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missile · Jul 25, 2016

Jacksinthe said:
...

I will face some similar issues further down the road esp. considering
collisions. Arrrgh! xD

Talking about perspectives in 3d games.
I follow some ideas to use some unusual/artistic (non-linear) perspectives for
a given video game, like some derivatives of a fisheye etc. However, what I
don't know is how such perspectives behave in practice while being experienced
for longer. Does anyone know some 3d games using said strange, wired(?)
whatever perspectives? Well, I think the standard perspective projection has
become a bit boring. Anyone?

Jacksinthe · Jul 25, 2016

HandsomeCharles said:
Have you tried decreasing the physics timestep in the time manager?

Etiher way, it sounds like for your purposes what you're doing is fine so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

I don't want to be running physics more often, tbh. 50 with interpolation is fine.

Continuous is supposed to rectify those issues but it still doesn't work correctly in Unity.

Changing the scale of the sprites to make them huge so I need huge colliders works but you shouldn't have to do workarounds when continuous collision detection should just work.

A few lines here or there for single frames won't do much for performance and I can easily do what I need to do with projectiles using the info it returns, even though I have zero intention of actually showing a bullet, so in this case using an actual object with a collider and moving it is pretty much moot.

Other types of attacks from other characters can use objects and sprites fine since those projectiles don't move at Warp 10.

I was just curious to costs of enabling for single frames vs keeping them up full time. I don't need many but I still prefer to draw them only in the frame needed.

Popstar · Jul 25, 2016

missile said:
Talking about perspectives in 3d games.
I follow some ideas to use some unusual/artistic (non-linear) perspectives for
a given video game, like some derivatives of a fisheye etc. However, what I
don't know is how such perspectives behave in practice while being experienced
for longer. Does anyone know some 3d games using said strange, wired(?)
whatever perspectives? Well, I think the standard perspective projection has
become a bit boring. Anyone?

On Hoard I used a matrix with shear in it to help fake a 2D style "top-down" view where you can see the fronts of objects. Zelda: A Link Between Worlds does something similar. These effects are bit subtle than what you seem to be asking for though.

Limanima · Jul 25, 2016

missile said:
Indeed, Visual Studio is the best thing whatever came out of Microsoft.

Perhaps there is a size mismatch. Try passing everything like it's a huge
array of bytes neglecting the size of the structs and see if the data gets
passed correctly. If yes, it must be a size mismatch of some type or perhaps
a wrong amount of data was copied misaligning the structs on the copied
data bytes.

I've checked and double checked everything. I'm checking return values from all gl calls, it works if I don't use an array.
But it must be some size mismatch. I'll triple check the whole thing.

missile said:
Btw; Do you know one of the fastest ways (if not the fastest) to blit an image
on the screen under iOS?

I've no idea if it's the fastest, but i'm using a simple quad with a texture on it for my sprites and a simple opengl shader. It's more then enough for my needs and there's a lot of optimizations I can do.

Pehesse · Jul 25, 2016

missile said:
Talking about perspectives in 3d games.
I follow some ideas to use some unusual/artistic (non-linear) perspectives for
a given video game, like some derivatives of a fisheye etc. However, what I
don't know is how such perspectives behave in practice while being experienced
for longer. Does anyone know some 3d games using said strange, wired(?)
whatever perspectives? Well, I think the standard perspective projection has
become a bit boring. Anyone?

I may be completely wrong, but didn't Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay do something like this? If I understand your question correctly AND remember well (lots of assumptions there!), crouching in that game turned your FOV into a "fish eye" mode that allowed to better survey your surroundings, at least in theory. I remember it mostly because it made me so queasy it was damn near unplayable for me, I'm afraid :-/ Went through most of the game crouching as little as possible, and every time I've tried to replay it since, I go up until I need to crouch and go "ooh.. yeah..." and have to turn it off. That's too bad, because the effect is otherwise interesting! I don't know if it was an actual difference in projection, or if they just widened the FOV to ridiculous amounts, either, but that's the one example that comes to mind right now. Will keep going back through the mental archives!

Last minute edit: wasn't the drone control in Perfect Dark using a fish-eye mode as well?

Serpens007 · Jul 25, 2016

Any mobile developer ? I'm looking for tools to create a mobile games, but don't know any of them.

I've been learning GameMaker but I don't know yet if a mobile portability is posible with that engine.

