store.steampowered.com/app/1383200/Clouds_of_Rain/
Clouds of Rain is the first indie game from Graphic Line Games.
We're a small swiss indipendent team of 3 people.
In Clouds of Rain - The storm is rising - you will play with many characters, each one with its own story.
You will explore various regions, prepare yourself to fight different enemies and navigate through the skies.
The story:
In the skies of a forgotten world, a decadent civilization will consume every resource,
including the Leviathans, huge creatures that fly over the skies since the first dawn of the sun.
They were once considered Gods but now they’re hunted for their spinal fluid.
Only the Sky Watchers fight for their salvation, but the number of Hunters is increasing day by day.
Time is running out: the storm is rising.
Пікірлер
Super impressive that you made that big of a map, level design is super hard but you look like you're doing a good job!
We need a tutorial for that! :)
Looks really nice, and what about shader complexity?
I don't really know how complex it is at shader level, I'm not very technical, so I can't answer you, I've released some video tutorials that maybe can give you a general idea.
oh the reality is so sad and heartbreaking hahahaha
jep :( :D
few know the beauty of 3D video game development >_<
:D
This is awesome! Any chance that there will be a video showing how this is done?
Thx! There are some video tutorials on the channel, and in the future I'll release others tutorial ;)
This is absolutely amazing!!! thank u so so much for this <3
thx :)
How are you planning the game testing and what pc specs are you targeting for both minimum and recommended I would like to know your thoughts so that I can do the same for my game
I'm not planning any test yet, I think I'll start as soon as I have the first map and tutorial ready. As for the specifications, I don't know yet, I'm aiming for the power of the current gen consoles.
How could you put this banger of a song and not mention its name 😭
The artist name is in the description ;)
I can't find his music still
just let it stay and the game and whoever enters it is faced against a really strong boss if he killed it then he is better ig
HEHEHE true!
Looks nice! Curious to know more about your story development process and if you are designing quests or so already. And thank you - it’s a lot better without the AI voice over :)
I will start to reveal the first details of the story with the next devlog videos, I think I have an interesting idea but I need material to show it, material that I don't have yet, and therefore I'm not ready to show the concept of the story in all its entirety. But I'll get there little by little. I don't plan to insert a classic quest system, but rather objectives integrated into the game map in an organic way, which should be quests but "told" in a non-classical way. I'll try to explain everything well soon :) because it will be an important part of the game. Thanks for the comment :)
turn it into a boss fight
hahaha this is a brilliant idea :D
@@graphiclinegames4843 hahahaha However, that mesh only exists on the GPU and cannot do anything else or have collisions, and imagine the trauma of salad lovers.
Game dev: nerf running because Also game dev: doesn't make walking more fun over running, nor remove the tedious of travelling that makes running mandatory 😢
Hehehe we will need testers XD
Great work, keep it up! If I could offer one piece of advice, it would be to delve into color theory and lighting. In some areas, there is excessive mixing of colors and contrast, which makes it difficult to understand the environment.
this is a very interesting advice :) I will make good use of it in the future, thanks
Buddy, this is unbelievable. What you have shown, this style will perfectly suit our project. Thanks for the tip.
Thanks, I'm glad the video was helpful, I can't wait to see your project
Hello, I really appreciate the video. One question, can it be done with another program other than Adobe? for example, quixel mixer or some free one? Thank you so much
I haven't tried but I think so, In Substace Painter I use fairly common tool, such as edge highlighting, I think it's possible to achieve a similar result even with Mixer.
Love it! great job.
Thx
The grass is sooo good. Did you make it from scratch?
THX, I did a video where i show my workflow about this technique kzread.info/dash/bejne/hWuuurSsfda-qqQ.html ;)
If are sharing its already done... if you are doing so.. than please explain well.. otherwise.. your regular viewer will get only the 1% of that knowledge....
sorry, I don't understand what you mean, can you explain better?
