Thanks, yeah I'm pretty deep into Unity now and keep looking at UE4 out of the corner of my eye... partly due to the new and shiny, and partly due to the overhead that Unity carries with 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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Thanks, yeah I'm pretty deep into Unity now and keep looking at UE4 out of the corner of my eye... partly due to the new and shiny, and partly due to the overhead that Unity carries with it.
If you're still running 2-D hand-drawn for your next game, I would absolutely go Unity. Even if you're 3-D, it's likely not worth it to change over if you're any significant ways into a project.
P.S. Bosco says hi!
P.P.S. Send me secret screenshots of your next project plz kthx
superNESjoe
Member
I'm thinking of jumping over to Unity once Super GunWorld 2 is done, and I want to move out of pixel art and into 2D art. Anyone have any recommendations for 2D bone animation software for a first timer?
Hey yall, been working on some stuff since the last time I posted. I kind of unexpectedly pivoted from learning Unity to learning Blender. I've been having a blast learning how to model.
I ended up making my own version of the Velvet Room from Persona as a Blender learning project.
I had some fun ideas and I like the way it turned out, although I'd probably have done some things differently if I had done it again.
Next I'm going to spend some time learning how to model characters. Lately I've been struck with the idea of designing a character on paper, then modelling it in Blender, and then hopefully animating it and using it in Unity. I've already begun drawing, which is a slow process for me since I don't have much in the way of natural drawing talent, but I'm pretty confident in my ability to brute force it while paying attention to anatomy guides and whatnot.
edit: Also it occurs to me that for my entire life I've always much preferred 2D art, but it has been much easier for me to entertain the idea of making a game with 3D because it seems much more accessible to me as someone who has a much easier time designing hands on. I like to see how something looks and feels, and then change it, and then test it again.
I ended up making my own version of the Velvet Room from Persona as a Blender learning project.
I had some fun ideas and I like the way it turned out, although I'd probably have done some things differently if I had done it again.
Next I'm going to spend some time learning how to model characters. Lately I've been struck with the idea of designing a character on paper, then modelling it in Blender, and then hopefully animating it and using it in Unity. I've already begun drawing, which is a slow process for me since I don't have much in the way of natural drawing talent, but I'm pretty confident in my ability to brute force it while paying attention to anatomy guides and whatnot.
edit: Also it occurs to me that for my entire life I've always much preferred 2D art, but it has been much easier for me to entertain the idea of making a game with 3D because it seems much more accessible to me as someone who has a much easier time designing hands on. I like to see how something looks and feels, and then change it, and then test it again.
OricWindstar
Member
What's the vibe of the room supposed to be? If natural, then yeah, it's a little dark.
tamaster92
Member
Been prototyping a LOT of dark souls type combat systems lately and it really gives me an appreciation of just how damn complex they are.
Sure throwing together a simple sword and shield is easy but adding variation of weapons, different hands, proper collision or tracing...
Amazes me how complex even the simplest game mechanics are
Sure throwing together a simple sword and shield is easy but adding variation of weapons, different hands, proper collision or tracing...
Amazes me how complex even the simplest game mechanics are
Can you do me a favor in placing three point light sources in line colored red,Decided to try out Lexie Dostal's (Hitbox programmer) volumetric lighting plugin for Unity. I set up a quick test room and it's really good. Not pictured is the noise that drifts through the volumetric cones to simulate air motion (no longer need to fake it with billboards or something).
...
green, and blue, respectively, into the middle of a gray (RGB:117, diffuse:0.6)
room at halve high such that the scattering of each light intersects with the
scattering of the light right next to it and such that the ground also receives
some good light of the three. Choose the scattering amount in such a way that
the scattered light drops off towards the walls of the room. You can also use
extinction to adjust the scattering partly. Mie can lie between 0.45 and 0.70,
such that the picture looks good, i.e. not too strong and not to weak say.
Edit:
And take some shoots with the camera straight and angled. Thx a lot!
FINALLY got Ashe's triple slash combo done for my game, Pioneer One. Now she can swordfight with the best of them! (Not even done with all the sword animations, but these are the most important ones, they're the ones you'll see all the time!)
Really proud of how this is coming out. I've already got the movement and shit all prototyped, and everything feeling really really good as far as controlling the character maneuvering goes, now I'm just focusing on getting the rest of the necessary art done so I can get a full demo out!
(Is kickstarter still a thing???)
LordRaptor
Member
Unity ProBuilder bundle is at a fairly hefty discount right now, and I'm pretty tempted... I know someone earlier upthread was talking about it, is the bundle worthwhile?