Pere · Jul 25, 2016

Long time lurker here, you guys do an amazing work!! there's some really neat stuff in here.

Limanima said:
I've checked and double checked everything. I'm checking return values from all gl calls, it works if I don't use an array.
But it must be some size mismatch. I'll triple check the whole thing.

This couple months i've been working with a friend on a 3D engine and i was having a hard time with those pesky shaders until i found Nvidia Nsight. It's a godsend to be able to breakpoint shaders and debugg stuff live. I hope it helps you!

Limanima · Jul 25, 2016

Pere said:
Long time lurker here, you guys do an amazing work!! there's some really neat stuff in here.

This couple months i've been working with a friend on a 3D engine and i was having a hard time with those pesky shaders until i found Nvidia Nsight. It's a godsend to be able to breakpoint shaders and debugg stuff live. I hope it helps you!

Unfortunately Visual Studio is "out of order" at the moment on the pc. I'm currently developing on osx under xcode. But i'm going to check if there are other options for osx or fix my PC. I'm having a few trouble with VS Community edition...
The shader is having a strange behaviour. It seem like usual c problems when wrong memory addresses are read/written.

This works:
int i;
for(i = 0; i < 1; i++)
{
v_a_v3LightDir[0] = u_lights[0].v3Position - v_v3SurfacePos;
v_a_v3SurfaceToLight[0] = u_lights[0].v3Position - v_v3SurfacePos;
}

This doesn't:
int i;
for(i = 0; i < 1; i++)
{
v_a_v3LightDir = u_lights.v3Position - v_v3SurfacePos;
v_a_v3SurfaceToLight = u_lights.v3Position - v_v3SurfacePos;
}

I can't access the array by using . Only accessing it with [0].
But i=0...
I have next to 0 experience with shaders, so I don't know what I can and I can't do.

Blizzard · Jul 25, 2016

Limanima said:
Unfortunately Visual Studio is "out of order" at the moment on the pc. I'm currently developing on osx under xcode. But i'm going to check if there are other options for osx or fix my PC. I'm having a few trouble with VS Community edition...
The shader is having a strange behaviour. It seem like usual c problems when wrong memory addresses are read/written.

This works:
int i;
for(i = 0; i < 1; i++)
{
v_a_v3LightDir[0] = u_lights[0].v3Position - v_v3SurfacePos;
v_a_v3SurfaceToLight[0] = u_lights[0].v3Position - v_v3SurfacePos;
}

This doesn't:
int i;
for(i = 0; i < 1; i++)
{
v_a_v3LightDir = u_lights.v3Position - v_v3SurfacePos;
v_a_v3SurfaceToLight = u_lights.v3Position - v_v3SurfacePos;
}

I can't access the array by using . Only accessing it with [0].
But i=0...
I have next to 0 experience with shaders, so I don't know what I can and I can't do.

I don't know if this is a driver bug, an OpenGL limitation on your system, or what. The internet suggests it SHOULD work if an OpenGL setup properly supports "variable array index".

See these links:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16039515/glsl-for-loop-array-index
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6247572/variable-array-index-not-possible-in-webgl-shaders

*edit* I assume you are checking the shader compilation return value? Maybe your second shader compilation fails because your system does not support variable array index. In that case, an error code means you should be able to make a call to get the compilation error message(s).

Limanima · Jul 25, 2016

Blizzard said:
I don't know if this is a driver bug, an OpenGL limitation on your system, or what. The internet suggests it SHOULD work if an OpenGL setup properly supports "variable array index".

See these links:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16039515/glsl-for-loop-array-index
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6247572/variable-array-index-not-possible-in-webgl-shaders

*edit* I assume you are checking the shader compilation return value? Maybe your second shader compilation fails because your system does not support variable array index. In that case, an error code means you should be able to make a call to get the compilation error message(s).

There's no compilation error. I'm checking the return value and printing the error message when there are errors.
What a bummer...

I know there are some limitations with loops:
for(i = 0; i < someUniform; i++)
A constant value should be used in some cases.
Funny enough, I was about to go with the solution on on of your links:

if (i==i0)
lightPos = uLightsPos[i0];
if (i==i1)
lightPos = uLightsPos[i1];

I don't like it because with 10 lights, this will be slow and dumb...

Edit:
I've added a few traces, maybe this will help.

