Game Development

Joe

12:02 AM

no worries

Jon

12:39 AM

reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/3ap5dw/…

watch the video if you wanna go to bed

Joe

lol

really interesting to see someone elses unity c# though...

Pip

According to the comments it's horrible

Joe

thats fine always good to look at more code

as long as they complain about why its horrible maybe I can learn something

William 'MindWorX' Mariager

1:00 AM

@Pip That's ALL it's about? :P

Pip

:P

Joe

3:18 AM

WHAAAT!!!?!! this is soo easy docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/WWW.html

Ali.S

@Joe I don't see, what's the problem?

Joe

no problem, just happy that the API is straightforward

no immediate json api though... looks like ill have to convert

Aidan Mueller

4:38 AM

Rule 110 in Minecraft. I think I need to refine it a bit, but it works!

Joe

6:18 AM

because... why not

Ali.S

6:52 AM

lol

helena4

7:24 AM

@Jon you got an alt link for that (cant see it in my shitty country)

user92578

8:26 AM

Good morning

Chris

Morning

Lokkij

Morning

Hjorthenify

8:43 AM

Morning

Ali.S

8:57 AM

morning

user92578

9:31 AM

Played 7 fucking games of GRP

user92578

0 wins - 6 defeats and one tie

user92578

MVPd all the games

user92578

Now

user92578

How am I going to escort the players out of the level

user92578

I really like how Broforce does it, but I don't think I can mimic anything from there anymore

Martin Sojka

10:19 AM

How does Broforce do it, and what else did you think about?

user92578

10:29 AM

Broforce does a "jump on this helicopter and fly away"

user92578

I'm not really sure what else I could do

user92578

I suppose I could add a truck that the player jumps to

Martin Sojka

Or a rocket.

user92578

I thought about that too

user92578

But I want to save that for later I think

Martin Sojka

10:32 AM

In a smaller variant, have a drop crate with a rocket backpack inside drop, use that to fly away while the level explodes/gets flooded with lava/gets napalmbombed/...

Or have the level flip around and fight your way back to the starting point.

user92578

lol

user92578

I thought about jetpacks too

Lokkij

Create a giant lava slide with a snowboard for lava on it and have them board away on that

user92578

I gotta go eat stuff, brb

user92578

Aight

Martin Sojka

10:46 AM

Have a vehicle conveniently waiting at the other end and just calmly use it to leave the level. Doesn't matter what vehicle, and it can vary per level: lorry, sportscar, camel, ancient Greek trireme, horse buggy, train, ...

user92578

That sounds good

Lokkij

Have a robot centaur ride in and carry the player to elsewhere

Martin Sojka

Alternatively, a silver robot unicorn spreading rainbows, while Erasure's "Always" plays in the background.

3

Pip

Morning

snake5

@MartinSojka wasn't there a game that consisted entirely of that?

games.adultswim.com/…

Martin Sojka

11:00 AM

@snake5 That's the one I referenced, yes.

snake5

anyway, who killed screenshot saturday?

Pip

No one?

reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/3c2fif/…

snake5

that's not the original one

I'm talking about this one: screenshotsaturday.com

Pip

I don't know

Chris

screenshots! I'm currently experimenting with decorating my world

4

modelling a tree atm

Pip

11:10 AM

Why are you so good at game dev?

user92578

Yes, why?

Chris

lol

user92578

I mean this is getting out of hand

Pip

Seriously, chill Chris. Enough is enough.

XD

Chris

I've got big ideas in my head.... long road ahead

Pip

11:11 AM

Cool

Chris

cuz it ain't gonna decal itself lol

Pip

Oh man that looks really good so far

Chris

the sheer scale of walking around is much more fun than my little turn-based prototype

:D I'm not sure how closely I'll keep to the block structures, but it's good for rough layouts at this point

I also really don't fancy creating organic-looking environments if you know what I mean, like hand-sculpting every rockface and cliff and stuff... trying to suss out some compartmentalised objects ideally

Lokkij

What kind of gameplay will it have?