@@graphiclinegames4843 I think they mean if you already have the file for download, you should explain what you do more for the people who want to learn? I'm not bothered by it but each to their own
That subtite text is horrible with the bright video. :D
I don't feel confident with my terrible English pronunciation so the subtitles help in this regard. :P
This was very helpful! I just did 1 change. I had to remove the 'normalize' for the geometry deformation. It was causing cards to not render correctly at certain angles. Works great after removing it though. Other than that, fantastic tutorial! Thank you kindly!
Thank you so much for sharing this information. I'm very happy that the tutorial was useful for your projects.
Those environments look stunning ! We could really use something like that for our game, would you be up to join a game in progress ?
Thanks for the offer, I'm very pleased. But currently I already have a job outside of this channel project. But maybe in the future we'll could collaborate, who knows... :)
Those environments look stunning ! We could really use something like that for our game, would you be up to join a game in progress ?
Thanks for the offer, I'm very pleased. But currently I already have a job outside of this channel project. But maybe in the future we'll could collaborate, who knows... :)
@@graphiclinegames4843 sure ! let me know whenever
in 9.13 you are shiowing for 99% Cartoon WaterShader by Sandvector Studios. Are you using this specific asset from marketplace? I'm asking cause now it is on big sale BUT few of last reviews claims it's broken now, not working correctly anymore. Do you have any issues and what version of UE5 are you working now with your project? OFC was thinking about buying it for some time but with these few 1 star reviews I'm not sure if it is worth money anymore(not if it's broken)
Yes, I confirm that it is this tool: www.artstation.com/artwork/L2mPBr The whole map was created with UE 5.03, but now I had to upgrade to 5.1, and I actually noticed that the water has some problems (renders in black) but since I'm developing the main protagonist I didn't pay much attention to it. I will check carefully as soon as I finish the character, if I find a workaround I will create a video about it.
@@graphiclinegames4843 ok. So maybe for no I wont rush with buying it we Will See if it is really dead(no support from dev?) and broken beyond usage anymore in higher unreal engine 5.4 for example. Thnx for response
Really interested to see what your journey and vision has in store for us. One thing I'm curious about: how did you create the first draft of your map? Did you use Gaea or any other software?
thanks for the message, first of all I drew the map by hand down to the smallest details, then I created a simple landscape in unreal. No external UE programs were used for the landscape. Clearly assets, such as rocks and trees were created in blender.
Wait is this voice AI
nope it's mine :D
Very nice work. My only criticism is that the ultra high poly rocks and logs look quite mismatched from the cartoon style grass and tree leaves.
yes I am aware of it, as soon as I can I intend to mix the two styles better, thanks for the advice
Plz check my demo out it's a short clip , this game looks great though, try add the 5.4 motion parkour it will nice
The trees and bushes look really nice.
thx
Iam using the billboard technique for trees,my problem though is that the shadows are projected into individual billboards too,how are you able to fix it and have solid shadows?
In reality I also have a whadow for each alpha image created, but since many images are grouped together they add up to create a consistent shadow, I made a video where I present my workflow for the foliage, soon I will release one for the trees too. kzread.info/dash/bejne/i5p3ubWMocTAg9Y.html
@@graphiclinegames4843 so basically I just have to make more quad faces so the shadows overlap and inflate each more?My workaround is that I made multiple copies of the same mesh and made it slightly bigger/smaller but assigned only the leaf material to some faces and some faces are masked out.I thought you didn't have the same problem coz your shadows looked to me they're one solid piece.Anyway Id look into integrating your technique as well thanks.I hope you do a video on the stylized water too.
@@MrPangahas thanks I think I will make a video for water integration in the future.
This map looks soooo good, keep it up it looks like interactive painting. Cant wait for you to show us how the main character will look
A thousand thanks :)
Thank you so much for the video! its straight forward and right to the point, great job! btw I love all the water shaders in your devlog videos and would love to see how you were able to create something like that!
