Support NeoGAF

[MrNyarlathotep]

Is a MacBook recommendable for Game Development in cooperation with a buddy who uses a Windows Laptop? :c

Edit:

I'm a noob in game development so far, and am thinking about buying a work-laptop. (Through my vocation I'm bound to OSX) It'd be great if I could use it both ways. (Work and Game Development)

Depends what you're building, how you're building it and where you expect the end product to end up.
If you're using a lot of cross platform middleware (Unity, Photoshop, whatever) and can directly share files with each other it doesn't matter what flavour of PC you're using (OSX / *Nix / Windows). If your target platform is OSX AND Windows, then it may even be of benefit, as you have a testing environment for each.

 

[SeanNoonan]

Think I'm done with the menu rework

 

[Michael Armbrust]

Numerous changes from all the feedback, Thanks All!!

My son made a new score just for the teaser, and I really dig the epic feel of it. Any more feedback is appreciated as we have a few days before GDC time.

http://youtu.be/PfXAX7lIBgk

Looks much nicer! Really good, don't see any issues.

 

[cbox]

I've been playing with UE4. I think we're going to use it for our next game, though unity 5 could be possible too.

Created a test car game with suspension,

http://i.imgur.com/rixrb3U.gifv

The vehicle already feels great. Just the right amount of drifting and suspension effects. Obviously some parts are missing, and I need to figure out how to do that with blender bones.

 

[Valkrai]

Hey IndieGAF, I'm a complete noob to game development but I'm starting to make one. Just doing a design document, planning on using UE4. Is there any good examples or showcases on Blueprint? I'm not a coder so it seems like it may be good for me.

 

[Niwa]

Depends what you're building, how you're building it and where you expect the end product to end up.
If you're using a lot of cross platform middleware (Unity, Photoshop, whatever) and can directly share files with each other it doesn't matter what flavour of PC you're using (OSX / *Nix / Windows). If your target platform is OSX AND Windows, then it may even be of benefit, as you have a testing environment for each.

Sounds like it might work out as we will use Unity, Blender and Photoshop! Platform will be Windows for now, I'm excited! Thank you!

 

[Lord_Balkan]

Hey, where do you get your fire textures? I have been using CG textures for most of my stuff but I can't find a decent even fire texture there. Here is a screen cap of what I've been using

It looks decent from far away, but the fire is too crooked to provide a good enough of an effect.

 

[friken]

Looks a lot better than the first one,... alien with the robes, made me wonder if I am going to save humanity, who is that? is it going to be my enemy? hmmm...

Excellent... that is exactly the sort of reaction we are after

1- ...when the first ship travels the one thing that bothered me is that the transition happens when the ship animation stops ...looks like you ran out of footage.

nice catch, thanks

2- probably I will remove the clip with the red/orange planet with the rings since nothing happens there, and you see the planet again when two ships are fighting

Wish I get a son who can do some music for me , well by the time mine will be able to do so it will be a decade later at least , anyway, I will start to do some music soon too for my game...

I think I agree.... plenty of cool(er) planets in the battle scenes. Ideally I would like a mining UI/screen from orbit with the ui overlays of planet stats, gravity, weather, temp, etc... but that part of the game hasn't been made yet.

Going back to a previous suggestion, I think I may fill that spot with quick succession zoomed in shots of a number of alien ships to show off the 'main actors' of the game which are ships.

Putting this teaser together has been an excellent project gut check. I am seeing that what I would love to show has holes in parts of the project that are either not up to snuff yet, or not even started. I think my estimated % done with the game went down a bit

 

[friken]

Still needs some audio-tune ups in terms of levels between VO and music.

I would also suggest nixing the ping-pong delay on the first VO. Or if you do use it - stagger the delay between left/right, pass the delay through a bandpass and cut below 500hz and above 4k to limit the ears snapping to the delay and not the original VO.

You can also bring the delay slightly in a bit more from being so far left/right of center. I would offset the left a bit more than the right but put a faster delay on the right channel and leave a bandpass on both. This will push it farther back in the mix and open up the ears to snap to the VO better without being distracted by the delay and still keep the delay in.

Do you still think the VOs are too loud? They are all around the same volume now. I agree I overdid the wah/ping-pong and echo. I should re-record it.... the joys of VO work.... take #498 here I come

 

[friken]

here are some test shots from a GDC demo I've been doing with a buddy of mine



hope you like 'em

also - it's in Unity5 and 100% realtime ... no pre-baked lighting

I'm loving the style of this. nice work. Any info on the project? I can't tell by the screenshots what type of game it will be, but digging the look! Sorry if I missed info in previous posts, I've been a bit behind on the forums lately.

