light down to the mountainside below and pick up more detail of the rivers and city in the background.
http://i.imgur./dihAwJ2.gif
It didn’t take too long to switch it up, I’m fairly happy with the results and it’s another step in the right direction. Its only subtle changes from the old version for the most part and it may be touched up again in the future but for now we have plenty more to be getting on with. As usual, any criticism, questions or feedback are welcome.