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GAF Indie Game Development Thread 2: High Res Work for Low Res Pay

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bumpkin

Member
A coworker came to me talking about a potential freelance gig making a game (for iOS and Android), and I know Unity has the deployment capabilities and lets you develop something once for multiple platforms, but fuck if the workflow isn't painful. My primary workstation is a non-Retina MacBook Pro, and I literally have a tiny amount of space to work in the editor. The panes are all tiny.
 

missile

Member
I'm not familiar with how Unreal handles PBR authoring, but Unity has a choice between a metal / rough workflow or a spec / gloss workflow, and basically everyone uses DONTNODs material charts for colour values
https://seblagarde.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/dontnodgraphicchartforblinnmicrofacet_lowres2.png
https://seblagarde.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/dontnodgraphicchartforunrealengine4.png

Substance designers preset for Copper in Metal/Rough is
Base colour: R:250 G:208 B:192 / H:16 S:59 V:250
Roughness: R:64 G:64 B:64 / H:0 S:0 V:64
if that's any help - I believe these are prerecorded values as they're used across multiple engines

Copper in Unreal Engine is

RGB 0.955, 0.637, 0.538
HEX (srgb) FAD1C2FF
HEX (linear) F4A389FF
You may also be interested in this. Notes. Slides.
Thx a lot, guys!

Well, had a look at the stuff from seblagarde, but he doesn't say on what
basis the reflectance values were based on.

Anyhow, here is a picture of my new metal renderer using the given copper
reflectance (0.955, 0.637, 0.538) and Schlick for the Fresnel effect producing
the following polished copper sphere;

PIVLZeR.png


Does copper look similar in Unreal/Unity?

I actually have a more sophisticated model of the Fresnel relation implemented
but it needs more data (different wavelength coefficients esp. for metals). So
the question for me is how the above (F0) reflectance values (for copper for
example) came about? My only guess is that these values came about by
filtering the (documented) F0 reflectance curve of copper with the CIE
standard observer gaining RGB values. Or artist-driven?

But I can't help. For, either my computation is somewhat wrong or the
reflectance values are a bit too high in general. Isn't copper more reddish?

And there are some color shifts missing at grazing (towards cyan, I think),
meaning that the red component for copper needs to drop somewhat at grazing.
Isn't there a somewhat bluish/cyan shimmer at grazing? But the missing of this
effect can be understood by knowing that the Schlick approximation can't
produce any dips in the reflectance curve, and also because simplified
reflectance/IOR values were used. That's something I'm going to address if
I have more IOR data for copper.
 

correojon

Member
Hey missile, it´s amazing how far you´ve gone from those pics months ago. I´ve enjoyed a lot watching your renders get better and more detailed with every small iteration, even if I couldn´t understand half your posts most times lol Astounding work mate!

Sonniss has released another free audio bundle for GDC 2017.

http://www.sonniss.com/gameaudiogdc2017/

EDIT: because I know people will ask about the previous ones ➡️️ https://gamesounds.xyz

Thanks! It´s really cool we get a new one each year. Now I only need time to look into those 60Gb of audio :S
 

missile

Member
Hey missile, it´s amazing how far you´ve gone from those pics months ago. I´ve enjoyed a lot watching your renders get better and more detailed with every small iteration, even if I couldn´t understand half your posts most times lol Astounding work mate! ...
Thx, Sir! :) Hope it's a lil pleasing to watch. Indeed, these old shoots had
only local diffuse reflection. And with all the speculars implemented even a
simple plane can looks stunning. xD

Tried some other metals as well;

P6V01mG.png

platinum, copper, gold, iron

Like I said, I'm not so much convinced of the copper and the color-less
reflection at grazing for all the metals, but that's at least what today's
standard (F0 data + Schlick) considers as quite good, yet I think I can
do better. Will see. Anyhow, I think the metals can be anticipated and the
colored highlights are also quite cool as well.

