Time to Develop: ~8-10 hours, including polish (tooltips, cleanup, etc)
In this study, I used Unreal Engine 4's Blueprint visual scripting language to create an easily-expandable secuirty clearance system. This system allows a level designer to place security doors that require a specific "clearance level" for the player to pass through. The player's default clerance level is 1, but they can pick up "security clearance upgrades" to increase their clearance. In addition, the doors are set up to allow the level designer to customize each door individually, including using new assets, changing how much/how fast the door opens, the sounds used, and so much more (additional details in the breakdown images below).
To help demonstrate my security clearance system, I put together a very simple demo (explained in the caption below the overview image). While this demo is far from impressive, the system I created can easily be expanded to allow greater functionality. But, you don't even have to expand it to get more from it; in it's current state, the system can be used for very complex puzzles, since there is no limit to how many security levels you can have. But first, this is the main graph for the Security Door.
READ ME: The above graph is the main event graph/scripting for the Security Door. This blueprint uses a total of three functions and one macro which help to keep the main event graph from getting too cluttered/confusing. I use these basic code principals (comments and organization) in all my blueprints, and I make sure anyone should be able to understand all of my code.
The above image is the available properties for the Security Door. This should give you an idea of just how much customizability there is in this system in it's very basic form. The top two "Security" variables determine if this door should be permanently locked (can't be opened even with proper clearance) and what clearance level is required to open the door.
The other variables do a multitude of things. The first variable determines whether the player opens the door by pressing the "Use" key (default "E") or simply by walking into a trigger. Then you have a variable to control the speed the door opens at, a collection of variables to determine how much the door will open/where the top and bottom parts start from, and finally a set of sound variables so you can set what sounds to play at different points in the animation.
This is an overview of the demo level I set up. It's very simple: a level 2 clearance door cannot be passed through, but there is another level 1 clearance door which has an upgrade inside. The player simply has to go through the lower clearance door and grab the clearance upgrade to get through the level 2 door.
The above image is a side-by-side of a locked and unlocked door. Notice the change in color of both the text and the emmissive material on the frame.
The above image is of a simple Blueprint actor I made that upgrades the player's security clearance; the particle system can easily be replaced by a different particle system or a mesh or something else entirely.
Finally, once the player has obtained the upgrade, they are able to open the level 2 door. Notice how the text and door frame have now changed back to green instead of red.
*Assets used in this demonstration were created by my dear friend Harris.
Hope you enjoyed this little presentation; I'm available for contract work right now; contact me through my website: http://millansingh.com/
Thanks!
