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Indie Game Development Discussion Thread | Of Being Professionally Poor

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B

Blizzard

Banned
Feep said:
If anyone can solve this problem and have the shader correctly respond to colored lights, I will give them a free copy of There Came an Echo *and* the official soundtrack when the game is released in 2014. For srs.
Click to expand...
Psh, it's a trap! I know from experience that 100% of the Feep-studio games have been released with free copies for everyone on NeoGAF anyway. ;p

What happens if you change the c.rgb = s.Albedo*atten; line to a fixed color, like green? Does your surface appear green then?
 
F

Feep

Banned
Blizzard said:
Psh, it's a trap! I know from experience that 100% of the Feep-studio games have been released with free copies for everyone on NeoGAF anyway. ;p

What happens if you change the c.rgb = s.Albedo*atten; line to a fixed color, like green? Does your surface appear green then?
Click to expand...
extrapolating.png


Yeah, but it's a giant square of green. I get "better" results if I set o.Albedo to a specific color in the surf function, but it colors the entire surface, not just the lights.
 
C

CriginsMcJuggs

Member
Ah what the hell I'll show you guys what I'm working on!
4zfAa0q.png

I've been working on this game for the past few months, going to be launching a playable alpha/Kickstarter in the next month hopefully. Game will be Prison Architect/DF style zombie survival game. Im using Spine and SFML, and at the moment doing all the art myself(bet you couldnt tell). Right now I have the basics of base building in, pathfinding, I'm working on getting the humans/zombies attacking each other.

Best idea I have for a name is Outpost Overseer
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
Feep said:
extrapolating.png


Yeah, but it's a giant square of green. I get "better" results if I set o.Albedo to a specific color in the surf function, but it colors the entire surface, not just the lights.
Click to expand...
Nice, I literally referenced that exact XKCD talking to someone earlier today about engineering and linear extrapolation.

At any rate, it looks like your o.Albedo, s.Albedo, and c.rgb are all likely things to experiment with, though I imagine you have already. I'm not familiar enough with shaders to know which how those two blocks chain. If no one else figures it out soon I might try downloading Unity myself if it's easy to create an object with that shader code. (or does it require Pro?)
 
R

rohlfinator

Member
CzarTim said:
Hey guys, if I were interested in making a turn based strategy game, which dev tools would be easiest to get into? I have limited programing experience, but I'm willing to learn. Most of the game dev software seem to be focused on action-heavy games.
Click to expand...

Most anything that does actiony stuff should be fine for doing turn-based games too. I'd check out Game Maker, Construct 2, and Stencyl, maybe try a couple tutorials in each and see which one you like best.
 
F

Feep

Banned
Blizzard said:
Nice, I literally referenced that exact XKCD talking to someone earlier today about engineering and linear extrapolation.

At any rate, it looks like your o.Albedo, s.Albedo, and c.rgb are all likely things to experiment with, though I imagine you have already. I'm not familiar enough with shaders to know which how those two blocks chain. If no one else figures it out soon I might try downloading Unity myself if it's easy to create an object with that shader code. (or does it require Pro?)
Click to expand...
The shadows would require Pro, but you should be able to see if the surface takes colored light without it.
 
M

missile

Member
hayguyz said:
why do all of your posts have such short lines, you know you don't have to hit enter, right?
Click to expand...
You are not allowed to ask such questions.

hayguyz
Banned
(Yesterday, 03:16 PM)

;)

V_Arnold said:
MrOddbird, missile: congratulations on your progress!
Click to expand...
gofreak said:
Congrats, this is really cool :) I imagine it's pretty fun to tinker with. And wings could make for some really awesome dynamics.
Click to expand...
Thx a lot! Wings will indeed be awesome!


Feep said:
Welp. This is the last problem I've been having with lighting in There Came an Echo, so time to bribe people and see if anyone can solve it.

The following shader is what I use to make geometry "invisible", but still take light and shadows. It works, but only partially: colored light sources still appear as white on the surface, and they don't vary according to intensity of the light (unless the intensity is 0).