This special color shift I'm talking about (if you watch the highlights at
grazing) my seem a bit exaggerated to realize, for, the range in which it
happens (about 85-98 degrees) may seem small and not worth to consider (which
is what Schlick's approximation does) and which has some truth to it. But two
cool things await when simulating these effects. Not only does the object gets
colored slightly different when seen at grazing, but what makes it stood out
is if you make the highlights sparkle/scatter/bloom etc. esp. when seen at
grazing, because the color of the already colored highlight will change rapidly
within that region for some metals and as such the sparkles will change color
quickly as well for small changes in viewing position producing this kind of
special color shimmering (unique to metals) of the highlights at grazing. And
since the sparkles, bloom etc. takes up some many pixels on the screen, it
will have some noticeable impact. That's at least what I'm after, but abusing
it in one way or another. ;) Like I've said, I'm not after any realism. Sounds
odd, heh?
 

SeanNoonan

Member
So I kinda felt that working on my game would last forever, so I didn't really prepare for it. Earlier this week I finished it and have realised I don't have any form of marketing material ready.

tumblr_om477g5Tcy1uhbaaio1_250.gif


Hmm.
 

missile

Member
jsMC9wK.png


XBOvJfV.png


Some pseudo metals. :) These metals are treated as if they don't absorb
the part of the light going into them and is instead scattered and diffuse
reflected back producing a color. Why not? xD

The reflection is a bit off, no image of the spheres in other spheres, and
also the shadows do not reflect. These inter-object reflection are a bit
expensive to compute. I may perhaps try to trace a couple of them further
down.
 

embalm

Member
Unity Design & Dev Questions:

How do you guys handle asset look ups? I want to make sure that my current approach is the right way, so please let me know if this sounds correct.

For Item Icons this is how I handle look ups for icons.

I have an Item Manager Object.
The Item Manager has a list of Item Icon objects. Item Icons objects contain the image and ID of the item.
The list of Item Icons is manually filled with Prefabs. I create the prefab, increase the list size, and add it to the Item Manager list.
There are functions on the Item Manager that look up the item Icons by ID. So when I need the icon object I look it up, search the list, and return the object.

Is there a better way to look up these assets? I have read a little bit about Unity Asset Database, but I'm not sure it's better.

Thanks for any help.
 
I actually have a more sophisticated model of the Fresnel relation implemented
but it needs more data (different wavelength coefficients esp. for metals). So
the question for me is how the above (F0) reflectance values (for copper for
example) came about? My only guess is that these values came about by
filtering the (documented) F0 reflectance curve of copper with the CIE
standard observer gaining RGB values. Or artist-driven?

But I can't help. For, either my computation is somewhat wrong or the
reflectance values are a bit too high in general. Isn't copper more reddish?

And there are some color shifts missing at grazing (towards cyan, I think),
meaning that the red component for copper needs to drop somewhat at grazing.
Isn't there a somewhat bluish/cyan shimmer at grazing? But the missing of this
effect can be understood by knowing that the Schlick approximation can't
produce any dips in the reflectance curve, and also because simplified
reflectance/IOR values were used. That's something I'm going to address if
I have more IOR data for copper.
I got that color value from Epic's documentation, which has a small amount of color values for various things. I believe they gathered it with polarized photos. I just compared theirs to the default copper Allegorithmic recommends and it's nearly the same color though the Hue is 1 point different (16 for Epic / 17 for Allego).
Thx a lot, guys!

Well, had a look at the stuff from seblagarde, but he doesn't say on what
basis the reflectance values were based on.

Anyhow, here is a picture of my new metal renderer using the given copper
reflectance (0.955, 0.637, 0.538) and Schlick for the Fresnel effect producing
the following polished copper sphere;

PIVLZeR.png


Does copper look similar in Unreal/Unity?
Fixed +0 exposure
JrzRTpN.png

Auto exposure (looks like +2ish)
tU8kgfI.png


In Unreal lights have a default "min roughness" of 0.08 (with a max of 1 [roughest] and a lowest value of 0). This softens a particular light's specular highlights and lets you simulate more diffuse light.

Here's 0
dgHU2Sv.png

Here's .08 (default)
5t5flpW.png

Here's .5
r9TaFVS.png
 
I'm wondering because I love the old one much more. It has a much better clearity/separation (color contrast) and the selection of colors somehow fit
the game quite well. The new one looks washed out, is of low contrast, and has
this greenish-braun unfirom look to it. I can't see why this new one should
look better even with improved lighting, camera whatever. But then everyone
has a different taste.

That's a lot of feedback we've been getting actually, so we've been working on trying to get more points of color into the game. The big thing to remember is that things look very different when still and in motion. We think the player character gets lost when everything is fighting for top contrast. It's still a work in progress and things really won't come to head until it's all said and done.