OpenGL version: 2.1 NVIDIA-10.0.19 310.90.10.05b12
OpenGL vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL renderer: NVIDIA GeForce 9400 OpenGL Engine
GLSL version: 1.20

This GLSL version is kind of low...Like it's "ALMOST THE FIRST VERSION" kind of low...

Mafusto · Jul 25, 2016

Limanima said:
There's no compilation error. I'm checking the return value and printing the error message when there are errors.
What a bummer...

I know there are some limitations with loops:
for(i = 0; i < someUniform; i++)
A constant value should be used in some cases.
Funny enough, I was about to go with the solution on on of your links:

if (i==i0)
lightPos = uLightsPos[i0];
if (i==i1)
lightPos = uLightsPos[i1];

I don't like it because with 10 lights, this will be slow and dumb...

Edit:
I've added a few traces, maybe this will help.

OpenGL version: 2.1 NVIDIA-10.0.19 310.90.10.05b12
OpenGL vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL renderer: NVIDIA GeForce 9400 OpenGL Engine
GLSL version: 1.20

This GLSL version is kind of low...Like it's "ALMOST THE FIRST VERSION" kind of low...

Can you try to define int i inside the for loop. I recal from memory that shaders can only use for loop variables as an array index. I do not know if the int i; before the for loop negates i being a for loop variable.

Popstar · Jul 26, 2016

Limanima said:
OpenGL version: 2.1 NVIDIA-10.0.19 310.90.10.05b12
OpenGL vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL renderer: NVIDIA GeForce 9400 OpenGL Engine
GLSL version: 1.20

This GLSL version is kind of low...Like it's "ALMOST THE FIRST VERSION" kind of low...

On OS X you need to specifically create an OpenGL 3+ context or you won't get one.

Code:

NSOpenGLPixelFormatAttribute attr[] =
{
	NSOpenGLPFAOpenGLProfile, [B]NSOpenGLProfileVersion3_2Core[/B],
	NSOpenGLPFADoubleBuffer,
	NSOpenGLPFAAccelerated,
	NSOpenGLPFANoRecovery,
	NSOpenGLPFAColorSize, (NSOpenGLPixelFormatAttribute) 32,
	NSOpenGLPFAAlphaSize, (NSOpenGLPixelFormatAttribute) 8,
	NSOpenGLPFADepthSize, (NSOpenGLPixelFormatAttribute) 24,
	NSOpenGLPFAStencilSize, (NSOpenGLPixelFormatAttribute) 8,
	(NSOpenGLPixelFormatAttribute) 0
};
view->pixelFormat = [[NSOpenGLPixelFormat alloc] initWithAttributes:attr];
view->openGLContext = [[NSOpenGLContext alloc] initWithFormat:view->pixelFormat shareContext:nil];

Pere · Jul 26, 2016

Limanima said:
Unfortunately Visual Studio is "out of order" at the moment on the pc. I'm currently developing on osx under xcode. But i'm going to check if there are other options for osx or fix my PC. I'm having a few trouble with VS Community edition...
The shader is having a strange behaviour. It seem like usual c problems when wrong memory addresses are read/written.

This works:

Code:

int i; for(i = 0; i < 1; i++) { v_a_v3LightDir[0] = u_lights[0].v3Position - v_v3SurfacePos; v_a_v3SurfaceToLight[0] = u_lights[0].v3Position - v_v3SurfacePos; }

This doesn't:

Code:

int i; for(i = 0; i < 1; i++) { v_a_v3LightDir[i] = u_lights[i].v3Position - v_v3SurfacePos; v_a_v3SurfaceToLight[i] = u_lights[i].v3Position - v_v3SurfacePos; }

I can't access the array by using . Only accessing it with [0].
But i=0...
I have next to 0 experience with shaders, so I don't know what I can and I can't do.

Maan it's a shame you can't use VS...

As far as i know it should work, It didn't give any problems to use that kind of syntax to acces data on my shaders. Reading some of the links Blizzard posted, maybe it's a driver bug. If you are in a hurry you might have to use that ugly workaround until you can figure out what the hell is happening.

missile · Jul 26, 2016

Popstar said:
On Hoard I used a matrix with shear in it to help fake a 2D style "top-down" view where you can see the fronts of objects. Zelda: A Link Between Worlds does something similar. These effects are bit subtle than what you seem to be asking for though.

Yeah, a lil too subtle, but a good trick nevertheless.

Btw; Are you still working on this one game you've posted images about ages
ago? Or do I miss something?

