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[gimymblert]

I have already hard time parsing the problem in my mind given your description ... what's the build error message?

'variable/member "pos" has semantic "POSITION" which is not visible in this profile;'

To make my shader work I was cutting and pasting code I found on the internet, so have no idea exactly where this "pos" variable came from - but it didn't do any damage until I actually used it in the shader. Then it stopped working. Now it seems to at random sometimes not work in the editor either, hehe.

What I used it for, and what I actually want, is a screen coordinate of the fragment I'm handling. So if there's any other way to do that, I'd be happy to switch away from this troublemaker.

is this has been solved yet? i'll try looking into it.

[JLJac]

Thanks! No, that's not the problem any more - now the build builds, but the problem is that the shaders are all white. Even if I replace their content with the code from the one shader that is working (level coloration). If I give the sprite a color, the sprite will have that color instead of whatever color the shader tells it to have. So things kind of seem like that the problem isn't that the shader isn't working, but that the shader isn't there. What I'm currently thinking is that the problem is this - ie that the shader is not included in the build because unity doesn't find a material using it.

Do you know of any way to force Unity to include some element in the build?

 


Edit: Nah, that probably wasn't it as everything in a resources folder SHOULD be included. Now I've isolated the problem to the following: Whichever shader has the name "Additive" works, regardless of content. No other shader works. Hahahaha shaders 

Edit edit: Wooooho! Working shaders! I wish I could describe what I did to help people in the future, but it pretty much comes down to Fiddling Around. By accessing the shaders from another place they ... idk, probably that Unity noticed the reference to them. So now it works! Also, under project settings -> graphics you CAN actually create a list of forcefully included shaders. This wasn't the solution for me, but it might be for someone else. I think I'll put my shaders there in either case, because the game can't play without them either way.

[jamesprimate]

playing the water build now and its pretty dang amazing. especially amazing is how well it works with deep / multi-screen rooms. i'll do some little videos in a day or so, because the atmosphere from it is really something youve got to see.

[mokesmoe]

The lung-exhaustion breathing animation looks too fast. The slugcat looks like it's bouncing instead of breathing heavily.

I like having lizards not like water. It makes the water a possible escape route with some downsides, and with underwater creatures it's like "the evil you know versus the evil you don't" kind of thing. I suppose just hanging out on the surface could be a problem, but hanging around doing nothing doesn't benefit you and there is a time limit.

Also I like the idea of knocking a lizard into the water and having it flop around in a panic.

[Scifa]

This look incredible!

Needs some water dripping of the slug cat? Or is that a bit much?

[JLJac]

Yeah, breathing animation needs some work... I think the lizards will somehow boil to death in the water, we'll see how it ends up looking!

Some dripping... yeah perhaps! Worth a go!

Update 348
James and I are really happy about the water, so now we set the next goal to get some rain cycle stuff in order to take steps towards a playable alpha. As I'm already in shader land messing with the palettes, I decided to do the palette fade effect today.



In the game, I doubt there'll be any scenario like this, fading from green to orange. I'm just showing it off using palettes I already had. Rather the idea for the actual game is that each palette will also have a darkened "rain is coming" palette, which it'll start fading to as a warning to get back in your shelter. There might be some intermediary areas between two areas that could use faded palettes as well, but I think we'll keep that at a minimum because the straight color lerps create some pretty desaturated and boring palettes.

The effect is accomplished by doing a copypixels operation on the texture the level coloring and water shaders use - meaning that the shaders themselves are not bothered by this at all. The palettes are fairly small (32*8 px) so I haven't noticed any frame rate drops.

All the objects are also told to update their colors, so things that use for example the "black" color of the palette will fade with everything else. As a new fade instruction is called, it copies the current palette into the From texture, meaning that a fade can start in the middle of another fade with everything remaining smooth.

I've also re-introduced the slight wetness distortion on the geometry that I had to remove when working with the water - now I just pass a float to the shader letting it know the water level, and don't do the distortion below that. Distortion + water didn't work because the water needs to mask itself against the level geometry, and if that geometry moves around there'd be weird little gaps. Also, I updated the cloud shadows passing over the level to make them moving rather than just a static scrolling image.

[CYON4D]

I am digging it.

[christopf]

coool! i backed this but always forgot to follow in here. Very interesting devlog

[Howard Day]

JLJac: I love the palette choices. The water shaders all look spectacular, as well! I do have one minor dislike - and that's that the scale and detail level of the water seems very off compared to the rest of the world. Right now it feels like the Slugcat is about the size of a raindrop with it hits the water. I realize having more water vertices might make things too slow, but I did have a suggestion that might help blend everything together.