Chris

I'm hoping to try out projectile-firing, third-person aiming system.... or maybe it'll be more run-and-jump on things, not sure tbh

user92578

11:33 AM

Yeah...

user92578

That turned out a little too big

user92578

Back to the drawing board! (after one(?) game of GRP)

Lokkij

GRP?

user92578

ghost recon phantoms

Chris

11:34 AM

Size aside, truck looks good

user92578

Thanks, it's nice to hear that I've got the basics figured out

Pip

Yeah I really like your art style

I wish I could art :/

user92578

ty pip

Pip

@Jovito you created a repo three times?

@Tyyppi_77 np, it looks good :D

user92578

lol

Pip

11:40 AM

HAHAHHAAHA THE LINE CHANGES

about 5k each of additions and deletions were json changes

user92578

lol

user92578

you should see my "monthly commits"

Pip

pics are required :)

(this was this morning's work and some of last night's, maybe.... 4 hours?

I pretty much totally revamped my tile system

Almo

@AidanMueller neato

snake5

11:54 AM

any c++ template masters in here?

I need to enable conversion between class<T> -> class<const T>

Pip

Talk to.... @JoshPetrie or @MickLH I think

snake5

:/

none seem to be here atm

user92578

I was going to suggest asking snake5 but then I looked at the asker

Pip

lol

snake5

oddly enough, this is a very difficult issue, none of the straightforward approaches such as defining a templated constructor or one that takes struct<mutable_T> yield the required result

Pip

11:58 AM

Trello like a boss

We're kind of doing scrum with Trello... I like it actually

snake5

MSVC is being super cryptic about it as well

says that there's an error, says it recognized the constructor and... that's it, no mention of the actual reason being the error

Pip

huh

I'm running out of things to do that have been discussed since my friend (and the other programmer for my game) is on vacation this week and we were supposed to come up with a TODO before he left

I might see if I can find a drop-in, simple AI system. I really don't want to define my own at this point. I have some basic stuff, but anything more complicated would be a ton of work at the moment

Or.... I can go read about it. @amitp you have saved me again! XD www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/gameprog.html

user92578

12:41 PM

Too small or nice and cute?

user92578

Chris

I think the tan colour makes it not stand out very much

Joe

@Chris DUDE! awesome

user92578

@Chris Yeah I'll definitely recolor it

Chris

@Joe :D

@Tyyppi_77 Sweet, yeah it looks more reasonable-sized at least

Joe

12:56 PM

how are you getting one mesh? combining multiple meshes in blender?

Chris

I am currently not combining any meshes.. or rather, Unity's Static flag is combining the lot, though it still has a few draw calls for being separate meshes

Joe

ooo interesting, you make and assemble multiple meshes label them as static

Chris

I'm gonna leave things not combined for my sake until I absolutely have to merge them together if performance becomes an issue

Joe

and it just "compiles" them?

Chris

well when looking at an object in the inspector when it's running, it magically says the mesh is "Combined Mesh (root: scene)" instead of what it usually says

cuz honestly, modelling all this in Maya or whatever sounds like a huge hassle

but..... I mean if I have an end product, theoretically I could make note of each object and merge it all into one one by one

Joe

1:01 PM

im not great with any of the 3d applications... blender is the least painful or costly

Pip

@Tyyppi_77 I like it

Chris

or... use a script in Unity that combines all meshes I've chosen into one mesh, which sounds alright for a final version of a scene. prototyping though, I like the ability to move anything anywhere easily

yeah I gave up on Blender and am finding the monthly sub for Maya LT worth it so far

Joe

@Chris i think you just take the quickest / easiest path for until you decide its time to pump out final level geometry post prototype stages

@Chris what is it 30 bucks / mo?

Chris

yeah. and honestly, mesh merging is for performance stuff. not gonna optimise til it's needed

yeah $30 USD/month I think

Joe

perfectly reasonable

Chris

1:04 PM

it's like a cut-down version of Maya, basically just no pretty rendering

but it's fully functional for game stuff, modelling and exporting

and is more appealing than shelling out $3k at once

user92578

I like this a lot better:

user92578

Chris

yeah that's good man

with non-conforming meshes, you also get issues with lights showing through when they shouldn't

Joe

id imagine some of that stuff, maybe even collision glitches

Chris

yeah... but honestly it's about the end result, or just the temp result for now haha

Pip

1:12 PM

So Chris

How does the Tallowmere AI work?

