Finally got to start and finish this class Unreal had on setting up a scene from scratch. It was focused on building a detective’s office which was perfect considering the subject matter of my game. A lot of the props from the tutorial I decided to use for populating my first room. Hopefully I will be able to find different props down the line so not every room has completely identical objects merely arranged in varied fashion.
It started out with laying a rough map of the level, similar to what I did for my first draft. And then the teacher talked about setting up mood boards, which will definitely come in handy for my future levels. Since it’s a detective’s office a lot of the stuff in it could be used in a professor/teacher’s office as well. Books, shelves, tables, papers, folders, cups, and boxes. It was fun figuring out the setup for the first room. And it will be a lot of work since I made so many rooms, but as long as I make visiting every room worth it then there will be a reason to go inside. Not every room will have something important to progress the game but there may be extra information just to make the story richer. I’d need to figure out how the player will read documents and such. A nice prop included was a bulletin board, so there could be a lot of text there.
For now this first room will be a good place to start with building the player’s interaction with different objects in the world. I already made sure the chairs and boxes can be thrown around and hit. The most important part will be leaving clues or notes for the player to read and find. Very exciting stuff.
GG out.
GoldenGratus Games 