That being said, do have some more comparison shots to show off;
Working with color balance to push the accent colors.

And now some other areas that have been re-done;

Overall, I feel things have been improving really nicely. Excited to get started on new things after this re-skinning is done.

Side note, Imgur is down for me so I'm trying to link these images from Google Drive. If they're not working for anyone, please let me know.
 

big_z

Member
I have a request. Would anyone be able to send me a code so I can sign up for TestFlight?

If you can help please send me a pm.
 

SeanNoonan

Member
As promised last week, Stage Presence is now out on Steam! I feel pretty neausous from the tension of finishing and releasing! Phew! Thanks to all the people who've been super supportive in here about it. I can stop spamming the thread with silly gifs now ;) http://store.steampowered.com/app/391640


This guy is one my pals that used to work with me at CIG - awesome to see this thread filling up with completed projects, especially from those I know in meat space :D

Good luck, chap :)
 

Erheller

Member
I recently started working in Unity for a class and I'm liking it a lot more than GMS. Object-oriented programming is amazing, especially for games that get a lot of use out of inheritance.

The only issues I've really had so far is that it takes a bit to get used to the whole component thing, and also that the camera isn't pixel-perfect by default. It's also annoying to have to get used to the slightly different coordinate system, haha.
 
I recently started working in Unity for a class and I'm liking it a lot more than GMS. Object-oriented programming is amazing, especially for games that get a lot of use out of inheritance.

The only issues I've really had so far is that it takes a bit to get used to the whole component thing, and also that the camera isn't pixel-perfect by default. It's also annoying to have to get used to the slightly different coordinate system, haha.

But GMS is an object-based system as well! They have parents and inheritance and everything!
 
I am taking a break from my turn based to try something a bit new and exciting for me. A VR game inspired by rez and child of eden.

Unlike those games though it wont be a shooter, more of a checkpoint racer or collectathon.

Got the basic VR flight in, now to add lots of particles , space whales and lots of music of course

d4PyItU.gif
 

MimiMe

Member
As promised last week, Stage Presence is now out on Steam! I feel pretty neausous from the tension of finishing and releasing! Phew! Thanks to all the people who've been super supportive in here about it. I can stop spamming the thread with silly gifs now ;) http://store.steampowered.com/app/391640


Congratulations on your work and release!
Have you done everything by yourself? How long was it in development?


I know exactly how you feel as I am going to release my game tomorrow. hngh
 
Congratulations on your work and release!
Have you done everything by yourself? How long was it in development?


I know exactly how you feel as I am going to release my game tomorrow. hngh

Thanks. I did the meat of the dev by myself but I talked a few pals into helping me with it. I used to work in the games industry so luckily I knew a few people I could call up for favours.

It took a couple of years to make but I was only working on it in my spare time. If I was doing it now and worked full time it'd probably take half that time.

Good luck with your release tomorrow - It's a rush! You might feel a bit deflated the day after - I don't know what to do with myself today!
 

MimiMe

Member
Get a drink and go outside! That's what I would do
Easy thing to say afterwards that it would take half the time. Guess I could make my game now in a month ^^

thanks for the wishes!
No time for that feeling as I got the next release already lined up: awaiting a baby any day now
I feel more like a meerkat on watch
 
So I kinda felt that working on my game would last forever, so I didn't really prepare for it. Earlier this week I finished it and have realised I don't have any form of marketing material ready.

tumblr_om477g5Tcy1uhbaaio1_250.gif


Hmm.

Really digging the gameboy aesthetic there. Especially the classic parallax clouds. I have a soft-spot for the older techniques like what you're using there.
 

Pehesse

Member
For anyone interested: Lab Zero is currently looking for a 2D animator for contract work on Indivisible. All info here: https://labzerogames.com/jobs-2d-animation-contractors/

I thought I'd give it a try myself, mainly to see if I could make it, but I fear this is outside my skills. I'm trying to get the application done remotely quickly, as I feel it's an integral part of what they're looking for, and I'm wondering how to balance the cleanliness of the animation. Here's my current attempt for the Ajna anim:

ReflectingEdibleColt.gif


The right hand motion is bothering me, though I feel a bit constrained because of the imposed keyframe's hand position (could've just done another motion, you might say, but I didn't get any other looking right).
I'm mainly wondering if I should spend time cleaning up the rough torso/hand lines more, so they're in line with the head/legs, or if that's time wasted as they're specifically mentioning that cleaners will rework the animation and that some roughness is acceptable.