Chris

The typical enemies basically:
- Walk forward.
- Check to see if the hero is in view - if so, initiate their "hero spotted!" state. otherwise -
- Check to see if they're about to collide with a wall or fellow enemy, or
- Check to see if they'd fall off their current block if they walked too far.
- If can't walk further, about-face

Pip

Hm. Thanks

My AI has to be a little more complex than that... I'm looking into behavior trees and such

Chris

I imagine most enemy AI goes like, patrolling, enemy spotted, decide what to do

attack? flank? change position? retreat? alert allies?

use ability X or Y

Pip

Yeah

Martin Sojka

One idea I had for a "guard this area" AI (but I didn't check if it made sense yet, much less implemented it) would essentially try to "paint" the area with the cone of view. Keep a simplified version (say, a 2d grid) with values corresponding to when the part was last seen, when nothing to do, find the oldest one at some min distance and path there, "painting" everything on the way with your cone of view. Repeat.

Chris

1:18 PM

ah yeah, that sounds pretty cool, rather than just following a set path

Pip

I need more like a:
 - Job
   - if requires materials
     - are materials present?
       - if yes, flag them as used
       - else request and wait
     - bring materials to area
       - get one material
       - bring it to location
   - build a thing or do a thing

annoying

Martin Sojka

Sounds like Dwarf Fortress AI, a bit.

Pip

I'll have to check it out

Chris

the more complex you want it, the more complex it gets, haha

no magic bullet I don't think

Martin Sojka

Only there is no "request and wait" there, just "pause the job", IIRC. But you could instead push it down the queue and grab the next one too (works best if there are multiple agents capable of doing the job).

Chris

1:21 PM

a priority system

Pip

@MartinSojka oh that's a better idea

Chris

keep each Job in a List? reorder the list as needed depending on whatever

Pip

I have a task queue (basically a FIFO collection)

Martin Sojka

It has the downside that "reserved" materials for a job stay reserved (and unusable for anything else, even emergencies) until the job either completes or is cancelled.

Pip

yeah... hm. I'll have to think about it a bit

Martin Sojka

1:23 PM

It's a downside, not a showstopper.

Pip

Yep

My current goal at the moment is to stick a bunch of cards in Trello then write a few basic tasks, maybe implementing a factory or something

just a basic MoveTo function for now I think

later pathfinding, etc

Welp, that filled up my ToDo list

Anyhow, I've got to head to work for today. Talk to you all later tonight

Chris

1:44 PM

I remember using this Mesh.CombineMeshes thing at runtime, decreases drawcalls all nice, plus less shadow casting draws. or it looks like there's a Simple Mesh Combine asset, $7 sounds like a steal

even export as an OBJ so you could potentially join vertices togethers in Maya and then put back into Unity lol

Joe

2:12 PM

hmmm

interesting

Almo

2:45 PM

if you haven't seen it already

Joe

@Almo ~~no one wants to see pictures of your junk man cool it, we already saw your subreddit~~ I take back everything bad i ever said about you

Almo

Cuphead E3 2015 Trailer for Xbox One

►

Joe

oo expectations

user92578

@Joe LOL

Chris

@Almo I'll be buying that for sure

Almo

2:49 PM

I won't, but only because it an Xobx exclusive

love the art

Joe

amazing

Chris

official website says Steam & Xbox One? unless something's changed

user92578

I really like this design:

user92578

But I'm starting to feel like it's a bit too small

snake5

2:52 PM

and missing some detail

user92578

true

Almo

@Chris thing I saw said "Xobx exclusive"

"A single player or co-op "run and gun" platformer, heavily focused on boss battles. Inspired by 1930s cartoons, the visuals are hand drawn and inked and the music is all original jazz recordings. Xbox One Console exclusive."

user92578

Maybe I'll try to scale it up a bit

Chris

ah real, must've signed a deal

hmm

Almo

Oooh... Maybe I wouldn't want to play it. "heavily focused on boss battles"

