Introducing "Tourist Trap" an Unreal Engine 5 Horde Shooter! /  by Nate Marler

I’ve been hard at work on my latest Unreal Engine 5 project. A first person shooter that mechanically takes inspiration from horde shooters such as Call of Duty Zombies, while stylistically shoots for retro Sci-Fi with a bit of a western Route 66 twist. There’s a lot to show and the project is still a work in progress! Check back as I continue to show off the features and progress especially on the audio design front. For now I hope you enjoy this video of the first 13 minutes of gameplay!

Having way too much fun with my contact mic. /  by Nate Marler

In this video I am using my Zeppelin Cortado attached to a mason jar as a live input into my DAW and then running it through some various processing chains. I love being able to "perform" sounds, I think the slight imperfections that come from human input can lead to character and happy accidents.

Thanks for watching!

Zeppelin Cortado Contact Mic: https://zeppelindesignlabs.com/product/cortado-mkiii-contact-microphone/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwvb-zBhCmARIsAAfUI2uGdbzaILF1k2Qo_qJE9bm5LUP1SpAjJYV4_bMqJJLxZGz_UtAW68caAqZTEALw_wcB

Exploring electromagnetic fields using the Elektrouši. /  by Nate Marler

This week I spent some time recording some various small motors using LOM’s Elektrouši. Electromagnetic fields are all around us and silent to the naked ear, using an electromagnetic sensor we can hear these fields and even use them for some creative sound design.

Elektrouši: https://store.lom.audio/collections/elektrosluch-accessories/products/elektrousi?variant=4542167089184

Unreal Engine 5 Project Features Update and Demonstration. /  by Nate Marler

This week I wanted to share another demonstration of some of the features I have been adding to my Unreal Engine 5 project. My recent focus has been on enemy AI behaviors as well as beginning to implement more audio events for testing. It’s been a ton of fun and I will be sharing a more detailed deep dive soon, but for now I hope you enjoy this short video demonstration. This is just another small teaser, there’s a lot more in the project I haven’t shown yet, stay tuned!

Unreal Engine 5 NPC Dialogue Management System /  by Nate Marler

I’m excited to announce a blog series of demonstrations and tutorials focused on Unreal Engine game design and audio implementation!

I like to think of myself as game developer who specializes in audio. I believe that learning as much as you can about every discipline of game design makes you a better sound designer. I’ve been building a first person project in Unreal Engine 5, and I am excited to start giving a small glimpse into some of the features and systems. There’s a lot to go over, so I am going to do some deeper dives slowly over time.

Recently, I spent some time experimenting with AI behavior trees and building a custom dialogue management blueprint that allows quick and easy set up of conversations with NPC’s, as well as an option to interact with an in game shop.

To start I built a friendly NPC AI. Depending on which booleans you enable, the unique instance of the NPC has 4 behavior tree modes:
- Wander within a set range
- See and follow the player
-Stop moving to talk to the player when within range
-“Chat” or allow the player to shop when the interact button is pressed.

Next, building upon my existing checkpoint and objective system I set up a conversation blueprint. If the conversation boolean is enabled on the NPC blueprint when the player enters the interaction collider volume and presses “Interact” the NPC blueprint will then check if the player is within the conversation manager volume and grab the corresponding array of dialogue lines.

Once the array of dialogue lines has reached its end, or the player walks away from the NPC’s interaction volume, the conversation widget closes, and the player regains full control of the first person character. If the “Gives Objective” boolean is checked on the NPC, the conversation blueprint also sets a new objective for the player at the end of the conversation.

If the “Is Merchant” boolean is checked on the NPC, the interact button will pull up a shop widget where the player can purchase a set array of items or upgrades.

You can also set the NPC’s name, which is then grabbed by the on screen widgets.

At the moment the game only uses temp test sounds, but over the weekend I was approved for a full WWise license for the project, which releases me from the pesky 200 sound limit.

This week I am going to add the ability to play a unique voice line that corresponds to the dialogue text.

If you made it this far, thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed. Much more to come!