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Indie Game Development Discussion Thread | Of Being Professionally Poor
- Thread starter chubigans
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For the show...
If you see this in motion, you will run away screaming. No kidding! xD
OM+G!!
Video, video, video!!!
Or executable!
James Coote
Neo Member
Thanks! I scheduled a month for the whole process in case something gets flagged up and I need to resubmit. Now just need to work extra hard to get my game finished
Boids? Waypoints? NavMeshes? Local collision?Got swarms of enemies working.
Swarrrrms
A* pathfinding combined with physics to push objects out of each other. It was a bit tricky because objects often can't reach the exact node they're trying to reach because other objects are in the way, which left by itself would cause objects to try to move backwards against the flow with them all shoving against each other.
To fix this, I have a distance check to the pathfinding node rather then needing to move to that exact location so they start moving to the next node when they're close enough to the current one, and I cycle through the instances and constantly search for a new path for each of them. Pathfinding in construct 2 happens on a second core if available, so that helps keep the main CPU core use down. These techniques combined makes it almost always smooth like the gif. I can probably improve it some more by prioritizing which instances search for a new path based on distance to the pathfinding node and maybe some other methods like storing the path in an array and searching for paths to upcoming nodes rather than the actual destination to speed up the pathfinding for each instance.
I tried boids as well as normal collision and push out techniques, but physics beat them in every way. To reduce CPU use, I have a dynamic system that turns physics on and off depending on the distance to the next closest unit.
Never heard of navmeshes... Gonna look that up.
They're extremely powerful. Still, the exact specifics of implementation remain very hard to find (without buying an academic book that focuses on them specifically), and you need to implement the "funnel algorithm", which is pretty tough. Unity has them built-in, luckily.
For details, read this!
Great article, thanks for the link!
Sorry, am a freak myself regarding this stuff, but I really can't show it inOM+G!!
Video, video, video!!!
Or executable!
action without proper warning signs because it can hurt someone for real. An
executable would need said warnings and may also give the user control of the
strength of this effect. Unfortunately, I don't have any time to do so. I have
to spend my time decipher engineers' talk and resolve many of the ambiguities
regarding video. It's a mess. It seems like everyone, i.e engineers,
countries, companies etc. had their take on the subject -- adding to the
confusion. The standard engineering approach so to speak. But at the end of
the day it works, which is really fascinating! The underlying ingenuity in
many of the approaches/methods is pretty much unrivaled.
About the effect. The effect simulates a full break down of the encoders'
color subcarrier frequency. It's not just an overlay effect over the picture
as one might think. The video CRT/simulator approach will be fully frequency
based. It actually really does distort the PAL/NTSC encoders' color subcarrier
frequency in code. So it's a real video signal effect (under development). CRT
effects aren't ready yet. There is still of bunch of things to do to get the
signal right. Without a proper signal a CRT simulator makes no sense. The
problem with video CRT/simulation is that once you go for the real deal you
better feel comfortable sleeping in Pandora's box! Oh dear!
I was lamenting how Visual Studio did not have cool autocomplete such as searching in the middle of a keyword ("hei" matching "_uRoofHeight" or similar).
But today I learned that it is available, even in the Express version, for Vistual Studio 2013! I bit the bullet and installed it. The nice thing is that I can do a one-time decline to upgrade my project, so I am still building using the Visual C++ Express 2010 libraries and project, but using the 2013 IDE with the awesome autocomplete etc.
Thankfully it does not seem to be too similar to the Windows 8 style of large square buttons in clashing colors.
Another benefit is that now I should be all set should I ever license UE4.
But today I learned that it is available, even in the Express version, for Vistual Studio 2013! I bit the bullet and installed it. The nice thing is that I can do a one-time decline to upgrade my project, so I am still building using the Visual C++ Express 2010 libraries and project, but using the 2013 IDE with the awesome autocomplete etc.
Thankfully it does not seem to be too similar to the Windows 8 style of large square buttons in clashing colors.
