• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

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

Status
Not open for further replies.
The funny thing is about copyright law is that copyrighting characters/names/specific things is a phenomenon entirely restricted to the USA, according to a legal student I once talked with whose main expertise is copyright law. Everywhere else, copyright just covers actual works, not the ideas contained within. So if you're actually living outside the USA, it's entirely possible to make and sell derivative works, though it is still legally risky and you couldn't sell such works in the US anyway.

Not that there should be this kind of legal ambiguity, I personally think only works themselves (basically, the 'text') should be copyrighted, not characters, names, concepts or ideas. That narrow definition, I think, works better for what copyright is actually supposed to be about, any more is unnecessarily restricting what creative artists can do with existing ideas. The public domain is already being starved as it is. It's not like we're being flooded with crappy stuff based off King Arthur or Robin Hood and the like, it wouldn't open up the floodgates to even more crap on Steam, and the mobile stores have plenty of blatant copyright violating apps already. I think consumers will reward creators who use existing ideas and characters in new and interesting ways as opposed to paying for obvious crap.

I'm not a proponent of unfettered capitalism, but you'd think copyright would be one of the first things proponents of a free market would want to tear down, the hypocritical pricks.

tg1lds2b.gif


(sorry for the messy gif)

Just wondering, how're you handling attack collisions? Spherecasts each frame of the attack animations?
 

KevinCow

Banned
The animation feature in Unity is pissing me off. Why is it that, by default, it tries to "blend" my animations together despite the fact that I'm using sprites? All this does is results in a delay between when I press the button and when the action happens? I have to fuck around with the settings to make it not do this. There should just be a big button that says "DO NOT BLEND" so I don't have to fuck around with the settings every single time I do an animation.

And don't get me started on trying to transition from the Any State block, which seems to be just plain broken, as it's apparently completely impossible to make the animations snappy like I want them. So if I want to make something that can transitioned to from any state, I have to literally create a separate transition from every single other state.
 

Blizzard

Banned
I'm thinking about it. Just need to find a good way of implementing it seeing how my city is randomly generated. All the building are divided in floors so I can make a couple different floors with different props at least.
I still want to keep the windows as free as possible though. I need to be able to hit the windows with the packages.
From a brief Google search, some other people have apparently attempted to make procedural buildings in UE4.

Oddly enough, UDK had a ProcBuilding feature that aimed to make the sort of buildings you're designing, but I don't know that there was much interactivity once they were created. I suppose one could manually create trigger volumes, though that partly defeats the idea of doing it procedurally.
 

mStudios

Member
Hey guys, quick question:

There is an actress who wants to portrait Alice in real life. She looks 100% like Alice.
She wants to do a photo section.
How would anyone feel if we use the photo section pics as promo/advertising?
 
The animation feature in Unity is pissing me off. Why is it that, by default, it tries to "blend" my animations together despite the fact that I'm using sprites? All this does is results in a delay between when I press the button and when the action happens? I have to fuck around with the settings to make it not do this. There should just be a big button that says "DO NOT BLEND" so I don't have to fuck around with the settings every single time I do an animation.

And don't get me started on trying to transition from the Any State block, which seems to be just plain broken, as it's apparently completely impossible to make the animations snappy like I want them. So if I want to make something that can transitioned to from any state, I have to literally create a separate transition from every single other state.
Correct. Make an arrow from A to B, add your cases, remove any EXIT and TRANSITION times and call it a day.

If you have any pre or post animation you don't need multiple transitions called from script. Like for our Jump Guy 1000 he has a landing and reset animation, we only call grounded and it runs the rest using exit times and blends.

The animation system is fine for what it offers, it just requires your direct input. Also, there are blends using sprites. Its not unneeded and VERY nice to use WITH Spine, Spriter, etc - any skeletal sprite animation. Once you get used to it you can make entire trees in seconds.

Also, you can cheat with child objects enabling, disabling - if using the Animator for transitions gets to you. On/Off children with single animations. That's some serious duct tape action and I wouldn't recommend it but only in the most extreme circumstances when you have exhausted all other options.
 

Blizzard

Banned
Just a reminder to everyone, Ludum Dare is next weekend. I look forward to the theme voting next week, which is possibly more fun to me than actually doing the game. :p

Despite my miserable failure last time, I plan to try it again! I feel like it's a good break from my main work to do something completely different every once in a while.
 
