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Coldrice
Jan 20, 2006


Been slowly chipping away at a few things. Not really big leaps and strides though

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Omi no Kami
Feb 19, 2014


I'm starting to work on the instancing system that takes location data from my crime system and builds a temporary, procedural area to investigate in... since I already have a fairly complicated level streaming system to keep the overworld seamless, do those of you who know UE4 better than I do see any problem with building every instanced level in some cordoned-off space that nothing else exists in, like [-10000,-10000,-10000], and just achieving the transition by fading to black, teleporting the player into the instanced area, and fading back in? It lacks a crapload of elegance, but I don't really want to bother with unloading the entire overworld and serializing all the active AI/worldstate stuff between hard level transfers unless I have to.

full point
Jan 21, 2006

Manslaughter posted:

If any of you are actually any good at drawing robuts parts I could totally use them.

Internet Janitor posted:

I drew these a while back; if you'd like to use them for anything you're more than welcome:


Bizarro Buddha
Feb 11, 2007

Omi no Kami posted:

I'm starting to work on the instancing system that takes location data from my crime system and builds a temporary, procedural area to investigate in... since I already have a fairly complicated level streaming system to keep the overworld seamless, do those of you who know UE4 better than I do see any problem with building every instanced level in some cordoned-off space that nothing else exists in, like [-10000,-10000,-10000], and just achieving the transition by fading to black, teleporting the player into the instanced area, and fading back in? It lacks a crapload of elegance, but I don't really want to bother with unloading the entire overworld and serializing all the active AI/worldstate stuff between hard level transfers unless I have to.

Set up your level like this:

code:
Game_P <-- persistent level
 |__ Overworld_1
 |__ Overworld_2
 |__ Overworld_3 etc
 |__ InstancedArea
If the actors that make up your overworld are also in streaming sublevels of an almost empty persistent level, you can remove those sublevels from the scene without unloading them. On ULevelStreaming the flags you're look at are bShouldBeLoaded and bShouldBeVisible. You set the overworld levels to be loaded but not visible and the instanced level to loaded and visible after you've faded down, then call FlushLevelStreaming to get the switchover to happen without any intermediate engine ticks that could cause the player to fall out of the world etc. Then fade up.

Somfin
Oct 25, 2010

In my🦚 experience🛠️ the big things🌑 don't teach you anything🤷‍♀️.

Nap Ghost

Coldrice posted:

Been slowly chipping away at a few things. Not really big leaps and strides though



Let the chunky pixel zeldalike rennaisance continue!

That is seriously cool, dude. Awesome combat feel.

Omi no Kami
Feb 19, 2014


Bizarro Buddha posted:

Set up your level like this:

code:
Game_P <-- persistent level
 |__ Overworld_1
 |__ Overworld_2
 |__ Overworld_3 etc
 |__ InstancedArea
If the actors that make up your overworld are also in streaming sublevels of an almost empty persistent level, you can remove those sublevels from the scene without unloading them. On ULevelStreaming the flags you're look at are bShouldBeLoaded and bShouldBeVisible. You set the overworld levels to be loaded but not visible and the instanced level to loaded and visible after you've faded down, then call FlushLevelStreaming to get the switchover to happen without any intermediate engine ticks that could cause the player to fall out of the world etc. Then fade up.

That is super helpful, thank you! I feel lame for having so much trouble fine-tuning the streaming system, but something about it just bounces off of my brain half the time.

Bizarro Buddha
Feb 11, 2007
No worries. I've a few years experience working with the old school level streaming system in UE3, which lived on into UE4. I'm less familiar with the open world 'tile' system they've recently added because we don't use it at work. If you're using that at all you may need to poke it differently to get the same unloaded/loaded/visible stages.

Omi no Kami
Feb 19, 2014


I haven't used it a whole lot, but people who do tell me it's pretty easy to set up. The big complaints I've heard is that it doesn't hold up as well if you want to do a clean transition from orbit to the ground, Kerbal/No Man's Sky style, where you're probably happier using a custom LOD system to go from the 5x5km level up, and only start using world composition when you're below that level.

