KismetKit series - Building blocks to help you make your game idea happen.

[Henrik]

I'm starting a new video lesson series called Kismet Kit. In it I will be compiling a variety of building blocks for mini games, single player campaign interactions, and so forth. Things like camera functionality, AI, and miscellaneous multifunction gizmos whose uses are only limited by your imagination. These building blocks are recommended if learning UnrealScript is a hinderance to you making progress on your game concept, if you wish to quickly prototype something, or, heck, if you just want to experiment and learn more about the power of Kismet.

In the first video I decided to make a top down camera, perfect for RPG's and the like, it can also easily be modified to work at any other angle really once you understand the principle of what's going on. Sidescroller, Over the Shoulder, and so on and so forth. Go nuts! Back soon with more, but lemme know what ya think in the video comments.


June 20: Vid #1 - Top Down Camera


June 21: Vid #2 - MultiCam Toggle System
Link to post below: http://forums.epicgames.com/threads/...1#post30530091

[samuraiwu]

Thank you very much!It is quite useful!

[geodav]

will watch tomorrow when i have more time promise

[Lexluthor1]

We want more Scaleform tuts Henrik
Yours were great and I'm sure these will be too !

[Henrik]

Hasn't most Scaleform functionality been covered by now? It's not really a topic I'm an expert on per se especially because my coding abilities are limited, I taught what I knew I could teach well and now would rather focus on the areas of the editor I'm interested in and use on a regular basis. Kismet, although it tends to be frowned upon by the gurus, is the most accessible way to create game behaviors for artists and all new UDK users, plus it is cool in my opinion to see how you can "hack" it in different ways to make it do unusual things. Thus my interest in doing this series.

[Lexluthor1]

Hasn't most Scaleform functionality been covered by now? It's not really a topic I'm an expert on per se especially because my coding abilities are limited, I taught what I knew I could teach well and now would rather focus on the areas of the editor I'm interested in and use on a regular basis. Kismet, although it tends to be frowned upon by the gurus, is the most accessible way to create game behaviors for artists and all new UDK users, plus it is cool in my opinion to see how you can "hack" it in different ways to make it do unusual things. Thus my interest in doing this series.

I see your point and I totally agree..There isn't really enough out there on the kismet..I love it because like you, I'm bewildered by script..Unreal Engine 4 will be scrapping u-script anyway and hopefully kismet 2 will be all singing and dancing for non-coders

Good luck with the series and I'll be sure to point people your way

[Henrik]

Thank you. That is a good point also. Kismet is poised to take over, and interest in it will increase. Thus starting to learn it better now will only give people an advantage when Kismet2 rolls around. I have a friend who is used to doing everything by code, and he is not used to thinking of game behaviors visually, but sees how once one gets used to it many things could be done far more quickly. The coding side of things will never go away and if anything I might even find myself getting deeper into coding in UE4, but I am glad new venues are opening up as well. I have a project I will be revealing soon which uses Kismet in some pretty clever ways to speed up my pipeline dozens of times over (I'm an animator) and it will be interesting to see how people catch on to that too.

[Henrik]

Second video's done, this one explains three things...

1. Attaching a mesh to represent our player (mainly for testing but who knows, that method could work for some games)
2. Setting up hotkeys for toggling between 3 different cams: Topdown, as our last video + an over shoulder + sideview cam.
3. A second, simpler method to make the camera focus on the player than the original matinee method and some explanations of where either method is more well suited.

The side cam is a good basis for a sidescroller type game but for true sidescroller, there needs to be further kismet to limit the player's rotational abilities. Not covered here but maybe later!