Thank you. While the game is darkish, I think this room is a little too dark too hha.
You're talking about the $89 bundle? It's too steep for me personally :/ But the features in the paid ProBuilder seem really great. I've heard good things about their ProGrids as well; they're basically required tools for Unity. I have no idea how good the other things in the bundle are though. At the last Ludum Dare, not the latest one, the creators made the paid version of ProBuilder free, so I'm holding out for them to do that again :lol AFAIK, ProBuilder and ProGrids are the things to get, maybe it's wiser to get them separately, or in a smaller bundle?
I see something about a $40 upgrade though, what's that about?
Edit: The free version of ProBuilder is by far the very best asset I've ever downloaded, in any editor. So that's saying something
Edit2: ProBuilder already have a basic snap tool that works just fine as a grid system of sorts, at least for my purposes. Not sure what ProGrids brings to the table beyond that.
It's just well integrated into the Unity Scene Editor. It makes it really quick to prototype a FPS level or more complex shapes without leaving Unity. And it's free, too.
Another question...
How are monitors/tv made inside of a texture?
For example, I need a touch-monitor where the user has to choose a couple of question. How do I apply this to a 3d model?
I mean, the touch screen thing and all that I can do that. What I need to know is how to "apply" it to my 3D mesh.
Do I make sense?
How are monitors/tv made inside of a texture?
For example, I need a touch-monitor where the user has to choose a couple of question. How do I apply this to a 3d model?
I mean, the touch screen thing and all that I can do that. What I need to know is how to "apply" it to my 3D mesh.
Do I make sense?
With the paid version of probuilder, how easy is it to export geometry to blender? I need smoother surfaces for my game because of the high speeds and low poly aesthetic, so I basically stopped using the free version. But if I could sketch stuff out in probuilder and then export to Blender to basically paint over it, I might give it a shot.
edit: bought the bundle anyway -- figure I could use it on future projects if not this one.
edit: bought the bundle anyway -- figure I could use it on future projects if not this one.
It can export to a .obj file. Havn't used that much though so not sure how well it works.
I think that you would have another camera that renders only what you want on the screen, which renders to a texture which you then use for a material for that object/surface. If you're on unity then you create a render texture asset which you drag into the required field in the camera component, UE4, not sure. Assuming I understood the question of course.
LordRaptor
Member
It's a level design tool, not a modelling tool per se.
I've dabbled with the free version, and I can see if I ever make a project involving, you know, actual levels to move around in I'd rather do that inside Unity and use Unity units than importing something from Blender and trying to calculate whatever arcane formula conversion rate blender units to unity units is.
Yeah, AFAICS, you can just highlight your probuilder built level and export it as an .OBJ directly into Blender, and then pretty it up there with greebles and shit.
It's why I'm pretty tempted.
e:
Shit, if you just bit the bullet anyway, could you let me know if that workflow is like I think it is? Thanks in advance!
I haven't tried, but I'd guess you would have a second material on your model for the 'screen', and then apply a render texture to that material, assuming I understand what you're asking and you want a 'realtime camera' texture.
TheHollowNight
Member
We finally have a new trailer ready in time for PAX West! This is our first official gameplay trailer focusing on mutations and cloning, so please check it out ♥️
https://youtu.be/cI_CDQuohXk
https://youtu.be/cI_CDQuohXk
Annoying Old Party Man
Member
Seeing all the wonderful work here makes my heart fill with envy and love at the same time.
I just started practicing Unity via Udemy and it's been very hard so far, I can barely understand anything :-(
I just started practicing Unity via Udemy and it's been very hard so far, I can barely understand anything :-(
timetokill
Banned
Have you done any programming before? If not, I don't recommend starting with Unity. Start with Construct2 or GameMaker or something.
superNESjoe
Member
Anybody have any experience with the Spine animation tool?
I love it! Really well made. I really like how the style is triangles/low poly/mesh textures but at the same time looks very detailed and dense.
(This doesn't apply to item pick ups in the inventory. Actually it's strange to see them look so low poly upon close inspection.
The overall style looks more like an abstraction of the reality, so it might as well be appropriate to serve a higher poly (still triangle/unshaded-style) mesh when viewed up close.)
Nice fog as well.
---------------------------------------
Meanwhile I have downloaded substance painter today.
What an amazing tool. A total noob like me can create almost everything he wants and the learning curve was super shallow. And it's super fun.
So I went ahead and auto-uv'd and textured a truck.
Gif comparison below
EDIT: Switched the gif for a newer version
Thx
I'll test it for the arms yeah, maybe that could be better i don't know!I animated it frame by frame straightforward.
