Filtration - A Zombie Level Made in 100 Hours!

[Alienated Phreak]

Hello! I am making a Zombie Survival game in just 100 hours! The game is to take place in a water filtration plant.

Why?

My goal here is to aid indie devs who are beginning their development journey. People may know how to use the engine, but they may not know what/when to do certain things along the way. This documentation is an example of a workflow which will hopefully serve as a template workflow for other devs.

Features/Gameplay Rules?

Survival: Zombies come out from specific places in the map, after 10 zombies are killed from each spawn point, the number goes to 15, then 25, and so on. After every set of zombies is killed, they get harder and harder to kill, they also become faster, stronger, etc.
Tae-Kwon-Do Melee: As a last option, you may melee the zombies, its not as powerful as other weapons, but it serves as a last option.
Weapon Search: Instead of buying weapons, you have to find them. There will be many spawn points for one weapon, and the spawn point changed for every one.
Unlock Areas: Instead of having a point system, like other zombie games, you will have the option to unlock different parts of the map and gain access to them. But you must get so many kills before an area can be unlocked. Just remember that the more areas you unlock the more zombies are spawned.
Friendly Bots: You can have up to 4 bots help you kill the zombies. Online matches may also be an option but I highly doubt it.
Play as a Zombie: I know this sounds like a rip-off directly from L4D, but I actually just found out that you can do that in L4D, fun nonetheless.
Limb Dismemberment: Limbs can be shot off. A zombie's leg can be shot off, slowing them down, but it will be hard and in most cases not worth it.

My Workflow

Hours 1-10:
-Gather References shots.
-Floor Plan (Idea of the what the map will look like).
-Blocked-Out Level in 3ds Max.
-Begin Basic Lo-Res Modeling.

11-20:
-Lo-Res Modeling
-All of Hi-Res Modeling for props. (very few)*

*Other Hi-Res Modeling will be for weapons, characters, and zombies.

21-30:
-Finish Modeling.
-Test in UDK.
-Fix Stuff.
-Repeat the above two steps as much as needed.
-Begin Texturing.

31-40:
-Texture Models.
-Learn how to export Characters to UDK.
-Model Characters.

41-50:
-Model Characters.
-Learn Limb Dismemberment.
-Model Zombies.

51-60:
-Texture Characters and Zombies.
-Model Weapons.
-Model Truck (read about later).

61-70:
-Learn how to export Vehicles into UDK.
-Texture Vehicle and Weapons.

71-80:
-Finish All Texturing.
-Import all Props, Weapons, Characters, and Vehicles into UDK.
-Do Visual Scripting, Matinee any dynamic actors.
-Make All Materials, including Hourences' awesome Indoor Water Material, as well as the outdoor one.*

*Hourences' Tutorial Page

81-90:
-Lighting.

91-100:
-FX (Particle Systems, etc.)
-Lighting.
-Add Spawn Points for players, zombies, vehicles, and weapons.
-Make UI.

=====

So every hour I put into the game, I will make a new post.

Because of the monstrous size of this post, the first update will be below this one.

[Alienated Phreak]

After the first hour I managed to create the entire level in my head. I have a rough overhead view which is just a simple drawing. Nothing exact.



1. Lake
2. Pipes Gathering Water
3. Water Pumps/Basic Filters
4. Ozone Injector
5. Ozone Generation Plant
6. Biological Filters
7. Temporary Storage
8. (Huge) Cargo Trucks
9. Chemical Cleaner
10. Chemical Remover
11. UV Treater
12. Water Tower (Hero Piece of Map)
13. Employee Lockers

And I have begun blocking out the level:





Next update coming soon

[Alienated Phreak]

Nothing much, blocked out more of the level.

[Alienated Phreak]

Blocked out the entire exterior!







(The material used in UDK was just a temporary one I found in the Content Browser).

[Winwarproductions]

So if I ask what are you going to do next, all you have to say is " Hey----read my first post" lol.
I really like that you have it all planned out. I know it's all boxes right now, but I can't wait to see what you develop. This is like the third zombie game I seen on here so you have some strong competition. Which is pretty much what the gaming world is all about anyway.

I do know it's important to get the environment going from the start, for me because I really won't know the feel of the game until I'm actually running around the environment.
So I'm interested to see how your environment and the style of it is going to turn out.

