#indeartist

Its been awhile since i did a proper update, so i think its about time i do some actual work while i have time and not only write, but show how the project is going.

i wont lie, with the change in scenery, work has taken a hit. I normally tend to get most my work done between 10 pm and 4 am, but such time doesn’t work well with a partner that keeps busy during the day. and the lack of such amazing creative people working next to me, motivation took a hit.

Not sure where to start, so lets start with the more interesting. 

Particles. Since I didn’t have anything in mind when i started, but knew i would be looking into collision detection at some point, i decided to start there. 

The game was not to be a realistic looking game so i went back to the beginning themes and what the game was about. I had got much inspiration from cartoons like bugs bunny and road runner, and the way they dealt with characters hurting themselves or setting off bombs have this amusing feel to it. this was something i wanted. 

Finding tutorials on YouTube, i set to work.           

Although i have yet to put any explosions in the game currently, the cartoon style got me and i would try to base all other effects along the same line. 

After playing around creating a few different yet similar types, i wish to see them in action.

For this i needed to start work on the collision detection. The idea was -  depending on how hard you hit a surface and where, the type of particles, noise and at what volume would change.

Rather then having everything tied to the character who would collide with everything, i decided to have the ground calculate where it was hit (the white flooring/walls would now detect everything). The thought was that if Stan hit and slid down a wall, the impact dust/smoke would spawn at the point of impact rather then on Stan who might  have moved on from that spot. The result i think worked out quite well.

Once dealing with the actual point of collision and how i would spawn the effects in, i set to work on detecting how hard Stan would hit a surface. This actually wasn’t an issue and was more of a copy and paste with a little modification since the wizard ( https://oiral.tumblr.com/) helped with, and implemented such a thing back near the start of the project (since future mechanics i want would need it). 

Once a few of the effects were done, i tied sound to it all. The sound of Stan hitting a wall at high speed then falling from a height to go splat was very amusing (more then it should have been. So much so i sat back watching and listening to him hit objects for far too long before getting back to work).

One of the criticisms i had when testing was the need to feel more like a stunt man. With that in mind one of a few ideas that came to me and hope to do was having stunts to have more impact and weight. a sense of actual danger. Having Stan hit the ground or wall at high speed would have An ambulance race across the screen when having to repeat a failed attempt.

Although amusing at first, because of the trial and error nature of the game, this might get annoying fast, so i still need to tone it down and call it every other time rather then every time. plus need a siren sound effect.. 

Talking about sound, Greg reached out after reading my last post and looped the track, so guess that takes care of that job (anything i don’t have to do is awesome!). 

 The import of some world assets was great and really brings the game to life. Stan has yet to be done yet but he is coming.

(no lighting or post have been done)

With trying to get the feel for being a stunt man, i tried to think how someone like that gets started. In my head they probably have always done crazy things like jump from the roofs of builds etc. (no i haven't researched that haha just a guess).

i had done a tutorial that would walk you through placement of items and the gameplay, but it wasn’t well implemented or well received. Oddly, even though i had the play button flashing to indicate to push it, people completely glossed over that fact (could be the play testers, but il take it on myself that maybe it way not clear).

To date the above gif is all i have done in re-inventing the tutorial. By removing all buttons but the play button, this would see no confusion in what needs to be pushed. This was to be one of a set of small  tutorials that would walk the players though the play style of the game. In a brain storming meeting with my partner, this didnt seem the best way to go about it, so this too will be replace with something a little more better suited and the above will become part of the earlier levels as to how Stan becomes a stuntman. 

       So i was going to leave the assets all 3D since they are all very low poly, but due to performance testing, i plan on changing all assets into 2D sprites. Because i want it playable on most phone and all are different, getting the best  performance is of the most importance. 

So as you may see, turning the world into sprites made a huge difference. The aim was to get Batches and SetPass calls down as far as i could. 

Running two tests for each, i set one at monitor screen size and the other at phone screen size just to see if that helped at all too. From what i took away was models into 4K sprites were the way to go (will drop the size even more too), dropped both Batches and SetPass calls by roughly 3/4, and this was without any optimization in any other way then switching out assets or Occlusion culling (as i did on the top left, which would see even better results. Occlusion culling = not seen, not calculated). The screen size saw most notably a spike in FPS and less strain on the CPU (not fully sure if this would truly transfer over to the phone yet since phones although small, actually are high res, but interesting to know anyways). 