If anyone can solve this problem and have the shader correctly respond to colored lights, I will give them a free copy of There Came an Echo *and* the official soundtrack when the game is released in 2014. For srs.

Also I will love you forever. And if there are any lurkers out there, you can send me an E-mail at iridium@playiridium.com.

Here's the Unity shader code:

Code: 
Shader "Custom/Matte Shadow" {
     
    Properties {
        _Color ("Main Color", Color) = (1,1,1,1)
        _MainTex ("Base (RGB) Trans (A)", 2D) = "white" {}
        _Cutoff ("Alpha cutoff", Range(0,1)) = 0.5
    }
     
    SubShader {
        Tags {"Queue"="AlphaTest" "RenderType"="TransparentCutout"}
        LOD 200
        Blend Zero SrcColor
		Offset 0, -1
     
    CGPROGRAM
     
    #pragma surface surf ShadowOnly alphatest:_Cutoff fullforwardshadows
          
    fixed4 _Color;
     
    struct Input {
        float2 uv_MainTex;
    };
     
    inline fixed4 LightingShadowOnly (SurfaceOutput s, fixed3 lightDir, fixed atten) {
        fixed4 c;
		
        c.rgb = s.Albedo*atten;
        c.a = s.Alpha;
        return c;
    }
     
    void surf (Input IN, inout SurfaceOutput o) {
        fixed4 c = _Color;
	o.Albedo = c.rgb;
        o.Alpha = 1.0f;
    }
    ENDCG
    }
    Fallback "Transparent/Cutout/VertexLit"
}
Click to expand...

No clue what you are doing there, but if you speak about variation of
intensity of the light over a surface, isn't there a cos term missing
within

Code: 
... c.rgb = s.Albedo*atten; ...

like (no idea about cg)

Code: 
... c.rgb = s.Albedo*atten*[B]cos(lightDir, s.N)[/B]; ...

with s.N being the surface normal?
 
Sanic

Sanic

Member
CriginsMcJuggs said:
Im using Spine and SFML, and at the moment doing all the art myself(bet you couldnt tell).
Click to expand...

I actually don't think the art is all that terrible. Not something I would say is release ready of course, but I think that COULD be the case if you spent a good chunk of time working at it. If you want to actually do that or not is a different story :).

edit: Also, what are your thoughts on SFML? I noticed that their oficial forums aren't that active. I'm sometimes wary of using libraries outside of, say, SDL because even though they carry a lot of baggage, you just can't deny the amount of content written about them.
 
F

Feep

Banned
missile said:
No clue what you are doing there, but if you speak about variation of intensity of the light over a surface, isn't there a cos term missing
within
Code: 
... c.rgb = s.Albedo*atten; ...
like (no idea about cg)
Code: 
... c.rgb = s.Albedo*atten*[B]cos(lightDir, s.N)[/B]; ...
with s.N being the surface normal?
Click to expand...
Possibly something like this for intensity, but I'm more concerned about color. = (
 
C

CriginsMcJuggs

Member
Pandoracell said:
edit: Also, what are your thoughts on SFML? I noticed that their oficial forums aren't that active. I'm sometimes wary of using libraries outside of, say, SDL because even though they carry a lot of baggage, you just can't deny the amount of content written about them.
Click to expand...

I really like it. I thought about using SDL, but there is a lot of setup involved in that. I was also liking Haaf's Game Engine, but that seems to have lost any support. SFML 2.0 was just released, I havent even had to use the Forums too much with the comprehensive tutorials and documentation. I just love it's simplicity. Views make the scrolling camera easy, and I can zoom the camera and change resolution with no hassle. The rest is just drawing everything in the right place.
 
J

Jobbs

Banned
CriginsMcJuggs said:
Ah what the hell I'll show you guys what I'm working on!
4zfAa0q.png

I've been working on this game for the past few months, going to be launching a playable alpha/Kickstarter in the next month hopefully. Game will be Prison Architect/DF style zombie survival game. Im using Spine and SFML, and at the moment doing all the art myself(bet you couldnt tell). Right now I have the basics of base building in, pathfinding, I'm working on getting the humans/zombies attacking each other.

