My Process For Creating Tools
Part of being a technical designer is optimizing pipelines and workflows. I have a straightforward approach I use when creating tools. My process is best described as Test->Analyze->Tool->Re-Test. The first step is to test a pipeline. I sit with someone who uses that pipeline and watch them work. I time how long each task takes to do and take notes on the margin for error in the pipeline. When I identify a margin for error I have the person I’m watching make that error and time how long it takes to correct it. Once I have collected some data, I analyze what tasks take up the most time and create tools to automate them. The pipeline is then retested and analyzed to find out if the tool was effective. It's important to really think about what can be automated because more often than not people aren’t aware of the bottlenecks in their workflow. For example, when asked, the art team on Alberio reported no inefficiencies on the 3D pipeline. Yet I was still able to automate it after looking at how their time was spend. My automation cut the time it took for an artist on Alberio to import a static mesh in half. While in terms of gross time saved this automation didn't save a ton of time, over the course of a project small improvements like that can add up. If ~50 seconds are saved each time an asset is imported and over the course of a project 10,000 assets are implemented, it will save the team ~139 hours despite it taking only 1-2 hours to make the tool.
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An example of a pipeline playtest report I wrote while testing the pipelines on Soulcaster's custom engine can be found here.
Process Example: Alberio 3D Pipeline - Unreal Engine 4
The video to the right illustrates the way I think about tools, it's a comparison of the Alberio pipeline before and after I automated some elements of it. The tool itself automates some repetitive tasks that were inherent to the 3D pipeline of Alberio. Instead of having to manually created a material instance and assign it textures, the function does that automatically then moves it into the proper folder while ensuring proper naming conventions. The video to the right shows the original pipeline first then with my automation tool second.
Behavior Tree Editor - Unity
Behavior tree editor is a custom package I made for Unity that adds a behavior tree system and custom editor to Unity. The package can be used to make advanced and scalable AI. The interface was loosely designed around the behavior tree editor native to Unreal Engine 4.
Hallway Builder - Unreal Engine 4
The hallway builder was a modular hallway building tool I created for Alberio. It was designed to allow artists and designers to quickly create complex hallway networks. The tool snaps together modular hallway pieces at the press of a button. It can support any number of hallway sets.
Room Builder Unreal Engine 4
The room builder was a modular room building tool I created for Alberio. It was created to make it easier for designer and artists to build out modular rooms. The tool allows the user to easily drag out a room of any rectangular shape and generate a floor and ceiling. It also allows for doors to be placed on any wall. Each element such as the wall, door slot, floor, and ceiling meshes can be swapped out at will. There are also some supporting functions to make using this tool even easier such as group selection and binding.
Prop Editor - Unreal Engine 4
The prop editor was created as a more efficient way of placing objects in Unreal. The editor snaps objects to colliders in the level just like when an object is dragged out of the content browser. However, unlike content browser dragging, the prop editor allows the user to rotate the camera and object without placing it which makes populating a scene much faster. The prop editor also displays all the useable props in a visual manner that can be filtered to fit the users needs. If the user doesn't want to have objects snap to colliders they can disable and use the prop editor purely for its organized layout.
Hex Level Editor - Unreal Engine 4
The Hex Level Editor was level editing tool for my senior game project Akasha which is a turn bases strategy game that utilizes a hex map. The tool features a series of brush types and editing modes that allow the user to build a find random of elemental map types. The levels created in the editor are generated into 3D levels when the game is started.