Another benefit is that now I should be all set should I ever license UE4.
For which language, I suppose C++? Because C# already has that in VS2010 (dunno if express/higher tier version makes a difference).
Kind of annoying that UE4 requires VS2013, guess I have to go back to express version for that.
Dark Octave
Banned
We just found out yesterday that the name "Bomb Runner" is already in use by another game. What a fucking bummer. I've had this name in mind for years and now I can't even use it. I should have checked again (it was clear a few years ago), even a simple google search brings it up. I just thought nobody would use that name for some reason. Lessons learned.
Such a perfect name too, imo. In the "story", they are going on a bomb run, bombing mission or whatever, so "Bomb Runner" was a great title that was very literal, direct and made sense.
I'll figure something else out I guess.
Such a perfect name too, imo. In the "story", they are going on a bomb run, bombing mission or whatever, so "Bomb Runner" was a great title that was very literal, direct and made sense.
I'll figure something else out I guess.
bumpkin
Member
Oh man, so exciting... I'm actually going to have screenshots for Screenshot Saturday! Granted the game is really nothing more than a themed Memory clone that I'm going to be including in a larger non-game iOS App, but it's a near-finished game dammit!
Gotta work on adding some polish tonight, clean up the UI a bit, stylize some things that have plain placeholder facades. Either way, I will have something to show.
Gotta work on adding some polish tonight, clean up the UI a bit, stylize some things that have plain placeholder facades. Either way, I will have something to show.
Yep, I was confused about this, but apparently VS2010 for C# had the feature and VS2010 for C++ did not (or only had it in pro). VS2013 Express has it for both C# and C++.
And yes I believe you can use VS2013 Express with UE4, but you should be able to have multiple versions of VS installed.
I don't know, but I love these coloring effects. Anyone? Basically, the image
(the video signal) contains no color information, it's a gray-scale image of
some concentric rings, yet (false) colors are introduced while the image is
reconstructed at the receiving end. Some of you have seen such an effects on
broadcast TV -- which is what I'm going to simulate here.
I don't know, but I love these coloring effects. Anyone? Basically, the image
(the video signal) contains no color information, it's a gray-scale image of
some concentric rings, yet (false) colors are introduced while the image is
reconstructed at the receiving end. Some of you have seen such an effects on
broadcast TV -- which is what I'm going to simulate here.
You know I love it all!
Michael Armbrust
Member
Hey guys!
I've been reading this thread for a long time, but now that my game's been announced I can actually start participating.
I'm making VizionEck for PS4. Here's the link if you're interested in seeing what it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjS3Y9U5lT8
Some dev info:
Started making the game back in August of last year for PC. Seeing all of your success stories made me say "why not?" so I got in contact with PlayStation. Now it's a PS4 game instead of a PC one.
I'm really not sure how much I can legally say about developing with PS4, so right now I'll stick to talking about the game's original development for PC. For the engine I used Unity and coded in C#. For modeling I was using Blender.
I don't want this to come off as a self promotion, so please let me know if I'm on the boarder of breaking any rules.
-Michael Armbrust
I've been reading this thread for a long time, but now that my game's been announced I can actually start participating.
I'm making VizionEck for PS4. Here's the link if you're interested in seeing what it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjS3Y9U5lT8
Some dev info:
Started making the game back in August of last year for PC. Seeing all of your success stories made me say "why not?" so I got in contact with PlayStation. Now it's a PS4 game instead of a PC one.
I'm really not sure how much I can legally say about developing with PS4, so right now I'll stick to talking about the game's original development for PC. For the engine I used Unity and coded in C#. For modeling I was using Blender.
I don't want this to come off as a self promotion, so please let me know if I'm on the boarder of breaking any rules.
-Michael Armbrust
Great trailer, love the atmosphere in it. Nice move on your part to get in contact with them and to hear it worked out for you
Hi Michael! Do you mind explaining what it is we're looking at? From what I can tell, it's just an art piece so far. Is it something along the lines of Unfinished Swan or Antichamber?
