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Development Info Underworld Ascendant Kickstarter Update #42: Unity 5 Prototype Summary

Infinitron

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Tags: Chris Siegel; OtherSide Entertainment; Underworld Ascendant

In this week's Underworld Ascendant Kickstarter update, producer Chris Siegel sums up all of the prototyping and experimentation OtherSide have been doing with Unity 5 over the past two months. Once again, there's lots of tech-speak, and also a short video. Here's a snippet of that:

After the Kickstarter we spent a couple of weeks putting Unity 5.0 through its paces. Partly to see what was new, what was updated and what looked better. Most importantly though, to discover if Unity will do what we need it to. Underworld Ascendant will be a very systems heavy game. Our design philosophy is about building a game with real world systems under the hood to bring common sense expectations to the player. The goal is to give players new and interesting ways to interact with our world, and the engine we use to make this game needs to support all of this.

Here’s a little video of me walking through the demo level we built in Unity 5.0:



[...] While I was drooling over the new texture technology, Tim continued his experimentation with physics traps. Pendulums, spinney gear and spring traps, evil saw blade traps, a swinging door, some moving beams traps, shooting object traps, wall spikes. Jeff then added a simple damage model, and Will placed them in the world for us to play around with.

What was stunning from a producer’s point of view is how quickly these were generated, and populated. No time spent on connecting scripting for each trap, dealing with triggers, setting up rigid controls. Self-contained physical traps that react to other physics. Impressive. And really the core of that system is now done. Now the designers can expand out from that basic model and move on to more interesting interactions with the traps and physical world, and building a better deathtrap…I think I’ll apologize to you ahead of time.

Another piece of physics that Will messed around with was ropes. Part of what we want in our game is motion. Lots of motion. Part parkour, part Indiana Jones. So, rope swinging, platforms hanging by ropes and chains, rope bridges. All swing, all can be interacted with, and of course, set on fire.

There is a development rule I’ll share with you. Everything is better on fire. Hence why Jeff spent some time researching fire.

Lastly, we played around a little with Unity 5.0’s flagship feature: lighting. There are two strong parts to Unity 5.0s lighting features, but we really only looked into one at this time. Unity 5.0s Global Lighting model, which in a nutshell has light reflect off a surface but it then picks up some of the properties of that surface, wasn’t something we could dive into at this juncture, but it’s really cool so I want to tell you about it. Think of when you are wearing a bright red shirt and walk near a white wall. You would notice some of the red reflected from your shirt to the wall. Unity can do this naturally now, but that kind of reflection in real time is going to take some serious research by the artists to make look good and not gimmicky or frankly a jumbled mess.

What we did focus on is Real Time lighting. The whole test level that you saw in the video is lit by lights in the world, torches, braziers exc. No baked in lighting model, no hidden light sources. I’m very happy to see that textured lighting is back in Unity. I spent my whole level creating Quake 2 days using nothing but texture lights. I’m glad they are back as a serious feature. For example a torch as a light source will look roughly orange and red with some white. If you tell that texture to be a light it will have all those color properties. For our purposes in the Underworld this will really help the ‘underground’ feel of the game.

So far what we have played with in Unity 5.0 is very promising. The engine is leaps and bounds ahead of 4.6. There are a few things I’d like to behave better, but they are not mission critical systems more like nice to have things. Between development preproduction and working out the backstory and fiction, everything is humming along very nicely!

OtherSide's dedication to doing weekly updates even at this early stage is giving us a lot of glimpses at stuff that other Kickstarters tend to withhold. I wonder what the the non-techies are doing now, though.
 

Zep Zepo

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OtherSide's dedication to doing weekly updates even at this early stage is giving us a lot of glimpses at stuff that other Kickstarters tend to withhold. I wonder what the the non-techies are doing now, though.

Non-techies? For real?

ok then..the "non-techies" are...
Uh..they are actually codeing shit instead of discovering Unity's prefab shit?

Non-techies indeed...

Zep--
 

Infinitron

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You're just getting nervous at how these guys are showing themselves to be tech-savvy and not the clueless chucklefucks you thought they were.

If you're looking for a plausible avenue to attack this game, it's probably better to accuse them of being obsessed with their technology at the expense of actual game design, or something
 
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Zep Zepo

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No, it's exactly the opposite.