 

[_machine]

Hey IndieGAF, I'm a complete noob to game development but I'm starting to make one. Just doing a design document, planning on using UE4. Is there any good examples or showcases on Blueprint? I'm not a coder so it seems like it may be good for me.

Epic has provided plenty of examples with the engine; just open it up and download the examples you are interested in. And check blog tutorials as well: https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/editor-overview

 

[Blizzard]

here are some test shots from a GDC demo I've been doing with a buddy of mine



hope you like 'em

also - it's in Unity5 and 100% realtime ... no pre-baked lighting

I like simple shading in the style of The Witness etc., but do you have any FXAA or similar postprocess enabled? I feel like I need glasses when I look at this, as though something is blurry and I can't quite figure out what.

 

[HellBlazer]

Sounds like it might work out as we will use Unity, Blender and Photoshop! Platform will be Windows for now, I'm excited! Thank you!

My personal experience is that Unity crashes *a lot* on Mac. Now, that might have been the version I was using (that was some time ago), or an issue with my own MacBook somehow, but if at all possible I'd recommend testing it out before investing in a new laptop.

 

[Michael Armbrust]

http://www.savethesystem.com

Soon it will be time to start putting the puzzle together. This is going to be a long fucking trail that starts next month and kudos to those who figure it out over the course of development as more documents are uncovered.

Pretty intriguing.

I went through the image and was able to uncover one of the words words. Just was "connection" though, which was already obvious from context.

 

[friken]

Ok.... opening quote VO or silence?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfXAX7lIBgk


I worry that many, like me, will ignore opening quotes for a video I'm not sure I care about -- especially if more than a few words. At the same time, the opening VO somehow lessens the opening music impact and impact of the first alien dialogue segment.

---
Also, assume the opening VO is better than it is (I'm already aware and agree it needs tweaks for clarity and technique)

 

[Jacksinthe]

Pretty intriguing.

I went through the image and was able to uncover one of the words words. Just was "connection" though, which was already obvious from context.

Aye. I am still working on fleshing out the rest of the backstory to begin the leaks next month. There will be more to those docs than just for a backstory - can't explain much on what I plan to do with 3 sets of non-redacted pristine condition docs but the methods to my madness will be revealed late summer and I'm super excited for it. Hoping this makes a difference to random strangers.

 

[friken]

Aye. I am still working on fleshing out the rest of the backstory to begin the leaks next month. There will be more to those docs than just for a backstory - can't explain much on what I plan to do with 3 sets of non-redacted pristine condition docs but the methods to my madness will be revealed late summer and I'm super excited for it. Hoping this makes a difference to random strangers.

Intrigued! Will be watching Big Brother.... always watching.

 

[Xtra Mile]

Feep almost at the 10k point!

 

[Feep]

Feep almost at the 10k point!

I estimated a final total of 11,500, gonna be pretty darn close = D

 

[Jobbs]

Ok.... opening quote VO or silence?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfXAX7lIBgk


I worry that many, like me, will ignore opening quotes for a video I'm not sure I care about -- especially if more than a few words. At the same time, the opening VO somehow lessens the opening music impact and impact of the first alien dialogue segment.

---
Also, assume the opening VO is better than it is (I'm already aware and agree it needs tweaks for clarity and technique)

I'd go with silence in this case.

The game looks great, but I feel the editing of the video lacks something. I'll try to come up with better thoughts if no one else does a bit later when I can examine it again.

 

[Just_myles]

pics

Crazy. I had some stuff sketched out where I had a floating island motif cookin. These pics have actually been helpful for me. Not to mention they look awesome.

 

[Xtra Mile]

Ok.... opening quote VO or silence?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfXAX7lIBgk


I worry that many, like me, will ignore opening quotes for a video I'm not sure I care about -- especially if more than a few words. At the same time, the opening VO somehow lessens the opening music impact and impact of the first alien dialogue segment.

---
Also, assume the opening VO is better than it is (I'm already aware and agree it needs tweaks for clarity and technique)

My opinion, I would remove the opening quote and the VO isn't doing it for me. You could always add the quote at the end. Game looks great though!

 

[lionplex]

Added another playable character to NKY, she's caster-ish

 

[Feep]

Dat Launch Trailer

 

[lashman]

I'm loving the style of this. nice work. Any info on the project? I can't tell by the screenshots what type of game it will be, but digging the look! Sorry if I missed info in previous posts, I've been a bit behind on the forums lately.

well it's not really a game just yet it'll be a small demo we're making for GDC to show off some of his image-processing asset work

I like simple shading in the style of The Witness etc., but do you have any FXAA or similar postprocess enabled? I feel like I need glasses when I look at this, as though something is blurry and I can't quite figure out what.

yeah, you're right - it's FXAA ... and it's pretty much the only half-decent AA solution in Unity, unfortunately ... so it's either this or horrible jaggies

Crazy. I had some stuff sketched out where I had a floating island motif cookin. These pics have actually been helpful for me. Not to mention they look awesome.

you really think so? wow ... thanks!!

