Here’s a little trick I’ve been using to render the ocean in A Short Hike! The water is just a plane that follows the player around. The texture and vertex animations are all done in world space!
Wow, that’s so clever!
REALISTIC BOAT TILTING AND WATER ANIMATION!
I’m going to try adding some super basic vertical bobbing to the boat model, but I’m not completely sure it’s necessary. I got the restricted boat tilting idea from this video, but that video is much more complex than the wheel setup I’m using. I also used the MultiPurposeRig camera from Unity’s Standard Assets and modified the SimpleCarMovement script from this Unity tutorial, which automatically applied the tilt I needed. And all of the art is modified public domain art from OpenGameArt.org!
At this rate, it’s going to be super easy to expand upon the original Trade Winds code and idea!
External Source Control for Unity Projects
Hey there! So I decided to actually look up how to properly set up source control in Unity projects, and I found this documentation page:
http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/ExternalVersionControlSystemSupport.html
It almost seems like they’ve never even heard of Git, but the concept is the same. Set your project to save meta data as text instead of binary and exclude the Library folder and then you’ll have minimal trouble sharing between environments! Yay! I had a lot of trouble when I committed the source on one computer and then pulled it from another, and this should help with that.
Here’s my .gitignore file if you’re interested:
Library/*
Temp/
*.zip
This is NOT an April Fool’s Joke! I keep forgetting the day, but this is real and helpful!
Hey, celebrate with me! I’ve started developing Chompy! again after a long time of gamedev block! Yay!
It’s not much yet, but I was able to fix some important graphical problems with Chompy! I hadn’t noticed that the left side of his neck kind of jutted out before, so I fixed up the sprite so it aligns properly, but the cool part is the right side.
Before, you could see the upper jaw’s extension sticking out in front of her chest, but I finally figured out how to create a sprite mask that hides the sprite behind another invisible sprite of any shape! I used this Unity Answers post and its comments, but I had a really hard time understanding how to get it to actually work. So you get to benefit from what I’ve learned! Yay you!
In order to get sprite masking (hiding sprites behind another, invisible sprite) working, you need to create a new shader based on the Sprite-Default shader and the actual masking shader. You can find the default shaders in Unity’s download archive. I’m using Unity 5.2.3 right now, so I downloaded that particular shader pack—I don’t know if the other versions’ sprite shader is different or not.
So create the new shader for sprites that you want to be masked and copy and paste the Sprite-Default shader into it, rename the shader (at the top where it says ‘ Shader “Sprites/Default” ’, the text in quotes is the “folder/” and the name where the shaders are organized in the Editor), and edit the “Queue” line in the Tags block to say “Transparent+2″ instead of just “Transparent”. Then save it, create a new Material, set the shader to your new “Masked Sprite” one, and put that material on the sprite you want to mask.
Next, create the shader for the sprite that you want to use to mask things with the material you just made. I updated the code from that Unity Answers post I linked to above:
Shader "Sprites/Masker" {
Properties
{
_MainTex ("Base (RGB) Alpha (A)", 2D) = "white" {}
_Cutoff ("Base Alpha cutoff", Range (0,.9)) = .5
}
SubShader
{
Tags {"Queue" = "Transparent+1"}
ColorMask 0
ZWrite On
Pass
{
AlphaTest Greater [_Cutoff]
SetTexture [_MainTex] {
combine texture * primary, texture
}
}
}
}I’m not completely sure what the Pass of this shader does, but it effectively prevents the actual sprite that the material is attached to from displaying while technically outputting the sprite. The important part, though, is the “Queue” tag set to “Transparent+1”. What this does is it specifies which render order to draw in. The first sprite with the shader tagged “Transparent+2” will draw 2 draws before the regular Transparent queue. Then the mask’s shader with “Transparent+1” is saying “draw the mask sprite on top of the masked sprite that’s already been drawn, overwriting what’s there”. Then everything else that’s in the Transparent part of the queue draws on top of that. This draw order is only relevant to the sprite’s “Order in Layer”, so the masking sprite is only relevant to sprites in that same layer and order.
Anyway, once that shader’s saved, put it in a new Material and put that material on the mask sprite.
Now you can use it! Create the sprite GameObjects that you need—one to be the mask and one to be masked—and assign them their respective materials. Make sure that the sprites are on the same Sorting Layer and Order in Layer, then move the Mask sprite closer to the camera (i.e. adjust the Z coordinate so it’s in front of the masked sprite if you were to view it in 3D) and you can move it around the XY plane to mask your sprite however you need. If everything set up right, you should have yourself a masked sprite!
It’s been a long time coming, but Chompy! is finally ready for some testing and feedback! The bulk of the game will be represented in the playtester’s edition, but you’ll be able to tweak some settings, give feedback on your experience, and help influence how the final version feels!
I’ll post the link to the playtester’s edition on Saturday, November 28, 2016, so get excited for some meat-eating madness! Any help spreading the word once the link is up is much appreciated!
Note that this is just the playtest version and not the final one. The release will have much more pomp and circumstance. :)
Shaders are confusing
Can someone direct me to a super simple and easy-to-understand shader tutorial for Unity 5.x?
