[ G.X. de Ruiter ]
Roles:
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Technical Level Designer on OUTRIDERS Worldslayer DLC
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Feature owner for AI Ant Farms and SmartObject creation
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Responsible for managing Blueprint Wishlist for level designers and creating requested Blueprint tools and game features
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Bug fixing on Blueprints, combat arenas, and AI Ant Farms
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Reviewing Blueprints and network replication
OUTRIDERS Worldslayer DLC 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.
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:
Oct 5th 2020 - Present
Team size:
500+
Current status:
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Worldslayer DLC release | June 30th 2022
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 enemies are dead, behemoth breaks free from Ant Farm and boss fight begins
Wendigo biter hanging on ceiling and flying down when combat starts
Repairing the floor
3 Captains waiting for the player whilst looking badass
Task Description
Ant Farm definition: Ant Farm refers to all AI behavior outside of combat. It usually involves characters idling or walking between defined points, as well as stopping in specific places to play animations or perform an action. Ant Farm also includes any potential transition into combat, but not the combat behavior itself.
On WorldSlayer, My responsibilities included the initial scope/risk assessment and technical feasibility checks of new Ant Farm requests from level designers and discussing any potential caveats with relevant departments. Next to this, I performed technical design and bug fixing on the Ant Farm system itself, helped LDs with Ant Farm implementation on their levels, performed quality checks on all the existing Ant Farms in the game, and generally functioned as a communication bridge between various departments. These departments included animation, tech Art, code-AI, level design, audio, and production. I also co-created our entire in-house Ant Farm documentation and was a general contact point for any Ant Farm-related questions across the project.
SmartObject definition: SmartObjects are specially prepared Blueprints that can be placed on the level. On Run-time, AI can move into and “use” these SmartObjects. As an example, a SmartObject could be a chair that human characters can move to and play a “sit on chair” animation. Or it could be an animal carcass, which alien creatures can walk to and start eating from. Creating and combining a bunch of these SmartObjects helps us to create interesting scenes which make sense logically and add to the feeling of being in a living world. Some SmartObjects, such as ones that require synchronized actions between multiple AIs can become quite complicated in nature.
I was responsible for the creation of all new SmartObjects in the game. I created the Blueprints, requested and implemented assets such as animations and meshing, and contacted AI coders for cases where Blueprints weren’t quite enough to handle a specific situation. This work required close collaboration with all the aforementioned departments. I also bug fixed old SmartObjects from the Vanilla game when bugs showed up.
AntFarmGoal definition: AntFarmGoals are Blueprints that control AI behavior in a scene on a higher level, such as to decide which SmartObjects to use in what order.
Over the course of development I created and implemented a couple new types of AntFarmGoals, and helped people with any issues in setting up the AntFarmGoals on their levels.
Scene with alien rifleman peeing off a cliff, patrolling, hanging around a campfire
Task Description
Blueprint Wishlist definition: a list of requests from the Level Designers on our team. Anyone in the LD department could add a request for a game feature or editor tool, which was then reviewed and potentially created by us on the Technical Level Design Team.
I was responsible for scope assessment and technical feasibility checks, as well as managing, documenting, and finally actually creating the Blueprints on our Blueprint Wishlist. Next to this, I performed iterations and bug fixes on any delivered Blueprints (based on feedback), and performed code reviews on Blueprints from co-workers.
I was responsible for creating:
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DestructionLauncher (system) - A highly versatile and modular set of projectile launcher, projectile, and hit reaction Blueprints. It is used in various parts of the game, for example on Statue of Liberty. I made this system to be a fully standalone set of tools, meaning no level script or sequences are needed to set up many different types of missile barrages. Everything can be conveniently set up and tweaked from the Blueprint actors themselves.
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Falling Rocks cinematic Blueprint - I created and implemented a Blueprint actor for a falling rock sequence on Rho. It contains settings for LDs and artists to tweak.
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Alien Door cinematic Blueprint - An alien door with a timed opening sequence and some animated runes. I implemented all the assets and set up the 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 when the player walks through.
Performed Technical Design, code reviews, and bug fixing for: explosive MegaBarrel and ActorArray (internal tool).
