Topic: Castlevania level 1 made in unreal

[dejawolf]

made Castlevania level 1 in unreal.

erk, just noticed there already was a thread in here.

originally i was going to release this level for free when i reached 10k views, but the video blew past that pretty spectacularly already.
so i'm just looking for places to upload it, which i'll do over the weekend.
i also promised making level 2, and also release the project code at 100k views, so other people could take a stab at making levels with this project, and it's currently at 90k views.

[dejawolf]

here's the download link to level 1:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8sYuD095SlsN2hfWVNvTUxJTkE/view?usp=sharing

uploading the code as well.

[dejawolf]

and here's a link to the unreal project files:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8sYuD095SlsVE5fekIwcFo1WG8/view?usp=sharing

[X]

So we can try out your game then? Sweet!

[dejawolf]

sure go ahead. just tell me about any problems and bugs.
oh btw, it'll ask for network access, deny it. when i started building the game unreal built on network code, but i'll be looking into ways to remove that.

[X]

I just gave it a shot and it is a nice translation for the most part. However my machine started to suffer from lag when I stepped into the castle. I was losing FPS like crazy and this was effecting the gameplay. I think the game (even if it's just one stage) might be too beefy for some PCs to handle. Is there a way to trim it down a bit so that the FPS loss is significantly reduced?

[dejawolf]

not at the moment, but i believe it is the light complexity in that part which is causing so much lag. i'm going to experiment and see if there is any way i can reduce the light and shader complexity in that area without reducing the graphical fidelity.
the framerate also starts suffering in the bossroom, likely because of all the cobwebs.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Add a foreground layer of soft light and remove the moonlight.  Keep the moon brightness but it looks like the moonlight is struglling to go through every object wall that's open (windows, etc.) and the calculations may be causing slowdown.

Also, it's really hard to see with just the moonlight, so a soft foreground light source may help gameplay.  You can keep more darkness in Stage 4 when you get to it.

[dejawolf]

dunno, i like the moonlight, it outlines the windows pretty nicely, and also casts nice shadows on the floor.  but i did toy a bit around with lighting to get a better understanding of how they work.
i wanted a bit more of a silhouetted feel feel, where you'd have strong rim lighting outlining the characters, but so far i've been mostly unsuccesful at it.

 oh, and i worked on simons animations over the weekend.
quite a pain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2YqMaYWA7Y

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

His walking and whipping looks good.
The jumping is still goofy, hehe.

Not saying I didn't like the moonlight lighting, I'm just noting that it may be the reason for the slowdown that people are experiencing.
Perhaps some compromising may have to happen?

[X]

There must be a way of getting the desired results and at the same time not sacrifice loss in FPS.

[dejawolf]

yes i'm looking into it.
afaik there's 3 light types in unreal, moveable stationary and static.
static lights are the absolute cheapest, and cast no dynamic shadows. i switched the moonlight from stationary to static, since it didn't cast dynamic shadows really well through the windows. instead i've switched a fill light i have behind the windows to stationary instead, so objects moving in front of the windows actually cast a shadow now,
although the shadow doesn't connect with the legs so it looks like the character is floating.



not happy with the garish specularity on the walls. i tuned up some of the foreground lights, but it caused the walls to appear like water, so i'll have to do some material tweaking

here's a picture showing off the light complexity.

it is clearly higher in the entrance than the starting area, so i think this is part of the reason why there's a slowdown there.
i also had a dust foreground shader in the entrance area, which i believe was causing sever slowdowns, so i removed that.

[zangetsu468]

It looks killer.... Vampire Killer.

[X]

not happy with the garish specularity on the walls. i tuned up some of the foreground lights, but it caused the walls to appear like water, so i'll have to do some material tweaking

It doesn't bother me that much. In fact it looks like water vapor permeating the walls of an otherwise abandoned castle. Cold moonlit nights with moisture in the air can produce such an effect. It might not work for stage 1 but it would look boss on an area that's around a water source.

[dejawolf]

new ghoul model creation video