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[Jobbs]

I think the best way to add combat variation is if the enemies have more than one attack to perform against you. That way there's more than one thing you have to look out for and circumnavigate as you come in for the attack. Consider this enemy that I have in my game who mixes up a projectile attack with a ground spike summon. You can't just stand in one place during your approach or you'll be impaled:

And if that was my game, you wouldn't need to approach him to kill him. you just blast him from across the screen, so his attacks aren't as threatening and timing isn't needed as much. That's the challenge of designing a gun based game and it's something I've been annoyed by since very early on. I have a good deal of variety arleady, but a lot of the give and take boils down to the same thing due to the lack of range requirement.

 

[timetokill]

Thanks! We're doing them on Maya, I know I know, it's widely unpopular xD

On a side note, we posted about our game on reddit and whoa, the worst feedback ever until the mods had to close the thread (we didn't even posted to reply),
and not even one constructive criticism, just pure venom spit on the screen.

I'm not sure if our game it's one of those "you either love it or hate it", but it seems we just get those kind of comments xD

Oh, I love Maya! I wish I could use it for this, but I can't afford it

That sucks when people just rip on stuff. don't let it get you down.

 

[Five]

And if that was my game, you wouldn't need to approach him to kill him. you just blast him from across the screen, so his attacks aren't as threatening and timing isn't needed as much. That's the challenge of designing a gun based game and it's something I've been annoyed by since very early on. I have a good deal of variety arleady, but a lot of the give and take boils down to the same thing due to the lack of range requirement.

Right. I'm just saying that when I try to mix things up, it's usually via putting a couple different attacks together that have different ranges or different approach vectors. If you're feeling like the best approach to killing enemies in your game is to stand back and snipe them, then make enemies with long-range attacks. Spikes that come from the ground, a bomb that lobs far, something that teleports behind the player to get her in the back, and so on.

The other thing you can do is have enemies with limited weak spots. Maybe most of the hide is too touch but the underbelly or the eye takes damage (cliche, I know, but you're creative and can come up with something clever).

 

[Jobbs]

Right. I'm just saying that when I try to mix things up, it's usually via putting a couple different attacks together that have different ranges or different approach vectors. If you're feeling like the best approach to killing enemies in your game is to stand back and snipe them, then make enemies with long-range attacks. Spikes that come from the ground, a bomb that lobs far, something that teleports behind the player to get her in the back, and so on.

The other thing you can do is have enemies with limited weak spots. Maybe most of the hide is too touch but the underbelly or the eye takes damage (cliche, I know, but you're creative and can come up with something clever).

Right, and like I said, it's all quite possible, but you find that when you're designing for long range attacks and you want challenge and variety and subtlety, it's just a bigger design challenge. Thus the temptation to reduce the range of the vanilla gun to some degree. I feel like I keep going back to the same bag of tricks (enemies that lunge a lot, shoot fast/far projectiles) too often.

Designing encounters and enemies around melee combat, to me, sounds a lot easier and more fun, so it's what I am going to do in my next game.

 

[Five]

Right, and like I said, it's all quite possible, but you find that when you're designing for long range attacks and you want challenge and variety and subtlety, it's just a bigger design challenge. Thus the temptation to reduce the range of the vanilla gun to some degree. I feel like I keep going back to the same bag of tricks (enemies that lunge a lot, shoot fast/far projectiles) too often.

Designing encounters and enemies around melee combat, to me, sounds a lot easier and more fun, so it's what I am going to do in my next game.

Is it too late to add an actual melee attack to your game? Maybe have some types of armor/skin that are impervious to gun or melee?

I should say that the original design for the game I'm working on featured gunplay primarily instead of melee, and it wasn't very fun, but I thought that was just because I'm not very good at designing gunplay. Because if Metroid and Megaman can get away with dozens of games without melee, there must be sufficient ways to do it in an engaging manner. Unfortunately, I'm not well versed in those games, so I can't speak much more into how they operate.

 

[AcceptableGhost]

Is it too late to add an actual melee attack to your game? Maybe have some types of armor/skin that are impervious to gun or melee?

