Development Week 8 (08/05/17 - 14/05/17)

This week I completely finished the first Fastopolis track, including many particle effects, 3d models and in-engine animations, aligning with the set time management plan and bringing the overall level to a finished and polished state.

Whitebox testing- Up to this point, I decided to test if my current level and models have a good level of fitness for purpose. For example, I compiled a test log as seen below:

Date	Test No	Class	Function	Test purpose	Input	Expected output	Actual output	Additional comments
08/05/17	W1.1	SplineTrack	SpawnTrack	To see if the car and its anti-gravity allow it to drive all the way around the course	W	The car can stay on the track while driving on all angles	The car was able to stay on the track unless intentionally driven off!
09/05/17	W2.1	SplineTrack	SpawnModel	To test if an updated track model works as intended	N	The shorter track piece will reduce the jagged edges in the track	Having a new, shorter track piece with less edges actually made the track even worse. It stretched the texture and had even more jagged edges.
	W2.2	SplineTrack SpawnModel		To test if an updated track model works as intended		The shorter track piece will reduce the jagged edges in the track	This next model worked much better, having more edges on it allows the track to curve and flow much more smoothly along the turns.

What I got from this/ how it helped- This testing was incredibly useful for me when it came to understanding which of my assets work as intended for the base gameplay. And knowing that the player vehicle and AI cars can generally drive around the track, whilst also looking a lot smoother in doing so, is very useful knowledge for me to test for in order to give the project a higher level of polish, as a key part of our game which is outlined in our quality management plan.


Collaboration- I paired up with and collaborated with the three different modellers especially much this week, as it's the final main week of implementation. I imported, implemented and created materials for well over a dozen models in the game alongside my created and sourced particle effects, giving it a drastically better visual flair to the previous stages of the level just exclusively using BSP (as shown in the image comparison of before and after below).

The 'roundabout' section of the game during the BSP blockout stages

A much more finalised version of that section, almost being unrecognisable!

Research- I looked into various particle effect tutorials for Unreal 4, such as one by (The Unrealist, 2017) for a bubble-shield in Unreal 4. This material I coded in blueprints to put around the stadium area and entire level in general, however I created it entirely in the material editor within Unreal 4, with a screenshot of the bubble in action below, with it wrapping around any object meshes it collides with:

Professional working practices- With the deadline quickly looming overhead we as a group decided as a method of time efficiency to reuse some assets members of our group have created before. Such as me recycling Gus' space scene, Ty's sword and stone rock and also all of the city assets for a second city track set at a different time of day. All of this is good for time management following our strict trello board sprints, in order to maximise the content we can have within our game.