Just a reminder to everyone, Ludum Dare is next weekend. I look forward to the theme voting next week, which is possibly more fun to me than actually doing the game. :p

Despite my miserable failure last time, I plan to try it again! I feel like it's a good break from my main work to do something completely different every once in a while.
Someone should make a thread now. I think there are more people that are entering that don't post here lol
 

Unain

Member
From a brief Google search, some other people have apparently attempted to make procedural buildings in UE4.

Oddly enough, UDK had a ProcBuilding feature that aimed to make the sort of buildings you're designing, but I don't know that there was much interactivity once they were created. I suppose one could manually create trigger volumes, though that partly defeats the idea of doing it procedurally.

Should be fine. I've got a nice setup going where I spawn certain objects for where the windows are. I can just adjust that when I want to spawn certain props in front of that window.
I could maybe make certain props destructible so that you have to hit a certain window twice to get it in there.
 

Pehesse

Member
Me too.

I take it they don't have anything to offer?

I'm not sure if they really don't, but I can't say I care for their methods, so even if they did, I wouldn't be interested in working with them.

I can't really determine if they're good-spirited and aiming to make a name for themselves as much as the projects they support, but are really quite naive and have questionable methods due to lack of experience/overeagerness... or if there's something more shady at work altogether. I'm not willing to take the chance and find out.

As a word of warning on that subject, it appears they've been promoting some games on their tumblr (possibly other places) as if they were partnered, when it apparently wasn't the case. Not going to name names, nor numbers, as I only know of the one case, but one's enough to make me wary of the whole thing. Might be a good idea to check from time to time if anyone here finds his/her own game there after being in contact with them, just in case!
 

Jumplion

Member
Yeah I imagine if you've been doing it for a while, it's nothing. I just started with this stuff and feel almost restless about staying on it. I'm sure i'm overreacting though. Welp the plans were called off so i'm not going out of town anymore anyway lol.



The orthographic camera view in Unity did most of the work for me on that front.

Hey, if it looks pretty it looks pretty. I should probably stop piddling around and actually sit down and hash out sketches/models or something, even if they'll look like chicken scratches.
 

Lautaro

Member
I gotta say people in Steam are less hostile than I expected, of course it helps that I have a very small audience but the people in the forums of my game have been in general pretty supportive.

Now I'm working in something requested by the players, a randomized campaign map:

APmjNE8.gif


I doubt that I'll be able to make all their requests but I think I can at least finish the original planned features and then just leave Early Access and start a new project as soon as possible.
 

SeanNoonan

Member
I can't really determine if they're good-spirited and aiming to make a name for themselves as much as the projects they support, but are really quite naive and have questionable methods due to lack of experience/overeagerness... or if there's something more shady at work altogether. I'm not willing to take the chance and find out.

Glad that I don't need anything like that; I am fortunate enough to have a paying game development job to cover paying for my life. However, as I don't particularly enjoy the release process as it is, I think I'd enjoy having someone else talk about/market the game rather than myself. I really dislike talking about my work, I find it embarrassing - I just feel like I'm hassling people and/or it isn't good enough.

My main goal is for my hobby games to pay for Adobe CC and the yearly iOS fees. Unfortunately I'm coming up short right now, so I'm spending my time on a new update for Jack B. Nimble before starting a new game (which would obviously take a lot more time).
 

speps

Neo Member
I really dislike talking about my work, I find it embarrassing - I just feel like I'm hassling people and/or it isn't good enough.

I feel exactly the same, I've not started anything yet for my own project though. I'm hoping to start soon and post my progress here.
 

speps

Neo Member
This is probably a stupid question but i returned to c++ after a lot of time and now i don't remember anything! XD

About template classes and their subclasses, if i declare something like:

template <class T> class List:
{

class Node
{
T element;
...
}
...
}

element will always be of the same class T of the template class List or the subclass Node must be template too?

That's valid C++ yeah, the Node class doesn't need to be templated too.
 

Lork

Member
The animation feature in Unity is pissing me off. Why is it that, by default, it tries to "blend" my animations together despite the fact that I'm using sprites? All this does is results in a delay between when I press the button and when the action happens? I have to fuck around with the settings to make it not do this. There should just be a big button that says "DO NOT BLEND" so I don't have to fuck around with the settings every single time I do an animation.

And don't get me started on trying to transition from the Any State block, which seems to be just plain broken, as it's apparently completely impossible to make the animations snappy like I want them. So if I want to make something that can transitioned to from any state, I have to literally create a separate transition from every single other state.
What's "broken" about the Any State? I haven't had any problems with it. Mecanim's default settings are beyond stupid even for 3D animation, but it works just fine if you know which levers to pull.
 

scaffa

Member
Don't worry, I haven't been re-contacted either. Thank God.

