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[Cute Dragon Here]

Some small progress, incorporated some basic animations put in. Need to get it to work with obstacles that raise/lower the player character. Also need play around with the input buffer, test to see how big/small I should make it for players reacting.

Hmm, seems like it's one of these games where you need to button input based on the things displayed on screen?

 

[JeffG]

Also random Unity question. Is there a reason sometimes Unity just breaks/acts weird? Like I came back to my project and it wouldn't transition from scenes properly at all. When I checked the build setting all my scenes were greyed out and didn't work properly anymore so I had to re-add them. Not a big deal but I have no idea why that happened. I'm also getting some minor errors that don't seem to cause any problems so that's fun.

I have seen some weird stuff. Complied code crashing where in debug was fine. A scene that I tried to bake lighting for but crashed during the bake and was fucked until I opened 2 scenes at the same time. (Go figure)

I usually try to back out of the last package I imported and see if that helps.

I found you need to watch the stuff you import like a hawk. Especially Standard assets

I now do a backup of my project when I update packages

 

[missile]

The raycast in Unity is done in screen space (projected depth, index buffer
and friend), right? Or do they really intersect the geometry sorting the
intersections points in depth?

 

[Lautaro]

Oof, adapting my turn based game so I could have creatures bigger than 1 tile was hard. I had to create 2 grids (one for the tiny creatures and other for the bigger ones) and "sincronize" them. I'm mostly done with it though (click for better quality):

 

[Jumplion]

Hmm, seems like it's one of these games where you need to button input based on the things displayed on screen?

Yeah, the gameplay is reminiscent of endless-runner type games where you do an action in reaction to an obstacle. In my case it's up/down/left/right (plus appropriate combinations). I'm super early in development so the obstacles here just happen to be super close together and have the actions shown on the obstacle itself. I'm not quite sure how I'll relay the action information to the player yet, might be an icon flashing on the screen or just memorize what each obstacle needs.

 

[Minamu]

Apparently, adding sound effects to objects in Unity is probably the easiest thing in the entire engine :O I have no idea why our game has been completely silent for like 5 months :lol Not that the sounds are that great, but adding a temp sound made by http://www.bfxr.net/ to an audio source was really easy, and works pretty well even with default settings.

 

[tait269]

Anyone got any tips on the best place to find a freelance 3D Generalist?

 

[Mik2121]

Anyone got any tips on the best place to find a freelance 3D Generalist?

www.polycount.com
You got all skill levels there.

 

[tait269]

www.polycount.com
You got all skill levels there.

Thanks much appreciated

 

[philion]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1i_yIV3xZg

2spooky

 

[Cute Dragon Here]

Yeah, the gameplay is reminiscent of endless-runner type games where you do an action in reaction to an obstacle. In my case it's up/down/left/right (plus appropriate combinations). I'm super early in development so the obstacles here just happen to be super close together and have the actions shown on the obstacle itself. I'm not quite sure how I'll relay the action information to the player yet, might be an icon flashing on the screen or just memorize what each obstacle needs.

Maybe make it a difficulty option

What's the best way to handle 2D sprite animations in Unity that involve sprite repositioning "as clean as possible"? (e.g. when someone attacks, he will move a bit with the walking/running animation, do the attack animation, go back with the walking animation again in place) Basically just looking for a way so that I don't have to do the whole thing in C# script (and track everything going on).

 

[HellBlazer]

Hmm, seems like it's one of these games where you need to button input based on the things displayed on screen?

Isn't that all games?

 

[correojon]

I´m changing some details of the spritesand have reached a point where I need some external advice...so, which one do you like more?

With inner borders (A):

Without inner borders (B):

Thin and inner borders (A):

Thick outside border (C):

I´m leaning towards thin and inner borders (A). I´ve seen that that´s the way most pixel art games do it as it´s clearer to see the limbs of the character and convey movement. What do you guys think?

 

[Theanine3D]

Thin and inner borders looks best to me.

 

[JeffG]

Thin and inner borders looks best to me.

ditto

 

[Jumplion]

Maybe make it a difficulty option

Really debating whether I should. The subject matter of the game is more on the serious side and in general I dislike having to ask the player straight up what difficulty they want when they haven't even played the game yet.

