Sidescroller Beat'em up - City Level

**bauriema** · 11-24-2011, 01:11 AM

Hi! I'm sharing a few pictures of a city level I'm developing for a sidescroller beat'em up game I'm working on.
I'm in charge of the level designs while a friend is making the scripts for the gameplay, AI, etc.

This is the 1st time I'm doing this, so I could really use some tips, critiques etc on what I could do to improve my level. Since it's a WIP, there are many things missing (we are going to add different car models, for example) but the thing that worries me the most is the lighting.
As you can notice by the pictures, we are still using the UDK bot. Character modeling/animation will start as soon as we get the scripts done.
Any comment will be appreciated! Thx a lot guys!!

More pics:
Untitled-5.jpg
Untitled-6.jpg

**sueds** · 11-24-2011, 01:56 AM

sweet ! really nice environnement

**bauriema** · 11-24-2011, 03:14 PM

Hey Sueds, thx a lot man!

**sueds** · 11-26-2011, 02:22 PM

are you using proc building if you don't you should could make the creation of your game a lot faster. Also I'd like to see this project succeed.

about you rlightning my advice woudl be to tweak thing using a look up texture (lut) and volume. But the light is good as it is. it depends on the look or mood you are after.

**dbest10** · 11-26-2011, 02:50 PM

Amazing environment...

**bauriema** · 11-26-2011, 03:07 PM

Originally Posted by sueds

are you using proc building if you don't you should could make the creation of your game a lot faster. Also I'd like to see this project succeed.

about you rlightning my advice woudl be to tweak thing using a look up texture (lut) and volume. But the light is good as it is. it depends on the look or mood you are after.

Hmm I wasn't aware of this Procedural Building thing. We got our modeler to make building by building lol! This level is pretty much done but since we are planning to make more levels placed in urban zones, that might be useful. The look up texture is a good idea, I'm gonna look into it. Thx a lot man!

**Cheer** · 11-26-2011, 04:18 PM

Looking awesome, would really like to know how you do the (melee) fist weapon.
Anyway great environment, looking good.

**bauriema** · 11-26-2011, 08:05 PM

Hey Cheer! Thx for your comment!
All I know is that the programmer is getting tips from udk forums and looking into tutorials all over the internet, but since there aren't many things about a melee combo system that resembles to games such as Final Fight and Streets of Rage (at least we weren't able to find) he's having to figure a lot of things out. Also he is coding from scratch, trying not to use the UT classes.

**bauriema** · 11-29-2011, 02:03 AM

UPDATE

Hi guys! There's some new stuff we want to share with you!

- We did a basic main menu, with only one button, just to study the layout:

- The combo system. Still need to fix a few minor bugs. Final adjustments will be done after we have at least one custom character with animations, so we can set stuff like timing, hit impact etc.
- HUD added with player and enemies healthbar, just like a classic beat'em up. We are still working on a score system.
- Blood added but still needs work.
- Enemies AI still needs work. So far they just follow you on sight and attack when they get close.

Some pics:

Video:

We still have a whole lot of work ahead of us, but we are happy with what we accomplished so far, considering there's only 3 people working on the game and we don't have much experience with it. =)
As always, comments will be appreciated!

**Pedro Augustus** · 11-29-2011, 02:54 AM

It is really impressive what you have accomplished so far! Keep up the good work!

**Snufkin** · 11-29-2011, 04:46 AM

Streets of Raaaaggggggge! GO for it!

**bauriema** · 11-29-2011, 06:43 AM

Originally Posted by Snufkin

Streets of Raaaaggggggge! GO for it!

lol yeah Streets of Rage and Final Fight are our main references for this project =)

**DavidStrife7** · 11-29-2011, 05:19 PM

There's some really great lighting going on there, I love it

Reminds me of Streets of Rage on the Mega Drive

**xxfatmikexx13** · 12-10-2011, 09:42 AM

How did you manage to scatter the wet reflections on the sidewalk? Anway looks amazing man

**bauriema** · 12-11-2011, 08:52 AM

Hey xxfatmikexx13! Thx a lot!
For the wet reflections I used a normal of water waves and several Panners and TexCoords with different values to simulate the scattering.

**hybridsniper** · 12-11-2011, 09:00 AM

love it good effort we salute you ! like Snufkin said above Streets of Rage .... cant wait t see the finished one

**xxfatmikexx13** · 12-11-2011, 11:50 AM

Oh alrgith i thought u used Meshpaint to paint the wet material in some areas andyway like i said i like it

**bauriema** · 12-11-2011, 12:27 PM

Because of the performance, I gave up using DX11 for this project (just the use of DX11 alone was costing me almost 20FPS). I'm now setting the level for DX9. No more light reflections and image based reflections =((((
I'm gonna post some pics when I'm done.

**zanrai** · 12-14-2011, 03:05 AM

Very impressive! I will definitely keep my eye on this project. :]

**bauriema** · 12-19-2011, 09:34 AM

1st of all I wanna thank you guys for taking the time to drop a line here, it rly means a lot to us.
As I said, we are dropping Dx11 for now and focusing on building this game for Dx9, so I had to redo a lot of things on the 1st level (materials and lighting mostly). The lost of light reflections and based image reflections will be compensated with more stuff in the level (I added raindrop particles, for example).
Also we started to model our custom character for the demo, and we even hired a voice artist to record some voices for this character already.

- For now some parts looks raw without the light reflection (the avenue for example) but I think this will be fixed when we add the cars and other objects.
- The AI was improved as well, the enemies now run towards you if they're too far. This increased the action in my opinion, because if you're fighting a group and more enemies spawns, they'll run in your direction giving you little time to breath between the fights =)
- In beat'em ups your way is blocked in some parts (generally when you fight a group) and it only let's you move forward when you're done (with the classic GO! icon appearing on the right). We managed to simulate that using codes for the camera and creating a custom blocking volume (that block the players and not the enemies), but it's still needs some fixes (in some parts you can just walk through the blocking volume, even though you were not supposed to).
We are going to post a short video later showing how the level look on Dx9 and with the new features.

Thx again!!

**bauriema** · 12-20-2011, 12:14 AM

The video as promissed:

**bauriema** · 01-10-2012, 01:04 PM

We added a few things to the game lately, such as flying kicks, a special attack (to prevent you from getting owned when enemies surround you) and also a sprint with a powerful attack that will knock your enemies down. For this 1st stage we added cars (purchased from Marlin Studios), fixed some things (lights mostly, and it still need some fixes) and added a few new elements to the scene like garbage on the floor, etc. Atm we are working on our 1st custom character and we might start to animate this char rly soon. Comments will be appreciated!!

**bauriema** · 04-03-2012, 08:11 AM

it's been a while since we last updated this thread about the game, but we are still working on it! The gameplay is 50% done, we added some new features (such as grabbing objects and throwing them at enemies) . We also just finished modelling the 1st character, Roxy, who will probably be the playable character for the demo. We can't wait to see her ingame instead of the UDK robot haha!

**DarkSonny07** · 04-05-2012, 06:29 PM

impressive environment!

**Snufkin** · 04-06-2012, 04:46 PM

I really like your work. Now if you could only remake Streets of Rage...

**bauriema** · 04-06-2012, 07:31 PM

Snufkin that would be possible, but we rather make an original game instead =)

**McTune** · 04-07-2012, 08:50 PM

Good looking work man this game is coming along nicely.
I wanna play it when your done.

**bauriema** · 05-07-2012, 08:33 AM

After a while without news, I'm gonna post 3 small pics. 1st pic is a edit of the level 1-1. The street you cross by is now smaller (it's more like a street from a suburban neighborhood now). There is also some lighting changes. Level 1-2 will take place in a subway - I'm still trying to find a good light config for it. And finally, level 1-3 which will be the level where you will fight the 1st boss. It's downtown, with skyscrapers, cinemas etc. This level is supposed to have some signs of destruction but I haven't started working with that yet ( I rather 1st build it 'intact' and then start with the fire, overtuned cars etc =D). Anyway I hope you guys enjoy it. I'm gonna post a video soon with some gameplay showing the new features we added (such as picking up and throwing objects at the enemies and other things, and also the ambient sound made by NextPhase!)