Support NeoGAF

[Diablohead]

Guess I should get around to setting up a dropbox this weekend then

Since I don't really have anything for screenshot saturday, i've uploaded one of the looped tunes you will hear in Generations to sound cloud, I had this stuff made last year and we had it all finalized by last november or so, thought I would have my game done by now to use them in

https://soundcloud.com/diablohead/nakiti-generations-calm

Also next time I make a game, I am half sizing my sprites these are taking forever to make.

Color changes:

Think that I prefer the blue hair myself.

 

[BomberMouse]

Yay, the only upside of being unemployed is that I actually made progress on my game. Guess I'll finally have something to show for SSSaturday tomorrow.

 

[Zozobra]

Thanks, but I reserve the right to make a hype trailer later.

I'm making the game by myself (though I have an audio genius who is going to be making the music and sound for it once it's a bit closer to done). I'm primarily an artist, and I work with other people sometimes, but in this case there's a certain amount of relief in being able to tinker and iterate on my own without having to explain or bounce things back and forth.

This has been sort of my "baby", and my pet project, over the last almost-a-year. Playing Dark Souls is what made me first realize how much I wanted to make my own metroidvania game, and there have been many growing pains as I went from humble beginnings trying to make the character move and jump, up until sometime in the last few months when it really started to come together into a game I'm proud of. It's much more feature rich already than I ever would have imagined in the past.

If you'll indulge me, one of the things I liked in Dark Souls was the lonely world, populated by the occasional NPC who seems to be caught up in his own story. My game has some of that. Another old gaming thing I like is the nemesis character who the main character runs afoul of and does battle with several times throughout the game. For me this is hard to resist, so I'm doing it. A menacingly slinky, 8 foot tall android will catch up to you several times in the game. He's an important part of the story.

I detest modern game design where the player is constantly prompted with what to do next. I prefer classic game design (or the rare modern gem like Dark Souls) where the game attempts to make things somewhat logical, but does not hold your hand or even particularly care if you win or not. In some games back in the 8 and 16 bit days, the lore and mystery of the game wasn't limited to its fiction. It's a goal of mine to richly reward exploration and experimentation by making very significant content completely missable, and also include some hyper rare things that most people won't see in order to maybe help the game have some "supra-fiction" lore of its own.

I'm admittedly a novice game designer, I've never made any game remotely like this before -- but I know what I like, and my guiding principle here is that the possibility of the player doing something wrong, or not always knowing everything, or the possibility of perhaps failing are all necessary in order for real drama and adventure to exist.

There's a ton I could talk about -- Hell, I could talk about what I've done in the game and what I plan to do all day long, as I'm sure those in my life could attest, I'll talk your damn ear off. But I'll try to restrain myself before I get too obnoxious.

I really enjoyed your preview video and your design philosophies are really similar to my own (I'm a HUGE fan of everything about Demon's/Dark Souls and love me a good metroidvania).

I'm still a ways off, but I do intend to start dabbling in game dev stuff in the next little while. I'm also an artist by trade, so it's encouraging to see what you've come up with here. Servbot asked in his/her post, but I didn't see a response: just wondering what engine you used to create this?

 

[Bananimus]

SVN repositiores like Assembla are a good option as well, since they also allow you to undo recent changes in case you mess something up, and it's really good for when you're working on the same project alongside other people.

Seriously. Online version control is so easy these days that there's no reason not to use it for code, project files, and text assets. Dropbox or cloud storage is better for larger assets like 3D models and textures, but it doesn't confer the benefits that a full version control solution gives you. Made a change that introduced a bug somewhere? Look at each change and figure out what happened. Really screwed up a file? Revert it. The list goes on.

I personally use BitBucket, but I imagine that Assembla is just fine. It doesn't matter if you don't need all the features or if you use it poorly, it's better than local backups that can easily be lost, stolen, or damaged. Also, it's free. Use it!

 

[missile]

... I detest modern game design where the player is constantly prompted with what to do next. ...

If Quake was done today.

 

[missile]

Yay, the only upside of being unemployed is that I actually made progress on my game. Guess I'll finally have something to show for SSSaturday tomorrow.