I'm doing a horror as well, not with zombies though, but I will definitely have friendly bots
that help you in the game as well. I'm also interested to see how set up their game play interaction.

I think when I first played the resident evil online version, I was very excited, but was immediately turned off because of the AI. They were so stupid. Took too long give me energy, also sometimes didn't want to share. lol. Still it had that since of survival and urgency in the game to get your nerves worked up. So I'm interested to see how you set up your companions in the game.

I'm excited to get to that myself, because I know how to do it, and how I'm going to do it, but I just don't want it to be annoying in a horror game, if the AI isn't right.

Anyway--I'm rambling.


Good luck

[Alienated Phreak]

Yeah my first post is kinda big lol.

I will admit I probably have started documenting a bit early. The only reason I started early was to educate beginners for the most part, just show them an example workflow.

Actually now that you bring competition up I'm kinda scared now, I'm subscribed to TheAgent's thread on his WIP. I'll never be as good as him.

I'd like to say the same for you, but I can't find any of your work. Have put any of your progress on the forums? I'd love to see it.

About the environment, I'm going to try using Terresculptor to create the terrain maps, its supposed to look pretty realistic. The map will be encompassed by a mountain range. So landscape quality may be kinda nice there.

AI will be interesting, since I have to learn how to do that.

Good luck with your horror game Winwarp.

Thanks for your kind words, very motivational

[maybe123]

Looking really good, I will be interested in following this thread as it moves along alienated .

I am mostly keen to see the Workflow of how you do things the most (as I have plans on a game myself, but being 1 person.. with so much to do.. I don't expect anything great for a long while.)

Winrar has been working on a few things.

His first Game was Shulu and the Spirit Cryslin and its been nice to watch him progress his skills .

Shulu and the Spirit Cryslin

Not sure if Winrar has stopped working on that but I am eagerly enjoying each update on his new game

Myth Mansion

Best of luck to you both (Following you both still)... I find I enjoy seeing other peoples creative skills than my own hehe.

[Alienated Phreak]

OH!!! How did I forget, Shulu, that game looks good, I followed it for a while, love your tutorials too Winrar.

And thank you maybe123.

Update 4 tomorrow.

[Alienated Phreak]

Hello, I have combined both hours 4 and 5 because hour 4 was more about learning then creation. I found some cool documents and played around with some stuff for most of the fourth hour.

Hour 5 was more productive. I blocked out the interior of the first room, this room is where the ozone is first injected into the water (yes I did my research).

Two Screens:





More coming soon.

[Alienated Phreak]

Made the Biological Filters. The models are all the same but they all do different things, and will later have different materials.

Here is a biological filter:



I also fixed some barrel scaling issues I just noticed:

[Alienated Phreak]

I blocked out quite a bit in this update. I have blocked the second ozone injector, and I have gone back the all of the rooms that I've blocked out and blocked out some debris.

[TheAgent]

Would be crazy if you do it 100 hrs straight with no sleep haha : P. Keep it up! I enjoy the updates.

[Alienated Phreak]

Well the world record without sleep is 272 hours, I could try it.

I enjoy your updates too Agent.

[BloodBrothers]

Where are zee updates?!?!

[Alienated Phreak]

Hello.

I'm sorry to say that this project has been canceled. I apologize for the wait to tell you, I has lost my interest a while ago, and decided to take a break, but I've moved my sights elsewhere.

I am now currently working on a Minecraft-esque game using Unity, UDK is great, just not for large-scale networking.

Again I'm very sorry.

If anyone wants the files I created to use for their game, or to create this level themselves, PM me.

[Jarro]

thats sad..
Give a link for your project !

[Alienated Phreak]

Alright first one to PM me get's the project.

3...2...1...GO!!!

Although if you do use this you must include my name somewhere, it can be an easter egg for all I care though.

[Jarro]

Hmm I dont really think that everybody wants some scratches that was done not by him It is cool of course, but...

Cant you post some screenshot or description or link to your minecraft-based game ?

[Alienated Phreak]

Unfortunately the minecraft-esque game is still in the earliest stages of development still on paper.

However when the time comes I will post a thread on the Unity forums. I'll post a message and link to where said thread is when the time comes, everyone should stay subscribed to this thread unless they say so, right? Does the forum unsubscibe people automatically after so much time? It's gonna be a while...

[Jarro]

I just like sandbox-genre
keep whatever you are doing up