For our thing, I ended up sticking with the UE3-style asset streaming because of how dense the maps are. It's set in a major city with lots of verticality and limited sightlines, where it ends up being more efficient to just hyperaggressively cull everything and hide it with sharp corners.

Noyemi K
Dec 9, 2012

youll always be so sleepy when youre this tiny *plompf*
Originally I was going to use dressed-up AdLib emulation for AWoM's sound, but changed my mind and decided to be faithful to PC-98 hardware instead.

AntiPseudonym
Apr 1, 2007
I EAT BABIES

:dukedog:
Told Twitter that I'd just implemented cheat codes, and the first thing someone says is "Is there a big head mode?"

So, now, yes. Yes there is.

A LOVELY LAD
Feb 8, 2006

Hey man, wanna hear a secret?



College Slice

AntiPseudonym posted:

Told Twitter that I'd just implemented cheat codes, and the first thing someone says is "Is there a big head mode?"

So, now, yes. Yes there is.



This game looks so good.

Screenshot saturday - I've finally got some semblance of line of sight and random dungeon generation.

Both def need tweaked somewhat (you may notice the shadows end after a certain distance) but random generation has been kicking my rear end for a while now so I'm glad I at least have something.

A LOVELY LAD fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Oct 24, 2015

Shoehead
Sep 28, 2005

Wassup, Choom?
Ya need sumthin'?
Those tiles are gorgeous :swoon:

A LOVELY LAD
Feb 8, 2006

Hey man, wanna hear a secret?



College Slice

Shoehead posted:

Those tiles are gorgeous :swoon:

They are indeed, I wish they were mine :ssh:

Im just using them as placeholders - eventually switching to something more spacey.

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=14166.0

I drew the guy tho!

Shoehead
Sep 28, 2005

Wassup, Choom?
Ya need sumthin'?

A LOVELY LAD posted:

They are indeed, I wish they were mine :ssh:

Im just using them as placeholders - eventually switching to something more spacey.

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=14166.0

I drew the guy tho!

poo poo I should have recognized Arachne's work!

TomR
Apr 1, 2003
I both own and operate a pirate ship.
I had to scroll back up to check who posted the image.

Shalinor
Jun 10, 2002

Can I buy you a rootbeer?

AntiPseudonym posted:

Told Twitter that I'd just implemented cheat codes, and the first thing someone says is "Is there a big head mode?"

So, now, yes. Yes there is.


... oh my god, I could do big head mode too. The heads are distinct meshes, this time. :aaa:

Anyways, now that we have actual art, I've been playing with fist position to try and make them read as actual fists. Gone through a loooot of iterations. Up close and huge, they look like weird low-poly assault rifles:


... and they look better as you push them out:


I thought this looked good, very PunchOut, but folks were saying the fists didn't read as "yours". Probably because of the lack of arms connecting them to the bottom of the screen:


... so this is the current winner. I'm still not sure it's ideal, but it meets the hard-wired gamer instincts about where FPS melee fists should be, how they should be mounted to your screen, the angle they should be pointed at, etc. "Attached to the bottom of the screen and angled in toward center screen" appears to be key:


All of this is a bit of a bummer, since I already coded out a very complicated system (realistic to boxing) where your leading fist jabs and your rear fist crosses, and you could actually change your stance, or we could make certain characters be southpaws, and all the combos mirrored depending on your leading fist, etc. None of which now matters, because "corner mounted fist guns" have no concept of leading fist. BUT, kinda gotta do it that way for it to read right, unless I want to add some kind of stand-in "arms" that trail off below the floaty fists, or go full-on PunchOut and have a 3rd person camera behind a transparent fighter.

It's probably for the best, though. Folks never would have understood the stance button, or why you used the stance button mid-combo to step into hits, or any of that. Simplicity is almost certainly better, in this case.


