Unit 8 – Production Log

W/C 16/03/26

Today marks the day I begin work on my Final Major Project.

My initial plan for this week is to focus on research and planning.

Below is a rough draft of how the map may look. It was made using inkarnate.com. The idea of this map is to represent the snippet of the city the player will be able to explore. The big building in the middle (as represented by the windmill icon due to the fact that most assets are locked behind a paywall) will be the tower where the game ends after the player figures out the code using context clues. The castle areas represent major buildings the player will be able to enter in order to find the aforementioned context clues. The houses and shipyard will likely be just for show and aesthetic.

A good chunk of these clues will provide context as to what happened to this dystopian city and why it is the way it is. Clues will include formats such as; notes, audio logs, chat logs, etc.

Again, this is a very early rendition of the map. As long as the final product has the central tower and a well designed city area surrounding it, I will be happy.

To-do for the rest of this week/next week(s):

Watch/read about how big cities are designed
Research dystopian themes and how they link in to oppressive city design
Begin to block out some areas in Blender

I have made some good progress on my planning and research. So far, I have written about how I want to design a city based around dystopian literature and what will influence it.

Unfortunately, as of 22/03/26, my Blender has decided to stop working on my own PC. At this stage, I obviously don’t have a whole lot of usage for it but I still need to figure out what is causing it to act up by the time I am ready to start the actual production.

I am going to create a Microsoft forms page, which will be used for primary research and to garner potential audience interest.

This form will cover; games my audience enjoys, how appealing my idea sounds to them on a scale of one to ten, aspects they consider important in gaming, misc. feedback, etc.

So far, these are the questions I have on my form. I won’t release it yet as I need to think on any more potential questions. My plan is to release it around Wednesday next week.

Additionally, I have finished writing up my contingency plan. If I feel like I need to add anything in the future, I will.

W/C 23/03/26

As we approach the second week of this project, I already feel like I am falling behind. It’s funny, because as of writing, the Gantt chart is completely up to date. This signals to me that I’m worrying too much about this project. However, I do need to work on my time management skills further.

My Blender at home is still acting up, unfortunately. It will launch, but has a lag spike every few seconds, which is irritating.

Beginning to block out the opening area in Blender. (At college since my Blender at home is still acting up)

Blocking out the walls using loop cuts and extrusion. So far, I am liking how this is looking as it gives off a very claustrophobic vibe, which I want for the final product.

It is hard to ascertain certain details in the original reference image, so I might have to take some creative liberties with how I block out certain areas. For example, the top of the stairs leading up to the door.

The bit on the floor next to the walls will be the player’s spawn point in the final game. The idea is to have the player “wake up” here on a piece of cardboard, as they take the role of a homeless person exploring this dystopian city.

Exporting the mesh as it was caused issues in Unreal – mostly regarding the origin of the objects. This was not ideal for composing my scene, so I have set the origin to the centre of my scene and set the geometry to origin in Blender.

Beginning to compose an early version of my beginning area in Unreal Engine 5.

On 27/03/26, I sent out my response form for my game pitch. Again, this will be used to garner potential interest.

The response is generally positive. One piece of feedback I got was to detail my idea more than just a “dystopian city”. Another was to add more mechanics other than just walking, which I am going to also work on.

W/C 30/03/26

As of writing, I still have some catching up to do on my research. This isn’t necessarily a huge problem, just something I need to be aware of moving forward.

As of the end of the week (05/04/26), I have made a small amount of progress. I have done a bit more research and some blocking out in Unreal and Blender. I will work harder these next few weeks to make up for this.

As indicated by the original Gantt chart, I am supposed to have nearly finished my research by now. As this is not the case, I need to rework the chart a bit.

I have given myself some extra time to work on my secondary and visual research. This will overlap slightly with the production of my final project, but hopefully it should be fine.

To-Do for the rest of this week/next week:

Finish up visual planning and research
Finish greyboxing the starting area and begin to add details
Play through Gone Home for research

W/C 06/04/26

Despite the fact I have not yet finished my research or planning, I have decided to restart work on composing my area in Unreal and adding details, as it unfortunately seems to have deleted itself somehow. This is not a huge problem as I didn’t have loads of progress, but it’s something to keep in mind moving forward.

Beginning to add detailed textures to my area using Substance Painter 3D.

Adding texture to the floor of the beginning area.

Beginning to import my area into Unreal.

I have also started playing Gone Home for some of my primary research.

So far, I feel like I have not made a great amount of progress on my project. Not to make excuses for myself, but it didn’t help that the Easter Holidays got in the way of things a bit. For these next few weeks, I must step up my game when it comes to my workflow.

