The final product of my project slightly averted what I had originally envisioned at the beginning, but at the same time it came out slightly better than what I originally expected. My project was still based in Chinatown, Birmingham, but I didn’t quite manage to create the Chinatown Square with the assets I had like I originally planned to. Instead I improvised and constructed a fictional park area of Chinatown with the assets I did have. The park is filled to the brim with bamboo trees and Asian temples, and surrounded by large apartment buildings to make up the bustling cityscape. The park has two different paths that the player can take, one of which serves as an exit from the mission for when the player has achieved the objective (which is to terminate the target who is staying in the penthouse of the nearby hotel). The other path leads up to the Hotel itself, which is under renovation. I haven’t managed to construct an actual lobby and check-in area for the hotel, but I did manage to make a canal area next to the hotel to serve as another exit while also paying homage to Birmingham’s serpent-like canal network, which has remained in the city since the industrial revolution. I also managed to successfully make a working door system (albeit only one door within the double door frame actually opens), and a working elevator system, both inside the hotel building. I also made two of my own materials by making new materials with new colors, with them having the metallic effect on, before adding a pre-existing texture each to complete them. The red material was used on the wood frames (from the Soul: City asset pack) over the hotel windows and the giant picket fence (which I downloaded from ) going along the path leading up to the hotel while the green material was used on the temple roofs (from the Infinity Blade: Temple asset pack), in order to recreate the bright color palette of one of the buildings in the real Chinese Quarter of Birmingham that stood out to me.

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I added a working menu system with its own music, and I used Pixilart.com to make the background art of the level’s landscape. The menu system features four buttons, clicking on the “continue game” button will take the player to the Unreal Level, the “load game” button will take the player to a save slot screen where they can select which save slot they want to play, while the “options” and “credits” buttons are currently obsolete. The load game feature allows players to load save files where they haven’t played through the whole game, since most participants of the primary research survey I made wanted the game to be an open world game. So outside of the level, the player can explore the rest of Birmingham, the fictional town of New Mercia, and other cities such as Cardiff, Bristol, London and Edinburgh.

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I used Bandlab to produce some punk-style music to accompany the menu, and some music to play during the level. The punk music that I produced wasn’t what I had originally envisioned, since I am used to punk bands from the 70s with English roots, such as The Clash and Sex Pistols, since the level and Deadeye story is set in the UK. Although it wasn’t what I originally expected, it was still a passable enough to add to my level since the acoustic part of the music sounds slightly similar to the songs "Bring it on down" (1994) and “Wonderwall” (1995), both by the rock band Oasis, which was formed in Manchester, UK (where another of Deadeye's missions take place), and the overall track sounds like a song produced by the American rock band known as Green Day, specifically a song from their album “Dookie” (1994), which comes under the punk rock genre. On the other hand, I wasn’t very happy with the music I produced for the actual level. I originally intended to make a traditional Asian music track, but the final product of it only consists of some strings to start off and echoing gong sounds for each minute that passes in the level, up until five minutes have passed. I made I made it like this because I couldn’t find the other necessary sounds on Bandlab to produce a real track, and to go with the timer that I added to the HUD of the level. 

What I would’ve done differently is to follow the project action plan a lot closer, specifically where I had originally planned to use Blender to develop the assets for Deadeye (the player’s character), Kai Treadman (the enemy AI and target), and the storefronts of the shops to make up the plaza (I was originally planning to produce around three or four of these). I didn’t feel as if I was familiar enough with Blender to be able to produce these assets and complete all other parts of the project before the deadline, so I instead decided to focus on the Unreal Level itself and the WIX website instead. I would also have used a different music production software that actually had the right sounds to make the music for the main level, since Bandlab didn’t have enough traditional Asian instrument sounds. 

The research I did using Google Earth and by playing other video games really helped in influencing the landscape of my level, specifically the canal area and the aesthetic of the hotel building. The primary research that I conducted helped me decide what music I should choose for the menu, what artwork I should use as a background for the menu, and what overall atmosphere the level should have, based on other people’s opinions. The people who participated in the survey are also within the same age range as the audience that Deadeye is targeted towards (late teens and young adults), which helped me learn what exactly the target audience looks for in a stealth/action game like Deadeye. So I believe that this method of research was really effective and I don’t think I would’ve used a different method to conduct my research.