Thanks for the comment, the water is a plug in that I purchased on the marketplace, I was thinking in the future of doing a tutorial on how I implemented everything in my scene.
@@graphiclinegames4843 thank you so much for the reply! would you mind sharing the name of the plugin from the Marketplace?
@@Raneaa Sure, marketplace-website-node-launcher-prod.ol.epicgames.com/ue/marketplace/en-US/product/cartoon-water-shader
In my opinion, allowing players the freedom to run everywhere really hurt the atmosphere of Diablo II compared to the first Diablo. The danger felt more real when your character was cautiously advancing through the labyrinth. I can definitely see why you would want to impose some limitations on running in your game. Have you tested your map out on lower end machines? It seems like you're relying on world vertex offset to animate your materials and I had serious performance issues on my laptop with assets that used that method. And when profiling, Some of the water assets I downloaded that look similar to yours appeared to be a huge drag on performance as well.
thank you, these are very simple choices in terms of game design but which can have very important effects on the feeling of the gameplay. For tests on machines that are not exactly high-performance, I am looking for a visual quality that requires fairly recent machines (such as the current gen - PS5, X series and equivalent PCs) and I will try to optimize as much as possible in the future.
nope
Jep! Sure :P
I really like the art style and I'm very curious about your trunks style, I saw a lot of style, but none of them make a good tree trunk
thx, it's very similar to the rocks workflow ;) kzread.info/dash/bejne/pn-AwZeRaNSxZNY.html
What's the point of downloading a super HD asset with millions of triangles and details to smooth it, erase the details, and put nanite to work for nothing? The point of nanite is to be able to load tons of tris to have huge detail resolution, but nanite is completely useless for this kind of stylised work! And also, why do the first half of the texture with nodes in blender, if in the end you're gonna put it in substance ? Just use substance, painter or designer, but why use blender nodes?? So, here what I would have done : *Choice 1)* Completely stay inside unreal engine. Take the stone asset that you like in quixel bridge, download it in low-res, and maybe subdivide it once in the modeling tab if you really want a smooth finish. You can also decide to keep the low poly model to assign it as an LOD. Then make this rock material completely inside the material editor of unreal engine, procedural. It's really not that complicated, so it can easily be made there. That'll give you full flexibility on the look of your material with a material instance, to have various types of rocks easily, in a few clicks. *Choice 2)* Blender only Just model a simple rock in blender, that's super easy to do. Then, use the material nodes from blender and make the material here, assign UVs, export it, and put it into unreal, boom. The advantage of this workflow is that you can start by working on a veery low-res rock (like 20 tris), and use the multiresolution modifier to add further detail. This way, you can export your rock in multiple levels of details (LODs) and plug them in unreal, which will increase the amount of details the closer you get to it in-game. This way, your asset will have extraordinary performance, and will be suitable for mobile playing. *Choice 3)* Blender + Unreal - _(best choice)_ Model your rock in blender, export different LODs thanks to the multiresolution modfier, put them in unreal, and make the rock material completely in the unreal-engine material editor. Full texture flexibility, best performances, and probably the most studio-compatible workflow.
Thanks for the very complex comment with your ideas and solutions. I can say that I kept nanites to exploit the polygonal complexity which is not completely lost with the slight smoothing that I use. This helps make the avoidable details in SP (on the edges) more evident that with a low poly model it would not be possible to highlight. In regards of the blender shader and then substance painter workflow, this is the one that is simplest for me, because I find the shader in blender very customizable and convenient. I haven't found alternative solutions to do everything in SP (for now) Also consider that I am new to this type of "job", this is my workflow and I tried to explain it as best I could, thanks for the advice :)
@@graphiclinegames4843 No problem, thanks for your kind answer and I hope my tips were somehow helpful :) I still think nanite isn't useful in this case, you can fake details with generators in both Substance softwares, or even directly in the UE material editor. Though something you could do if you really want to keep them, is to do a retopology of the rock in blender, shrinkwrap a subdivided version of that topology onto the HD model, and then bake the details onto the low-res version. Nanite is a cool tool, but don't use it just for the sake of it, haha. It has both a specific purpose and big limitations. It's great to call nanite for objects that _absolutely need_ a ton of details, but the fact you're smoothing the rock proves that you _don't_ want that much details ^-^" Continue the good job and have a great day!