W/C 13/04/26

As of writing, my planning and research is closer to completion. I’m unsure of how much more I need to do for these, as between them I have roughly three-thousand words. I would ideally like at least five or six-thousand words total, so there is still a fair amount of work to be done on these aspects. I do not feel like this is going to be too much for me to handle, which is the important thing.

As I do not want to fall behind in the practical production areas, I will continue composing the starting area to my game in Unreal Engine in tandem with my research and planning. I know I wanted to have my research and planning at least ninety-five percent done before starting on production. However, I simply fell behind a bit during the Easter holidays as real-life obligations and other miscellaneous things got in the way. It happens. All I can do now is focus and prioritise what I want to get done for this project.

Additionally, I discovered the reason my map “deleted” itself earlier was due to a mismatch with the default level which is loaded in Unreal Engine.

For my custom skybox, I want to try using a HDRI from Poly Haven. I have chosen Overcast Soil (Overcast Soil (Pure Sky) HDRI • Poly Haven) as it fits the mood and vibe I am going for.

As indicated by my Gantt chart, a lot of my elements are a work in progress.

I’m slightly worried about working on the blueprints side of things as I have barely touched them since my escape room project.

Adding my chain models to my scene.

As of writing, I have made further progress on my research and planning.

I am now going to start working on my map outside of the starting area.

I’m going to begin by designing the Erneas Central Tower.

I want to use the above skyscrapers as inspiration. The first two are in Warsaw, while the last is in Shanghai. The skyscraper I will use as my main base of inspiration is the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw.

I obviously don’t want to get bogged down in little details when it comes to the Erneas Central Tower.

So far, my mesh does not have the best topology, but I don’t think this should matter too much.

I am relatively happy with the above result, as it is more or less finished. I might add a few more details and obviously the textures, but as it stands, this model gives off a very menacing vibe, which is what I am going for.

My next goal is to add footstep sounds whenever the player is walking, alongside some abient sounds for the opening area.

https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/musical-creepy-industrial-sounds-ambience-482892/

https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/film-special-effects-concrete-footsteps-1-6265/

My Blueprint which plays the footsteps sound whenever the player is moving.

I have also added the ambience and set it to loop.

W/C 20/04/26

Beginning to work on the main map of Erneas.

Going back to the opening area to create the exit to the main city. It is not pretty from the outside, but the player will never see that through normal gameplay.

I am going to add an invisible wall which will give the player the prompt to exit the opening area when they get close to it.

Working on my skybox using a useful YouTube tutorial. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRPMylCCPsU

For my mouse icons, I will be using SVG Repo. https://www.svgrepo.com/

Additionally, I have updated my Gantt chart so it is more accurate to how my project is coming along. The caveat with research and planning is that I can update it whenever or wherever I feel necessary.

Here I am adding the UI for the exit to the opening area.

Adding post-processing for experimentation. I may or may not keep this in the final game.

Doing some more texturing in Substance Painter.

For Erneas’ background ambience, I will be using the following sound effect;

Wind Blowing | Royalty-free Music – Pixabay

W/C 27/04/26

Now that I have set up the ambient sound effects, I want to work on the actual buildings and town itself.

Above is the Utica public library. This is not the exact vibe I am going for, but it should make for a good starting point in the modelling process.

The basic greybox of the library. It lacks some of the fancy details of my reference, which is what I am going for.

Despite the fact that some of the brick textures are the wrong way round, this looks good.

Implementing my model and its textures into Unreal Engine. My plan for the library is to make it an area where the player can find a few tidbits of lore.

The above image of the London Library will be used as reference for the interior of my library.

Texturing my interior in Substance Painter.

After some consideration, I am going to try a different approach. Instead of loading each interior as a separate level, I am going to hide the interiors underneath the map and teleport the player to their location whenever they enter a building. This is because the level approach seems to cause issues which I don’t have the time to figure out fully. For example, sometimes the level will not load at all. Other times, it will load the wrong level. Additionally, there is the problem of spawning the player outside the building they just exited.

I will be using a tutorial to help with this. How to Teleport the Player to another Location in the Level through a Door in Unreal Engine 5

As it turns out, some of my problems stemmed from the fact that I was enabling input in my blueprints on begin play, as opposed to on begin overlap. This led, to my understanding, to the blueprint only being able to read the player’s inputs the first time they walk on the collision box, which is obviously not ideal at all.

Above is the (hopefully) final version of the blueprint which teleports the player inside the library.

Here, I am beginning to write some of the texts the player will be able to encounter in their journey through Erneas. The idea is, once the player has collected all four digits to the central tower, they will be able to enter it and proceed with the ending.