I really don't like boss battles. :(

Icy Defiance

2:58 PM

aww you'd hate dark souls then, lol

Almo

and monster hunter

Joe

@Chris you played much with the async load level? I literally had an idea last night while sleeping... Level 1 has doors to Levels A,B & C... on Level 1 load think one could lazy load ABC immediately, just basically preload all of the player options, try to optimize the transition

no matter where your going

Chris

you'd have to see if there's any hiccup at all

Joe

I build an SPA like this once, and was wondering if the practice could work for the levels - I imagine there will be a stutter for rendering

but I dont think it would be a pause

Chris

cuz if the act of finally enabling or disabling the level is at all clunky, you might as well just load it normally with a screen...... Or just have all the level stuff in their own GameObjects and enable/disable (if they're not too memory intensive)

I dunno about on PC, but async loading on Android is clunky

framerate drops while loading

Joe

3:05 PM

I read an article about how to prevent "some" of that

Almo

load level async was not good on iOS either

Chris

if you can pull it off seamlessly without any stutter, great, but otherwise yeah just stick to normal loading imo

I don't think Unity is quite there

Almo

(in a lot of ways)

Chris

lol

Joe

Application.backgroundLoadingPriority was the silver bullet according to one guy... but I havent been able to reproduce the problem or the fix yet

something about thread priority being too high on default

Chris

3:09 PM

good to know, ty

Joe

lol dont need to thank me, I havent gotten it to work yet... just thinking out loud

Almo

:D

Joe

so what does unity have to do on load level? grab all the game objects + textures + sounds from disk (guess im just still trying to turn whales into cats)?

Chris

it's magical

Joe

Jul 1 at 17:32, by Joe

lol im reading a tech book and the author is comparing speed of RAM to other things... "Imagine getting data from RAM is equivalent to the weight of a cat... from the hard disk a whale. Getting things from the network is like 100 whales"

so ridiculous to think about, I cant see things normally anymore

Chris

3:15 PM

lol

so how many cats does your game need to run?

Joe

however many you need to pull a snow sled

16 billion i guess?

Chris

should put that in the official system requirements somewhere

Joe

one 16 billion lb cat at least... but performance might be sluggish

Pip

lol

Martin Sojka

From my experience with cats, they're only sluggish when they are alone. Once a second (competing) cat arrives, they are suddenly both fast and especially hungry.

2

Chris

3:20 PM

So depending on how they're stored

they might perform faster or slower

I assume the unit of measurement would only be an average cat though. age, size, gender, cuteness levels

Pip

> So depending on how [cats] are stored, they might perform faster or slower

Would storing them in a fish tank be better than in a cardboard box?

Sounds difficult to store in a hard drive.... I think you would have some left over cat bits

Chris

Fishtanks and electric currents probably wouldn't mix well

I assume the cats have to be alive to get any benefit

user92578

Aww yea, I think I got the size:

user92578

Almo

looks good to me

user92578

3:23 PM

Aight, now detailing and final colors

Pip

hold on a sec

I feel like the window and that part needs raised one pixel

user92578

If an army truck and a school bus had a baby, that's pretty much what it would look like

Pip

actually.... maybe that whole front part just needs stretched

the window looks way too steep [on the side]

hm

if you fill in the two pixels at the bottom of the window and top of the window

then it might look better

and then even out the diagonals

user92578

How about turning the 2-2-2-2 line at the bottom & at the top into a 4-4

Pip

I was thinking more of a 3-2-3

but either works. Try it out

Other than the window everything looks good

user92578

3:26 PM

3-2-3 looks good

user92578

Thanks

user92578

Now to the details

user92578

That's the hard thing for me

Chris

@Almo studiomdhr.com/… "Cuphead coming in 2016 exclusively to Xbox One and PC".

>studioMDHR Mod Samuel Welch • 3 days ago
We are 99.9% sure that we will be on Mac (it's a priority!) - but probably not right at launch. It is an Xbox One exclusive, so it won't be coming out on PS4!

so sounds like console-wise, Xbox One only, but still on personal computers

Almo

ah, so console is exclusive to Xobx

makes sense

Chris

3:31 PM

poorly worded though lol

Almo

If someone has a PS4 and a Mac, it's unlikely they can get that person to buy and Xobx or PC

Chris

:P

Lokkij