Limanima said:
Unfortunately ...

Try a while-loop for the sake of it.

Limanima said:
... I've no idea if it's the fastest, but i'm using a simple quad with a texture on it for my sprites and a simple opengl shader. It's more then enough for my needs and there's a lot of optimizations I can do.

Good old OpenGL trick, rendering a sceen-aligned quad with a texture.

Someone using any Vulkan implementation on iOS already?

Pehesse said:
I may be completely wrong, but didn't Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay do something like this? If I understand your question correctly AND remember well (lots of assumptions there!), crouching in that game turned your FOV into a "fish eye" mode that allowed to better survey your surroundings, at least in theory. I remember it mostly because it made me so queasy it was damn near unplayable for me, I'm afraid :-/ Went through most of the game crouching as little as possible, and every time I've tried to replay it since, I go up until I need to crouch and go "ooh.. yeah..." and have to turn it off. That's too bad, because the effect is otherwise interesting! I don't know if it was an actual difference in projection, or if they just widened the FOV to ridiculous amounts, either, but that's the one example that comes to mind right now. Will keep going back through the mental archives!

Last minute edit: wasn't the drone control in Perfect Dark using a fish-eye mode as well?

Checked Riddick. Uhh, no, that's ugly. That's not a fisheye. It's simply an
increase of the field of view under standard perspective projection making
the sides stretching away much stronger. Such an enlargement of the field of
view should only be used for a brief moment, like for some effects (as it's
done in racing games for example when boosting etc.). About the other game,
I can't find any video of controlling the drone. Some reference?

The point with the fisheye is that the distortions produced under a larger
fov are more acceptable. Regarding fisheyes, there is another idea in my
mind. A fisheye lens usually covers up to 180 degrees, but mathematically
there is nothing from stopping you implementing a >180 degree one, even up
to 360 degrees. Giving the extrem case, i.e. the 360 degree one, you can see
the world behind you as well, hence the entire world. I ask myself if there
is gameplay hidden in there?

Popstar · Jul 26, 2016

missile said:
Btw; Are you still working on this one game you've posted images about ages ago? Or do I miss something?

Last thing I was working on fell through (under NDA so can't talk details, sorry). Currently don't really have any serious project going. Hopefully I can get something going once I'm through my seasonal headaches.

missile · Jul 26, 2016

Popstar said:
Last thing I was working on fell through (under NDA so can't talk details, sorry). Currently don't really have any serious project going. Hopefully I can get something going once I'm through my seasonal headaches.

That's odd. Game was sounding pretty cool. Regarding new stuff, are you going
on your own or will you corporate with others?

LordRaptor · Jul 26, 2016

Serpens007 said:
Any mobile developer ? I'm looking for tools to create a mobile games, but don't know any of them.

I've been learning GameMaker but I don't know yet if a mobile portability is posible with that engine.

Game Maker has Android and IOS export 'modules' available, so its definitely possible to make mobile games with it

Theanine3D · Jul 26, 2016

Which of these promo shots looks better?

I like the second one because it feels like you're directly in the character's adventure, following just behind him. But I also like the first one because it shows his face and looks cuter. I don't know if having a character's back facing the camera in a promotional shot is generally frowned on.

Clessidor · Jul 26, 2016

@Valen

First one seems visual more interesting for me. Something about the second one feels just odd in comparison and I can't say exactly why, but I think it's the way the blue donut is put in the frame. The angle seems awkward too. I don't know. It just feels a little bit odd for me and showing the character from behind might work if he and the blue donut would be far more left.

Popstar · Jul 26, 2016

missile said:
That's odd. Game was sounding pretty cool. Regarding new stuff, are you going
on your own or will you corporate with others?

What game? I haven't mentioned anything in this thread since Darkest Dungeon which released a year and a half ago.

Valen said:
Which of these promo shots looks better

I like the second one because it feels like you're directly in the character's adventure, following just behind him. But I also like the first one because it shows his face and looks cuter. I don't know if having a character's back facing the camera in a promotional shot is generally frowned on.

The first one looks way better. The silhouette of the character in the second is really bad. The arm looks like the bottom of the jaw, there's no distinct separation of the legs from each other or the body, etc...

shadow2810 · Jul 26, 2016

Jobbs said:
One thing I learned in my life is if you ask for things sometimes you get them. One of my favorite stories is the time I asked Sharpie for a bunch of markers and stuff for no particular reason and they sent them to me. XD

I asked Spine2D for a discount on their Pro license, I said what I wanted to pay, and they obliged. I have no idea if this is normal practice so obviously YMMV.

