Xodius Studios: Forgotten Memories

 So, we began testing on the Steam Deck, Low and behold it actually runs. We are in the process of optimizing the levels to load in properly and to keep lag down to a minimum. I have began coding up a Video Rendering section for Graphics and whatnot so I can lower the settings in the game to better match what the Steam Deck can actually handle. I will include performance metrics in the next blog post. For now, that's all I have for now. Here is some game play footage with an itro, Enjoy!

      Xodius Studios Blog #9 Oh, The Joys of Level Streaming! Author:Justin Palmer Published: 04/28/23 18:00 The Problem:     The main problem this week was lag due to frame rate.  When playing on the Steam Deck the issue becomes a lot more apparent than a PC.   The Tutorial Level was too large with only 8 rooms!  I tried to keep the rooms small without minimal processing power, but the lag was still too great.  Lag is never a good thing in a game (unless you are playing against somebody that has lag with no compensation!).  It reduces the feel of the game and makes the player not want to play anymore.   Problem Solution:     The solution the team decided on, was to convert the Tutorial Level into multiple levels that can level stream (like the rest of the game).  Although it sounds fairly simple when they explained it, it turned out to be a bigger problem than originally thought, but in the end the lev...

 Name: Jared Barker Date April 27, 2023 Time: 5:24 PM EST Fixing the cannon trap in "Forgotten Memories" The problem: The main problem for the cannon was that whenever the player collides with the collision box for the cannon, it'll fire the cannonball, but will cut off after half a second. I tried making the fire time longer, but it resets every time I test it. I did some debugging and everything was working fine in the blueprint. It's been really bizarre since not only did it respond to the collision, but the player takes damage even though the cannonball cut off. The solution: The solution I came up with is to duplicate the mages fire attack nodes and modify the cannon to where the behavior is similar to the arrow trap where if the sphere collides with the player, they take damage while being launched away. So now whenever the player goes to the cannon collision box, it'll fire the cannonball and get rid of that bug. Also, I manage to make another cannon where ...

  Xodius Studios Blog #8 Action Menu "USE" Button, Inventory Slots, Destroy Potions When Picked Up, and Inventory MISC Tab Author: Kanitha Charoenpanich Published: 04/27/2023 13:58 The Features: This week I created the base inventory slots. The sword tab is replaced by the misc tab. The new tab contains the keys and shards at this moment. The 'use' button is functional now but I am currently waiting for Justin to update the potions code so the use button will be fully functional visually.  The potions when getting picked up get destroyed now.  Current Status of Features: Each menu tab has its own amount of preset slots. The empty slots also do not spawn the action menu The base inventory slots do not display the item amount until an item is populating it. The items will now spawn at the beginning and not the end of the wrapped slot.  The keys and shards in the misc tab do not display. I am waiting for Justin to redo his keys for this feature to work correctly.  ...

     Where to begin? It has been a journey from the beginning till now and we still have a solid month till graduation and the end of our capstone project. I had a urge to get our project seen, regardless of the it being the best it could be or not. Having the experience of publishing a title and all the hoops to jump through is key in my opinion.       Learning the process is half the battle, I wish we had more time but month 4 is reserved for polish and making it look nice, not necessarily functional. I had to spend a bit of time and money getting steam workshop setup along with the steam deck. All in all, I'm about $500 in just to make sure I can test it on the deck itself and the steam store processing fees. Oof!?!?  I have always been a businessman and entrepreneur, so this is really nothing compared to what I have spent in the past. Did I mention I got a new PC just to make development woes a bit easier after a crash and to help with literal...

  Xodius Studios Blog #8 Action Menu, Loading Screen, Notification UI, and Hall of Fame Author: Kanitha Charoenpanich Published: 04/21/2023 10:00 The Problem: This week I attended Hall of Fame in person. I attended every day and met the inductees at Hall of Fame. I attended many game industry panels and attended meet and greets. I was given a lot of advice and knowledge from those in the industry. I also attended the Career Fair, I met Alejandro Garcia-Turon of GhostPunch Games. I also had the honor of attending the Induction Ceremony Live in the Full Sail Live building.  I am having issues with the loading screen. I think maybe it is because of how the other members are loading in the levels or there is an issue with the amount of time that the level is taking to load in. The loading screen is still in progress I hope to finish by tonight for the build. The notification UI had an issue with the text being pushed off to the side, I am not sure if it is a padding issue or an al...

      Xodius Studios Blog #8 Merged Actors! Author:Justin Palmer Published: 04/21/23 17:00 The Problem:      The main problem this week was remaking the Intro/Tutorial Level to better 'square up' without gaps between walls and floors. Remaking all the walls and floors takes time and time is money!  Luckily Michael discovered a way to create assets using splines to extend them repeatedly in one direction, but this only solved having to click repeatedly, and I still had to line up the meshes perfectly.  I knew there had to be an easier way when I created the SAME hallway a third time!  So investigation took hold and I found the 'Merged Actor' Tool, but with some drawbacks in Unreal 4.27.2!   Problem Solution:     The easiest solution was to select all the objects at once by using Alt key and clicking each Asset to merge together, like a hallway you want to 'cookie cutter'. Right Click the group of assets and choose 'Merge A...

 Name: Jared Barker Date: 4/18/2023 Time: 12:33 AM Est Level Streaming in "Forgotten Memories" The Problem: So we've been doing a lot of redesigning and reoptimizing levels to save memory space and time in our project. At first, we were trying to get world composition to work in our game. So the idea was that one level will load and the next level loads when the player goes to a certain location. We wanted to apply that to the landscape we have created and load the levels we created from the world level. However, when we tried to test it, it kept crashing, so we tried testing it at the landscape level. We tried adding an existing level in the level window and testing it that way, but it didn't appear when we run it and head to that location.  The Solution: So after a lot of research and a lot of testing, we figured out a way to level stream the levels. So we first had to use the landscape level. At that level, we added a test level under the landscape persistence leve...

  Magic Missiles Creating the magic missiles seemed straight forward enough but turned into a daylong endeavor. I first ran in to issues when the colliders would not activate requiring me to rework the attack portion to check which of the AI were attacking. In this case it was the magic caster, once that was done, I noticed it was launching 90 degrees from it location and still pass damage. Other times I would only get damage but no effects. After some investigation, we found that the AI was facing the incorrect direction from the world space. Once that was fixed by adding a bit of vector math to the attack, we had our first successful impact.  The FIX and it was so simple once the actual problem was identified. Unreal is a Real pain sometimes. Here are the final results of the magic caster, now just to fix the collisions to deal damage at the corresponding instant will be all that's left on this particular enemy type. 

      Xodius Studios Blog #7 Niagara Effects and Arrows! Author:Justin Palmer Published: 04/14/2023 22:00 The Problem:      The main problem this week was getting the magic arrows to work.  I could get the arrows to have a Niagara effect by default, but I wanted a way for the arrows to change while still in the bow.  Deleting the Niagara effect doesn't seem to delete the currently running effect, but instead adds the new magic effect ON TOP of the old one.  This would be very confusing for the Player as to which magic ability they are trying to use!   Problem Solution:       The solution was eventually found to destroy the arrow (without removing the quantity from inventory), change the players magic, and then recreate the arrow. When ANY arrow is created, the Niagara Effect is THEN put on the arrow.  This solved the issue of the Niagara Effect doubling as the original arrow is deleted, and a new arrow is create...