I should say that the original design for the game I'm working on featured gunplay primarily instead of melee, and it wasn't very fun, but I thought that was just because I'm not very good at designing gunplay. Because if Metroid and Megaman can get away with dozens of games without melee, there must be sufficient ways to do it in an engaging manner. Unfortunately, I'm not well versed in those games, so I can't speak much more into how they operate.

When your making a 2d game with gunplay the terrain is super important, if you look at any Mega Man level, most of the enemies would be super boring to fight if they were on flat ground in front of you - but mixed in with appropriate terrain it becomes a lot more interesting:

The enemy, some ideas for terrain setups with it, and the levels gimmicks should generally be made in tandem.

 

[Ito]

I had a thought -- what if I made the regular cannon have a shorter range, so it's sort of a hybrid between a gun and a melee ranged weapon. Special weapons would still go the full range, which would increase their value.

Thoughts?

I like it that way (with the shorter range). The range is still long enough to keep a distance between you and those specially powerful monsters (so you can dodge their attacks).


--

I'm working on a desert/canyon level for Spirit Huntress, and I have finally assembled all the assets I need to keep going.

However, when setting the backgrounds and foreground to get the usual parallax effect, I can't decide if these look better with or without blur.

A: Sharp background & foreground: http://i.imgur.com/my2T2XD.png

B: Blur on background and foreground: http://i.imgur.com/MVOOF9P.png

C: Blur on background and foreground (alternative darkened foreground): http://i.imgur.com/LzSKiYL.png

What do you think, GAF?

Personally, I like C better. But some friends already told me that they don't like how the blur effect looks on the foreground.

 

[Five]

When your making a 2d game with gunplay the terrain is super important, if you look at any Mega Man level, most of the enemies would be super boring to fight if they were on flat ground in front of you - but mixed in with appropriate terrain it becomes a lot more interesting:

The enemy, some ideas for terrain setups with it, and the levels gimmicks should generally be made in tandem.

That's a great observation! I don't have anything witty to say, but I'm glad you pointed that out.

What do you think, GAF?

Personally, I like C better. But some friends already told me that they don't like how the blur effect looks on the foreground.

C > A > B

 

[Kyuur]

Further to my previous post, has anyone here done any work with the Marching Cubes algorithm? Specifically texturing. The mesh creation portion has plenty of resources, but for texturing all I can really find is single texture + noise for terrains.

I'm working on a desert/canyon level for Spirit Huntress, and I have finally assembled all the assets I need to keep going.

However, when setting the backgrounds and foreground to get the usual parallax effect, I can't decide if these look better with or without blur.

A: Sharp background & foreground: http://i.imgur.com/my2T2XD.png

B: Blur on background and foreground: http://i.imgur.com/MVOOF9P.png

C: Blur on background and foreground (alternative darkened foreground): http://i.imgur.com/LzSKiYL.png

What do you think, GAF?

Personally, I like C better. But some friends already told me that they don't like how the blur effect looks on the foreground.

Definitely C. Draws my eye to the playable field more easily.

 

[Feep]

Prototyping is the most fun thing.

 

[timetokill]

Anybody used Skele from the Unity Asset Store?

 

[Noogy]

Hey Noogy, I've been playing Dust again, on PS4, today (which is really the first time I'm playing it on a bigger better TV) -- And I'm sorta examining it and trying to figure out what kind of post processing you're using in the game. I'm talking especially about how the game has sort of a vaguely soft, gaussy look to it, that helps blend things together and look more like an animated feature -- at least, I think I'm seeing some sort of something like that. Once I'm onto my next game, I'm very interested in making something that looks more in the style of an animated feature. Can you explain any of this or am I imagining it?

Man, there's a lot going on.... in fact I'm messing with some of it right now but here's generally what happens. I'm using a bunch of rendertargets and shaders:

Here's the general draw order:

-Init nav map rendertarget. Draw navigation map. Clear screen.
-Init back layers refraction rendertarget.Draw refractive bits of back layers. Clear screen.
-Init character layer refraction rendertarget. Draw refractive bits of character layer. Clear screen.
-Init back layers rendertarget. Draw background layers. Clear screen.
-Init front layers rendertarget. Draw rendertarget containing back layers with refraction shader, many times at low opacity to create depth of field.
-Draw characters and player layer on top. Clear screen.
-Init all layers rendertarget. Draw back layers, front layers, with character refraction.
-Use this rendertarget to draw game, along with color balance shader.
-Use same rendertarget drawn many times at low opacity to create bloom.
-Use same rendertarget for radial blurs and weather effects.
-Draw HUD and navigation map

As you can see I'm drawing a lot of stuff, and managing a lot of rendertargets. What you are probably seeing is the bloom layer, but it also helps that I painted all of the assets with a somewhat soft brush to keep things painterly.

