Game Development

12:05 AM

Hey guys does any one know if unity has a simple way to fade in all gameObjects on a given layer such as modifying some opacity aspect on the layer?

Almo

12:17 AM

It diesnt

Get all renderes put em in list and update their opacities

WDUK

darn thats annoying

Almo

12:59 AM

@Tyyppi_77 looks like it got confused by a change in the bundleid i though I had that fixed...

PearsonArtPhoto

2:28 AM

Always fun to start working on a new branch of code with some assumptions different, and realizing that I need to re-work significant chunks of my logic...

Almo

3:54 AM

:D

WDUK

4:06 AM

Did you guys who have a game on Steam green light find it difficult to know when your game was "good enough" to get it on steam ?

Almo

by "you guys" I think you mean "Chris"

Jon

Eat repeat.

WDUK

who ever, as i don't know who has a game on steam xD

though i guess it can apply to those who publish to android/ios too

how you gauge when its ready for prime time

Almo

you'll get different answers from different people

WDUK

i know :P

but its interesting

Almo

4:17 AM

sorry distacted

will answer now

I'm more of a perfectionist, so for me I won't publish unless all but the smallest bugs are gone.

WDUK

what about things like "is this fun enough?" "is there enough content?" etc

Almo

like Cognizer went out with
1) Audio blurp when it starts (started music before setting user's preferred volume)
2) Double click sound on Scores menu
3) No error checking on highscore save
4) Time bonus off by one sometimes (was mathf.floor when should have been .round)

I've fixed those now, and they're going out as 1.1 :)

about "fun" I test that on people

I have everyone I know try it

if most of them find it fun, it's ready.

if it's a niche product like LowDown, if I think it's fun, that's enough.

I think like 1 in 20 people say they don't really like Cognizer, and it's usually as a matter of personal preference. One guy said "I just don't like games where I'm not levelling up."

If I'm really being picky, I have the game record data as people play, then I spreadsheet to balance it. I did that with Crystal Shuffle.

But in that case I was being paid to develop it, so I didn't mind spending the extra time

WDUK

ah nice

for me i'm my own worst critic

Almo

:D

Since I know I'm a perfectionist, I'm ruthless about avoiding feature creep, or I'd never publish anything

WDUK

you should give Chris Roberts that advice

Almo

4:25 AM

Cognizer has no network capabilities, so no FB friends, twitter, or online leaderboards. No achievements (game's not really suited to achievements anyway)

ok gotta sleep

WDUK

good night :)

Aidan Mueller

6:41 AM

Been doing some research on finnish language. Everyone makes it sound like it's ridiculously complicated. True, but I would think that some of the examples used are extreme cases. Consider this english sentence:

> The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families.

Not immediately obvious what that means.

Point being, you can always find some weird sentence in any language.

Or this:

> The man the professor the student has studies Rome.

Still trying to work that one out.

Aidan Mueller

7:00 AM

I can't sleep because I can't figure this dumb sentence out.

Chris

7:33 AM

@WDUK My game was good enough when I was sick of working on it. It was fun and playable, I wanted to add more, but I was super burnt out

that was a year ago. Past 3 months, been working on a sequel which will be bigger and better

couple months after launching on Steam, finished up my iOS and Android port and launched it on mobile

really though, it's your own judgement call when you think it's ready to be launched. So many factors to consider, but it rests on your decision at the end of the day. Feedback is a good way to judge how things are. is it buggy, does it need this or that to really finish the polish, etc. Long as you're happy enough with it, go for it. Never gonna be perfect

user92578

7:52 AM

@Almo umm... what?

user92578

@AidanMueller cool! Is there something I could help you with?

Almo

@Tyyppi_77 maybe i meant to send that to pip

user92578

8:07 AM

That would be less confusing

Almo

8:46 AM

looks like i'll be getting my first press for Cognizer here: multijoueur.ca

2

PearsonArtPhoto

12:13 PM

@AidanMueller I got the first one, but it took a while... The key is houses is a verb.

The second one, well, I have no clue...

My favorite, however, is this one:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a grammatically correct sentence in American English, used as an example of how homonyms and homophones can be used to create complicated linguistic constructs. It has been discussed in literature in various forms since 1967, when it appeared in Dmitri Borgmann's Beyond Language: Adventures in Word and Thought. The sentence uses three distinct meanings of the word buffalo: the city of Buffalo, New York; the uncommon verb to buffalo, meaning "to bully or intimidate" or "to baffle"; and the animal itself, buffalo. Paraphrased, the...

