Vapourware Codexian Game Development Thread

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

There's nothing to fear, except, of course, all the upcoming horrible terrors.

You mean his game or the news?

wat news

'News' = 'upcoming horrible terrors'.
Was kinda sleepy when wrote that post, I guess.

 

[ASTRAL]

А very fast mockup SketchUp/Photoshop just for fun .

 

[ASTRAL]

Part 2

 

[tuluse]

That seems like a iffy thing to do, forcing isometric on a top down engine.

 

[Ninjerk]

That seems like a iffy thing to do, forcing isometric on a top down engine.

I believe it's been done in a SNES RPG? Might have some wonky corners, but otherwise it seems pretty legit.

 

[ASTRAL]

Part 3 :A small explanation of SketchUp that I posted with those images on the IceBlink forums maybe someone will find it useful here too.

SketchUp is a free 3d modeling program that is very easy to get started and for the most part quite intuitive unless you try to model something organic that is.Apart from its ease of use it has few other cool things in its sleeve(s)

1. SketchUp 3DWarehouse
Massive database of free models of almost everything you can think of.SketchUp is widely used by architects so you can be sure that any famous building probably will be present.Apart from 3d stuff there are many 2d cutouts like trees and people

2.Non-realistic rendering/Sketchy edges .If you have a 3d model and wish to turn it to something more(or less) artistic you can use the program to transform it in to a rough sketch or a precise drawing.You can keep the existing textures if you wish

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

I have to ask the Codex about the fonts.
I've been looking for free fonts that resemble some sort of handwriting (as if written by a brush). I've picked 9 fonts that at do the job in a different manner. I need to drop the most shitty ones, and leave at least one good font (preferably one more for 'pen' handwriting).

So, here is an example:

Spoiler

Help me out, please.

 

[Jaesun]

Is this for like a Journal entry, or painting on the side of a building or...?

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Is this for like a Journal entry, or painting on the side of a building or...?

Conversations, journal entries, some UI text. Fonts vary between language (e.g. chinese characters' speech is displayed with more brush-like font).

 

[Abelian]

I'd say either of the last four looks good, but particularly the last two because the writing is slanted and the characters feature small gaps that make it look more like actual handwriting. #7 looks a little childish with the irregularly aligned and sized letters and the typed "a" (compared to the other lower-case cursive-style "a"s).

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

I'd say either of the last four looks good, but particularly the last two because the writing is slanted and the characters feature small gaps that make it look more like actual handwriting. #7 looks a little childish with the irregularly aligned and sized letters and the typed "a" (compared to the other lower-case cursive-style "a"s).

Well, for now my personal pick is this:
Chinese descendants - #3. They are just trying too hard to look like actual Chinese/Japanese folk.
European descendants - #8 (due to their LARPing of royal folk from medieval England).
Arabic descendants - either #5 or #6. But in terms of writing are basically horseniggers of Chinese and European heritage.
Tribal descendants - #2 or #4. They are horseniggers of every side.

 

[Jaesun]

Conversations, journal entries, some UI text. Fonts vary between language (e.g. chinese characters' speech is displayed with more brush-like font).

I'd go with #2, because it is the most readable.

See Dead State's Tutorial tips text font on what font to NEVER use in a game.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Messing with fonts and GUI in Unity 3.5. It's a fucking mess to get working, I can't even think about shop system or more-or-less complex stuff.

 

[Mastermind]

I think I may have gone a little overboard with the weapon size this time. Not that the existing weapons aren't already 3-4 times bigger than the character, but you could swipe through an entire parking lot with this thing. Eat a dick Cloud Strife.

Spoiler

 

[J1M]

Messing with fonts and GUI in Unity 3.5. It's a fucking mess to get working, I can't even think about shop system or more-or-less complex stuff.

Yeah, it is shit. Even before you consider multiple aspect ratios, resolutions, and pixel densities. It's one of the main reasons I moved back to XNA (where I have a good homebrew API).

 

[28.8bps Modem]

Yeah, it is shit. Even before you consider multiple aspect ratios, resolutions, and pixel densities. It's one of the main reasons I moved back to XNA (where I have a good homebrew API).

