PoolHall Pinball Started Out As a Survival/Elimination Game Mode Called "Snooker'd", where everyone is in controller of a "baller" vehicle and The Player's main goal is to be the last alive out of 16 players.
I began the Project by Modelling the Pool table Surface and Legs using the UEFN Modeler. Each of six table pockets sits over a hollow Table Leg containing a damage field that instantly kills the player when they enter.
To create the Environment, I built a spherical skybox and temporarily textured it with a Placeholder Image generated by Adobe Firefly AI.
To create the Environment, I built a spherical skybox and temporarily textured it with a Placeholder Image generated by Adobe Firefly AI.
I covered the pool table in a green felt Material Created using Adobe Substance Capture, and repeated the process by capturing a cherry wood jewelry box to create a woodgrain texture for the legs.
The Table Rails were assembled from Dramatically Scaled Fortnite prefab corners and straights that fit the desired Pool table Aesthetic I was after.
The Table Rails were assembled from Dramatically Scaled Fortnite prefab corners and straights that fit the desired Pool table Aesthetic I was after.
After hours of playtesting and a few initial weeks online I discovered a major flaw: The Initial players that were trying my map were not getting matchmade with other players. I tried multiple times to matchmake with others, despite players being online. Every time, we would load into Public matches by ourselves, and no amount of waiting in the pre-game area seemed to help.
Worse, when two of us would get into a party and attempt to matchmake, all would work well until the first elimination, when the players would start spawning in thousands of meters from their assigned spawners.
This meant that people could get into the map and enjoy bouncing around the table, but the game was no fun without others to play with.
Worse, when two of us would get into a party and attempt to matchmake, all would work well until the first elimination, when the players would start spawning in thousands of meters from their assigned spawners.
This meant that people could get into the map and enjoy bouncing around the table, but the game was no fun without others to play with.
So I added pinball bumpers and changed the objective of the game from survival to points accrual.
Learning that Emissive materials do not work on Lower-end consoles and PCs running performance mode meant that my original plan of painting a skybox to look like a poolhall would result in an all black environment for a large number of players.
To correct for this, I built a game room environment out of scaled-up fortnite prefabs.
Learning that Emissive materials do not work on Lower-end consoles and PCs running performance mode meant that my original plan of painting a skybox to look like a poolhall would result in an all black environment for a large number of players.
To correct for this, I built a game room environment out of scaled-up fortnite prefabs.