They contacted me awhile ago and received another email this week. The odd thing is they are contacting me on an email that is not listed on my website, its not a super hidden mail but still it's odd.

They listed a friends game on their website without their knowledge, I have no idea what their deal is.

edit: Forgot to say the game is no longer on the site. But I don't know all the details and the full story. But based on the way they contact devs, the twitter presence and how they present themselves my gut instinct tells me to stay away from them.
 

Five

Banned
They contacted me awhile ago and received another email this week. The odd thing is they are contacting me on an email that is not listed on my website, its not a super hidden mail but still it's odd.

They listed a friends game on their website without their knowledge, I have no idea what their deal is.

Send them a cease and desist letter. That should be enough for them to pull it. Hopefully this doesn't turn into some huge thing.
 

mStudios

Member
Newest and last addition to the nostalgia female crew. I removed Memphis as a main character and added Maria.

I'm done already with female characters.
Memphis goes as a secondary character.
The one of the top is using the game's artstyle, while the one in the bottom its with my own artstyle (unfinished).

Maria is Celia's ex Sargent.

Memphis:


Where everything starts (prologue):

Oh, Demo will be released pretty soon (just the prologue)
 

Unain

Member
Buildings implemented:


Still lots of work to be done:
- Every floor still has some polygons on the bottom/top (can get rid of those).
- Might need to do some LODs depending on performance.
- Need to do proper collisions (they are automatically generated atm).
- Drawcalls while driving in the city is about 250 which is decent for a whole city.
- Still need a bit more variation (working on 2 more buildings+additional colors).
- Pink lines is the waypoint grid for the AI.
 

Blizzard

Banned
Where everything starts (prologue):
Lab01.png
Your background art would fit right in some high-quality anime. My only comment is that the bottom brace on the right table doesn't look quite like it follows the same perspective as the floor tyle, but I'm no perspective expert.
 
Your background art would fit right in some high-quality anime. My only comment is that the bottom brace on the right table doesn't look quite like it follows the same perspective as the floor tyle, but I'm no perspective expert.

just throw someone in front of it and a dialogue box. no one will see it.1
 

mStudios

Member
Your BG work is insane.

Your background art would fit right in some high-quality anime. My only comment is that the bottom brace on the right table doesn't look quite like it follows the same perspective as the floor tyle, but I'm no perspective expert.

I'd love to see some WIP shots of that/a process tutorial kind of explanation of how you get there!

Thanks! Glad you all liked it!

To answer Pehesee. The secret is to draw in gray scale and color/paint on top of it.
Here's an example (not by me, but from one of the previous artists and sketches are not included)
1MqQDJQ.gif

atlFVBr.gif


just throw someone in front of it and a dialogue box. no one will see it.1

Also, this ^

haha
 

bkw

Member
Unity folks, how do you handle loading stuff without stalling the screen? Currently I have all my game systems and managers sitting on the first scene, but I think doing it this way makes the game sit on a black screen on launch before anything appears.

I tried having a separate smaller scene load up first, so I can show a loading animation, and then calling LoadLevelAsync on the original scene, but I think that still causes a long pause, when all the game object in the new scene get Awake-n together.

I think I also need to do that thing where you show a camera a texture behind the scenes, to force Unity(?) to preload the texture to vram... but that's probably another issue.
 
I tried having a separate smaller scene load up first, so I can show a loading animation, and then calling LoadLevelAsync on the original scene, but I think that still causes a long pause, when all the game object in the new scene get Awake-n together.

I think I also need to do that thing where you show a camera a texture behind the scenes, to force Unity(?) to preload the texture to vram... but that's probably another issue.

Yeah, starting the scene can be slow and choppy. We start with a main menu, slap a loading screen and a progress indicator on top and then LoadLevelAsync. It works well enough for our purposes, so I haven't experimented with additive loading yet. As for preloading textures, I just fling the camera across the whole level one screenful per frame behind the loading screen. Kind of ridiculous, but eliminates hitching quite nicely. Some objects also do the activate/deactivate dance during the warmup.
 
Thanks! Glad you all liked it!

To answer Pehesee. The secret is to draw in gray scale and color/paint on top of it.
Here's an example (not by me, but from one of the previous artists and sketches are not included)
1MqQDJQ.gif

atlFVBr.gif




Also, this ^

haha

Wow, thats usually soemthing you see on pixar artbooks etc, but never use as i drectly start to colour. The quality is incredible.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom