Resonance

Multi disciplinary team project in UE5

Role | Rendering · Gameplay

Grade: 98/100

Overview

For BUAS block D I worked together with a team of 4 Artists, 3 Designers a producer and 2 other programmers

We had to create a game that was loosely based on the game: "Ape out"
I also had to implement a Research project for which I chose Fog rendering/Fluid physics.

This project also got awarded:
"Best Y1 Design" at BUaS awards

And got nominated for:
"Best Student Game" at the Dutch Game Awards 2025

Game

Research | Idea / Discussion

As the research project I looked into fog rendering, I discussed the best ways/expectencies with my designers and artists
The designers found it important that this fog should be very interactive and react to the player to give more impact.
The artists wanted it to be subtle and dark to add to the noir vibe of the game,
and wanted it to have good control to tweak visuals

Based on this I decided that the fog should have fluid/smoke physics to be interactable,
I also researched some rendering techniques,
and opted to test a hybrid approach of depth based fog and particles since performance was a main concern

Research | Fluid physics

For the fog I wanted interactable fluid physics,
For this I tested out multiple techniques,
starting with basic stam fluids on a grid.
Eventually I settled on using FLIP fluid physics

Original Stam fluid prototype

Final FLIP fluid simulation with debug rendering

Research | Fog Rendering

Since performance was a main concern since our lighting is very dynamic (and thus expensive).
The fog could not take up much of the frame time.
So for rendering I settled on a particle based approuch since I already have particles for the simulation.
Per (visible)particle I render to a mask that is used to mask a depth based fog,
This mask drawing has a lot of control for making the fog merge and have more detail. This makes it so its not too obvious that its particles without the heavy performance of marching the fog

Fog of war | Visibility masking

Our designers asked me if it would be feasable to have a fog of war system,
I think it was so I implemented a fog of war system, which shadows visibility behind walls.
Because of the limited time I opted for a simple solution that requires no extra level design work.

I shoot rays in a circle that try to search for corners,
With the result of that I draw a screen space mask for visibility.
I then do a lot of processing and masking to make sure walls still show up considering our special perspective.

Gameplay

I also worked on a lot of the gameplay systems for this project.
The main one being the main mechanic of telekineses,
The player had to be able to lift a lot of items and shoot them using a radial or a precise attack.
Since this was a design heavy feature I had a lot of communication and made sure to make things as tweakable as possible and have good (debug)visualisation