--

Being unemployed isn't as bad as it seems, esp. not if one lives in a country
where one receives medical insurance while being unemployed for a give period
of time. Investing this time into a game and going for creating a business out
of it (such that the time spent is for real, not only just for fun doing
stuff), then this might be the best situation one can have. And at times the
employment agency may also help founding the business if done properly.

However, the problem with this strategy is that some people can't cope with
the pressure the system exerts on them while being unemployed, giving sh!t
about what others say.

From Germany I know that one can get about a one year support from the
employment agency while going for a real business. During this time you don't
have to take other (sh!t) jobs whatsoever. In Austria, where I'm living for
about two years now, one can do the same thing, it's a project similar to the
one in Germany. It's a good chance starting into something. But you better
come up with something, a prototype, a business plan etc. And it's not about
whether you can guaranty success or not. It's a try, a boost you can get
offered from the government for free. So if one runs out of money whatsoever
with his/her game etc. and hasn't took on the program before, then the option
is still there to apply. It can also serve as a fall back scenario or as a
final kicker while entering the market.

Why I'm telling this? Because I can't stand people saying they don't get a
chance going for what they wanna do! One gets a chance, esp. if one lives in
Germany or Austria (can't speak for other countries, but I guess there might
be similar programs at times). However, the experience I made is that people
fear quitting their sh!t job. They think they lose something, even if the job
is full of sh!t, and telling everyone they don't get a chance, telling they
don't have a choice. They want all the benefits, insurance, etc. without
taking any risk. And I can't stand it! There are no insurance in life. And no
job is fixed forever. It all comes to an end. Life is finite, and you better
don't wast it working for a sh!t job.

--

@BomberMouse: Looking forward to SSSaturday.

 

[Jobbs]

just wondering what engine you used to create this?

Oh, sorry. I got busy ranting. I'm using stencyl 3, which if you're not familiar is the same general idea as game maker. like game maker, there's much more depth and possibility than initially meets the eye. Different from GM, this is running on haxe/nme, which gives it a lot of portability. (the previous version though is based on actionscript which didn't work as well for me. 3.0 works better for my purposes)

I've learned a lot about programming in general by making this game, since building logic in stencyl uses the same general concepts as any programmer uses. variables, arrays, you name it. people can also write custom code or extensions to the engine to accomplish more things.

Down the road I have my eye on making an action RPG with platforming and fluid beatem up mechanics, sorta in the same vein as what noogy has done with dust. With my knowledge of the system now I think I could do this well in stencyl, but I may be dropping the training wheels for my next large scale project, and primarily use stencyl for prototyping and smaller projects. As an artist and aspiring designer, working alone has let me express myself more freely than when I work in a team, but there are also benefits to working with knowledgeable programmers that'll let me go beyond what I've done with ghost song. For instance, I also already have ideas for ghost song 2 in my head (which is funny since I still have a lot of work left to do on 1) and my idea for the game mechanics involve lots of dynamic stuff with liquids and submerged areas -- And to do this in the wonderful way I'm picturing in my head, I have no idea where to start in terms of implementation. I could "fake it" in stencyl but I really want to do something higher end next time.

Nonetheless, I never would have imagined that I could do so much on my own -- for my existing project I've been able to do everything I've wanted to do. simple lighting and particle effects, great enemy AI, bosses, a stat system with armor and crits, etc. There's even a physics system built in, box 2d, that I can use to make things physicsy (like the bouncing bombs). Just getting my head around the basic principles of building logic has opened a world of possibility, and it's always a fun challenge coming up with a design idea and figuring out how to implement it and make it work.

Here you see I have layers of backgrounds and foregrounds scrolling, dust, I have an overlay filter blending the colors together, I have little motes flying around looking pretty. I have other areas in the game I consider very pretty but I'm saving them for later.

Stencyl's marketing suggests it's primarily intended for making casual type games, mobile games, IOS stuff -- however, upon starting to learn it, I saw no reason I couldn't make a big, graphic heavy, detailed metroid style experience with many powers and game systems, and indeed there isn't.

 

[missile]

^ Looks nice. I'm not an artist, but I recognized that the lighting of the
moon isn't aligned with the lighting of the level. Watching the player the
light source sits in front, up, and to the right from the player. And as such
the moon must be shades differently, and much brighter. But then it's a game
and you did it on purpose.

 

[Margalis]

Made some backups today of all my game work, even though the game is only a few MB big as it stands without many levels made yet, I have about 11GB of backup from 2+ years of work.

my new 16GB usb stick might not be big enough by the end of development.

I do have two internal HDD's but I like to backup stuff away from the PC in case anything ever happens.

Dude, just sign up for bitbucket or something. It's free.

 

[Jobbs]

^ Looks nice. I'm not an artist, but I recognized that the lighting of the
moon isn't aligned with the lighting of the level. Watching the player the
light source sits in front, up, and to the right from the player. And as such
the moon must be shades differently, and much brighter. But then it's a game
and you did it on purpose.

You're actually already on the moon. That's a planet in the background. Your point is well taken, though. I don't think I thought a great deal about the lighting of the planet, I just kind of wanted it to look subtle and blended in with the sky with a nice outline. Maybe I'll tweak it later.

One of the compromises of 2D art in terms of the actual characters and objects is you're painting a static picture with a fixed light source, you can't really move it around to suit every scene, at least, I can't. I draw the sprites once and they are to be used in different areas.

 

[missile]

You're actually already on the moon. That's a planet in the background. Your point is well taken, though. I don't think I thought a great deal about the lighting of the planet, I just kind of wanted it to look subtle and blended in with the sky with a nice outline. ...

The situation even applies while being on a moon. You may perhaps try to
give the planet a texture and light it with a saturated white, blending it
with the blue atmosphere to a certain degree making it subtle. But anyhow,
might just be something I recognized. Not saying it looks bad the way it is!

... One of the compromises of 2D art in terms of the actual characters and objects is you're painting a static picture with a fixed light source, you can't really move it around to suit every scene, at least, I can't. I draw the sprites once and they are to be used in different areas.

For sure.

 

[Margalis]

I liked your video a lot, the only thing I didn't like was the weapon sounds.

The default sound seemed a little too sharp, it could get annoying after a bit, and some of the other sounds suffered from clipping to my ears.

That you did it with a scripting tool is cool. Sometimes I wonder why the fuck I bother doing "real" programming when people make cool games with various game-maker like things or learn some minimal programming in the course of making a game.

There's definitely something to be said for doing the best with the tools you have and being as creative as possible within that box, rather than trying to program a bigger box.

 

[Feep]

One of the compromises of 2D art in terms of the actual characters and objects is you're painting a static picture with a fixed light source, you can't really move it around to suit every scene, at least, I can't. I draw the sprites once and they are to be used in different areas.

This isn't necessarily true. For a good example, see the custom tech DoubleFine whipped up for Broken Age.

It's unlikely that an indie would pull something like that off, though.

 

[maniac-kun]

Does anyone have usefull links on Android development and OpenGL ES 2.0?

 

[Jobbs]

I liked your video a lot, the only thing I didn't like was the weapon sounds.

The default sound seemed a little too sharp, it could get annoying after a bit, and some of the other sounds suffered from clipping to my ears.

That you did it with a scripting tool is cool. Sometimes I wonder why the fuck I bother doing "real" programming when people make cool games with various game-maker like things or learn some minimal programming in the course of making a game.

There's definitely something to be said for doing the best with the tools you have and being as creative as possible within that box, rather than trying to program a bigger box.

Thanks. Glad you liked it.

As I said before, the sounds in the game at this point are placeholders that I quickly made myself. Someone else will be doing the final audio and music later on.

 

[Raide]

Well, Unity is getting fun. Not working on my main projects but playing around with other bits to figure out how it works.

Any suggestions on what to use to make simple objects to use at Unity prefabs? Is Blender the best choice?

 

[Feep]

Unity Pro license purchased.

I'm sure it can be done, but this is going to be a challenge. I'm overlaying 3-D characters above a 2-D scene, from an isometric perspective. It's really important to have realistic shadows cast from the characters, so that the two blend, but the only way I can think to do that is to cast shadows onto transparent walls and floors, so that only the shadow appears (geometrically correct) over the 2-D backgrounds underneath.

I think a custom shader is needed to do something like that, but I have no idea how to write one. Maybe I'll grab a pro from the forums or something.

 

[Margalis]

Any suggestions on what to use to make simple objects to use at Unity prefabs? Is Blender the best choice?

From what I understand of Blender and Unity (from what little I used of it) the model and animations imports but the material does not.

So when you import something from Blender you have to tell it how to replace the materials on it with Unity materials.

Depending on how complex and varied your materials are this could be a non-issue or pretty cumbersome. Not sure if you re-import that same model if it remembers your old material replacement.

Personally I find Blender itself pretty awful in terms of UI, but I'm used to working with Max and Maya. (But not with Unity) I'm sure I'd get over it eventually.

 

[Dascu]

Well, Unity is getting fun. Not working on my main projects but playing around with other bits to figure out how it works.

Any suggestions on what to use to make simple objects to use at Unity prefabs? Is Blender the best choice?

I personally swear by Wings3D for low-poly character and object modelling.

And Blender is a goddamn mess to work with.

 

[Margalis]

I'm sure it can be done, but this is going to be a challenge. I'm overlaying 3-D characters above a 2-D scene, from an isometric perspective. It's really important to have realistic shadows cast from the characters, so that the two blend, but the only way I can think to do that is to cast shadows onto transparent walls and floors, so that only the shadow appears (geometrically correct) over the 2-D backgrounds underneath.

I think a custom shader is needed to do something like that, but I have no idea how to write one. Maybe I'll grab a pro from the forums or something.

Sounds tricky. You could have transparent walls and floors and cast the shadow onto them. Could run into some z-write trickiness. Do you want the walls to also cast shadows?

It might depend on how thick walls are and the level layout, but say your character is standing near a wall casting a shadow on the wall, and that wall is in turn casting a shadow on the ground behind it. If you don't want the wall to cast a shadow you could end up with the character casting a shadow on the floor behind the wall, where the wall shadow would have been. (Basically what you would expect to see if the wall turned invisible)

 

[Feep]

Sounds tricky. You could have transparent walls and floors and cast the shadow onto them. Could run into some z-write trickiness. Do you want the walls to also cast shadows?

It might depend on how thick walls are and the level layout, but say your character is standing near a wall casting a shadow on the wall, and that wall is in turn casting a shadow on the ground behind it. If you don't want the wall to cast a shadow you could end up with the character casting a shadow on the floor behind the wall, where the wall shadow would have been. (Basically what you would expect to see if the wall turned invisible)

The walls do not need to generate shadows themselves. I can bake that stuff right into the 2-D background, since nothing there is dynamic. It wouldn't cast onto the characters, I guess, but I don't see that as being so important.

The shadow shouldn't go through the transparent surface...for all intents and purposes, it should act just as a normal solid texture would, except that everything that isn't shadow is completely see-through.

 

[Raide]

From what I understand of Blender and Unity (from what little I used of it) the model and animations imports but the material does not.

So when you import something from Blender you have to tell it how to replace the materials on it with Unity materials.

Depending on how complex and varied your materials are this could be a non-issue or pretty cumbersome. Not sure if you re-import that same model if it remembers your old material replacement.

Personally I find Blender itself pretty awful in terms of UI, but I'm used to working with Max and Maya. (But not with Unity) I'm sure I'd get over it eventually.

I personally swear by Wings3D for low-poly character and object modelling.

And Blender is a goddamn mess to work with.

Thanks both.

I will check out Wings and see.

At this point its pretty simple objects with simple textures etc for Unity Prefabs. Hopefully as the projects progresses, I might be able to get hold of better models to make things look a bit better.

 

[Paz]

Here's a hectic 4 player image for Screenshot Saturday

My favourite character, Coral, has the crown showing she is destroying the most stuff.... No bias in my weapon balancing Really happy with the new UI that show how long until your chain will break, the circle around the number acts as a timer while it disappears.

 

[Margalis]

Ok so, disclaimer, it's 6 in the morning and I haven't had coffee.

Say you have a projected shadow or decal or some approach like that. Problem: Your character shadow collects geometry on the opposite side of the wall.

Now say you have a typical shadow map, drawn from the perspective of the light, that will be used to shade the scene. That shadow map has the character and the walls in it. Problem: Now walls cast shadows.

Now you make walls not part of the shadow map. Problem: Now characters cast shadows through the wall. (Technically they did before, but they were inside of the wall shadow so you couldn't tell the difference. Now that walls aren't part of the shadow map their shadow doesn't obscure the character shadow)

Ok, so now here's what I think: I'll create a shadow map that has only the characters, and another shadow map that has only the walls. (This second map I only need to reconstruct when the light moves) When I draw the scene I draw something in shadow if it would be shadowed by the character but not by the wall.

Does the character cast a shadow on the wall and ground? Yes. Does the wall cast a shadow on the ground? No.

What if a tall character is standing next to a low wall, do I get the right result? For the ground near the wall on the opposite side it is in both maps, so I don't draw shadow. Ok. For the ground farther away it is in the character map and not the wall map, so I do draw the shadow. Also correct.

I think this makes sense. The idea here is that something is in shadow if it would be shadowed only by the character. If it would be shadowed by both the character and something else it isn't shadowed, because presumably that shadow is drawn into the 2D graphics.

Now for the invisible rectangles that define your floor and walls and such, when you draw them you probably want to have a material that does the shadow map stuff then only writes when the shadow casts on it. (You cull the pixel otherwise)

So you need:

To render the shadow maps for the characters and walls. (should be easy)

A shader that does the dual map lookup (or dual channel) and culls pixels depending on the testing.

Quickly searching it looks like Unity has built-in shadow map generation and rendering, multiple shadow maps seems like something a little trickier. I don't have much experience with the shadow system in Unity, it's not hard to roll your own but Unity comes with support for cascading maps and such so if you could use their system but render 2 maps that would be good.

You could probably start by making only characters cast shadows, use a single shadow map, and write the shader to the do per-pixel culling on the "transparent" rects based on shadow map lookup or even the resultant color if getting the shadow map value directly is hard. That would be a good test of the approach.

In a couple hours I may realize this was all nonsense. Buyer beware.

 

[Teknopathetic]

"Thanks both.

I will check out Wings and see.

At this point its pretty simple objects with simple textures etc for Unity Prefabs. Hopefully as the projects progresses, I might be able to get hold of better models to make things look a bit better. "


There's also Shade. Also, if you don't mind spending a small bit of money If you don't mind some bugs, there's Silo, which has the best interface of all the modeling packages I've tried, IMO. Extremely quick and intuitive, though limited in it's capabilities (it's purely a modeler, nothing else), no longer in active development, and still has a few glitches/bugs that pop up here and there.

 

[Raide]

"Thanks both.

I will check out Wings and see.

At this point its pretty simple objects with simple textures etc for Unity Prefabs. Hopefully as the projects progresses, I might be able to get hold of better models to make things look a bit better. "


There's also Shade. Also, if you don't mind spending a small bit of money If you don't mind some bugs, there's Silo, which has the best interface of all the modeling packages I've tried, IMO. Extremely quick and intuitive, though limited in it's capabilities (it's purely a modeler, nothing else), no longer in active development, and still has a few glitches/bugs that pop up here and there.

Thanks. The more tools I can try out, the better chance I have of finding something I can work with.

 

[fr3shme4t]

You could probably start by making only characters cast shadows, use a single shadow map, and write the shader to the do per-pixel culling on the "transparent" rects based on shadow map lookup or even the resultant color if getting the shadow map value directly is hard. That would be a good test of the approach.

In a couple hours I may realize this was all nonsense. Buyer beware.

Your idea would work, you just need 2 textures - a normal shadow map and either

• a second (background only) shadow map that you use to compare against (only take the shadow map sample if it's closer than the background)
  OR
• a mask texture (1 = character shadow, 0 = background), from the same perspective as the light

However either method will prevent soft-edged shadow techniques from working. I'm not sure if unity will let you compare two shadow maps (or even if you get control over how shadows are applied).

 

[BomberMouse]

#ScreenshotSaturday

I'm sorry for the placeholder art and low quality of the gif. The subsystems of the game are coming along nicely. I'm using ruby + gosu + opengl + chipmunk. The battle scenes are actually 3D using an ortho projection.

[...]
Why I'm telling this? Because I can't stand people saying they don't get a
chance going for what they wanna do! One gets a chance, esp. if one lives in
Germany or Austria (can't speak for other countries, but I guess there might
be similar programs at times). However, the experience I made is that people
fear quitting their sh!t job. They think they lose something, even if the job
is full of sh!t, and telling everyone they don't get a chance, telling they
don't have a choice. They want all the benefits, insurance, etc. without
taking any risk. And I can't stand it! There are no insurance in life. And no
job is fixed forever. It all comes to an end. Life is finite, and you better
don't wast it working for a sh!t job.
[...]

Well, not everyone lives in Germany and you don't always get a chance, specially when you are the main/only provider of a home.

 

[missile]

#ScreenshotSaturday

I'm sorry for the placeholder art and low quality of the gif. The subsystems of the game are coming along nicely. I'm using ruby + gosu + opengl + chipmunk. The battle scenes are actually 3D using an ortho projection. ...

Battle Isle comes to mind. Turn based?

Well, not everyone lives in Germany and you don't always get a chance, specially when you are the main/only provider of a home.

But guess for example one has the chance but not using it. That's what I
meant more or less. And it happens more often then not.

 

[BomberMouse]

Battle Isle comes to mind. Turn based?

Yes, it's turn based but it's a single player story driven game.

 

[Feep]

Lots of stuff

I'm not sure if there's any way to directly access the shadow maps like that, but I'm apparently not even able to cull pixels. Unless the mode is specifically labeled as "transparent", altering the return alpha value (even manually setting it to 0.0f) for any pixel does nothing. If it is set to transparent, the texture just...doesn't receive shadows.

Hmm.

 

[Margalis]

I'm not sure if there's any way to directly access the shadow maps like that, but I'm apparently not even able to cull pixels. Unless the mode is specifically labeled as "transparent", altering the return alpha value (even manually setting it to 0.0f) for any pixel does nothing. If it is set to transparent, the texture just...doesn't receive shadows.

Hmm.

You probably want to use TransparentCutout. It's used for things that are either fully opaque or fully transparent, so I assume it takes shadows.

Setting alpha below the clip threshold should cull the pixel but I was actually thinking of clip() in HLSL.

I think there's a way to directly access the shadow map, I googled it and it looked promising. If not you could maybe try to get the color after the shadow map has been applied and adjust alpha or call clip() based on it. Assuming your thing has a known color if it's unlit and shadowed if the color darkens that should mean it was shadowed, otherwise you want to clip.

Now accessing two different shadow maps...dunno. Worst case you could write your own shadow map renderer.

 

[Feep]

You probably want to use TransparentCutout. It's used for things that are either fully opaque or fully transparent, so I assume it takes shadows.

Setting alpha below the clip threshold should cull the pixel but I was actually thinking of clip() in HLSL.

I think there's a way to directly access the shadow map, I googled it and it looked promising. If not you could maybe try to get the color after the shadow map has been applied and adjust alpha or call clip() based on it. Assuming your thing has a known color if it's unlit and shadowed if the color darkens that should mean it was shadowed, otherwise you want to clip.

Now accessing two different shadow maps...dunno. Worst case you could write your own shadow map renderer.

Ugh, not having much luck. The base shadow map seems to be inaccessible, and the data I pull from sampling the texture in the surf function doesn't seem to yet have the shadow elements applied yet. I'm not sure if the final "SurfaceOutput" structure contains shadow data, but I can't seem to access it in any case.

I think I'll leave this one be for now. To NavMeshes!

 

[Bollocks]

Ok so can anyone explain why my camera gets rotated around the z axis in Unity even though I only rotate it around the x/y axis?

All I do is:
float xaxis = Controller.GetAxis(....);
float yaxis = Controller.GetAxis(....);

transform. Rotate(yaxis, xaxis, 0);

I have to manually reset the Z axis by applying a new transform.localEulerAngles vector with z = 0?!

 

[usea]

Ok so can anyone explain why my camera gets rotated around the z axis in Unity even though I only rotate it around the x/y axis?

All I do is:
float xaxis = Controller.GetAxis(....);
float yaxis = Controller.GetAxis(....);

transform. Rotate(yaxis, xaxis, 0);

I have to manually reset the Z axis by applying a new transform.localEulerAngles vector with z = 0?!

Add (, Space.World) as the fourth parameter?

http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/52321/rotate-only-y-axis.html
http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/ScriptReference/Transform.Rotate.html

 

[Bollocks]

Add (, Space.World) as the fourth parameter?

http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/52321/rotate-only-y-axis.html
http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/ScriptReference/Transform.Rotate.html

I already tried that, if I use Space.World it rotates around the Z axis much more prominently if I press up/down.
I'm using the 360 controller and thought I set up my right analog stick wrong but the same thing happens with the default left stick.

e: fixed it
I split the Rotate call into 2 calls for each axis and for the Y axis I use Space.World.

 

[Ranger X]

Here you see I have layers of backgrounds and foregrounds scrolling, dust, I have an overlay filter blending the colors together, I have little motes flying around looking pretty. I have other areas in the game I consider very pretty but I'm saving them for later.

Wow, your gif there made me backtrack the thread in order to find your video and watch it. Your project really is interesting (Metroid clone baby!!). Will probably love that. At least I love your current graphics and animations.

Am also making a Metroidvania platformer which also having a challenge mode with quick skill based levels like League of Evil or again, Super Meat Boy. Our prolly won't collide (cool!) and I am going for more of a late 8bit / early 16bits look. Also, no shooting.
Anyhow, I hope you'll keep us posted on your stuff. Its really interesting, at least to me.

Oh and since we are at it. New screens!
This is still from the only area I am showing so far, a small tutorial level that also serves me as gym for a lot of stuff...

 

[Blizzard]

From what I understand of Blender and Unity (from what little I used of it) the model and animations imports but the material does not.

So when you import something from Blender you have to tell it how to replace the materials on it with Unity materials.

Depending on how complex and varied your materials are this could be a non-issue or pretty cumbersome. Not sure if you re-import that same model if it remembers your old material replacement.

Personally I find Blender itself pretty awful in terms of UI, but I'm used to working with Max and Maya. (But not with Unity) I'm sure I'd get over it eventually.

I personally swear by Wings3D for low-poly character and object modelling.

And Blender is a goddamn mess to work with.

Blender is not intuitive, but I think it can actually be a very productive work environment if you put the time in to learn the techniques. And like I may have said before, in addition to Google the IRC channel is very populated and very helpful.

 

[FormallyMegadrive]

Wow, your gif there made me backtrack the thread in order to find your video and watch it. Your project really is interesting (Metroid clone baby!!). Will probably love that. At least I love your current graphics and animations.

Am also making a Metroidvania platformer which also having a challenge mode with quick skill based levels like League of Evil or again, Super Meat Boy. Our prolly won't collide (cool!) and I am going for more of a late 8bit / early 16bits look. Also, no shooting.
Anyhow, I hope you'll keep us posted on your stuff. Its really interesting, at least to me.

Oh and since we are at it. New screens!
This is still from the only area I am showing so far, a small tutorial level that also serves me as gym for a lot of stuff...

This looks wonderful. Honestly is really inspiring to me. what are you using in terms of tools?

 

[BomberMouse]

This looks wonderful. Honestly is really inspiring to me. what are you using in terms of tools?

I think he previously mentioned he was using game maker but I could be wrong. I agree it looks incredible.

 

[Ranger X]

I am indeed using GameMaker. Its a very nice tool.
Making this game is taking me more time than I thought though. I also stopped working on it for the last 2 months because there was stuff going on in my life. Now I am back at it since last week. I really feel motivated to continue (not like there was ever a plan to not finish it).

I am thinking of releasing a PC version first, in a "pay what you want" form. What do you guys think about that?

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

I am indeed using GameMaker. Its a very nice tool.
Making this game is taking me more time than I thought though. I also stopped working on it for the last 2 months because there was stuff going on in my life. Now I am back at it since last week. I really feel motivated to continue (not like there was ever a plan to not finish it).

I am thinking of releasing a PC version first, in a "pay what you want" form. What do you guys think about that?

I'm thinking about PWYW too, but of course with a Donate button or something like that so people can come back if they paid, say, one cent.

It's between three pay options right now: 2.99, 4.99, or PWYW.

Of course, there's always the option of stealing Feep's fantastic PR move of just giving copies away.