Inexperienced Zynga "casul" producer and intern programmer discover the wonders on Unity pre-code and cum themselves so much that they don't have to do any any coding at all to do leet things, while old timer money grub "i made games back i the day" does interviews and enlists his buddies to say how leet he is.

Dispute it, please...because otherwise this whole game concept is a comedy (add music and Warren could make it his DREAM GAME).

Zep--
 

Zep Zepo

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Let me put it another way.

Are you just a game player, Infinitron? Do you have any coding knowledge or background? Do you have any technical knowledge of system analysis or design?

Granted to the untrained eye what are are showing looks pretty cool! But having worked in Unity 4 and 5...all they are showing is prebuilt/precoded stuff and no actual skill.

It's worrisome (to me) that they are spooging all over themselves on things they actually didn't code.

Zep--
 

Raapys

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I agree with Zep on this one. I've used Unity a fair bit and the 'prototype' they've made is really just a Unity feature test show off. Which is fine, showing how they plan on using it, I've nothing against that... It's the enthusiasm that gets to me, as if they were completely new at this and surprised at what 'modern technology' can do. You don't get the impression that these guys are hardened industry veterans, nor that they have the right focus.

Then again, seeing how our hardened industry veterans have mostly produced disappointing titles lately, maybe some youthful enthusiasm isn't such a bad thing. I just hope they know how to actually make games too, rather than just putting premade things together in a sophisticated editor. And for gods sake, watch the CPU usage. If they go crazy with Unity's built-in features it could quickly end up a performance nightmare.
 

Infinitron

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Let me put it another way.

Are you just a game player, Infinitron? Do you have any coding knowledge or background? Do you have any technical knowledge of system analysis or design?

Granted to the untrained eye what are are showing looks pretty cool! But having worked in Unity 4 and 5...all they are showing is prebuilt/precoded stuff and no actual skill.

It's worrisome (to me) that they are spooging all over themselves on things they actually didn't code.

Zep--

They're not spooging. They're giving their backers a weekly update on what they've actually been doing to develop this game, which these days, doesn't involve the pedal to to the metal coding exploits that you value, I guess.

Most backers, however, are impressed enough, which is what's making you nervous!
 

Zep Zepo

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Let me put it another way.

Are you just a game player, Infinitron? Do you have any coding knowledge or background? Do you have any technical knowledge of system analysis or design?

Granted to the untrained eye what are are showing looks pretty cool! But having worked in Unity 4 and 5...all they are showing is prebuilt/precoded stuff and no actual skill.

It's worrisome (to me) that they are spooging all over themselves on things they actually didn't code.

Zep--

They're not spooging. They're giving their backers a weekly update on what they've actually been doing to develop this game, which these days, doesn't involve the pedal to to the metal coding exploits that you value, I guess.

Most backers, however, are impressed enough, which is what's making you nervous!

But they are spooging about it, they updated about something they DID NOT CODE THEMSELVES. They UPDATED about a FEATURE in the engine they are using. Not something as they, as "old school masterminds", created.

Congrats on finding global lighting and PBR textures in Unity UA programmer intern!. But it's nothing to write home about...it's like "Oh hey, I was outside today and a blind squirrel stumbled into a nut! THAT SQUIRREL was AWESOME!"...no..no it wasn't.

Zep--
 

Sonus

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Excited about the tools, and as stated, the hundreds of possibilities for building that spring to mind. You hate creative types, or what?

They stated up front, and repeatedly, and in interviews, that they want the walls between the developers and customers in typical studio/publisher arrangements removed, and they're sticking to that vision.
 

tuluse

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I agree with Zep on this one. I've used Unity a fair bit and the 'prototype' they've made is really just a Unity feature test show off. Which is fine, showing how they plan on using it, I've nothing against that... It's the enthusiasm that gets to me, as if they were completely new at this and surprised at what 'modern technology' can do. You don't get the impression that these guys are hardened industry veterans, nor that they have the right focus.

Then again, seeing how our hardened industry veterans have mostly produced disappointing titles lately, maybe some youthful enthusiasm isn't such a bad thing. I just hope they know how to actually make games too, rather than just putting premade things together in a sophisticated editor. And for gods sake, watch the CPU usage. If they go crazy with Unity's built-in features it could quickly end up a performance nightmare.
The link to the pbr breakdown was pretty detailed. Probably the most detailed technical breakdown I've seen from any kickstart. Though Ron Gilbert gets into things with his blog too.
 

