[Update]Zombies Beta Demo/Source Released!!!

[TheAgent]

Donations can now be made for the Documentation!!! Please Help me out and Donate! Enjoy the demo!

Donate at http://www.jvultimate.com/ its on the top right!

I have received 3 donations so far Thank you all that have donated : ]


Beta Demo Release :

So after months and months of work, the Zombies Beta Demo is finally released.

With millions of bugs and other little things. Probably the most major bug is that the mini map doesn't cook with the game.

I will re-upload with working mini map once that problem is fixed.

Please view my progress thread here : http://forums.epicgames.com/showthre...2#post28674852

Fixed Issues

Notification Text on the Left now fades out.

You can now skip the intro sequence. Its also shorter and you can read the text now.

Taking damage is more noticeable now.

Puzzles are a little different. May take some figuring out.

Important objects give off a glint.

Computer monitor glows now. [Emmisive]

Zombies can see you from a bit farther away. They still need work.

Lowered the games overall exaggerated bloom. Muzzle flash lowered.

You can now pick up Health packs. Healing effect PP coming soon.

Make what you have to do to open the tunnel door more obvious.

Still Having issues with the MiniMap not cooking with the game, will have that fix when i can.

AI Still isnt the greatest.


Known Issues

• MiniMap Does not appear on cooked game
  [*]When you hit yes to "Show Hints" anytime a hint pops up your character will continue moving forward once you hit 'close'
• GenericZombies will sometimes do odd things like go off onto a wall
• Tyrant floats even though his collision is set properly
• Save and load is still iffy, sometimes saving the game will not load the proper events depending on where you saved the game
• Character still has no head... bear with me
• Game is not optimized for lower end pc's sorry guys. Lower the resolution as much as you can
• The options menu doesnt work. Im working on a clever plan for saving settings, wait for Next Beta release
• May be more. Just let me know

First things first

Download the Zombies Beta demo below

ZOMBIES BETA DEMO

Source Code/Content Disclaimer (Taken from Readme_First.txt)

Zombies Demo Beta Release 1.1

This Source does not work as is you must first :

• Download UDK July Beta from www.udk.com/download
• Install UDK July Beta
• Copy Zombies_July_Sourced Developement/UDKGame folders and overite anything that needs to be overwritten over to the UDK July install directory

This assumes you have knowledge of UDK I will not baby anyone into learning how to do preliminary tasks.

Learn those things then come back and mess with my sourced Content.

What you cannot do/Is not for :

• You DO NOT have permission to use my content in any of your creations free or commercial. It is for testing/ learning purposes only. You are free to use the Code however.
• This is not a Starter Pack of any kind. It is meant for learning. I repeat you may use the code, but not any of the art assets at all. In your free/commercial game.

This is a full game in the making so do not think of this as a give away!

If you would like to contact me email me at jonathanvgames@hotmail.com

If you are to email me these are the conditions.

You must state your name and nick name in the header/title line of the email like so.

Format/Conditions :

• Jonathan "TheAgent" Vazquez ( so that i may find your name in the forums if need be ) If you dont it will be redirected to my spam folder.
• You cannot offer/ask me to join your project or join mine. I will not merge game with anyone else. This is a solo project and also an experiment for my self sorry its just a personal thing/goal.
• Do not ask me how to do something in UDK. My documentation will tell you all about my code, and some tutorials. Everything else you will have to search in the forums I am not an expert, and cannot help with everything. More than likley I will ignore the emails. I get a lot during the day.

I will take suggestions and bug/fixes so please email me with that! Just follow the formatting rules please. It makes it easier/faster for me to respond to you.

Questions about paypal and how to donate should be directed at PayPal please. I can only do so much.

These are the contents and its sizes

Src's (Code) : 692kb / 82 Files
Packages(Art) : 806mb / 24 Files
Maps (Levels) : 126mb / 10 Files

Total (All Content) : 1.04gb / 743 Files

Compressed : 605mb

I have been working with 22.7gb of Raw Source Data

Download Zombies July Beta Source

Download Mirrors!

Demo : http://www.gamefront.com/files/20678...ll-Zombies.exe

Source: http://www.gamefront.com/files/20646...ly_Sourced.rar

[Solid Snake]

Congrats on the release!

[TheAgent]

Congrats on the release!

Thanks a lot. I can finally sleep at night!

[alvarofer0021]

Amazing congratulations theagent you deserve them!

[TheAgent]

Thanks alvarofer0021! I updated my initial post preparing to add the Source download link soon!

Added the download source LINK!

[seenooh]

I admire you, TheAgent!

[Max Power]

This is pretty awesome, and awesomely pretty. Great job!

I did the quick play through, here's my experience.

First, the intro pacing is extremely too long. Two quick blurbs of story I didn't have time to read, then a few minutes of blank space while we wait on europe to rotate around. I couldn't really show this to anyone without waiting for that unskippable scene to be done.

I did snag on the known bug of constantly moving forward, but I also ran into with hints disabled at one point while simply walking forward. Not sure what triggered it.

Controls at this point are real clunky. It's difficult to pick-up any item or press any button without navigating directly above it while sliding around on what feels like ice. I can't make much sense of the sprinting either as sometimes he starts, then goes faster forever. Other times you start to run then just stop.

COmbat seems fine. I have no trouble stopping the zombies with this gun. Most of the time they seemed to stand there and wait for. That big monster at the end was standing in the corner until I went up the ladder and got the outro.

Every puzzle is "find the key for this door", and every "key" is a tiny set of keys in the corner of some room. Anyway to mix that up?

You need a way to restore health or the health system is kinda pointless.

[TheAgent]

I didnt think about the health wow, idk why.

Im not sure maybe the install is odd i never had trouble picking up ammo or items. The sprinting stops after a while as you get "tired", it always seemed ok.

I agree on the long intro i forgot about it when i released it. The Tyrant is a blind giant. If you successfully passed him without him doing anything at all then props to you hehehe.

He can only hear sprinting, jumping, picking up items and shooting of course.

Im suprised that the picking up items was hard. You do have to get close to the item but
i suppose i can increase the radius.

The zombies are pretty dumb yeah lots of tweaking needed for those dumbos.

Thanks for even downloading it!!! Ill try to fix the issues in the next release.

Give me a week or so and ill post another version. Again keep playing it through and keep giving suggestions. I'll also work on the repetitiveness of the puzzles.

[Max Power]

Forgot on note: At one point, I went in a room, and it sounded like someone was in pain somewhere on the other side of the room. I didn't hear or notice anything else. After a while, my health was going down some. I turned around, and a zombie had been beating on me for all that time. A few more audio/visual feedback ques on that would be great. Zombie grunting, melee impact, some hit effect, etc.

Oh yea, and that tyrant guy just stood there while I emptied all my clips in his back. So I doubt I avoided him.

[TheAgent]

Ahahah that's kinda of funny. Your character should make hurt noises when getting hurt, not sure why it didn't work on ur case. And the zombies, yeah don't grunt. So ill work on that. In the case that audio doesn't seem to work, the visual will always do the trick. Thanks again for the feedback.

It worked for me when i installed the game, odd that he just stood there.

[sumo3000]

thanks and Very Very god work

[fragfest2012]

Thanks, good work, love your stuff, really inspiring!

[Chosker]

really good work there man
I'm already seeing a couple of features in your video that I'll need at some point so thanks to you I'll need a lot more research and time to implement them
thanks a lot for releasing the source

[KingBadger]

Looks Sweet Agent, The download link has been disabled by the provider as generating too much traffic. Need a new download link

[TheAgent]

Ill put up two new links soon! Thanks everyone!

[KingBadger]

Hey Agent, Just to help you bug test thought id let you know when in editor there is quite a lot of stuff missing, for example the rain material for the cylinder columns is missing, so when out side all i see is loads of cylinders blocking the view with default checker udk materials on.

