Scripting, configuring and assets

Despite an infected right ear canal I've been getting quite a bit done on the last few days of my vacation.

I finally got down into scripting and surprisingly I'm doing pretty good.  If I had to use RPG terms to describe my base skills when I first started game development, it would look something like this.

Art:             lvl -10
Music:         lvl - 5
Programing: lvl - -15 (yes negative -_-;)

Scripting was probably one of the biggest hurdles that I felt would be a trial to overcome.  It's actually not as bad as I thought.  I used the camera follow script that came with the Unity 2D demo project as a template and started with that.

Naturally I want the camera to do more than what was in the script, so I went to work and modified it to go in front of the character slightly and when she double jumps it tracks upward movement.  I was surprised at how I actually solved most of the issues on my own, sometimes with a little research.  I'm slowly adding variables to the 2D character controller script and expanding the range of mobility options.

I didn't realize how much of all the free scripting courses I absorbed until today.  I'm still way off from becoming proficient, but it's a start.

I'm currently just working on the heroine (I still have to look for a name for her).  I'm almost finished the animations for the first attack and then I want to make some special animations for the double jump.  I'll keep animating and rendering frames for (hopefully) all the ideas I want to implement with her.

I was going to work on the GUI but Unity announced that this summer its getting a face lift and I have to say I looks a lot easier to work with than the current one they have.  I have lots of other things to keep me busy in the meantime.

I still need a fair bit of art assets for props and platforms.  As you can see in the screenshot there is just some ground and grass.  I was trying to work on other resources while Blender was rendering animation frames, but having more than one instance of Blender open was causing issues at certain times.  One of the main reasons I've started putting what I have together in Unity.

That's Pretty much it for now.

EDIT: I've changed and updated the "Current Projects" page.

Using what I have

Just a quick update.

I finished the basic walk cycle sprites and the idle sprites and imported them into Unity.

I still have to make and render a jump cycle and at least one attack cycle.  In the meantime, I'll start learning scripting staring with a character controller and move on form there.

Rendering sprites

It's taking longer than I thought it would to render the sprites.  Yesterday I had to do a few things and it took most of the day. Unfortunately I did not have any animation clips set up to be rendered so I feel like I wasted time that could have been used to render a sprite loop.

There are a few touchy things that I'm starting to notice now on the heroine that I want to fix.  But I've already taken so much time already on tweaking and want to start learning programming with my own resources.  It's mostly picky stuff anyway and I'm sure most people won't really or even care to take notice.

One of the reasons its taking so long to render her is because of the sheer number of frames necessary for what I have in mind.  One action, like idle, has 9 frames of animation.  This technically isn't a lot, but I have so many multiple variation layers. And instead of flipping the animation to reuse the same "direction" like many side scrollers do, I'll be using a sprite setup with two unique side views. 

I just realized that this may sound a little confusing to some, so I'll explain it this way.  Lets say you have a knight with a sword and shield.  Usually game developers will only make one "side" and the sword or shield will always be facing the player.  This is done to save time and money.  I understand that most people don't really care or even notice.  But I honestly think it would be a crying shame to go though all the trouble of making and rigging a 3D model for the purpose of rendering sprites, and not bother to use two unique sides.

This pic is epically shabby.......

Being lazy

Not entirely accurate.  I did make a sword prop today and put together a scene for fun and practice.

Unfortunately the freestyle computations where taking too long so I just canceled the render.  Not a big loss, I wasn't entirely happy with my crappy texture job on parts of it.  I may go back and redo and render it in sections so I can put them together in gimp.  Processing billions of faces in one scene just seemed to overwhelm the freestyle engine.

Ive finally finished the heroine that I've been "power rigging" for the past week.  I realized that I forgot to rig her necklace after my last post.  It was interesting learning how to use spline IK.  I still hate working with bezier curves, but making shapekeys for believable necklace chain would have been unreasonable.... Well maybe not....  At least its dynamic now.

Ive made a set of renders showing her a various angles to commemorate finishing this character.

I rigged the hair with shapekeys.  I could have just made a cloth or soft body simulation, but doing this would have made render times even more painful.  And I would not have the same degree of control.  I just used proportional editing and fine tweaked a bit.  Subsurf makes the transition look smooth enough.

I'm sure that I can tweak more later, but what I have is good enough.  There is a point where you have to say "its done!"

So tomorrow I'm going to start making animation clips for her and see how many rendered frames I can make.  After that I'll get back into Unity and beat my head on the keyboard until I learn scripting.... Or some scripting at lest.....

After that, I guess I need to make more character(s) and finish the witch.

Short Status Update

So I managed to make a few emote shapekeys.  I'll probably make more if I continue the game, after it's done.  Funny thing how imagination works.  I originally started out with just a simple one stage game in mind that would be left open ended, and now I have a whole plot in my head with a whole cast of characters.

My current goal hasn't really changed though.  I still plan to make a single stage open ended platformer to start with, but its nice to have more material to work with if/when I decide to continue it.

Anyway.....

I also shapkeyed and rigged the wings on her breastplate and grieves.  I plan to use these animations to show special actions like double jump, glide, power charge so on~

The under armor is shapekeyed also and conforms properly.  I cheated quite a bit using masks to hide the skin on covered areas.  I managed to mask most of the hip area and only had to tweak a few of the corrective shapekeys on  the body mesh.  I couldn't get away with just weighting for the hip area, so I had to make a few corrective shapekeys to make it look pleasing.  Thankfully I didn't have to make any new bones, the drivers used the existing ones on the body mesh just fine.

