Master's Thesis
Utilizing Next-Gen Technology to Creating a Dynamic Game Environment
This thesis focuses on creating a dynamic environment to help immerse players into the world they are experiencing. In addition to making the world seem more alive, the assets created for this also help with conveying gameplay. To highlight the roles in which dynamic environments reinforce the believability of a space, this thesis is based on developing assets for a horror/survival game that takes place in an abandoned arctic base. Majority of the changes in the environment will be created in UE4 through material set ups and Blueprint.
This thesis focuses on creating a dynamic environment to help immerse players into the world they are experiencing. In addition to making the world seem more alive, the assets created for this also help with conveying gameplay. To highlight the roles in which dynamic environments reinforce the believability of a space, this thesis is based on developing assets for a horror/survival game that takes place in an abandoned arctic base. Majority of the changes in the environment will be created in UE4 through material set ups and Blueprint.
Accumulating Snow Material
This material is intended for use on flat surface or BSP. The material set up includes texture parameters, which allows the swapping out of base textures. To help the snow build up in an uneven manner, the albedo map is desaturated and applied as the base mask. What is darker on the albedo will be where the snow appears first. An ambient occlusion or cavity map would work well for this purpose too.
Tessellated Accumulating Snow Material for Meshes
For models that have snow building up on top of them, a similar material setup to the prior one is used. The main difference is that this material features mesh distortion/tessellation to make it appear as though snow is piling up only on the tops of the models. For this, a custom mask makes the snow build up unevenly, rather than relying on the base albedo texture for a mask. This is because the material has a world-space vertex expression that calculates the model’s positive z-axis as part of the mask, so snow only builds up on the tops of meshes regardless of the base textures or mesh orientation.
Frosting Window Material
Glass frosting over due to the cold is a result of using a Linear Interpolate with a Scalar Parameter multiplied through the mask. The mask has a radial gradient so that the achieved effect makes it appear as though the glass is frosting from the corners inward. This material is also set to be translucent, as the player needs to see through the glass.
Snowy Footprint Tracks and Puddle Material
The effect of melting snow is simulated by snow tracks shrinking and water puddles growing. The puddles and snow tracks use the same scalar parameter but tied with different masks, and both of these masks then use a linear interpolate to determine the textures to display in the corresponding areas. The material is set to be translucent so that it does not cover up the floor where there is not snow or the puddle. This material also has a scalar parameter tied to the overall opacity, which is used to make it look like the puddle slowly fades overtime.
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