Near the end of Dust I found out a better way to do Gaussian blur through the shader, but by then it was too late to implement and capture the mood I had going in most of the areas, so I went with my original version. It's a bit more mechanical than I'd like, but it works.

 

[bkw]

What do you think, GAF?

Personally, I like C better. But some friends already told me that they don't like how the blur effect looks on the foreground.

C out of those three. I think the dark foreground is the biggest factor though. C's blurred foreground looks a little off. Either it's blurred too much, or the darker outline on the top edge makes it look like it's casting a shadow on the mid-ground.

B's background might also be too blurry too fast? Maybe the first background level should still be pretty sharp. The sky could also use some sort of gradient. Lighter as it goes back, which would also affect how you recolor the receding ground elements. Right now it kinda looks like blue fog.

Fake edit: Just noticed your avatar. Nice artwork there. =)

 

[_machine]

Finished some assets for the space stations bar. I just imported them into our test level to get the materials looking right in engine (I think they came out fairly well). Problem is that I spent the last 4 hours or so normal, color, and spec mapping, just for the two assets. At the moment I do all the low poly modeling in Maya, then export to Mudbox and sculpt the fine detail for normal extraction. Then I do the color and spec maps in Photoshop. This is a tedious process that takes for ever; anybody have work flow tips that might expedite it? Any suggestions, programs, workflows?

I have to first say that I'm not an artist, but first of all I'd drop the specular maps in UE4. You really rarely need a proper specular map in PBR and even the material guidelines on UE4 wiki suggest that you just go with the default specular value.

As for programs, I'd suggest looking into Quixel Suite (DDO in parituclar) and Substance Designer.

What do you think, GAF?

Personally, I like C better. But some friends already told me that they don't like how the blur effect looks on the foreground.

C for me too; it has the best focus on the gameplay area and the DOF creates nice depth.

 

[UsagiWare]

I like it that way (with the shorter range). The range is still long enough to keep a distance between you and those specially powerful monsters (so you can dodge their attacks).


--

I'm working on a desert/canyon level for Spirit Huntress, and I have finally assembled all the assets I need to keep going.

However, when setting the backgrounds and foreground to get the usual parallax effect, I can't decide if these look better with or without blur.

A: Sharp background & foreground: http://i.imgur.com/my2T2XD.png

B: Blur on background and foreground: http://i.imgur.com/MVOOF9P.png

C: Blur on background and foreground (alternative darkened foreground): http://i.imgur.com/LzSKiYL.png

What do you think, GAF?

Personally, I like C better. But some friends already told me that they don't like how the blur effect looks on the foreground.

C for me, as it really puts a good focus on the playingfield.

As for blurring the forground, I've seen both options used in various games. Depends on personal preference I guess.

 

[Jobbs]

Man, there's a lot going on.... in fact I'm messing with some of it right now but here's generally what happens. I'm using a bunch of rendertargets and shaders:

Here's the general draw order:

-Init nav map rendertarget. Draw navigation map. Clear screen.
-Init back layers refraction rendertarget.Draw refractive bits of back layers. Clear screen.
-Init character layer refraction rendertarget. Draw refractive bits of character layer. Clear screen.
-Init back layers rendertarget. Draw background layers. Clear screen.
-Init front layers rendertarget. Draw rendertarget containing back layers with refraction shader, many times at low opacity to create depth of field.
-Draw characters and player layer on top. Clear screen.
-Init all layers rendertarget. Draw back layers, front layers, with character refraction.
-Use this rendertarget to draw game, along with color balance shader.
-Use same rendertarget drawn many times at low opacity to create bloom.
-Use same rendertarget for radial blurs and weather effects.
-Draw HUD and navigation map

As you can see I'm drawing a lot of stuff, and managing a lot of rendertargets. What you are probably seeing is the bloom layer, but it also helps that I painted all of the assets with a somewhat soft brush to keep things painterly.

