Oh man, those tips helped so much. Thanks a bunch!
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Indie Game Development Discussion Thread | Of Being Professionally Poor
- Thread starter chubigans
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Oh man, those tips helped so much. Thanks a bunch!
Cheers, and I'll look that book up too. I bought the character modelling book with Gears of War characters on the front from ages ago. Super interesting!
RelentlessRolento
Member
I'm currently (and have been for a while) working with GM for my thesis installation and love it. A word of advice is if a major corrupt or system error message pops up (as apposed to regular debugging problems) don't save! just close and reopen. You may lose some work but it's better than having a file stay corrupt. It's very rare though, I've only had it happen twice in my hundreds of builds i've done.
Also, views are probably my favorite thing now that I know GM more than I use to. Really makes games dynamic.
I'm trying to make a competitive work and getting the main functionality of the work done, and will be doing the art for it this week (it is all currently placeholders).
been mostly working on getting a start screen -> character select -> vs screen -> then the game to remember what characters you chose
will be a competitive Norse based game... still has a ways to go, but the system fundamentals are almost out of the way.
RelentlessRolento
Member
yeah, I usually use weird stuff for placeholders to keep myself entertained while making this stuff
HellBlazer
Member
Epilepsy: The Game.
RelentlessRolento
Member
I may need you all to talk me out of it.
Depends on how crazy you want to go with it;
It's the first semi-large software project I'll be taking on myself instead of being told to modify another person's code. Normally I'm taking an existing project and told to add on to it, and more often than not I can ask a colleague for advice or google a solution to any stumbling block I run into.Depends on how crazy you want to go with it;
But now I have to worry about stuff like specifications and architecture and optimization; and once all that's done I can actually get around to creating a game. Which is almost the easy part.
Wyndstryker
Member
Bleh, procrastination hurts but at least I've gotten more progress.
I really can't wait to actually get all the basic function of things done so I can work on graphics and so forth. And yeah, animations are nowhere close to final...and ignore the castlevania placeholders lol.
I really can't wait to actually get all the basic function of things done so I can work on graphics and so forth. And yeah, animations are nowhere close to final...and ignore the castlevania placeholders lol.
Letterbomb
Banned
Hope you guys don't mind screens a day after Screenshot Saturday. Currently working on a 2.5D platformer, and I wanted to share some progress. We have defined two environments to build for our alpha, one of them being the inner city of a festive Feudal Japan:
We began modeling today, and we've got a basic Torri gate out for show:
Its texture still lacks normal mapping and other details, but it's a good start for now. We're running into some distortion problems when exporting the .FBX file into Unity, for whatever reason, but we're trucking through. It's a good start, and from here on out, we'll just build the environment piece by piece. Up next is the backdrop and lanterns for dynamic lighting.
Waterflame, our composer, also put some finishing touches on our opening theme. We're all very happy with it, and we're getting more and more excited to get our Kickstarter fully built. On the programming end, I'm starting to get used to Unity's interface and editor overall. Got past the basic setup, such as running, jumping, sprinting, walljumping, and et cetera. Gonna enter into interactive terrain, now, such as boosts and bounces and other such things.
I had one question for you guys, if you wouldn't mind helping. Should I just let rigidbodies handle all collisions, or should I incorporate raycasting on my dynamic objects? I've been told to go with either method in various tutorials without much explanation in argument, so I'm a bit at a loss. Mere rigidbodies have been doing the job for me up until now, but I'm wondering if the latter method is more efficient in the long run, especially for fast-paced games.
Guess that's it for now.
We began modeling today, and we've got a basic Torri gate out for show:
Its texture still lacks normal mapping and other details, but it's a good start for now. We're running into some distortion problems when exporting the .FBX file into Unity, for whatever reason, but we're trucking through. It's a good start, and from here on out, we'll just build the environment piece by piece. Up next is the backdrop and lanterns for dynamic lighting.
Waterflame, our composer, also put some finishing touches on our opening theme. We're all very happy with it, and we're getting more and more excited to get our Kickstarter fully built. On the programming end, I'm starting to get used to Unity's interface and editor overall. Got past the basic setup, such as running, jumping, sprinting, walljumping, and et cetera. Gonna enter into interactive terrain, now, such as boosts and bounces and other such things.
I had one question for you guys, if you wouldn't mind helping. Should I just let rigidbodies handle all collisions, or should I incorporate raycasting on my dynamic objects? I've been told to go with either method in various tutorials without much explanation in argument, so I'm a bit at a loss. Mere rigidbodies have been doing the job for me up until now, but I'm wondering if the latter method is more efficient in the long run, especially for fast-paced games.