ASK Zombies.Default__ASK in Begin
AnimNodeSequence Zombies.Default__ASK:MeshSequenceA in Begin
ASKAmmoSmall Zombies.Default__ASKAmmoSmall in Begin
Class Zombies.ASK in Begin
Class Zombies.ASKAmmoSmall in Begin
Class Zombies.CrowbarPickUp in Begin
Class Zombies.M4A1PickUp in Begin
Class Zombies.MagnumPickUp in Begin
CrowbarPickUp Zombies.Default__CrowbarPickUp in Begin
CylinderComponent Zombies.Default__ASKAmmoSmall:CollisionCylinder in Begin
CylinderComponent Zombies.Default__CrowbarPickUp:CollisionCylinder in Begin
M4A1PickUp Zombies.Default__M4A1PickUp in Begin
CylinderComponent Zombies.Default__M4A1PickUp:CollisionCylinder in Begin
MagnumPickUp Zombies.Default__MagnumPickUp in Begin
CylinderComponent Zombies.Default__MagnumPickUp:CollisionCylinder in Begin
DominantSpotLightComponent Zombies.Default__ASKominantSpotLightComponent0 in Begin
SkeletalMeshComponent Zombies.Default__ASK:PickupMesh in Begin
StaticMeshComponent Zombies.Default__ASKAmmoSmall:BaseMesh in Begin
StaticMeshComponent Zombies.Default__M4A1PickUp:BaseMesh in Begin
UDKSkeletalMeshComponent Zombies.Default__ASK:FirstPersonMesh in Begin
Outer object for UDKSkeletalMeshComponent Begin.TheWorld:PersistentLevel.ASK_0.UDKSkeletalMe shComponent_0
Outer object for AnimNodeSequence Begin.TheWorld:PersistentLevel.ASK_0.UDKSkeletalMe shComponent_0.AnimNodeSequence_0
Outer object for CylinderComponent Begin.TheWorld:PersistentLevel.ASKAmmoSmall_0.Cyli nderComponent_0
Outer object for CylinderComponent Begin.TheWorld:PersistentLevel.ASKAmmoSmall_1.Cyli nderComponent_0
Outer object for CylinderComponent Begin.TheWorld:PersistentLevel.CrowbarPickUp_0.Cyl inderComponent_0
Outer object for CylinderComponent Begin.TheWorld:PersistentLevel.M4A1PickUp_0.Cylind erComponent_0
Outer object for CylinderComponent Begin.TheWorld:PersistentLevel.MagnumPickUp_0.Cyli nderComponent_0
Outer object for DominantSpotLightComponent Begin.TheWorld:PersistentLevel.ASK_0.DominantSpotL ightComponent_0
Outer object for SkeletalMeshComponent Begin.TheWorld:PersistentLevel.ASK_0.SkeletalMeshC omponent_0
Outer object for StaticMeshComponent Begin.TheWorld:PersistentLevel.ASKAmmoSmall_0.Stat icMeshComponent_1
Outer object for StaticMeshComponent Begin.TheWorld:PersistentLevel.ASKAmmoSmall_1.Stat icMeshComponent_2
Outer object for StaticMeshComponent Begin.TheWorld:PersistentLevel.M4A1PickUp_0.Static MeshComponent_4

[TheAgent]

Here are the download links

Demo : http://www.gamefront.com/files/20646...ll-Zombies.exe

Source: http://www.gamefront.com/files/20646...ly_Sourced.rar


That's odd, are you sure you read the read me KingBadger? Nothing is left out in the packages

[KingBadger]

Yep, read the read me and followed exactly. The list is the things missing with the source install. When i load the start map it pops up with the window saying those things are missing. It's no biggy but thought i should let you know, i reinstalled the source again and same message appears. Really nice work by the way bud, also wanted to ask if you have used level streaming with your game setup, if not that would be a good way to spped things up. I'll be making a donation today towards your hard work.

[TheAgent]

Glad you liked it. I'm going to keep revisiting the demo as suggestions come in. Ill see if i can get to the bottom of those errors, no one else seemed to have it.

and Thank you for any contribution! It will definitely help out.

There should be another version 1.2 in about a weeks time.

[KingBadger]

Ive been building Modular assets for background buildings recently, Low ress but good for blocking out background stuff. Was going to release to the community if you want me to send you the files to use if you see necessary, also keep meaning to send you some more of my advanced vertex paint materials to play with.

[TheAgent]

You should release the modular assets to everyone and i will download if i need it.

I love your vertex paint shaders they are great! If you want you can send em, but really though thanks for them!

[KingBadger]

No Probs, Yeah going to release the assets on the forum when i get time to collate everthing together

[TheAgent]

I'm currently overhauling my site preparing for the changes! Please take a look!

http://www.jvultimate.com/

[Bonyback]

very nice Thanks a lot

[$Crazy$]

Hi Agent, played the demo. It was nifty, and I had a few comments:

I encountered a small glitch where the "hints" pop-up stopped the game from progressing because when I pushed "Yes" nothing happened. Not sure if you're aware but that was fun.