Near the end of Dust I found out a better way to do Gaussian blur through the shader, but by then it was too late to implement and capture the mood I had going in most of the areas, so I went with my original version. It's a bit more mechanical than I'd like, but it works.

okay, yeah, that is a lot going on. I figured it was very busy, and I guess that's why I was having trouble identifying exactly what all was going on with my eyes.

you were limited by memory constraints when originally making this, and this reduced the number of graphics you used, right? I wnat to see what you come up with next..

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

At the moment I do all the low poly modeling in Maya, then export to Mudbox and sculpt the fine detail for normal extraction. Then I do the color and spec maps in Photoshop. This is a tedious process that takes for ever; anybody have work flow tips that might expedite it? Any suggestions, programs, workflows?

3DCoat and Substance Painter both let you texture directly onto a model as though you were painting it as a physical model which you might find preferable.

Substance Painter has some built in tools for really fast basic texture generation too;

Crappy Blender spaceship model -> Substance Painter -> 5 mins of Substance Painters generators

 

[Jobbs]

3DCoat and Substance Painter both let you texture directly onto a model as though you were painting it as a physical model which you might find preferable.

Substance Painter has some built in tools for really fast basic texture generation too;

Crappy Blender spaceship model -> Substance Painter -> 5 mins of Substance Painters generators

So you can just brush directly onto the model as if you were painting a model in real life? I remember years ago saying that this should be a thing. I don't have any experience with 3D modeling and texturing, but whatever I see of the process makes it look unnecessarily difficult. Just painting right onto the model seems so natural and intuitive.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

So you can just brush directly onto the model as if you were painting a model in real life? I remember years ago saying that this should be a thing. I don't have any experience with 3D modeling and texturing, but whatever I see of the process makes it look unnecessarily difficult. Just painting right onto the model seems so natural and intuitive.

Yeah, exactly.
Stuff like Mudbox and 3DCoat (and even Blender) let you sculpt a model directly as though you were working with clay too.

Its pretty recent and pretty revolutionary in terms of workflows.

FWIW I am not a modeller or texturer of any skill whatsoever

EDIT:
Painting directly onto the model also removes the huge pain in the ass that UV unwrapping consists of - you can just use Blenders auto-unwrap and not give a shit (as I did above).

 

[Jacksinthe]

3DCoat and Substance Painter both let you texture directly onto a model as though you were painting it as a physical model which you might find preferable.

Substance Painter has some built in tools for really fast basic texture generation too;

Crappy Blender spaceship model -> Substance Painter -> 5 mins of Substance Painters generators

Holy shit this is amazing. I don't do anything with art but damn I may have to draw smiley faces on cubes or something with this :O

 

[Dynamite Shikoku]

Yeah, exactly.
Stuff like Mudbox and 3DCoat (and even Blender) let you sculpt a model directly as though you were working with clay too.

Its pretty recent and pretty revolutionary in terms of workflows.

FWIW I am not a modeller or texturer of any skill whatsoever

EDIT:
Painting directly onto the model also removes the huge pain in the ass that UV unwrapping consists of - you can just use Blenders auto-unwrap and not give a shit (as I did above).

Well, you still have to unwrap your models properly, even for painter. With simple shapes auto-unwrap will often work though.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

Well, you still have to unwrap your models properly, even for painter. With simple shapes auto-unwrap will often work though.

I dunno, I've never had a problem using Painter after just doing;

(actual models UVs on the right)

Which is technically 'properly unwrapped', but almost unusable in any traditional texturing pipeline, because there is zero indication what anything is.

but then again, like most things art related

 

[Terra_Ex]

Some great stuff in here as always, especially Das-J's spaceship, damn...

Bit late for screenshot saturday but I figured I'd show you a project me and a friend have been working on in our spare time which we put on Greenlight yesterday, Vertigo Void.

I've been having a heck of time trying to figure out how to complete some of the harder levels during playtesting, which is ironic considering I designed them, but at least the end is in sight. We've also worked in a in-game level editor so hopefully we'll see some interesting community creations after release. Overall it has been interesting to work on and gratifying to see come together over the course of several months.

