DasMatze's projects - Developers

Here are my recent UE4 projects I'd like to share with you. Click the titles to visit their download locations. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Bricksperience The Bricksperience is a relaxing game in which you build brick-building sets from the point of view of a minifigure. By finishing sets you earn Bricksperience Points which allow you to unlock new features to help you build sets faster and more convenient. When you're tired of the sets that come with the game, you can import custom sets made in LDraw applications using the ingame editor. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/134934/20c12807-4d42-42e8-b3e2-ee106e28d950/7uXNEs.jpg https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/134934/8d193a08-23b7-42c5-b98b-cacc29f988c7/Medkn_.jpg https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/134934/725250fa-417a-45f7-9dc1-dab5b375ff06/b36Sq.jpg https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/134934/21804a64-c2bb-48cb-a327-a67fcebb6e9e/uwtvNM.jpg https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/134934/9c49b1ec-c12b-4deb-ab49-53c03f96c124/cJpw2Z.jpg ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Bricksperience VR In this Virtual Reality game you construct brick-building sets using motion controls. The menu on your tablet provides numerous options to tweak your relaxing experience. In order to have any sets in the game, you need to download and run The Bricksperience at least once. This means any set you imported into The Bricksperience can also be played in VR. It's made using the Unreal Engine 4. While it has mainly developed for Oculus Rift + Touch, any Windows-compatible set of HMD + motion controllers should work. https://youtu.be/dGCVIOWp77A (Warning: bad music) https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/134934/a11d29f8-df78-45c6-957c-6a04ae366d1f/lHCeEa.jpg https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/134934/a844ce1e-0f80-4231-87c6-994f365786a4/uDUovt.jpg https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/134934/16c593be-b34d-4310-b07c-e62ec8b335cc/ozWLtg.jpg https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/134934/e76db770-674f-4334-985a-3f23144e7c14/ysipkZ.jpg https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/134934/7ce099de-591e-4d50-a410-6596cbe2aa6a/Xl7JSO.jpg ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dungeon Generator In October of 2014 I created my Randomized Dungeon System. After release it turned out to be flawed with bugs. Recently I discovered the level instance feature of UE4 and decided to try it again from scratch. I came up with a new generator which still uses tiles compared to other generators which are only able to use walls and floors on a fixed grid. Since I've gained a lot of experience in the meantime, this new version should be much cleaner, more stable and more professional. It is still made completely with blueprints. Features: Each tile is a separate level. It can contain anything a regular level can. Performance friendly by having an automated system of hierarchical instanced static meshes implemented. Connections can go in all directions (not limited to a grid). TileCondition and LayoutModifier classes exist to modify the layout during the generation process (create child classes and assign them to the tiles) Tiles can have limited amounts so unique or rare tiles only spawn a couple of times at most. Tiles will only spawn where they don't intersect with "WorldStatic" collisions. Actors exist to help with the tile setup process. Limitations: No seeds/random streams implemented right now. Only one generator can exist in a level. Spawning the levels after layouting the tiles is performance intense and takes a while. No replication for multiplayer. The generator works in two phases: layouting and spawning. First the layout is set up by spawning DungeonTile actors in the level and connecting them. Afterwards the DungeonTile actors spawn their assigned levels before getting destroyed as they are only placeholders. There are three examples included in the project. The first one is a dungeon made of hallways. It shows that there can be multiple types of connections ("narrow" and "wide" in this case) and that actors placed inside level tiles and navigation works fine. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/134934/d9387681-7df9-4226-b2dc-4ba9ea175885/image_142638.jpg https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/134934/fb672ae7-475a-49e8-adf4-061a0708693e/image_142643.jpg The second example consists of hexagonal tiles as you see them in many strategy games. They use the connections "G" and "W" (Ground and Water) at the edges to generate natural looking landmasses (compared to tiles which are either completely ground or water). It's also best for showing the difference between the "From Center"-mode turned on and off. When turned on, the generator will add the next tile to the one that is closest to the level's origin, leaving no gaps in this example. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/134934/a97f49b9-2c1f-4c43-8955-80d9d9f9b51d/image_142642.jpg https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/134934/525a5c83-d9bd-49d6-aea8-445943429533/image_142644.jpg The third example has a train track raging in all directions with twists and turns. The fact that connections can be rotated and therefore generate twisted layouts is what this example is supposed to display. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/134934/ec1d75d4-771e-46a0-a116-99b46f6cdc9b/image_142640.jpg https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/134934/ff121ae5-f83c-456c-95ae-859c8081482c/image_142639.jpg ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ All projects have been made with Blueprints (I can't code). The Bricksperience VR has just been released. I'd be thankful if someone with a Vive could tell me whether it works. Let me know if you have any suggestions!

Doesn't work in Vive. I get stuck 5 feet below the ground and my touchpad only just teleports me back there. I'll throw ReVive at it and see what happens.

I'm curious, since I also worked on a LEGO fan project that incorporated .ldr files, did you do anything to improve performance of your brick rendering? (draw calls, particularly)

@Iamgoofball: Thank you for letting me know. I assume you tested the newest version where I already tried to solve that problem. I will have another look at it. @Loriborn: Yes, non-physics bricks use Heirarchical Instanced Static Mesh Components. They, of course, don't do anything when every brick in the set has a different combination of mesh and color. The physics are the main culprit of bad performance. Once all bricks have come to rest, it runs nicely.

@DasMatze I've been playing around with a similar system for runtime LEGO building, experimenting with procedural/runtime meshes particularly, or splicing up LEGO pieces into cull subsections similarly to what LDD does. Just trying to get a system in place that can get nice representations of LEGO content without losing out drastically on performance once using a larger number of pieces.

This is sweet dude, good to see you can do a lot with blueprints, mind if I ask how you got started with Blueprints? Seems like a bit of a learning curve

Personally I taught myself many digital design skills by messing around with something, seeing what happens and make a connection between my actions and the resulted effect. With UE4 it was no different. So I can't exactly give you good resources. But I'm sure there are many videos around. When it comes to specific blueprint nodes, the "WTF is {blueprint node}" videos are really useful.