That October Feeling!

Just wanted to do a quick update and video! Everything is still moving along smoothly with the optimizing phase. I’ve also got a bit of time off coming up pretty soon that I can throw all into the game work.

There were a couple of maps (such as the one shown in the video) which didn’t take too long to do because it was fairly fleshed out already. I did have to fix a few things here and there but it didn’t eat up much time. There were a couple of other maps that needed some serious work with the visuals and though it’s taking longer than I want, it was (visually) worth it in the end.

I had comments from people who loved the small swirling leaf gusts in the original mod. Well, you’re really going to love them this time because they’re actually leaf meshes randomly swirling around instead of flat textures on a ring (that’s how I did it in the mod) I also found some great sound effects for them and you can hear the dry leaves brushing and skidding across the asphalt. It’s nice taking a moment in-game and just listening (that is, until an angry mob of psychotic zombies finds you)

I spent a little bit of time trying to upgrade to the latest (and last?) version of UE4 and even tried downloading UE5 (I can’t even launch it on my system. I’m not sure why, there’s no prompt) The reason I wanted to upgrade to the latest version UE 4.27 was because there were some improvements to dynamic light bouncing, volumetric clouds and other features BUT I found that it all fucked with the art direction. I had created this fake global illumination system in version 4.20 that is really clunky (took years to get it working the way I wanted) and even though it is completely inaccurate, it served the art style really well.

When I tried using the the new effects from 4.27, even though it was more accurate to real life (I guess?) it just changed the look of everything too much. Though I would love to have more realistic dynamic lighting, I’m afraid it would change the whole grimy/gritty/muddy look that is such a core part of the Out Of Hell atmosphere. So screw all of the upgraded versions; this is the style and that’s how it’s going to stay.

I get really, really restless sometimes when I’m working on these because I want to reveal so much of it to you guys but I know that I have to wait. Since the original release date for this Halloween couldn’t be met, I was going to release a demo on Steam instead but I decided it was best to hold off for now. My plan is to release a trailer for Out Of Hell first, followed by a demo shortly after and then the full release once I get feedback from the demo and implement any changes needed.

In the meantime, check out the video below to hear more of Sergey Yukon‘s music! I hope I nailed that “Late October sunset in an abandoned city” feeling!