The Mansion

The Mansion | Fixed Camera Experience

Summary

A level about a psychologist that is worried about his patient visits their mansion.

Using fixed cameras and working with composition to lead the player with a custom made template.

The goal is to find out what has happened with environmental storytelling.

Breakdown

Goals

To create an experience that emphasizes exploration, environmental storytelling, create interesting backtracking with level sequences and work with composition with a fixed camera setup. Improve the template and get a better understanding of visual scripting.

Working with an existing level.

This is an old assignment I worked on last term which was a part of the advanced scripting course. I really wanted to create a template inspired by my favorite survival horror franchise Resident Evil and I really wanted to have fixed camera system.

(Early blockout stage)

Blocking out

For this level I had 2 weeks of working on the template and 2 weeks on creating the level. During this time I had a very clear vision on what I wanted to create and I gathered reference images and started blocking out.

I really wanted to work with reference images and re-create areas and make something playable with them.

Some early concepting for the level where I gathered reference images for the pre-production.

Reference

Whitebox

Creating the template

Player controller

I made a duplicate of Unreal Engine’s default character and changed left and right input to rotating, disabled jump and made so you cannot fall off ledges.

Here is me testing it out in the player gym.

Interactable’s

I created my interactable system using Function Libraries so that I could use it in other blueprints without needing to repeat a bunch of code.

Here is how the blueprint is built. I can check “is Item” to true or false if I want the interactable to be purely environmental or if it’s an item.

Here I am using the blueprint with an interactable and an item.

Doors

One-way doors

Creating a “One-way door”. These doors require no key and can only be entered through one side. I also make use of Function Libraries here as well.

The blueprint communicates with a sequencer and plays the cutscene when the player interacts with it. It takes the length of the cutscene so I don’t have to manually write in the length.

Doors with keys

This door is a bit more complicated since it communicates with a inventory system which is based on CodeThings tutorial. I will mainly cover how the door works and not the inventory system in itself.

(Click to view blueprint)

The door communicates with the inventory and checks if the required key/item is in the inventory. If it is, it unlocks the door. If it isn’t, it will give a message telling the player they don’t have the required item. This is because I want to avoid event ticks and save performance.

Camera

The main logic for the script. I can chose which camera I want to be the starting camera by checking the bool on the instances in my scene. Bellow you can see it in action.

Blueprint in action

The functions for the camera system.

Level Sequencers

I made use of Level Sequencers to change things in the level that would support my backtracking. I needed to change in the engine files since by default Unreal Engine restores the state of the meshes when finished to it’s original position. Once this was done I could save a lot of time since the meshes now saved the state.

Level Overview

Act 1

Introduction

The player gets introduced to the mansion hall where they can explore and get a hold of their surroundings. They can interact with items to get context on the level.

Act 2

Flashlight

The flashlight is used to see the blood on the wall where the player will see a code of some sort. They will then use this code to unlock the room next door.

Act 3

Climax

Here is when the player will get the reveal. The player will finally understand what happened in the mansion.

Introduction to The Mansion

See the dead father

First flashback

Introduction to your Main Objective

The Daughters Room

See a painting of yourself

Flashlight

Police has arrived

Climax

Changes made

I wanted to add more personality to the level and change the story. The first iteration had only offices and a dining hall as rooms and I wanted to connect the rooms to the overarching story of the level. So I gave the rooms a bit more personality and changed their context.

Establishing that someone has died

The first iteration had a ritual with no explanation on who it was for so I wanted to change that with environmental storytelling.

One thing I had to remove was the flashlight on the floor, since it will be an item you can pick up later. Secondly I wanted to create something interesting with the box on the floor, foreshadowing the electronical lock that will be presented to the player later.

This room was just like the rest of the level an office. I changed this room into the daughters room instead of another office. With props and my interactable script I give the room context and with light placement I can use it to lead the player so I can force them to trigger the scripted event.

Once the player has gone where I wanted the knife man appears in the background. This change was much needed since it creates for an more interesting room than previously.

Another example of a generic office. Swapped out to the parents master bedroom.

Here is how the puzzle was before. It has been simplified and I swapped out my UV light with Elias Bennaceur‘s black light shader.

Environmental storytelling with fixed camera

Working with a fixed camera gives me a lot of control on what the player sees and don’t see.

Introducing the mystery man like this creates the question for the players “who is this?” “did I just see something” making the players curios on what’s going on.

Having him show up in other areas in the level as the player is traversing the golden path to reminding them of him.

Using breadcrumbs and drawing the player with light to lead them to their objective or a point of interest.

Doing this I can reveal a scripted event with the knife man walking outside of the window and drawing the player towards the window.

Here I wanted to do a hard reveal when showing the player that there is a ritual for the mother.

The reason for this is because…

One of the goals for this level was to create a story within the level. Here I placed a coffin for the player to see and establish that someone has died. I have made a blueprint where you can interact with items which mimics Resident Evil.

Introducing the mysterious knife man, by showing a glimpse of him to create curiosity for the player.

Foreshadowing the ending by showing glimpses of the characters that will show up in the end.

Collaborating with Artists

I had an idea that I wanted to use a flashlight in a dark room that would reveal a passcode, so I created a blueprint which was pretty rough. I spoke with a Technical Artist, Elias and asked if this was possible to do more seamless?

This is how my prototype was and Elias created a blacklight shader which I could use for my level by just tweaking it a bit.

After some time Elias showed me his shader and it was exactly what I wanted. The transition was seamless and it looked just as I imagined it.

Super easy to use and very modular. If I just create different material instances I can use the same effect on whichever decal I want.

I also wanted to have the doctors show up in the level and to show and don’t tell that they’re doctors, so I asked a Character Artist, Emil if he could do a very rough blockout lab coat.

He ended up doing more than I wanted which I’m very grateful for. I sent him the static character mesh and he got to work and did a lab coat with textures. This felt like the last puzzle to my level and it did a lot.

The Doctors in action.