On the subject of performance, something it seems i will need to do is object pooling.. because the game is trial and error, it has people creating and destroying items constantly.. which is a major hit to the game performance.. this means a complete over haul of what systems are there currently. Not as hard as i thought it would be, but will take some time before i can get to it..

For those that are unsure what that meant, the way i understood it when learning about it was - the current system works like this - 

        I create items, and if i don’t want or need them, i throw the items in the bin, then when i need another item, i create another.  As you might notice this is not really the best system, as the rubbish collection will become a problem, and its a bit of work to always create a new item from scratch.

         Object pooling is more like - I create a new item,  and if i don’t want or need them, i place them in a store room. Then when i need another item, i go pick that item up off the shelf.   

The UI placement is getting an over haul for the next play test too, to see if it works better then the last. Also UI placeholders replaced with actual assets. Although these are still not final as they may not fit the game once it all comes together. 

Test of the new layout and look. ignore the font.. 

i also did a small intro screen for when booting up Stan, needs quite a bit of polish still, but as a first pass i think i can live with it for now.

So today marks the first round of closed alpha tests. i am finally there. The feed back i got already was mostly good, some good points that were made along with some being completely irreverent. But i Get more into that later on within this blog. 

A ton of work has been done just in this last week, which generally means going to bed at four/five in the morning and up at seven for another round, all week long, so here it goes.

  Knocking out a basic Figma ui/ux flow, i set to work trying to get that within the game. For the most part it stayed quite close to what i had within Figma.

After having to steer at a screen for so long, i darkened up the whole game so it was easier on my eyes. 

So the basic Home screen remain the same with only getting an icon swap since everyone understands what a play button is. (Which by the way, everything you see including icons are all placeholders). Here you will see Stan within his house/caravan with all items you have won displayed around his home. With future updates having items you can buy (using in game money made from your stunts) to customize your home and stunt items. 

Both the Movie selection and stunt selection remain untouched from prototyping.

The game screen again mainly remained the same, with small changes here and there. icons would get a a face lift with trying to keep to things people could identify and understand without words. 

The item selection on the right is no longer retractable, although i may add that back for anyone that wants to navigate the level with a much larger screen visible, i mean whats the harm, use it or not?

The pause button has been removed completely since it was just irreverent in a game like this. 

The stunts budget and how much you currently have spent added  and also a working bin

You may have noticed a new button.. Was meant to be highlighted and was within the giff tool but oh well. At the push of this button it it takes your finish point, then once released, returns you to your previous point. 

Also you may have notice an increase in select-able items. i wont show case the crash mat since its just that. Stops Stan going splat. Currently you dont need it since i have yet to place in a payment system, but future updates will see you using them else Stan’s med bills will come directly out of his pay (med insurance can become expensive 😷😰).

The second item is a high powered fan. Self -explanatory really. Been having quite a bit of fun with this item.

The option menu remains a sore point. As it is I think the current one lacks the looks the mock up one did. Unfortunately its not clear the back arrow takes you back to the stunt screen rather then the game. Hopefully i will find a pretty solution.  

So once you finish the stunt, the man in charge looks over the sheet (figuratively speaking) and you are evaluated on how well it went. Now it may not have been clear but all those white dots are camera shots your producer really wanted to get for the movie. So you are evaluated on how many of those shots you got and how well you managed to keep under budget. 

At the end of the day there isn’t really a lose condition. As long as you get to the end point, you’ve completed the level, so its very possible to be way over budget and not get a single asked for shots, cause at the end of the day, no footage is wasted.

Once all the stunts in the movie are complete its released out into the world to be judged, much like this game will D: 

For reasons i wanted to go with having a rotten tomatoes score system within my game, mostly because i think it gives a better over all idea on how you went. You can totally boom the egg score but might kill on the Audience. leaving many options for rewards and different out comes depending on your own play style. 

I decided to condense the reward screen and movie screen in one. Just made sense, plus i was rushed off my feet, so anything that saves me work (like making, setting up or coding another screen is a win in my book).

So what didn’t make it to alpha.. mainly the in game shop. Not only was I crazy rushed off my feet, but i had no items for people to buy for Stan, nor did i have his payment for doing the stunts set up.

This will differently be rectified come the second round of testing (third i guess since you guys weren’t in on the first).

Now i know I’ve been pretty bad at this blog thing on this project, mainly because so much is going on with in-work and out that it's kind of been pushed to the far side of the brain. 

 A few notes that I failed to mention, in my prior posts is i have been corresponding with a musician over discord, who I only no as Greg. 

