Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Fixing Character Lighting

Video Version


Subject: Fixing Character Lighting
Skill Level: Beginner
Run-Time: 5 Minutes
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: If your character is pitch black no matter what you do, this is the fix.

Streaming:     720×480 1920×1080

Download:     Low-Res (18MB) Hi-Res (23MB)

Written Version


Subject: Fixing Character Lighting
Skill Level: Beginner
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: If your character is pitch black no matter what you do, this is the fix.

Creating A Third-Person Camera

Where is the video version? Its below the written version, because the written version came out much better.

Written Version


Subject: Creating A Third-Person Camera
Skill Level: Intermediate
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: How to implement a third person camera.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

HTHUD: Part 3 - Implementing a Multi-Layered HUD + HUD Bars

Video Version


Subject: HTHUD: Part 3 - Implementing a Multi-Layered HUD + HUD Bars
Skill Level: Beginner
Run-Time: 1 Hour
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: Drawing our different HUD passes so that they stack on top of each other, along with making our health and ammo bars fill up or deplete based on current health and ammo.

Streaming:     720×480 1920×1080

Download:     Low-Res (172MB) Hi-Res (232MB)

Written Version


Feel like doing some writing? Want to get noticed? Write me up a version of this video for me.

HTHUD: Part 3 - Setting Up A Multi-Layered Dynamic HUD

Video Version


Subject: HTHUD: Part 3 - Setting Up A Multi-Layered Dynamic HUD
Skill Level: Intermediate
Run-Time: 25 Minutes
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: Displaying our current health to the screen.

Streaming:     720×480 1920×1080

Download:     Low-Res (73MB) Hi-Res (100MB)

Written Version


Feel like doing some writing? Want to get noticed? Write me up a version of this video for me.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

HTHUD: Part 3 - DisplayHealth()

Video Version


Subject: HTHUD: Part 3 - DisplayHealth()
Skill Level: Beginner
Run-Time: 22 Minutes
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: Displaying our current health to the screen.

Streaming:     720×480 1920×1080

Download:     Low-Res (73MB) Hi-Res (100MB)

Written Version


Subject: HTHUD: Part 3 - DisplayHealth()
Skill Level: Beginner
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: Displaying our current health to the screen.

HTHUD: Part 3 - Ammo Text Offsetting + Resolution Scaled Text

Video Version


Subject: HTHUD: Part 3 - Ammo Text Offsetting + Resolution Scaled Text
Skill Level: Beginner
Run-Time: 35 Minutes
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: Moving our ammo HUD texture over to the right side of the screen and offsetting our text to rest to the left of it, right aligned against our image. The text will also become resolution scaled so that it looks the same at any resolution. We also add functionality to scale all of our hud text.

Streaming:     720×480 1920×1080

Download:     Low-Res (88MB) Hi-Res (124MB)

Written Version


Subject: HTHUD: Part 3 - Ammo Text Offsetting + Resolution Scaled Text
Skill Level: Beginner
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: Moving our ammo HUD texture over to the right side of the screen and offsetting our text to rest to the left of it, right aligned against our image. The text will also become resolution scaled so that it looks the same at any resolution. We also add functionality to scale all of our hud text.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Creating a Health Hud Icon

Video Version


Subject: Creating a Health Hud Icon
Skill Level: Beginner
Run-Time: 8 minutes
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: Creating a really ugly health hud icon.

If you are an artist, please skip this tutorial. This tutorial is meant for those who have no idea how to create any type of art asset. It is done by a programmer, so the methods involved will produce extremely ugly results.


Streaming:     720×480 1920×1080

Download:     Low-Res (22MB) Hi-Res (25MB)

End Result:


HTWeapon: Part 5 - Dealing Damage

Video Version


Subject: HTWeapon: Part 5 - Dealing Damage
Skill Level: So easy a caveman can do it.
Run-Time: 5 minutes
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: How to make your weapon deal damage upon firing.

Streaming:     720×480 1920×1080

Download:     Low-Res (22MB) Hi-Res (27MB)

Written Version


Subject: HTWeapon: Part 5 - Dealing Damage
Skill Level: So easy a caveman can do it.
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: How to make your weapon deal damage upon firing.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Fixing The Loading Movie For Multiplayer Clients

Video Version


Subject: Fixing The Loading Movie For Multiplayer Clients
Skill Level: Beginner
Run-Time: 21 minutes
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: When you host a mutliplayer game with the current code, clients will join but they will get stuck at a loading screen endlessly. This fixes that. Also introduces GameReplicationInfo.

