Unreal Project Prototyping
In Project Gradual, the biggest hurdle that needed to be dealt with was the rotation of the ship. So, early priority centered around creating a prototype to get an idea of what variables we could tweak to get in the right ballpark. Early on, it was important to create a prototype that would simulate the intended “anti-gravity” look from 90’s-00’s racing games that we used as references like F-Zero and Wipeout. After a lot of iteration and even more balancing, a final algorithm was designed that matched the project’s vision. How I visualize the way in which it works is to imagine an object in 3D space that is magnetized to the surface of a sphere. Wherever the object travels, it always does so along the surface of the sphere, not unlike somebody walking along a planet’s surface. As it travels, it inherits the rotation of the object it is placed against meaning every time it moves forward, its trajectory for where it is applying its movement changes. So to accomplish this effe...