Best idea I have for a name is Outpost Overseer
Click to expand...

This looks pretty cool, are those characters animated yet? if so I think they shouldn't all be on the same frame as eachother, hehe. :)

Nice work, I'm curious to see what it's all about. I love zombie stuff.
 
C

CriginsMcJuggs

Member
Jobbs said:
This looks pretty cool, are those characters animated yet? if so I think they shouldn't all be on the same frame as eachother, hehe. :)

Nice work, I'm curious to see what it's all about. I love zombie stuff.
Click to expand...

Haha yes they are, still perfecting the animation in spine though. The reason they are all on the same animation key is they all started walking at the same time, when I placed the human on the right in the level. When I have them spawning dynamically(attacking in bigger waves at night, attributes randomly varied from one another) that problem will fix itself.
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
Pandoracell said:
I actually don't think the art is all that terrible. Not something I would say is release ready of course, but I think that COULD be the case if you spent a good chunk of time working at it. If you want to actually do that or not is a different story :).

edit: Also, what are your thoughts on SFML? I noticed that their oficial forums aren't that active. I'm sometimes wary of using libraries outside of, say, SDL because even though they carry a lot of baggage, you just can't deny the amount of content written about them.
Click to expand...
SFML seems decent, but I basically got it working with maybe one modification and am sticking with that version unless I ever have to upgrade, since I'm wary of the authors changing something and breaking my engine. =P

I think I was using 2.0 before it was out of beta or whatever. They seem to at least have decent API documentation.
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
Snowden's Secret said:
How easy is Unity to pick up? I have rudimentary experience with QBASIC, VBasic, and Java, if any of that is relevant.
Click to expand...
If you follow a tutorial or a video online, it should be pretty straightforward to do some simple stuff. I think I went in blind (but having programmed before) and made an super simple in-web-browser Minesweeper style game in a weekend, for whatever that's worth. :p
 
F

Feep

Banned
Yup. Just had to change this line:
Code: 
c.rgb = s.Albedo*atten;

to this line:

Code: 
c.rgb = _LightColor0.rgb * s.Albedo * atten;
No one told me that was a thing!

It does tend to make everything else very dark, though. Is there a way of simply attaching a color overlay and not remove light from the rest of the scene? Like a Photoshop blend mode.

I could just increase the directional lighting, but there are some...other issues there.
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
Feep said:
Yup. Just had to change this line:
Code: 
c.rgb = s.Albedo*atten;

to this line:

Code: 
c.rgb = _LightColor0.rgb * s.Albedo * atten;
No one told me that was a thing!

It does tend to make everything else very dark, though. Is there a way of simply attaching a color overlay and not remove light from the rest of the scene? Like a Photoshop blend mode.

I could just increase the directional lighting, but there are some...other issues there.
Click to expand...
What do you mean, the rest of the scene? Changing c.rgb there is only changing the coloring/lighting/shadowing on the surface the shader is applied to, correct?
 
F

Feep

Banned
Blizzard said:
What do you mean, the rest of the scene? Changing c.rgb there is only changing the coloring/lighting/shadowing on the surface the shader is applied to, correct?
Click to expand...
So, before, the entire surface would be clear, with maybe a white circle of light (it should be red!) appearing right in the center.

When I multiply the light value (which is presumably near 0 0 0 everywhere but the circle of light), it *does* make the circle red, but it now makes the rest of the scene extremely dark as a result. I don't want that to happen!

I've been messing with some 1-lightColor.rgb stuff and trying to flip the color values...but it's messy...
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
Feep said:
So, before, the entire surface would be clear, with maybe a white circle of light (it should be red!) appearing right in the center.

When I multiply the light value (which is presumably near 0 0 0 everywhere but the circle of light), it *does* make the circle red, but it now makes the rest of the scene extremely dark as a result. I don't want that to happen!