Tried and it didn't work XD oh well rip wallet

missile · Jul 26, 2016

Popstar said:
What game? I haven't mentioned anything in this thread since Darkest Dungeon which released a year and a half ago. ...

Must be my imagination. Forget about it.

@Valen: First one.

Blizzard · Jul 26, 2016

Popstar said:

On OS X you need to specifically create an OpenGL 3+ context or you won't get one.

Code:

NSOpenGLPixelFormatAttribute attr[] =
{
	NSOpenGLPFAOpenGLProfile, [B]NSOpenGLProfileVersion3_2Core[/B],
	NSOpenGLPFADoubleBuffer,
	NSOpenGLPFAAccelerated,
	NSOpenGLPFANoRecovery,
	NSOpenGLPFAColorSize, (NSOpenGLPixelFormatAttribute) 32,
	NSOpenGLPFAAlphaSize, (NSOpenGLPixelFormatAttribute) 8,
	NSOpenGLPFADepthSize, (NSOpenGLPixelFormatAttribute) 24,
	NSOpenGLPFAStencilSize, (NSOpenGLPixelFormatAttribute) 8,
	(NSOpenGLPixelFormatAttribute) 0
};
view->pixelFormat = [[NSOpenGLPixelFormat alloc] initWithAttributes:attr];
view->openGLContext = [[NSOpenGLContext alloc] initWithFormat:view->pixelFormat shareContext:nil];

I really hope this solves the problem, great idea.

TheKroge · Jul 26, 2016

Alright, so after all of this prep work, we're finally launching Lightspeed Frontier on Kickstarter and Greenlight. Our campaigns will end at the end of PAX West, which we will be attending, so I figured that will be a fun way to get people engaged at the convention.

Lightspeed Frontier is a sandbox ship-building game with a dash of sci-fi humor, where players make use of galactic news, ads and various other forms of interacting with the universe to become the most successful space entrepreneur on the frontier!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1973308113/lightspeed-frontier

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=728717977

Theanine3D · Jul 26, 2016

Popstar said:
The first one looks way better. The silhouette of the character in the second is really bad. The arm looks like the bottom of the jaw, there's no distinct separation of the legs from each other or the body, etc...

Clessidor said:
@Valen

First one seems visual more interesting for me. Something about the second one feels just odd in comparison and I can't say exactly why, but I think it's the way the blue donut is put in the frame. The angle seems awkward too. I don't know. It just feels a little bit odd for me and showing the character from behind might work if he and the blue donut would be far more left.

missile said:
@Valen: First one.

Thanks guys, very good points. I'll definitely stick with #1.

TheKroge · Jul 26, 2016

Valen said:
Thanks guys, very good points. I'll definitely stick with #1.

Agreed, I like to see the little guys face

Limanima · Jul 26, 2016

Popstar said:

On OS X you need to specifically create an OpenGL 3+ context or you won't get one.

Code:

NSOpenGLPixelFormatAttribute attr[] =
{
	NSOpenGLPFAOpenGLProfile, [B]NSOpenGLProfileVersion3_2Core[/B],
	NSOpenGLPFADoubleBuffer,
	NSOpenGLPFAAccelerated,
	NSOpenGLPFANoRecovery,
	NSOpenGLPFAColorSize, (NSOpenGLPixelFormatAttribute) 32,
	NSOpenGLPFAAlphaSize, (NSOpenGLPixelFormatAttribute) 8,
	NSOpenGLPFADepthSize, (NSOpenGLPixelFormatAttribute) 24,
	NSOpenGLPFAStencilSize, (NSOpenGLPixelFormatAttribute) 8,
	(NSOpenGLPixelFormatAttribute) 0
};
view->pixelFormat = [[NSOpenGLPixelFormat alloc] initWithAttributes:attr];
view->openGLContext = [[NSOpenGLContext alloc] initWithFormat:view->pixelFormat shareContext:nil];

Well, I'm using SDL2, so that initialization is out of my hands. But I know there are gl attributes I can set.
Like this:

SDL_GL_SetAttribute(SDL_GL_CONTEXT_MAJOR_VERSION, 3);
SDL_GL_SetAttribute(SDL_GL_CONTEXT_MINOR_VERSION, 2);

This should do the same as the code you posted.

timetokill · Jul 26, 2016

Guys, I need your opinion on GameMaker Studio's support for mobile platforms. Is conversion pretty well done between PC/Android/iOS? Anything I should watch out for?

