INCOMING UPDATE NEWS:
I’ve been away for couple weeks, ton of work as usually. I sidetracked a bit and reworked melee attacks system. As usual - I thought it will take much less time. It is just animation swap right? Not exactly… I wanted to do it systemic and scalable, as less logic invasive as possible. On the go I decided to extend it with combo attacks feature, where you can add as many attacks as you like, without touching blueprints. On top of that, I reanimated all animations for melee attacks. I had animations from motion capture, from animators… but after putting them in game, they didn’t look good.
So I paid for them and I had to redo them anyway… All of this took about 2 weeks (mainly weekends). Would be much faster if I would not have to reanimate stuff. So it was fairly quick. This is good example of well designed feature, where implementation is in blueprints straight forward and when I’m focused. Similar like previous mechanics, settings and definitions are exposed to anim data, so you can change/add new attacks/animations without blueprint compiling, even without turning off the game. This data asset can be set per character. Additionally I made data asset for melee impacts itself, so when character is hitting wall, then different particle and sound can be spawned then hitting flesh.
What’s new:
Melee system redesign: Now melee new melee attacks can be easily added and changed even during runtime. Attacks can be assigned per weapon grip type.
New combo system: User can make combo with various amounts of attacks without changing any logic, also working on runtime.
New melee attacks - strong punch, 3 hit combo, sprint flying kick
I have some important news regarding production of big update for TPS Kit.
I will split this big update into 2 phases. This project is massive. I didn’t think it would take me so much time to finish it. It is pretty much like making full game, if not more, since I need to make systems for various scenarios.
Also my colleagues who are helping me, recommended this.
Looks like I will have to invest even more money into it (I lost count but I guess now it is around $14000 in assets alone and growing) so one reason is to get some of that money back and earn for more assets/hire more people, get some help.
I plan to split production this way:
Phase A aka TPS Kit v2 : Release it with what I have now, plus with updated animations to current features that are in TPS Kit. Additionally before release, I want to share free playable packaged demo version with some example level for everyone to play, give feedback, report any bugs etc. Demo would be released no sooner than in second half of June and update released no sooner than in second half of July. It will include everything what’s green in road map plus:
Jumping rework – including fall damage and roll, since it is big part of jumping already
Camera system update
Finished cover system – everything from that section except spline cover and cover slip
Refactors – explosive barrel, turret, surveillance camera – shooting and damaging changed, I have new models, current version doesn’t work anymore, so it needs revision
Ladder – partial rework – animation update, movement based on root motion, entry from jumping
AI anim BP rework – this need to be done, to support new shooting logic
New animations, sounds, weapon models, VFX
Example demo level, done with basic models (whitebox)
Price would go up after release. Free for current owners of TPS Kit.
Phase B aka TPS Kit v3: Everything else from road map, including new demo level. Similarly, free demo for try before release. Price would go up again. Free for current owners of TPS Kit. Release date TBD.
UPDATE NEWS: I started refactoring old stuff. Turret was first in line, since it is hardest to do and I need to prepare it for sound designer. It took much more time then I expected as usual. Good news is that I learned a lot from it and
that logic can be used to other blueprints like camera and flying bot. Doing that I noticed many other bugs so I took care of them also. Next probably I will go back to animations for sniper rifle,
and then finally to finish cover system. Then few more smaller things and camera system rework. Fortunately I have it designed already. Sound designer and weapon artist are delayed because of personal problems.
What’s new:
Turret updates:
new visuals - model (from Paragon), animations, detection cone
optimization
new sounds (still work in progress)
standby mode is now visualized
turret faction is now visualized
uses same weapon system as player and NPC, so changing weapon and adding more variations are super quick now
Shield updates:
new visuals - new shader and tweaked effects
systemic approach - now with shield component, it can be added to any actor very easily
Panel button connectivity - now you can connect blueprints from level directly to button panel, to trigger logic on button activation.
Throwing - visuals update for grenade explosion radius circle and trajectory color
Finally this is it! I was waiting for 2,5 years for this moment. Third Person Shooter Kit v2.0 is finally out!
I was thinking about some speech for this moment but I cant come up with anything😄 I’m just glad it is over for now and you can finally play with this. There was plenty of bumps and problems on the road, including even files update during holiday break. It didn’t end up ideally as I wanted but I will improve it over time. Documentation and tutorials will be added over time starting early next year. I recommend check new features level v2 - where updated features are described, also informations are inside blueprints.
Now road to v3.0! I updated roadmap file. I hope updates will be more frequent now.
Now v2.0 is supported on 4.25 and up. I’m discarding support for older engine version because lack of certain engine features.
Yes, I will work on new tutorials in near future, including changing skeletal mesh.
What exact problems you have?
You can join Discord and don’t have to write anything. There are community tutorials also and ton of resources for discussions. Others made it work and used their own characters so it is definitely possible. Also in Discord communication will be faster.
The specific problem is that as mentioned earlier, there is no new tutorial for adding new roles, which leads to some fatal errors when creating a new role blueprint.
But I’ll try to solve it again. There’s really no way. I’ll come again for help.
I am now studying some processes in the project. When I have time, I will visit and Study on discord.
UPDATE NEWS for TPS Kit v2.1: Procedural ladder production is finished.
What’s new:
Completely new ladder system, procedurally generated with root motion animations. All models can be easily replaced. Same with tweaking height and entry/leaving points, which can be added in indefinite amount. Player can also slide down, drop down and jump off from ladder.
Section of the level shown on video, will also be included in update, along with all assets (animation, sound, models etc.)
What’s next: Melee AI template behavior - I don’t know how I will tackle this yet, if I will make some bigger melee weapons system or it will based on current weapon system. Need assess how much time it will take and how hard it will be.
No. Video shows a lot of aspects of the system how it works. If you want to create new weapon, then just copy/create new weapon data file. This would take you like 3 seconds
Other then that I fixed many bugs and added lot of small quality of
life improvement through out the year.
Also since v2.1 TPS Kit is officially supported for Unreal Engine 5.1.
There is small con with that crosshair problem - looks like changing
position for widget doesn’t work anymore since UE 5.1 so I made a
workaround by just positioning widget in center and align it to
center. That will work fine with normal game. It might be off with
some unusual resolution I think, or different aspect ratio then 16:9.
I updated roadmap file. I hope updates will be more frequent now.