 

[Jacksinthe]

Dat Launch Trailer

Tomorrow is so close. This should shut down development of my game for the rest of the week. WWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA LETS DO THIS

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

it's FXAA ... and it's pretty much the only half-decent AA solution in Unity, unfortunately

Unity has 2/4/8 x MSAA built in by default, its under Edit -> Project settings -> Quality

 

[lashman]

Unity has 2/4/8 x MSAA built in by default, its under Edit -> Project settings -> Quality

I know that ... also - happens to not-work when using the deferred pipeline

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

I know that ... also - happens to not-work when using the deferred pipeline

Ah, okay, I only have access to Unity Pro via the oculus rift hax

 

[Jacksinthe]

Ah, okay, I only have access to Unity Pro via the oculus rift hax

Eh? That doesn't sound good.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

Eh? That doesn't sound good.

If you load one of the OR test scenes from the OR SDK, Unity free 'unlocks' a lot of the render features that are usually locked behind the free / pro paywall like deferred rendering and render to texture.
EDIT: but only for that session and while that project is open, its not anything permanent

It's not particularly useful as 'warez unity pro' other than you can see how Pro version rendering and lighting works. I assume its because for OR to work at all, single frame forward rendering isn't adequate and I suspect with the release of Unity 5 they are going to lighten up some of the restrictions for Unity Free which is why they haven't fixed it (as its a known and reported bug / secret undocumented feature).

 

[Blizzard]

Today I FINALLY figured out how to quickly and reliably reproduce the bug I've been chasing for a week or so. It looks like I am not updating an internal cursor in one case, so there were weird situation(s) where clicking without moving the mouse could cause a unit to take off in a weird direction and then freeze. The game would recover thanks to the timeout feature I added a while back, but it was still bothering me a great deal. Hopefully I can fix it tonight or tomorrow!

 

[Jacksinthe]

If you load one of the OR test scenes from the OR SDK, Unity free 'unlocks' a lot of the render features that are usually locked behind the free / pro paywall like deferred rendering and render to texture.
EDIT: but only for that session and while that project is open, its not anything permanent

It's not particularly useful as 'warez unity pro' other than you can see how Pro version rendering and lighting works. I assume its because for OR to work at all, single frame forward rendering isn't adequate and I suspect with the release of Unity 5 they are going to lighten up some of the restrictions for Unity Free which is why they haven't fixed it (as its a known and reported bug / secret undocumented feature).

Ahhh. I thought it was more involved than that. I gotcha.

 

[Jobbs]

Dat Launch Trailer

great trailer, and I LOVE that music. it'll be stuck in my head for a while.

I've said before I think the idea of a voice operated game (at least, that's the primary focus) is a bold move, and I genuinely hope for the best and I'll be rooting for you. I noticed in related videos your original KS pitch was uploaded almost exactly two years ago -- That's a pretty long road, and you should be very proud of the fact that you had an idea, stuck with it, and saw it through. Break a leg!

 

[Michael Armbrust]

Aye. I am still working on fleshing out the rest of the backstory to begin the leaks next month. There will be more to those docs than just for a backstory - can't explain much on what I plan to do with 3 sets of non-redacted pristine condition docs but the methods to my madness will be revealed late summer and I'm super excited for it. Hoping this makes a difference to random strangers.

Best of luck.

How far along are you with this game's development, if you don't mind revealing that?

Dat Launch Trailer

Looks flipping awesome! Great trailer and again congrats on the launch.

 

[Jacksinthe]

Best of luck.

How far along are you with this game's development, if you don't mind revealing that?

Thanks. Since starting from the ground up in December we have all main mechanics nailed down after all of our feedback and we have several vertical slice test levels completed alongside most of the more harder to code enemies and bosses. It will take a long time to remake all of the assets for the game's new look so that is where we are at. A lot more code for all the set pieces are still needed but I feel the hardest part will be to flesh out the levels. There is a lot of verticality so we want to make each area open enough to allow crazy use of traversal and allow multiple paths through most levels.

Aiming to be done in a year and a half but that depends on how hard my day job rails me ha!

 

[Blizzard]

I'm going to call the bug fixed at last! I now update the internal cursor tracking on an important state change and on mouse click, so there isn't the potential of a stale state assuming I did it all properly.

