TEMPEST Gears of War
LEVEL OVERVIEW
Development InfoRole: Sole developer
Genre: Third-Person Shooter Game Mode: Single-Player Mission Engine: Unreal Engine 3 Development Time: 350 manhours |
Level Features
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High Concept
Fight across a massive airship while switching between a combat oriented soldier and a puzzle-solving robot named, Jack.
Design Summary
"Tempest" is a single-player level created in the Gears of War Unreal Engine 3 and is supplemented with a large quantity of imported Unreal Tournament III assets. In "Tempest", players take on the role of a nameless Coalition of Organized Governments' (COG) soldier who must board a massive COG Command airship that has recently been hijacked by the insidious Locust Horde.
As the soldier, players must fight their way across the hull of this airship, finding a way inside and to the ship's bridge, where they must retrieve vital military data before the locusts discover it. Luckily, accompanying the soldier is the flying, cloaking, and hacking robot, Jack. At any time during "Tempest", players can leave the soldier's body behind to take control of Jack in order to reach areas and/or perform tasks that the human soldier cannot.
As the soldier, players must fight their way across the hull of this airship, finding a way inside and to the ship's bridge, where they must retrieve vital military data before the locusts discover it. Luckily, accompanying the soldier is the flying, cloaking, and hacking robot, Jack. At any time during "Tempest", players can leave the soldier's body behind to take control of Jack in order to reach areas and/or perform tasks that the human soldier cannot.
Design Goals
- Introduce entirely new mechanics to Gears of War that still stay faithful to the universe
- Add unique puzzle solving to the standard Gears' combat formula
- Build an massive airship in Gears of War (a setting entirely new to Gears)
- Create a complete level experience with beginning and ending cinematics
Level Inspiration
Prior to coming to the Guildhall at SMU for level design, I was extremely inspired by a level from Mass Effect 2 called, Lair of the Shadow Broker. One of my favorite parts of this level occurs when the protagonist, Commander Shepard, must board a dangerous enemy’s ship by landing on the ship’s hull while it flies through the atmosphere of an incredibly volatile planet. For the sake of time, let's just say that this was one of those levels that I really hoped to help make one day.
Over a year later, when we were assigned our largest project to date, I decided it was the perfect chance to pay homage to this level's awesomness and to explore the expanded sci-fi aspects Epic touched on in Gears 2 and 3.
Over a year later, when we were assigned our largest project to date, I decided it was the perfect chance to pay homage to this level's awesomness and to explore the expanded sci-fi aspects Epic touched on in Gears 2 and 3.
Level Highlight: Jack's Abilities
Jack presented a tremendous opportunity for me as a designer. Most significantly, he's been part of Gears since the beginning, so players are all extremely familiar with abilities. Thus, by choosing to let players finally play from Jack's perspective, I was able to create new gameplay abilities in the Gears universe, while not breaking from cannon.
Flying
In Gears of War, players are permanently grounded, making them utterly incapable of jumping or falling. Essentially, Gears looks for all edges in a level and if a player reaches an edge, the game does not allow them to go any farther. This means that even the smallest of gaps in the floor are as impossible to cross for COG soldiers as the Grand Canyon is for you or I.
The new pawn archetype I created for Jack naturally inherited this unique Gears of War trait. In other words, even though Jack appears to be hovering several feet off the ground, he's in fact walking on a pair of invisible legs. This fact presented a clear problem if I wanted to let Jack fly across large gaps that the soldier could never cross. Luckily, the solution was actually elegantly simple: where ever there are large gaps in the level for Jack to fly across, I built invisible dynamic blocking volumes. This allowed Jack and his invisible legs to "fly", i.e. walk, over invisible ground Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade style. To the player it appears as though they can traverse open space as Jack.
However, just doing this much also meant that players could run across open air as the soldier as well, since remember, Jack and the soldier are effectively the same kind of pawn. To solve this last problem, I scripted a system in Kismet that detects when the player is the soldier or Jack and toggles on or off every dynamic blocking volume accordingly. With this, players can fly across open space as Jack, but are completely incapable of doing so as the soldier.
