ASTONISHED BY DESIGN
Disclosure: The Video Game is being developed using Unreal Engine 5.
-
Set in the "Disclosure" Universe
-
Sci-Fi Genre
-
Modern day setting
-
Interactive indoor and outdoor areas
-
Use of procedural building Blueprint
-
Use of Quixel assets for foliage etc.
-
The "First Person Simulator"
-
"Realitalk" - Text-to-Speech Audio and Facial Animation System
-
AI Partner Behaviour
-
PlayFab Integration
Story
Disclosure is the title of a sci-fi screenplay written by Stephen Palmer, set in the modern day and is based on the "Disclosure" universe.
The first chapter of the game starts with the player and their partner, two state detectives, investigating the house and surrounding area of the primary character's family home.
They are provided an anonymous tip which relates to a “disappearance” case from 1947, involving the Robinson family.
Environment
The first chapter is set around the Robinson Family home. Rooms in the house have objects to find, which advance the level progress and also provide depth to the story and the universe. Such objects include sketches drawn by the Sarah Robinson, from the original Disclosure screenplay and books on topics related to the universe. A particular item that is located in a safe in the house must be picked up and used to progress through the level.
The outlying hills and mountains were created using Unreal Engine's landmass splines, which allow for easy customisation of the terrain, with natural results.
The outer structure of the house, including the walls, roof and fencing, were all created with a procedural construction style Blueprint, created specifically for the construction of the house. This allowed for making changes to the outer structure as the internal rooms were constructed and laid out.
The internal rooms were build using Unreal Engine's built in mesh modelling tools, which allowed for a fast construction and easy of mesh modification, without and external 3D editor.
Foliage assets from Quixel where used for the fields and garden, as well as some additional canyon style rock formations to enhance the outlying landscape.
Game Mechanics and Features
Drives the player’s body and camera movement. Also provides object interaction. Click here for more information on the "The First Person Simulator".
Realitalk combines the CereProc text-to-speech service audio and metadata with a custom blueprint, which converts words to IPA and the IPA phonemes to "Metahuman "CTRL Curves" values.
Click here for more information on Realitalk.
AI Driven “Partner”
An AI driven behaviour trees based companion, who provides guidance and story dialogue. The voice of the player and partner are provided by Realitalk.
General head animation for the partner is produced in real-time with a custom Unreal Engine Animation Blueprint for the general head movement, eye tracking the player character and blinking.
Body animation, excluding the head, was re-targeted from the standard Unreal Humanoid's Animation Blueprint, to a Metahuman.
Mechanical Safe Puzzle
Manual mechanical dial locking mechanism puzzle. The safe combination is randomly set every time the level is played. The user is required to rotate over and land on the combination numbers, as explained by the Partner in game. Making mistakes does lock the safe and requires the unlocking sequence to be restarted, providing an amount of tension and challenge.
Interactive Portable Radio
The radio relates to the safe puzzle, which includes a "news station" with up to date headlines provided through PlayFab backend service and CereProc text-to-speech service.
The random safe combination is revealed audibly from the white noise regions of the stations. This is possible with the flexibility of using text to speech.