Sentry Turret III - FACEMELTING!

Ok I imported my turret into engine and set it up with the blueprint template which was provided. It was good but there was something missing... the lava. At the moment it was just firing cubes so I had to create a projectile mesh and an emissive material that I can use to emulate the lava. However this still wasn't quite enough to make it seem like the turret was shooting blobs so I created a lava particle effect using the same projectile mesh and attached that to the projectile blueprint aswell as a pointlight so it lights the ground up underneath while it shoots.

Some other things I added:

• 3 Extra Barrels (4 Total)
• Changed rotation speed and firing rate with testing
• Added sound but then later removed because it would not play correctly with the firing rate and the sound did not fit the blobs as it was ripped of the first person controller.
• Ejector socket and blueprint removed to fit design
• Created a room that better shown off the emissive qualities of the turret and particles

The results were pretty darn cool.

Rapid Fire Action! Fun for all ages! Facemelt your neighbour's cat!

Here is a shot showing off the firing in action:

Action shot of the blobs in flight.

The hardest part of the engine was trying to get the lava working properly in the tanks as I experimented with different ways to get the blobs in the tanks animating like a proper lavalamp. The material was also another pain in the ass as I wanted the colour to change as the lava rose to the top of the tank but after a lot of experimentation I couldn't get it working like I wanted, the best I could do was get the colour to change slightly over the Z of each individual mesh.


Conclusion

After a lot of trial and error on different things I came to a result that looked decent and reflected my original concept. If I were to do something different I would say I would spend less time on concepting, which would have given me more engine time aswell as spending more time on the high poly model which caused a lot of problems. The issue with the high poly model is the bake generated seams at the edges where I wanted the nice chamfering between faces but it didn't work out, also a lot of detail was lost in the normal from some of the smaller bevels which I think is due to to the details being too small for the bake to pick it up. Something to take forward I guess.

When talking about the engine I will say that I love the blueprinting and particle system. I had a lot of fun tinkering with all the options and actually the engine stuff is my most favourite part of the projects so far, I really want to expand my knowledge in this area further because UE4 is awesome.


So with that, heres a promotional poster. Facemelter 3000 is coming your local toy retailer in time for the holidays!

Should be posting a proper post-mortem and self-evaluation later this week aswell, So stay tuned as always.

-James