Looks insane without tweaking the normals of the mesh, perhaps using a 3 color node with the values 0,0,1 plugged into the normal of the material would give it that upward facing anime shading? Or maybe blending the normals with landscape using rvt, your video has made opportunity for many more ideas, great job!
thanks :)
I tried this but my billboards will only stretch in one direction getting really wide but not changing in height, and I can't see anything missing in my nodes. I checked several times :/ I'm on 5.4.2
this is strange, are you sure the mesh model has quad polygons? I can advise you to download the files I put on gumroad and see if that works and then understand what causes the problem ;)
@@graphiclinegames4843 It should be, they are all quad squares hmmm
It's great tutorial but 1 milion triangles is a bit much for an game asset
Not for nanite ;) that’s game changing!
@@graphiclinegames4843 Yea but why use nanite at all? That is a simple, smooth, rock. It could have 500 triangles only, and it wouldn't change anything to the look of it. It just makes the game heavier for no reason, makes it incompatible with mobile devices, and take a big ton of place on your hard-disk
Your bushes look great, a lot of bluprint work goes into them. Do you have to manually scale and rotate each one when you put them in your world so they dont look all the same after a while?
yes, clearly rotation and scales are important for good composition quality, as well having multiple different meshes, for example even the cuts in the mesh seen at the beginning of the video help to make everything more cohesive.
@@graphiclinegames4843 thanks. the aesthetics looks 100percent awesome. random question from a beginner that has never actually used unreal engine before, those alpha maps at 14:25, if you were smart at this kind of stuff, could you use the same method on a character to make them look like they have fur that waves in the wind, the maps would be a curved triangles instead of leaf shape maybe with some strands? if probable would this be a cheap or very expensive way to create a furry character compared to other methods in your estimation? also i think it could be a sneaky way to not have to spend time applying detailed textures on the model and just have a couple of simple base colours and cover them up with the alpha maps, especially for maybe a cell shaded style game
Interesting question, technically I think it could work but I've never tried, consider that I'm also not very familiar with unreal, in fact I'm developing the character now and I'm having more than a few difficulties, so maybe I'm wrong, we should try :P
@@graphiclinegames4843 we should try!! It might be perfect for some people's workflow and game design. I'm not sure if I mentioned but I have never used any of these programs I'm just watching tutorial at this point but once I'm familiar I could give it a go
@@badashphilosophy9533 yes, I can say from experience that practice is the fastest way to learn :) I also started from 0 in unreal engine just a few years ago. I personally use tutorials when I get stuck in some particularly difficult process or when I have to do something and I don't have the slightest idea how to do it. Best wishes for your future projects :D
I just discovered you today and I think what you're doing is madness, the level of detail, the quality control, the complexity, and diversity... it is so dope. It's very inspiring going through your vlogs. I'm also a noob to Unreal and game dev. Would it be ok if I mailed you questions from time to time?
thanks for the message, right now I'm super busy between the game, the KZread channel, my work and family, but if I can find time I'll try to answer you :)
good video looks so nice
thx
This takes about an hour in UE5 fyi
Oh yes! but not if you study the level design inch by inch, study the graphic style by doing endless tests, and many other beautiful things, what fun is there in doing it in an hour? :D
yeah indeed a random bland and boring terrain would take an hour in UE5, which is not the case here
Yeah I really need to pick your brain on your steps to make that map so large and still have performance.
octree, frustum culling, lod.