 

[bkw]

3DCoat and Substance Painter both let you texture directly onto a model as though you were painting it as a physical model which you might find preferable.

Blender also lets you do this. Their brush engine leaves a lot to be desired though. (That was 2.7. Don't know if they've improved on this.)

 

[Soi-Fong]

Hey guys, for unwrapping UV's what would you guys recommend more 3D Coat or something like Roadkill?

I'm a 3DS Max user btw at least for modeling.

 

[EDarkness]

We've started to roll out a bunch of new media and are pretty happy with how the game is looking. What do you all think?

That looks damn rad, man. Something that appeals to me, too. Definitely nice looking.

I think the best way to add combat variation is if the enemies have more than one attack to perform against you. That way there's more than one thing you have to look out for and circumnavigate as you come in for the attack. Consider this enemy that I have in my game who mixes up a projectile attack with a ground spike summon. You can't just stand in one place during your approach or you'll be impaled:

Abe, I haven't seen your stuff in a long time, but what you're doing is shaping up nicely. Good to see it all in action and animated.

 

[anteevy]

Some great stuff in here as always, especially Das-J's spaceship, damn...

Bit late for screenshot saturday but I figured I'd show you a project me and a friend have been working on in our spare time which we put on Greenlight yesterday, Vertigo Void.



I've been having a heck of time trying to figure out how to complete some of the harder levels during playtesting, which is ironic considering I designed them, but at least the end is in sight. We've also worked in a in-game level editor so hopefully we'll see some interesting community creations after release. Overall it has been interesting to work on and gratifying to see come together over the course of several months.

Looks cool, I love mazes and gravity. Voted.

 

[Mikado]

Holy shit this is amazing. I don't do anything with art but damn I may have to draw smiley faces on cubes or something with this :O

If you're using a sculpting/retopo workflow (like ZBrush or Mudbox) you can also paint directly on the highpoly/sculpt model without UVs. Then once you've sorted out your UV's on the retopo mesh you can bake the polypaint to a texture when you're baking your normal maps. Maybe overkill for a cube though hah.

There's also Mari, which is a dedicated model painter that apparently lets you work without UVs until you're ready for them.

 

[Jacksinthe]

If you're using a sculpting/retopo workflow (like ZBrush or Mudbox) you can also paint directly on the highpoly/sculpt model without UVs. Then once you've sorted out your UV's on the retopo mesh you can bake the polypaint to a texture when you're baking your normal maps. Maybe overkill for a cube though hah.

There's also Mari, which is a dedicated model painter that apparently lets you work without UVs until you're ready for them.

I'll have to fiddle with these. I don't do any sort of art other than concept but I love to try new things so I'll have to give this a go. Thanks for the tips

 

[Jams775]

Can anyone give me information on design patterns or designing programs (not sure what it's really called) for someone like me who's self taught. I find myself wanting to expand simple things like player health, being attackable, killable, RPG mechanics etc but not really understanding a way in which to create them or at least make them modular and expandable. It'd be helpful if the text was geared towards game mechanics and not arbitrary. I understand better when it's relatable to what I'm trying to accomplish.

Even if it's just what to look for when googling. Thanks.

 

[Mikado]

Can anyone give me information on design patterns or designing programs (not sure what it's really called) for someone like me who's self taught.
Even if it's just what to look for when googling. Thanks.

For game logic it's hard to go wrong with the Entity-Component-System model : Has the benefit that it's more or less how Unity is set up, so you should be able to find lots of examples.

An understanding of how it works is useful for both creating your own engine, or working within an existing modern engine.

 

[ken_matthews]

3DCoat and Substance Painter both let you texture directly onto a model as though you were painting it as a physical model which you might find preferable.

Substance Painter has some built in tools for really fast basic texture generation too;

Crappy Blender spaceship model -> Substance Painter -> 5 mins of Substance Painters generators

For some objects, I do that in Mudbox (normal, spec, color). While I am not sure how limited it is compared to Substance Painter, I've gotten fairly good results. The thing is, I hate texuring period, but since I have to do it, I prefer to do most of the work in Photoshop. Maybe Ill try out substance painter on a later date. Thanks for the suggestion.

