Allar's Dev Diary #9: Allar's Head + FaceFX

Created a 3d model of my head with FaceGen
Adrian Rodriguez rigged it and did some fancy FaceFX graph stuff.
Nicolas Ziegler lent his voice.
I imported .wav files, edited their animation graphs, shoved it all in mattinee.

This is the result.

Thank You Donators!

Allar's Dev Diary #5: Public LAN Port Scanner

Yup. Its a quick and dirty LAN port scanner. If you need one binded into UnrealScript, here you go, if not, move along.

With the binded DLL, you can scan your network for any open ports, given the port to hunt for.

If your game server is on port 7777 (which is what I use, you can set this by the ?port=7777 option on your servers command line or in your config files by Port=7777) and you do a lan scan on port 7777, it will find your server and store its IP address in an array of IPs that will also contain any other game servers on port 7777 on your same subnet mask.

Because it essentially is just a port scanner, it doesn't do anything fancy, and can create false positives if you have another service on the same port responding to udp communication.

Hopefully the included documentation within the code and the video below will be enough for you to use it.

I will be releasing more and more features for it when it becomes more and more refined and awesome.



Download here. If you would like to link to these files, please link to this page and not the files directly.

[download id="1"]
[download id="2"]

Allar's Dev Diary #4: Custom Character + Weapon Assets

Just some custom assets I've assembled/created and implemented into my code. They should be replaced with proper artist assets later on but its more of a demonstration of a custom weapon that reloads, animates, plays sound, etc without any ut classes.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Beginning Your Game Part 2

Video Version

Subject: Beginning Your Game Parts 1 and 2
Skill Level: Beginner
Run-Time: 1 Hour
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: This is really incredibly long but goes over how to create a blank slate for your game. Also goes somewhat in-depth on a line-by-line basis.

Streaming:     720×480 1920×1080

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

Written Version

Subject: Beginning Your Game Part 1
Skill Level: Beginner
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: Gets your UDK set up so that you can start coding into your own game class!

You will have needed to have done Beginning Your Game Part 1 if you are sticking to the written series of these tutorials. The video tutorial on both tutorials covers both parts.

Why Is There A Part 2?

So, we now have an empty game mode that we can now start coding into. Great! Why don't we start going over UnrealScript and start adding our own things?

Well simply put, we aren't done yet. While we have our own game mode set up now, we still are using Epic's player logic instead of a blank slate for us to use. The way the Unreal Engine handles player interaction is pretty important to understand:

Beginning Your Game Part 1

IMPORTANT: Use the March build of UDK

These beginning 4 tutorials got screwed over in a Feb/March mixup. These first two used Feb while the rest of this entire site uses March.

You will get a few warnings when following the first two parts, but there isn't too much code here. It will begin working fully after parts 3 and 4.

If you can make it past 4, these tutorials are pretty solid and will be a hell of a lot easier.

I'll try to remake these first tutorials soon.

Video Version

Subject: Beginning Your Game Parts 1 and 2
Skill Level: Beginner
Run-Time: 1 Hour
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: This is really incredibly long but goes over how to create a blank slate for your game. Also goes somewhat in-depth on a line-by-line basis.

Streaming:     720×480 1920×1080

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

Written Version

Subject: Beginning Your Game Part 1
Skill Level: Beginner
Author: Michael Allar
Notes: Gets your UDK set up so that you can start coding into your own game class!

If you haven’t already, you need to install a fresh copy of Epic’s Unreal Development Kit (UDK). Without it, you can’t really build anything.

You also need a way to edit .ini and .uc files. Notepad will work, but I strongly recommend setting up nFringe or Notepad++.

It is highly recommended that you also set up UnCodeX.

At the time of this writing, the UDK version used is UDK-2009-12.

Setting Up Your Code Package

In order to begin coding your new game, you first have to put your code somewhere where the Unreal Engine can find it. This is where the DevelopmentSrc folder comes into play. All the code for your game belongs in the DevelopmentSrc folder, and your code that you will create will be in a folder with a meaningful name that represents your game. Each folder in DevelopmentSrc is a script package, so we call GameFramework, UTGame, UTGameContent, etc "script packages". In each script package there is a folder within labeled "Classes" where all your UnrealScript classes will go. UnrealScript Classes are how you extend functionality to your game, making it your own. There lies a folder upon installation in Src named MyMod, you may use this folder to place your code in but I highly recommend naming it similar to your game name but keep in mind that you shouldn't use spaces or weird characters in your package name as it will have to be referenced in code many times. You will see that for this tutorial, I have used "UDKGame" as my script package name. Inside this MyModClasses folder you will find a DO_NOT_DELETE.txt, but feel free to delete this. It seems that this file was only needed for Epic to package the installer correctly. Right now this script package is empty, so lets get ready to add to it!

Setting up a Notepad++ Environment

This is a short write-up on how to get Notepad++ to work with your game, which basically only means setting up Unreal Script highlighting.

Setting Up An nFringe Environment for Epic's UDK

This tutorial shows you how to set up Pixel Mine's nFringe plug-in for Visual Studio 2008 to work correctly with Epic's UDK.