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My pipeline processes were fairly straightforward, all three of them consisted of developing the Deadeye, Kai Treadman and storefront assets using Blender. The stages of the Deadeye and Treadman pipelines consisted of developing the main bodies of the assets for stage one, then add distinct body features such as hair or Deadeye’s scars for stage two, then add their clothes for stage three, all within Blender before finally importing the assets to the Unreal Level for stage four, and then wiring Deadeye up to the player character blueprint while I later develop an enemy A.I. blueprint and wire it to Treadman’s sprite for stage five (Deadeye’s pipeline also had an extra step for step three where I was supposed to develop his highly detailed skull mask and add that to Deadeye’s face in Blender, then export the complete Deadeye fbx to the Unreal level). The pipeline for the Asian shops consisted of developing the shapes of the storefronts for stage one, then adding colors and materials to these stores for stage two, before importing them to the Unreal Level for stage three, and wiring a static mesh to them for stage four, before finally adding them to the landscape of the level to create the Chinatown plaza for stage five. I believe these pipelines were actually too ambitious since I had never used Blender before the start of this project, and I unfortunately ditched sticking to the pipelines in favor of working on other aspects of my project. This was after one of my tutors walked me through how to make a bottle using blender, and I instead ended up making a vase by accident, and I really struggled to grasp the basics of using Blender so I decided to leave it, as I believed getting used to using it would take up too much time during the project that I could be using to work on my Unreal Level, written work or WIX website. 

Even though I didn’t get to develop those assets using Blender, the finished product did meet most of my targets in the end, albeit just not in a way that I expected. In my original proposal I mentioned that I was going to make the Chinatown plaza, which I unfortunately didn’t get round to making since I didn’t have the assets from Blender, so I instead made a part of what is supposed to be the plaza using an asset for the Infinity Blade: Temple asset pack, leading into the park area. I also mentioned that I was going to add an elevator system leading up to the penthouse area of the hotel in the level. I managed to add the elevator, but I unfortunately didn’t get round to making the actual penthouse area. However, I did also manage to make a working door system and a canal area in the level which weren’t in the original proposal. I managed to make a menu system and soundscape for the level, but I used Bandlab instead of Groovepad like I said I would in the proposal, since Groovepad didn’t have either a Punk or traditional Asian music pack.

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The skills I managed to develop during this project include how to download assets into my Unreal Level outside of the Unreal marketplace, since I downloaded the chainlink gate and picket fence from Turbosquid. I also learned how to make working door systems and elevator systems in Unreal engine, since I hadn’t done either of those in any of my previous projects. I also learned how to use light the right way in my level, since the only time I used it before was in the 3D CV project, and that was only the Pointlight asset. Now I know how to use the not just the Pointlight asset but also the Skylight asset to give me a darker atmosphere to the level. I also learned how to get people to play test my level, since I hadn’t had my peers play test any of my previous projects. I also put a survey together for those who did play test my level.

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The positives of the production process of my level were the skills that I learned, including how to make an opening door and working elevator system. The negatives of the production process was the fact I kept forgetting to ZIP my Unreal Level (since I didn’t have a physical USB drive) so I could work on it using other devices than just the one in my college homeroom, and whenever I actually remembered to ZIP it, I ended up doing it the wrong way and then didn’t have time near the end of that lesson to ZIP it the right way after I realized what mistake I made. Another negative that came from the production process was the fact that Unreal would take a while to load. However, I would often use this to my advantage by working on my WIX website or written work whenever it took a while to load. Another negative was that it was rather time consuming. If I had worked on developing the Deadeye, Kai Treadman and Storefront assets on Blender then I may have gotten a different product, but I doubt the level would feature as much as I’ve accomplished in this level.

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In conclusion, I believe this project went fairly well, despite the finished product not being what I originally envisioned. I was able to meet most of the targets that I set myself at the beginning of the project, and wasn’t too ambitious like some of the previous projects.