Guess that's it for now.
also a little bit too late for screenshotsaturday, but i have a new screenshot from my game (still called "Project PixelAI") to share:
This is from the new level-selection screen for the editor-mode. Although only planned for the editor, I am currently thinking about abandoning my old selection-screen (the one, for where you select a level to play it) to replace it with this one.
Hope you like it and please follow: @pixelplant_ios
This is from the new level-selection screen for the editor-mode. Although only planned for the editor, I am currently thinking about abandoning my old selection-screen (the one, for where you select a level to play it) to replace it with this one.
Hope you like it and please follow: @pixelplant_ios
I released my first puzzlescript game yesterday.
http://starfruitgames.com/pigfriends/
Made a nice break from my usual Unity stuff.
Put out a new video showcasing practice mode. With this mode you can pick and select exactly which enemies to battle against and their spawn rate. Previewing a new track too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTnuv_w2dv0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTnuv_w2dv0
bumpkin
Member
Man, I feel like I am having trouble getting anything off the ground game project wise. At times it feels like the monkey on my back, my iOS App (not a game), is always needing some kind of update. I'm actually starting to think about adding in a little arcade of sorts into the App, have it feature a half dozen or so themed mini-games. In my mind it would fulfill two purposes; get some much needed refinements to the rest of the App in, and actually getting to work on some simple games. Seems kind of like a win-win to me!
Of course the collection of mini-games could technically be put out as their own paid stand-alone App, but since my App already has a price tag, maybe the games would help drive sales a bit. I'm sure there have to be people who are on the fence about buying with its current offerings (although at 99 cents they're just being cheapos) might be more inclined if there's some fun games built-in.
Of course the collection of mini-games could technically be put out as their own paid stand-alone App, but since my App already has a price tag, maybe the games would help drive sales a bit. I'm sure there have to be people who are on the fence about buying with its current offerings (although at 99 cents they're just being cheapos) might be more inclined if there's some fun games built-in.
Nice!Destroyed my 3D map:
For gameover, not sure about it yet.
AxiomVerge
Neo Member
The arms feel off to me. I can't really seem to get them right. I'll probably take a break and come back with some fresh eyes later.
It's because the shoulders are keeping still while the arms move. When you run your shoulders rotate back and forth around your spine and your hips rotate in the opposite direction (and the parts inbetween are a blend between the two).
You could try moving the whole arm forward a pixel or two in the forward swing and then back in the back swing. That might be enough.
show me your skeleton
Member
just got my hands on some lovely new sound libraries so i've been super inspired lately. slowly going through the apexicon stuff & updating it all but until that's ready, here's something new:
big bad boss music.
big bad boss music.
The arms feel off to me. I can't really seem to get them right. I'll probably take a break and come back with some fresh eyes later.
Game sounds interesting.
I don't know if you're looking for crits, but to put it briefly I think the shoulders need movement, not just the arms.
This is me at the moment. Though, i did play a little WoW yesterday. Everytime I play another game, I get this feeling that I should be working on my game instead of playing someone else's. I suppose it's good since I've been able to make a lot of progress in the last couple of weeks.
I also figured out that I don't like Unity's mecanim system. Controlling things myself just works better for me.
I play half an hour a day at most now. Feel guilty doing anything more. Part of why I like my Vita so much probably.
I don't even feel guilty. I just don't wanna. Slowly conquering those tough implementation problems that before seemed unsolvable is more rewarding than defeating King Yama.
I just released a game called Absconder for the iPhone/iPad. My goal for this game was to start with a simple idea and take that idea all the way to a completed project (because we all know how hard it is to actually finish our games!) I got a prototype ready in about a week just to show that it could be a fun game. Then another 3-4 months of working nights and weekends (with some intermittent "burnt out" break periods ) to actually make a game out of it.
It's a free download, so check it out if you'd like:
http://tinyurl.com/AbsconderTheGame
(Or check out this video I made of it using my lame video editing skills. lol.)
http://youtu.be/wqE0XW0WRRc
Questions or comments welcome.
) to actually make a game out of it.
It's a free download, so check it out if you'd like:
http://tinyurl.com/AbsconderTheGame
(Or check out this video I made of it using my lame video editing skills. lol.)
http://youtu.be/wqE0XW0WRRc
Questions or comments welcome.
I've barely made progress in ages, after running into an annoying problem in a GUI editor I was working on involving grid snapping. I had too many special cases and conversions between local and absolute coordinates. I suppose I didn't even feel motivated to mess with it, and only occasionally looked at the code.
Eventually I refactored everything that was using local coordinates to use absolute coordinates, and things got so much easier. I seem to have basically fixed all the bugs tonight, and everything is consistent and makes sense now.