Jon

1:27 PM

You had me at Buffalo

William Mariager

1:54 PM

I see a @fredley

fredley

@WilliamMariager wotcha

DH.

wat verb to buffalo?

PearsonArtPhoto

2:28 PM

I think my framework almost allows me to add new cargo holds without breaking too much, but I might be short a bit...

Sigh, nothing like having to re-work a framework a bit to get it to do what you want it to do.

William Mariager

I just bought a pay-once virtual server. Nothing impressive, but at $17.5 it's an interesting deal. Even if it isn't perfect, it's superb for development. And they even offer Windows servers, not just linux based.

PearsonArtPhoto

$17.5?

One time deal? Interesting...

William Mariager

Yeah

Normally it's $35, but it's half off today. :)

PearsonArtPhoto

Where's that?

And what's the catch, I wonder...

William Mariager

Cloud At Cost

I always mess up links :P

user92578

2:33 PM

links are hard

user92578

you never get one right on the first try

William Mariager

Yeah, not sure what the catch is, but I figured it's a small enough cost even if they change their position in the future.

PearsonArtPhoto

I'll give it a shot, I've always wanted a web server...

For $17.50, you can't go wrong...

user92578

It's even smaller than the previous one, but here's this weeks weekly update: gunhero.surge.sh/#WeeklyUpdate4

William Mariager

@Tyyppi_77 Yay, keep at it!

user92578

2:37 PM

Today's progress:
1) Fix a horrible, horrible bug
2) Fix apparently causes a horrible, horrible crash with somehow invalid deleted pointers dangling in a vector in a quadtree
3) ???
4) Profit

William Mariager

So far Cloud At Cost is very slow to get their server live. But I hear that that's the norm with Windows servers. As far as I understand, Linux servers have an easier environment for virtual machines.

PearsonArtPhoto

No idea what I'll do with it, but, well...

William Mariager

That's a good amount of progress @Tyyppi_77.

user92578

0

A: How can I separate processing input and update?

It's up to you. I prefer doing them separately but if you feel like to do it in the update function, go ahead

user92578

Umm... thanks for your contribution??? :D

user92578

2:38 PM

@WilliamMariager Aight :)

William Mariager

@Tyyppi_77 Marked it "not an answer" :P

PearsonArtPhoto

Profit?

That's always good, I don't have much hope of getting there...

user92578

lol

user92578

profit was aquired in dota levels

user92578

easy rep (I hope): gamedev.stackexchange.com/a/118585/35344

Jon

3:10 PM

i'll take your word for it

user92578

:)

user92578

user92578

Ah, feels so good

Shen Ruki

awesome

Chozabu

Hey guys - asking a question here: http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/118500/are-people-allowed-to-make-free-software-games-with-unreal-engine-4
I've repeatability attempted to edit it to fit the mods requests - but they keep on saying it is no good.
Am I being silly, or are they being over the top? would be great to have another opinion on this

Almo

3:22 PM

Too broad

this site is for questions that have a definite answer, which is not just a link to some external resource

the idea is that a question asked and answered will be helpful to someone in the future, when said off-site references may be gone

user92578

You're essentially asking for a list of projects

user92578

github.com/EpicGames/UnrealTournament

user92578

Epic is currently developing the next Unreal Tournament open source on GitHub

Chozabu

3:39 PM

glad to hear some more opinions - even if they say I am wrong :)

Though, I do wonder if there is a bug, preventing people from seeing my updates to the question?

since, from your responses "Epic is currently developing the next Unreal Tournament open source on GitHub" - but in question, I say "Other than UT4..." right at the start

William Mariager

Some edits have to be approved before they're visible. But they're visible to mods. I'm not sure edits to your own question needs approval though.

Chozabu

And I've removed all mentions of a "list of projects" - just asking if it is allowed, and to provide a backup to their answer

user92578

Just do a UE4 search on GitHub

user92578

There are definitely projects on there

Chozabu

chozabu.net/autopush/2016-03-20-15-42-566685385.png <-- this is what the question looks like to me - can anyone confirm if it looks the same to them?