I re-loaded my progress from the main menu and played with hints off. Eh... The game was really kinda tough to figure out with them off. Even having read here on the forums about "every puzzle being a set of keys in the corner of a room" I had some real difficulties in some places.

Also, a lot of your props don't have collision meshes, and most of the ones that do perform some really weird stuff when you walk into them. Ex. The coffee tables with magazines next to the soda machines in the first room. I simply walked up to those once and then spent a full minute bouncing from the floor to the table's top and back to the floor again like flubber. One other place I know that does that is the piles of rubble/broken concrete in the outside segment before the tunnels.

Now, you said the demo wasn't for low-end machines and I could see that is true because I had a few choppy bits, but does that mean the exclusion of DX9 users? Cause when I finally made it outside and looked over at the back of that room toward the flames, a combination of bloom, blur and my own weapons specular made a "peanut butter smeared on a camera lenses" effect that looked thick enough to choke a dead cat.

So, your main character is pretty nice but he closely resembles the nanosuits of Cryteks Crysis. Does this mean in the full version he'll have some neat powers/abilities that are sorta the same flavor as Crysis?

And one last nitpick, you should set the light that spawns behind you for your nightvision effect to not cast shadows.

Everything else was pretty good. The sound was great, had me on edge more than once, and the models and their respective quality and their textures were just grand for a mere one man team.

[TheAgent]

Thanks for the comments and the play through. I keep forgetting to lower the bloom of the weapon, DX11 works if you run it with the Dx11 command But I have it running on DX9. It runs great on my machine but I just said it to be careful in case anyone has trouble running it.

Ill work on the collision problems and I kept trying to turn off shadows but it was pesky and didn't want to NOT cast shadows. Ill keep working on that bit with the Night Vision.

I will also keep trying to debug the Hints they are buggy and ill also work on more obvious clues as to where you have to go.

Thank you again for giving it a go!!! Updates will go a little slower since school is going to begin so soon.

[slider602]

i got a problem with the game at the start i get show hints. so i couldnt move.

i clicked on no but it keeps showing hints ,

[$Crazy$]

Thanks for the comments and the play through. I keep forgetting to lower the bloom of the weapon, DX11 works if you run it with the Dx11 command But I have it running on DX9. It runs great on my machine but I just said it to be careful in case anyone has trouble running it.

Ill work on the collision problems and I kept trying to turn off shadows but it was pesky and didn't want to NOT cast shadows. Ill keep working on that bit with the Night Vision.

I will also keep trying to debug the Hints they are buggy and ill also work on more obvious clues as to where you have to go.

Thank you again for giving it a go!!! Updates will go a little slower since school is going to begin so soon.

Ah, I understand how that goes.

Ok, I thought the sheer magnitude of the bloom effects was something DX11 playing nasty with my DX9 machine.

Another thing I forgot to mention was, in someplaces (mainly the outdoor segment) there were gaps between things or alleyways exposing "the void" around the level... I kept thinking, "Why no fog volumes?" cause they're pretty flexible with a little tweaking and could look nice and still hide some of these things.

And, I dunno if you left this as an easter egg (I took it as that) but in the room with the two destructible doors, when facing them if you turn 180 degrees and face the corner to the right, you can crouch down and break that little semi vent area, and break into a small shaft that still has checker textures on it. Which reminds me...

Another small thing that was happening (for me anyway) is that... It appeared like your socket you made for the true-FPS eyes had no collision and could clip through practically everything. I have no idea how you would fix this, although it could probably be done with a slightly tweaked custom collision mesh for your character.

But, like I said. Great work for just one guy.

(Please make the intro skippable [begs])

[TheAgent]

Ill make the intro skippable i was getting annoyed when i was testing it too, im like i should make this skip.... *gets lazy and forgets* hehe.

Its prolly not an easter egg. Just my many mistakes when you do things alone. I know about the head going through the walls and stuff im still figuring that out.

[$Crazy$]

Yeah, like I mentioned you might look into seeing if there's some way of defining a custom collision mesh for a skeletal mesh like you can for a static mesh. The tricky part would probably be getting it to follow animation, so I dunno.