TheHollowNight
Member
Hey thanks! We are actually going to make more detailed versions for the inventory models as they do indeed use the world models right now!
Hi IndieGAF,
I'm an aspiring writer, currently going to school to get a writing degree. My dream job is to produce written content for video games.
I'm posting here today because I'd like to reach out to developers to see if I could "intern," in a way, as a creator of written content for games. I'm mostly looking to gain experience working with a team and a chance to gain some writing chops. I'm in a small town and am finding it difficult to make the necessary business connections, so I was hoping to find a chance to work with some creative peers on here.
I'm also an adept editor if anyone needs a pass on the writing they already have.
Please pm if you'd like a sample of my writing. Ignore if this kind of post isn't appropriate
I'm an aspiring writer, currently going to school to get a writing degree. My dream job is to produce written content for video games.
I'm posting here today because I'd like to reach out to developers to see if I could "intern," in a way, as a creator of written content for games. I'm mostly looking to gain experience working with a team and a chance to gain some writing chops. I'm in a small town and am finding it difficult to make the necessary business connections, so I was hoping to find a chance to work with some creative peers on here.
I'm also an adept editor if anyone needs a pass on the writing they already have.
Please pm if you'd like a sample of my writing. Ignore if this kind of post isn't appropriate
liliththepale
Banned
A fair amount. Is there something specific you need to know?
Doc Holliday
SPOILER: Columbus finds America
Wow, this looks incredible! Awesome seeing such cool looking games being made by small teams. One day I'll get the balls to leave the studio life and make my own games :/
I wish I could program lol
This looks really nice, but one suggestion if I may: Double-check the model smoothing setting for your wheel borders. Even your tiny pipes look really nice and curved, but the wheels jumped out at me as low-poly-ish on the edges. I'm not sure if you can avoid this though.Meanwhile I have downloaded substance painter today.
What an amazing tool. A total noob like me can create almost everything he wants and the learning curve was super shallow. And it's super fun.
So I went ahead and auto-uv'd and textured a truck.
Gif comparison below
Actually I'm doing two games, one 2D and one 3D! Not sure which will be done first, but they are both pretty small, mostly so I can learn the tools. And hi, Bosco
I'll share some media as soon as I'm able, hopefully over the coming months.
I LIVE
Oi vey voy been forever since I posted here, but that should hopefully change. I'm in my second to last semester of university and have a class dedicated to my capstone project, the project I've shown bits and pieces of before. Every week I'm going to tackle an "experience" task (story beats, environment layout, controls, etc...) and a programming task, looking at both the forest and the trees, keeping focused on doing something. The capstone is "done" at the end of the semester, though I plan to keep going with it afterwards. For now, the plan is to get a decent vertical slice or MVP done for the semester, so things like animations and polished art/styling are a little ways on the horizon for now.
I'm giving myself weekly reviews every weekend to see where I am task wise, though I'm not sure it'll be screenshot friendly for the thread. Still, I'll keep you peoples updated on how things are going. Hope you guys will like what I'm making.
I've heard good things on Spine. It has a ton of runtime support with different engines, Unity included, though it's cost is probably the biggest drawback. I've been using Spriter for a bit, it's pretty similar to Spine in my experience though it's cheaper cost definitely shows. I've been looking into Puppet2D and it seems to have the squash/stretch kind of support I've been looking for. Really can't go wrong with any of them, especially with Spine and Spriter having free trials/demos.
ThePhotoshop
Member
Hey everyone,
Would love to get some feedback on the latest Wildfire build.
Specifically I'd love to know how it runs on your machine. I've tried to make some performance optimisations, but I only have two systems here to test on so it's not the broadest selection. There's an FPS counter in the top left.
I'd also like to know if any mechanical or AI interactions in the game are still unclear. I've re-thought how we communicate AI alert states and tutorials, but I do need to figure out if anything has slipped through the cracks.
Download here (Windows, ~80MB): https://www.dropbox.com/s/xl9zyxjsukdn8jq/wildfire_alpha_sepv1.zip?dl=1
Here's also a quick YouTube runthrough of the latest build, so you know what you're getting into: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGTMmCUKU6c
Cheers!
Would love to get some feedback on the latest Wildfire build.
Specifically I'd love to know how it runs on your machine. I've tried to make some performance optimisations, but I only have two systems here to test on so it's not the broadest selection. There's an FPS counter in the top left.
I'd also like to know if any mechanical or AI interactions in the game are still unclear. I've re-thought how we communicate AI alert states and tutorials, but I do need to figure out if anything has slipped through the cracks.
