RoboBlitz Tutorial

So I wrote a tutorial for RoboBlitz Matinees over at Naked Sky Entertainment's Wiki. Basically matinees are ways of scripting events and cameras. I'll expand it soon to cover some more ground. I started it because I had to look at levels to work out how they created matinees (including working out how to attach a camera) so I figured I'd save others the pain. Anyway working on these things then thinking of scenes in Gears of War (like the beautiful one where there is a combat going on in the background while the commander is explaining the situation to someone else) and realising just how much work must have been put into them.

If you found the tutorial of interest then do let me know. I guess knowing people actually read them helps motivate me to write them :).

RoboBlitz

I've been working on RoboBlitz's design tool as a way of getting up to speed with Unreal 3's engine. I thought I'd try some simple Kismet scripting stuff and came up with a disco (using some dynamic lights and delay gates). I might post a little tutorial on the Wiki (which has been a bit of a mission to update anyway) though they've got some fine examples of the script in use there. Unfortunately I took a screen grab, it doesn't exactly show lots of lights interacting or anything very well being static and all. I just thought I'd post it to show what I'm up to.

Additive Vs Subtractive

I've been playing around with the RoboBlitz Editor. I've previously worked on (if it could really be called that) maps using the previous UnreadEd editor and using the Source engine. This caused a couple of hiccups when I started using this system as I expect I was working on a subtractive level like I would with the previous UnrealEd but it turns out it defaults to additive.

For those of you who have no idea about what I'm talking about but a desire to know think of subtractive as carving air out of solid rock rather than additive which is creating rock in air. Subtractive reduces the chances of hall of mirror effects and people "falling" through the walls as behind the air their is always solid mass. I don't see many disadvantages to subtractive modelling in terms of performance and stuff but I'd like to know if there are. I know that RoboBlitz itself used additive creation instead. It's interesting that Epic included both types into their engine. Maybe to try and bring in people used to additive building? I'd assume it is possible to include both types in the same game (though not the same map, obviously) and maybe there is benefits to swapping between them.

I liked Valve having designer notes in Half Life 2: Episode One it was interesting to see how they went about things or what they changed due to things being impractical. For me Valve remains one of the most polished designers I can think of. Their games draw you in so well.

Anyway next in my Unreal 3 engine playing is scripting. I'm going to try writing a bit of a tutorial while playing around with it. Hopefully I'll have something to talk about in the next three weeks or so.

In other, unrelated news, I hear that Settlers of Catan for XBox Live is coming out soon. I'll looking forward to it :D.