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Steven Baeringer - Technical Designer

Solo Projects

Undisturbed - Spring 2018

7 weeks, part time - Powerpoint Pitch - High Concept

Experience the Hero’s journey from another perspective, as you deliver judgement upon trespassers of your lair.

Technical combat prototype, made with 3rd party models and animations, between a player controlled Wyvern and Warrior, including a standalone racquetball spinoff made in two days (with AI Warrior, Blueprint below).

Warrior Blueprint

Undisturbed: Racquetball EXE Google Drive

Aesthetic - Should feel slower but able to catch the opponent off guard with well timed/positioned powerful attacks and abilities.

Dynamics - A player that is too passive will be attacked more by small and noncommittal attacks and might run out of health. A player that is too aggressive might run out of stamina and might run out of health before it regenerates. Light attacks are not committed, but heavy attacks can be used to catch the opponent off guard.

Mechanics - Attacks should cover specific zones and ranges around the boss, including well conveyed, large area attacks, such that a player boss can choose the best option for attack (meaningful choice) based on their relative location to the Warrior.

- A problem I encountered here was that the animation pack for the Wyvern did not have rotating, stomping, or sweeping animations for attacks.

- To address this I will be looking for a better suited animation pack, I've made animation composites of parts of animations to create the anticipation of attacks, and I've used a Character Rotation Blueprint node to implement a sweeping/turn around attack.

- Special attacks like "Turn Around", "Glide", "Flame Breath" (planned), "Gust" (planned), and "Dive Bomb" (planned) should allow for a robust choice of moves beyone light and heavy attacks.

Aesthetic - Should feel fast and skillful but fragile.

Dynamics - A player that is too passive will not be in position to punish a Strong/Special attack by the boss and might run out of health. A player that is too aggressive might run out of stamina and might run out of health or heal ability before it regenerates. Light attacks are not committed but inefficient, while heavy attacks can be used to maximize damage potential and stagger the boss (planned).

Mechanics - Attacks should have damage that reflect the length of the animation and input required.

The Warrior must attack as much as possible while dodging and managing stamina to escape the strong Boss attacks.

- To give the player the choice of damage potential vs safety, I've implemented two weapons, a Sword that is fast but weak, and an Axe that is slow but strong.

- To give the player the ability to feel fast and skillful, I've implemented an Input Buffer and Directional Dodge.

- To make the player feel fragile, I've given them low health but a fixed number of healing items to use if they are skillful enough to escape further damage.

Features with * are coded either without guides or above and beyond their implementation.

Animation Montage based combat system that blends between the normal locomotion animation, using Animation Notifies to toggle states, launch the player, and call functions in Blueprint.

* Input Buffer System that allows the designer to choose which abilities (inputs) are allowed to automatically activate after each type of move is almost complete.

- This allows the player to efficiently attack, dodge, heal, or switch weapons without having to spam the input when it becomes available.

Lock On system using a Blueprint Interface to recieve and send lockable target position vectors and interpolating the Player Camera to look at that position on all axis and Control Rotation on the yaw axis.

* Directional Dodge that, with no input, dodges backwards, but will dodge in a direction calculated with the Anim Instance, Velocity, and Control Rotation if movement input is true.

Combo System which plays different attack Anim Montages if the same type of attack input is pressed before the combo is reset at the end of an Anim Montage.

* Light Attacks - Slowed movement and rotation windows during the startup or in between attacks to adjust to a moving target.

* Heavy Attacks - Stopped movement and slowed animation while button is held, until either the button is released or an Anim Notify in the Montage is reached, allowing for a slow or really slow wind up to throw off opponents and do massive damage. (currently damage scaling based on time held is planned but not implemented)

* Character specific abilities - Wyvern turn around and glide attacks (fire attack planned) | Warrior switch weapons and heal abilities.

Knockback and Stun (planned)