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

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F

friken

Member
friken said:
Hey guys... I'm back at it after a long break focusing on other life stuff (short for I got lazy and slacked off for many months). As always, the posts here help motivate me and keep going.

As I'm getting back into stardiver dev, I started w what is fun to me (not what needs doing)...lol. So, I wanted gas giants to look more banded and flowing more. I got something I love the look of, but I am getting what I suspect is material rendering order issue making it flash (similar to z fighting. All layers are particle/multiply or multiply-double). For unity devs on here, is there any way to lock down the order the engine renders it's materials?

Here is the a video of the issue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7AJWUYJLZU&feature=youtu.be

UntidyWarpedIggypops.gif


I could just call it a lightning storm... and every gas giant has it in the brightest areas, heh...
Click to expand...

Sorted this out. I'll add the fix here for anyone in the future that hits this issue. Unity has a render queue and for whatever reason the order of the materials being rendered is shifting at runtime. You can manually set the renderQueue per material.

The hidden tidbit that I could only find burried in a wiki somewhere was that the renderqueue for all transparent materials starts at 3000. So for my case the order gets set to something like this:

surface planetary shader = 0
cloud1 multiply = 3001
cloud2 multiply-double = 3002
cloud3 multiply = 3003
... and so on.

So...... no more flashing gas giant w lots of layers of shifting awesomeness.
EnragedRewardingFunnelweaverspider.gif
 
Z

ZServ

Member
jarosh said:
Thanks guys! SDK GET!



Only 11 days surprisingly. And even launching at the worst possible time, as it turned out (between Christmas and New Year's).
Click to expand...

Congrats, man! :)

Been thinking a lot about "psuedo-random" generation lately. Not even generation, really. Core idea at it's basest form is that you have a cross shape, 4 paths that interconnect at some point. Those paths will be their own shape and whatever, but for sake of concept, they're straight. At the end of each path is a "static" area. An area that will be the same, always. So, maybe a dungeon, or a town, or whatever. The paths that lead to these "static" points would be made up of several "sub-maps" normally, anyway, so what if these "sub-maps" were interchangeable? If a path is made up of 3 "sub-maps", and your flow is essentially "start from the bottom, head up to the top," then all you'd need to do is make sure that the maps entrances and exits were similar enough that players wouldn't question it. Then, you could hand-make variants of these "sub-maps" and fill in a path as you go.

This is probably incredibly confusing, and that's because it's merely a thought in my head so far, so while it makes sense to me, I don't know how to word it for others. Essentially, you design a couple of "static" areas that will never change, and build templates for the areas between those areas. Make variants on the "sub-maps," and whenever a player starts the game, choose which variants will make up a given path. Hypothetically, it could be interesting for making an "overworld" that changes every playthrough, but is the same *during* that playthrough.
 
J

Jobbs

Banned
Any good 3D modelers here who might be willing to make a 3D model of Dizzy?

dizsaymund.jpg


I can provide a better visual study, but that's the jist. A ball with shit on it. One of the purposes may be 3D printing to make cool swag.
 
J

jarosh

Member
friken said:
Nice, that is a quick greenlight. Congrats and fingers crossed that stardiver can greenlight too.
Click to expand...
Your game looks pretty rad, so I'm sure it'll get in quick as well ;)

AbsintheGames said:
MY VOTE WORKED! I'M GOOD FOR SOMETHING!
Click to expand...
I couldn't have done it without your vote!!!

Jobbs said:
Any good 3D modelers here who might be willing to make a 3D model of Dizzy?

dizsaymund.jpg


I can provide a better visual study, but that's the jist. A ball with shit on it. One of the purposes may be 3D printing to make cool swag.
Click to expand...
Do you do all the concept art yourself?
 
C

correojon

Member
Hi, IndieGaf! I started making a game about a month ago and even though I still don´t have nothing to show, I thought I should join the fun in this OT :) I started developing it with Unity, but last week switched to Game Maker as development had been going really slowly and I have a lot of experience with GM...even if I haven´t touched it in almost 10 years. In just a week I´m already past what I had achieved with Unity in 4x the time and everything is going smoothly. I already have the basic movement of the player down and have successfully implemented vertical, horizontal and circular moving semisolid platforms. I still have no idea about the game´s theme and art-style though.