Streaming:     720×480 1920×1080

Download:     Low-Res (70MB) Hi-Res (95MB)

Written Version


Subject: HTWeapon: Part 3 – Creating a Dynamic Muzzle Flash Light
Skill Level: Beginner
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: When you host a mutliplayer game with the current code, clients will join but they will get stuck at a loading screen endlessly. This fixes that. Also introduces GameReplicationInfo.

HTWeapon: Part 4 - Creating a Dynamic Muzzle Flash Light

Video Version


Subject: HTWeapon: Part 4 - Creating a Dynamic Muzzle Flash Light
Skill Level: Beginner
Run-Time: 17 minutes
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: How to implement a UDKExplosionLight for your muzzle flash so that your gun will light up its surroundings when fired.

Streaming:     720×480 1920×1080

Download:     Low-Res (75MB) Hi-Res (100MB)

Written Version


Subject: HTWeapon: Part 4 - Creating a Dynamic Muzzle Flash Light
Skill Level: Beginner
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: How to implement a UDKExplosionLight for your muzzle flash so that your gun will light up its surroundings when fired.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

HTWeapon: Part 3 – Creating A Muzzle Flash

Video Version


Subject: HTWeapon: HTWeapon: Part 3 – Creating A Muzzle Flash
Skill Level: Beginner
Run-Time: 1 Hour
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: How to implement a ParticleSystem to use as a muzzle flash for your weapon.

Streaming:     720×480 1920×1080

Download:     Low-Res (156MB) Hi-Res (226MB)

Written Version


Subject: HTWeapon: Part 3 – Creating A Muzzle Flash
Skill Level: Beginner
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: How to implement a ParticleSystem to use as a muzzle flash for your weapon.

HTHUD: Part 1 - Update: Fix Chat Messages

I've stumbled across something I forgot to include in HTHUD: Part 1, and that is two lines of code that display our console and chat messages.

It directly fixes PrintScreenDebug() if you are using that function.

HTHUD


[csharp]function DrawGameHud()
{
DisplayLocalMessages();
DisplayConsoleMessages();
DrawLivingHud();
}[/csharp]

Creating A Muzzle Flash Particle System

Video Version


Subject: Creating A Muzzle Flash Particle System
Skill Level: Beginner
Run-Time: 17 minutes
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: Creating a generic muzzle flash to use with our weapons. The end result here looks pretty bad, but it works. Hey, I'm a programmer, not an artist.

If you already know how to create your own particle systems, just make a muzzle flash yourself. This tutorial is intended for people completely new to cascade like me and the result works, but is rather ugly. Or, if you are a programmer and have access to a technical artist, have them create your particle systems for you. (That is what I do :D)

Streaming:     720×480 1920×1080

Download:     Low-Res (53MB) Hi-Res (65MB)

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

3D Scripting Final

I had to do some sort of script for Maya for my final for "3D Scripting".

Some students are doing tool sets, generators of different kinds, etc. Basically useful things.

I created the most complex useless thing I could think of at the time. And here it is.

Allar's Melbik's Cube

Also, it turns out someone recently uploaded a Rubik's cube script 6 days ago to CreativeCrash. Way2Suck. However my script doesn't require you to open another mel document. Everything is generated from the script. Those of you that know Mel script will see that I did the really really lazy way of generating things, so yes that code is ugly. The actual cube code I think is rather elegantly implemented.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Finals Week For Me

This upcoming week is finals week at The Art Institute of Orange County, so tutorial making will be slowed but not it shall not stop.

I was hoping to have a lot more weapon implementation up by today, but thats okay. I have quite some content already done that just needs uploaded and formatted and I'll get to it when I can, I just have to hammer out a few school projects first.

Also I want to give a big thank you to John Sonedecker over at BlackFoot Studios for the first donation towards my microphone fund. Please check out his site. It is actually pretty awesome. He will be the first to be listed on People Who Are Awesome.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Donations For Better Microphone Would Be Lovely

While there are a few things I still need to work on to produce better and better quality tutorials, like my stuttering and rambling, audio quality is something that can be fixed immediately instead of over time through the power of hardware! I'm currently using a microphone I got with an ASUS motherboard about 5 years ago. While it is one of the better microphones I've owned, I've realized that to get good audio for these video tutorials, I will need something along the lines of a condenser microphone. While I'm not really audio savvy at all, I've had the joy of testing out some microphones and found that I really liked this microphone here. The problem is that I'm a college student and can hardly afford food sometimes.

