Roles
Designer
Programmer
Team Size
Solo
Tools
Unreal Engine 5
Blueprints
Production Time
March - April 2024
Genre
First Person Shooter
Platform
Windows
Asset Packs
Military Base was the final project for my Level Design course taken Spring 2024 and showcases my skillset in level and tech design expertise at the time. Inspired by training levels from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007) and Modern Warfare 2 (2009), this project guides players through learning to shoot, aim, and ultimately defend the base against an attack.
Objectives
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Create a level with a 90 - 180 second critical path
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Create a weapon system that allows for ammo depletion, reloading, toggling fire modes, aiming, and a UI and animation system to support it
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Create a grenade throwing system
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Create a player controller that allows for the picking up of weapons, running, crouching, and proning and a full-body animation system to support it
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Implement enemy AI
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Implement objective system through UI updates
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Populate the level in a way that makes it feel alive/immersive
3C's
Vision
The goal was to create a contemporary FPS look and feel that allowed for movements and actions such as running, crouching, proning, and jumping, interacting with certain objects, and weapon-related actions.
Challenge
Since the character utilized a full-body mesh, I needed a way for the player to be able to look around themselves that seemed immersive.
Solution
To achieve this, I designed a robust animation system that allowed the player character to bend and rotate correctly in a realistic manner.
3C's in Action
Character
The player character has the ability to walk, run, jump, crouch, and go prone. The following show this in action and the animation system used to support it.
Controller
The controller needed to account for contemporary FPS actions like shooting, aiming, reloading, movement, and world interactions.
Camera
The camera needed to account for the charactars's various stances as well as aiming down sights and was the dominant factor behind the animations of looking up and down.
Gun System
Vision
Create a weapon system that allows for 2 different weapons (rifle and pistol).
Challenge
The weapons needed to feel and shoot differently in the categories of damage, fire rate, fire mode, recoil, and ammo capacity.
Solution
Use a data driven approach to account for such statistics in order to create different feeling weapons.
Gun System in Action
Fire Logic
I Implemented functionality via weapon blueprints that allow for dynamic visual, audio, and data driven effects such as fire rate, muzzle flash and recoil.
Fire Modes
I implemented 3 different fire modes that players can switch between for the rifle: automatic, burst, and single fire mode.
Weapon Management
Vision
The goal was a weapon and ammo system where the player could have up to 2 weapons, each with their own separate ammo counts that could be replenished via ammo crates.​
Challenge
​The player needed to be able to carry 2 weapons, each with limited ammo counts that could be replenished.
Solution
​Each weapon has a limited mag size that could be reloaded and reserve ammo that can be replenished at ammo supply crates.
Weapon Management in Action
Ammo Box
I included a ammo supply box throughout the level that allows players to replenish ammo for each of their guns. It replenish ammo every x seconds by a factor of the guns magazine size.
Weapon Switching
Players can switch between their primary and secondary weapon.
Grenade System
Vision
I wanted to create a grenade system where players could throw grenades that would detonate a little while after hitting the ground.
Challenge
The grenade needed to arc far in away that made it dependent on the angle in which the player threw it.
Solution
​Created a predicted projectile path for the grenade and tie the spawning of the grenade to the throwing animation so that it is spawned at the apex of the throw via an anim notify.
Grenade System in Action
Level Events
Vision
In order to for the level to feel like a living, and immersive military base while also guiding the player through it, certain events needed to occur based on where the player was in the level and what they had already done.
Challenge
Certain events needed to happen in a particular order or upon certain criteria being met in order for the level to properly progress.
Solution
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Objective Manager
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I created a unified objective manager that keeps track of what sections a player has completed within the level.
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Certain events are triggered upon collision boxes.​​
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When the player walks into a certain area, pre-scripted events will happen.​
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Level Events in Action
Key Takeaways
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Intro to Weapons: This was my first time creating a comprehensive weapon system that incorporate many different things that needed to be properly managed and fit into other systems such as 3C's and animation. Given the month time constraint I would say it turned out considerably well.
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Decoupled Systems: Moving forward from this project I realized the importance of creating decoupled systems
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Level Immersion: Dynamic events are important to making a level feel immersive.