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Hobby and Indie Game Dev |OT 2019| Designing, Drawing, Coding, Composing, Everythinging
- Thread starter Popstar
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I'd definitely prefer option two. That is a significant difference in view size and players would notice. I imagine some players will have strong opinions about which size is better.
If you are fine with different players having different play areas, then it might be best to put resolution, prefered camera zoom, and a "pixel perfect" checkbox in the game's menu. When unchecked, the game could scale with resolution and camera zoom like option 2. When checked, the game could take control of camera zoom like option 1.
I developed a PS4 and PC VR game if you have any specific questions. I don't remember any specific resources that I found really helpful.
A VN with a mostly black cast is a really cool idea. I can't think of many VN (or, hell, videogames) that do that.
Installed it, but as before, no promises when I'll have a bit of free time to give it a try.
Interested? VERY interested.
The next stage is taking the prototype to VR. We already thought about level design for VR and classical gamepaly, but I will certainly look for info, especialy PSVR (how does it run, spec limitations, etc...)
Can you name your project if I would like to know how you managed specific part? Edit : twisty puzzle?
Thanks! :)
Best resource for VR development currently are the same resources for creating a 3D game on mobile. Scale up from there depending on your target platform.
So, anything about baking lights, high to low poly workflows.
In terms of actual design, play around with VRTK https://vrtoolkit.readme.io/ in Unity. It has a lot of demo levels showcasing different VR interaction mechanics.
That's what I found most helpful when doing VR stuff.
So, anything about baking lights, high to low poly workflows.
In terms of actual design, play around with VRTK https://vrtoolkit.readme.io/ in Unity. It has a lot of demo levels showcasing different VR interaction mechanics.
That's what I found most helpful when doing VR stuff.
Hi everyone! I'm trying to get nvcloth clothing collisions working with a character and environment in UE 4.22.
I've posted it on AnswerHub. If anyone has experience getting this working, please let me know :)
Thank you!
I've posted it on AnswerHub. If anyone has experience getting this working, please let me know :)
Thank you!
Actually I think there's a huge untapped market for games with a mostly or all black cast. It's only recently that other media have started to realize this, with works like Black Panther or Black Lightning being massively popular not just among black people but pretty much everyone. I think it's super cool of you on so many levels and I wish you the very best; I personally can't wait to play it. :)
That's very interesting and indeed, I find it hard to get into longer games more and more as my free time dwindles. The House in Fata Morgana does this as well, and again it's hugely popular, so it's clear it's a narrative form a lot of people like.
Hi b&g,
just a brainy question.
if I wanted to use a sprite that is a tribute to Assassins Creed (i mean in 2D with different body shape and height) in my game, do you think we could be copyright issues?
just a brainy question.
if I wanted to use a sprite that is a tribute to Assassins Creed (i mean in 2D with different body shape and height) in my game, do you think we could be copyright issues?
It's not generally in the interest of big companies to squash homages to their games on indie games, if only in terms of how it makes them look, but it obviously depends on what you're using it for: if your player character is basically Ezio in 2D, you're bound to get a lot more raised eyebrows and possibly C&D's than if it's some NPC in some city with a funny one-liner.
I guess the litmust test is, what would you think if you saw it in another game? Would you think "man, this is shameless" or "iunderstoodthatreference.gif :)"? Think not just of angering Ubisoft, but what your audience will think of your game as a result.
Ok for reference this is the sprite. By the way any Ubisoft man here? :)
I think the most relevant context is how is this used. Is this a player character? A prominent NPC? A one-shot background NPC?
(the detailed, elaborate design kind of makes me kind of worry it's one of the first two. :D).
I really don't think there should be any issue at all then. Hell, I'm almost sure you're covered under fair use, even. But I'm not a lawyer, so please don't hold me accountable if it doesn't go according to plan. :D
eheh yep man, thanks anyway for your time. I hope it does not create problems (it is only a reference) also because the murderer will certainly not be called Ezio...and to be honest he is also a bit clumsy in the game!
Yeah I released Twisty Puzzle Simulator. I have a couple bigger games in development so I used that project as a VR trial run.
PSVR is pretty great but you really need to always think about performance. Hitting a rock solid 60 fps in VR is a lot harder than hitting 60 fps in 2D. TPS runs at 1.4x the native resolution of PSVR on base PS4s for example. This is because the rendered image is warped and distorted before being displayed on the headset. Rendering in 3D also increases draw calls and/or uses more GPU power depending on your rendering technique. I used the "single pass stereo" setting in Unity since I had a lot of dynamic objects yet relatively simple geometry.
