Zombies at boltons

[gaz661]

couldn't help myself from posting another video.

dismemberment fully sorted,although there is a bug,which I thought I had overcome,but has shown up again.you can see it at just after 6 mins.very rarely,when dismemberment happens,the whole mesh will become invisible but the zombie is still active and will reappear randomly.

[Snipe34]

hmmm, I'm mercenary about employment and I mainly temp because I travel and I'm easily bored if there's no challenge. I respect that you loved your employment, it's a pity more employers can't respect that quality. But hey man you totally reinvented Boltons hehe.

[KushMaticX]

Nice work....My only thing is, what people forget when building a game is that the Main character is just that, the Main character. He should be taken care of first when it comes to Look and Feel. I would change the huds, change the sounds, i.e., footsteps and grunts, ya kno, little stuff....Darryl wit the crossbow, i like.....i also like the zombie up in the corner, im assuming that its a bodycount. If that were the case, i would call the game Zombie Genocide, or something like that...But keep up the good work...

[gaz661]

thanks for the input KushMaticX.the footstep and grunt sounds will be replaced,but descent free sound effects are difficult to find.there has been a lot of changes since the last video was posted but ive been suckered in to battlefield 4 for the last few weeks and work on my game has been slow as a result.i put so much effort into getting dismemberment and fps arms working that I needed a break.the hud is changed and the map gone(although I liked the map it made it to easy)

what I have been doing lately is making a lot of the machinery interactive,i will post a new vid soon.

http://youtu.be/UlI1nHIxvSU?list=UUr...GSYNOY5MN9K7zg
Zombie Genesis was an earlier project and Zombies at Boltons is a working title only.

[KushMaticX]

Cool..Well i have tons of Sound fx and stuff ill be happy to give ya if you need em. Just tell me the exact Fx youre looking for. Battlefield is cool, you ever on COD or Left 4 Dead hit me up...gamertag Kid Kushhhhh...

[CobaltUDK]

The game looks nice. For zombie animations there are some good mocap (and free to use, I think) here:

https://www.mixamo.com/editor/new/309

https://www.mixamo.com/editor/new/86

[gaz661]

that's the anims you see in the vid dude,but thanks for the comment,and the links.

I took the mixamo anims and butchered them in max,added bits here and there.i suck at character anims so mixamo is a big big help.

[CobaltUDK]

Ah, sorry, I saw the Zombie Genesis video, but I see that animations in the other videos.

[gaz661]

latest update shows some interactivity with machinery.use the drop forge to temporarily stun zombies-their mushy brains cant handle the loud noise-unless they are wearing ear defenders,that is.
ive changed the hud again,the stuff in the top left is only temporary and will be moved to separate screen along with as many stats as I can.
ive discovered the utmapmusicinfo and I think ive used it to good effect.music was from freesound I think,i will check the authors and post their names when I get time.
ive solved all the bugs with the dismemberment code(I still need to tidy up the meshes) but some new ones have appeared in my weapon drop system.

[gaz661]

udk never ceases to amaze me.a couple of weeks ago I decided to see how much of the surrounding landscape I could fill before hitting performance problems.my map now contains the entire village of froghall.not that there is much else there.
there is a pub,the railway station and a scrap yard as well as a dozen residential properties.the only problem ive encountered is that building paths now takes over 14 hours.

also I have made a start on the story mode-very basic at the moment but im just laying out the framework and covering all in game eventualities.

also the hud is changed again and the map is back but in the final game the zombies wont show up.they do just there for testing at the moment.

[Snipe34]

udk never ceases to amaze me.a couple of weeks ago I decided to see how much of the surrounding landscape I could fill before hitting performance problems.my map now contains the entire village of froghall.not that there is much else there.
there is a pub,the railway station and a scrap yard as well as a dozen residential properties.the only problem ive encountered is that building paths now takes over 14 hours.

also I have made a start on the story mode-very basic at the moment but im just laying out the framework and covering all in game eventualities.

also the hud is changed again and the map is back but in the final game the zombies wont show up.they do just there for testing at the moment.

Goes without saying, nice to see an actual 1p game with menus and map ids actually working (but I don't want to see the bugs under the hood (I'm not being a smartA, everyone knows bugs are just part of gaming), I really mean, nice work!. Know what you mean about filling up a map and UDK coping all right, with the help of Massive LOD and render distance. But 14hours pathing, ouch.

[gaz661]

But 14hours pathing, ouch.

yes,especially as I can build lighting in 30 mins.currently there are nearly 7000 pathnodes and I estimate I will need at least another 2000,and I really want to get volume pathnodes in there as well for flying enemies,but I know it takes a lot of trial and error to get them working right and if im looking at 16-18 hours a time it may not be possible.

and thanks for the comments.

[frankit]

Looks cool Gaz! Couple of suggestions if you're open to feedback :-

Visuals:
1. The stills for the clips hint at a Night / Day cycle, but the clips are always dark....
2. Head on zombies sometimes come across as a bit docile. At a distance I like how they can surprise you by jumping down in front of the player's path. But close up they don't hit home as being scary, not like those in other Zombie games such as the kismet-only one. I think it feels that way partially because you shoot off their lower arm limbs in the animations... So what if at close quarters they rushed the player instead?

Pathing:
Subconscious fear of Pylons Gaz? (10000 Pathnodes!)
Instead of adding more, flying enemies could be placed into flying mode, navigate using velocities, and have simple obstacle avoidance, because the level is large and open.

[Snipe34]

Navmeshes never worked 4me on my big maps. I always went minimal on pathnodes and had nps.

If zs see you, they wander off nodes to get you. So on open areas, go totally minimal. But around trees, buildings, because nodes are line-of-sight probably 4 around a trunk so zs can circumnavigate. Buildings, 1 entrance 1 maybe 2 inside, another 1 if there's an exit. Test it thoroughly to find out where they have problems.

-Start up map size, removing the mid block you'd need only 2 nodes, because like I say, they see you, they go off nodes to get you. Test that and you'll see what I mean.

Looking at your maps, s/be 1000 max nodes, but personally I'd aim for 500 max.

[gaz661]

yeah,the title and loading screen images are a little old and need updateing,my map has had a lot of different looks through the years.the map is way to complex for dynamic day/night cycles,ive tried and that was when the map was smaller.as it is half my kactors don't cast shadows for perfpmance reasons but its not noticeable anyway.

im a big fan of the original ramero films and would really have liked my zombies to be as slow as his but that would not work without hundreds of them and the engine just isn't up to that so im left with zombies that are just slightly slower than the player.not having the zombies show on the map does make a big difference and really does produce genuine surprises.but,saying that I could make it so when a zombie is at a certain distance it could randomly choose to rush or continue to stalk.that might liven things up a little.

pylons-again,i have experimented and even on a much less populated map it took as long as the pathnodes do now with poorer results.in my version of udk,bots will not cross over between 2 pylon areas(marked with the white surface)and ive found no way to tweek it.the latest vid only really show open areas but the map is full of nooks and crannies too.

thanks for the input and keep it coming,it does help.

Snipe34,my ai is based on the ut3 stuff and when a bot sees you he will travel to the nearest pathnode to the player before breaking off if needs be,so if I have few pathnodes a zombie might see you and head for your position and you move away making his behaviour very odd.with lots of nodes this behaviour isn't as noticeable.