The game is a 2D platformer greatly inspired by Super Mario World: simple physics and controls and exploration to find secret exits for the overworld map. The challenge will come from the obstacles and I intend to follow a Nintendo approach and make each stage around a main mechanic. The difficulty will be lowish for the main challenges, while the secret exits will require more abbility and observation. Also, I intend to make a level editor Super Mario Maker-style and add it to the game. My idea is that the level editor also comes with some tutorials to explain level design theories and after beating a level from the campaign, the player can open it in the editor and watch anotations that explain certain things.

I hope to be able to show something soon and that you´ll like it :)

jarosh said:
Thanks guys! SDK GET!


Only 11 days surprisingly. And even launching at the worst possible time, as it turned out (between Christmas and New Year's).
Click to expand...

Congrats! If you need someone to test the game and give you feedback you can count on me, I can record some gameplay too.
 
J

jarosh

Member
correojon said:
Congrats! If you need someone to test the game and give you feedback you can count on me, I can record some gameplay too.
Click to expand...

Might get back to you on that! But be warned, the level design philosophy is quite different from that of my Mario Maker levels ;)
 
K

ken_matthews

Member
jarosh said:
Woooooo! Thanks everyone in here for the support! That went way faster than I expected.

Click to expand...

Congratulations! Quick question though, do you think it was posting it on GAF that really moved the ball forward?

Jobbs said:
Any good 3D modelers here who might be willing to make a 3D model of Dizzy?

dizsaymund.jpg


I can provide a better visual study, but that's the jist. A ball with shit on it. One of the purposes may be 3D printing to make cool swag.
Click to expand...

Doesn't look like a complicated object, I can probably do that fairly quick (and would love to contribute). Want to provide art for different angles? Otherwise I'll just start making shit up and it probably won't turn out the way you expected.
 
J

Jobbs

Banned
jarosh said:
Cool. Love the style.
Click to expand...

thank you :)

ken_matthews said:
Doesn't look like a complicated object, I can probably do that fairly quick (and would love to contribute). Want to provide art for different angels? Otherwise I'll just start making shit up and it probably won't turn out the way you expected.
Click to expand...

Nice. :) Yeah, I can. I just have to draw it out.

Subtilia said:
I can low poly and would love to contribute with this!
Click to expand...

Would a low poly version work better for printing? I'm a bit intrigued.
 
S

Subtilia

Neo Member
Jobbs said:
Would a low poly version work better for printing? I'm a bit intrigued.
Click to expand...

I guess it would depend on the kind of 3D printing you use, it could make finishing the surface easier, tho.
But still I think it would be more of a stylistic choice.
 
J

jahasaja

Member
updating my game A Bastard's tale

What do you all feel about this stone church. (do not need to mind the top of the tower it will not be visible in the game). Is it giving out a medieval vibe?

clockmoving.gif
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
jahasaja said:
updating my game A Bastard's tale

What do you all feel about this stone church. (do not need to mind the top of the tower it will not be visible in the game). Is it giving out a medieval vibe?

clockmoving.gif
Click to expand...
The stained glass window on the right looks like someone is using the toilet. ;) Other than that, looks nice.
 
N

Noaloha

Member
jahasaja said:
updating my game A Bastard's tale

What do you all feel about this stone church. (do not need to mind the top of the tower it will not be visible in the game). Is it giving out a medieval vibe?
Click to expand...

I think I'd darken the interior of the bell tower a little to better differentiate those pillars from the forewall.
 
K

ken_matthews

Member
jahasaja said:
updating my game A Bastard's tale

What do you all feel about this stone church. (do not need to mind the top of the tower it will not be visible in the game). Is it giving out a medieval vibe?

clockmoving.gif
Click to expand...

That looks great! I think a nice touch would be to add vines crawling up the walls
 
J

jarosh

Member
SeanNoonan said:
...and I updated the intro to my game.

tumblr_o0p3zwxFIi1uhbaaio1_500.gif
Click to expand...

