Door Progress

 Door Progress

Ty Katz

    Using Unreal Engine 4, I am in the process of making a door that the player can interact with and walk through. While the door I have right now is extremely basic, I have ideas to give it some personality later on. I want to create a Japanese style door that slides across the floor. It would be cool to eventually model an authentic Japanese house, so making a door is a good place to start.

I added some blockers next to my door so I can see how the door will slide. I programmed the door to slide to the right side, and when the player is on the other side, it will shut behind them.

After reading the article, some questions caught my attention:

Can the player open every door in the game?

    When I eventually make a game, I feel like most doors will be openable, but some will just be decoration or flair in houses.

Do doors lock behind the player?

    Depending on the encounter, some doors may lock behind a player, which will signify that they must clear enemies in the room before moving forward.

How does the player open a door?

    As of right now, doors will be opened when a player enters the collision box. When I learn how to do custom animations and model objects, I could make an animation of the player reaching out and sliding the door open and close.

Some of the questions regarding how the gaming industry thinks made me question my own ideas and think more indepth of the project I want to make:

Concept artists are much needed members of a design team to create what the door actually looks like. Art doesn't just appear, so talking with an artist and expressing thoughts about what the door will look like and do will affect the style of the game. 

Sound Designers can make or break a players experience with a door. If the sound is annoying or doesn't fit how the door functions, it will be a nucance to play. A wooden sliding door cannot  have a metallic; it wouldn't make sense.

If a player doesn't realize that there is even a door to be walked through, then something is wrong. If the door is not an easter egg or hidden objective, a door must look like something that the player can open. Players must be able to identify and use a door.

When creating my door, I ran into a few problems with teleporting my door. When I would move my door, it kept falling through the floor. I couldn't figure out the problem at first, but I realized that my Z values were messed up. Once I adjusted some numbers, it all worked out. 

After making a game last semester in class, a friend taught me a bit about collision boxes and how players interact with them. Learning that then prepared me for setting doors up in this assignmemt. Something that I want to learn how to do eventually is animate my door so that I can see it slide across the floor. It will make the experience much more fluid.