The other issue I get to solve now, is that those fists are actually itty bitty baby fists to line up right, visually:


This was all a LOT easier back when we could throw the drat gun into UI space, and it always draws on top, and done. Ah well. Current leading thought is to scale the fists up as they fly out. With the right scale factor, it'll look good, and even if it's slightly wrong and the fists get bigger visually, the game's comical, so that works fine. Rayman's fists get HUGE mid-punch, it just adds to the impact.

(EDIT: I may also just make the fists never actually get near their target, and fill the gap with billions of impact particles and screen shake, in the proud tradition of melee games before me)

Shalinor fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Oct 24, 2015

anatomi
Jan 31, 2015

That looks beautiful!

I think the fists are difficult to read because they're a bit too busy. A more simple/uniform color palette might help? The thumb region looks disjointed and I don't think it's the mesh. There's a dark line of pixels at its base that's confusing to the eye.

On another topic, trying to get into Unity again and holy hell Visual Studio's so much nicer than MD...

Shalinor
Jun 10, 2002

Can I buy you a rootbeer?

anatomi posted:

That looks beautiful!

I think the fists are difficult to read because they're a bit too busy. A more simple/uniform color palette might help? The thumb region looks disjointed and I don't think it's the mesh. There's a dark line of pixels at its base that's confusing to the eye.
Thanks!

... and yeah, there's probably a lot of mesh iteration to be done too. What I'm trying to avoid, though, is a huge division between your FPS fists and the in-game fists on other enemies. If I change the voxel density on "your" fists, it increases costs, but mostly it creates this weird divide between your fists and the rest of the world. Still. It's early days, and the artist will probably at least want to experiment with that. I figure if I get the fists into an optimal position, where they read best as "fists" as they are, then that position would only be enhanced if the artist makes them look even fist'ier close up. OTOH, the bad positions (like the "they look like assault rifles" one), I don't think there's any saving those, unless you went to a truly absurd resolution on the fist meshes.

For me, the big divide is between the PunchOut floaty fists VS the corner fists. I'm still attached to the floaty PunchOut fists, but the feedback I get is that those just don't read as your fists, they read as "pink things sitting on the floor" or "the enemy in front of you's fists." The game has to read in screenshots, so that's probably a full-stop, right there, even if floaty fists do make sense once you move the camera around and have that ah-hah moment.

Shalinor fucked around with this message at 19:24 on Oct 24, 2015

_jink
Jan 14, 2006

I'm a big fan of the simplified shapes, and that clean post-processing look, but the colors are working against you a bit. The high-contrast, sharp edged pixels you're using as texture are acting like dazzle paint, confusing the simple shapes, and exacerbating readability issues. And the texture pixels in general are way too noticeable (ie random splotches of pink on the skin look like ailments). It sounds like you've got positioning mostly sussed out, but I imagine the punch-out style fists would look perfectly readable with some more directed colors/textures.

CJacobs
Apr 17, 2011

Reach for the moon!
Yeah, I was gonna say that it just doesn't really look like a fist from the player-camera angle. It does from most other angles (like on the test model you have in the background in those shots), but from the player's fov they really just don't look like hands. The currently finalized angle is good but the model does look a bit messy.

Shalinor
Jun 10, 2002

Can I buy you a rootbeer?

CJacobs posted:

Yeah, I was gonna say that it just doesn't really look like a fist from the player-camera angle. It does from most other angles (like on the test model you have in the background in those shots), but from the player's fov they really just don't look like hands. The currently finalized angle is good but the model does look a bit messy.
We're inevitably going to have to run a test with higher-res assets for the FPS view (which is standard in FPS anyways), and I'm guessing we'll go with that. The more I play with it, the more I'm realizing that the voxel density being 2X in "FPS view" won't actually be an issue. I was worried there'd be a disconnect between those fists and the world, then, but... no, it's actually a problem related to screenspace per voxel. They actually need HIGHER res for there not to be a disconnect. Everything else, you simply can't get close enough to cross whatever the visual threshold is that's confusing the fists. It may also be that higher res voxels on the near fists will pull them visually out from the background better.