 

[The Friendly Monster]

Ugh, not having much luck. The base shadow map seems to be inaccessible, and the data I pull from sampling the texture in the surf function doesn't seem to yet have the shadow elements applied yet. I'm not sure if the final "SurfaceOutput" structure contains shadow data, but I can't seem to access it in any case.

I think I'll leave this one be for now. To NavMeshes!

Surely you don't want to generate a shadow map on the fly for geometry but rather save your prebaked shadows for the geometry to a separate texture. Then when drawing them write to the stencil buffer so that when rendering the player shadows they get culled.

Getting Unity to behave in such custom ways, particularly with shadows, seems inadvisable to me though. Are you set on 2d backgrounds?

 

[Feep]

Surely you don't want to generate a shadow map on the fly for geometry but rather save your prebaked shadows for the geometry to a separate texture. Then when drawing them write to the stencil buffer so that when rendering the player shadows they get culled.

Getting Unity to behave in such custom ways, particularly with shadows, seems inadvisable to me though. Are you set on 2d backgrounds?

The shadows are solely for the characters; environment shadows will be "prebaked" (as in, drawn in the environment). It's pretty important to the sense of them really being "in" the 2-D environment, as opposed to just a 3-D model screwing around on top of a painted rectangle.

Pretty married to it; full 3-D environments are not a good idea for us. I honestly don't understand why it should be so difficult to create a white texture, let Unity Pro do its shadow stuff, and then delete any pixel with a color value of white. = P

But, on the good news side, I've been messing with NavMeshes and it's super easy. Took me months to get all this stuff working properly on my own, in XNA.

 

[Casanova]

Isn't there an indie game thread with indie game suggestions to try out?

I remember seeing a game about plumbers in the thread (similar to sidescroller Mario)

But I can't find the thread anywhere, though I might just be overlooking it. I've even tried searching for it.

 

[The Friendly Monster]

The shadows are solely for the characters; environment shadows will be "prebaked" (as in, drawn in the environment). It's pretty important to the sense of them really being "in" the 2-D environment, as opposed to just a 3-D model screwing around on top of a painted rectangle.

Pretty married to it; full 3-D environments are not a good idea for us. I honestly don't understand why it should be so difficult to create a white texture, let Unity Pro do its shadow stuff, and then delete any pixel with a color value of white. = P

But you have to generate 3d geometry the matches your 2d geometry right? I'm worried that if it doesn't match it exactly then no matter what clever tricks you employ your character shadows won't look right on the geometry.

Are you saying the prebaked shadows would be hand painted or that they would be generated from the same 3d geometry?

 

[Jobbs]

I'm thinking about PWYW too, but of course with a Donate button or something like that so people can come back if they paid, say, one cent.

It's between three pay options right now: 2.99, 4.99, or PWYW.

Of course, there's always the option of stealing Feep's fantastic PR move of just giving copies away.

Funny you guys should say this, I've been going back and forth about how to release my game when it's done, I've considered making it free, I've considered asking $5, and I've also considered asking people to pay whatever they want, thinking that it might be a good compromise. If you can't for some reason pay anything, then I still want you to play it. if you like the game and want to support it, then great. everybody wins.

 

[omg_mjd]

I am indeed using GameMaker. Its a very nice tool.

Nice work. I'm intrigued by the "no shooting" approach, more games should be like that IMO. (I play enough AAA games where killing is your main verb besides looting.) Do you use GML more or the drag and drop tools? I've been using Construct 2 and while it's really fast to prototype stuff I miss the option to write code.

I am thinking of releasing a PC version first, in a "pay what you want" form. What do you guys think about that?

If it were me I'd set a specific price (or free for the PC and charge for the mobile versions).

 

[Dead Prince]

Isn't there an indie game thread with indie game suggestions to try out?

I remember seeing a game about plumbers in the thread (similar to sidescroller Mario)

But I can't find the thread anywhere, though I might just be overlooking it. I've even tried searching for it.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=551216

 

[missile]

Yes, it's turn based but it's a single player story driven game.

Speaking out of the '90, I liked turn based games a lot. They were more much
sophisticated given the longer computation time spent for the algorithms in
computing a good strategy. And they felt more strategic somehow. RTS games
were far too easy back in the days of C&C & Co. But today, everything is
possible, I think.