Zep Zepo

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Yes, pretty detailed..pretty cool...but if that's all you got is talking about cool pre-built shit in the engine you bought...you need to step up your game.

Zep--
 

Sonus

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So, that's another comment that glosses over the disclaimer stated up front. Are you also demanding completed work before anything resembling the final product's been built in the engine?
 
Unwanted

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No, it's exactly the opposite.

Inexperienced Zynga "casul" producer and intern programmer discover the wonders on Unity pre-code and cum themselves so much that they don't have to do any any coding at all to do leet things, while old timer money grub "i made games back i the day" does interviews and enlists his buddies to say how leet he is.

Dispute it, please...because otherwise this whole game concept is a comedy (add music and Warren could make it his DREAM GAME).

Zep--

I couldn't help but laugh at (with) this whole post, and the ending (parenthesis) just topped it off.

Zep++ today for making me laugh.

So, that's another comment that glosses over the disclaimer stated up front. Are you also demanding completed work before anything resembling the final product's been built in the engine?

I'd wish they'd quit the bloody public relations and just focus 100% on hammering away. Games like UU & SS weren't made like this. They were made by dedicated nerds that happily crunched away with unwavering passion. There's far too many distractions they keep concerning themselves with it seems. From the weekly updates to the Cat Life simulators to the forum chat and so on.

But whatever, they have a proven track record so I'm just going to wait it out.
 
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Crescent Hawk

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I dont expect another Thief or anything, but at least a decent flawed Arx. They need to step it up.
 

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I backed this for $1 and have now the option to upgrade my pledge through their website, to a level that actually gets me a copy of the game. And between these updates and the Matt Chat interview, I believe I have finally been convinced to do just that, because it is looking more and more promising.
 

snoek

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Well, obviously it's just an update to give us an update. God knows what else they're doing. I keep raving at the music.
 

Aenra

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Zep was it that time of the month or something? We mostly cannot give a fuck about your coding skills or knowledge thereof really. Just in case it has escaped you. You get 'bashers' in every forum, for every a category, but it being the Codex, a bit of an effort is expected from you. Especially since Mother Infinitron is so obviously baiting you ^^

Back to topic, i must admit that unlike Micoselva, this video actually makes me begin to doubt these people :S

1) If a certified loser like Brad McQuaid can make Unity 5 look like this with ONE, one nobody person working on it:

gate-860x280.jpg


1261040_large.jpg


well sufice it to say this video does bring some thoughts up..and no, said pic is also a pre-alpha stage one. I would add a second warning bell having sounded when noticing that said vid is uploaded at a 480p maximum. Impressions, and audience. Isn't just me, or people like me, age-wise. A little effort can sometimes take you a long way. You used pre-made assets to get to a tech-related checkpoint. Fine. Now spend a day on it, give it some visual shine, then upload it nice and proper. These people are supposed to be pros, i need to see that too. Shallow as it may sound.


2) I am not 12, 15 or 20. Even 30 is a dream gone by, the barley alone recalls when the wind does blow. Traps mean either fuck all to me, or an eventuality entailing my slowly but steadily giving up on this one. You got traps/hazards/pitfalls/phenomena requiring mental acuity, and traps requiring teh skillz, aka button-mashing. I am not seeing anything grey-matter related in this video at all. In fact, it is only in light of their being "unofficially" forced to follow the norms (monthly vid updates) that i am taking a 'wait n see' approach

This comes from an UUs fanboy..
 
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Zep Zepo

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So, that's another comment that glosses over the disclaimer stated up front. Are you also demanding completed work before anything resembling the final product's been built in the engine?

OK...I tried...I can't let this comment go by...

I'm not demanding anything. What I'd like to see is actual progress on the systems instead of noob programmer showing prefab Unity 5 shit.

Their whole pitch was UU, old school, divergent gameplay, blah blah blah.

They had 6 months before Kickstarter for intern programmer(s)s learn their way around Unity bullshit.

In that 6 months, they should have realized Unity is not the engine for their vision.

My prediction stands..."Game will be shit"

Zep--
 
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Metro

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Plz no jumping/physics puzzles.
 

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