Vapourware Codexian Game Development Thread

[barker_s]

That looks good barker_s. What kind of game are you making?

It's going to be a "gimmick horror" (think Slender games), but less gimmicky . Basically, it's a loose game adaptation of Dallas' ventillation scene from Alien. You'll enter the vents armed with a flamethrower (with limited ammo), a broken motion tracker (with limited battery) and a few flares. Your objective is to find 6 randomly placed switches and then get back to the master switch at the beginning of the level to purge the ventillation system and jettison the xeno into space. The alien, however, is randomly patrolling the corridors and it will get faster and more cunning with every switch you find, so you'll have to manage your resources and use your tools wisely in order to avoid/lose it.

Credit for the original idea goes to OpenMawProductions. He was creating a similar game on the DarkPlaces engine, but have lost all the source code and he's given me permission to continue his project. Here is a video of his version.

barker_s great sound effects, especially the foot clanking.

Thanks - most of the sounds come from various alien-related sources (ripped from the movies and games, like AvP2). The footsteps in particular were provided by aforementioned OpenMawProductions. Plus, the Unity Pro's built in audio filters help a lot .


Thanks for the positive feedback guys, it does wonders to my motivation .

I'd like to replace my ugly placeholders (and A:CM-ripped models) with actual art soon, so I've got a question - what's the best place to recruit artists for a small indie project like this? I've been trying to find some on a AvP related site, but I'm doubtful I'll find any.

 

[Destroid]

I found the artist for my DF mod on 4chan (/tg/ to be specific).

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Due to the lack of information on the engine I used, I moved the rendering to Unity3d, while still using wz to generate assets.

Still have to figure out how to properly paint space though. However, I have some ideas how to do it without much of a pain in the ass.

 

[barker_s]

Looking great zwanzig_zwoelf! Tell me, is that landscape in the image below a close-up of that planet, or just a flat terrain?

And please elaborate on "properly paint space". I might be able to help you with that.

I found the artist for my DF mod on 4chan (/tg/ to be specific).

Thanks for the hint, I'll check there and see if I can find someone who's willing to help.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Looking great zwanzig_zwoelf! Tell me, is that landscape in the image below a close-up of that planet, or just a flat terrain?
And please elaborate on "properly paint space". I might be able to help you with that.

It's a flat terrain. I don't think that modeling the entire planet will be a good choice, since I plan to use this as static pictures for my interactive book (realtime rendering would be possible with some coding, but I'm not much into it. Plus, it runs like shit due to the heavy amount of particles). As for 'painting space', I meant the stars on the skybox (b/w doesn't look good enough for me). I almost solved this issue by adding a particle system to render tiny star-like stuff.

 

[barker_s]

First, for basic stars backdrop you might want to check this Photoshop tutorial - http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/starry-sky/ . It's rather bland and you probably know about it, but it might look pretty good with some added effects.

Particles are a great idea, since they'll give a nice depth to your scene. I've dug up this project if you're interested - http://stilghar.wordpress.com/2013/03/03/particle-systems-part-3-unitys-shuriken/ .

Basically, if pre-rendered images are all you're after, you should not limit yourself to Unity. You can create very cool space scenes with Photoshop, even if you're not an artist. Here's what I made after reading a few tutorials and I really suck when it comes to art:

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Here are some nice tuts if you decide to go that route - http://www.designshard.com/video-tu...hop-tutorials-to-create-amazing-space-scenes/ .

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Thanks. Never painted space or stars before.
I am not using Photoshop, though (WZ to render textures/models and GIMP to modify the work). But I guess I'll find my way around, as their tools a pretty much similar.
Some additional shots:

Spoiler

I could show you some of my art (PM), if you're interested.

 

[barker_s]

Sure thing, send it my way, I'll gladly check it out.

 

[Ninjerk]

barker_s great sound effects, especially the foot clanking.

I love the concept and the execution EXCEPT for the foot clanking. Sounds like the guy has robot feet.

 

[Destroid]

One thing I really hate about those old flashlight implementations is the way they don't illuminate correctly - they only light textures within a radius of the player, which looks pretty unnatural. It is effective in this case for making it more spooky though.

 

[barker_s]

barker_s great sound effects, especially the foot clanking.

I love the concept and the execution EXCEPT for the foot clanking. Sounds like the guy has robot feet.

Funny thing, when I show it to people, they either love, or hate these sounds, there's no midle ground ;D .

One thing I really hate about those old flashlight implementations is the way they don't illuminate correctly - they only light textures within a radius of the player, which looks pretty unnatural. It is effective in this case for making it more spooky though.

I don't think there's anything I can do about the flashlight, since I'm using Unity's built-in lighting system here. I could increase that light's range and/or brightness, but, as you said, it would decrease the spookiness .

 

[sportforredneck]

I'm working with Unity to create a demo for applying to companies as a designer. I've created all the environments in Unity (just using the cubes and things) since I was told not to worry about making art assets (since I'm a designer, not an artist). I haven't gotten into the coding yet, but I've been working on the ideas and what goes on. It's a mostly non-linear game that takes place in prison. You play someone about to be paroled and it takes you through your last week before parole. I'm just focusing on the first day, I might do other days depending on how it goes, but right now I'm focused on making day 1 and making it amazing. I'll post pictures later, the environments aren't completely finished, they aren't all populated or lighted yet. Just using directional lights right now so I can see what the hell I'm doing.

It's basically you walk around and talk to people, lots of different choices, lots of different conversations. That sort of thing. Might be a little shiv action, but that might be something on a later day.

 

[baturinsky]

I make star sky with some colored perlin and random stars. Small stars are colored dots, bright stars are circles with gradient from white (in center) to star color to transparent.

 

[OlivettiFever]

A new piece of vaporware! Putting in some passable menus to acclimate myself with Unity before doing more functionality work.

The long game is a multiplayer deathmatch TBRPG with character persistence and as few assets as possible so I can spend more time coding than doing art and level design stuff. It's probably never going to be finished. I've been working on a text console version nights for the last few weeks but decided that porting things over to Unity would be easier sooner rather than later.

Right now, I've got random character generation (name, sex, species, class, attributes, dependent scores, skills) / character serialization working, a general outline for the server/client relationship sketched out and I'll be finishing the menus for manual character generation tomorrow / get abilities, traits and talents in there.

Obviously the art is placeholder, and I'm working on having the lipsum text at the bottom replaced by tooltip descriptions for the text labels.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Random smoke experiments.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

I was thinking lately about dungeons in games, and tried to get how it can be designed or programmed.
So I basically made a cube, multiplied it (128*128), then added a displacement map on top of it (perlin noise + glow rectangle). After tweaking, a dungeon was born.

View from above (in .wz4):

Spoiler

Will export it to Unity later (processing a large mesh is a mess).

 

[Surf Solar]

If you want to have more of such meshes that look like natural caves etc., just drop me a PM.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

If you want to have more of such meshes that look like natural caves etc., just drop me a PM.

Will do, but later. Right now I was trying to check if this stuff will work at all.

 

[barker_s]

A small update on my Alien project. I've implemented main menu screen:



I've also contacted an artist who's currently creating some 3d art assets for me, so this game might actually be getting somewhere.

 

[shihonage]

Is that a slowed-down motion detector sound? Just put some music in there or an ambient noise without spikes in volume.

 

[Cosmo]

Is that a slowed-down motion detector sound? Just put some music in there or an ambient noise without spikes in volume.

This.

 

[barker_s]

Is that a slowed-down motion detector sound? Just put some music in there or an ambient noise without spikes in volume.

I guess only Alien nuts like me will recognize this sound.



So what's wrong with current music? Does it mess with your speakers, or you just don't like it? Because if the latter is the case, it stays (since you haven't even recognized it ;P ).

 

[Ninjerk]

Heh, I knew what it was before I clicked on your menu video. Sounds like @shihonage has been living in a SHELTER for a long time.

 

[shihonage]

So what's wrong with current music? Does it mess with your speakers, or you just don't like it? Because if the latter is the case, it stays (since you haven't even recognized it ;P ).

I couldn't exactly place it because it isn't used in the movie.

THIS is.

And the high-pitched spikes are jarring, in case it wasn't clear from my initial comment. Not good for menu sound, IMO.

Heh, I knew what it was before I clicked on your menu video. Sounds like @shihonage has been living in a SHELTER for a long time.

You knew that he used music from a trailer to Alien, without listening?

 

[barker_s]

And the high-pitched spikes are jarring, in case it wasn't clear from my initial comment. Not good for menu sound, IMO.

I'm gonna wait and see if a lot of people dislike the music, then I'll consider changing it. I'd rather keep it though, as a nod to Alien.