Would everyone more or less agree that the "fists toward the corners, angled in to punch toward center" view is the way to go, though?

_jink posted:

I imagine the punch-out style fists would look perfectly readable with some more directed colors/textures.
It isn't that they aren't readable as fists in that case (no more so than the corner fists anyways), so much as they don't look like fists or anything else attached to "you". There's something magical about some part of your gun / arms / etc extending off the bottom of the screen that appears to be vital for selling first-person view. Normally that's just default, but with Rayman hands, it gets a little weird.

I'm willing to bet that even with the corner fists, I'm going to have to really dial the particles to 11, and make sure there's a clear trail behind the fists as they punch. Something that keeps them "connected" to the bottom of the screen. Also probably going to have to keep it quick and swipe'y for that reason, though that's good for general control (and "not noticing that the fist didn't quite contact the target") reasons too.

(EDIT: Oh, and part of the reason the skin splotches look weird is because I really suck at dialing in the colors to look right in UE4 processing/lighting - these still aren't quite right, and I'm probably just going to throw the whole mess at Zach and say "make it look like your renders outside of UE4 do! :(")

Shalinor fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Oct 24, 2015

scissorman
Feb 7, 2011
Ramrod XTreme
Instead of just having freely floating fists, can you maybe use some transparent lines/some other transparent effect to 'trick' the observers brain into filling in the details and associate the fists with the player?
If the problem is mostly the subconscious not parsing the fists as 'yours', then experimenting with ways to correct that might help, even if it's just something as direct as a line of sparkles following the fists.

Another thing that's tripping me up in the 'punch-out' images is that the wrist looks as thick as the fist, which isn't the case in the last first person image; I think you should be able to see your clenched fingers otherwise it looks more like you're throwing a brick instead of swinging your fists.

In total I believe you should maybe take some more time to experiment, especially if you want to do something with stances later (maybe not mid-fight but instead different chooseable/unlockable fighters offering some variety this way?).
I don't know how the punching is going to look when using the fists by the sides approach but I'm afraid you're going to run into similar problems when making screenshots of a punch in progress because you're once again showing a blob floating in space.

Shalinor
Jun 10, 2002

Can I buy you a rootbeer?

scissorman posted:

I don't know how the punching is going to look when using the fists by the sides approach but I'm afraid you're going to run into similar problems when making screenshots of a punch in progress because you're once again showing a blob floating in space.
You work around this by never snapping a shot of a punch in progress without the appropriate amount of particles shooting out of the back end / whatever else we use to fill the gap. Most fighting games pose their hit shots for the moment when you've got the "slice" streamer zooming back from the hit/weapon, the explosion from the hit event itself, probably a screen overlay, and the target emoting and flying backward for all it's worth.

So in our case, you'd - assuming it works visually - have a trail effect that traces from origin point to the fist, speed line'y things flying back off the fist, etc. Not to mention the impact et al assuming a hit took place. It'd be hard to dub that much context into the "fists hovering sedately in front of you" PunchOut view.

scissorman posted:

Instead of just having freely floating fists, can you maybe use some transparent lines/some other transparent effect to 'trick' the observers brain into filling in the details and associate the fists with the player?
If the problem is mostly the subconscious not parsing the fists as 'yours', then experimenting with ways to correct that might help, even if it's just something as direct as a line of sparkles following the fists.
the "sparkles following the fists" thing only works to connect to the bottom if the fists at least start there. Otherwise, I need something down there that literally acts like an arm. If that's the grounding element, I can't just disappear it when the fists leave idle state, so that puts me on the hook for full first person arm-thing animations. Then it's going to look weird if only the player's fists have that glowy wotsit following them, and... so on.

I could try, like, making a permanent rocket sparkle fart stream that flies backward from the fists even if they're standing still, and make sure it's long enough to stretch to the bottom of the screen, but not sure if that'd work. That kinda thing falls apart if you stare at it too long, which is (one of the many reasons) why fighting animations are designed to hit and retreat fast. No time to analyze how dumb that giant swoosh effect looked.