Maybe have a "forgiveness" option for less skilled players? After the tutorial, give them an option to adjust the input buffer sizes and whatnot. I dunno, I have time before I have to figure it all out.

What's the best way to handle 2D sprite animations in Unity that involve sprite repositioning "as clean as possible"? (e.g. when someone attacks, he will move a bit with the walking/running animation, do the attack animation, go back with the walking animation again in place) Basically just looking for a way so that I don't have to do the whole thing in C# script (and track everything going on).

I had the same question earlier. I'm using Spriter which has a few features and an api for Unity that I should probably integrate to my own project. In my case it's easier to have the animations centered on a single point rather than jumping around and programatically move the player (going to be a pain to integrate that...). Usually you can do attack animations and the like with them flying around so long as they go back to the initial position they were in. If they're moving around, like vaulting over debris or jumping to a higher ledge, then that depends on how you want to implement it into the game.

Speaking of, is this a "proper" way of ordering heirarchy for a character? I have a character controller that holds the sprites (which holds the animator), the collider, and the target for the camera to look at. This means I have to move the whole transform (the controller) in order to move the player, which can make it weird/annoying to program for the animations where I need to move the player up or down.

 

[Pehesse]

I´m changing some details of the spritesand have reached a point where I need some external advice...so, which one do you like more?

With inner borders (A):

Without inner borders (B):

Thin and inner borders (A):

Thick outside border (C):

I´m leaning towards thin and inner borders (A). I´ve seen that that´s the way most pixel art games do it as it´s clearer to see the limbs of the character and convey movement. What do you guys think?

A looks safe, but I kinda like C as well, it softens the sprite somehow, though I think it needs something else to really stand out - don't know what, though! Maybe you could try another color than complete black if you go A, so it meshes better with the environment (a reddish-dark, maybe?)?

So yeah, A for me if you don't want to think about this too much, or C if you feel like experimenting some more :-D

 

[mooooose]

I think C is best. Not enough games go for that style imo.

 

[RelentlessRolento]

Fan of C here as well

 

[Cute Dragon Here]

Really debating whether I should. The subject matter of the game is more on the serious side and in general I dislike having to ask the player straight up what difficulty they want when they haven't even played the game yet.

Maybe have a "forgiveness" option for less skilled players? After the tutorial, give them an option to adjust the input buffer sizes and whatnot. I dunno, I have time before I have to figure it all out.

Mmm, I guess you have to go with what works best.

As for my own game, I'm thinking of leaving the difficulty option to be in the options menu, adjustable at any time (and won't be having any achievements that require a specific difficulty). And a nudge about the difficulty selection after a certain point in the game (perhaps in a training room, or maybe as an off-hand comment by an NPC)

I had the same question earlier. I'm using Spriter which has a few features and an api for Unity that I should probably integrate to my own project. In my case it's easier to have the animations centered on a single point rather than jumping around and programatically move the player (going to be a pain to integrate that...). Usually you can do attack animations and the like with them flying around so long as they go back to the initial position they were in. If they're moving around, like vaulting over debris or jumping to a higher ledge, then that depends on how you want to implement it into the game.

Seems like I should take a look at what Spriter offers and see if I can redo my animation sets to be a bit less challenging. This might take a bunch of sprite break-ups for the time being, but seems like it'd be in my best interests to change into an entirely Spriter-based workflow. It sure seems like a lot easier than trying to do everything by hand.

 

[ephemeral]

I´m changing some details of the spritesand have reached a point where I need some external advice...so, which one do you like more?

I also prefer C.

This is a really simple question but I couldn't find any relevant info on google:

If I want to have a button work as a press and hold, how long should the duration be to only count as a press? For example a single shot is a button press, and holding the button will charge a shot.

Do you prefer to have the single shot be instant and having the charge shot shooting a single shot before charging (like in Metroid Prime), or rather have a small delay to the single shot when only pressing the button?

 

[chris-013]

I also prefer C.

This is a really simple question but I couldn't find any relevant info on google:

If I want to have a button work as a press and hold, how long should the duration be to only count as a press? For example a single shot is a button press, and holding the button will charge a shot.

Do you prefer to have the single shot be instant and having the charge shot shooting a single shot before charging (like in Metroid Prime), or rather have a small delay to the single shot when only pressing the button?

