The Ball - UDK
As you may have noticed,
Epic Games have released UDK. I think this is an absolutely great move from them and this will really lift up the community to the next level, and open up many new and interesting possibilities. It will allow the community to mature, and grow, a lot. This may very well make Unreal the standard piece of technology to use for a wide range of things. And being this deep into Unreal myself, I am not complaining really. In order to keep up with these changes I have been working on fixing up my website over the past two months. Tutorials have been added, the jobs pages have been redone, and a snippet system has been added. More on that a bit further down.
Epic Games offered my team and I the opportunity to port The Ball over to the UDK, and we grabbed that opportunity with both hands. We got our first stand alone build of The Ball up and running!
This is out first step towards the wider public, away from the relatively small UT3 mod scene. We are working towards setting up a company, and taking The Ball to the next level: a commercial release. We expect to release the full game in spring 2010, but that may be subject to change of course. I quit my day time development job, and I am working on The Ball full time now. Going indie! Over the next few months we will build up our online presence, establish a community, and attempt to turn The Ball into one of the major indie releases of 2010.
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Minimum
3GHz single core CPU
1024MB System memory
Geforce 6800 or similar
650 MB Diskspace
Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7
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Recommended
Dual Core CPU
2048MB System memory
Geforce 8800 or above
650 MB Diskspace
Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7
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Unreal Engine/Level Design Education
I have spent 3 days at the education PlayGroundSquad again, back in August. I taught Unreal Engine 3 to their students. And I just finished a month long session at FutureGames, coaching students, helping them build out their portfolios and get hold of an internship. I have a few more workshops planned in the next few months.
I want to bump up my tutoring activities. I have the time available to travel to schools and studios, and I love explaining level design, environment, and especially the Unreal Engine to people! Especially with the release of the UDK, I expect a surge in the number of educations and small studios making use of the engine.
I can help you make the switch to Unreal, and get your students or your production up to speed in no time. Feel free to contact me regarding training in Unreal Engine 3! . Check out the
services page on my portfolio to find out how I can be of your assistance.
Anywhere in Europe is fine with me.
New Tutorials - and site updates!
Just hours after release of the UDK, the first user tutorials are up! I wrote three new tutorials, about some of the new features found in the UDK. Soft physics, Lightmass, and Fracture Meshes.
Fracture Meshes: How to make meshes that can be shot into pieces using the Fracture Mesh system.
LightMass:Introduction to using the LightMass system.
Soft Physics: How to use soft physics in UE3.
Several other tutorials also received minor updates to bring them up to date. Please let me know if you find anything outdated in any of my tutorials.
Furthermore I introduced a Twitter section on the right side, and some quick links to LinkedIn and The Ball. There is a Share/Save button above all pages now, it allows you to quickly save or email the content on my website. The front page -
www.Hourences.com - has also been much improved.
On the downside, PlanetUnreal removed all hosted websites because of reduced public interest. That includes my Team Phalanx website. I started out with that website around 2001 I believe, with a bunch of friends, when I was still a hobbyist. Part of my history, so sad to see it go.
Jobs!
The Job Section has been redone. I merged the American and European pages into one big page and considering adding in Australian jobs too. I am now using the second page for Indie Unreal jobs instead now! With the release of the UDK I anticipate a rise in indie Unreal projects, and I hope to support that evolution through my job section.
Feel free to email me regarding Unreal jobs, and I will get them up on the page in no time! The only requirement is that it must be a serious project. That means that you must have at least something done already, or are able to pay for the work. I am doing this to somewhat safeguard the quality of the ads. Your project doesn't has to be commercial, it simply must go somewhere and have a reasonable chance of succeeding.
As an example, check out The Haunted team,
looking for a programmer!
My job section has been growing strong for well over a year, with jobs usually added weekly. Check it out if you haven't already!
Snippet System!
And here is the biggest addition of them all - brand new - the Snippet pages!
Snippets contain Kismet and Unreal actors in text format. You find the thing you want to have on my website, CTRL+C the text, and you CTRL+V it directly into the editor and you got yourself a working "something" set up! It is that simple.
So these pages basically act as a big example directory on how certain things are done.
Level
A Simple Room
Two Rooms And A Corridor
Basic Terrain
Sunset Atmosphere
Night Time Atmosphere
Day Time Atmosphere
Body Of Water
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Cameras
Simple Cutscene
Top Down Camera
Shoulder Camera
Orbiting Camera
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Movers
Simple Door
Rotating Mesh On Fixed Path
A Growing Mesh
Elevator With Doors
Looping Sections
Rotating Mesh That Is Toggled
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Triggers
Basic Checkpoint
On Death Play Sound
Three Triggers
Random Triggering
Triggering Another Trigger
Spawn Projectile And Damage Trigger
KActor Cannon And Trigger
Mesh Takes Damage And Changes Material
Shooting Out A Light
Use Trigger, Console Command, and Set Bool
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Miscellaneous
Light Attached To Player
Animated Light Color And Radius
Healing Player And Giving Weapon
Comparing Bools - Player Must Die Once
No Weapons And No Hud
Teleporting Player
Spawning A Bot And Commanding It
Spawning A KActor And Destroying It
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More stuff next week!
