Aliens

Overview:

Aliens is a third person shooter that was made in my custom C++ game engine. Aliens features a full third person camera system that correctly interacts with walls and level boundaries and also features a complete weapon system with interpolated weapon trajectories, ammo, and recoil logic. The last major features of this game are Theta* pathfinding and a full aim assist system with logic for auto aim, input stickiness, and bullet magnetism.

Tools: C++, DirectX 11, HLSL
Development Timeline: March 2024 – May 2024

Project Features:

Aim Assist

The aim assist system in Aliens contains the logic for the features of auto aim, input stickiness, and bullet magnetism. Auto aim is the most egregious technique of aim assist that turns the player’s orientation even with no input from the player. Input stickiness is the aim assist technique where the players sensitivity for aiming is slowed. Bullet magnetism is the aim assist technique that changes a bullet’s trajectory towards a target instead of exactly where the reticle is pointing. This aim assist system prioritizes targets based on the strength of direction and changes in strength based on distance from the target.

**Theta* Pathfinding Algorithms**

The AI in this game use Theta* pathfinding, which is a any angle pathfinding algorithm based off of the A* pathfinding algorithm. This game uses a grid-based navigation mesh combined with Theta* pathfinding which allows for finding the optimal path while also providing path smoothing by limiting the number of turns and providing more efficient and realistic AI movement. This can be seen in the following video as A* is the red path, Theta* is the yellow path, and the green represents the navigation mesh.

TPS Weapon System

The weapon system in Aliens had to be designed in order to fit the TPS genre. The main implementation of this weapon system was the interpolated weapon trajectories between the camera and the player character in world space. To make this interpolation feel balanced and smooth, I implemented logic to move the actual trajectory of the bullet based on the impact distance from a ray based on the direction from the player character. This logic can be seen in this video as the blue line is the ray from the player character, the red line is the ray from the camera, and the green line is the interpolated and actual weapon trajectory. Beyond this interpolation logic, there are also features for weapon reloading, ammo, and recoil that can all be easily edited and altered through XML data driving.

TPS Camera Logic

The camera system in Aliens was built to provide smooth and seamless movement for over the shoulder gameplay. The main features for this system are to follow the movement of the player character, stay on the outside of the level walls and boundaries and clamp the camera based on the pitch degrees of the camera.