Dynamite Shikoku
Congratulations, you really deserve it!
Cool. I was just reading about this on Eurogamer.
Michael Armbrust
Member
The primary function of the announcement trailer was to show off the art-style, but the final game is focused on gameplay.
It's an FPS at the core.
Also I laughed pretty hard at this:
The primary function of the announcement trailer was to show off the art-style, but the final game is focused on gameplay.
It's an FPS at the core.
Also I laughed pretty hard at this:
Ha, that's funny. Well, I do think you have an interesting and striking art style, so props for that!
Streaming is hard. He did a stream for HFA tonight with 3 other developers and ran into a significant number of issues getting everyone together, getting the streams straight, keeping all the "signage" up, transitioning smoothly from on game to the next, streaming streams from people that couldn't get us builds, etc. Any tips?
Feedback is that it isn't as bad as it felt on our end, but it felt pretty rough for the first hour or so. People are probably just being nice, which is good, but not incredibly productive. We have another stream coming up next Thursday and we're shooting for never seeing any of this crap ever again.
Feedback is that it isn't as bad as it felt on our end, but it felt pretty rough for the first hour or so. People are probably just being nice, which is good, but not incredibly productive. We have another stream coming up next Thursday and we're shooting for never seeing any of this crap ever again.
Love the images you are posting. The coloring effects look awesome
You know I love it all!
Glad you like it. Should come in handy some day.
Haven't been as active in this thread as I would have liked recently, just so busy, but congrats to Ashodin and best of luck with your Wii U version, also loving the retro tv/monitor effects Missile is pulling out
Just put a new Cactus update live on Steam with the third boss and seventh playable character, hoping to get back in to regular development patterns now that GDC/PAX East is over (Organizing this stuff and traveling around the world from Australia is exhausting, didn't realize how bad it would be) so hopefully I'll be in here a bit more now.
Also, Ashodin, we've been doing some console dev too so sort of understand what you're going though, it might be well worth your while to find other Wii U developers using a similar set of tools/engine if you're really struggling to get things up and running, it's surprising how much that can help.
Just put a new Cactus update live on Steam with the third boss and seventh playable character, hoping to get back in to regular development patterns now that GDC/PAX East is over (Organizing this stuff and traveling around the world from Australia is exhausting, didn't realize how bad it would be) so hopefully I'll be in here a bit more now.
Also, Ashodin, we've been doing some console dev too so sort of understand what you're going though, it might be well worth your while to find other Wii U developers using a similar set of tools/engine if you're really struggling to get things up and running, it's surprising how much that can help.
bumpkin
Member
Finally, I have something to contribute to the goodness being shown in this thread. It's nowhere near as flashy or cool as a lot of others', but I'm still psyched about the progress. I'm actually doing more work on it this afternoon, so this is actually a pre-polish screen shot
Pretty much alpha as far as appearance goes. It'll be much slicker later, I promise!
Stay tuned, folks!
Stay tuned, folks!
Diablohead
Member
Here's a sort of screen shot saturday image, more like a photo taken in the evening under a dull lamp with a shit iphone camera:
Diablohead
Member
I want to make it as authentic to real snes game boxes as possible, if I can work something cool out I might progress with the idea of a real box to house the game and manual, maybe.
Anyone else done any Unity AnimationCurve manipulation? Ever run into something like this?
(I guess the rest of the blog can count as a sort of entry for screenshot saturday, while I'm at it
(I guess the rest of the blog can count as a sort of entry for screenshot saturday, while I'm at it
Anyone else done any Unity AnimationCurve manipulation? Ever run into something like this?
(I guess the rest of the blog can count as a sort of entry for screenshot saturday, while I'm at it
I don't know anything about Unity, but what you're seeing in the second picture is an asymptotic curve. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymptote)
Diablohead
Member
Something I love about jamming is I get to experiment with new things in an abbreviated period. One of the experiments I had last weekend was working with super-exaggerated body proportions (picture here: http://abebly.com/files/devScreen02.png) and basically I'm in love.