You can do a single shot when the button is released and if the player holds the button for a certain amount of time you can do the charge shot.

 

[GordonHalfman]

When writing design documents do you have any kind of system for representing the confidence level of particular sections? Like some stuff can be pretty central and implemented, some stuff can be speculative and in need of review, some stuff can be outright brain farts than I just want to scribble somewhere so I don't forget.

One suggestion I heard was to have a kind of document log separate from main draft, where you keep a history of changes and can also add scribble and annotations.

 

[missile]

just submitted our VR adventure, Chiaro, to Fantastic Arcade. huge milestone for me personally since Fantastic Fest in Austin is my favorite thing that happens every year!

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/dKiJTmW.png[/IMG]

have gotten quite a bit of help since I started reading and posting in this thread. thanks everybody, yall are reallllll cool 8)

Some animated gifs of this game?

 

[EDarkness]

Had someone contact me about making an Xbox One version of my game. The idea sounds good on paper, but considering the amount of work needed just for the Wii U version, I'm not sure how I feel about messing around with the Xbox as well. It would be nice to hit all of the major consoles, but with limited manpower, I'm wondering if it's just best to avoid taking on more than we have already. Hmmm.... something to think about, I guess.

 

[Cute Dragon Here]

Hmm, I was wondering about damage numbers. You know, numbers that pop up in front of someone that has just recently taken damage?

Seems like if I were to have the damage numbers be in the "world space" (basically sprites in the game world that appear briefly before disappearing...)

The plan is to:
Instantiate a GameObject prefab that contains just enough scripting to instantiate *more* prefabs containing the sprite numbers themselves, with the sprites hotswapped into upon creation

Is there a way to make it so that the latter script's prefab instantiation ends up having all the "number" objects be child to the former prefab? Would make it a bit easier to move them in a single go.

 

[chris-013]

Hmm, I was wondering about damage numbers. You know, numbers that pop up in front of someone that has just recently taken damage?

Seems like if I were to have the damage numbers be in the "world space" (basically sprites in the game world that appear briefly before disappearing...)

The plan is to:
Instantiate a GameObject prefab that contains just enough scripting to instantiate *more* prefabs containing the sprite numbers themselves, with the sprites hotswapped into upon creation

Is there a way to make it so that the latter script's prefab instantiation ends up having all the "number" objects be child to the former prefab? Would make it a bit easier to move them in a single go.

If you are talking about Unity, it's better to use an UI canvas set to world space with a script listening to an event "TakeDamage" then instantiate a Text Object (it's better to use object pooling).

 

[Pazu]

Some animated gifs of this game?

here's a quick one of a scene in which youre tasked to build Boka, your steam powered penguin mentor

and a little blurb about the game: Long ago the First Settlers of Neverain were rumored to have the power to bring machines to life. Step into VR and become Chiaro, a young engineer driven to uncover their secrets. Together with Boka, your steam powered penguin mentor, you will have an unforgettable adventure.

will def share more as production continues!

 

[LordRaptor]

Is there a way to make it so that the latter script's prefab instantiation ends up having all the "number" objects be child to the former prefab? Would make it a bit easier to move them in a single go.

You can use transform.parent or transform.setparent to parent one gameobject to another

If you are talking about Unity, it's better to use an UI canvas set to world space with a script listening to an event "TakeDamage" then instantiate a Text Object (it's better to use object pooling).

you can also use multiple canvases in a scene, so you could make a worldspace canvas part of the template GO to be instantiated

 

[chris-013]

you can also use multiple canvases in a scene, so you could make a worldspace canvas part of the template GO to be instantiated

Yes, it's very useful when you need to make a health bar (Slider) inside a canvas in a prefab for each game character type for example.

 

[Theanine3D]

Had someone contact me about making an Xbox One version of my game. The idea sounds good on paper, but considering the amount of work needed just for the Wii U version, I'm not sure how I feel about messing around with the Xbox as well. It would be nice to hit all of the major consoles, but with limited manpower, I'm wondering if it's just best to avoid taking on more than we have already. Hmmm.... something to think about, I guess.

You definitely don't want to spread yourself thin when working alone.

