Classroom props and game coding

Working on the to-do list this past week meant creating some props in classrooms and re-doing some earlier models. Also, I tried to fix some bugs in my coding, which was only partially successful. 

Classroom desks, modeled after photos from the Rosemary and a vintage desk online:

A classroom full of desks, modeled by me in Blender

 

Classroom desks as seen in the Rosemary

Similar model of a vintage desk from an online auction site

The vents on the face of the stage apron: 

This photo from the 1923 Rosemary is the one I used to reference the wood wainscot, and more recently the vents

Finally, I spent many hours pouring over my code for two items: Gamepad functionality and the guided tour that unlocks when the player puts out the fire in the coal bunkers. While the guided tour will need additional work, I finally got the instructions for a Gamepad to appear on screen appropriately: 

I noticed in numerous games that if the mouse is used, on-screen instructions and icons show keyboard/mouse icons, but if the Gamepad is used, the same instructions switch to Xbox 360 icons. Unreal has limited Gamepad support, so all the coding has to be done manually to support a Gamepad throughout the engine, especially on menus. I finally made it so that the correct icons display at the beginning of the game, and in several of the menus. This may seem like a small victory, but it was very exciting when it actually worked! 

Additionally, I allowed both the left Gamepad trigger or the mouse wheel to zoom the field of view from 90 degrees to 30 degrees. This, of course, resulted in lots of fun zooming in on things!