My Particle Effect -- Research

For my custom particle, I intend on creating an energy beam, or clusters of energy, that swirl around a radius that expands as the particles move upwards. I'm hoping to emulate a vortex-like effect, more or less, that comes from the energy sphere on top of my barrel when it is going to explode.

Along with this spiraling energy, I want to create particles that fly off and then sizzle/ smoke out whenever they collide with a surface. So, all in all, there are at least 3 particles -- as of now -- The spiraling energy, the sparks, and the smoke from the sparks upon collision.

So far, I'm just focusing on how to get particles to move in a spiraling fashion and I've learned about the point and line attractors from This Post. The sparks and energy are most likely going to be procedurally generated while the smoke will be a flip note.  

The video below, more or less, at least illustrates the motion of the particle that I am aiming to create. It does not detail all of the effects that I want to happen.

This here is another video that shows the direction I want to head in

Exploding Barrel Project

Everyone's favorite tale draws to its conclusion. Enjoy.

Here's the code, nerds

Race Track [P1] -- Gray box Edition

     Alright.
   
     So, I'm thinking for my race track idea that it takes place in a desert. Ultimately, I'd like for the level to contain a good amount of straight shots with a few round elements (i.e. Turnabouts, Drift spots, bounce pads) to emphasize the idea of a design that consists of rectangles and circles. Within this desert-area, there'll be some kind of factory that produces some of the things that will be found on the track, like some barrel depots and the bounce pads.

Color Palette

      Within this level, I'm hoping to place a canyon in that will collapse upon a trigger event, a large, wide drift semi-circle for the player to perform some sick mechanics, a collapsing bridge, and, again, some bounce pads that will project the racers upwards and forwards.

Thumbnails of views  1-3

Thumbnails of views 4 - 5
5 features the jump pads

     I'm mostly hoping that players will get that feeling of intense urgency, i.e. in the collapsing canyon in which it will seem they are barely able to make it, but in reality, they have a pretty high chance of doing so.

Some Inspiration: 

Explosive Barrel Concept v1.0

Left - The Barrel hasn't been triggered yet and the colors remain cool.
Right - Barrel is triggered and the colors quickly become a warm red - the rectangular extensions fall off to aid in indicating that a change within the barrel has occured.

Jam's Plays: Spiky Block HD Remaster GOTY Player's Choice Reboot Ultimate 4K Edition [P1] [Final]

     In this all new adventure taken on by the Legend himself, Jumping Jim, explore the vast depths of the abyss as you avoid these totally radical spiky blocks and collect coins.

Okay, but.. all in all, this process of creating animation for an object in a scene was pretty fun -- I enjoyed the result. Unreal's timeline, however, is not very efficient at allowing it's user to quickly enter keys to the timeline and duplicate or shift them around accurately -- the process, relative to what I've experienced with timeline's in Maya and Blender, is much slower than it should be, granted I understand the fact that Unreal is not program meant for animation primarily. Aside from that, the process was pretty smooth -- the hardest thing being that I had to make sure I wasn't mixing up my X and Y curves in the timeline because re-entering the values takes a bit too long to do -- longer than it should.

I'm going to call these blocks Sleps. Avoid them -- they'll kill ya.

Game Design II Jams Plays -- V-Core: Stuck in Graybox [P1][Final]

Oho, man. Back at it again -- Playing the Legendary V-Core Alpha HD Remastered GOTY Player's Choice Collector's Edition tutorial stage.

A little about the game's "narrative" : You're on a spaceship that got heavily damaged by some space debris while you were asleep (you were super tired, so you didn't wake up from it :) ) and you just need to escape from the spaceship because.. staying there is not advisable!

Release Date: Sometime in the future, maybe

V-Core - Tutorial Level Design Layout I

V - Core - You are a character that is in space ship that has been violently vacated (most passengers have been massacred) by passing-by space ship that hacked through and raided the vessel. You were able to successfully hide during the invasion, but realize that as the invaders were leaving with their findings, they have prepped your ship to blow up and you must escape before you are removed from existence.

   Within this tutorial level, there are 4 main game features/mechanics that the player will learn to avoid/utilize  in order to get through the level. The stage starts off with an incredibly simple jump obstacle that requires the player to jump in order to get past and they player is then immediately tested upon their skill to jump to get past the spike pit on the floating platforms which will teach them to time their jumps. A little later, there is an introduction to spikes that the player must jump over, otherwise they will be set back. Along with this, they must learn to utilize the jump pad as well as obtaining the Teleporter Activators in order to progress. From here on, the stage focuses on these mechanics with a few changes to previously defined mechanics (spikes become retractable and a platform is movable, which both require the player to time their movements).