 

[lashman]

ok ... here are some more screenshots of our demo scene hope you like 'em

and here, as a bonus, is a little comparison the bottom one is just the default Unity 5 PBR lighting "out of the box" ... and the top one is the same thing, only with the realtime GI and a little bit of bloom

sorry for the spam

 

[AzureSkies]

ok ... here are some more screenshots of our demo scene hope you like 'em



and here, as a bonus, is a little comparison the bottom one is just the default Unity 5 PBR lighting "out of the box" ... and the top one is the same thing, only with the realtime GI and a little bit of bloom



sorry for the spam

I'm really liking your art style!

 

[friken]

I'd go with silence in this case.

The game looks great, but I feel the editing of the video lacks something. I'll try to come up with better thoughts if no one else does a bit later when I can examine it again.

Thanks, I look forward to your thoughts on it. I am terrible at video work and we are working with an Intern from a local school. I would love the help in pointing out things to revise. In his defense though, some of the issue is lack of content and there are a lot of game parts we would love to show that just aren't far enough along to show yet.

My opinion, I would remove the opening quote and the VO isn't doing it for me. You could always add the quote at the end. Game looks great though!

Thanks for the feedback. The more I listen to the opening VO the more I strongly dislike it. My worry was the new quote is just too long w/o VO... I may try seeing what I think without quote or VO. I did like the idea of foreshadow of the story arc and quote tie in to the last race shown, but maybe we are just not getting the desired result from it.

 

[friken]

Dat Launch Trailer

Soooo soooo good! I have massive trailer envy right now

 

[GulAtiCa]

And my game's patch is back in Nintendo Lotcheck. 3rd time the charm right? Adding new things, and dealing with errors dealing with Leaderboards & other online interactions can be a pain at times. But all worth it, as makes it a better game and future games will just be a copy-pasta.

Thanks to GAF's help I got French & Italian languages in my game. Just waiting on German and Spanish from my friend, and all set. Final round of testing to make sure different language texts work well/etc and submit in about a week! Exciting.

 

[Burt]

ok ... here are some more screenshots of our demo scene hope you like 'em



and here, as a bonus, is a little comparison the bottom one is just the default Unity 5 PBR lighting "out of the box" ... and the top one is the same thing, only with the realtime GI and a little bit of bloom



sorry for the spam

This looks fantastic.

Dat Launch Trailer

Congrats!

Spent some time on this today, trying to see where I can save money doing stuff myself:

I still have a bunch of work I have to do with it, but anyone with an artistic bent have any tips/feedback? Anything unacceptable going on here?

 

[Violet_0]

the cape clips through one leg

 

[Lord_Balkan]

Working on the fire texture all day and I think I got it, also the torch part is just placeholder.

 

[Fox1304]

ok ... here are some more screenshots of our demo scene hope you like 'em



and here, as a bonus, is a little comparison the bottom one is just the default Unity 5 PBR lighting "out of the box" ... and the top one is the same thing, only with the realtime GI and a little bit of bloom



sorry for the spam

Very nice style ! love the Ice rock !
On what devices have you tried running the demo ? Very curious on how it performs ( or not ) on mobile devices for example.

 

[lashman]

I'm really liking your art style!

thanks a lot!!

This looks fantastic.

glad you like it thank you

Very nice style ! love the Ice rock !
On what devices have you tried running the demo ? Very curious on how it performs ( or not ) on mobile devices for example.

it doesn't ... and it's not designed to

you know - realtime fully-dynamic GI ... not really something any mobile device could handle at a decent speed

 

[timetokill]

That cloud looks delicious like cotton candy, lashman.

 

[Dynamite Shikoku]

Feep's giveaway has shown me that people realllly like free stuff. Not surprising f2p games are so popular on mobile. It also goes to show how hard it is to get exposure from the amount of people who said they hadn't heard of it before.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

Feep's giveaway has shown me that people realllly like free stuff. Not surprising f2p games are so popular on mobile. It also goes to show how hard it is to get exposure from the amount of people who said they hadn't heard of it before.

The contingent of GAF that play PC games is comparatively small, and the contingent that primarily enjoy indie games is a subset of that - I mean, you just have to go into any given "PC vs console" thread to see how many posters know so little about the PC gaming ecosystem.

I'd also say its pretty likely that a sizable chunk of people nabbing codes are doing so because hey free stuff and have no real intention of ever playing it but are just conditioned hoarders, or claiming codes with the intent to flip for trades or resale.

I mean, I guess Feep knows what he's doing and has the empirical evidence on whether its ultimately worth it based on how Sequence did, and its without question that there are GAFfers who have higher reach and influence on peoples buying habits than 'average joe gamer', but yeah, it seems more on the generous side of the scale than the canny marketing tool side.