In regards to performance, it's also really important to never let the framerate drop. In Twisty Puzzle Simulator gameplay videos you can see that I always fade to black during scene transitions. This feels good in VR but primarily it is used to hide Unity lagging when initializing a new scene. VR framebuffers can use a lot of memory too. Unity has a weird glitch/feature where the amount of memory used for VR rendering doubles for just one frame during scene initialization. I had to make all my scene transitions additive to avoid this. Additionally I multithreaded all game logic so Unity could focus on rendering.
Design wise things are a lot simpler. In my experience I discovered that smaller objects are cooler in VR than huge objects. Menus are pretty straightforward and just need to be physically in the scene. I avoided player movement in TPS so I can't help you with that.
Same here, The BOUNDS is the first try of the studio. Building some XP.
That's my primary fear. We've seen by testing oculus rift that VRAM is increased when in VR (everything is baked, but on the highest settings we must be 4.5Go of VRAM when VR)
Yep... I was thinking about splitting the levels in two to ease the engine and purge memory, etc...
I need to get my hands on a PSVR devkit...
So after trying and failing miserably to learn Unity about 2.5-3 years ago, I decided about a month ago to pick up Unreal Engine, and had a lot of anxiety of it going into it, because I did not really find the Unity experience then very intuitive. My fears were alleviated quickly with UE4, and now getting my idea up and going with UE4, World Machine, and Quixel Megascans has been crazy for as little time as I have spent on it. Not 100% sold on Quixel yet though and know there are plenty of other scan libraries out there. Just wanted to join in on the conversation and share my beginnings
Making big scenes in Unity
https://streamable.com/zba43
Curiously, there doesn't seem to be any major performance drawback to having mammoth scenes in Unity (or multiple scenes loaded together if that's how you want to organize it) as it only spends rendering time on things that are currently on camera. There are certainly some memory considerations, of course, but it's pretty freeing compared to the engine I was using previously
This is my oldest scene and one some of you may have seen glimpses of, but it's the best example and visually an area that I'm pretty proud of. There's a creepy forest below it, too, also contained in the same scene, not pictured
https://streamable.com/zba43
Curiously, there doesn't seem to be any major performance drawback to having mammoth scenes in Unity (or multiple scenes loaded together if that's how you want to organize it) as it only spends rendering time on things that are currently on camera. There are certainly some memory considerations, of course, but it's pretty freeing compared to the engine I was using previously
This is my oldest scene and one some of you may have seen glimpses of, but it's the best example and visually an area that I'm pretty proud of. There's a creepy forest below it, too, also contained in the same scene, not pictured
Your 3D effect is looking wonderful!
I think I remember seeing this scene before since the crashed ship looks familiar.
Man this is looking awesome. I remember this project from it's early stages on the Construct forums back in the day
This looks so beautiful. It reminds me so strongly of Crateria in Super Metroid at the beginning, before you start delving into the planet's depths, or Hollow Knight's Dirtmouth. All metroidvanias should have a safe, large, open air starting area you keep returning to, to better sell how deep down you are later in the game.
Thanks guys! I'm pretty proud of how it's finally coming together. It took a lot of effort and experimentation and learning to get it to where it is, such as it is, and then it became more about figuring out ways to make environments faster and streamline the process (to the extent that it can be). I'm always learning something new.
For instance, I've tried to move away from looking at environment stamps as single graphics (which is how it had to be done in the previous version of the game with the previous engine), but prefabs of several things, often prefabs of several things existing in various positions on the Z axis forming an entire parallax cluster. So if you see a lot of really detailed environmental texture scrolling by with a lot of 3d effect going on, it's often the case that it was accomplished by dropping in one huge prefab (and tailoring it to fit the context as needed).
TLDR, modern game dev tools like Unity are a miracle. It's unbelievable that a scrub like me is able to accomplish the types of things that I'm accomplishing. I'm so grateful for its existence.
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Procedural map generation for my medieval RPG. The 512x512 image is a visualization of how things work behind the scenes. For players, a more artistic map is generated from this.
The rivers and mountains still need some work but I'm really happy with it overall.
EDT:
Rivers finished and lakes added. Now to check to see if my climate simulation plays nice with these procedural maps.