Things started with a bang, with me having all these grand ideas of themed music for each stunt, and other areas of the game like within Stan’s home. Even ideas of tracks being able to be purchased if you wanted something different to listen to. What I didn't account for was this would increase the file size dramatically and being on mobile, contrary to what you have herd, size is everything.. 

Currently I have placeholder music within the game, one tract that plays throughout the entire game. Passing the bad news to Greg, he came back with a single track will hopefully find a home within my this game. 

Now lets take about development. What a week, had its ups and downs and even learnt some new dance moves this week- I call it pushing alpha. 

 Five forward, seven back, three forward, two back, two forward. Kind of sums up the state of affairs this week, but at least it's moving. 

 Friday I was on fire! Unfortunately in my sleepy slumber I forgot to check off or write down where I was at.. this bit me in the ass I decided to take my little's out into the world for the day, mostly because i needed to step away from work. This landed me laying on the beach half the day looking up at the sky. Later with mind cleared, tea done and little's down, i jumped back into it. 

Unfortunately a large part of Saturday night saw me retracing every job I had done Friday night to see if it was done, set up for, or half completed.. once thinking I knew where I was, I was off again making progress. 

Before getting into the crazy stuff, i looked at the levels i had chucked together. Although not final levels as i had yet to design any, what i did through together needed reordering. turns out the second was way harder then the first four..

Along the way I started working on a job that gathered all the information of each level, then using that information, turned it into a usable score which would tell you how the movie was receive at the end of the last stunt. (Egg and Aud score) but It seemed I had actually wrote such a code the night before, but completely different to the one I had just done. Now I will fully admit I was on that next level shit and may have been possessed by the coding God when I wrote it, because as it stands, I have no idea how it works, but it does, so it's probably best I don't touch it and keep fully away from the Alien code. 

So with my eyes glowing red probably from Rad poisoning being on the computer for the last eight hours straight  #justjokingbutprobilynot, and Saturday resulting in nothing but net.. i went and did something stupid again. Last minute I break my game completely.. Half four and the kids will be up in a fe hours a head to bed in such a foul mood.

 Up a few hours later to make breakfast, as the little’s ate i jump back on. i in my state renamed one script somehow which saw the whole game destroyed.. on the plus side i found it, plus see that it needs to be more robust if one naming convention can do that.   

Wasn’t the first time. earlier in the week i spent two day looking for a bug that stopped play after you finished the first level, one that wasn't throwing up any warnings or stopping any other function. I had paused time at the end of the level and hadn’t turned it back on.. To be fair I’ve had about two hours of sleep every night for the last week. Don’t do it, its not good nor does it help in the long term. seems all these little mistakes caused from being over tied has pushed back the project rather then moved it forward.

Sunday nights I was up hitting all those notes till 5:20 this morning yet again, then up an hour later. Play test day.

So all that work came falling down in a heap on the floor in my time of need. Now i didn't ask for much but i figured when you put work in to something it should pay off.. Built out the game for the test phone i had and boom, I’m holding a seven week turd in my hands. Functions that worked before no longer did for some reason. Panning the camera, so placing items where you wanted them couldn't happen. the bin also no longer worked, nor the restart button. 

Deciding not to shit myself in front of a room full of people really to test the game (along with other dev games), coffee was needed.

So the game works well enough on the computer still which is good. Although not for the computer, i did at least have the functionality in there that aloud it to be tested to an extent, so i built out a computer version. Which is where some of the irreverent feed back comes in.. UI too big,  no exit button, no zoom in or out.. 

I wont go into it fully, as it made me realize a few thing like why not add functionality for the computer? Controls at least at the moment since a computer version will need more items and options etc. But as it stands, as annoyed as i am with a broken mobile game, its coming together. 

The pitch - So the game the team has chosen is based around an old school RPG battle system, using cards as a one time attack move. 

With a kind of base idea of what we would be trying to make, we began first with finding a theme. Fantasy, sifi, steam-punk etc. The lend whose pitch sparked the idea of the game voiced that he kind of had a fantasy look in mind. With much talk we came up with a playful style on geek mythology, school dress up.

 With that down we looked at how the game might be played, the look and art style. So looking at other card battle games, curious to see how they over came certain game-play issues and if they might be relevant or spark an interesting solution for what we would need.  Games like Pokemon, Yu-gi-ho, magic the gathering, persona, banner saga just to name a few. The art style itself was an interesting issue with having not only 3d artists on the team but 2d. In the end i think we came up with something that works for all.

The game will be played in two areas. The first being set in a 3d environment where you run around form challenger to challenger, and the second being the battle itself in a 2d style.

Note: I will set out a job list and links of the team in my next post, since at the time of writing this i haven't got all the information in front of me.

Part of my job is doing the characters within the 3d world. Without any concept art as of yet but only an art style, Chibi characters, i decided to get to work on a simple base mesh that can be reused for all the characters within the game. 

First issue when looking into the style which i was not really familiar with was sub-styles. from what i saw was some with more of a squashed body large head, and a body more in proportion with itself but again a larger head.   

Talking with the team we settled on the latter of these. 

Since the base is simple, it took little to no time within zbrush to knock out the basic shape which i retop within maya. With the concept artist going full force in all areas, i decided to knock out a more feminine version while i had the time.  

The next issue to finalize these is whether to go with the low poly, or more smoothed look.

Not wanting to waste time in having to come back. i do both in case the team changes the look.

As i finish up, I’m handed a bunch of hair designs. (forgot to grab female designs). So that’s next on my list.

With all the main components looked at, we all got to work base on the list of jobs we all had. even though this is to be a pc game, since the base of the game is the battle system, this could be tested using paper prototyping (as the name suggests, the first pre-alpha stage will be made with physical items rather then code). 

  The programmers and designer set upon this task, using some SushiGo cards to prototype since they already have numbers and items which make testing easy. By Friday a decent battle card game was born.

While testing commences, code is written up for other areas and systems within the game.

The 3d level is blocked out and coded with a simple movement and camera script. Other areas like moving between area are also done.

           So this post is all about me! ME me me and me. And since i am a kind god, i would like to dedicate this to my skills that sit way above you mare humans!

            But in all honesty, I’m currently just too lazy to get all the work the others have done sorry haha.. 

                                   With that lets get into it.

            I got stuck into quad drawing (making little square poly faces over a model) all the male hair caps which i had done in the last post. i did go somewhat over the top with its poly count (how many square faces a model has), since the in-game models aren’t that close to the camera, but even so they actually aren’t bad either with all four having a combined total of i think 1000tris (triangles, when we cut a poly in half ready for texturing).   

            Since they aren’t that close to the camera it made sense to place all hair styles on a single 1024 Map ready for texturing (or as my partner says yet again, coloring in). 

           This means the computer will only need to call/ask for the information involving texturing every male hair style in the whole game once, which as you might expect is a good thing.

           With that out of the way it was time to move on to the many other little things on my list.

            Originally i was going to get into the female hair styles, but with time getting on i had to prioritize what was next. If time really started to kick the shit out of me, at least the game would have a full set of characters (although they would have to all use the male hair), so with that in mind i jumped into making the clothing. 

            If any of you like the idea of making clothing i would recommend getting into Marvelous Designer. Its not that hard to get into, and the main issues when using it is knowing how to actually design clothes using a template like you would see a designer use if doing it for real.  

             Now the game is based around Greek gods, so to me it seemed like kids would just grab a sheet, wrap it around themselves and call it a day. 

            So that exactly the direction i went in.

            I didn’t have to get too crazy with what i was doing since they wont be that big in game, plus i planned to touch them up in Zbrush after anyways. The main thought was that i gave the items enough creases and folds that it would be somewhat noticeable from a distance. 

            Once i quickly knocked out the basic look it was straight in to zbrush (well maya first, but i wont go fully in depth about my pipeline unless asked).

            i wasn’t too interested in the details of the belt or how it was held together (since such details wont be seen), but the thought was - the belt might be some kind of rope or ribbon and holding the top of the sheet in place would be a hair tie?..

            Now the Clay model was done, it was back into Maya for quad drawing. 

            The whole process of doing the clothing from start to finish was very quick, just over a day and that included placing it in Substance painter to bake out the maps (burn the details on to the low poly version).

            note - I removed most of the pictures of the “hair tie” since its just a simple ring, so nothing to exciting to show.

            I also layed out the items separately for cleaner baking of the maps.   

            Now i was instructed by my leads that they want the clothing white so they can color in engine, so all i needed was the normal map (gives the illusion of detail and fake 3D)  and the Ambient occlusion (shadows burnt onto the model) which i then took into Photoshop and overlay-ed onto the Albedo map(the coloring in of the item itself) to help add that detail so its noticeable from afar.

Below is just a few maps, of which two are useless for the project, but thought it would be cool to add them here anyways.

                                  Note - Male Clothing Maps

         Now the stress is kind of off since we now actually have people in the game, i can get back to actually doing the female hairstyles and character items.