@@RM-ep2dc unreal kinda does that automatically with world partition. What I mean is how are they handling lods. Are they all low or is it a nanite landscape with auto lods, is the water just a plane or are we using the experimental water plugin or are there some assets that may work better together rather than clashing? I can see that the grass and rocks are custom and at least the grass looks to be foliage painted on, but does this apply to is other pieces. Like the trees are they foliage instances or static mesh based also the rocks are those places meshes, or taking advantage of some form of procedural to save time? Is there any kind of world partition, level streaming involved or just one big map, and how exactly large is the map after all of the meshes or instances are placed? How long does it take to get from point a to point b before and after objects are placed? It's been one year. But did we do this part time or full time and are we using any ue5 specific features? Those kinds of questions.
1. Hierarchical Level of Detail (HLOD) HLOD: Combine multiple objects into a single proxy mesh at a distance to reduce draw calls and improve performance. 2. Virtual Texturing Virtual Texturing: Use virtual texturing to manage large textures efficiently, reducing memory usage and improving streaming performance. 3. Nanite Virtualized Geometry (Unreal Engine 5) Nanite: Utilize Nanite for handling highly detailed geometry efficiently, allowing for massive amounts of detail without a significant performance hit. 4. Ray Tracing and Lumen (Unreal Engine 5) Ray Tracing: Implement hardware-accelerated ray tracing for realistic lighting, reflections, and shadows. Lumen: Use Lumen for dynamic global illumination and reflections, which can provide high-quality lighting without precomputed lightmaps. 5. Async Loading and Streaming Async Loading: Implement asynchronous asset loading to prevent hitches and ensure smooth gameplay. Streaming Levels: Use streaming levels to load and unload parts of the world dynamically based on player location and actions. 6. Shader Optimization Shader Complexity: Optimize shaders to reduce complexity and improve rendering performance. Material Functions: Use material functions to create reusable and efficient shader code. 7. Multi-threading and Task Graph System Multi-threading: Utilize multi-threading to offload heavy computations to separate threads. Task Graph System: Use Unreal Engine's task graph system to manage and schedule tasks efficiently. 8. Data-Oriented Design ECS (Entity Component System): Implement data-oriented design principles, such as ECS, to improve performance by optimizing data access patterns. 9. Network Optimization Replication Optimization: Optimize network replication to reduce bandwidth usage and improve multiplayer performance. Prediction and Interpolation: Use client-side prediction and interpolation to provide smooth gameplay in networked environments. 10. Profiling and Analysis Tools PIX (Performance Investigator for Xbox): Use PIX for in-depth performance analysis on Xbox platforms. RenderDoc: Utilize RenderDoc for frame capture and analysis to debug rendering issues. Intel VTune: Use Intel VTune for CPU performance profiling and optimization. 11. Level Streaming World Composition: Use World Composition to manage and stream large worlds. Sub-levels: Break your world into smaller sub-levels and stream them in and out based on the player's location. 12. LOD (Level of Detail) Meshes: Use LODs for static meshes to reduce the polygon count at a distance. Foliage: Apply LODs to foliage to reduce complexity when viewed from afar. Textures: Use mipmaps for textures to reduce texture resolution at a distance. 13. Occlusion Culling Precomputed Visibility: Use precomputed visibility volumes to cull objects that are not visible to the camera. Distance Culling: Set up distance culling to remove objects that are too far away to be seen. 14. Efficient Use of Materials Material Instances: Use material instances instead of unique materials to reduce draw calls. Texture Atlases: Combine multiple textures into a single texture atlas to reduce texture fetches. 15. Lighting Optimization Static Lighting: Use static lighting where possible to reduce the cost of dynamic lighting. Lightmap Resolution: Optimize lightmap resolution to balance quality and performance. Distance Field Shadows: Use distance field shadows for large-scale shadowing. 16. Foliage and Grass Optimization Foliage Tool: Use the foliage tool to efficiently manage large amounts of foliage. Cull Distance: Set appropriate cull distances for different types of foliage. Clustered Rendering: Use clustered rendering for grass and small foliage to reduce draw calls. 17. Physics Optimization Collision Complexity: Simplify collision meshes for complex objects. Physics LOD: Use physics LODs to reduce the complexity of physics calculations at a distance. 18. Profiling and Debugging Unreal Insights: Use Unreal Insights to profile and analyze performance. Stat Commands: Use stat commands (e.g., stat fps, stat unit, stat scenerendering) to monitor performance metrics. GPU Profiler: Use the GPU profiler to identify and optimize GPU bottlenecks. 19. Asset Management Asset Size: Keep asset sizes reasonable to avoid memory bloat. Streaming Textures: Use texture streaming to manage texture memory efficiently. 20. Code and Blueprint Optimization Blueprint Nativization: Convert performance-critical Blueprints to C++. Event-Driven: Use event-driven programming to avoid unnecessary ticking.