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Unity makes a lot of things easier but it doesn't do magic nor is a substitute for talent and work. What I mean to say is, don't sell yourself short, this supremely beautiful game is entirely you.
You may not remember this but I did some contract animation work for you on this 4 or 5 years ago, and I gotta say that the way you've revamped the animation since then is seriously paying off. So excited to play this game when it's complete.
I updated that trailer that I threw in this thread a few months ago, a few new things but mostly just polishing up the art, would appreciate any new feedback anyone might have. Nitpick hard, please. I'd much rather hear about anything now rather than later --
This is nice, very For The King-esque. Does your game have a devblog/website?
This is nice, very For The King-esque. Does your game have a devblog/website?
Your game is almost unbearably beautiful, I don't ever tire of seeing it. Between this and ArkHeiral's Chained Echoes, this thread has two truly world-class sprite art devs, damn. You should be extremelly proud of yourself.
If you've been reading my posts in this thread you know I focus on the negative by default so I don't even need to be encouraged, hahah. I went in with the intention to pick even the smallest of nits, but everything looks so amazing and lovely that the only two things I can think of are really minor:
- Screen shake is too strong for my tastes, but this is par for the course; screen shake is almost always too high for my tastest in most games. Is there's an option to dial it down? If so, perfect.
- The font for what I assume to be MP (the numbers below the HP) is a bit jarring in its simplicity, compared to everything else in the game, especially the HP font which is golden, beautifully shaded and antialiased, while the MP font has simpler shading and no antialias.
I'm almost sad that I can't help with more helpful criticism, but really, the game is stunning and rock-solidly consistent; I can't find even the smalles of flaws. Amazing work.
Thanks. Re: the screen shake, that was definitely one the the things I was looking at towards the end. I'm looking for the best balance of toning it down/alternating the effects that use it/implementing alternative methods of adding impact without shake. And the MP font thing is exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for. The UI's been redone, sort of, but probably needs another pass.
People seem to love screen shake, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that; it's a matter of personal taste. I turn it off or almost all the way down in most games I play, like Enter the Gungeon. In my own game I have a slider that controls its intensity, or removes it entirely.
They say that a game option marks the place where a developer couldn't make up their mind as to what was best, and I tend to agree, but screen shake is one of these things that are highly dependent on personal preference and having a slider is justified. :)
I'm once again trying to get back into learning game programming/development as a hobby. To try and motivate myself more, I'm planning on going to some local game dev meetups in my city. Before I was learning on my desktop which was great, but I figured I should probably get a laptop. I've done some googling and have looked at a few options, but they tend to be on the expensive side. Since I'm mostly doing this as a hobby and not planning on making anything too intense, I figure I could go with something cheaper.
Does anyone have any laptop recommendations? Let's say I'd rather not go over $1500, but I'm flexible. Sorry, if this isn't an appropriate place to ask this question.
Does anyone have any laptop recommendations? Let's say I'd rather not go over $1500, but I'm flexible. Sorry, if this isn't an appropriate place to ask this question.
So did anyone get what seems to be an email sent by mistake from Sony with a long list of developers on cc? 🙃
learn.unity.com is online for a few weeks now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qipYRdaNWZY&t=300s
https://learn.unity.com
Entire projects to go through, it probably doesn't get any easier than this.
Procedural rainfall/humidity map, but I think I'm going to go with a different approach since this is too chaotic.
Yeah
EDT:
New approach for moisture/rainfall map. Instead of physically simulating climate, it just procedurally generates the final results. Faster and cleaner results.
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I saw Rami talking about it on Twitter. Didn't know it was sent by Sony.
This is one of the most beautiful and intriguing minutes of a game I've ever seen. Good work!
Since you asked for a nitpick, I'd say the title appearing at the end felt anticlimactic. Not entirely sure why, it's a nice design. Probably just the simplicity of the fade from black transition to make it appear after all the beauty and detail and life in the trailer up until that point.
Also, musically, the tune in the background is really dying off at the end, bringing the energy down to zero, and when that one horn note comes in (and then goes up an octave) over the title, it feels like it's trying to push the energy back up with just that static title screen, which to me feels disconnected. If I close my eyes the entrance of that one note feels a little off. It might be in part the rhythm, because the music that trails off sounds like it could be slightly slowing down at the end, but then the horn comes in at the beginning of a measure as if the beat had kept moving at the same speed. I don't know if there's a better place for that note to come in -- it may just be that having the music trail off is going to make it hard to feel like there's still a beat to come in on and connect to.