It is satisfying to rework something and feel like ah, THAT was probably a better design decision.
Eventually I refactored everything that was using local coordinates to use absolute coordinates, and things got so much easier. I seem to have basically fixed all the bugs tonight, and everything is consistent and makes sense now.
It is satisfying to rework something and feel like ah, THAT was probably a better design decision.
OccamsBlender
Member
Agreeing with the shoulders and Shooting Chicken Revenge's Ko-hei explains it better than I can:
http://diostand.web.fc2.com/THE_WORLD/dot/dot_004.htm
Prophet Steve
Member
So, apparently Unity is having an Asset Store sale for another ten days. Some recommendations or warnings of people? Right now I do not have any extensions but there are a lot of things I find interesting.
There is not a whole lot of choice, but this AI system is interesting since I do not have experience with AI.
There is not a whole lot of choice, but this AI system is interesting since I do not have experience with AI.
TheHollowNight
Member
Anyone going to GDC? A couple of guys from my team will be there since they live in SF & were nicely offered a couple of passes. No idea if we will be showing anything major, but who knows!
I was looking at this as well, but as I've been playing around with mecanim, I'm finding that it's way too automated for what I have going on, so giving it more control is something I'm not interested in. I do wonder how well it works, though.
Damn. Collisions in every IDE sucks, eh? I had to drop colliders for collision in Unity and use raycasting for ultimate pixel-perfect collision and now in GM "solid" objects bug me out (even with perfect collision masks on my character). Fixed the inside corner sticking issue but outside corners make my dude get jiggy with it and teleport him all over the screen. So... No to "solid" I take it and just use place_meeting? Sounds right
Even with minor bugs GM is still light years faster than Unity for 2D, IMO. In about an hour I had my main character rigged, moving, jumping, all animations complete and even setup multiple gravity and dampening configurations dependent on ground/jumping/falling states. Took me a few days to get it setup in Unity. Damn.
Even with minor bugs GM is still light years faster than Unity for 2D, IMO. In about an hour I had my main character rigged, moving, jumping, all animations complete and even setup multiple gravity and dampening configurations dependent on ground/jumping/falling states. Took me a few days to get it setup in Unity. Damn.
RelentlessRolento
Member
Damn. Collisions in every IDE sucks, eh? I had to drop colliders for collision in Unity and use raycasting for ultimate pixel-perfect collision and now in GM "solid" objects bug me out (even with perfect collision masks on my character). Fixed the inside corner sticking issue but outside corners make my dude get jiggy with it and teleport him all over the screen. So... No to "solid" I take it and just use place_meeting? Sounds right
Even with minor bugs GM is still light years faster than Unity for 2D, IMO. In about an hour I had my main character rigged, moving, jumping, all animations complete and even setup multiple gravity and dampening configurations dependent on ground/jumping/falling states. Took me a few days to get it setup in Unity. Damn.
I need to get my collider stuff down better in GM currently for my project so I'll see if I find good solutions. I have yet to get a good system down for it though.
And yes, GM lets me get my projects running as quick as I can keep thinking about it.
I really do wish there was an integrated asset store in GM Like unity has. Would propell it's usefulness IMHO
Hm, Skyshop is currently 50% off. Maybe I should buy it? Not sure... I'm using Unity Free and (for my current project) nearly no textures at all. Would Skyshop shaders help me improve the visuals under these circumstances? Maybe some cool glass floors that reflect a crazy hand-drawn sky or something. I've got very little knowledge of lighting and shaders. Too bad there is no trial/demo version. Any advice?
Damn. Collisions in every IDE sucks, eh? I had to drop colliders for collision in Unity and use raycasting for ultimate pixel-perfect collision and now in GM "solid" objects bug me out (even with perfect collision masks on my character). Fixed the inside corner sticking issue but outside corners make my dude get jiggy with it and teleport him all over the screen. So... No to "solid" I take it and just use place_meeting? Sounds right
Even with minor bugs GM is still light years faster than Unity for 2D, IMO. In about an hour I had my main character rigged, moving, jumping, all animations complete and even setup multiple gravity and dampening configurations dependent on ground/jumping/falling states. Took me a few days to get it setup in Unity. Damn.
Yeah, I always roll my own collision handling in GM because I trust the built-in one about as far as I can throw it. Detection using functions like place_meeting, collision_line and collision_rectangle all work pretty much as expected (if you realize that GM:S defaults to using aabb) but "solid" and collision events aren't very useful to me.
Hm, Skyshop is currently 50% off. Maybe I should buy it? Not sure... I'm using Unity Free and (for my current project) nearly no textures at all. Would Skyshop shaders help me improve the visuals under these circumstances? Maybe some cool glass floors that reflect a crazy hand-drawn sky or something. I've got very little knowledge of lighting and shaders. Too bad there is no trial/demo version. Any advice?