I've been messing with some 1-lightColor.rgb stuff and trying to flip the color values...but it's messy...
Click to expand...
Hmm, it might help if you post a screenshot...I may be busy until tomorrow evening though.

Mostly I'm still confused by the terminology. A surface shader should only affect the surface, but you speak of the rest of the scene being dark -- is there somehow bounce lighting off the surface? Or is your scene filled with surfaces that use this shader, and when the shader goes dark you see lots of surfaces going dark?
 
F

Feep

Banned
Blizzard said:
Or is your scene filled with surfaces that use this shader, and when the shader goes dark you see lots of surfaces going dark?
Click to expand...
This one.

I know that theoretically it SHOULD be dark if there's no light hitting it, but I want it to just be transparent...which corresponds to "light".
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
Feep said:
This one.

I know that theoretically it SHOULD be dark if there's no light hitting it, but I want it to just be transparent...which corresponds to "light".
Click to expand...

And I would -guess- that you should be able to do whatever shader blending you want with addition and multiplication. I'm guessing at shader syntax, but if you want to add a constant offset to your RGB value:
Code: 
c.rgb = _someConstantColor.rgb + (_LightColor0.rgb * s.Albedo * atten);
Or maybe something like changing your _Color constant, and using:
Code: 
c.rgb = _Color.rgb + (_LightColor0.rgb * s.Albedo * atten);

...oh, you want it transparent with no light hitting it, rather than dark? You might want to change the alpha instead then, unless your rgb color itself is somehow determining transparency and I misunderstood that part. Doing an RGB color with 1-R, 1-B, 1-G might well work as you suggest.
 
M

missile

Member
Feep said:
Possibly something like this for intensity, but I'm more concerned about color. = (
Click to expand...
Feep said:
Yup. Just had to change this line:
Code: 
c.rgb = s.Albedo*atten;

to this line:

Code: 
c.rgb = _LightColor0.rgb * s.Albedo * atten;
No one told me that was a thing! ...
Click to expand...
His had been my next consideration, since the cosine term scales the color
component of the light source. Btw; With cos(lightdir, s.N) I meant the
dot product of lightdir and s.N, <lightDir, s.N>. Glad you found out anyways!
 
L

Limanima

Member
Guys, I feel I have to share this with you all.
My game Snails after being featured in the Brazilian WP Marketplace is today being featured in the Turkish market and in the 20th of July it will be featured in the US, UK, Australia, Canada and Saudi Arabia! This are indeed great news, and at least Microsoft recognizes that there's some quaility in the game.
The game might be a commercial failure, but as a project it's been a huge success!
I never imagined, seriously.
 
F

Feep

Banned
Limanima said:
Guys, I feel I have to share this with you all.
My game Snails after being featured in the Brazilian WP Marketplace is today being featured in the Turkish market and in the 20th of July it will be featured in the US, UK, Australia, Canada and Saudi Arabia! This are indeed great news, and at least Microsoft recognizes that there's some quaility in the game.
The game might be a commercial failure, but as a project it's been a huge success!
I never imagined, seriously.
Click to expand...
Dude, congratulations. That's really awesome. Trailer for anyone who hasn't seen it!

Also, super special thanks to Blizzard, who stayed up super late and literally installed Unity just to try and help me. He almost got it, and eventually I managed to twist and combine his code into mine to create a fully functional colored lighting model.

I believe that's absolutely it for the lighting engine of There Came an Echo. Next up: 3-D animation. Hoo boy. = D
 
M

missile

Member
Limanima said:
Guys, I feel I have to share this with you all.
My game Snails after being featured in the Brazilian WP Marketplace is today being featured in the Turkish market and in the 20th of July it will be featured in the US, UK, Australia, Canada and Saudi Arabia! This are indeed great news, and at least Microsoft recognizes that there's some quaility in the game.
The game might be a commercial failure, but as a project it's been a huge success!
I never imagined, seriously.
Click to expand...
Well done! How did you get them featuring you?

Feep said:
... I believe that's absolutely it for the lighting engine of There Came an Echo. ...
Click to expand...
Cool. Any gif showing how it all works?
 
