Working Title: Hero Quest

[BlackHornet80]

Hi all,

after long years of other interest I finally returned to Unreal Engine. Last project I managed was my UT2k3 mod Global Warzone (http://www.moddb.com/mods/global-warzone) ... but thats just about my person and the past.

Our next project will be a game with rules and playstyle, like the good old table top HeroQuest http://schnien12.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/heroquest_tablero.jpg
(maybe some of you can remember...perhaps the older ones, like me :))

For this I started with an old friend (modeller, animator) that project.

Some core features will be:
- fully integrated level editor (no UEd needed to creat new maps)
- fully dynamic created levels
- rule set from good old HeroQuest
- point & click, round based gameplay
- up to 5 people per network (1 Morcar + max. 4 Heroes)
- nice meshs, music and fight animations (something like battlechess :D)


Finally I will present my current work process here...currently the map is made in UEd, but the mobs are spawned by code.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4Bo3Rpdqu4

Finishing the LevelManager using the LevelGeometry-Factory will be the next bigger step (including a side view on loading and saving data)

Some more Vids will follow :D
BlackHornet

[Quade]

nice work
how did you do the point and click, might i ask? i need something like that for my project.

[BlackHornet80]

I did it with a simple Trace...

Each floor tile is a single static mesh, so i trace the static meshes and position a decal above its location, this is handled by the HUD in the PostRender() function.

[rahatropa]

nice work
how did you do the point and click, might i ask? i need something like that for my project.

There is a great point-and-click tutorial in the Programming section of these forums, the author is roychr.

[LordsWarrior]

Once you have selected a square, how does the character choose to get there?
FOr example is ther path finding for it they are in a hallway?

Looks good so far man!

-LW

[BlackHornet80]

No pathfinding yet, only a MoveTo() at the moment.

But it will be needed later i suppose, if we have doors the characters can moove through. But due to the fact moving distance will be limited later on (a character may move 6 fields), we need a different approach to solve this "problem".

[FrontAXL]

Nice work so far. I'm really interested in the visuals you'll create for the traps.

I'm one of those 'older ones' that remembers Hero Quest. I still own it. I think I even get extra nerd points because I painted all the pieces.

[LordsWarrior]

No pathfinding yet, only a MoveTo() at the moment.

But it will be needed later i suppose, if we have doors the characters can moove through. But due to the fact moving distance will be limited later on (a character may move 6 fields), we need a different approach to solve this "problem".

so are you calling moveTo from another controller to their pawns?

how do you do it exactly, are you first adding a move target like: pawn1.contoller.moveStartTarget = selectedTile;
pawn1.contoller.gotoState('scriptedMove')
?

-LW

[BlackHornet80]

Yes, something like that, in my case its a function in my own AIController class:


function OnAIMoveToPosition(Vector aPosition)
{
MoveDestination = aPosition;
if(!IsInState('MoveToLocation')){
`log("Current State: "@GetStateName());
PushState('MoveToLocation');
}
}

[nickmarks]

looks like you have some nifty code there. Good work!

I remember the game you mention with fond memories:)

[BlackHornet80]

thanks for the comments...

and for all of interest, more infos and contact with our team is available at http://www.mirage-development.de, there you can find our forum too, just go to Support and there will be the link

(attention: everything is in German!!), sry for all others, who cannot talk/read/write german

[BlackHornet80]

Hell ya,

got my XML-DOM-Parser to work, read and parse a xml file of any structure. next step is the possibility to create a DOM-Tree and save it on disk...load and save level-description will be next step then => fully custom created levels, ingame integrated level editor => UEd wont be needed any longer to create levels for my game *g* (only for the upk-files)

[BlackHornet80]

And something new after a few days...a new test with a basic xml level content structure...

The floortile is a custom mesh now, same mesh, same material on every plate, but each looks slightly different (thx to my artist for that thing)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ6eXIH3ItM

[Eildalior]

Nice project, and less expensive ^^
Wait and I want to see the next ! Good luck and courage.

[geodav]

i remember HeroQuest but i went for Space Crusade

board games i mean ;)

looking good so far

[Kenzey]

Here we go with a small update for the Game...