I have to first say that I'm not an artist, but first of all I'd drop the specular maps in UE4. You really rarely need a proper specular map in PBR and even the material guidelines on UE4 wiki suggest that you just go with the default specular value.

As for programs, I'd suggest looking into Quixel Suite (DDO in parituclar) and Substance Designer.

So I took your advice (expect for dropping spec maps, they really do make a difference even with PBR) and bought Quixel. And I am very impressed with the results. Although, it doesn't really speed things up much...maybe I am just slow...Anyway, thanks!

 

[Jams775]

For game logic it's hard to go wrong with the Entity-Component-System model : Has the benefit that it's more or less how Unity is set up, so you should be able to find lots of examples.

An understanding of how it works is useful for both creating your own engine, or working within an existing modern engine.

One and done perfectly. Thanks.

 

[Das-J]

Sooo goood.

holy balls

Seriously, that's absolutely gorgeous.

Das set the phasers to the "Holy Shit" setting. Looks fab.

That's damned pretty.

That looks damn rad, man. Something that appeals to me, too. Definitely nice looking.

If a game with those looks was announced as an AAA game on any conference, I certainly wouldn't complain about the looks. Mighty impressive.

Thanks everyone! Our Art Director has killed it on this project... he's basically a 1 man army.

 

[Five]

Abe, I haven't seen your stuff in a long time, but what you're doing is shaping up nicely. Good to see it all in action and animated.

Thanks! I was out of the country for a couple of months so it was hard to make progress updates. I'll try to post some more going forward.

Thanks everyone! Our Art Director has killed it on this project... he's basically a 1 man army.

I didn't want to pile on earlier but it feels inappropriate not to at this point: that's some seriously gorgeous art. You're very lucky!

 

[Nosgoroth]

So.

1) Reveal countdown site
2) for a game nobody's ever heard of
3) during E3 week
4) and which I'm too self-conscious to push around.

On a scale of -10/0 how bad of an idea was this.

 

[Jacksinthe]

So.

1) Reveal countdown site
2) for a game nobody's ever heard of
3) during E3 week
4) and which I'm too self-conscious to push around.

On a scale of -10/0 how bad of an idea was this.

Not during E3. Wait until dust settles. I'm avoiding posting new things for a few weeks until hype levels for the show fall off.

 

[Nosgoroth]

Not during E3. Wait until dust settles. I'm avoiding posting new things for a few weeks until hype levels for the show fall off.

Yep, that's what I thought. Bit late, though, the countdown is already up. Not that even 50 people have even seen it, but still, I'd hate to go back on it.

Ah well, I'll take the hit. It's not the main reveal, anyway, we're not that close to finishing.

 

[Das-J]

Out Steam Store page finally went live... we're getting close!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/360510/

 

[missile]

Out Steam Store page finally went live... we're getting close!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/360510/

Very enticing. :+

 

[Blizzard]

Substance Painter is 40% off as a flash sale on Steam. After MrNyarlathotep's demonstration, I think I'm going to pick it up even at the $90 price.

 

[Popstar]

I was looking at that Substance Painter sale too. I've been out of the loop with 3D for awhile though so I have no clue what all these new programs are.

Substance Painter / Designer / Bitmap2Material - these are all for texturing I take it.
MARI - also for painting textures
Quixel - texture painting as a Photoshop plugin?

3D Coat - retopology & texturing? also a sculpting app?

Geovox - Terrain modeler w/export options to... Unity only?

I need to find some sort of 'modern 3D apps overview'.

 

[ken_matthews]

Messed around with Quixel all day today and the bar is starting to look good (at least parts of it). The theme is suppose to be bandit / outlaw / "this place could use a lot of maintenance" space bar. The game will eventually be a side scroller beat-em-up with RPG elements (think old school ninja turtles arcade game + crafting + procedural enemies/levels/items + shops +combo system + character progression and abilities).

(the wall and ground textures are stock from UE4)

An sense of the side scroller perspective with our test character. I plan on adding a show area with a stage and some other crap in the background (to mix in a little old western saloon style)

 

[_machine]

Okay...

Seems to be working quite fine though

 

[Lautaro]

I uploaded my first build to Steam and so far is working flawlessly (game's not released yet ofc):



Starting my game from my own library feels so good...

