Ugly Works
What have I accomplished this week as a developer?
This week has been full of accomplishments for me, I started using Unreal Engine for the first time going in completely blind. I was able to do in depth research on the engine and the way i could get my game to work in it while also changing the way my game worked slightly so it would fit better. I got to spend some time doing 3D modelling which i had only ever really done in MagicaVoxel previously so it was awesome to render some actually decent looking shapes. Even though the modelling didn’t go to plan it taught me a lot about time management and scoping for my project which I was already out of my comfort zone on. I learnt multiple new programs to achieve my desired game, learning Maya to do some 3D modelling which was aided by Adobe Fuse.
I utilised text and video tutorials on how to use Unreal Engines Blueprint system and after wasting the first half of the week working on pointless visuals still managed to greybox out a working prototype. I felt like I had my major accomplishments as a developer outside of my current game this week, I managed to get to Netherworlds Indie Dev night III and have a look at some of the games that some other SAE students got to make. While there I got to talk to Nick Lyness about his game Lanterns and although we had never met before he knew me from the recent Make-A-Thing game jam which was an awesome step professionally for me. It was also a massive confidence boost knowing a developer of his calibre as he won the best game prize, had noticed work I had produced.
Along with that the team I had worked with during the Make-A-Thing got an awesome surprise as not only did Warp Door tweet out our game but we got added to PC Gamers Indie Game of the Week section
Both personally and professionally this was a huge achievement and really has given me confidence in my work and my ability to be a meaningful member of a development team. We are going to continue work on Crowd Control and hopefully show it off at Netherworld later in November.
What have I learned this week about development and being a developer?
Although it was a key concept I had started to pick up from Studio 1, asking for help has been a concept that as a developer has helped me this week in amazing ways. First of all was realising just how big of a task I had set myself choosing to make a game in an unfamiliar engine in just 2 weeks with functionality needed ASAP. Once I finally came to terms with what I had done instead of drastically changing the idea or giving up and going back to a familiar engine like Unity i decided to delve into research. After trawling for hours through archived forum posts trying to find what was wrong with my blueprint and why it wouldn’t compile I finally decided to ask for some help. My good friend and fellow developer Victor had in a previous subject used Unreal Engine on a project and I decided to ask him if he would remember how to get his heads up display to show on the viewport as no matter what I did i couldn’t get it to work. He was able to look through the old projects blueprints but unfortunately didn’t come up with a solution, he then went on to help me research the problem only for us to both figure out that all you had to do was set the HUD in world settings to the one created and reboot the unreal engine. Even though it was such a simple thing to do I was able to save myself hours of wasted time by asking Victor and spending 5 minutes to get an answer. No matter how dumb the question it's shown me that asking for help as a developer is pivotal to a project's completion and without the precious time saved i wouldn’t have been able to get my functioning prototype or extra assets ready to drop in.