Are you in Unity? You make the UI and then attach code to each individual part of it. Or at least, that's how I do it.
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GAF Indie Game Development Thread 2: High Res Work for Low Res Pay
- Thread starter Jacksinthe
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Are you in Unity? You make the UI and then attach code to each individual part of it. Or at least, that's how I do it.
Nah, I'm in Game Maker.
Regardless of how I get it done... I still haven't come up with a good one yet.
Don't some companies have UI designers?
Nah, I'm in Game Maker.
Regardless of how I get it done... I still haven't come up with a good one yet.
Don't some companies have UI designers?
Regarding your question:
If you're going for a simple UI design, you can always code your way throught it. Draw rectangles, lines, circles, and text to make your HP/MP bars, menu commands, etc.
If you want something more unique (and probably better looking) you'll need to replace those rectangles and shapes with custom sprites,
In both cases, if you're using game maker, you'll probably want to draw all your GUI elements using the "Draw GUI" event (instead of the regular "Draw" event).
Here's an example of my HUD, which I made using custom animated sprites:
Regarding your question:
If you're going for a simple UI design, you can always code your way throught it. Draw rectangles, lines, circles, and text to make your HP/MP bars, menu commands, etc.
If you want something more unique (and probably better looking) you'll need to replace those rectangles and shapes with custom sprites,
In both cases, if you're using game maker, you'll probably want to draw all your GUI elements using the "Draw GUI" event (instead of the regular "Draw" event).
Here's an example of my HUD, which I made using custom animated sprites:
I guess I want to have custom sprites for the layout but then have it draw the text? Is that what you do for the '100' and '20'?
Also I made some Menu 'not in level' concept art...
http://imgur.com/a/8j8tp
I tried to make it clean as possible. Currently I'm designing however, with a controller or arrow keys/WASD in mind rather than a mouse.
Hey where were you at PAX Prime, I was hanging out at the Adult Swim booth which kept looping your trailer and there was no Matt
Krita seems cool and I started trying to use it, but I've almost immediately run into an issue. Neither rectangle drag select nor any tool seems to show the image coordinates (or rectangle select size)? And the reason for this is that some tablets have high resolution so they had problems with too many events?
I feel like ALL my other image editors / paint tools show cursor coordinates. Is there any way to do it in Krita or is the odd one out?
I feel like ALL my other image editors / paint tools show cursor coordinates. Is there any way to do it in Krita or is the odd one out?
liliththepale
Banned
That's so cool! Thanks for deciding to go ahead and share it.
Walking through fur.
Walking through fur.
Is that MGS1 Snake, Dascu? Great seeing you here <3
In Project Babel related news, I've got some changes to make. From the last round of testing (as in, not the test that happened this last week, but the last revision test back in May or so), I knew that players didn't really pay attention to the numbers on items, so even though I had a "tier" system in place (you start with tier 1 gear, store bought would be tier 2, quests give tier 3, and then stuff for accomplishing major things ala sidebosses/story items are tier 4), I color-coded it, and made that visible to the player.
So, tier 1 items give 32 points per item, and are White.
Tier 2 give 40 points per item, and are Blue.
Tier 3 items give 46 points per item, and are Purple.
Tier 4 items give 50 points per item, but depending on their source are either Orange or Pink. Orange items are what I'm currently calling "Lore" pieces, they're pieces integral to the lore of the zone they're acquired in. You can do the main story without acquiring a single Lore item, as they're technically sidequests that are tied to the individual story of that zone, rather than the story the player is a part of. Pink items are essentially Borderlands 2's Seraphim items, or as I'm calling them, "Raid" pieces. Sidebosses will be my equivalent to the raid bosses in Borderlands 2. You can beat them, but it will test your skills, your patience, and your ability to fully utilize the items available in the game.
I bring all of this up, because I've learned some things from my most recent tests. So, as it turns out, players have no fucking clue what stats do what. No idea what agility does, no idea what magic attack does, magic defense, nor luck. And that's 100% my bad. I tunnel visioned and forgot to give the player a way to discover what these stats do. However, I don't want to just tell them once and expect them to remember that until the end of time, nor force them to go to a specific place to read a specific book to find out what a specific stat does. My compromise is a Field Guide.