Cloaking
One of Jack's most defining abilities in Gears of War is his ability to completely cloak in and out of visibility whenever the protagonists need his help. As a fan of the series, I always wondered what it was like for Jack having to watch from the shadows as the COG soldiers battle their way through hordes of locusts.
In "Tempest", I wanted to take advantage of this defining trait. To accomplish this, I first built a new material for Jack's mesh that is almost completely transparent (if I just hid the mesh, players would get confused as to their exact location).
In "Tempest", I wanted to take advantage of this defining trait. To accomplish this, I first built a new material for Jack's mesh that is almost completely transparent (if I just hid the mesh, players would get confused as to their exact location).
To further enhance this effect, I built a new post-processing effect to be toggled on whenever the player goes invisible as Jack. This post-processing effect shifts all the colors in the level to blue, increases the bloom dramatically, and extremely reduces the range of the player's visibility while active. The overall effect is very similar to Frodo rockin' the Ring of Power, just minus the creepy disembodied eye.
I placed this post-processing volume in a new level that I stream in hidden when players start "Tempest". When players press the 'F' key as Jack, I unhide the level, thus turning on the post-processing volume that covers the whole level. When players either press the 'F' key again or switch back to the soldier, I hide the level again.
I placed this post-processing volume in a new level that I stream in hidden when players start "Tempest". When players press the 'F' key as Jack, I unhide the level, thus turning on the post-processing volume that covers the whole level. When players either press the 'F' key again or switch back to the soldier, I hide the level again.
Hacking
Jack's ability to hack into computers and cut through doors provides his biggest contribution to the COG soldiers' efforts. Knowing this, I decided to make this the primary mechanic players use to advance through "Tempest".
At its core, Jack's hacking utilizes a simple button trigger that, when pressed, activates whatever that particular console is linked to. In this example, Jack hacks into a console and extends a bridge for the soldier to cross.
At its core, Jack's hacking utilizes a simple button trigger that, when pressed, activates whatever that particular console is linked to. In this example, Jack hacks into a console and extends a bridge for the soldier to cross.
However, in order to ensure players can only activate these hacking triggers as Jack, I keep track of when the player is either the soldier or Jack and I toggle the collision of the triggers on and off accordingly.
Because hacking is the way players advance through the level, I make sure they're forced to think creatively and utilize Jack's other abilities in order to reach the hacking console. Additionally, each hacking opportunity adds new layers of complexity to the mechanic:
The first console in the level is easily accessible to the player and right in their line of sight. When hacked, this console extends a bridge for the player to cross. Later, while players hack into the second console, enemies spawn and begin moving towards the player, teaching them that they're not always safe when hacking. This progression in difficulty continues as players must fly across large gaps as Jack to extend bridges, cloak past dangerous enemies, and fly out of windows to get past locked doors.
The first console in the level is easily accessible to the player and right in their line of sight. When hacked, this console extends a bridge for the player to cross. Later, while players hack into the second console, enemies spawn and begin moving towards the player, teaching them that they're not always safe when hacking. This progression in difficulty continues as players must fly across large gaps as Jack to extend bridges, cloak past dangerous enemies, and fly out of windows to get past locked doors.
Level Highlight: Building an Airship in Gears
Creating the atmosphere and architecture of the enormous airship in "Tempest" took an incredible amount of time and the energy. Initial challenges and limitations led me to build this level from start to finish twice, however I'm proud of the end result.
Below is a short world building trailer of the final airship:
Below is a short world building trailer of the final airship:
Trial, Failure, Sadness, Life Introspection
As a kid raised on Captain Picard and pre-CG Yoda, I loved that Gears 2 and 3 explored more science fiction elements. I had high hopes to achieve this in the original Gears, unfortunately, finding pieces to construct a massive airship turned out to be more daunting than I expected.
A lack of viable pieces led me to get extremely creative with assets that never had any business performing the roles I asked of them.
A lack of viable pieces led me to get extremely creative with assets that never had any business performing the roles I asked of them.
Because of a tight schedule, I ended up constructing the entire level using only these Gears assets. At this point, our class was over and the project was technically complete. However, I was never pleased with how far I took the level visually. I had struggled for so long just to find pieces that worked that I never was able to polish it as much as I would have liked to.
