AMazeInDevelopment journal

Development timeline

Progress

The work, the decisions, and what changed. Latest first.

  1. World Building

    Actual Revision 7 Unreal render of the masonry terrace, crank console and viewing shutter. A settled editor still, not proof of activation.

    An entrance court, an Overlook and a clearer floor

    Actual progress through Revisions 5–7: entrance dressing, an Overlook pocket, and repairs informed by a recorded playthrough.

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  2. World Building

    Actual Unreal capture of an unfinished, isolated Revision 8 entrance study with fitted crown infill, pediment and paired pilasters. Not the playable arrival.

    Palladian construction: the entrance, nave and fluted spire

    The latest architectural direction reaches actual Unreal construction studies in isolated maps. The retained playable arrival is a separate scene.

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  3. World Building

    Ground-level Unreal editor view of the Revision 4 approach beneath the four-kilometre tower. The upper facade is scenic architecture.

    Babel takes shape: tower, approach and gate hall

    From Houdini massing and greybox playtests to an Unreal arrival scene and a vaulted gate hall.

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  4. Art Pipeline

    Houdini viewport showing red corner zones, blue wall zones, an orange path area, and a node graph of adjustable wall and corner outputs.

    Placed points replace Match Size for wall and corner control

    The wall and corner setup now uses explicitly placed points instead of stretching pieces with Match Size, making width and depth easier to control independently.

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  5. World Building

    Unreal Engine viewport showing a stone maze beside water with grass and scattered blockout vegetation along the wall edges.

    Edge-aware vegetation pass reaches Unreal preview

    The Houdini maze scatter workflow now separates inner and outer edge plant outputs, pushes points away from hard wall outlines, and is being checked against the stone maze, grass, and water in Unreal.

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  6. Materials

    Unreal Engine material editor showing a two-sided foliage master material node graph.

    Foliage material and grass checks move into the site

    New captures document the two-sided foliage master, grass material instance controls, and a static mesh preview used to inspect dense grass cards before broader vegetation migration.

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  7. Art Pipeline

    Houdini node graph and viewport showing colour masks generated from stone wall attributes.

    Procedural masks move into the wall and HubDoor workflow

    The latest Houdini pass splits wall meshes into workable pieces, uses for-each UV layout passes, and starts turning attributes into masks for moss, snow, dirt, and stone variation.

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  8. Website

    Houdini viewport showing a dry-stone wall divided into coloured connectivity groups.

    Website begins with WIP-only provenance

    The public site starts from a strict media rule: only real AMazeIn WIP, editor output, Houdini output, screenshots, code diagrams, and authored notes.

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  9. Art Pipeline

    Textured procedural dry-stone wall module in a Houdini viewport.

    Dry-stone maze material direction

    The repeated maze pieces are moving toward shared tiling materials, Houdini masks, edge wear, dirt, moss, and cheap variation.

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  10. Gameplay

    Houdini viewport and node graph showing a blockout hub door frame asset.

    Hub progression loop takes shape

    The first target loop is Hub -> Level 1 -> Finish -> Hub -> Level 2 unlocked, driven by data assets and save-state checks.

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  11. Build

    Unreal Engine material editor showing the AMazeIn master material node network.

    Packaging cook result needs follow-up

    A Windows cook reached the asset statistics stage but ended with an unknown cook failure, making build diagnosis part of the next production pass.

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