EDIT: Granted, it may well be we eventually try connecting all the fists and feet to the bodies with... I don't know, procedural particle'y splines or something. In which case drifting some procedural particle noodle arms off the bottom from the fists would work. Though that seems a bit crass.

(EDIT: because I've got like 3 replies in series already)

Flex Mentallo posted:

I haven't really been following, but what was the reason you wouldn't just put some arm-meshes in there and have the fist positions drive all their animation using 2-bone IK or somesuch?
(I mean I get it if it's an art-style choice, I just recall there was a post you mentioned doing something like that, and it sounds like it would make sense if you end up having to try and illustrate some kind of arm-ness anyways)
Because IK sucks, basically. The fists don't move in anything approaching physically-possible ways, so the arms would go crazy trying to keep up. To make IK look good means you must move your target position and rotation in a very particular way, so that the elbow ends up in a sensible position, and even then it'll still spaz out. The tech only works particularly well when you're driving it with actual, physically-based animation, and all the IK has to do is "ok, maybe bend the joint a bit more to make it fit."

The floaty fist thing lets me move the fists in fun ways and, hopefully, give the hits some proper impact. Stuff that's normally impractical, when you're dealing with an FPS arm rig, because the spacing/perspective just don't work out right.

Shalinor fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Oct 25, 2015

Flex Mentallo
Mar 14, 2001

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Shalinor posted:

EDIT: Granted, it may well be we eventually try connecting all the fists and feet to the bodies with... I don't know, procedural particle'y splines or something. In which case drifting some procedural particle noodle arms off the bottom from the fists would work. Though that seems a bit crass.

I haven't really been following, but what was the reason you wouldn't just put some arm-meshes in there and have the fist positions drive all their animation using 2-bone IK or somesuch?
(I mean I get it if it's an art-style choice, I just recall there was a post you mentioned doing something like that, and it sounds like it would make sense if you end up having to try and illustrate some kind of arm-ness anyways)

Flex Mentallo fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Oct 25, 2015

Music Theory
Aug 7, 2013

Avatar by Garden Walker


Made a cursor thing that you can move around. Right now it's main function is to give you a description of whatever you have selected, but I set it up so that I can have it do whatever I want.



Now that I think about it, the system I have for different menus could be a lot better...

Rocko Bonaparte
Mar 12, 2002

Every day is Friday!
I think you particularly need to represent the area around the elbows with fists. That is part of the stuff I am reading in opponents in martial arts. I also think in the first person it will indicate how the arms are snapping in and out.

Pizzatime
Apr 1, 2011

I've been asking in the HaxeFlixel forums about this, but nobody knows an answer so far. On compiling to cpp, every once in a while, this happens:

Sound.hx:118: Error: Could not load "assets/sounds/stepsfx1.ogg"
Sound.hx:118: Error: Could not load "assets/sounds/stepsfx2.ogg"
Sound.hx:118: Error: Could not load "assets/music/msc1.ogg"
etc.

Resulting in no sound. The same happens on every odd start of the compiled game.

The trace is coming from: ...\haxe\lib\openfl\3,3,9\openfl\_legacy\media\Sound.hx

code:
public function load (stream:URLRequest, context:SoundLoaderContext = null, forcePlayAsMusic:Bool = false):Void {
		
		bytesLoaded = 0;
		bytesTotal = 0;
		
		__handle = lime_sound_from_file (stream.url, forcePlayAsMusic);
		
		if (__handle == null) {
			
			trace ("Error: Could not load \"" + stream.url + "\"");
			dispatchEvent (new IOErrorEvent (IOErrorEvent.IO_ERROR));
			
		} else {
			
			url = stream.url;
			__loading = true;
			__checkLoading ();
			__loading = false;
			dispatchEvent (new Event (Event.COMPLETE));
			
		}
		
		
	}
Any help would be very appreciated.