My boss wants me to make a simple 2D game so I figured I'd use it instead of Unity this time around.

Popstar · Jul 26, 2016

Limanima said:
Well, I'm using SDL2, so that initialization is out of my hands. But I know there are gl attributes I can set.
Like this:

SDL_GL_SetAttribute(SDL_GL_CONTEXT_MAJOR_VERSION, 3);
SDL_GL_SetAttribute(SDL_GL_CONTEXT_MINOR_VERSION, 2);

This should do the same as the code you posted.

Using SDL, you may need to also add:
SDL_GL_SetAttribute( SDL_GL_CONTEXT_PROFILE_MASK, SDL_GL_CONTEXT_PROFILE_CORE );

NOTE: Under ~~OS X~~ macOS, OpenGL 3.2+ only supports the Core, not the compatibility profile. So any deprecated features (like glBegin) will no longer work. Don't be surprised if everything breaks even worse unless you've been taking care to write to OpenGL Core.

Serpens007 · Jul 26, 2016

LordRaptor said:
Game Maker has Android and IOS export 'modules' available, so its definitely possible to make mobile games with it

Excellent, thank you very much

anteevy · Jul 26, 2016

Yay, you can now actually pre-order Road to Ballhalla on Steam! http://store.steampowered.com/app/425410

It's coming August 5th, so that's like Friday next week.

Even Hello Games played along and moved the No Man's Sky PC release back a few days haha.

LordRaptor · Jul 26, 2016

Serpens007 said:
Excellent, thank you very much

No problem man, welcome to indie dev!

Gilby · Jul 27, 2016

My roommate and best friend has been slaving away on a party game that just went on kickstarter: Bear Vs.Methlab. He's trying to figure out how to advertise online, most places like Reddit/Neogaf don't like people promoting their games (understandable, could cause a ton of spam), so how should he go about trying to tell people?
The game in question:

fengshuifever · Jul 27, 2016

I've been trying to export some new animations out for the party characters with their battle instruments and it's so damn close to being finished save for one small setback.

I'm trying to hide/show their instrument (ie, guitar) in certain animations. So, hiding the guitar during the regular walk/idle/run animations but showing them in their battle animations (idle/hit/miss/etc).

I'm thinking one of 3 ways and I've kinda dabbled in 2 of them but probably the wrong way.

1. Trying to key the visibility of the guitar in the animation/action itself in Blender. (To no avail, even keying the visibility covers the frames of the whole timeline rather than the frames of the action. I think there's something I'm missing here).

2. Exporting two models of each character, one with their instruments visible, another with them hidden.

3. Duplicating the respective animation clips in Unity and maybe keying the Mesh Renderer (enabled/disabled) in those clips. (I attempted this but seems a bit finicky and didn't get anywhere.

Anyone have any tips on the best way of doing this?

LordRaptor · Jul 27, 2016

fengshuifever said:
Anyone have any tips on the best way of doing this?

have you tried scaling to / from zero for the meshes you want to show / hide?

fengshuifever · Jul 27, 2016

LordRaptor said:
have you tried scaling to / from zero for the meshes you want to show / hide?

No actually.

...that's actually a stupidly simple solution. Haha thanks! I'm gonna try this in the morning

JulianImp · Jul 27, 2016

fengshuifever said:
No actually.

...that's actually a stupidly simple solution. Haha thanks! I'm gonna try this in the morning

I think Unity will attempt to render the prop even while it has a scale of zero, which might be fine if you have a single accessory, but not if you have lots of interchangeable ones.

If you intend to use several swappable accesories for attacks, you could always create a dummy object as a mounting point, instancing the guitar in that mounting point once and then turning the renderer on and off not by animation, but by animation events. As in, you fire up a "ShowProp" method in the animation, where the method checks if you have a prop equipped and sets its renderer to become visible, and with a "HideProp" at the end to put it back after you're done using it.

JeffG · Jul 27, 2016

fengshuifever said:
I've been trying to export some new animations out for the party characters with their battle instruments and it's so damn close to being finished save for one small setback.

I'm trying to hide/show their instrument (ie, guitar) in certain animations. So, hiding the guitar during the regular walk/idle/run animations but showing them in their battle animations (idle/hit/miss/etc).