Essentially, the Field Guide should *hopefully* be a one-stop-shop for knowledge. As I'm realizing, the testers didn't talk with each other, and I can't necessarily expect any sort of community that this game actually gets to figure out the ins and outs of the system I've set up. So, I want to be more transparent. The field guide will be a key item that players use, similar to the traditional bestiary, except with some bonus info. When you start fighting things, you may not have a clue what they do. After fighting a couple, your field guide will update, and now you'll know what kind of abilities they have. Fight a couple more, learn their stats. Fight a couple more, get information on what they drop.
Now, another positive to a field guide, is that I can throw in other stuff as well, and essentially replace a need for a glossary, quest guide, this nick, that knack or whatever else. For the Lore items mentioned earlier, after the player fights a main boss, they'll get just a tidbit of info on them. But, as they progress the Lore sidequests that information will be filled with more of the knowledge they've ascertained. And back to the original thing that resulted in my making the field guide, it lets me go, okay, you've fought x enemies, here's information on Luck. You fought x more, here's some info on Agility. You learned everything there is to learn about stats, here's some information on the tiers. Here's some hints that some items have hidden properties.
It just lets me flesh out the world and the mechanics by replacing a tutorial system with something that (hopefully) encourages the player to explore not only the world, but their personal comfort zones in the game. Now I just need to finish getting the thing 100% functional, and I can move on with Transyl
. Sorry for the rant, yet again.Liu KangggggggFirst game jams I'm really partaking this year (I know...though I did organize GGJ here)!
electroflame
Member
I guess it would probably depend on how graphic we're talking here.
I'm not aware of blood/gore being against the rules (especially in this context), but if it's pretty extreme you could always PM a mod about it.
Putting it behind a clickable link/spoiler tag is probably the best course of action, though.
Jacksinthe
Banned
Throw up a link and you'll be fine, you don't have to embed it.
liliththepale
Banned
If you're concerned, wrap it in spoiler tags (they work for images now) and give a disclaimer.
Jacksinthe
Banned
If you want to make a good walk animation, even for this art, watch or take a video of someone walking. Keyframe the hands and feet however many frames you like to get some movement. From there, adjust as needed.Here's my first attempt at my walking animation from the side...
I'm unsure if like it... (Also what do you guys like better, transparent shadow or one that is opaque?)
I need to get this right, as all 'human' characters will be based off of this animation.
How about this?
What it looks like actually moving across a surface and a faster animation speed.
electroflame
Member
So, uh, it looks like Unity Japan integrated NVIDIA HairWorks into Unity.
The GitHub readme is all in Japanese, so I've no idea what it says, but the gif looks interesting enough.
I wonder what the performance impact ends up being, especially for AMD cards.
The GitHub readme is all in Japanese, so I've no idea what it says, but the gif looks interesting enough.
I wonder what the performance impact ends up being, especially for AMD cards.
I did some dev work on an Indie Game released over the weekend for iOS and Android. Its a word-battle game where you play as an eraser battling drawings called "Scroodles."
The launch has gone pretty well, but here's some advice to other indie guys and gals:
Having said all that we still have a review rating of 4.25 on Google Play and 5 stars on iOS, so it hasn't been all bad. Check it out if you're interested:
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.MadSallyGames.Scroodles
App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/scroodles/id912236766?mt=8
The launch has gone pretty well, but here's some advice to other indie guys and gals:
- Watch your Battery Life on Mobile -- We're running Unity at 60 fps and its hurting our battery drain. I recommend sticking with 30 fps, which we're looking to switch back to in an update.
- Don't Launch Worldwide without Translating -- As a word game translating to other languages is pretty complex. But we figured we'd launch worldwide as a lot of people speak English even in counties where that isn't native. But now we're getting some one star reviews asking us to translate, which is pulling us from being higher rated.
- If You need a Dictionary, Make it Perfect -- If you ever need to use a dictionary in your game, make sure its perfect. Our dictionary is missing some plural nouns and people hate that. We're going to adjust it in an update.