Love the look of this so much!

ken_matthews said:
Congratulations! Quick question though, do you think it was posting it on GAF that really moved the ball forward?
Click to expand...

I have Google Analytics set up on the Greenlight page. GAF only made up for ~3% of the total traffic. So, nope. Most of the traffic came from my Twitter. Another big chunk from Steam itself. I was also at EGX 2014 with the game and a lot of the people who played it there had subscribed to a mailing list on my website or followed me on Twitter, and they all helped in voting and retweeting stuff as well.

Geminosity said:
Wow congrats! So quickly too! :D

Any tips for those who'll be doing the whole greenlight thing? :3
Click to expand...

I think I did a lot of things wrong and I still got greenlit. I could have probably gotten more votes early on if I hadn't launched between Christmas and New Year's. My Twitter, as mentioned above, was instrumental. And many of the people who retweeted and helped me promote the game came from real world connections (Brave Wave, EGX, musician and indie dev friends etc...) and/or from people who had previously played the game. And while my timing was off pretty dramatically, I think that if you tie in your Greenlight launch with going to a convention, that will give you a big boost. Practically everyone who had played the game at EGX asked me if I was on Greenlight, but that was still far off at that point.

Also, a very sizable amount of votes came from simply being at the top of the new voting queue on Greenlight, so I like to believe that something about the game itself simply appealed to people :p I read some blog posts about people having been greenlit with 300-400 votes, which I had eclipsed after two days without having done any extra promotion anywhere. So most of those votes came from people just discovering the game on Greenlight.
 
G

Geminosity

Member
jarosh said:
I have Google Analytics set up on the Greenlight page. GAF only made up for ~3% of the total traffic. So, nope. Most of the traffic came from my Twitter. Another big chunk from Steam itself. I was also at EGX 2014 with the game and a lot of the people who played it there had subscribed to a mailing list on my website or followed me on Twitter, and they all helped in voting and retweeting stuff as well.



I think I did a lot of things wrong and I still got greenlit. I could have probably gotten more votes early on if I hadn't launched between Christmas and New Year's. My Twitter, as mentioned above, was instrumental. And many of the people who retweeted and helped me promote the game came from real world connections (Brave Wave, EGX, musician and indie dev friends etc...) and/or from people who had previously played the game. And while my timing was off pretty dramatically, I think that if you tie in your Greenlight launch with going to a convention, that will give you a big boost. Practically everyone who had played the game at EGX asked me if I was on Greenlight, but that was still far off at that point.

Also, a very sizable amount of votes came from simply being at the top of the new voting queue on Greenlight, so I like to believe that something about the game itself simply appealed to people :p I read some blog posts about people having been greenlit with 300-400 votes, which I had eclipsed after two days without having done any extra promotion anywhere. So most of those votes came from people just discovering the game on Greenlight.
Click to expand...
Ah coolies, I'm glad it worked out for you so well in the end despite the timing :D
Sounds somewhat like the path I've currently been on myself so that bodes well: I've got a whole bunch of email addresses from the events I've taken my lil game to so I'll have to spread word via those and twitster when I finally get a trailer done and hit the big button that sticks it up :3
 
shaowebb

shaowebb

Member
Okay, I'm digging the modifiers panel on Blender timelines. This is a pretty fast and simple way I can add squash and stretch sorta things to character animations without actively sculpting the model or baking other instances of the model like I used to for various things. Technically its just animating a type of deformation technique along a timeline and that means I can use curves to add more snap to the animation of the deformation to give it impact. Since it only references one instance of the model with no other versions its keeping the file sizes nice and small this way. This also means I can keep an object rigidly bound but still get good animated squash and stretch options without creating little irritating issues in posing later on since I'll still keep the object rigid this way.

Finding all kinds of neat little menu options fast.
 
L

Labadal

Member
jahasaja said:
updating my game A Bastard's tale

What do you all feel about this stone church. (do not need to mind the top of the tower it will not be visible in the game). Is it giving out a medieval vibe?

clockmoving.gif
Click to expand...

