Dev Log 5

This week I started off by looking through different outdoor assets that could possibly be used for my first level. To do this I used the website SketchFab where I was able to search for outdoor grass assets that would be used for the platforms the character has to get across. I was looking for some low poly assets that would fit with the cartoon character as if you have random different styles around the game it will look messy and unorganised. Once I had found the assets I liked I then needed to import them into the project so they were ready to use. When doing this I needed to create the materials that would go onto the assets, this meant that I needed to remember which map gets plugged into where. I found this process easy and the only thing I found myself struggling on was remembering what red, green and blue plugged into metallic, roughness and ambient occlusion however I managed to work it out through process of elimination which made the materials look correct.

Before I started dragging out random platforms and placing them randomly in the scene I decided that it would be best if I sketched out where I wanted things to go. I completed this by using my iPad and created different shapes to represent the different types of platforms. I made sure that these were on different layers so that I could move them around until I was happy with the placement with all them. 

Once I had my plan this allowed me to start adding platforms into the game when doing so I did have to adjust different gaps so that when the game is played the character can make to jumps or have to use items to progress. After this when I went to test fun the game I found that some collisions on different platforms were not correct and gave the character a floating effect. This would ruin the game experience therefore I had to go into the asset and change the assets collision. After some research I found that the way to get accurate collisions was to remove all collisions then use the auto convex collision option which allows the collision to form around the object.

With assets in the game it allowed me to start seeing the project come to life and see if it was measuring up to the plan I originally had. I do believe that this project is heading in the right direction to have everything completed on time and to a high standard. Whilst making my level it also allowed me to expand my knowledge on collisions as I only just learned that you could get a more complex and accurate collision around an object.