If you would like to donate, please click the donate button to the right in the side bar.

Friday, March 19, 2010

HTWeapon: Part 2 – DrawWeaponCrosshair()

Important: I didn't notice this until after I posted this but my stuttering is pretty bad in this video. Just a heads up. I will re-do this in the future.

Video Version


Subject: HTWeapon: Part 2 – DrawWeaponCrosshair()
Skill Level: Beginner
Run-Time: 30 minutes
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: Going over how to have our weapons handle the drawing of our crosshair.

Streaming:     720×480 1920×1080

Download:     Low-Res (111MB) Hi-Res (160MB)

Written Version


Subject: HTWeapon: Part 2 – DrawWeaponCrosshair()
Skill Level: Beginner
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: Going over how to have our weapons handle the drawing of our crosshair.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

HTHUD: Part 2 - Learning To Use Configuration Files

Video Version


Subject: HTHUD: Part 2 - Learning To Use Configuration Files
Skill Level: Beginner
Run-Time: 30 minutes
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: Creating variables in our HTHUD class that are assignable through our .ini configuration files so our end-users can tweak our game settings to their liking.

Streaming:     720×480 1920×1080

Download:     Low-Res (75MB) Hi-Res (115MB)

Written Version


Subject: HTHUD: Part 2 - Learning To Use Configuration Files
Skill Level: Beginner
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: Creating variables in our HTHUD class that are assignable through our .ini configuration files so our end-users can tweak our game settings to their liking.

Sorry about the indentation, it seems like my indentation will not survive copy paste… I will go back and fix the indentation later.

Robot Unicorn Attack

While I wait for tutorials to render to post on my site, this is what I do.

Click here to watch me play. I don't know why you would be interested, but if you are, who am I to deprive you of such options in life.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Introduction

Extended Audio Version


A .mp3 of me rambling about what I'm doing.

Brief Written Version


I am Michael Allar, and I am Lead Programmer for The Hunt, a game being developed under a student group at The Art Institute of Orange County by the name of queSPECK.

My goal here with my site is to create a tutorial series that will show one how to start from scratch and to end up with a playable result, teaching them what they need to know along the way to implement their own designs.

I highly recommend using the February build when following these tutorials, as long the way you will migrate to March and any other future builds that may come out during this process. However you can start with what ever version you want, there just might be a few things you need to rework in some parts.

Migrating From February to March

Video Version


Subject: Migrating From February to March
Skill Level: Beginner
Run-Time: 30 Minutes
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: Migrating our code base from Feb. to March.

Streaming:     720×480 1920×1080

Download:     Low-Res (117MB) Hi-Res (167MB)

Written Version


Subject: Migrating From February to March
Skill Level: Beginner
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: Migrating our code base from Feb. to March.

See video for an in-depth explanation. Sorry about the indentation, it seems like my indentation will not survive copy paste… D: I will create a written tutorial soon.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Return from GDC 2010

I've just gotten back from the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco, and it was pretty amazing. I shall resume my tutorial series tomorrow (March 16th) so be welcome to post feedback and what I can do to make it better around here. I will post more about GDC as well when I am feeling a bit better as I caught some sort of sore throat during my time in San Francisco. Until then, happy development!

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

HTHUD: Part 1 - Building The Base Class + Displaying Ammo

Video Version


Subject: HTHUD: Part 1 - Building The Base Class + Displaying Ammo
Skill Level: Beginner
Run-Time: 1 Hour and 30 Minutes
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: Creating a new HUD class and having it display our current weapons ammo.

Streaming:     720×480 1920×1080

Download:     Low-Res (236MB) Hi-Res (337MB)

Video Update 3/25/2010


Run-Time: 2 Minutes
Notes: Fixes chat messages not displaying.

Streaming:     720×480

Download:     Low-Res (7MB)

Written Version


Subject: HTHUD: Part 1 - Building The Base Class + Displaying Ammo
Skill Level: Beginner
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: Creating a new HUD class and having it display our current weapons ammo.

See video for an in-depth explanation. Sorry about the indentation, it seems like my indentation will not survive copy paste… D: I will create a written tutorial soon.

Monday, March 8, 2010

HTWeapon: Part 1 - Adding Ammo

Video Version


Subject: HTWeapon: Part 1 - Adding Ammo
Skill Level: Beginner
Run-Time: 30 minutes
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: How to implement a very basic ammo system in our custom weapon class, taking code from UTWeapon.

