wow…much done today again

If a pattern of “doing” is starting to form I’m gonna be very happy about that 😀

Okay, so today I reordered a midi keyboard, since the one I wanted to have was not available and I really really want to not have to use the normal keyboard for working with music >.>
Then I changed all the UVs of my models(not sure if that was today though) adjusted them, removed overlaps and spaced them properly and figured some more stuff out on how it works in Blender, it still confuses me alot o.o Blender is weird.
And after some frustration with seams showing up on my mesh (black and white) and weird artefacts when baking the ambient occlusion map I finally figured out that the subdivision modifier I had used, was set to subdivide Uvs aswell XD causing those weird artefacts…and the texture painting was causing issues, because I had not enough “Bleed” on the edge when painting, causing the edges past the UVs to appear due to mipmapping in blenders view. Quite annoying, specially since it transferred over to unity aswell, so I had to find out what the cause was and I did.

So now I know what to do about those issues and also how to fix it afterwards without having to repaint everything and also that same solution can apply for future alpha mapped pictures. Which is using the solidify filter in photoshop, which kind of extends the pixels of a selected layer to the edges of the image 🙂 very handy (it’s a free plugin, you can google it)

Now that thats out of the way I can paint textures of all characters more properly and more detailed and then start rigging them to animate them. I would really like tog et rid of those stiff “statues” XD also to experience how the whole importing of animations in unity works and how to embed it into the whole game etc.
I’m sure it’s gonna be a challenge 😀

if someone wants to try my current version of the game, click this link :

Windows: Purrr WIP
(I can make a build for other systems aswell on request, but I can’t test them myself)

Controls are currently:
Arrow Keys or WASD for moving the character

Space for flying and jumping

1,2,3 for shapeshifting (same order as icons on the bottom)

F for sniffing out where nearby orbs are (it has a cooldown timer)

bonus:
isn’t it a cutie pie?:D

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got something done today :D

yay ^^ Just finished drawing some of the icons and implemented them into the interface, atm they are just there, not showing anything, feedback wise.
Also changed the way the “smelling” clouds are being shown, rendered on top of everything else now, by changing the camera setting to “depth only” . Now I just need to make yet another camera to have the character always display above those clouds XD
or something similar 🙂
I played around with a random tree spawner (not sure if I will leave that in) and I got a new very noticable movement bug. regarding rotation of characters on the z axis when rotating the camera *rollseyes*
It’s progress though! And I’m happy about it 🙂

Continue working on it

I’m not sure yet how far I wanna go with it, but it’s an already started game with a finished concept, that can be simply expanded and I can learn how to fill out all the stuff that a finished game needs and do balancing and improvements etc.  It’s probably not a game for everyone and I have no idea how many people will like it when I publish the next version, since it’s very tight genre niche I think. Some kind of hidden objects game with rpg like elements, but mostly focused on exploring the little map I’m working on.
I’m having quite alot of fun learning from this project and it’s going in a direction I want to explore more on how to make a game interesting that is NOT focused around combat, but instead plays in a very peaceful and beautiful world, with lots of little things to explore.
Not to mention that this way I can definitely get more familiar with things I avoided a little so far, like actual polishing and doing the tedious work of repeatedly creating models, texturing, rigging, animating, making UI elements etc.

I have to say I  enjoy programming alot more these days than drawing stuff ^^ making things interactive and having those “heureka!” moments when something finally works, even though you were unsure at first if it would, it’s just awesome 😀

last night I figured out how to randomly spawn trees all over unitys terrain, adjusted to the terrains height. that felt really good 😀
And I worked on a loading bar, which works now too, but it rather shortly visible since the scene is so empty still XD
also redid the Uvs of the cat character, since it had some Overlapping faces, giving me more opportunity to learn more blender 😀
I’m quite optimistic that I will be able to bring this game to a finished state 🙂

so I got it somewhat finished

and submitted it like last minute of the deadline 😛
Honestly though, even though I’m very happy with what I have learned and I achieved all my personal goals (using Blender, getting a bit more comfortable with it, coding again etc.)

I’m rather disappointed in how the game feels and stuff….I’m still having huge issues with implementing sounds in unity and also, I’m not really good at particles….and probably also not very good at Animations..-.- I feel a bit down now, because I had an expectation in my head of how the game was supposed to look like, but now it looks rather like one of those 2004-2006 released games, with bland textures and polygonal looking characters etc.

I’m also extremly tired….

If you want to play it, feel free 🙂 the good things that I can say are, that the smelling ability works very well, the flying feels nice (need to be careful with spacebar though) and I like the “plop” sound the pickup items do when collecting them ;D

Link to “Purrr”

Need a little break

So I’m using it to show some progress 😀

so after last night’s trouble with unitys character controller (the example code is only good for jumping once when touching ground, but is awful when trying to change it for flying mechanics) so I did something “unthinkable” and have 2 different movement mechanics ingame now, one with using character controller and the other with just a normal rigidbody 😛 but therefore flying feels quite awesome now 😀 for a capsule XD

so yeah, most of the games core are finished now, only need to add the “smelling” mechanic now, so that it’s easier to find the collectibles 😀
But I also need my 3d models now, so I started drawing the references for Blender 😮 I think it took too long, but I’m gonna run with it now and I’m quite satisfied working with the cintiq 😀 it actually IS making the drawing process alot more pleasant.

Enough of words, here some progress 😀

my first 2 concepts for my shapeshifting game and I sticked to the “hidden objects” theme, since I thought a tower “platformer” is somewhat boring, even if it would be full of action, but I decided I want a peaceful game 🙂

those concepts are the different shapeshifting forms, although I’m probably adding one more color for each different form 🙂

and those are current screenshots of climbing and flying in action 😀

 

and wow…I actually got “into the flow” several times while programming ^^ I’m almost sad that I have to do some graphics now 😛

ludum dare, shit is going down

Hehe, I’m planning the shit out of my idea, trying to put every little detail into text form, to make sure that I don’t need to “think” later anymore of what I needed or wanted to do, but can just “kinda” mindlessly do the work.

Seems I decided to go for main focus of level design/ 3d modelling this time, we will see how that goes 😮

I’m a little afraid that the scope is too big to make it interesting, but I will try my best 😀

So far I have some conceptual sketches and a trello board full with checklists XD

Preparations for Ludum Dare 35

since around a week now, I’m working on planning, organizing etc. for LD 35 😀 I’m excited and a little tense, but in first place I’m excited to do it again ^^

So far I have set up a trello board (from last time) to do all kinds of home related stuff, like cleaning up desk, making grocery list for the weekend, clean up dishes @_@ etc. and then created another trello board with a plan of action for what I need to do to most likely finish the game in time ;D what I need for it and whats important etc.
Also updating unity and any other program that I want to use that might need an update, setting up a unity project with folders, setting some rough times for how long each phase should take, checking if my “hardware” is working, like graphic tablet and microphone and camera 😀
There is so much to do! And I still want to find time somewhere to exercise a bit, make a basic character model in blender, to “warm up” before LD and to figure out how the rigging and animating works in it :o, but I’m not too worried, I’m sure I will figure it out even if I don’t get to practice it beforehand 🙂

Also I decided to go with 3D this time and I’m gonna use unity, visual studio (C#), blender, lmms for music, audacity, probably sfxr/bfxr, photoshop and maybe, depending on the topic l3dt to create a landscape. I would like to do something more “world” like, but I’m not sure yet, if it would fit to the theme or if I will have enough time for it.

All in all, it feels like preparing for an adventure 😀 and additionally it seems the wacom cintiq 13HD I ordered some days ago is arriving today, I hope it’s not gonna distract me too much. I’m so happy though, that I could finally fullfill that wish of mine to have a screen pentablet 😀 (it’s the smallest one from them)

weeeeeehh