You're welcome! I tried most of the free stuff and this was actually the best, though if you can afford it something like premiere is probably more ideal. Can't beat free when you're living on the edge though
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Indie Game Development Discussion Thread | Of Being Professionally Poor
- Thread starter chubigans
- Start date
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You're welcome! I tried most of the free stuff and this was actually the best, though if you can afford it something like premiere is probably more ideal. Can't beat free when you're living on the edge though
To go with the Hollow Knight Kickstarter, we've just put the game up on Steam Greenlight!
If anyone would like to see the game on Steam, please help us out by throwing it some Yes votes.
Link: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=344329253
Also some more gifs!
Aus power! Looks great. Good luck!
Ok, this is a bit of a long shot but I thought I'd ask anyway:
I'm using the Oculus Rift and Leap Motion in Unity for my game, and I have the OVRPlayerController and HandController setup so I can view the scene through the Rift, control where you're looking and interact with a Grabbable Object with your hands.
However, when you turn your head to the side, the Hand Controller doesn't track your hand correctly because it is fixed in one place. The VR Essentials guide from Leap Motion states:
I don't really understand how the example works the way it does, because as far as I can see it uses two Quads to display the image passthrough, and there is no OVRCameraRig or OVRPlayerController to be a child of the HandController object. Does anyone else know anything about this and is able/willing to explain it to me?
I'm using the Oculus Rift and Leap Motion in Unity for my game, and I have the OVRPlayerController and HandController setup so I can view the scene through the Rift, control where you're looking and interact with a Grabbable Object with your hands.
However, when you turn your head to the side, the Hand Controller doesn't track your hand correctly because it is fixed in one place. The VR Essentials guide from Leap Motion states:
I don't really understand how the example works the way it does, because as far as I can see it uses two Quads to display the image passthrough, and there is no OVRCameraRig or OVRPlayerController to be a child of the HandController object. Does anyone else know anything about this and is able/willing to explain it to me?
To go with the Hollow Knight Kickstarter, we've just put the game up on Steam Greenlight!
If anyone would like to see the game on Steam, please help us out by throwing it some Yes votes.
Link: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=344329253
Also some more gifs!
voted, good luck!
Phawx
Member
Done and done.
Hi, I'm looking for a concept artist (for a game I already have a prototype of). I tried making a concept art contest on deviantart ( http://forum.deviantart.com/community/projects/2024180/ ), but I haven't had any responses yet. .And yes, this person would likely get paid.
Any ideas on what I am doing wrong? I'm looking for suggestions.
PS. I am also looking for a 3D generalist (model, paint, rig, animate)
Any ideas on what I am doing wrong? I'm looking for suggestions.
PS. I am also looking for a 3D generalist (model, paint, rig, animate)
Jacksinthe
Banned
Have you tried IndieTeamup.com?
Yeah, someone suggested that today. I signed up for indieteamup.com, and I have looked into it a bit. It doesn't seem to have many members yet. I will likely try something with tigsource.
I also have read some other concept art posts on tig, and I've gotten some ideas on better ways to evaluate concept art.
This is of interest to me! Is it an RPG?
I think how a game is remembered really varies from game to game. A few scifi games and what really stood out to me:
starflight - the first game I played that really gave me the feeling of exploring a universe full of life and an interesting story.
sundog - the idea of walking around your own spaceship, going system to system and actually interacting with them in a meaningful way was genius to me.
universe2 - this one grabbed me with the complexity that made me feel like really learning how to operate a starship. Hiring crew, setting their shifts, paying them every time you dock somewhere, having to plan out what ordinance to buy, how to outfit your ship, looking closely at a zillion stats of everything and trial / error failing at the game hundreds of times to sort out the best hull / equipment / ordinance / crew / etc. Only the hardcore scifi fan need apply.... and I was hardcore
starcon 1 genesis - this was a game that to be honest I thought was pretty meh. It had a little strategy game w some fairly fun combat but no story or reason of playing to hold it all together.
starcontrol pc - amazing experience of starflight taken to a new level with action combat and an even richer story and more lively aliens.
alien legacy - all I remember about this was a great human colonization of a new world story. It was a game that was fairly short, and I only played it once... but I remember the story being quite enjoyable.
the dig - mixed my love for the kingsquest type point and click adv games with a great scifi story. And did it with hollywood movie storytelling gusto.
starcontrol 2 3do - I played the hell out of the pc version a year or two prior but I never finished it. I had lost my savegame at some point during my very frequent computer upgrades. I thought 'great... play it on the couch on a system the I don't have to worry about messing w autoexec / config.sys ems xms gravis drivers, etc. I was in for a treat. The 3do version was the same as the pc with one addition that made a massive difference to me. They added very well done voiceovers to all the alien dialogue. To me it moved a solid 8/10 gaming experience to a 10/10 and put starcontrol2 at the top of my favorite game experiences. Not everyone thought voiceovers added to the experience though. There are some fans of the pc version that actually hated the vo and thought it was distracting to the way their imagination brought the aliens to life.
To go with the Hollow Knight Kickstarter, we've just put the game up on Steam Greenlight!
If anyone would like to see the game on Steam, please help us out by throwing it some Yes votes.
Link: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=344329253
Also some more gifs!
voted and backed. This is an example of a KS campaign that I just don't understand. It should be doing FAR better on KS than it is so far (I know it is still early but should be at 50% funded in the first few days and momentum usually goes down dramatically after first week).
It received staff pick, looks great, genre that is very 'in', art is top notch, game is plenty far enough along to look very fun, ks video was well made. Let's all put our heads together and see if we can offer any insights to help it get the exposure it deserves!
So that my feedback for improvements are in context, I like the campaign as-is, just my thoughts on tweaks that may help:
- The video has a bit of a self-indulgently long intro before showing in-game action. I like the build up, but you may be losing some people before they get to the gameplay.
- The scroll length of the campaign is very long. Any areas you could shorten and condense I think would help.
- I think some of the stronger gif animations are buried a bit far down the page. My favorite two are:
and
- I think their are too many still screenshots vs the gifs. For me, Gifs sell a game 10x as well as a still.
- Character art you show a large still then a gif, I think pick one or the other to shorten scroll length (gifs is my pref)
- I would cut down risks/chall section, team I would try and condense as well and maybe add a 20 sec segment in the video a message from the team. I've always liked the human touch in the videos as long as it isn't overdone.
- I think budget pie charts are a good thing that people can glance at and within seconds say 'that seems reasonable'. They are also self explanatory, vs paragraphs of text, in explaining why you want $ and what you are going to do w it.
Anyway, please don't take any of the above as negative nit picking. I just would really like to see it succeed. Have you sent out press info to every site you can think of? There are some pr services out there that have existing relations w gaming sites -- I know.... they aren't free, but some smaller ones are pretty reasonable for what they offer. Reddit, if you can a fan to post about it so it isn't self promotion.
The game looks great and it is getting some ks traction, so hopefully the momentum builds so you can get it funded. 26 days left hopefully is plenty of time for some tweaks and pr to get the word out.
Mystic River
Member
I think how a game is remembered really varies from game to game. A few scifi games and what really stood out to me:
starflight - the first game I played that really gave me the feeling of exploring a universe full of life and an interesting story.
sundog - the idea of walking around your own spaceship, going system to system and actually interacting with them in a meaningful way was genius to me.
universe2 - this one grabbed me with the complexity that made me feel like really learning how to operate a starship. Hiring crew, setting their shifts, paying them every time you dock somewhere, having to plan out what ordinance to buy, how to outfit your ship, looking closely at a zillion stats of everything and trial / error failing at the game hundreds of times to sort out the best hull / equipment / ordinance / crew / etc. Only the hardcore scifi fan need apply.... and I was hardcore
starcon 1 genesis - this was a game that to be honest I thought was pretty meh. It had a little strategy game w some fairly fun combat but no story or reason of playing to hold it all together.
starcontrol pc - amazing experience of starflight taken to a new level with action combat and an even richer story and more lively aliens.
alien legacy - all I remember about this was a great human colonization of a new world story. It was a game that was fairly short, and I only played it once... but I remember the story being quite enjoyable.
the dig - mixed my love for the kingsquest type point and click adv games with a great scifi story. And did it with hollywood movie storytelling gusto.
starcontrol 2 3do - I played the hell out of the pc version a year or two prior but I never finished it. I had lost my savegame at some point during my very frequent computer upgrades. I thought 'great... play it on the couch on a system the I don't have to worry about messing w autoexec / config.sys ems xms gravis drivers, etc. I was in for a treat. The 3do version was the same as the pc with one addition that made a massive difference to me. They added very well done voiceovers to all the alien dialogue. To me it moved a solid 8/10 gaming experience to a 10/10 and put starcontrol2 at the top of my favorite game experiences. Not everyone thought voiceovers added to the experience though. There are some fans of the pc version that actually hated the vo and thought it was distracting to the way their imagination brought the aliens to life.
Starflight was amazing for its time, as well as star control and many other games you mentioned before, wing commanger, elite and many others to remember. And a lot to see now that space is becoming alive again with Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen.
There is only one thing that bothers me recently, most space games are about your ship only and you end up going from point A to point B and fight, mine, etc... I will love to see more than just that, I hope Star Citizen can bring more than just first person shooter, I would love to wonder around cities ,explore planets and things like that without having to just kill and fight, well I will do that in 2d, but I hope someday someone will do better in 3d. Most probably No Man's Sky will be able to fill up the gap
In the meantime, this week added more controls, panels and some system modules, added batteries for extra power storage and a few more things
Check the full detail at : http://mysticrivergames.blogspot.com/2014/11/warp-battery-and-power-distribution.html
Two points about that -- First of all, it's just a fact that Kickstarter has become a bit tougher in general than it was a year and two years ago. If this same listing showed up in 2012 or 2013, it'd probably be raising a small fortune. That's obviously just speculation on my part, but it's kinda what I think. There was more energy and excitement around the idea of identifying cool unheard of indie games and backing them than there is now.
The other point is that it's a very interesting case study in "what happens if you drop an attractive project listing onto KS with no preparation, press, no lead up, etc" because that's what they did.
All that said, though, I still think it's got a good shot. The forward motion hasn't stopped, and it may be enough to get it close enough by the final days that the final days momentum pulls it across the finish line. Seen it happen many times, like with Band Saga. Band Saga had a somewhat slow start but ending up getting pulled passed the finish line by the final days momentum.
It's currently being molded into an Action RPG!
To go with the Hollow Knight Kickstarter, we've just put the game up on Steam Greenlight!
If anyone would like to see the game on Steam, please help us out by throwing it some Yes votes.
Link: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=344329253
Also some more gifs!
Voted! Looks very awesome!
Thanks for the thoughts and the great list Friken! Really constructive points, and not at all negative! Nitpicking is what we need.
We'll probably do as you say and cut back a bit on some of the larger art and text. And I agree that the gifs are more effective than screens. We'd have included more, but because the game is so early in production, there's only so much to show. There are a few features that William, the coder, is currently finishing up, including some cool stuff with dialogue system, and some of the other items and power-ups. We'll definitely be adding them in gif form once they're ready!
I agree with Jobbs, that part of it may be a lack of promotion/exposure beforehand, and a some-what diminished interest in Kickstarter generally.
I still think we are in a pretty good spot really. Everyone who has seen the game has been really positive about it and it seems to be running a great 'Yes' percentage on Greenlight. If Hollow Knight can get coverage on even just a few of the major game sites, then i suspect the support will shoot up. Like you say, we just have to keep contacting them, which we have been doing, but will do so with even more concentrated effort this week.
Impressive stuff going on here, as always.
I'm posting a project I did sound design on. We were a team of 8, and had about five months to make what's seen here (student project).
Youtube video
. Would kill me if my animations were more complicated.
I'm posting a project I did sound design on. We were a team of 8, and had about five months to make what's seen here (student project).
Youtube video
This comes late, but thanks! I decided to do my art in Illustrator, but stay cognizant of what effects don't translate well to Flash and avoid those. When I'm ready to animate I import the illustrator file into flash, animate inside of movieclips, and export those movieclips as spritesheets straight out of flash. Not being able to do nested movieclips is a total pain, though
. Would kill me if my animations were more complicated.Today I begin my journey to becoming an indie game developer. Will Goldstone's Unity 3.x Game Development Essentials book will help form my first baby steps onto this path, along with the many recommendations in this thread. I just want to thank all you folks in this thread that help people like me out, and you creative types who have inspired me to start making games of my own.
I've been lurking around and checking out games posted here for a long time, but I figured it's time I tried to actively participate a little bit more. Hopefully the day will come where I post details on my own game in this thread, but until then wish me luck!
I've been lurking around and checking out games posted here for a long time, but I figured it's time I tried to actively participate a little bit more. Hopefully the day will come where I post details on my own game in this thread, but until then wish me luck!
superNESjoe
Member
Good luck buddy, it's a long and amazing road!
Good luck, man. I've been (slowly) learning Unity for a little while now and mostly used tutorials off YouTube to learn. Unfortunately, I don't have any art or programming skills but I did get Playmaker which has actually been super helpful. The art is going to be the hard part long term if I want to make this anything more than a hobby.
Kitbash
Member
Good choice! That book is excellent. In case you weren't aware, the author's been posting updates on the book's website (and on Youtube) to cover some of the changes Unity's undergone since the book came out.
I just put out my Greenlight! with the lowest res marketing assets ever!
now to enter internal panic mode for the next few hours.
Lord_Balkan
Member
http://www.gamefromscratch.com/post/2014/11/23/OpenGEX-The-3D-Format-for-Indie-Game-Developers.aspx
Something you guys might be interested in
Something you guys might be interested in
Nice, we voted for you. How is it looking after the first few hours?
Congrats on the release and making it to RPS and IndieGames.com!
Have you seen any effect from those two? We are pretty much at the same place as you were, hanging around 20% and activity has dropped dramatically. I've heard that it's not a bad place to be, but I would definitely love some more votes at this point. Thankfully we're still far from release and we will be demoing the game at events as well as doing an alpha test at some point.
If there are people that haven't voted yet, feel free to do so at Ancestory Greenlight Page!
Our Programmer/Designer Lauri posted on IndieDB about prototyping Ancestory on paper and then in Excel (it's a surprisingly powerful tool for testing some game ideas quickly). There' also brief paragraph on how we share implementations between C++ and Blueprints.
It seems that pewdiepie played your game, you probably don't need to worry about anything!
I released a short 3 level demo of Rova's Adventure. The goal is to collect the crystals at the end of the level. Though it looks like you can't collect the crystal from the first level, sorry about that. I'm dum dum
You need Unity Web Player to play.
Click here to play!
I got totally caught up in destruction and made this experiment "game" over the weekend called "Where Is My Hammer":
Knock Knock
It is car! It can drive: https://twitter.com/TocoGamescom/status/536615530976018432
The best way is through it.
You can download it here: http://tocogames.itch.io/where-is-my-hammer-destroy-everything
Please give it a vote here: http://jams.gamejolt.io/indiesvspewdiepie/games/where-is-my-hammer/39931
Knock Knock
It is car! It can drive: https://twitter.com/TocoGamescom/status/536615530976018432
The best way is through it.
You can download it here: http://tocogames.itch.io/where-is-my-hammer-destroy-everything
Please give it a vote here: http://jams.gamejolt.io/indiesvspewdiepie/games/where-is-my-hammer/39931
That's Unreal Engine 4 I assume by the overlay?
BlastProcessing
Member
My partner did a game for pewdiepie's game jam. It actually turned out pretty well. It's a zero g basketball game played on a ring shaped court called Cosmojam.
Here's a video of some gameplay.
You can download it and vote for it here.
It's best with two players, but the computer opponent is surprisingly ok for a jam game.
I think we are going to flesh this one out into a full thing...
Here's a video of some gameplay.
You can download it and vote for it here.
It's best with two players, but the computer opponent is surprisingly ok for a jam game.
I think we are going to flesh this one out into a full thing...
After a solid night's sleep the game's sitting at 11%. Not too bad for about 12 hours. Probably gonna slow down a lot.
The worry, I suppose, is that because he played the game 2 months ago (while I was studying and sitting for exams :<), the hype train has already left the station.
But maybe I'll just push out a couple of new features that are fun to make videos of, and see if I can get a few more people taking a look.
My uneducated guess is any Kickstarter that requires a credit card is fighting an uphill battle. It wasn't until recently that I pledged to anything that wasn't using Paypal (or whatever KS accepts). I wonder if this is true for other pledgers. More specifically for any game not accepting USD.
Anyway, I've obviously pledged, the game looks great and deserves to be doing better.
Diablohead
Member
I got totally caught up in destruction and made this experiment "game" over the weekend called "Where Is My Hammer":
Knock Knock
It is car! It can drive: https://twitter.com/TocoGamescom/status/536615530976018432
The best way is through it.
You can download it here: http://tocogames.itch.io/where-is-my-hammer-destroy-everything
Please give it a vote here: http://jams.gamejolt.io/indiesvspewdiepie/games/where-is-my-hammer/39931
This is something I would love to see played with an oculus rift, lol.
So Hollow Knight has now gone up on Kickstarter (somewhat hastily!). But I hope some of you guys might be keen to take a look. There are lots of nifty artworks on there if nothing else!
kickstarter: www.kickstarter.com/projects/11662585/hollow-knight
We also just released our first full trailer. It has action and adventure and a tonne of bugs. You can check out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2amTl5lBYM
Its still early days with the game, so the full breadth of gameplay isn't yet being displayed, but I'm hoping I can update with some more animated gifs in the near future.
Here're some more screens from early in the game. The Shaman Temple:
Looks absolutely awesome. Voted!
This looks like a pretty accurate description of what it looks like when I try to upgrade my computer or change anything furniture-wise at home.
My little hammer game got on PC Gamer and it is my first game that ever got covered by them! http://www.pcgamer.com/where-is-my-hammer-is-a-free-game-about-destruction
Yes, but such destruction is also possible in Unity. I had a lot of problems though and there are quite a lot of glitches in it.
Do you have any Oculus spare that you can send me? I would then implement it just for you!
It also great for letting out frustration when you bump into a development problem!
superNESjoe
Member
How do you some of you go about responding to reviews? We had the first GunWorld review go up and it seems to be the opposite of the feedback our players have been giving us. We're pretty bummed to read a negative review but still felt we should reach out to thank them for playing it and sharing their opinions.
Do you ever respond to more harsh criticism with appreciation? Do you ever try to correct or answer directly to some of their concerns? Or do you just ignore it and not really make a point to engage it?