I´am very new to the UDK and i have to learn from the ground up.
So this is the first wallshader for the game.
Tell me what u think.

http://s8.directupload.net/images/100116/temp/fq3gxzq5.jpg (http://s8.directupload.net/file/d/2041/fq3gxzq5_jpg.htm)

http://s3.directupload.net/images/100116/temp/wujd9sea.jpg (http://s3.directupload.net/file/d/2041/wujd9sea_jpg.htm)

[axelzellalex]

i love the look of what your aiming for
and its shaping up really well!

[McTavish]

Nice work man

[DELTATHUND3R]

nice wall matey..Keep it up :).

[LordsWarrior]

And something new after a few days...a new test with a basic xml level content structure...

The floortile is a custom mesh now, same mesh, same material on every plate, but each looks slightly different (thx to my artist for that thing)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ6eXIH3ItM

Hiya

This XML thing is interesting.

Im looking for somehting simlar. For example if we have a librayr of peice made (wallls,floor etc) then in another program like maya we can lay out a level, save as xml and it auto load in UDK on startup.

Is that what you are doing?

-LW

[BlackHornet80]

actually the xml is created manually, not created by a different program...

our goal is an ingame-level editor, which create the xml for us. there are many things we currently experiment with. a modular staticmesh layout...works in theory, need some work in modelling and code to be practical ^^

[LordsWarrior]

actually the xml is created manually, not created by a different program...

our goal is an ingame-level editor, which create the xml for us. there are many things we currently experiment with. a modular staticmesh layout...works in theory, need some work in modelling and code to be practical ^^

Yeah ,

After seeign this Im thinking of a way to generate the XML via a maya mel script.

Say you had level components in the UDK, and the same components in maya.
As long as you have a consistent naming scheme it shouldnt be hard to build a level in maya, out of the pieces, and generate an xml to use in UDK to rebuild that level.

I'd be keen to research this if you are interested

I dont thign I need a load on runtime thing (tho it could be useful I guess), but would like to be able to block out a level fast in maya. and import into the editor.

Infact..fo rin the editor you can actually cut n paste , so all I need to work out is what commands to cut and past into the editor , and generate them in maya.

-LW

[mordentral]

Wouldn't it be better to align your flooring to a world coordinate offset that matches its tile size and then just use a calculated grid for movement instead of each square section being its own mesh?

Like say you have 64 Width x 64 Height (2D dims) squares and you place the first one at offset 0,0

Then you could just figure out the grid location by tracing to the location and if it hits a static mesh (a valid floor location) you divide the hit location by the tile size (64) to get the tile #, and draw the decal at the hit location adjusted for offset (hit location - the remainder of the devision) of that location. Moving the character to the tiles starting location + w/e amount to center it in the space.

Seems overly complicated for the level designer to have the multiple tiles and such.

[BlackHornet80]

Don't know who you are referring to :D

We do it like you are explaining, or what you wanna say?

[mordentral]

I did it with a simple Trace...

Each floor tile is a single static mesh, so i trace the static meshes and position a decal above its location, this is handled by the HUD in the PostRender() function.

I'm sorry if I misunderstood that, but it appears as if you are having a seperate mesh for each tile. When you could avoid having to do that all together.

Um for clarification, assuming you start your level at 0,0,0 or at least a value divisible by your tile size.

Decal starting position:

X = TraceX - (TraceX % TileWidth)
Y = TraceY - (TraceY % TileHeight)

[BlackHornet80]

ah ok, thanks....yes, then you are right, each square is its own mesh...in fact the level editor will make it easy to build a level, without having to place each tile by yourself (later)...

Currently we are going this way, because you can add traps (below a mesh), or use mesh variants for a single square...

[emove]

I'm not sure how player movement works in the original game, but I imagine it's something like "you can move X tiles per turn".

I'd recommend doing a bit of reading on search algorithms, like the A* search algorithm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A*_search_algorithm). Something like this might be better then using the MoveTo approach as it'll let you make sure players actually move from tile to tile to reach a goal, as opposed to just taking the line of sight path there, which might violate your game rules.

It'll mean you'll want to have your map's tiles in an nice usable memory format (2D array or something), but I suspect you'll have something like that already if you're doing XML saving/loading.

Good luck, looks like a sweet project! :D

[BlackHornet80]

AI Pathfinding will be something for later :D currently we are working on the modular wall mesh structure, and making it easier to create levels...

In fact we currently have a unreal map 66kb big, and the whole geometry will be created after game starts...