I still have the rig to hair.  I don't really need to I guess, but I want to =)

I'm sure there are a few other things I'll tweak, but the majority has been done.

Of walk cycles and shape keys.

So its finally done, after months of procrastination I finally rigged the heroine with corrective shape keys.

There are so many things wrong with this walk cycle and render that I'm not even going to try and list them.  This, however was just a test of sorts to see how the new automated shape keys worked in an animation context (also I was so giddy to see this model in action after being on the back burner for so long).  Needless to say, this is not going to be in the game.

So what's left?  I still need to make emote shape keys, hair motion shape keys and the mesh in-between some of the armor joints needs to be rigged and I have to decide what I'm going to do for a texture/color.

I'll probably make a mask(s) for some of the skin under the joints I can get away with it.  I wont be able to get away with the hip area.  If you look closely at her rear you'll notice there is a fairly big "hole" in her pants.  The armor was designed with many concepts that I wanted to implement.  Mobility was a major factor in its design.  Other factors like eroticism and dangerous where also implemented.

To summarize (more like clarify) I can't get away with using a mask for the ass area.  The vertex layout is completely different for the armored pants.  So I'll have to rig the under-armor to make sure it stays on top of the "skin".  I already have corrective shape key bones set up on the body mesh, so I should be able to just copy and edit the names a bit.

I imagine I'll have to tweak as I go along, but over all she is coming along nicely.  Being on vacation has helped me a lot in terms of having the time to keep going at it.  Not to mention I don't have to spend all my energy at work.

Absolutely nothing to do with game development: A la politicia (Ontario 2014 election)

So today was the big day in Ontario.  All the people that wanted a job that pays a full pension after 5 or so years of "work" came out to woo and aww people into voting them in.

I have personally had my fill with the current state of affairs.  I realize some politicians are trying to do good, but many of them don't seem entirely motivated at trying new things, and seem more inclined to just win votes.

For years I wanted a way to vote "none of the above".  Due to my lack of enthusiasm and the fact that elections Canada doesn't seem all that keen on telling voters that they can decline their vote, so I pretty much hit a wall looking for answers.  Sadly I had to find out the answer to my question in a new paper article.

This election more than ever, I wanted to vote "none of the above".

In one corner we have (Mc)Wynne who wants to keep shuffling the cards to make it look like they are doing something when in fact they are not.  I like libertarian ideas and feel that they are the way of the future.  But when you have a complete disrespect for others hard work (ie: money), I can't seem to take you seriously. Sorry Wynne, but you lost your libertarian stance a long time ago.

I use to be an NDP fan.  Jack was a nice guy and had the charisma.  Can't say I would agree with all the stuff that stood for, but I did respect his idea of change.  Unfortunately the NDP seem to have stopped preaching these ideals.  Horwath's plan just came off as being a "liberal lite" plan and didn't have the kind of change that I was hoping for.

Despite dim Tim's "I'ma gonna fire all you azzes" attitude, I actually appreciated his platform the most.  At least the man (sounds like) is being honest, and I really respect that out of anyone.  Unfortunately I don't like Harpers far right agenda when it comes to making marijuana "completely" illegal and replacing unconstitutional prostitution laws with other unconstitutional prostitution laws.  Sometimes I feel like the man is just trying to make crime....  I realize that dim Tim is Provencal and Harpo is Federal.  But I still can't see myself supporting such nonsense even in spirit...

The green party?  Well I have just reached my limit so unfortunately they and other no name parties are going to have to suffer for it.

What I was hoping for this election was talk about major change, such as binging up unfair and expensive taxation and at least offering alternative ideas.  But we only get minor tweaks and crap this election.  I feel that the current system is just too outdated and in major need of an overhaul.  That's one of the things I liked about Tim's platform, at lest he was talking about changing some parts of the broken system.  I think that his agenda was a little to abrasive though.  He should have presented other alternatives and modernizations to the current system to make a softer and more effective impact.

Anyway I just ended up declining my vote.  When the political parties talk about actually fixing, modernizing and stop being partisan idiots I'll consider gracing them with my vote again.

EDIT:For those of you that don't know.  Declining your vote is (supposedly) different from spoiling your ballot.  The votes that are declined are suppose to be kept separate and counted as votes that could have been, but weren't.  Basically saying that I have come to vote, but none of you are worthy of it.

I realize that I'm just a single customer in a "sea food" restraint ordering a "cheese burger".  However I honestly feel if enough people order that "cheese burger" the sea food restaurant will take a hint.

EDIT: various spelling errors fixed

EDIT: June 14 2014- added a note about declining votes.

Vacation 2014 START!

So its finally here.  I'm off work for the next 3 weeks.

I haven't really worked much on the game since my last post.  The heroine needs so many corrective shape keys its not funny.  As I'm sure I mentioned, I could animate as is with the weighting job.  However shes going to be doing several "extreme" poses and shape keys will be necessary to make sure the mesh doesn't deform like crap.

I redid my mascot/avatar a couple of days ago for practice and a change of pace.

So anyway, my vacation will primarily be dedicated to furthering my game dev skills and resources.

That's all for now.