I joined the team in mid-production, a bit over 6 months before this release candidate build. Initially, I audited project workflows and architecture; to improve consistency and advocate better for designer empowerment.
The following post describes my Technical Design work up until September
My role changed to leading design and implementation of 12 Player Abilities and their upgrades. My secondary focus area became scripting and timeline editing, as part of animation cancelling implementation to support our Combat systems. I began to hand-off design ownership of most areas I handled before September, as well as onboarding newly hired Systems Designers to the team.
Handing off responsibilities allowed me to shift my remaining effort before Early Access lock towards
Level design workflows and implementation
Traps placement and tuning
Iteration on Breakables
Example of a Technical Design solution for MythForce
This is Maggie, our Mage archetype, and her owl-like Familiar which functions as a turret in combat
I implemented a vector math solution into Blueprint to aid placement of Maggie’s owl turret. It reduces instances of the turret noticeably clipping with geometry for stairs, walls, and tables.
This script logic is added to an ability that spawns owls through the Gameplay Ability System in Unreal Editor 4.
These presentation improvements greatly enhance player immersion, which makes implementing them worth the small additional effort and time spent doing vector math!