@@ThePrimordialArts ty! I do know what they are though. I just want to know particularly what the OP is doing step by step. I know how to do it myself. But everyone has a different process in how they approach level design in unreal. And I'm always interested in other's pipelines as what they feel comfortable or just wanting to tackle first depending on project
Thanks for the comment, so: I'm right now editing a devlog video where I explain the creation of the map in detail. the landscape is not nanite for now, I will try to convert it in the future for better performance. I haven't used World Partiton yet, do you recommend it? I can't find a tutorial that suits me, especially for verticality, but I haven't looked much about it. water is an asset taken from the marketplace ;) it is a spline for the river and a plane for the lake (or sea) effects, waves, etc. are managed by shaders. maybe in the future I will do a tutorial on how I managed to implement it in my project. for the grass I used RVT, where each blade of grass takes the color of a texture that I painted on the landscape, I made a video about it, you can find it in the channel ;) the bushes and trees are not positioned with the folage tool but by hand, mesh by mesh. nothing is procedural ;) for now it is a single map of about 1km square, with verticality, mountains and deep canyons (explorable) I've actually been working on it for more than a year, because on a conceptual level I started arlier with various drawings, I have a full-time job and a one-year-old daughter, so I try to work when I can.
great stuff! i think this tutorial could be even better if you explained your reasoning behind some shader operations, because otherwise its more like copy+paste instead of learning how to build billboard systems for your needs yourself. thanks anyway!
Thanks for the comment, as said in the video I don't know much about shaders, it's the result of various trials and errors taken from other tutorials. Here I explain my method where I found a solution that works for my needs. I will try to improve in this aspect, thanks for the advice.
thanks for the comment, as said in the video I'm not super skilled about shaders, it's the result of various trials and errors taken from other tutorials and tests i did. Here I explain my method where I found a solution that works for my needs. but I will try to improve in this aspect, thanks for the advice
Great Tutorial, let me also help you speed things up a bit You can press LMB + S = Create Parameter LMB + A = Create Add LMB + E = Create Power LMB + T = Create Texture Sample LMB + U = Create Texture Coordinate LMB + O = Create 1-x LMB + P = Create Panner LMB + D = Create Divide LMB + V = Create Vector 3 Param LMB + N = Create Normalize Those are some of the more frequently used shortcuts
dunno, but i have other shortcuts by default in the material editor. for example, create a vector 3 is LMB+3 is on UE5.3
thank you very much, I will definitely use them in future videos :)
@@AllesLatte I mean if you want to create constants you can go with LMB + 1, 2, 3 but to create a V3 parameter in on go you need to press LMB + V
Now all that’s missing is smoke poisoning the air, bombs bursting in the air, gun shells hitting the ground, and a bunch of screaming and terror
Hahaha yep! That's something :D
If you want people to get to know you, and follow your story, as a dad and a new programmer, you should use your own voice.
Sorry, I see this is 7 months old and that you did change it up. Great! I'll follow then...!
Thank you :)
wdym about press F on kristoff? he gone or something?
oh man! that's really bad English :P
do you think this could be implemented in a mobile game? Or it is to heavy?
I'm not sure but I think so, clearly with limitations regarding map size and polygonal complexity. It would be worth trying.