So are you still doing your RPG project? I was kind of enjoying reading your devlogs, but things seem to have stopped.

 

[J1M]

So are you still doing your RPG project? I was kind of enjoying reading your devlogs, but things seem to have stopped.

Wizards of the Coast was supposed to release their D&D 5e licensing plans in Fall 2014 and the specifics at the start of 2015. There has been no information provided thus far.

I decided that I could not wait around forever for them to get their act together. For unrelated reasons I also decided to ditch the Unity engine. I'd say that as an engine it is good for prototyping, but actual development took too long.

Long story short: I am working on a different 2D RPG project in XNA using a GUI API I wrote a couple of years ago. Since both use C#, I can pull in anything useful from my Unity experiments. It is smaller in scope, but that also means it is more likely to see release.

I'd love to eventually make use of kickstarter or patreon as a source of motivation/funding, but I probably need an artist on board before that would be realistic.

 

[28.8bps Modem]

I'd love to eventually make use of kickstarter or patreon as a source of motivation/funding, but I probably need an artist on board before that would be realistic.

I know the pain. I'm going the other route and attempting to teach myself texture painting. 2015 is my year to stop fiddling around in the engine guts and start producing something acceptably pretty that I can show people.

 

[shihonage]

So I borrowed A* pathfinding code from this guy (its free), and donated money to his favorite charity as he asked. Found a small bug, undetected there since 2001, despite the code being used by Relic in Company of Heroes. He fixed it.

Then I kept running into strange unexplained behavior clearly on his end... just unpredictable outcomes, extreme slowdown, etc. None of this happens in his 20x20 test maze, but it does happen in my 255x255 giant map, and I'm not even trying to get from one end to another! It's a very easy path, like 1/10 through the map...

So, I'm now writing my own A* implementation from scratch, using the fastest, simplest code possible. At least I will understand my own code. And will be able to debug it. And further optimize it.

I'm amazed how well Fallout handled player pathfinding, considering the CPU speed of the time. Maybe the code compiled by early Windows C compilers was just that much faster than Visual Studio, I don't know...

 

[vonAchdorf]

I'm amazed how well Fallout handled player pathfinding, considering the CPU speed of the time. Maybe the code compiled by early Windows C compilers was just that much faster than Visual Studio, I don't know...

It most certainly wasn't because of the old compilers. Little changes in how and what you compute can have huge consequences in the use of CPU cycles. You could e.g. simplify the grid (reduce the nodes) when you don't need the resolution or use different heuristics (trade accuracy for speed). It's really a fun field to explore.

 

[28.8bps Modem]

So I borrowed A* pathfinding code from this guy (its free), and donated money to his favorite charity as he asked. Found a small bug, undetected there since 2001, despite the code being used by Relic in Company of Heroes. He fixed it.

Then I kept running into strange unexplained behavior clearly on his end... just unpredictable outcomes, extreme slowdown, etc. None of this happens in his 20x20 test maze, but it does happen in my 255x255 giant map, and I'm not even trying to get from one end to another! It's a very easy path, like 1/10 through the map...

So, I'm now writing my own A* implementation from scratch, using the fastest, simplest code possible. At least I will understand my own code. And will be able to debug it. And further optimize it.

I'm amazed how well Fallout handled player pathfinding, considering the CPU speed of the time. Maybe the code compiled by early Windows C compilers was just that much faster than Visual Studio, I don't know...

If you're implementing it yourself, you might as well use jump point search as your primary path finding method.

What's probably happening when you get unpredictable runtimes is that the prio queue of opened nodes is getting large and buckets have to be reallocated and copied frequently. Jump point search cuts down the number of nodes that ever need to be prio queued often by several orders of magnitude.

 

[shihonage]

Very interesting.

 

[jcd]

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[shihonage]

His heuristic is standard A* heuristic, where its abs(x2-x1)+abs(y2-y1). If it looks stupid, its because it is. It breaks horribly when the obstacle is a long wall.

 

[baturinsky]

Don't let pathfinding block your main cycle. Do it in separate thread, or limit how many steps/time you spend on it per frame.