 

[missile]

Art due to mStudios

Here is a nice application of the scaler I've talked about recently. I never
saw this melting effect since ages, so I did my own one. Up to my knowledge
this effect first appeared in DOOM. Well, I think I can add one or two more
improvements to it.

 

[Dascu]

Kickstarter has been expanded to cover some more countries in Europe, including Belgium, Austria and Italy. Good news.

 

[Water]

Not exactly game content, but yesterday evening I wrote a small grid graph generator with a crude animated visualization and the ability to "paint" different node types in the graph by clicking. It serves as a basis for my game dev students to experiment on and to implement more graph algorithms on their own; I provided basic BFS pathfinding as shown. I've been teaching them basic algorithms for a few days, and we haven't really spent time on data structures yet, but I jumped ahead in curriculum because I wanted them to have a fun application to look into before we go on summer vacation.

It's been a long time since I had the opportunity to just sit down and write code instead of teaching, and it's a ton of fun! I also learned some new things about editor scripting since I wanted to generate the grid and the underlying graph in editor mode and save it permanently in the scene. I think I have it at least half figured out now, but handling more complex data would require learning more. I'll eventually tackle that for sure since I want to learn to serialize a whole game state.

 

[Water]

Oh yeah, posting that previous screenshot reminds me I have a question about the Unity 5 shaders. I'd like the small quads on top to be completely transparent when they aren't showing a color, but they are showing grayish. I'm using Standard shader, Transparent rendering mode, and the default Albedo color has transparency (alpha) set to max. It doesn't matter what RGB value I give it, I tried both white and black and it stays gray translucent anyway. Also, I disabled cast & receive shadows on the prefab. Any ideas? Is the Standard shader incapable of rendering ( = not rendering) completely transparent material?

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

I was looking at that Substance Painter sale too. I've been out of the loop with 3D for awhile though so I have no clue what all these new programs are.

I'll reiterate I'm not an artist and don't come from an art background, but I'll cover what I can figure out from my use of the following;

Substance Painter / Designer / Bitmap2Material - these are all for texturing I take it.

Yeah;
- Substance painter = "Direct paint" onto a model, with a bunch of useful generators like being able to load a higher resolution model to generate your AO, curves, normals and stuff, so you can texture lower-poly models using a higher poly version as a reference

- Designer = procedural texture generator (so unsurprisingly works really well in tandem with Painter). Again, lots of useful texture generator effects that can use a reference mesh to add finer details, and is particularly useful for Unity as Unitys solution to procedural textures is Substances, so you can do things like realtime colour changes or add grunge or dirt effects to a texture procedurally either in the editor or via script

- BMP2Material = Crazy Bump ++ basically; lets you take an existing BMP texture, then tweak the shit out of it to create all the maps you would need for modern workflows.
Of the three, I've used this the least, but I have proper artist friends who love the shit out fo this and call it witchcraft, so I guess it does what its supposed to pretty damn well

3D Coat - retopology & texturing? also a sculpting app?

- 3dCoat = poor mans Zbrush / Mudbox basically.
Its a voxel based modeller, so basically sculpting, but it can do more traditional hard surface modelling too, and has a bunch of nice features like auto-retopo and texture directly onto the model either via UVs (with auto UV mapping) or via vertex painting, as well as supporting PBR material use and creation.
It's pretty nice and pretty cheap for what it is, but you cant use it for anything commercial outside of DOTA / TF2 items at all without the pro version.

As a "one stop shop" its really nice and very actively supported IMO.

EDIT:
As for GeoVox, I haven't tried it, but just assume everything by the AGF guys is a borderline scam of just being training wheels for using Unity when you would just be better off using Unity in the first place

EDIT2:
Probably worth mentioning while I'm shilling for the Substance Indie Pack;
- you can attach your steam purchases directly to an account on the allegorhytmic homepage via Steamauth and it will give you standalone licences and executables (which I wish more apps did)
- They have a really cool "Rent to buy" type subscription deal, where you can pay a monthly fee to get their apps, but the money you spend 'renting' is taken off the cost of buying new, and you can buy in full at any point. and your Steam purchases go towards this which is pretty cool of them in my book