(Seems like the flash export does not have this problem: http://pizzamakesgames.itch.io/a-skullz-story)

Pizzatime fucked around with this message at 13:36 on Oct 25, 2015

AntiPseudonym
Apr 1, 2007
I EAT BABIES

:dukedog:
Getting things in less than a week before showing the game at PAX. :getin:

Edit: Actually bollocks to a crap GIF, here's a video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQV9QvT2A6Q

AntiPseudonym fucked around with this message at 14:50 on Oct 25, 2015

Quaternion Cat
Feb 19, 2011

Affeline Space
I heard about Octojam from elsewhere on the forums and decided I wanted to put together something for it (although I actually forgot about it until mid way through the month). After messing around getting a bouncing ball working I decided I wanted to try and make, well, this:



It's hosted on the site at http://octojam.com/octojam-ii/games/octopeg and was a lot of fun (and quite a bit of work) to get it to where it's at now - hanging out in the IRC channel was a big help. Still, it's difficult to say no to a bit of 8 bit peggle.

Also octo, & octojam, are cool and you should check them out if this is your kinda thing.

Mercury_Storm
Jun 12, 2003

*chomp chomp chomp*

Mastigophoran posted:

I heard about Octojam from elsewhere on the forums and decided I wanted to put together something for it (although I actually forgot about it until mid way through the month). After messing around getting a bouncing ball working I decided I wanted to try and make, well, this:



This looks like pachinko to me mister. Are you in league with Konami??

AlwaysWetID34
Mar 8, 2003
*shrug*
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

AlwaysWetID34 fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Jan 18, 2019

JossiRossi
Jul 28, 2008

A little EQ, a touch of reverb, slap on some compression and there. That'll get your dickbutt jiggling.

Mastigophoran posted:

I heard about Octojam from elsewhere on the forums and decided I wanted to put together something for it (although I actually forgot about it until mid way through the month). After messing around getting a bouncing ball working I decided I wanted to try and make, well, this:



It's hosted on the site at http://octojam.com/octojam-ii/games/octopeg and was a lot of fun (and quite a bit of work) to get it to where it's at now - hanging out in the IRC channel was a big help. Still, it's difficult to say no to a bit of 8 bit peggle.

Also octo, & octojam, are cool and you should check them out if this is your kinda thing.

When I try to run this, it goes really slow. Not sure if it is my browser?

Nude
Nov 16, 2014

I have no idea what I'm doing.

JossiRossi posted:

When I try to run this, it goes really slow. Not sure if it is my browser?

Yeah it is. The game is like 500 bytes. That's bytes with a b. Not megabytes, kilobytes, just bytes. I use more bites for breakfast than to load that game.

Synthbuttrange
May 6, 2007



Unity beta: 2d spline sprites. :stare:

Dr. Stab
Sep 12, 2010
👨🏻‍⚕️🩺🔪🙀😱🙀

Nude posted:

Yeah it is. The game is like 500 bytes. That's bytes with a b. Not megabytes, kilobytes, just bytes. I use more bites for breakfast than to load that game.

Well, the ROM is 3.5k, but that has little to do with how much processing power it takes to run the game in the octo emulator, which actually is somewhat beefy.

Omi no Kami
Feb 19, 2014


So I just figured out how to spawn things using the navmesh instead of an absolute position. The coffee gods are pleased.

AntiPseudonym
Apr 1, 2007
I EAT BABIES

:dukedog:
So I had this bright idea of having a small chance of the murderer leaving the murder weapon in the victim.

In hindsight, I probably should have checked the weapon type first.

KRILLIN IN THE NAME
Mar 25, 2006

:ssj:goku i won't do what u tell me:ssj:


AntiPseudonym posted:

So I had this bright idea of having a small chance of the murderer leaving the murder weapon in the victim.

In hindsight, I probably should have checked the weapon type first.



Looks like it's ready to ship to me.

0 rows returned
Apr 9, 2007

The ban on bullets has just made the criminals sharpen their guns!

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ADBOT LOVES YOU

ThisIsNoZaku
Apr 22, 2013

Pew Pew Pew!



Seems good.

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