I'm already a bit stressed about having to make both Linux and Windows ports of my game. That's twice the testing I have to do before release (and even then, Linux has so many different distros and configurations, it's impossible to test on every single one of them). I'd go crazy having to do any other ports right now. The Wii U port I hope to make won't be happening until a year from now so I'll at least have some time until then.

 

[Cute Dragon Here]

You can use transform.parent or transform.setparent to parent one gameobject to another

you can also use multiple canvases in a scene, so you could make a worldspace canvas part of the template GO to be instantiated

Hmm, so basically the game object prefab instantiation should also contain a worldspace canvas. Got it.

Though I think I'll stick with image data instead of fonts for the damage numbers themselves, though, so I guess the second step would be instantiating Images based off the sprite text.

 

[JulianImp]

Hmm, so basically the game object prefab instantiation should also contain a worldspace canvas. Got it.

Though I think I'll stick with image data instead of fonts for the damage numbers themselves, though, so I guess the second step would be instantiating Images based off the sprite text.

Every time you instantiate something in runtime on demand, God kills a kitten. Don't do it.

Your best bet if you really don't want to let the font system handle numbers for you might be to assign a single texture with all numbers one next to the other in a fixed grid, and then make a little custom shader that sets the material's X offset based on the object's Z position (which doesn't even matter for canvas objects). That way, you could have a text image on Z=whatever and have the shader programatically set its offset to <gridElementWidth> * Z, all using up a single draw call AFAIK.

 

[Theanine3D]

Here's my #screenshotsaturday.

Earlier this week, I implemented a new optional minigame for the goal pole at the end of levels. The player must jump through three rainbow rings, in perfect succession before a time limit (the timer starts ticking as soon as the first ring is entered). I make it look easy here in the GIF, but it requires very precise platforming skill because the platforms you're standing on are spinning around while doing this. If you accidentally touch the edges of any of the 3 rings (instead of going cleanly through the middle of the rings), the minigame ends in failure and the player must replay the entire level to try again. The minigame is meant to be an additional challenge for more advanced players. Completing the minigame rewards you several extra lives and lots of coins, and if completed in every single level, it will reward the player an Achievement.

 

[Cute Dragon Here]

Every time you instantiate something in runtime on demand, God kills a kitten. Don't do it.

Your best bet if you really don't want to let the font system handle numbers for you might be to assign a single texture with all numbers one next to the other in a fixed grid, and then make a little custom shader that sets the material's X offset based on the object's Z position (which doesn't even matter for canvas objects). That way, you could have a text image on Z=whatever and have the shader programatically set its offset to <gridElementWidth> * Z, all using up a single draw call AFAIK.

Hmm...

Seems like I might need a pointer or two on getting things done here, then. I haven't written a shader before.

EDIT: Now I need to sort all the things out...

Should I just have a worldspace canvas right in the scene, and just have the relevant objects pop up and stuff? Since there might be more than one set of damage numbers appearing at once (multi-target magic comes into mind), I'm still thinking that instantiation is unavoidable.

Also thinking that this could be useful for popping up action icons in the world space during the rest of the game, too.

 

[missile]

... Long ago the First Settlers of Neverain were rumored to have the power to bring machines to life. ...

Bringing machines to life sounds interesting. Thx for the insight. :+

 

[Pehesse]

For screenshot saturday, I bring the gift of menus!

It's got the bare basics at this point, as nothing else apart from what is shown in the gif works right now... but it's mostly a matter of copy/pasting and adjusting the values, now, to have the whole navigation functional! ...and then making the actual options do actual effects, too. That'll take a bit longer :v

 

[DNAbro]

For screenshot saturday, I bring the gift of menus!



It's got the bare basics at this point, as nothing else apart from what is shown in the gif works right now... but it's mostly a matter of copy/pasting and adjusting the values, now, to have the whole navigation functional! ...and then making the actual options do actual effects, too. That'll take a bit longer :v

that looks really cool.

 

[Pehesse]

that looks really cool.

Thanks :-D I think most testers agree that it's sorely needed, but I really wanted to wait until the later stages of development so I could use whatever else I've learned up to that point!

 

[EDarkness]

You definitely don't want to spread yourself thin when working alone.

