Week 6 - Cram Time

We've had a busy week so far.  Our group goal is to try and have a playable alpha by next week Monday, and considering that we had only the main character and the first level fully complete by last week, this was a bit of a chore.  But it's only Thursday and there is much that has been accomplished.

On my front, I have managed to get the light detection finally working, although in a much different approach then initially planned.  The original concept from the first weeks was to have it set up so the more light that is on you, the easier you are to detect.  I went through trying to find an angle between the light and the pawn, sample code online from the Epic forums, using the outer and inner cone angle/hit boxes and none of that had worked.  The final solution was done in Kismet and it was done using trigger volumes.  One was placed under every spotlight and rigged up to an Actor Factory.  This will spawn two bots every time a light is crossed.  This creates a much more dynamic game where stealth will make the game notably easier and be almost mandatory at parts.

That aside, I also have almost finalized the ladder volumes.  All of them except 3 work perfectly and there is no longer any issue with the character falling into the foreground/background.  I have also started and almost completed work on the weapon code this week.  The ranged weapon was simple and is almost fully implemented.  I still need to change sound effects over as well as reference the model when it is completed, but otherwise the crossbow is complete.  The melee weapon is a bit easier, but having a slight problem.  There appears to be a random variable somewhere in the shot that results in the invisible bullet going anywhere from right in front of the character to 30 feet out.  This is a bit of a spread and almost too much so I'll be conducting research on the issue and hopefully have it fixed come next week.

My parts aside, everyone else has made amazing progress.  Our first level is fully textured, lighted up with the light detection and has the HUD implemented.  The title screen is almost done and is undergoing a last couple of tweaks before it's in.  Our crossbow and sword model are both nearly completed and music has had its rights requested for use.  AI is practically done and the animation tree was nearly completed last I saw.  And to top it off, the main character is fully completed and being added in, the enemies have a few kinks being worked out and the last couple of items are being made and added in.

All things told, it looks like we'll have a passable alpha as of next week, and with next week added in we will need to remove all sounds that we don't want that are inherent to unreal.  If we take care of that, work out some of our last few bugs and finish up a few more things, we will have accomplished all of our goals for the first 8 weeks of progress and will leave off on a great note.