Right now the water surface appears to be flat polygons. What if you had camera-facing billboard planes that extended perpendicularly off the waters surface, and had an simple animated texture on it? something along these lines:

Obviously my 15 minute test wouldn't look as good as the solution you come up with, but it could definitely lend itself to better conveying the scale of the world the slugcat inhabits. (It's also be super sweet to see the water get really choppy when the bullet rain arrives)
This method also has the benefit of duplicating at least partially what you're doing with the backgrounds. (Many layers of 3d planes to simulate depth)
Anyhow, love what you're doing, hope this helps at least a bit.
Keep it up!

[jamesprimate]

ohhh, good suggestion! that does look Quite Nice

[JLJac]

Oh wow, you threw that together just like that? That's amazing! Yeah, I see what you mean, the scale definitely does seem a little weird. The reason why I have it looking as it does is mainly that I'm trying to keep the color count down in order to give it a "pixel art" look rather than "shader mania", but that's obviously a battle that's slowly and surely lost. You do have a good point in that multiple layer water would mimic how the backgrounds are constructed, which might give some consistency to it.

The scale issue is actually not that big of an issue to me personally. Might look a bit too small at times, but this is a weird cartoon universe where things aren't really that pinned down. I honestly couldn't tell you how tall a slugcat would be next to a human, which is kind of the point, because it never is next to a human - it lives in its own realm. The weird scale of the water reminds you of that a bit, which I'm not entirely opposed to. Then again, I'd prefer it being ambiguous to it being visually well-defined that the slugcat is small as a raindrop, because if you forced an answer I'd probably have to say that it's closer to an earth-mammal in size than a droplet of water.

Difficult stuff. But yeah, note taken. Right now I'm pretty happy to leave one week in shader land behind for a little while, but I'd be surprised if I didn't return to it. If we're doing some ocean-inspired areas your water would obviously be much more fitting, and I think James have some plans like that.

I've also been thinking about maybe having some reflections in the water surface - by now the body of water below the surface has gotten much more shader love than the surface, which is basically just a colored sheet. So... we'll see. Water round 2 might bring some changes. Thanks for your input!

Update 348
Made it so that creatures can be in dens. I had to mess around a bit with this because it means that a creature is in a room, coordinate-wise, but also not in the room as in that it can't interact with other creatures in the room. It seems like things are working out fine though, I've been able to have a lizard enter a den in a loaded room, as well as move to an off-screen room and enter a den there, in abstract space.

[Raku]

This whole thread is awe-inspiring.
I've never before seen a game so ambitious that actually followed through like this. (if my wording makes any sense)

[JLJac]

Thank you! We're not through yet though 

Update 349

Shortcut visualizations coming along.



Most things are still missing - there should be little indicators at the exits, the entire length of the shortcut should blink when you get close to it to make it apparent where you'll end up, etc etc. More tomorrow!

[oahda]

Oh, geez. I just burst into the widest smile, having followed the lines, and the lizard suddenly popped out. That is great.

I have to say I prefer the flatter style that's currently on the water surface in the game than Howard's suggestion, btw. Howard's animation looks great, and would certainly fit into other games, but for the style of PRW in general, the current, flatter surface seems more consistent with the rest of the graphics, at least to me.

[knifeySpoonie]

Thank you! We're not through yet though 

Update 349

Shortcut visualizations coming along.

Ha thats a really cool and straight forward way of showing that.. but it works so well

[ofx360]

Dude, the eyes one the slugcat are insane...

I've looked at that gif several times, and each time, it brings me great joy! The look, the head tilt, it's all so dynamic. Really well done!

I want a slugcat real bad now!

[JLJac]

Our genetical engineers are on the task!

Update 350

That age old rain world question - Where the hell will I appear if I go in this shortcut!? - has been given some clarity.



Some feedback, what do you guys think? Am I overdoing it? To me it feels a bit too modern with the color fading - I'm thinking about if it might be possible to have it look more old school somehow. Right now I'm lighting the entire path up, and doing a "wave" of slightly lighter dots on top of that so you can see the direction it's moving in. And also I'm having the destination arrow blink like crazy.

Note that in most scenarios you won't have any idea where to look for the destination arrow if you're playing the room for the first time, so I don't really think this can be communicated too clearly - however, it shouldn't be too visually distracting either.

[Wlad]

I think it's bit too much. I would be fine with shortcuts a bit hidden. I think that holes in path of shortcut is good enough sign of them.

Edit: or maybe some subtle pulsing of light just on the ends of the shortcut would be sufficient.

[jamesprimate]

Las Rain Vegas World!

i think the mechanism probably works fine if done subtly. a little pulse of grey or something when you get close?

[ofx360]

Maybe instead of the trace of the shortcut, you just keep the arrows. Because, I think, that's the only important info you would need at a glance, the exact path doesn't seem to important. Maybe when you get close to a shortcut entry, both the arrows just lerp to the same color