Programming: Spikey Block

Programming For Artists: Spikey Block

For our game we had to make a Spikey Block based off of the Womps in the Mario series. It had to have a visual cue and I added a little wiggle for the warning. I made both a normal spikey block and a side spikey block. This is to add more of a challenge to our game.

I know that I  wanted to have a really cute, simple but at the same time indicating to the player that this block is dangerous and will kill you. I think overall I was successful in designing the block. In the Unreal Engine Blueprint we are introduced to BP classes and animating in timelines in them. We learned we can change colors, add sounds, and even learning how to use the construction script.

This image shows the Event Begin Play that is Setting and Getting the Location of the Static Mesh of the Block. We use this later on for out timeline to animate our block. Above it we are setting it so when the Spikey Block falls, and it is saying when our character overlaps the box (On Begin Overlap) attached to the mesh the Scott's Death Function will kill the player, followed by turning on and off the collision so we can see us hitting the player.

As I was mentioning earlier, the Construction Script which I will go more into detail below, is setting up a Create Dynamic Material Instance. We are referencing the eye and setting the color change variable.

These nodes are representing when the player Overlaps the Trigger Box and sets it off, it is playing the animation, sound, camera shake and changing color of the block when the character is stepping in the range. We are getting references and locations so it doesn't get messed up in the process of  getting player controller and locations. The timeline is below.

In this particular part of the Timeline I am animating a shake and a fall and a slow rise up using the Z axis and time. I'm not using the Y or the X to animate this. Under that, I am setting the eyeball to change color and do a red to orange blink before hitting and fading back to white using the shake and the fall as a reference.

I do the same for both the Camera Shake and the Impact Sound both for when they hit the ground when  the animation timeline is dipping to the bottom when it hits. I made my own sound, and my own custom camera shake to fit.