Valhalla (W.I.P. Name) Link to source will be considered if contacted
Note: the above images are of the old version of the game that was made with Unity. Everything past this point was made in and for Unreal Engine. Assets have been ported and these images will appear similar to how they are shown here.
Valhalla is my most ambitious creative work to date. I began working on it years ago but development did not seriously start until last year. While initially made in Unity, six months ago I began porting it to Unreal Engine. The above image is a Screenshot from the Unity days but the assets are ported and being reapplied in Unreal Engine. Valhalla is a co-op, story game that will play in a standard 3rd person, free camera style. It's game play will have elements similar to Jak and Daxter, Diablo, Avatar the Last Air Bender and The Legend of Zelda.
The story of Valhalla I will keep mostly redacted for now. The story is about about an evil being that believes it is supreme and is infecting all living things to use his will for supreme rule.
The graphics are low poly art. I will be using heavy lighting effects in lieu of advanced textures to create a unique, easy to look at feel. There will still be complex materials, simple textures and particle effects to give the game a good, complete feel.
The graphics are low poly art. I will be using heavy lighting effects in lieu of advanced textures to create a unique, easy to look at feel. There will still be complex materials, simple textures and particle effects to give the game a good, complete feel.
There is still much work to be done, but the foundation shown here is a great showcase for known skills.
Tools Used
Unreal Engine
Unreal Engine
Blender
Visual Studio
JetBrains CLion
GIMP 2
Unity (Previously)
Skill Highlight
Game programming
Game design
Creative Fiction Writing
3D modelling
Armature Creation
Weight Painting
IK & other bone constraints
Texture creation
Material Creation
Particle Effects
Reflection
Creating Valhalla so far has been interesting and really satisfying. I originally got into animation and then programming because I wanted to make games and now that I have the knowledge, it is fun to be able to go back through and do everything I always wanted to do. It is ongoing and there is still much to do. To polish it for this portfolio, I made a way to switch between the skills I have made in game and also added some text to help explorers navigate it.
I learned a lot even up to this point. I researched and started implementing animation trees and blend states, AI Black Boards, advanced material tricks and Steam multiplayer integration. In Blender, I learned how to make complex facial rigging with vertex groups but there is nothing working in game to demonstrate that yet (this will be updated later). I reinforced my C++ knowledge and also learned about the relationship between C++ and BluePrints in UE. Game development has been such a fun ride with learning at every turn.
A big challenge I faced while making it so far is code errors will crash the entire engine. It is very unfortunate the Unreal Engine does not have some kind of generic error catcher that prevents the whole editor from crashing like Unity has. There really is no solution to this, crashing is an inevitability in UE. Another challenge I faced and still face is source control. GitHub is not doing everything I need it to with LFS and I am in the process of switching to a different source controller to help resolve some issues with reverting.
I learned a lot even up to this point. I researched and started implementing animation trees and blend states, AI Black Boards, advanced material tricks and Steam multiplayer integration. In Blender, I learned how to make complex facial rigging with vertex groups but there is nothing working in game to demonstrate that yet (this will be updated later). I reinforced my C++ knowledge and also learned about the relationship between C++ and BluePrints in UE. Game development has been such a fun ride with learning at every turn.
A big challenge I faced while making it so far is code errors will crash the entire engine. It is very unfortunate the Unreal Engine does not have some kind of generic error catcher that prevents the whole editor from crashing like Unity has. There really is no solution to this, crashing is an inevitability in UE. Another challenge I faced and still face is source control. GitHub is not doing everything I need it to with LFS and I am in the process of switching to a different source controller to help resolve some issues with reverting.
I took the instructor feedback and made the demo level a lot more accessible and much more of a show case. I added in game instructions on how to use the editor so no programming knowledge is required.
The in-editor frame rate and resolution for all of the following gifs has been truncated for optimized view on the web.
Ground
Enemy Interaction
Heal, Damage and Lightning
Last but not least: a background I made with my game assets to stay motivated.