So, thoughts? Should I rework the torso/hands to be cleaner? Should I completely rethink the right hand motion because it's too off? Should I just give this up and go back to working on Pacha?

There's still a whole other motion to do, which will take me at least another day, and I fear taking longer than 2 days for the overall application would be overkill, but I have no prior experience with contract animation, so I don't actually know - thoughts on that appreciated as well!

(also, good luck to any other who'd apply!)
 

missile

Member
I got that color value from Epic's documentation, which has a small amount of color values for various things. I believe they gathered it with polarized photos. I just compared theirs to the default copper Allegorithmic recommends and it's nearly the same color though the Hue is 1 point different (16 for Epic / 17 for Allego). ...
Ok, seems that this is the color to use by default as it seems.

...
Fixed +0 exposure
JrzRTpN.png
...
Thx for replicating all the set-up! :) This gives me a good impression that my
results are similar given the same data. Thx again! However, it seems that
these reflections all are a bit flawed (my one as well), but may serve for the
purpose at hand. I need to dig a little bit deeper to get it right.

... In Unreal lights have a default "min roughness" of 0.08 (with a max of 1 [roughest] and a lowest value of 0). This softens a particular light's specular highlights and lets you simulate more diffuse light. ...
Had a look. Yeah quite interesting, should implement it as well. I encountered
the issue behind it a couple of times myself. For very smooth surfaces the
highlights become very small and very sharp. Using such a light-roughness
parameter could overwrites the min roughness of the surface acting as a blur
blurring the edges of said highlights with the effect of reducing some aliasing
or making the highlights more pleasing to look at when the surface is very
smooth.


Edit:
While we are at it, can you make the gold one as well? :)
(fixed +0 exposure would suffice)
 

Yoshi

Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
Get a drink and go outside! That's what I would do
Easy thing to say afterwards that it would take half the time. Guess I could make my game now in a month ^^

Half the time is definitely possible, but how would you make your game in (or close to) a month? Level design is so much work...

I currently have two games where the programming is almost done but I have to do the level design (and visual design, which definitely is not exactly a strength of mine) and I think this takes about 3/4 or more of the overall time of the project.
 
For anyone interested: Lab Zero is currently looking for a 2D animator for contract work on Indivisible. All info here: https://labzerogames.com/jobs-2d-animation-contractors/

I thought I'd give it a try myself, mainly to see if I could make it, but I fear this is outside my skills. I'm trying to get the application done remotely quickly, as I feel it's an integral part of what they're looking for, and I'm wondering how to balance the cleanliness of the animation. Here's my current attempt for the Ajna anim:

ReflectingEdibleColt.gif


The right hand motion is bothering me, though I feel a bit constrained because of the imposed keyframe's hand position (could've just done another motion, you might say, but I didn't get any other looking right).
I'm mainly wondering if I should spend time cleaning up the rough torso/hand lines more, so they're in line with the head/legs, or if that's time wasted as they're specifically mentioning that cleaners will rework the animation and that some roughness is acceptable.

So, thoughts? Should I rework the torso/hands to be cleaner? Should I completely rethink the right hand motion because it's too off? Should I just give this up and go back to working on Pacha?

There's still a whole other motion to do, which will take me at least another day, and I fear taking longer than 2 days for the overall application would be overkill, but I have no prior experience with contract animation, so I don't actually know - thoughts on that appreciated as well!

(also, good luck to any other who'd apply!)

Just my opinion but...
It's really difficult to recognize the animation from frame 1 to 6, I almost couldn't tell at all if I didn't view the animation by frame.
In frame 5, the right hand looks off. Maybe move it down a bit?
From frame 7 to 8, there is big movement change in the upper body part, but minimal change in the lower part, maybe consider adjusting that?
 

missile

Member
... We think the player character gets lost when everything is fighting for top contrast. ...
True, but won't hold for the initial picture you posted which has huge regions
of the same colors/shades. As such the color contrast make these region
separate and pleasing to look at. The new picture has more or less the same
color/shades and it is difficult to make out the different regions, which is
ok if you have lots of other colorful stuff to add on top of it.