Do you ever respond to more harsh criticism with appreciation? Do you ever try to correct or answer directly to some of their concerns? Or do you just ignore it and not really make a point to engage it?
it's tough, but I think you just have to shrug it off. on the bright side, I've never heard of that website.
superNESjoe
Member
I actually just got an email from them thanking me for the review code. They were pretty sympathetic of the fact that their verdict was not what I would be hoping for. I thanked them for their time and honesty and told them I'd send a new build to them if there was ever a significant update.
superNESjoe
Member
Was surprised to see that Critical Indie Gamer's GunWorld review was just updated. They improved the score and elaborated a little bit more. It's always nice to hear people respond to your work, both in good and bad light. I like knowing what can be improved on in the future.
saw this on twitter.I wish this could be me again. I disallow myself to indulge.. for the greater good.
did you threaten them?
I also noticed their only real negative on the board was related to the feel of movement. isn't that pretty easy to tweak? not that every opinion should be met with a kneejerk response (trust me I'd be tied in knots if I did that) but maybe examine it.
superNESjoe
Member
did you threaten them?
I also noticed their only real negative on the board was related to the feel of movement. isn't that pretty easy to tweak? not that every opinion should be met with a kneejerk response (trust me I'd be tied in knots if I did that) but maybe examine it.
Not at all, it came completely out of nowhere. They thanked me for the code, I thanked them for the review, then a bit later I got an email saying they altered the review.
I respect their opinion regarding the controls, but will wait for more feedback. I've gotten positive feedback regarding the feel of the game as well so I'm gonna hold off making major adjustments for now.
For the greater good.
saw this on twitter.I wish this could be me again. I disallow myself to indulge.. for the greater good.
Michael Armbrust
Member
I've been having fun working with shaders.
Originally the outlines in VizionEck were a separate mesh made by hand. I'd finish my level maps, and then edge by edge I'd extrude a rectangle until the full thing was covered.
(The large space between them is just illustrative)
The result looked great but as you'd imagine it took a lot of time. Wasn't a problem for early prototype levels, but some of the later levels would have taken years with this method. I didn't want to waist time making outlines by hand so I worked on other game aspects.
About a week ago I decided it was finally time to take on this challenge so here are my solutions. Hopefully someone else can find them helpful. I'm in Unity btw.
For starters I determined it'd be much easier for the shader to make the outlines as the result of three scaled faces verse what I had been doing.
This looks exactly the same as the other method once all three layers are packed together.
So all the shader needs to do is render each face three times, each slightly smaller than before. To do this the shader moves each vertex along its tangent. If these tangents point towards the center of the face, then it scales the face. Pretty simple.
The "-float4" value after the second and third vert positions is to combat z buffering. I'm doing it this way instead of the regular way in unity because it offers me more control down the road.
If you were to copy this shader in to your game and apply it to a cube, this is the result.
Kinda cool, but not correct. This is because the tangent values for the cube are not pointing towards the center of each face. Instead they're calculated by Unity to line up with the UV maps. To fix this, I created a custom script that processes assets after they have been imported by Unity. It all works behind the scenes. In the Assets folder, it needs a folder called "Editor." In there you can put scripts like this. The basics of my script are
The result is a perfect looking outline!
Hopefully this isn't just interesting but also gives someone some good references if they're needing something similar.
Oh and also I'm back! Been busy and got caught up with some things. All your games are looking fantastic! Congrats on finishing psyscrolr Ashodin.
Might as well post a new screenshot of Vizioneck too!!!
And this image ties back in to shaders!
The blue outlines act like windows, so stacking three planes to make them doesn't naturally work when the top and bottom planes are transparent. Working around that was actually pretty simple. Here's the final shader.
This shader also handles hiding blue outlines when viewed through blue surfaces, as you can see in the picture.
Originally the outlines in VizionEck were a separate mesh made by hand. I'd finish my level maps, and then edge by edge I'd extrude a rectangle until the full thing was covered.
(The large space between them is just illustrative)
The result looked great but as you'd imagine it took a lot of time. Wasn't a problem for early prototype levels, but some of the later levels would have taken years with this method. I didn't want to waist time making outlines by hand so I worked on other game aspects.
