I think the Grinwood Police Station map as a whole took me about 4 months of on and off work (maybe even more). It was terrible to fix because when I had originally built the thing, it was when I was first trying to get a handle on UE4 and there just was so much wrong with the map that much of it had to be redone.
I had a similar experience with this Apartment map because it was blocked out in the same fashion, and although it only took a fraction of the time compared to the Police station, it was still a grueling map to work on. Going back in so many years later and trying to line things up, optimize, establish the atmosphere, and getting all the suites looking unique was a hellish time.
Definitely one of those things where you sit down at your desk, open up the map and go “Uuuugggghhhh….I don’t want to do this…” XD
Only some minor touch-ups left before I head onto the next handful of maps. I’ll have a bit more free time now, as I was recently let go from my job of over 3 years. The silver lining is, I can actually focus on Out Of Hell now! I get up, do my morning routine and then get to work on it right away.
Having a 9-5 wore me down more than I thought, and after a day of burnout working for people that neither value or respect you, getting home and taking care of other responsibilities, it really only left me with a few hours of game work. And as most creative types will know, sometimes it takes a while to get back into the groove, but by the time I got into it, it would be time for bed because of the 9-5! T_T
Hello everyone! I just wanted to post an update to announce a new composer for this project! But first, to avoid any confusion, I’ll explain why I had to do this as I technically already have a soundtrack.
Sergey Yukon did an amazing job with the soundtrack, and I initially commissioned 10 songs from him. However, near the end of our contract, the war in Ukraine caused payment processors to halt money transfers to Russia. Although payment for Sergey’s work was made in time, this meant that I couldn’t commission any additional music from him going forward. And as it turned out, I needed more music.
I had thought about padding out the soundtrack with some stock music to fill in the areas I needed, but…meh, I think you guys and the project deserve a better approach than that.
In order to keep the music consistent in tone and style, I had to look for another composer and found him after quite a search.
His name is Dave Deville and you can check out his website at: https://www.davedevillemusic.com/ as well as his youtube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/@DaveDeville
Dave has already provided me with the music I requested (16 tracks so far), which covers all the main bases. I’m also able to commission more tracks as needed once the rest of the maps are polished (just a few more) and I have a clearer vision of the scenes and what needs to go into them (musically)
His compositions are simply perfect for Out Of Hell, and you’ll see what I mean later. The songs simply “fit” and work with the scenery and sound effects without ever getting in the way and drowning out the ambience. I don’t know how he did it, but it’s pure sorcery to me! 😉
Check out his channel and give him a sub! You’ll see why I brought him onboard!
Hello everyone! I think the first official trailer was a great success judging by the views and all the kind comments that were left (which I really appreciate, by the way!) I will be releasing another trailer down the line that will serve as the release date reveal with more content. I’m not sure when that will drop, since I’m still focusing on tidying up the remaining few maps, but I’m trying hard my friends!
The one that I’ve been working on since the trailer is the Pinefield District map (now simply called District) which ironically contains way more birch trees than pines 😆 In terms of the layout, it makes much more sense now and connects to the Supermarket area.
I remember how non-sensical the mod maps were, with the main road leading to a dead-end with no way for the vehicle to turn around, cut off by a large field of wheat that had an office building in the middle of it for some reason, only for the road to resume on the other side of the wheat field and lead to a supermarket! What in the hell was I smoking when I made that…😆
Anyway, after this map is complete, I’ll clean up the Apartment map (this time, Donovan is returning home to his own apartment for supplies instead of stumbling onto a random one)
What a crazy time it’s been since the last update1 I finally managed to put together a trailer that I was pretty happy with and you can see it below. As of right now it’s over 1200 views and 200 likes, which is crazy numbers for me! I didn’t know that many people would have paid attention, honestly! 🙂
I’ve also updated the Steam page which you can check out here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2082530/Out_Of_Hell/
Initially, I recorded gigabytes of footage, but the settings I used for OBS didn’t provide the crispness for the visuals that I wanted (there were a lot of compression patches) and I ended up discarding it all. With some help from a couple of Discord members, I was able to figure out some nice settings and also realized that the post-process noise filter I was using in-game was probably not helping the situation!
Anyway, it got fixed and I set out recording key scenes that I wanted to show once again. I gotta tell you, it was really hard not to go overboard! I wanted to show as much as I could from all the maps, but I had to restrain myself.
It was a huge weight that was lifted off my shoulders when I completed the trailer, as it marks a major milestone for me. Now I’m back to polishing the remaining maps! I’ll get there, guys! Thank you for your patience and encouragement!
I loved polishing this map the most because I like working with contrasts and this level really let me do that with all its narrow, dark corridors and grimy setting. It’s all done (had some issues with pathing and monster behaviors, but that was all fixed) and so now I’m moving onto the next step.
I should mention that I’ve made major overhauls to some gameplay mechanics and took some things out and added some other things in. I like watching Tim Cain’s (whom I actually met in person once, but he probably won’t remember me 😉 ) video logs while I’m working on my stuff and he brought up some really eye-opening design advice that I took to heart.
This was something that was mentioned by the testers during the first beta, and now hearing it from someone like Tim Cain only reinforces what they were telling me. I’ll go into depth about what I took out and what I improved upon and why during the Developer Journal down the road. Just know that the things that I did change have made the game a much more fun and tighter experience.
I’d also like to announce that I’m working on the first official trailer at the moment and it’s look really nice so far! You can expect it fairly soon!
Back in the original mod, there were some files in a journal detailing what Hell looked like. It was described as a place of demonic organics, and while I touched on some of it in the game at certain places, Hell was never actually shown as described. Well, I’m happy to tell you that you will absolutely be knee-deep in this shit for a lot of this game! (I included some screens from the tail-end of the Bloodmarsh just to illustrate)
It never ceases to amaze me with what I could accomplish using UE4 (and I’m using an old version!) I really couldn’t be happier with how it all turned out and it is extremely close to what I had imagined. When this thing finally hits, it will be an an insanely raw, unfiltered horror gorefest. You’ll see! 😉
I spent much of my time since the last update completing the Sewer map and while the visuals were easy enough for me to do, I had some issues crop up (OF COURSE) with the AI logic that took me freaking forever to fix. I got so burnt out coming home after a long day at work, dealing with the heat and then spending my remaining time trying to fix stuff in Blueprints.
It was slow progress overall, but I got it done and now I’m working on tidying up the Abbatoire (Hellish plane connected to the Sewer) and then I’ll be assembling the second beta for the testing team. I have another 6 maps to optimize after that and then…(RELEASE?!)
I’m starting to plan out a trailer as well and even have a song picked out, but I still don’t know about a public demo yet. Too many factors to consider that I don’t want occupying my brain right now!
Hello everyone! I was compiling a video for a friend and remembered that I promised I would upload a video of the NPC characters of the top contributors from the funding drive! I apologize for letting it slip my mind!
The Bloodmarshes are complete (along with the Boss encounter) and I’m polishing the Sewer map at the moment. It has been the simplest one so far due to it’s enclosed nature and environment, and for those who remember how claustrophobic that map was in the mod, just wait until you’re chased around in this one! I’ll post updates of that next!
LONG NGUYEN | Digital Artist & Game Designer 