Because of this nagging dissatisfaction, I decided that I would export a few of the fancy sci-fi assets from Unreal Tournament III and then re-import them into Gears. This process was in and of itself quite the undertaking (of which I'll get into more below).
At first I planned on only using these UT3 assets to supplement my level, but after the first assets made my airship look immediately more credible, I ended up importing more and more. Before I knew it (i.e., 200 hours later), I had rebuilt every inch of my level. As insane as this process made me think I was at times, I am extremely proud of the results and happy I didn't give up on my crazy airship idea.
Here are some before and after shots:
Because of this nagging dissatisfaction, I decided that I would export a few of the fancy sci-fi assets from Unreal Tournament III and then re-import them into Gears. This process was in and of itself quite the undertaking (of which I'll get into more below).
At first I planned on only using these UT3 assets to supplement my level, but after the first assets made my airship look immediately more credible, I ended up importing more and more. Before I knew it (i.e., 200 hours later), I had rebuilt every inch of my level. As insane as this process made me think I was at times, I am extremely proud of the results and happy I didn't give up on my crazy airship idea.
Here are some before and after shots:
Importing Unreal Tournament III Assets
In order to get Unreal Tournament III assets into Gears of War, I had to use an external program to export the mesh from UT3. Unfortunately, in doing so, none of the meshes' material chains (the complex settings that determine how a mesh will look in game) survived the exporting process. This meant that although I had the models I needed, I would have to manually rebuild each material chain that belonged to any mesh I wanted to use in my level.
Luckily though, another level design classmate of mine was looking to try the same crazy thing as I was so we agreed to work together and split up the process half and half. In total, we rebuilt the material chains for 25 UT3 packages. Personally, I reconstructed over 130 materials by the time all was said and done.
While arduous, this process not only produced fantastic results, it forced me to become proficient with the material editor, whereas before I was having a good day if I remembered where it was (this is an exaggeration, but seriously, it was bad).
Below are some examples of material chains I had to rebuild manually:
Luckily though, another level design classmate of mine was looking to try the same crazy thing as I was so we agreed to work together and split up the process half and half. In total, we rebuilt the material chains for 25 UT3 packages. Personally, I reconstructed over 130 materials by the time all was said and done.
While arduous, this process not only produced fantastic results, it forced me to become proficient with the material editor, whereas before I was having a good day if I remembered where it was (this is an exaggeration, but seriously, it was bad).
Below are some examples of material chains I had to rebuild manually:
Level Highlight: Cinematics
One thing that always bothers me about student levels, mine included, is a lack of cinematics (particularly at the beginning and end) that make the level have a sense of legitimacy. For "Tempest", I wanted to try my hand at in-game cinematography to hopefully eliminate this barrier as much as possible.
Traditional Cinematics
I created several cinematic cutscenes that helped build the narrative of the level, specifically the relationship between Jack and the soldier. Having never done these before, I studied cinematics in several games over and over. In particular, I broke down the camera techniques Bioware utilizes in their Mass Effect games because of their proficiency at delivering a strong connection between two fictional characters.
Cinematic Gameplay
It was important for me that players felt they were accomplishing something epic in "Tempest" and that they were participants in events much larger than themselves.
To accomplish this, I allowed players to control certain events that might usually be handled in a traditional cinematic. A perfect example of this comes at the very end of the level when player's must get Jack from the bridge to a Raven flying outside.
To accomplish this, I allowed players to control certain events that might usually be handled in a traditional cinematic. A perfect example of this comes at the very end of the level when player's must get Jack from the bridge to a Raven flying outside.
I could have simply used a matinee sequence showing Jack leaving the ship and entering the helicopter. Because I wanted players to feel as though they were the one orchestrating this awesome escape, I instead toggled another flight path for Jack to exit the ship on. To help sell this moment more, I placed a physics volume over this flight path that pushes the player to the side to similar them having to fight the force of the wind. Additionally, I scripted the Raven to sway back and forth in the "wind". Only when the player actually makes contact with the Raven's open door, does the level's final "traditional" cinematic occur.