Anyway, I'm bringing this up because it's made me contemplate redoing some of the art in my main game. So I've got my new mock-up on the left and the original design on the right and I'd love if I could get some input regarding the new style.
Thoughts?
Sorry for being late to this but I actually prefer the original more human looking proportions, but both work and look great IMO.
Right, which would make sense if the right tangent of the first keyframe pointed down... but according to the curve editor, it's pointing up at its neighbour, and its neighbour's is pointing down at it, so I really have no idea why this is happening.
Same for the other one. All the tangents are 'straight', but somehow, there's these random ducks and weaves in the graph. I wouldn't mind if the glitches didn't carry through to the actual animations, that sometimes have a few 'freak out' frames where the weirdness happens in the graphs.
Anyone else done any Unity AnimationCurve manipulation? Ever run into something like this?
(I guess the rest of the blog can count as a sort of entry for screenshot saturday, while I'm at it
Looks like a typical effect of rotation interpolation - see this page (look for Rotation Interpolation Types). If rotation interpolation is set to Quaternion, the resulting rotation is always smooth, but the displayed Euler angles might jump (e.g. when going over 360 degrees). It might also depend on how you export / import the animation, e.g. you can set angle representation type in FBX export iirc..
Edit: It might also be depending on how you animate in your 3d package - e.g. if you have keys for rotation that go from 0 to 720 for two full turns.
One fix might be to set bake animation to true, so every frame gets a key, but that's a bit more memory intensive depending on how complex your animations are..
Michael Armbrust
Member
That looks really nice. What does the text to the right of her say?
You're shipping your game?
I think I'll be sticking with the new design, but I appreciate the input all the same. Thanks, Diablohead! (I haven't said this before, but I also really like your character's design!)
Yeah. Sorry I don't know more. Hopefully you can figure it out!
Diablohead
Member
Shipping? depends on something I plan to do next month if all the stars align.
As for that text, I had to go with a 90's description:
'An action adventure
game set in a fantasy
future in the depths
of space and beyond'
*edit* version 2 of the box, i'm happy with the design now, will end up tweaking it for the rest of the month i'm sure.
Mystic River
Member
Shipping? depends on something I plan to do next month if all the stars align.
As for that text, I had to go with a 90's description:
'An action adventure
game set in a fantasy
future in the depths
of space and beyond'
*edit* version 2 of the box, i'm happy with the design now, will end up tweaking it for the rest of the month i'm sure.
I like the box! well done!
Isn't it going to be digitally distributed? I haven't pick up a box for so long, my last box was Guild Wars and all the other chapters with it but I didn't even use the discs and download that from their site as far as I remember
since I don't even have a cd drive now, thrown it away long ago since it was collecting dust
V.A.L.I.S
Neo Member
Shipping? depends on something I plan to do next month if all the stars align.
As for that text, I had to go with a 90's description:
'An action adventure
game set in a fantasy
future in the depths
of space and beyond'
*edit* version 2 of the box, i'm happy with the design now, will end up tweaking it for the rest of the month i'm sure.
woha! very nice box! awesome!
bumpkin
Member
Those are rad, man! I miss the days when the packaging had its own character and the game manuals were something to look forward to thumbing through. As a kid I remember that you could order replacement manuals directly from Nintendo for any game. I bought a SMB2 one even though I never owned the game; always borrowed it from a friend or rented it.
Although I ran out of time this afternoon to work on it, I made some more progress with my card game. Here's two new screen caps!
I'm hoping I can tie up loose ends and tighten up the UI a little more (the icons in the second shot are placeholders). Getting there, though. The important parts are done and it's playable!
When importing a blender file, Unity always bakes the animation it seems.
Anyway, I might go back to this later, but it's not critical at the moment. Gotta focus on gameplay first
I agree with this, however I think the over sized weapon works better in the left image as the scale changes make it not stand out.
Nice designs either way.
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