[ G.X. de Ruiter ]
Roles:
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Technical Level Designer on OUTRIDERS Worldslayer expansion (DLC)
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Feature owner/sole responsible for Living World and AI SmartObject creation
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Responsible for Blueprint Wishlist for level designers, creating requested Blueprint tools and game features
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Bug fixing anything Blueprint or level implementation related
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Reviewing/feedbacking new Blueprints from peers
Platform:
Steam / Epic / PS4 / PS4 PRO / PS5 / X1 / X1X | XSS / XSX / Stadia / GeForce Now
Engine:
Unreal Engine 4
Language:
Unreal Blueprints / C++
Tools used:
Unreal Editor, JIRA, Confluence, P4V
Duration:
Nov 2021 - July 2022
Team size:
500+
Current status:
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Expansion released | June 30th 2022
OUTRIDERS Worldslayer description:
With new horrors to challenge you and new weapons, mods and gear to discover, you’ll be further developing your build through the new PAX hybrid branch class trees.
Survive the campaign and you’ll face even greater horrors in the Trials of Tarya Grata, the brand new endgame. Which partnered with Ascension Points offers a new long term progression system for the most committed players.
Finally, push hard through the new Apocalypse difficulty tiers, with each step up to level 40 increasing the chances of obtaining incredible Apocalypse gear and its game changing third mod slot.
Task Description
I was the sole designer in our company responsible for the Ant Farm System, which drove all AI pre-combat and non-combat behaviors. I helped drive the development of new system features, and created all the AI SmartObjects, Ant Farm Goals, and corresponding Animation Montages seen in the game.
Image: Example Ant Farm of Alien Riflemen peeing off a cliff, patrolling, and hanging around a campfire
Ant Farm System (1.1)
The Ant Farm System at this point of time was still a continued version of our Outriders Vanilla system. Throughout Worldslayer, I helped drive development of some new system features and tech.
On a later project I also became responsible for creating a new Ant Farm 2.0 system from scratch, but you can read about that in detail on my PCF Core project page.
The general Ant Farm 1.1 system worked as follows:
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AI spawns through our Wave Spawn System (separate system)
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AI is assigned an Ant Farm Goal, a type of manager actor which references SmartObjects (actors in the game world)
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AI walks to and uses SmartObjects in the game world, either in specific order or randomly depending on setup
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Before entering / after exiting, AI can optionally holster/equip weapon
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When AI is using a SmartObject, they play special animations, sounds, and/or VFX and/or run special logic in the Blueprint
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If combat starts, AI plays one of many "ForceOut" animations where they grab weapons and starts combat logic
Image: 2 Alien riflemen holding a behemoth on a chain
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On combat start, riflemen drop the chains and attack the player, but behemoth stays on Ant Farm
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Once all the grunts are dead, behemoth also breaks free from its chains and a boss fight begins
Image: Wendigo biter hanging on ceiling and flying down when combat starts
AI SmartObjects & Animation Montages
I was the sole person on the project creating the AI SmartObjects and corresponding Animation Montages for the game.
The process was as follows:
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Level Designers came up with the ideas for Ant Farms on their levels
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I booked in calls with them to feedback their ideas, and assess technical and scope feasibility
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After my (and production) approval, production of the assets would start. Animators delivered animation assets, VFX artists the VFX, and Sound Designers the audio
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I created each new SmartObject (Blueprint) and corresponding Animation montage using delivered assets
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Level Designers placed the SmartObjects on their levels and contacted me for any problems or questions*
* In later stretches of development, I also did a lot of implementation on levels to help speed things up and fix problems -
In case of any issues, I was the person to arrange all followup actions, e.g with animators, programmers, or production
Image: 2 Berserkers repairing the floor
Image: Alien Captains waiting for the player whilst looking badass
Ant Farm Goals
I created all the Ant Farm Goals on the Worldslayer DLC. These are higher level manager actors (Blueprints) which have rules on which SmartObjects to use in what order, as well as AI perception overrides (sight, hearing, touch, etc). Designers placed these on their levels together with SmartObjects to create their Ant Farm implementations.
I also added some custom tooling to aid designers, such as a previewer for the perception ranges.
While I delivered a set of generic goals which were usable in most locations, sometimes Level Designers requested custom goals for very specific situations in the game.
Image: Sneaking up to Alien Captains
Image: An Alien Rifleman patrol
Creative Direction & Quality Checks
In the final stretch of development, I ran technical and creative quality checks on all Ant Farms in the game.
There wasn't any lead or director above me to check or approve this work, so it was my sole responsibility to check both my own delivered SmartObjects, as well as all the Ant Farms implemented by Level Designers in the game, to ensure proper quality when we shipped to the public.
Image: Wendigo Biters munching on a corpse
Blueprint Wishlist - Task Description
I was responsible for managing the Blueprint wishlist, a place where Level Designers could request game features, mechanics or tools from the Technical Level Design team.
I handled the scope and technical feasibility checks, task assignments, and in the case of my own work, created various Blueprints accompanied by technical documentation and user guides on Confluence.
Next to this, I performed iterations and bug fixes on delivered Blueprints, and code reviews on Blueprints from peers.
Image: triggerable cinematics system (Rho level)
Image: DestructionLauncher missile system
Some things I created:
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DestructionLauncher (system) - A highly versatile and modular set of projectile launchers, projectile types, and hit effects. It is used in various parts of the game, for example on Statue of Liberty in the campaign. I made this system to be a fully standalone set of actors, meaning no level script or sequences are needed to set up many different types of missile barrages.
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Triggerable cinematics system & Falling Rocks cinematic: system for triggering small cinematic events that don't take away the player camera. As part of this I created the falling rocks sequence on Rho (end game level)
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Alien Door cinematic Blueprint - An alien door with a timed opening sequence, animated runes, and voiceline support. I implemented the assets and set up the replicated door Blueprint logic with some settings for the narrative team to tweak.
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BP_NoiseMakingTrigger - A universally usable trigger that wakes up AI on Ant Farm and starts combat. This is used in many places throughout the game to prevent the players from reaching places they shouldn't without starting combat
I also was co-responsible for the creation of: explosive MegaBarrel (a large barrel that goes boom when hit) and PCF ActorArray (tool for running generic actions on arrays of actors using Blueprint interfaces)
Image: Alien Door Cinematic BP
Network replication
The hardest challenges across all my work was network replication. Our game featured drop-in, drop-out 3 player co-op, meaning everything needed to work both for any currently connected clients, as well as clients joining later in a session.