Almo

3:43 PM

"Is anyone aware of any projects?"

that's either asking for a list, or it's a useless yes/no question

user92578

^

user92578

Man I just fixed an interesting bug

user92578

for (auto layer : m_Layers)
	{
		if (layer->GetLayerIdentifier() == currentLayerIdentifier)
		{
			layer->RemoveEntity(entity);
		}
		else if (layer->GetLayerIdentifier() == targetLayerIdentifier)
		{
			layer->AddEntity(entity);
		}
	}

Chozabu

@almo - good point - removed

user92578

Now if targetLayerId is declared above the currentLayerId in the enum declaration

user92578

3:47 PM

Hell breaks lose, as after the code the entity doesn't belong to any layer

Almo

:D

user92578

Yeah... I thought I was so smart re-using the loop

Almo

:D

user92578

The new code that duplicates the loop definitely isn't as clean

user92578

However it doesn't cause crashes

user92578

3:48 PM

This has been in the game for ages

user92578

Weird that it popped up just now

Chozabu

also @Tyyppi_77 I'd searched for unreal engine 4 before - did not find much in results. searching for UE4 looks better - but does not answer the question - anything that looks like a game seems to be inactive since quite a while ago. results could easily be projects that have stopped due to issues, or tiny enough to go un-noticed/ignored

user92578

forums.unrealengine.com/…

Almo

exactly why the question is not a useful question given the site's purpose. Those dropped projects would have been answers when they were still supported, and would now be useless

But you have access to the chat room where such questions are not a problem

user92578

Yup

user92578

3:53 PM

This is from an UE dev:

Chozabu

OK guys! Thanks for the info

Almo

sure

user92578

> You can not release code under GPL. It is impossible for you to satisfy the terms of both licenses simultaneously. MIT, BSD, zlib, etc..., are all acceptable if you want to release your game as open source, but LGPL and GPL are not.

Chozabu

I'd just found that link, and added it to the question as a comment

so, should I delete the question, or?

user92578

How did you not find the link before? It's the first result on a "UE4 open source project" google search

user4704

3:54 PM

Generally with UE you can make an open source game, but you can't redistribute or re-license Unreal's source code, so that prohibits you from employing certain kinds of licenses in your own code

user4704

BSD or whatever would be fine, for example, you just distribute your game's code (and your game's code only), and point at the specific UE version (4.10, 4.11, whatever) you need.

Chozabu

understood, 'So, it is kinda OK to make an FOSS game, BUT only for bits "unconnected" to ue4, anywhere where the licence would conflict, you must use their licence'

user4704

Specifically:

user4704

"You may not sublicense the Licensed Technology in Source Code format."

user4704

(from unrealengine.com/eula)

Chozabu

4:08 PM

@Tyyppi_77 I understand your suprise - my original question did not lead to the answer so easily, after editing it to fit the rules (better, but not well enough) it is quite obvious

also, everyone, well done - you've managed to change a stubborn nerds (me) opinion!

Jon

It's what we do.

Chozabu

:D

Also - while I am here: Other than UT4 - is anyone aware of any Open Source games under active development with UE4?

user4704

4:25 PM

Nothing major.

user4704

There's probably at least a handful of indie/hobby projects using it.

user4704

But they'll be tricky to dig up directly via Google or whatever because their Github pages or whatever won't have high page rank.

user4704

You might try searching GitHub or BitBucket directly.

user4704

github.com/…✓ gives you hundreds of pages of results, you can poke around there and see if anybody is actually using it for something resembling a game

Shen Ruki

asm really is dark spaces

like, the evil of the software industry

Chozabu

4:34 PM

@JoshPetrie thanks for the info, after a bit of a trawl through guthubs own search, not finding much. I'll wait for a while, or start something myself when I have the time

Ah! You are that @JoshPetrie! should I delete my question?

user4704

@Chozabu There's no real reason to; you can if you want but it's fine to leave it up, as it serves as a signpost (and it does have that useful link you dug up)

Chozabu

5:07 PM

OK! I will leave it as-is then. I'm closing this tab for now, thanks again everyone :)

Alexandre Vaillancourt

Just read that...

amazon.ca/Secrets-Winning-Office-Politics-Influence/dp/…

Good read!

William Mariager

I got approved as a student on GitHub. Up to 5 free private repos.

Shen Ruki

5:24 PM

nice

Jon

i think i'm gonna have to take a nap boys

Alexandre Vaillancourt

5:43 PM

Good nap!

Shen Ruki

6:21 PM

The Hundred In The Hands - Killing It

►

user92578

7:02 PM

@WilliamMariager Nice, they never accepted my @edumylocalarea email and did not ever respond to my complaint

William Mariager

@Tyyppi_77, lol :P

user92578

Yeah... switched to bitbucket after that

TheMuffinCoder

8:26 PM

I always get shocked when I see pixel art this good

William Mariager

9:16 PM

The worst thing about reverse engineering is when you find something cool by pure luck. Now you have to trace back your steps, figure out what path you took.

Almo

10:27 PM

@TheMuffinCoder tha's pretty fuckin good man

Almo

10:40 PM

haha my paying user graph is flipping me off