But I think even with the rhythm smoothed out, going from the somber music dying away to that one horn note is always going to feel a little forced.
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Thanks!
The title card is something I'm still putting work into, kinda just threw it in at the end there, so that should improve. I'll mess around with the music too, dunno how much I can do about the overall tempo of the 'back to the balcony' segment, but varying the horn's entrance and the sound itself is something I can try some variations of.
The title card is something I'm still putting work into, kinda just threw it in at the end there, so that should improve. I'll mess around with the music too, dunno how much I can do about the overall tempo of the 'back to the balcony' segment, but varying the horn's entrance and the sound itself is something I can try some variations of.
That's really impressive. For a nitpick I'd say the static, 4 of a kind, archers stand out as a bit odd here since everyone else in the scene is very active.
I'm loving that old GPS "speed" for the map scroll. Brings back memories of High School geomatics.
Substance Painter days are always good days.
Working on the main character.
Iray Render
Real Time Render (substance is a bit too soft, it's crispier in UE4!)
i'll be back very soon.
Working on the main character.
Iray Render
Real Time Render (substance is a bit too soft, it's crispier in UE4!)
i'll be back very soon.
Cross post from my devlog, but thought I'd share where I'm at with my project (as it seems some people like to know when things aren't going well too)!
Firstly, I've been going too far down the art route without having fully blocked out the game. This is a rookie mistake caused by the fact that I am not confident on delivering art, so feel I have to get some of the way there visually before moving onto the next area "type".
Secondly, the way I am approaching UI is non-standard or outdated in UE4, so it has taken a lot longer than planned to achieve my goals.
Thirdly, I haven't spent enough time prototyping a number of the mechanics/interactive elements, such as digging, moving geometry, and most importantly, level streaming or loading.
And finally, characters. Yes, this game has characters, however they are currently just T-posed static objects that I cannot move.
So what am I going to do about these things?
Well, the first and third points can be fixed by just pausing all art progress. My plan right now is to have the full skeleton of the game playable start to finish by the end of July. This will be in a rough state, but will provide a guide for pacing and allow me to experiment in areas I am not comfortable - level streaming for example.
The second point I simply need to just set aside some time to experiment and potentially accept the fact that UE4 doesn't quite handle the sharp pixel fonts that I desire. This issue will remain so until I set aside time. However, it's somewhat low priority compared to the last point...
Characters! This is an area completely new to me and I find rather overwhelming. I'm thinking I might seek help in this area, so I'm quite likely going to set aside some money to either outsource the work or bring someone onto my team.
In short, I want a trigger walkthrough completed by the end of July and I'm considering expanding my current team of 1 to at least 2. We'll see if this is possible, but that's the current target.
Firstly, I've been going too far down the art route without having fully blocked out the game. This is a rookie mistake caused by the fact that I am not confident on delivering art, so feel I have to get some of the way there visually before moving onto the next area "type".
Secondly, the way I am approaching UI is non-standard or outdated in UE4, so it has taken a lot longer than planned to achieve my goals.
Thirdly, I haven't spent enough time prototyping a number of the mechanics/interactive elements, such as digging, moving geometry, and most importantly, level streaming or loading.
And finally, characters. Yes, this game has characters, however they are currently just T-posed static objects that I cannot move.
So what am I going to do about these things?
Well, the first and third points can be fixed by just pausing all art progress. My plan right now is to have the full skeleton of the game playable start to finish by the end of July. This will be in a rough state, but will provide a guide for pacing and allow me to experiment in areas I am not comfortable - level streaming for example.
The second point I simply need to just set aside some time to experiment and potentially accept the fact that UE4 doesn't quite handle the sharp pixel fonts that I desire. This issue will remain so until I set aside time. However, it's somewhat low priority compared to the last point...
Characters! This is an area completely new to me and I find rather overwhelming. I'm thinking I might seek help in this area, so I'm quite likely going to set aside some money to either outsource the work or bring someone onto my team.
In short, I want a trigger walkthrough completed by the end of July and I'm considering expanding my current team of 1 to at least 2. We'll see if this is possible, but that's the current target.
Thanks for catching that. Those guys are actually supposed to be running an idle animation until after the drop and then drawing their bows when the arm gets raised.That's really impressive. For a nitpick I'd say the static, 4 of a kind, archers stand out as a bit odd here since everyone else in the scene is very active.
Been busy adding sound effects to the back end, but appreciate all the feedback!
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