L

Limanima

Member
missile said:
Well done! How did you get them featuring you?
Click to expand...
We actually didn't do nothing.
We simply received an email from Microsoft stating:

Dear Windows Phone Developer,

We have exciting news for you! Your app is scheduled to be featured in the Windows Phone Store on 20 July 2013. Each week, the Store features a fixed number of notable apps and games in prominent promotional spots for the day. Apps are featured in different combinations where they are visible based on market, placement, and device. These promotions help give great apps like yours the visibility and attention we think they deserve.


Followed by a table with the markets where it will be featured.
 
D

Dynamite Shikoku

Congratulations, you really deserve it!
Limanima said:
We actually didn't do nothing.
We simply received an email from Microsoft stating:

Dear Windows Phone Developer,

We have exciting news for you! Your app is scheduled to be featured in the Windows Phone Store on 20 July 2013. Each week, the Store features a fixed number of notable apps and games in prominent promotional spots for the day. Apps are featured in different combinations where they are visible based on market, placement, and device. These promotions help give great apps like yours the visibility and attention we think they deserve.


Followed by a table with the markets where it will be featured.
Click to expand...

Congrats. Must feel good getting recognition for your hard work.
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
Feep said:
Dude, congratulations. That's really awesome. Trailer for anyone who hasn't seen it!

Also, super special thanks to Blizzard, who stayed up super late and literally installed Unity just to try and help me. He almost got it, and eventually I managed to twist and combine his code into mine to create a fully functional colored lighting model.

I believe that's absolutely it for the lighting engine of There Came an Echo. Next up: 3-D animation. Hoo boy. = D
Click to expand...
I just basically took a shader example of Lambert shading but with transparent surface shading, so I guess the Lambert component handled the lighting automatically. As mentioned I don't actually know what your setup has to do point light shadows on that, though. Did you ever get the directional lighting shadows to work, or just leave it with the point lights?

(I suppose you COULD replace a directional light by an ultra bright point light a million miles away, but I suspect that could cause other fun problems :p)
 
F

Feep

Banned
56k Mega Warning! 18 MB GIF. I'm considering just linking to it and not embedding. I don't know what standard procedure is on a file this size.

LightingGIF.gif
 
F

Feep

Banned
missile said:
Looks cool so far! Btw; Can shadows give enemies any tell about my units?
Would be cool somehow.
Click to expand...
The answer is hell to the no, but I have at least some justification....most lights (those node lookin' things) in the scenes aren't actually there, they're displayed through the characters' AR specs. So they aren't real. ;-)
 
A

Ashodin

Member
Today is more mapwork, and functionality for enemies dying, plus maybe even some sort of inventory menu. we'll see!

Edit: Working on title screen:

m3cWzxO.png
 
F

Feep

Banned
Ashodin said:
Today is more mapwork, and functionality for enemies dying, plus maybe even some sort of inventory menu. we'll see!

Edit: Working on title screen:

m3cWzxO.png
Click to expand...
As a pioneer of rhythm-RPG gameplay, I am going to play the fuck out of your boggle-RPG. <3
 
B

BDGAME

Member
I'm interested in buy the Construct 2 engine, but I have a question about the Steam version: if I buy Construct 2 on steam, I need to logon on steam every time I will use? Is necessary to have steam in every computer that I will use it?
 
R

rohlfinator

Member
Yeah, I think Steam software requires Steam to run -- I know Game Maker works that way at least.

I haven't used Construct 2 or Playmaker, but my guess is that Construct 2 is easier to work with for 2D games. Unity requires a little extra tinkering to get 2D stuff to work right, but Construct 2 is built for it right out of the box. Unity would be more powerful/extensible, but you'd probably need to do some coding to really take advantage of that.
 
M

missile

Member
How to develop on 3DS and Wii U? What's all needed?
- devkit, licenses, eshop conditions, etc.

Recently I came across one or two ideas for a little game utilizing my indie
physics engine that may fit the 3DS. Anyone has some experience developing on
these platforms?
 
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