[slider602]

The Agent, you must fix the show hints yes no popup it keeps showing up so i couldn't move.

[ferretzombie]

Congrats on getting the demo out, however on my computer it has a memory leak and crashes my computer.

[Solid Snake]

PM me if you'd like another mirror for your file.

[TheAgent]

Hey slider602 i'll be working on the hints today. I'm not sure about the memory, I wouldn't know how to fix that.

But, ill be working on fixes today and tomorrow and see what i can do.

Sent PM Snake :]


Im going to decide to remove the hints all together, and have a "How to Play" section on the menu, which shows controls mappings etc. Hints detract from the gameplay too much.

[SJS2010]

I played some of your Zombies beta game. I sent this as an email before, but I'm sure that was full, so I'll put here too. Here are my beta test issues:

Some of these have been stated before, but here goes.

1) The intro has text that needs to stay up longer so the player can read it through. I got through maybe the first 2 sentences and it disappeared. Try reading it aloud in a normal pace and see how long it takes you to read it and then subtract 5 seconds and that is how much each segment should stay up.

2) The player needs to have the option to skip the intro if wanted. Maybe a redundant feature to keep from skipping if the player doesn't actually want to. You now, Press any key to skip and then ask are you sure you wish to skip. The yes needs to be like press Y or something.

3) The player's character has no head either at all or just in his shadow.

4) Near the starting room, there is a room with a dead body and some large windows. At least on the left side, the window is slanted too much and the player can see the street. It is not placed good in the window's frame.

5) The text that displays when the player picks something up needs to disappear after a time. This way the player isn't constantly seeing Picked Up Keys on the screen.

6) Does the player have the ability to reload without having to empty a mag? If so, which button? You may wish to add this as a hint after the player picks up the gun. I figured out the aiming button, but it may need to be displayed as a hint as well.

7) Why is there a time limit? If you have a limited amount of time to reach the squad, is there are countdown timer on the screen somewhere? If not, then there needs to be. If not at all times, then displayed at certain increments. For instance: 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and so on. Instead of just an audio stating 5 minutes remaining.

8) The keys don't have a very easy to find marker, but the money does. This may need to be changed to a larger marker like the money or a blinking outline of the keys to help the player find it faster. I hunted everywhere for the first two keys. I was near them and didn't see them until I was there the 2nd or 3rd time.

9) The money pickups are aggravating to get. If it was me, I would have it so that player automatically picks up the money by walking across them, but still has to actually pick up the keys, weapons, and the like. This will save the player a lot of time during Gameplay.

10) How do you Unlock & Enter B-Way Tunnel? I have the keys.


It may not be a beta test question but: How do you set it up so I can use my wired XBox 360 controller in the game? I tried plugging it up while playing and it didn't work. Have you not setup the controls for it? I noticed the blue x button in one of the hints.


I hope this helps you out. I haven't gotten to the zombies yet, but I'm looking forward to it. I'll let you know of any other issues I come across.

Keep up the awesome work.

[TheAgent]

You may need to install drivers for the xboxcontroller, they worked first time for me, i will try again and see once I recook the new version.

You also Press 'R' to reload, its basic keyboard set up for PC FPS games. Shift to sprint etc.

I will add this information on a How to Play section on the pause menu as well as the Main menu.

I increased the radius of all that pickups it should make it easier to get.

[SJS2010]

I thought I had tried R and nothing happened. huh. I'll play it again tonight and see if R let's me reload.

My XBox 360 controller works fine when I plug it up and play Fallout 3 or NV, but it doesn't seem to work with the UDK stuff. Is there some special drivers that I need to install for it to work with UDK?

[TheAgent]

Nah you don't need special drivers for UDK, Ill work on getting things set up to work next time around.

[CloDel Studios]

there is another set of keys somewhere, maybe walk around the center of the map?
I prolly gave to much away, let me know if you want me to delete this Agent.
Tom

edit
lookin' great Agent, the only thing I can say that you or everybody else hasn't said yet, is after you pick something it still 'glows' where the item was, I'm sure you know that already though hehe.

[TheAgent]

Haha that's ok though, that's where the exploratory part of the game comes in hehe. Whats not so obvious is how to open the doors to B-Way tunnel which i will be fixing.