Download here (Windows, ~80MB): https://www.dropbox.com/s/xl9zyxjsukdn8jq/wildfire_alpha_sepv1.zip?dl=1
Here's also a quick YouTube runthrough of the latest build, so you know what you're getting into: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGTMmCUKU6c
Cheers!
Whew! Been a crazy week, but we released Magnetta today!
Now I just need to try to relax...
Congratulations! Keep us informed on how it´s been received.
Annoying Old Party Man
Member
No... none whatsoever.
I had a friend tell me that I should just dive into Unity and skip GameMaker. Do you think it will be really hard? I've started a Udemy course trying to understand the whole thing (Unity) and it's been shaky so far...
LordRaptor
Member
The official unity tutorials are actually pretty good for learning the basics - they cover variables, logic, flow and move on to game specific things like vector maths and unity specific things like component references and instantiation.
You could do a lot worse than doing one of the training modules, closing it, then trying to remake what you just made from memory in a new project to see if you understood it or are just c+ping example code.
Whew! Been a crazy week, but we released Magnetta today!
Now I just need to try to relax...
Congrats!! I'll have to give it a try! :-D
superNESjoe
Member
I've never used animation software like it, I hear great things, and I want to move away from pixel art/sprites to hand drawn animations.
Pretty much anything you could tell me as far as if you recommend it or not would be great. I'm planning to jump from Game Maker Studio to Unity as well.
timetokill
Banned
I think your friend is crazy tbh.
You'll burn out just trying to accomplish simple things in Unity until you understand the fundamentals of programming. With Construct2 or GameMaker, programming is mostly "optional", and you can dig into it a bit as you go along and want to add advanced features.
Unity basically requires it from Day 1 unless you buy something like PlayMaker... which basically just makes it act more like one of the aforementioned things. It won't teach you great practices.
I'd really suggest playing with Construct2 or something for a week and making something small with that (maybe a breaking bricks game or a very simple platformer), and seeing how long that takes you. Because doing it in Unity with no programming experience will take you MUCH longer.
Agreed, and +1 recommendation for Construct 2! It's crazy flexible, has plenty of good plugins and the licenses are affordable if you intend to get more serious with it. Only downside compared to others are its target platforms. But to get game making practice in (and more), it's perfect!
timetokill
Banned
And just to be clear, making something in those engines is just as legit as using Unity.
The main thing is that making games is hard work. And you don't want it to be any harder than it has to be or else you'll likely burn out and give up.
The main thing is that making games is hard work. And you don't want it to be any harder than it has to be or else you'll likely burn out and give up.
Didn't know Orioto's making a game. Man that's gonna be beautiful for sure!
My game's coming along nicely, still some months off yet. How do you deal with the fear that a very similar game will appear on Steam just before you put yours on Greenlight, and that it'll be much better (not made by 2 rookies)?
My game's coming along nicely, still some months off yet. How do you deal with the fear that a very similar game will appear on Steam just before you put yours on Greenlight, and that it'll be much better (not made by 2 rookies)?
liliththepale
Banned
Oh it's a complete game changer. I love using it a lot. Like I'll often find excuses to use it instead of what would previously be programmatic or sprite animations. It saves so much time and it helps me make better animations. There are essentially no downsides from how I've animated in the past (usually photoshop like Jobbs and Orioto).
So a couple of things. When my previous partner and I first started using spine, other similar animation programs were not feature complete and missing things we needed a lot, especially mesh warp and individual bone scaling. I think this is no longer a problem, I just have no incentive to scout around. So in recommending Spine I'm not doing so to contrast against spriter or Puppet2D or whatever the competition is these days.
Other point. It works out of the box in GameMaker but you have to do a bit of finagling to get it to wor in Unity. To that end, if you go with it, I would learn to use it in GameMaker first so you can take baby steps. This is what I did (though that was because I didn't think I'd be changing engine) and I think it was helpful.
From the other thread, UE4 version 13 is out:
https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/unreal-engine-4-13-released
If I ever do a 3D game, I really want to try out UE4. I like the visual patchnote examples, and the shadowmap caching for dynamic lights is a super clever idea. I wonder if other engines have tried that.
I'd probably never use the feature, but spraypainting forests in VR editor mode just looks cool.
https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/unreal-engine-4-13-released
If I ever do a 3D game, I really want to try out UE4. I like the visual patchnote examples, and the shadowmap caching for dynamic lights is a super clever idea. I wonder if other engines have tried that.
I'd probably never use the feature, but spraypainting forests in VR editor mode just looks cool.
liliththepale
Banned
Spine has a dozen different export formats. If your engine doesn't support the default JSON and atlas files, you can export a GIF of PNG strip or whatever.
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