Zomboween APARKOLYPSE
Third-Person Wave Shooter | Team of 3 | 2 Months
PC | Unreal Engine 5 | UI Designer | FX Artist
Third-Person Wave Shooter | Team of 3 | 2 Months
PC | Unreal Engine 5 | UI Designer | FX Artist
I joined this project to construct a 3D main menu, but I became so invested that I ended up putting forth extra effort to give the project life. In total, I worked on the aforementioned menu, the game's buyable barriers, particle effects, and the in-game HUD.
This project allowed me to apply some of the User Interface design skills I cultivated through my classes (animation, communicating between blueprints, and other basic affairs) and opened me up to experiment with Unreal and to learn new skills (instance editability, Niagara systems, and feedback).
Creating this menu was a welcome departure from standard unreal widgets. Working with a different input setting and aligning perspective with widgets in a 3D space.
This was one of the first projects where I made the components of my menus instance editable. This became the standard for my future work, as it not only streamlined the creation of future menus, but made troubleshooting and sweeping design changes far easier.
This was my first real experimentation with Niagara Particle effects in Unreal engine. To make the player feel more like they are sprinting, I originally had an animated "sprint lines" widget appear when the player pressed shift. I knew I could do better. The system's particles are scaled with velocity and only trigger while the character is sprinting.
One thing in particular that I wanted to do with this project once invested was try my hand at a Heads-Up Display for a shooter. There is no ammo count in this game, so the number on the bottom represents points used to unlock new sections of the map. The HUD also shows the player's equipped weapon and level of damage bonus.