Learn about rendering first. All areas, lighting, shaders, AA, post-effects... Learning is free.
Skyshop is pretty heavy duty, and without knowing the terms and concepts you probably wouldn't get the most out of it.
Thaumaturgic Tomato
Member
Unity users,
I still use 4.1 because 4.3 had quite a number of issues, bugs, complaints, and whatnot. Especially this was the case for those trying import their 4.1 projects to 4.3. Also I think many people had issues with 4.3 running slower or using more power.
Have the 4.3 issues been mostly solved? Or should I stick with 4.1 until a better upgrade is available?
Also, do these issues not present themselves with a project that is started from scratch on 4.3?
I still use 4.1 because 4.3 had quite a number of issues, bugs, complaints, and whatnot. Especially this was the case for those trying import their 4.1 projects to 4.3. Also I think many people had issues with 4.3 running slower or using more power.
Have the 4.3 issues been mostly solved? Or should I stick with 4.1 until a better upgrade is available?
Also, do these issues not present themselves with a project that is started from scratch on 4.3?
Aye. So far place_meeting doesn't work any better setting to a parent object and I'm having a bit of an issue with my main attack animation sometimes only triggering one frame and not playing the whole thing. I haven't added a timeout to it yet so that could be an issue but still happens even with a single keystroke.
I'm doing everything in code with the exception of an Animation End event. Something is more than likely wonky with it causing it to end early. Will fix when I get home from the doc.
RelentlessRolento
Member
I'm a horrible coder so I do my stuff mostly in the visual scripting (with built-in GM function variables, etc) but jump into code once I hit the limit on what those can do.
It may be an alarm if it is ending early, hard to say.
I am strongly considering switching my current project from a mini-game collection to a vs style game if I can finally figure out the collision stuff properly so it dosn't get too bouncy/stuck
Well, good luck with it. Network code always brought new headaches for me in the past.
I haven't encountered anything specific that might have gotten worse in 4.3 over 4.1.
Of course, I file pretty much everything under the generic nomer of "fucking Unity" whenever something goes wrong, so...
Today's WTF Unity: Animator has a pivotposition property that cannot be assigned to, making it pretty much useless for finetuning generic animations.
Case in point: When crouching, my test animation goes into a 'natural' crouch position - read, hips back and leaning forward centered over feet. Of course, for Unity, the pivot position stays the same - the hip position instead of the actual 'center' of the animation - so now I'm turning with an offset...
I'm starting to understand why they went with 'notorso Jensen' for DXHR.
RelentlessRolento
Member
Tempted to get this to mess with it later at some point since it's on sale now:
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#/content/13839
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#/content/13839
LSauchelli
Member
I wonder if with that it'd be possible to make a Beat'em Up, in the vein of Final Fight.
grindamasta
Member
Hey guys! Throughout a whole week we developed a retro shoot 'em up for the #candyjam with the help of some friends.
Here's the link if you wanna have a look at it: http://lubiterum.itch.io/kingtommy
It's pretty short. The main mechanic is to gulp down lots of candies so our "ship" gets fatter. There are 5 bosses, chiptune music, and a quite... peculiar ending
Hope you like it!
Here's the link if you wanna have a look at it: http://lubiterum.itch.io/kingtommy
It's pretty short. The main mechanic is to gulp down lots of candies so our "ship" gets fatter. There are 5 bosses, chiptune music, and a quite... peculiar ending
Hope you like it!
They call it a "root", and the generic mode of animation has a very useful setting in that you can specific a root bone. (You cannot do this with humanoid, which frustrates me to no end.)
In your rig, you should keep a root bone (which usually looks hilarious like a giant wang) underneath your character. It'll give you precise control of the "center" of your character at any given time.
HellBlazer
Member
I'd say give Rain a try before paying for an AI system. It's free and seems to have a lot of depth and customizability. (Admittedly I haven't played with it very much though... but hey, free is worth a try.
)The newer releases have been better. I had shit with creating new projects and the whole editor hanging, etc... I was actively not recommending unity to people back then. Not had that recently, and I'm pro-unity again.
I'm happy, and productive. I wish they'd prioritise stability over features. But, if it was stable.. we'd be crying out for features! They can't win
Prophet Steve
Member
I'd say give Rain a try before paying for an AI system. It's free and seems to have a lot of depth and customizability. (Admittedly I haven't played with it very much though... but hey, free is worth a try.
Ah thanks, that looks useful.
Anyone still has some other recommendations for Unity? Either free or paid?
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