About a week ago I decided it was finally time to take on this challenge so here are my solutions. Hopefully someone else can find them helpful. I'm in Unity btw.
For starters I determined it'd be much easier for the shader to make the outlines as the result of three scaled faces verse what I had been doing.
This looks exactly the same as the other method once all three layers are packed together.
So all the shader needs to do is render each face three times, each slightly smaller than before. To do this the shader moves each vertex along its tangent. If these tangents point towards the center of the face, then it scales the face. Pretty simple.
Code:
Shader "Custom/Outlines" {
Properties {
_Color ("Outline Color", Color) = (1.0,1.0,1.0,1.0)
_BColor("Background Color", Color) = (0.0,0.0,0.0,1.0)
_OutlineD ("Outline Distance From Edge", float)=.3
_OutlineW ("Outline Width", float)=.1
}
SubShader {
Tags {}
Pass{
CGPROGRAM
#pragma vertex vert
#pragma fragment frag
fixed4 _BColor;
//structs
struct vertexInput {
float4 vertex : POSITION;
};
struct vertexOutput {
float4 pos : SV_POSITION;
};
//vertex function
vertexOutput vert(vertexInput v){
vertexOutput o;
o.pos= mul(UNITY_MATRIX_MVP, v.vertex);
return o;
}
//fragment function
float4 frag(vertexOutput i) : COLOR
{
return _BColor;
}
ENDCG
}
Pass{
CGPROGRAM
#pragma vertex vert
#pragma fragment frag
//user defined variables
float _OutlineD;
float _OutlineW;
fixed4 _Color;
//structs
struct vertexInput {
float4 vertex : POSITION;
float3 tangent : TANGENT;
};
struct vertexOutput {
float4 pos : SV_POSITION;
float3 tangentDir : TEXCOORD0;
};
//vertex function
vertexOutput vert(vertexInput v){
vertexOutput o;
o.pos= mul(UNITY_MATRIX_MVP, v.vertex+(_OutlineD-_OutlineW)*float4(v.tangent, 0))-float4(0,0,.0001,0);
return o;
}
//fragment function
float4 frag(vertexOutput i) : COLOR
{
return _Color;
}
ENDCG
}
Pass{
CGPROGRAM
#pragma vertex vert
#pragma fragment frag
float _OutlineD;
float _OutlineW;
fixed4 _BColor;
//structs
struct vertexInput {
float4 vertex : POSITION;
float3 tangent : TANGENT;
};
struct vertexOutput {
float4 pos : SV_POSITION;
float3 tangentDir : TEXCOORD0;
};
//vertex function
vertexOutput vert(vertexInput v){
vertexOutput o;
o.pos= mul(UNITY_MATRIX_MVP, v.vertex+(_OutlineD+_OutlineW)*float4(v.tangent, 0))-float4(0,0,.0002,0);
return o;
}
//fragment function
float4 frag(vertexOutput i) : COLOR
{
return _BColor;
}
ENDCG
}
}
}The "-float4" value after the second and third vert positions is to combat z buffering. I'm doing it this way instead of the regular way in unity because it offers me more control down the road.
If you were to copy this shader in to your game and apply it to a cube, this is the result.
Kinda cool, but not correct. This is because the tangent values for the cube are not pointing towards the center of each face. Instead they're calculated by Unity to line up with the UV maps. To fix this, I created a custom script that processes assets after they have been imported by Unity. It all works behind the scenes. In the Assets folder, it needs a folder called "Editor." In there you can put scripts like this. The basics of my script are
Code:
using UnityEngine;
using UnityEditor;
using System.Collections;
using System.Collections.Generic;
public class GOutline : AssetPostprocessor {
Mesh myMesh;
Vector3[] vertices;
Vector4[] tans;
Vector3[] norms;
int[] faces;
void OnPostprocessModel (GameObject myModel) {
//This makes the script work for multiobject files as well
Transform[] allChildren = myModel.GetComponentsInChildren<Transform>();
foreach (Transform child in allChildren) {
if(child.GetComponent<MeshFilter>()){
myMesh=child.GetComponent<MeshFilter>().sharedMesh;
vertices=myMesh.vertices;
tans=myMesh.tangents;
norms=myMesh.normals;
faces=myMesh.triangles;
for(int i = 0; i < vertices.Length; i++){
//do your caclulations for each vertex, then assign them back to the array
tans[i]=mynewtans;
norms[i]=mynewnorms;
//etc
}
//Assign the arrays back to the mesh
myMesh.tangents=tans;
myMesh.normals=norms;
}
}
}
}The result is a perfect looking outline!