I'm already a bit stressed about having to make both Linux and Windows ports of my game. That's twice the testing I have to do before release (and even then, Linux has so many different distros and configurations, it's impossible to test on every single one of them). I'd go crazy having to do any other ports right now. The Wii U port I hope to make won't be happening until a year from now so I'll at least have some time until then.

Yeah. This is what I'm thinking. I can work on the PS4, NX, XBO versions after I get the ones I'm working on finished. I haven't messed around with Linux yet, but that's something I need to do in the nearish future...just to see what performance is going to look like.

Heh, you know, it's REAL easy to bite off more than you can chew in this business. Heh, heh.

 

[NinjaBoyLao]

our progress for this week!

https://twitter.com/i/videos/754321324810440704 recorded with potato laptop.

and some more featuring the Female playable character https://twitter.com/i/videos/754328553106264065

 

[Deleted member 10571]

Didn't have my tablet for the last two weeks, for it back now so I'll probably power through as many background sketches as I'll be able to lol. Have to be vigilant not to just stop, I really want to at least see this through until I've got something playable.

 

[Cute Dragon Here]

Now planning to make my music "real" after being mostly done with the rest of the game, items/skills/cut scenes/NPCs aside. (just the beginning portions and half the world map.)

What would be the best way to approximate the sounds of a 16-bit era console without too much fuss? (Either sampled or FM is fine.)

Hopefully this game I'm working on won't become vapour ware...

 

[Jumplion]

Man, I really need to learn to let well enough alone.

I had my original running/sprinting animation which was alright, but I wanted to adjust a few things and make it a bit better and smoother, make it so that it's less obvious it's just one big loop.

Now I have this animation after tweaking it over the past few days

It looks awful in Unity now, and I keep trying to adjust and change it and it really just ends up being a mess. Really need to learn to just leave things that don't need major fixing and focus on more pertinent things. Any advice on how to fix this sprinting animation?

 

[Speely]

Now planning to make my music "real" after being mostly done with the rest of the game, items/skills/cut scenes/NPCs aside. (just the beginning portions and half the world map.)

What would be the best way to approximate the sounds of a 16-bit era console without too much fuss? (Either sampled or FM is fine.)

Hopefully this game I'm working on won't become vapour ware...

Maybe look into VOPM? It's a free plugin that is based on emulating the Genesis sound chip.

https://www.kvraudio.com/product/vopm-by-sam

 

[Deleted member 10571]

And here's a first sketch of my first little 'village' part of the game, it'll be really hard to maintain a look of "everything's tiny", damn. The "tower" is a candle, there's boxes, the well is a milk.. dispenser, one house is a bird house, and so on. Trying to do some kind of carving on the left tree. Man why did I decide for a nature theme lol.

Managed to get another few sketches up, but so far nothing's even near being a finished picture.

Wondering if I should work with a heavy field of view effect going forward for final pictures, to enhance the impression of being small when everything seems huge, similar to Ant-Man I guess. Might try some things there.

 

[Wolf Akela]

Man, I really need to learn to let well enough alone.

I think you need to put the head a tiny bit forward, then possibly tilt it during sprint.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

here's a quick one of a scene in which youre tasked to build Boka, your steam powered penguin mentor

and a little blurb about the game: Long ago the First Settlers of Neverain were rumored to have the power to bring machines to life. Step into VR and become Chiaro, a young engineer driven to uncover their secrets. Together with Boka, your steam powered penguin mentor, you will have an unforgettable adventure.

will def share more as production continues!

Please do.

 

[Deleted member 10571]

all y'all doin' cool gamey stuff and 3D's and whatnot, and I'm trying to figure out how to make a tree carving not look shitty ;_;

edit oh ffs why am I cursed with this 1st post bane

edit edit: And all of the files i saved on drive today are no longer usable it seems. Well that was a lot of work for nothing then. Fucking DRive.

edit edit edit:

there we go

 

[Banjo]

Hi guys!
This is my first post in here. I'm very proud of the work you guys do, so that's why I started to work on something on my own.
I'm using UE4 as my engine, and 3DS Max for modeling, but now I have a problem with collisions.
I have the following object

I want my main character to walk around the spiral.
When I import it into UE4, the collisions aren't that precise, even if I regenate them with the highest parameters.
Is there a right and easy way to get that result?