An Exercise in Exploration
TWP #11 - What is beyond the paths ahead.
A little shorter this week but I found time to sit down and write.
When you look out the window what do you see? For some reason this has been bouncing around my head for a bit now. I don’t see the familiar, I don’t see trees/cars/squirrels/dogs. I see the unknown, the unfamiliar, the curiosity of the infinite expanse that lies beyond. There are so many experiences that just pass by unbeknownst to us, so much solace and experiences that exist just beyond our field of view. So I think what I am saying is that when I look out this window, day dreaming instead of writing this, I see a world unexplored. Where the paths of curiosity collide with the paths of ignorance of everyday life.
Game Dev Update
Currently known as “Project Pluto”.
One mechanic that I have been building and tinkering with is the idea of time loops, the idea that you can play the same level over and over but each time loop iteration there is variance. If you are familiar with P.T. back on the PS4 it was a game that was a constant loop. You moved through the level then it would seamlessly loop back on itself. I really liked this mechanic and tried to implement this in a more robust fashion.
In Pluto I have “portals” which are objects that render a texture from the portal destination camera (which can be anywhere) and when the player enters the trigger they are seamlessly (almost) moved to that new location. I can define many portals and many destinations so I can, over the course of the game, direct the player to any room/area I want at any time. A simple level that consists of lets say room A → B → C → D can be shuffled around like a jigsaw puzzle. I can have the player start at A, then instead of exiting into B, what they see is C. I can essentially shuffle the floor plan around with each time loop.
These “time loops” I refer to internally as Phase Epochs. There are a finite amount of epochs that you must design for. The idea was to have a clear START and END of this game. The phasing must follow the following rules:
Here is a quick flow of how the portal + phasing works. Parts of this is in blueprint and the other is C++ called via blueprints.
So in the actual engine its looks a bit like the following. This is the starting room that will begin each time loop (phase epoch).
Next we have the view into the “portal” from a different area of the space station. You can see its rendering the view of the “destination” from inside the starting room with respect to the players current angle/rotation etc. This is to give it a seamless feel.
And below is what it looks like when the portal is disabled/hidden. The next room hallway becomes explorable. So instead of looking into what appears to be the first room you started in, a whole new area is open for exploration. This allows me to craft each “phase” as its own unique experience. There are only 5/6 phases, so with the help of these portals I am able to open/close areas each time.
And lastly, the portal is just a simple mesh that uses a render texture to make it seem like its an actual “portal”.
Now saying that all out loud as I type this out seems a bit disjoint. I would love to clarify/show more in depth how I did different things if anyone is interested. What I am working on in the near future is using these portal structures to take you from one level to the next. So instead of just warping the player around the level that contains the space station, I can also take you do a giant sweeping landscape with hills and trees, or snowy mountains, or barren desert.
In Conclusion
I really haven’t been reading as much as I would like to. I think its just life being busy. The stack of books next to me is only getting larger. I think next on the list would be to start reading “The Kaggle Book” to keep practicing my data and ML skills. As much as I have been trying to augment my skillset (being a backend engineer by trade) its been tough to fully understand real world concepts. When to use what and why. Maybe it will click soon.
Enjoy Halloween everyone. And as always, Go Bills (and Sabres).