Your game was suggested to me in my Steam queue and I didn't choose "Not interested". A feat in itself as I almost automatically click the button.
 
S

Skab

Member
Jobbs said:
Any good 3D modelers here who might be willing to make a 3D model of Dizzy?

dizsaymund.jpg


I can provide a better visual study, but that's the jist. A ball with shit on it. One of the purposes may be 3D printing to make cool swag.
Click to expand...

Dizzy plushie.

Think about it.
 
M

Mystic River

Member
friken said:
Having taken such a long break, I was half worried that everyone I was watching back then had already shipped their games to great success... you know just to rub it in how guilty I feel for slacking :)
Click to expand...

haha! I thought you already shipped your game!!! didn't see you for so long, and also I am not watching every response lately not much free time to read, so I am not the only one then
 
H

HP_Wuvcraft

Banned
Geminosity said:
Wow :eek:
Well, I hope things got a bit better for you once you were finally on there :3
Click to expand...

We're not on Steam.

Still in the Steamworks process.

I am literally fucking serious when I tell everyone that I may write a book about making this game. It's been such a ridiculously slow process. So many things we learned from doing them completely wrong. But it's all experience.

Never let anyone tell you that experience is worthless.
 
F

Feep

Banned
friken said:
Hey guys... I'm back at it after a long break focusing on other life stuff (short for I got lazy and slacked off for many months). As always, the posts here help motivate me and keep going.

As I'm getting back into stardiver dev, I started w what is fun to me (not what needs doing)...lol. So, I wanted gas giants to look more banded and flowing more. I got something I love the look of, but I am getting what I suspect is material rendering order issue making it flash (similar to z fighting. All layers are particle/multiply or multiply-double). For unity devs on here, is there any way to lock down the order the engine renders it's materials?

Here is the a video of the issue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7AJWUYJLZU&feature=youtu.be

UntidyWarpedIggypops.gif


I could just call it a lightning storm... and every gas giant has it in the brightest areas, heh...
Click to expand...
I dunno if anyone has answered this, but you can use something like
Code: 
renderer.materials[i].renderQueue = x;

To specify rendering order of materials. x should be between 2000 and 2500 if opaque, 3000 and 3500 if transparent.
 
L

liliththepale

Banned
Feep said:
I dunno if anyone has answered this, but you can use something like
Code: 
renderer.materials[i].renderQueue = x;

To specify rendering order of materials. x should be between 2000 and 2500 if opaque, 3000 and 3500 if transparent.
Click to expand...

Yeah, he figured it out. (post #10802). :p
 
J

Jacksinthe

Banned
chris-013 said:
Some new 2d features in Unity : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muRhea-JaIM
Smart sprites seems very cool. :)
Click to expand...
Vey good stuff. I'm particularly interested in masking. Unfortunately 5.3.X and up seem to break my game worse than any other update to Unity so I'll be hesitant to update at this point.

I've been holding out on masking until this version drops and if some of the built in functions are still broken with that update then I'll just write my own mask. Don't need it at this point so I'm still waiting.
 
S

superNESjoe

Member
When I first started developing GunWorld 2 I knew I wanted to do a Boss Rush at the end of the game, but I had this crazy idea that you should be able to fight multiple bosses at the same time during the Boss Rush.

So from the start I had to develop some of my bosses with the idea that they would eventually be paired up with another boss, and that encounter needed to be both fun and challenging on its own, yet still fair and manageable when paired up with another boss.

It ended up being a lot more fun to solve that problem than I expected. I just finished tuning up the Boss Rush at the end of the game now, and I think it came together super well.
 
SeanNoonan

SeanNoonan

Member
jarosh said:
You're porting to PC, right? Are you planning on adding any features to the game for the non-mobile versions? Will you be on Greenlight anytime soon?
Click to expand...
Yeah, I've been thinking about a PC version and greenlight. Not sure how much people would really be into a runner on PC, but it's worth a shot, right?

There's quite a lot I'd need to add to accommodate for the PC audience, so it won't be until after I drop 4.0 onto iOS at which point I'll probably branch between mobile and PC.

We'll see :)
 
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