Streaming:     720×480 1920×1080

Download:     Low-Res (66MB) Hi-Res (200MB)

Written Version


Subject: HTWeapon: Part 1 - Adding Ammo
Skill Level: Beginner
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: How to implement a very basic ammo system in our custom weapon class, taking code from UTWeapon.

See video for an in-depth explanation. Sorry about the indentation, it seems like my indentation will not survive copy paste... D:

Beginning Your Game Part 4

Video Version


Subject: Beginning Your Game Part 4
Skill Level: Beginner
Run-Time: 54 Minutes
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: Setting up HTInventoryManager, HTInventory, HTWeapon

Streaming:     720×480 1920×1080

Download:     Low-Res (32MB) Hi-Res (200MB)

Written Version


Subject: Beginning Your Game Part 4
Skill Level: Beginner
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: Setting up HTInventoryManager, HTInventory, HTWeapon

See the video for an in-depth explanation.

Beginning Your Game Part 3

IMPORTANT


This tutorial was created with the March build of UDK, as opposed to the February build.

This is a big -MY BAD- on my part.

The rest of the tutorials flow nicely after this. I promise.

Here is what you do:

You download the March build.

You install it.

You set up the config files just like you have been doing in Part 1 and Part 2.

YOU THEN DOWNLOAD THIS .ZIP which has the code finished from Part 3. Don't worry about what you are missing out, if you read through the tutorial you'll get the important stuff.

Open UTGameConfigDefaultGame.ini

Replace the Engine.GameInfo block with the following:

[csharp][Engine.GameInfo]
DefaultGame=UDKGame.UDKGame
DefaultServerGame=UDKGame.UDKGame
PlayerControllerClassName=UDKGame.HTPlayerController
GameDifficulty=+1.0
MaxPlayers=32
DefaultMapPrefixes=(Prefix="HT",GameType="UDKGame.TheHuntGame")[/csharp]

What we did there was move the DefaultMapPrefixes from DefaultProperties to this .ini file, as thats where the March build put it. You will learn how to do stuff like this later on as well.

When you compile, you will get a warning about HTInventoryManager. This will fix itself when you complete step 4.

Then continue to Step 4.

Also, skip Migrating From Feb. To March. since you are now using the March build. <_<

Sorry. These were my first tutorials I've made and I was bound to mess up somewhere. All the future tutorials after this will go smoothly. I will try to redo these first three later when I have some spare time.















Sunday, March 7, 2010

Adding an M16: Part 2.5 – Dummy Rigging

Video Version


Subject: Adding an M16: Part 2.5 – Dummy Rigging
Skill Level: Beginner
Run-Time: 10 minutes
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: Rigging a temporary M16 slug model to use for testing purposes using dummy objects.

Streaming:     720×480 1920×1080

Download:     Low-Res (17MB) Hi-Res (35MB)

Click here to continue to Part 3:  Preparing Model For Implementaton

Adding an M16: Part 2 – Geometry Rigging

Important Note:


During the video, I mention that all weapons point down the Y axis. I was basing this knowledge off of the Shock Rifle, which turns out is coded to be rotated to be facing down the X axis like the Rocket Launcher. Your model can face down any axis in 3DS Max, but make sure that after you import it that it faces down the X axis using the Rot Origin properties. You can leave it facing in the Y axis if you want, as adjusting the rotation in the weapon's code is also really easy to do too and I will go over how to do so in the code part of this tutorial series.

Video Version


Subject: Adding an M16: Part 2 – Geometry Rigging
Skill Level: Beginner
Run-Time: 21 minutes
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: Rigging a temporary M16 slug model to use for testing purposes.

Streaming:     720×480 1920×1080

Download:     Low-Res (47MB) Hi-Res (84MB)

Click here to continue to Part 2.5:  Dummy Rigging (Optional)

Click here to continue to Part 3:  Preparing Model For Implementation

Written Version


Subject: Adding an M16: Part 2 – Geometry Rigging
Skill Level: Beginner
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: Rigging a temporary M16 slug model to use for testing purposes.
Prerequisites: UDK, 3DS Max, ActorX

Adding an M16: Part 1 - Modeling

Video Version


Subject: Adding an M16: Part 1 - Modeling
Skill Level: Beginner
Run-Time: 21 minutes
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: A temporary M16 slug model to use for testing purposes.

Streaming:     720×480 1920×1080

Download:     Low-Res (54MB) Hi-Res (94MB)

Click here to continue to Part 2: Rigging