I'm thinking one of 3 ways and I've kinda dabbled in 2 of them but probably the wrong way.

1. Trying to key the visibility of the guitar in the animation/action itself in Blender. (To no avail, even keying the visibility covers the frames of the whole timeline rather than the frames of the action. I think there's something I'm missing here).

2. Exporting two models of each character, one with their instruments visible, another with them hidden.

3. Duplicating the respective animation clips in Unity and maybe keying the Mesh Renderer (enabled/disabled) in those clips. (I attempted this but seems a bit finicky and didn't get anywhere.

Anyone have any tips on the best way of doing this?

I am doing a fantasy 3D game. All the swords and shields are their own objects.

I use the mount points asset to control where they are on the character

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/16318

Right now the swords are on the waist or right hand and shields are in either the Left Hand or the players back depending on if the game is in combat mode

bumpkin · Jul 27, 2016

I've seen some mentions of SDL and OpenGL over the last page or two... Does anyone have any experience with custom shaders (GLSL?) while using SDL?

I'm curious how involved/complicated it is. In the game I'm working on, I'd love to be able to do a heat haze effect on the stage with a lava theme.

hampig · Jul 27, 2016

Gilby said:
how should he go about trying to tell people?

Good question. I've asked a few successful kickstarters this, and they generally say to contact press/websites/blogs relative to the subject of the game. For this it might be hard to find that, from one screenshot of the city I see you could probably tap into the Kaiju crowd on reddit or elsewhere and they could be interested.

Twitter is a big deal apparently as well, so make sure they have one of those.

Can't give too much advice because I've only failed myself, but good luck to them. Game looks cool.

JulianImp · Jul 27, 2016

JeffG said:
I am doing a fantasy 3D game. All the swords and shields are their own objects.

I use the mount points asset to control where they are on the character

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/16318

Right now the swords are on the waist or right hand and shields are in either the Left Hand or the players back depending on if the game is in combat mode

Is that asset really worth the $45? Barring crazy functionality or a cool custom inspector and other tools, mounting points are almost trivial to implement, to the point I wouldn't consider spending money on assets that take care of that unless they're just that awesome in terms of extra funcionality and user-friendliness.

JeffG · Jul 27, 2016

JulianImp said:
Is that asset really worth the $45? Barring crazy functionality or a cool custom inspector and other tools, mounting points are almost trivial to implement, to the point I wouldn't consider spending money on assets that take care of that unless they're just that awesome in terms of extra funcionality and user-friendliness.

Ummmmmmm.....

I bought it on sale. (I almost always buy my assets on sale and I buy way to many of them. lol)

Having said that.

1) How much of the asset would you use? The mounting points? The material/clothing system.

2) How long would it take to code something that works similar. (Note: Your recommendation is pretty much how it works)

3) How much of your time worth?

Balance those 3 issues should give you an idea of buying an asset is a go/no go

When programming assets get below $20 and save me some time I will drop the cash without blinking.

In the case of this asset...It is good quality. Easy to use and setup. But he did an update once that forced me to redo all my settings. PITA

I was happy I bought it for 20.

But for 45 buck...I would first look in the store and see if there are other assets that do a similar task.

In the case of the original question. If this was the one asset that made me go from close ----> done. I would be punching my credit card in right the fuck now. lol

JulianImp · Jul 27, 2016

JeffG said:
Ummmmmmm.....

I bought it on sale. (I almost always buy my assets on sale and I buy way to many of them. lol)

Having said that.

1) How much of the asset would you use? The mounting points? The material/clothing system.

2) How long would it take to code something that works similar. (Note: Your recommendation is pretty much how it works)

3) How much of your time worth?

Balance those 3 issues should give you an idea of buying an asset is a go/no go

When programming assets get below $20 and save me some time I will drop the cash without blinking.

In the case of this asset...It is good quality. Easy to use and setup. But he did an update once that forced me to redo all my settings. PITA

I was happy I bought it for 20.

But for 45 buck...I would first look in the store and see if there are other assets that do a similar task.

In the case of the original question. If this was the one asset that made me go from close ----> done. I would be punching my credit card in right the fuck now. lol

Yup, it's always the good old Fast-Good-Cheap triangle. Coding something yourself can get you exactly what you need (nothing more, nothing less) and is "free", but takes time (which, in turn, actually costs money).

