William Porter Books

07/16/2017

prototype stuff, working on my own small game, ignore stuff floating in air...that stuff is placeholders for script events that i will have to move out of sight later

have working day and night system. half completed weapon system. Working on Health Bars and inventory components. Health bars and inventory will have to tie back into weapon system for example...so it takes a bit to figure out how everything is connected internally.

05/26/2017

not so brief vid of me explaining how the materials in Ark SE work. I've talked a lot about materials and what ive learned to do with them. and i know that it likely mean absolutely nothing to any of you that i have talked to about it. Well this 15 min vid will explain a little.

Hope you enjoy the vid and that it makes what i've been going on and on about for months now, mean a little more than what it did before.

05/03/2017

New ark vid stuff

04/04/2017

Found and reworked a material instance in my Unreal engine stuff that makes so many things much easier. It adds a snow layer on top of the regular texture. That snow layer can be modified as well to be a sand layer...or a moss layer. Very useful.

01/12/2017

12/10/2016

okay this is my test map...getting it in a direction i like. Added some new stuff. There will be another small video of about this size very soon. Probably later tonight.

11/14/2016

One of the things I'm trying to do with Modding Ark: SE is to recreate visually the environments and locals in my Hand and Paw books. I've showed a little of the Bug spires before...but i should be able to get them (the spires) and their inhabitants into the game real soon. the problem has been the act of getting working animations for my bugs.

I can make the models well enough. And I've made some progress in actual simple animations...but it has been difficult tying all of it together and having the game play the correctly. You kind of have to program the game to tell it when to use them. If it doesn't know to use it...the 3d model just sits there.

Since i do want to create my own custom models and animations to use in game i've been working on that. Starting on more complicated models has been a nightmare. Figuring out even basic animation in game can be hard. Thankfully I've been figuring it out. I've not been able to get models that have only one or so animations to work and respond in game. A simple swim animation is a lot easier to figure out and get in the game correctly.

I like the underwater portions of Ark: SE quite a bit, and so have some of the people that have viewed my stuff so starting with fish and such isn't a bad idea. I have some basic fish models: Perch, Catfish, Brim...

And as the vid attached will show...i've now got turtles. Considering that i love turtles and especially Sliders i thought to try that.

There were some problems that it took two days of work to figure out, but i got something that is not to bad in now. I will now have to work on continueing my work with animations and the games animation logic till i can get my creatures doing more than swim.

And as i was looking at my new new game creation...i had another thought. Why are Sliders called Sliders? Its because they slide off the logs and rock into the water when startled.

I don't think it would be too hard to create a one off animation of a similar sort when the player enters the area. I've done something similar before. Basicly in that... entering a area that i had set up in that caused a door to open.

How about I place a log with say 10 turtles sitting near the water? And when the player enters the area, an animations sets off where all the turtles slide off the log and disappear in the water. This would be only a visual effect but i think it would be cool...

11/11/2016

08/01/2016

A sample vid

07/27/2016

A very rough work in progress of modding Ark: Survival Evolved. Using what i've learned of Unreal engine, Blender and other stuff i am designing a mod show casing what parts of my Hand and Paw universe would look like. Eventually i will remove most of the dinos and replace them with mostly mammals. the flying bug thing is a new addition along with most of the buildings and ruined buildings etc. I will have several versions of the bugs when finished. Will have these flying ones and the more traditional spider/wasp like ones. Most of this is concept still. Story is still to be determined is likely to be a mishmash of ideas that i think are "cool" in a visual way.

12/11/2015

One more semester of school before I graduate. It's going pretty well.

I have continued to write and have several novels very close to the editing stage. In addition I have One book that is well in to being edited and a second is in the first look through portion.

My third novel in the hand and paw series is about 3/4 done. I am currently filling in some gaps in the story and considering how to close this particular novel before starting the fourth.

08/07/2015

So I am going to start learning a 3d graphics program called Blender. It allows me to create movies from 3d models that I make. here is a sample of what I have figured out already. I plan to make models of the character and places in my stories to show off.
the video that follows is one of the earth worlds in my Hand and Paw series. I created the video by following YouTube videos and modifying some pictures provided by NASA of the earth.