Ultimately what I want is to make a shader (or set of shaders) that will let me mask (in or out) certain sprites that go behind it. I need this so Chompy can look a bit cleaner, as you can still see the back of his mouth poking out from in front of his neck…
I can’t seem to reply to this post/message you guys, so hopefully you see this reblog. I just watched a great intro to shaders video from Unite 2015 Boston. Link here: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/YilmazKiymaz/20151116/259441/Video_Writing_Shaders_in_Unity_YOU_Can_Do_It.php
Hope this helps!
Thanks so much! Yeah, Tumblr recently took away direct replies to posts (which sucks, but whatever I guess). I’ll watch it, and I’ll be replying to and reblogging every suggestion people provide!
Thanks again!
(Source: alamantus)
Shaders are confusing
Can someone direct me to a super simple and easy-to-understand shader tutorial for Unity 5.x?
Ultimately what I want is to make a shader (or set of shaders) that will let me mask (in or out) certain sprites that go behind it. I need this so Chompy can look a bit cleaner, as you can still see the back of his mouth poking out from in front of his neck…
I finally started working with loading game data from a database in Unity, and I’m so excited! I set up a web-based admin control for variables so I can change variables in Chompy! even after the game is published if I need to. That’ll be super helpful for playtesting because I can tweak settings on the fly for people to test right away! :D
Unity3d Personal Edition
I’m really going to have to learn unity3d once I finish building my new computer.
WHAT
THIS IS
WOW Free Pro features like render to texture now! Awesome!
Unreal Engine | Unreal Engine 4 For Unity Developers
Translate your Unity knowledge into UE4 so you can get up to speed quickly.Very handy.
Double the weapons, double the fun!
Visual Studio Tools for Unity - Visual Studio Tools for Unity
confirm4crit replied to your post:
unityvs.com is also useful. Tbh, I’m not sure if it does anything different.
Oh wow, this is super nice too! It integrates Visual Studio with Unity even more fully so you can use debugging tools and stuff on your scripts! I’ll have to get this set up. Thanks! :D
EDIT: This VS integration is actually incredibly amazing if for no other reason than this:
http://unityvs.com/documentation/wizards/
So I just switched my default Unity 3D editor from Mono to Visual Studio and
Oh. My. God.
My coding life has improved 500,000,000%!!!! No exaggeration. Mono has always been buggy and frustrating to me, but Visual Studio is just so smart and fast and helpful! It’s such a small change, but I’m already so much happier because of it! You don’t even need to know everything that Visual Studio can do, just using the auto-completion sensor thingy is miraculous. I know it’s not perfect by any means and it’s a little bit bulky, but coming from Mono, which does nothing to help you and crashes a lot (for me at least), it’s wonderful to work with.
If you use Unity and want the same freedom I have just experienced, here are the resources:
- Visual Studio Community (free version,
requires a Microsoft account and Windows—get the Windows Desktop versionInexplicably free full version!): http://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/visual-studio-community-vs.aspx - Set Visual Studio as default editor: http://michaelcummings.net/mathoms/configuring-unity-to-use-visual-studio-2012-2013/
EDIT: Updated the Visual Studio link!
Anonymous asked: What is your workflow for environment/area building? Do you create all the models separately and build the scenes in your game engine, or do you build everything together and get it how you like it and import it all at once into your engine? Which do you think is more effective?
We’ve jumped around and honestly don’t have a rock-solid workflow (it varies from task to task, team to team), but my favorite has probably been the following:
- Mock up whole scene with a mixture of terrain and primitive objects in the engine, paying attention mostly to scale and space. Export primitives together to .obj or some other 3D file type.
- Replace each primitive one-by-one with the modeled-out equivalent, focusing on detail and style. Working on it all together will help the artist make sure that the objects in the scene feel like they ‘go together’ visually. Re-import this whole scene to the engine.
- Work in lighting and shading holistically in-engine, starting out with solid colors and then going in and doing actual UV/texture work on objects that want it. Work from big-small and try to figure out the mood and palette as you go.
I think space and proportion can be difficult and so it helps to iron them out first. This is something we didn’t do well on Eidolon, and it resulted in a lot of changes having to be made later on. Ultimately the process was clumsier that way. I also think that working holistically, in-engine with the colors is a powerful way to find and maintain a mood in a scene. In general, since the models are all going to be viewed in-engine by players, it makes sense to have the engine-rendered scene be your reference as much as possible throughout the process.
This is an awesome idea! Exporting the scene after you’ve modeled everything could allow you to get some super cool rendered shots, too, that you couldn’t get in-game! Thanks for sharing!
And to my Unity siblings, here’s a free tool that adds an export to .OBJ option:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/free-scene-obj-exporter.270240/
Petalina Update - 10/29/2014
For the past few days, I’ve been getting as much of the boring GUI stuff out of the way as I can. I’ve got the positioning and all the buttons working right, all that is left to be done (for the in-game pause menu, at least) is to get the volume sliders set up and make the GUI skin more appropriate than Unity’s default skin. But that’ll take some creative time, so I’ll do it later. For now, I have a pause menu with options, multiple control schemes successfully implemented (customizable controls coming soon), and lots of other menu-related stuff! Crap, I just realized I’ll need to go back and figure out a good way to implement non-mouse-based menu controls for those people with controllers. Bleh.
I’m not going to upload another dev preview, though, because there’s not enough change to the actual game to justify it.
