My main focus for this senior project is the User Interface. Personally, I feel it can be hard to show off a project when interacting with said project is clunky and confusing. Since our project does not have a specific style, I decided I wanted to make a dark, simple interface that anyone could understand. I might end up stylizing it somehow, but the built-in UI tools with the game engine we are using are somewhat limited. Who knows? Our game engine, Bevy, gets significant releases every few months, and I know they plan on overhauling their UI system at some point.
I have implemented a few UI areas. There is a main menu one can use to join the world or exit the game. A simple pause menu gives the user a few options while the game is running. Since our game has a vehicle, I added a speedometer overlay that will eventually update the car’s speed in real-time. I also added a secondary camera view that will ultimately be used by the car’s AI for self-driving. There have been no significant breakthroughs in the project, but that is understandable since the project is just starting out.
On the work side, applying for internships is still the season. Last year, I did not hear back from many places, so I decided to redo my portfolio website. I am a fan of Blizzard games, so I decided to make an interactive version of their battle.net launcher on my website.
Link to portfolio: https://johnklucinec.vercel.app/
I look forward to seeing what my team will create in the upcoming semesters.