Updated the size of the trace that the lantern uses when it scans for objects, sometimes it’s too big so it would get stuck and not detect an object that it looked like it should be detecting. I’ll get back to it again to make sure it works perfectly.
Added a new pillar that affected the player’s gravity. So it wouldn’t seem to do much until the player fell or jumped. Sorted through some of the sounds I downloaded, and they are 100 gb worth of sound, so I definitely need to carve out some time to go through them all. They are very high quality pieces of sounds. I used a lot of them today, finally adding sound to the pillars and the boss itself. The pillars becoming more complicated and complex over time makes it more fun to fight against for sure. Then I ended up using the same footstep sounds from the first boss. My design philosophy is to reuse assets if I don’t have to make or find new ones. Especially when they are closely related to each other. A lot of the pillar sound effects are just the same sound at different pitches. That way it comes from the same source but sounds slightly different. It is both a shortcut for me, and so the audio sticks to a theme as well.
While quickly looking at the sounds I found some nice ambience I wanted to use, mixed them together but didn’t put it in the game yet. I need to learn how to create a music system, something that can be adjusted and manipulated easily by me. That’s definitely on the to do list. Added more functionality to the pillars so they also get summoned to where the player is. And added sections for the boss phase based on his life, which is different than his shield phases. Made a small little function that handed the boss the reference to the level’s sun, so it could change based on the phase. I still need to work on better transitions, because all I do is make it darker. Eventually I want to do more interesting things to the stage where I can. I still need to figure out what that is.
Funnily enough the thing that gave me the hardest time today was probably the smallest thing. It was getting this cylinder to move in time with the bell. It’s a tiny visual cue that the bell is ringing, it doesn’t do anything else but move. For some reason whenever I try to rotate anything there is always a problem. I never know when to add rotation, or set rotation, or add local rotation. That’s still a lack of understanding on my part. I need to study more of these functions. Then when I finally got it rotating, it would be askew for some reason. Somehow it would not follow the rotation of what it was connected to. I instead realized that I should simply move it up and down. Worked well and even better than what I was trying to accomplish.
My last additions were adding an impact sound of the boss, found more cool sounds from the hundreds of new ones I had. Then I added a function to the character where I could attach effects, a “status effect” that could easily be destroyed since it was on a loop. I wanted a way to communicate to the player when they were slowed, or their gravity was affected, and eventually other interesting mechanics as well. It is funny because I remember trying to set the player on fire a few months ago and I had no idea how to do it, so I gave up on it. Today I was able to do it quite easily, my grasp of Unreal has come a long way but it still lacking in many areas. One step at a time.
Tomorrow I will try to finish off the flow of the boss, I’m thinking of adding more pillars, or at least a different variety of attack so I don’t bore the player too much.
GoldenGratus Games 