.... It's still a work in progress and things really won't come to head until it's all said and done. ...
Of course.
 

Pehesse

Member
Just my opinion but...
It's really difficult to recognize the animation from frame 1 to 6, I almost couldn't tell at all if I didn't view the animation by frame.
In frame 5, the right hand looks off. Maybe move it down a bit?
From frame 7 to 8, there is big movement change in the upper body part, but minimal change in the lower part, maybe consider adjusting that?

Hey, thanks a lot! I'll try reviewing the thing in the light of your comments. Though I have to ask: what exactly about the motion in frames 1-6 is difficult to recognize? Do you mean that it's more subdued compared to the rest (which is intentional), or is it something else?
 

Minamu

Member
Have you guys tried Unity's new Collaborate feature for project management and file merging? It seems really great so far :) Though kinda funny, I'm pretty sure I could push Unity screen layouts with bitbucket but that's not possible through Collaborate.
 

MimiMe

Member
Half the time is definitely possible, but how would you make your game in (or close to) a month? Level design is so much work...

I currently have two games where the programming is almost done but I have to do the level design (and visual design, which definitely is not exactly a strength of mine) and I think this takes about 3/4 or more of the overall time of the project.

I totaly agree with you. That's why I meant that it is easy to say "I could do it quicker" afterwards as you don't have the hassle with level design and other stuff when you already know how it is going to be in the end.

So many hours - at least for me - go into creating, testing and deleting stuff that leads to the final outcome.
But you don't "see" those hours; I often think afterwards: "could have done this in 30min and not 8 hours". Which is imho wrong
 

LordRaptor

Member
Have you guys tried Unity's new Collaborate feature for project management and file merging? It seems really great so far :) Though kinda funny, I'm pretty sure I could push Unity screen layouts with bitbucket but that's not possible through Collaborate.

I haven't but its a very good idea.
I've previously worked on a large team project in Unity using Perforce for version control, and the number of unity specific things that couldn't be file diffed and required individual check outs so that nobody else could access them was a pretty bad bottleneck
 
I'm a developer still interested in finding an artist to team with. I would prefer to work in Unity and am open to targeting any number of platforms that Unity supports. Ideally, we would build small to medium-sized games that can be developed and released in under a year. However, if we had some success I would certainly entertain the idea of expanding the scope of future projects. If you are interested in chatting shoot me a pm. Thanks!
 
Hey, thanks a lot! I'll try reviewing the thing in the light of your comments. Though I have to ask: what exactly about the motion in frames 1-6 is difficult to recognize? Do you mean that it's more subdued compared to the rest (which is intentional), or is it something else?

Ah my bad, the motion in frames 1-6 is fine. My brain didn't work quite right yesterday due to lack of caffeine :p
 

Pehesse

Member
Ah my bad, the motion in frames 1-6 is fine. My brain didn't work quite right yesterday due to lack of caffeine :p

Haha, no worries :) I reworked the thing based on your comments either way, and sent it along with the other one - so now, we can never speak or hear of this again :-D
 
Another update for this week, about 75-80% done with the style rework. Have another dungeon to do, but there's also other things that spawn inside dungeons that aren't part of the layouts that need going over. After that, it's moving over to boss rooms which should be pretty fun.

 

missile

Member
iaNC3ML.png


Use the .08 roughness image for comparison. I think I forgot to turn off bloom for first two.
Thx for making that up! Hmm ... it looks a bit dull. The Fresnel reflection
also looks quite weak towards grazing.

Here is my current attempt for gold;

oW8ml9G.png


wiLQsep.png


I use the specular color for gold, i.e. linear RGB (1.0, 0.71, 0.29), and
Schlick for the Fresnel reflection.

It should also be noted that the specular color for gold only holds when the
scene is illuminating with D65 light, i.e. RGB(1,1,1) with the monitor set to
sRGB. Also, if the RGB color of the light is different, the given specular
color for gold won't hold any longer. In that case the specular color needs to
be adapted via some chromatic adaptation. Anyhow, for games nobody will
notice, I guess. And for non-games you won't even use RGB colors.

I think I can still further improve on the result in modelling the grazing
reflection a bit differently. Will see.
 
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