UDK Class

In the GAME Semester, one of the classes we attend is lessons on developing game levels with Unreal Development Kit.

Every week we get an in-class tutorial on different features. The first week we went over different ways to add and remove 3D objects from your level. Doing this, you are able to create structures with hallways and rooms that you can add different materials to make the structures look more realistic. We also learned a little bit about lighting and how to trigger the light to turn on when you enter a room. It's a simple idea but I think it's really cool to actually create it.

Thursday in class we built on our existing knowledge by learning to build a pool!

There are quite a few things that go into making a pool:

• The physical space for your pool 
• "Water Volume" in that area so when you are playing the level, your little video game character will realize he (or she) needs to swim when he enters the area 
• Add a surface that looks like water 
• Change the settings on the surface so when the character goes under water, vision may be a bit blurry or have a blue tint to it, or when he looks up, you can see the waters surface, etc.

It is a lot of fun to customize this to fit what you imagine being under water in your little world would be like.

Level Design is one of the options that the information technology students can choose as their role in the actual implementation the second half of the semester. As of now, I'm definitely leaning towards doing this.