Hopefully this isn't just interesting but also gives someone some good references if they're needing something similar.
Oh and also I'm back! Been busy and got caught up with some things. All your games are looking fantastic! Congrats on finishing psyscrolr Ashodin.
Might as well post a new screenshot of Vizioneck too!!!
And this image ties back in to shaders!
The blue outlines act like windows, so stacking three planes to make them doesn't naturally work when the top and bottom planes are transparent. Working around that was actually pretty simple. Here's the final shader.
Code:
Shader "Custom/GOBlue" {
Properties {
_Color ("Outline Color", Color) = (1.0,1.0,1.0,1.0)
_BColor("Background Color", Color) = (0.0,0.0,0.0,1.0)
_OutlineD ("Outline Distance", float)=.3
_OutlineW ("Outline Width", float)=.1
}
SubShader {
Tags { "Queue" = "Transparent" "RenderType"="Transparent" }
Pass{
Blend SrcAlpha OneMinusSrcAlpha
Cull off
CGPROGRAM
#pragma vertex vert
#pragma fragment frag
fixed4 _BColor;
//structs
struct vertexInput {
float4 vertex : POSITION;
};
struct vertexOutput {
float4 pos : SV_POSITION;
};
//vertex function
vertexOutput vert(vertexInput v){
vertexOutput o;
o.pos= mul(UNITY_MATRIX_MVP, v.vertex);
}
//fragment function
float4 frag(vertexOutput i) : COLOR
{
return _BColor;
}
ENDCG
}
Pass{
Blend SrcAlpha OneMinusSrcAlpha
Cull off
CGPROGRAM
#pragma vertex vert
#pragma fragment frag
float _OutlineD;
float _OutlineW;
fixed4 _BColor;
//structs
struct vertexInput {
float4 vertex : POSITION;
float3 tangent : TANGENT;
};
struct vertexOutput {
float4 pos : SV_POSITION;
float3 tangentDir : TEXCOORD0;
};
//vertex function
vertexOutput vert(vertexInput v){
vertexOutput o;
o.pos= mul(UNITY_MATRIX_MVP, v.vertex+(_OutlineD+_OutlineW)*float4(v.tangent, 0))-float4(0,0,.0002,0);
}
//fragment function
float4 frag(vertexOutput i) : COLOR
{
return _BColor;
}
ENDCG
}
//This is the non transparent layer.
Pass{
Cull off
CGPROGRAM
#pragma vertex vert
#pragma fragment frag
float _OutlineD;
float _OutlineW;
fixed4 _Color;
//structs
struct vertexInput {
float4 vertex : POSITION;
float3 tangent : TANGENT;
};
struct vertexOutput {
float4 pos : SV_POSITION;
float3 tangentDir : TEXCOORD0;
};
//vertex function
vertexOutput vert(vertexInput v){
vertexOutput o;
o.pos= mul(UNITY_MATRIX_MVP, v.vertex+(_OutlineD-_OutlineW)*float4(v.tangent, 0))-float4(0,0,.0001,0);
return o;
}
//fragment function
float4 frag(vertexOutput i) : COLOR
{
return _Color;
}
ENDCG
}
}
}This shader also handles hiding blue outlines when viewed through blue surfaces, as you can see in the picture.
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