I mean, it's alright to use assets for some of the more complicated stuff like that thing that let you edit level geometry and all that in real time, or IK systems for specific animations, or Ferr2D for 2D games, but most of the time I'd rather see if I can do things myself to stay on-budget.

JeffG · Jul 27, 2016

JulianImp said:
I mean, it's alright to use assets for some of the more complicated stuff like that thing that let you edit level geometry and all that in real time, or IK systems for specific animations, or Ferr2D for 2D games, but most of the time I'd rather see if I can do things myself to stay on-budget.

I personally don't have a budget. Money isn't an issue. I am a high priced consultant that putz's around whenever I am sitting on the bench.

This is kinda a hobby/Retirement plan for me. lol

I do it because I love it.

I do want to create a game, but if it doesn't happen...then I am not going to lose sleep over it. (The act of writing it amuses me as much as playing games)

But I have been writing code for 25 yrs professionally and if I can skip large chunks of development time by spending $20-$30, I will.

HandsomeCharles · Jul 27, 2016

Gilby said:
My roommate and best friend has been slaving away on a party game that just went on kickstarter: Bear Vs.Methlab. He's trying to figure out how to advertise online, most places like Reddit/Neogaf don't like people promoting their games (understandable, could cause a ton of spam), so how should he go about trying to tell people?

This is the million dollar question. Send review codes to youtubers, gaming sites, twitch streamers etc. It's no easy task. Just getting noticed in the first place is the hardest thing.

Also, a tip for posting on reddit: Rather than making a thread saying "I spent X years working on a game, it releases today!" get someone else to make a post saying "My friend spent X years working on a game, it releases today!"

It's stupid but it works. You make some original content and you get downvoted to fuck, but if "your friend" did something cool then it's all good.

Kalentan · Jul 28, 2016

Been bit busy lately but managed to work on the spriting today and since my sprite change I needed to redraw the walking animation. This is what I have thus far after... 3 or so hours of work? Probably very little progress for that amount of time.

Used the arms from my idle standing animation for now as to show arm movement. Not sure how much it's going to actually sway when I plan on having them hold weapons like this:

Don't think people tend to sway their arms that much when they're holding weapons.

fengshuifever · Jul 28, 2016

LordRaptor said:
have you tried scaling to / from zero for the meshes you want to show / hide?

Aaaaaaand it's gone.

Tried setting keys to set scale of the guitar to 0 and the whole model disappeared.

Is that because I've parented the guitar to one of the hand bones?

(Looks like selecting the guitar > selecting Action Block <Idle> > setting a Scale key and setting the scale to 0 on that object is somehow setting everything else's scale to 0, even after unparenting it. Hmm)

Update : Resorted to adjusting the Alpha of the Guitar material. Still have the problem of it setting on the animation timeline but not within the actions themselves. So if in the Battle Idle it's shown, it'll show in the regular idle because as a whole the alpha is set to 1.

JulianImp said:
I think Unity will attempt to render the prop even while it has a scale of zero, which might be fine if you have a single accessory, but not if you have lots of interchangeable ones.

If you intend to use several swappable accesories for attacks, you could always create a dummy object as a mounting point, instancing the guitar in that mounting point once and then turning the renderer on and off not by animation, but by animation events. As in, you fire up a "ShowProp" method in the animation, where the method checks if you have a prop equipped and sets its renderer to become visible, and with a "HideProp" at the end to put it back after you're done using it.

Might be more work but this sounds like the best way to go if doing it through Blender is not working for me.

Erheller · Jul 28, 2016

Quick Game Maker question:

If I have a ds_list created by object_1 in room_1, and I change rooms to room_2 without destroying the list, the list is still occupying memory with no way to access it, right (unless the list id is stored in a global variable)?

missile · Jul 28, 2016

HandsomeCharles said:
... It's stupid but it works. You make some original content and you get downvoted to fuck, but if "your friend" did something cool then it's all good.

What's a psychological explanation for this behavior?

liliththepale · Jul 28, 2016

missile said:
What's a psychological explanation for this behavior?

My friend was telling me that it's because you don't trust people implicitly, because they're going to be biased and love their own work and think it's more deserving than it might be, so becoming a second party makes it appear like there is actual merit to the work since other people are willing to endorse it.

My friend was also saying that it's less tacky because it makes the originator appear more humble, and people love helping out the humble underdog.

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