Hello people! I'm sorry for missing last weeks devlog this week I got reminded of it Right now I am working on creating destructible meshes with the new Chaos destruction tool that has been added to Unreal Engine 5. The idea behind having destructible meshes in this case is having throwable and fragile items in the world (maybe a coffee mug, or a window) which you can break. It adds a lot of realism and interaction to a scene! It would also be possible to have larger structures crumble for cinematic effect. Chaos is so cool and satisfying when you get it to work the keyword here being "when". There are dozens of settings for each component in the item which need to be tweaked in order for it to feel even slightly realistic. The Chaos destructible meshes are built using something called a "geometry collection" basically a collection of meshes. You then take a mesh and create a geometry collection from it by fracturing it into smaller pieces.
In order to make the mesh not explode into a million small pieces upon spawning, there are parameters settings for the amount of force a single fragment can withstand before breaking away from the larger mesh. There are also several parameters here for what is called "clusters". A cluster is a smaller piece of a fracture fragment, which has its own thresholds for how much punishment it needs to be put under in order to break into even smaller pieces. In theory you can create a mesh that can be granulated an unlimited amount of times but that isn't very good for performance, one might suppose. Now the fun part, actually destroying them! To destroy a mesh we need to create some kind of force to make the object buckle under the pressure. There are several types of force you can apply. One way is to create a "force field." At the moment I have only tried a couple of them, but here are two examples: Linear Force (explosionesque) [previewyoutube=pm_IEgUBbXE;leftthumb][/previewyoutube] External Strain [previewyoutube=kivOveK98o4;leftthumb][/previewyoutube] [previewyoutube=iu_9TJW8Y_g;leftthumb][/previewyoutube] The explosion is really cool, but I think the straining is even more impressive! It's so well done, and makes me feel like we have come a long way regarding physics in video games. What impressed me was how the strain could get multiple outcomes depending on how the mesh crumbled under its own weight. Sometimes the middle part got so strained that it collapsed the other way (as seen in the two comparison videos). I also accidentally scaled it and got some fun weird bugs but it still looks cool, at the very least! [previewyoutube=jmIJD3WdON8;leftthumb][/previewyoutube] We will see how many of these will find their way into the final game, but at least you can expect some degree of destructibility in Mechanical Sunset! Simon Gustavsson Programmer at Gumlin Games

[ 2022-10-28 14:25:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

a Restless wanderer

The City of Machines wanders restless through the barren wastes. Here, everything is machines; even the inhabitants. Ever onward, the City chases Optimum: the last, fleeting oasis of time left in the world.


However, A New Threat Looms On the Horizon.

a Mechanical Puzzle Adventure

Mechanical Sunset is a mechanical puzzle adventure. In the game, the player will get the chance to explore The Wandering City of Machines; a place its robotic inhabitants have made home. This is a bizarre place where the warm, inviting lights of a cabin mingles with heavy machinery, cascades of sparks, and forests of wire and pipe.




On their way through the metal jungle, the player will have to learn to operate the aging machinery; buttons, levers, gauges and lights guide you as you awaken the slumbering leviathan.

Features

• Navigate through the bizarre and unfamiliar world of the Walking City of Machines, where
  mechanical meets countryside comfort.
  
• Encounter obstacles that must be overcome by learning to operate large and unfamiliar machinery.
  
• Learn to interpret what the machines are telling you by reading indicator lights and gauges;
  connected to accurately physics-simulated components.
  
• Manipulate the world around you using old, analogue control panels. Satisfying buttons and
  chunky levers are your means to get the old machines running again.
  
  • Careful: the inattentive player may end up breaking the machinery and have to rely on
    alternative solutions to get what/where they want.
• Talk to the interesting robotic lifeforms around the City.
  
  • Discover their Wishes, Dreams, and Ideals.
  • Help them With their Tasks – Or Don’t.
  • Ask them for help with puzzles that you can’t crack on your own.
• Discover the truth behind the temporal apocalypse.
  
  • Time is freezing, and it is up to the player to figure out why, and how to stop it.

This is a game for people who like pressing buttons.