Project Rewrite

Unreal Engine 5

We chose Unreal Engine 5 because of a few reasons, one of them is Lumen. Lumen allows us to create an amazing environment for a horror game. For me as an AI programmer it was also helpful to be able to use the Blackboard & Behavior tree that Unreal has built in.

My Role

During this project I have managed to refind my love for AI programming and it has started my career as an AI programmer. For this project, I implemented all the AI logic from the ground up.

• Creating and implementing the Blackboard & Behavior tree
• Writing and implementing the AI tasks (Patroling, Wandering, Chasing).
• Writing and implementing the Perception Logic (Seeing & Hearing).
• Writing and implementing the Monster Character & Spectral Monster Character
• Writing and implementing the Monster Time Travel Ability.
• Implemeting the Animations for the Monster
• Writing and implementing "The Claymore"
• Writing and implementing the Throwing Mechanic
• Writing and implementing the Inventory
• Implementing the UI & UI Logic

My Experiences

The first thing for me to do was to implement the basic AI logic like spawning, moving, and seeing.
To implement this I used Unreal Engine 5s built in AI & Navmesh system. I also made a simple behavior tree with the essential tasks in C++.

After implementing the monster's basic AI, I had to implement some of it's movement behaviors, this being: 'chasing, wandering and patrolling'.
When the monster sees the player, he will chase them.
When the monster loses sight of the player, he will start wandering in the direction the player was.
If the monster has no sight of the player, he will walk on set patrol points.

After the monster could move, it was time to implement his basic abilties, attacking and screaming.
When the monster comes close enough to the player he will stop moving and attack. After that it will do a small scream, allowing the player to escape.
When the monster is chasing the player and the player managed to hide in a locker, the monster will also do a scream at the locker.

The monster his most complex abilty is time travel. The monster would only time travel on 2 occasions, when he sees the player time travel or when his spectral form comes into contact with the player.
In order for the monster to time travel, there had to be 2 Navmeshes in the level, one in the past and one in the present. When the monster time travels, he swaps position with the spectral monster, causing him to also change navmesh.