Having said all that we still have a review rating of 4.25 on Google Play and 5 stars on iOS, so it hasn't been all bad. Check it out if you're interested:
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.MadSallyGames.Scroodles
App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/scroodles/id912236766?mt=8
ken_matthews
Member
Very nice modelling/texturing! But they would do fine with a more used look
Yeah, maybe I'll and some weathering options in Substance Designer. Right now I am pre-baking them in Painter.
Going for that M. Bison style eh?
Well you can't go wrong with a skull and wings (similarities weren't intentional)
Finished a jacket vest and camo pants earlier today. I'll probably add some seams and pockets to the pants later. Also started sculpting the body details.
ken_matthews
Member
Walking through fur.
Thats pretty cool. What engine are you using?
Awesome
Walking through fur.
I really like your HUD. I spend a totally inordinate amount of time worrying about trying to perfect that sort of stuff but I just can't hit that level of clean and concise.Regarding your question:
I might have hit my biggest road block yet. I've been trying to develop the enemy AI but I think how I'm doing the movement system straight up might not support it.
Because whereas in other codes I see, they generate the movement area... (The blue area in this gif I made: http://i.picpar.com/KK4b.gif), I have objects that are created...
I'm wondering if I should scrap all I have now. That is... all the code I've been working on for days.
Because whereas in other codes I see, they generate the movement area... (The blue area in this gif I made: http://i.picpar.com/KK4b.gif), I have objects that are created...
I'm wondering if I should scrap all I have now.
That is... all the code I've been working on for days.After thinking about this a bit, I suppose I could just work at whatever resolution in Krita and try to adjust it in other image editors. I understand it's not primarily a pixel-focused editing tool, but I was taken aback that I couldn't find ANY way to show the mouse position.
Even if tablet performance was iffy, they could have left in a patch someone offered and just made it an optional setting one could enable for mouse usage, I would think.
Unity3D
About time someone made a spiritual successor to Privates.
Walking through fur.
j/k, looks great
spazchicken
Member
I'll close this page with my last animation for this set!
Finally done with this crunch, now onto the next thing on the planning: scripting the match proper, before fixing up the test version based on the latest feedback.
I'll admit my thoughts have drifted pretty much exclusively to the design of my platformer/action idea during the coloring process, but it's time to get my head back in the game now :-D
That hair tussling around looks amazing.
It really shows off the momentum her head is going through as she struggles to keep it on her shoulders.
I can also see how much you are improving as an animator. I hate to say it but you might have to go back and re-do some earlier work due to this, if you haven't already. We are going through the same thing.
Walking through fur.
It's already been said, but damn that looks fantastic.
Thanks a lot
And you're completely right, I've actually already redone quite a few of Honey's animations... more than half of her moveset so far, and possibly even more later on. Still trying to balance the urge to redo early eyesore stuff, and the necessity of moving along to actually *finish* the game. I'm also redoing some of the earlier cutins that don't cut it anymore, though that's a lot faster!
Here's a gfy with some of said redone Honey's animations (Idle, Jump related stuff), but mostly the brand new camera control: http://gfycat.com/EveryGranularHochstettersfrog
(You can compare with previous versions of the same animations here: http://pehesse.tumblr.com/post/86124637313/todays-loot-did-the-collision-checks-for , it's pretty funny :-D)
Can't believe smooth transitions were a single line of code away! I was almost ready to give up on that problem and have snap camera transitions when the enemy wandered off screen, as unpleasant as it was... but some stuff in BB's match made it a necessity to look into.
For those curious: I was using C2's scrollto behaviors before (on both the player and enemy logic boxes, the actual things moving around - the animated sprites are drawn on top), and the new version uses a "scrollto: lerp(scrollx, (PlayerBox.X+EnemyBox.X)/2, 0.05)" type of command. Still need the scrollto behaviors for screenshaking, since for some reason shake effect are tied to the scrollto behavior in C2, but the behaviors are now disabled until I need the screen to shake, and re-disabled right after.
If anyone wants screens/a more detailed explanation, I'll go into further detail as much as I can!
HellBlazer
Member
If I may... isn't her idle animation way too fast? It feels like she would exhaust herself just bouncing back and forth like that.
