Cadavar of Callisto

Cadavar of Callisto is a 5 day summer game jam that we took part in ran by Epic called the Epic Mega Jam 2023.

In creating this game I worked closely with a programmer to create the game we wanted to in the time frame. Sam handled the gameplay and I handled the tech art and animation.

The biggest thing I was proud of was the space environment I was able to make in such a short time. Using open-source resources from NASA to create an immersive space like environment. Also coming up with some creative solutions to have the Jupiter looking animated with its wind swirling around it.

The methods I used here were a combination of new and old-school tech. For the space I used the simple old method of making a big inverted sphere and placing the space scan texture on it with a few modifiers to make the lighter areas emissive. With Jupiter it was not as simple, I used a combination of some bespoke Unreal Engine features and my unique shader modification to create the planet you see above. Using an sky atmosphere from a point in space rather than a horizon I was able to use it in combination with realistic lighting implementation. The scattering from the sky atmosphere applied to the directional light at accurate to real life values makes for a convincing depiction of Jupiter.

My unique shader material made use of a method I discovered when creating water shaders a long time ago, the way I achieve this is by effectively modulating the Time value through multiple channels inside of the Panner of the Unreal material, the same thing can be done for a Rotator or any material node that has a time input. And then averaging the results to achieve a targeted effect. Using Sine in a central channel to change the increase is important to get the “blending” effect I want to achieve. To see this more clearly I have made an example using a simple spiral below.

Texturing

The plan for this jam was not for me to do any texturing but as it became obvious that we were running out of time I took up the mantel of doing the textures for the game. Creating a streamlined pipeline was effective between the two team members on 3D asset production, myself texturing and Sam implementing the assets. It allowed for us to create many assets quite quickly, however it did mean more errors got through, in this specifically the UV maps on the textures were not set out properly which meant there was bleeding between different points of a mesh or visible pixels when the orientation of some UV’s were too wonky.

Sound Design

I also did the sound design for this project aiming to make all of the technology sound retro 1920’s and feel that way too with bells ringing doors sounding wobbly and old school jukebox music in part of the map when the power is turned on. One of my favorite parts however was one of the ambient sounds I created by taking an old rusty gate sound effect and using it as the basis for my creaky ship in space sound effect. Using different effects and modulations to have something with feels unsettling but also feeling natural for the environment it is set in.

Description

Written in the imagined future of the 1920’s the player finds themselves in the aftermath of a murder mystery that didn’t have a happy ending. Use your tack and wit to solve the puzzles and uncover the mysteries of the Callisto cruise.
This game was developed for EpicGameJam 2023 by a team of 5 over 1 week.

Credits

2 responses to “Cadavar of Callisto”

Anime defenders units

October 9, 2024

Hi there this is kind of of off topic but I was wondering if blogs use WYSIWYG editors or if you have to manually code with HTML.
I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding knowledge
so I wanted to get advice from someone with experience.

Any help would be enormously appreciated!

1. Admin
  
  November 5, 2024
  
  You don’t need to manually code HTML WordPress allows for very seamless blog posting with easy set up

Matthew Wright's Blog

Texturing

Sound Design

Description

Credits

2 responses to “Cadavar of Callisto”

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