Jacksinthe
Banned
All you need is a set of stairs and that GIF is set!
Unity. Mecanim. Never again.
electroflame
Member
Of course you may! Thanks for the feedback!
As to her being too fast: I don't think she is. I'd rather have too much expressiveness in general rather than not enough, to be honest. It's cartoon emphasis, and as it's meant to characterize her as overly full of energy, I believe it fits!
As for the animation playback rate, it's variable depending on the speed stat, recorded here is the tier 3 speed (so pretty fast, but the base rate is still a bit fast). Playtest feedback unanimously preferred faster playback rates anyway, so I'm confident going with that
That's probably the feeling the rest of my team is having, as I'm doing the characters with Mixamo and also some programming and they would never let me touch either of those aspects during "proper" development.
Unless you meant Feep's TCaE gif from a while back...
Speaking of which, here's a little screenshot update on Ancestory, showing Keijo, the fastest minion in the game and one that is really useful in capturing empty totems or finishing off ranged units:
Imgur and 720p because of some reason my connection isn't working properly and I can't upload anything to Abload.
Awesome! It sounds like a great date to release the game and I'm sure it'll do very well. I'm admittedly a bit nervous that we won't make it for a September release as the oncoming AAA-wave could be a bit tough to beat.
Oh, and I don't have a key
How about this?
What it looks like actually moving across a surface and a faster animation speed.
So, if I may, the big issue I'm seeing with the animation is that it looks like the character is "turning" away from the camera. If you adjust the design on the front to look like it's moving as well, that should put further emphasis on how "hard" the character is moving.
Absolutely fantastic trailer.
SeanNoonan
Member
Think I'm getting better at recording at the correct speed... bit slow this time, but it fits the theme I guess
Unlikely, my dream is to be done with all versions of the game by then and be taking a break from the endless cycle of development & conferences
But if I do end up there we absolutely have to meet.Your game was looking lovely at the booth btw.
Unlikely, my dream is to be done with all versions of the game by then and be taking a break from the endless cycle of development & conferences
Your game was looking lovely at the booth btw.
Thank you, and trust me I know the feeling.
The quick compile method in Stencyl keeps getting better. It's using something called "cppia" -- I'm not sure exactly how it works, but the time has gotten down to mere seconds to compile. Right now it's 30 something seconds, I think the guy told me he plans to get it to like 10 seconds.
The catch, of course, is that a test compile has a few performance hitches compared to a regular compile, but for development purposes that's not a big deal.
Contrast this against to the year I spent working on the game with 15, then 20, then 30, then 40 minute compile times (for a fresh compile) and 2-3 minute compiles for cached compiles. 40 minutes to 40 seconds in one update.
The catch, of course, is that a test compile has a few performance hitches compared to a regular compile, but for development purposes that's not a big deal.
Contrast this against to the year I spent working on the game with 15, then 20, then 30, then 40 minute compile times (for a fresh compile) and 2-3 minute compiles for cached compiles. 40 minutes to 40 seconds in one update.
Compile times are really important for productivity. I would abandon an engine immediately if fastest test builds took over a minute. 40 seconds from modification to testing is still bad. One of my software engineer friends has told me that even going from 30 seconds to 5 seconds is enough that it's a significant factor in his choice of programming language for a new project (and he's not in games; the iteration time is more important for us than him IMO).
Jacksinthe
Banned
Will be streaming some later tonight like 8pm CSTish if y'all want to gang.
This is good. Long compile times just to test outside the editor sucks, doubly so when you have multiple platforms to test on. 40 minutes would drive me bonkers on a single compile.
well, we're carving new territory for stencyl, I used it as a total dev newbie to learn how to make games. When I started the tool was mainly purposed for making little flash games, and sort of as a learner toy. Since that time it has grown with me, and in many cases because of me (many times they have added shit I need because I need it -- shaders, gamepad support, easier memory management, better scene editor, and the list goes on). As a program it still has some vestigial toy-like qualities (for example, certain inexplicable QOL problems) but it's always improving.
I didn't know the compiles would get so long until I was far enough into the project that I couldn't really turn back, so now that they're being improved so drastically it's a huge burden off.
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