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[♒ben]

Log 2015.09.11




Today is the last (ish) day i'm going to spend working on mechanics before fantastic. I'm leaving in just over two weeks. The game needs significant design work first and foremost. Beyond that, it could use some UI , Sound , etc etc etc polish but we'll see what we can get to before then.

Spent most of the day working on implementing solutions for giving the player torque in the right situations and having it not impact them in the wrong situations. The goal is for the player to be able to perform a gesture with the right stick right as they are taking off from a jump, "Spin this way, at this speed". But the right stick has several other complicated functions in controlling the player so there were lots of edge cases to deal with.

Tasks completed today :
• Head movement ( up and down) is now constrained
• Torque added to rotation system, torque can be applied to the player's rotation by holding the jump button and using the horizontal axis of the right stick, while in the air, the player will now spin more from this torque than from their own input.
    • They still have significant influence over the torque while in the air
• Changes to the amount of control the player has over different aspects of rotation, mostly giving the player "less control" to compensate for the added control given with a properly executed spin

[♒ben]

Log 2015.09.12




Spent the day organizing assets. All our meshes, prefabs, materials etc, were in a pretty chaotic state. I archived all of the things we wouldn't be using anymore and old versions of everything. I Re-exported all our meshes as c4d files into the unity project to just take advantage of unity's c4d importer which made a huge difference for organization and will help with making sure all our project files and materials are referencing the same texture ( there is only one texture )

I then updated / fixed all our prefabs with the new meshes. Unfortunately this destroyed all the level design we had so it's definitely time to start designing some new stuff.

Tasks completed today :
• Organize assets ( Prefabs, Meshes, C4D files )
    • Archive old files
    • Make new c4d files for assets that we are actually going to keep inside the unity project
• Fix prefabs with new meshes and materials
• Apply proper friction and physics materials to all objects
• Played around with making unity terrains for level building

[♒ben]

Log 2015.09.13


Had the itch to explore some design ideas for the game. Playing around with topographical maps and simple grid UI stuff today. First in 2d, then trying it out in 3d. Things that might make their way into the game in some capacity . . .

[♒ben]

Log 2015.09.14


Late Logs ! So i meant to work on design but was inspired for how I wanted rails to work. We weren't planning on doing rails for this deadline but . . . looks like we are ! They will have a pretty significant impact on design going forward.

Currently they are super simple: Your grind carries the speed you had going into it, there's no gravity or friction currently but we'll add at least friction back in once we decide on a mechanic to allow you to pick up speed while grinding.

I'm really inspired by jet set radios, grind mechanics. Their animation and sound feedback, being placed on beat is wonderful. We'll probably try something similar.

[♒ben]

Log 2015.09.15

I went to the woods !

[richardeflanagan]

Wow, the work Ben has done has really changed the feel of the game for the better. Before, it was a faster moving FPS with no friction, now it really feels like you have weight and momentum - it's exhilarating.

Today I started toying with the unity terrain instead of the meshes I generated in c4d. If we can get it working, it has a great many advantages

The biggest being a much easier workflow for editing terrain in the context of objects in the space. This allows us to iterate on aspects of the terrain in engine versus me pushing vertices around in cinema 4D.

Nice smooth test terrain:


I can now easily work snow drifts around objects - a many step process with our previous terrain


It also allows us to use some of Unity's inbuilt tools for populating objects on the surface of terrain. Backcountry snowboarding is a big part of my style of riding and I want to reflect this in the game where appropriate. Unity's tree paint tools should help me achieve this in a much more manageable way. I'll report on that soon!

We do lose that lovely faceted look by using unity terrain, but Ben pointed out it allows us to further differentiate between terrain and objects. By placing polygonal objects on a smooth terrain, we achieve that much more visual contrast - I think he's right.

While I'm no master of unity terrain, I feel like this will make building the separate islands easier and these first tests are quite positive. I wish the brush tools in unity weren't so horrible though, and find myself starting with a height map in order to get anywhere.

[Juskelis]

if you guys still want that faceted look, Polyworld converts unity terrain to a polygonal look

[archgame]

If you are looking for a way of populating objects on the surface of meshes that are not terrain I've found success with Quickbrush. If you ever need a surface that is not convex, Unity's terrain won't work.

[richardeflanagan]

if you guys still want that faceted look, Polyworld converts unity terrain to a polygonal look

Yeah, I saw this! looks really cool - if we're still lusting after the polygonal look this is definitely the way we'll go. ALSO, damn to I wish polyworld existed when we made FRACT!

[richardeflanagan]

If you are looking for a way of populating objects on the surface of meshes that are not terrain I've found success with Quickbrush. If you ever need a surface that is not convex, Unity's terrain won't work.

Whoa, that looks dope! Thanks for the tip

[richardeflanagan]

So, Unity's terrain brushes are quite frustrating - but amplified by the fact the the default terrain that is generated by a new terrain object is kind of garbage... anyway, progress!



It's rough, but I'm going to try to rebuild our Jam level in Unity terrain. Should be interesting re: the concave sections, but we'll figure it out...

[♒ben]

Log 2015.09.17

Made a quick title screen today. Not something i'd really like to be working on at this stage of development but kind of necessary to show the game.

We need to submit a final build to fantastic, in four days!

[Quicksand-S]

More than anything this reminds me of AaaAAaaAaaah: A Reckless Disregard for Gravity (or the quasi-sequel/expansion/re-release, AaaAAaaAaaah: For the Awesome).

Looks really good. I could see myself potentially having a lot of fun with a game like this.

[richardeflanagan]

The not so glamorous work of rebuilding the terrain has progressed. Still not totally wrapped my head around the best methods for Unity terrain.

Behold, crazy colourful terrain in order to help me see what I'm doing.

[♒ben]

Log 2015.09.18




Today was tweaking a whole bunch of little things. I've been cramming in features for the last week, which is a terrible idea this close to showing the game. So now i'm trying to make sure they are all at least playable. We will see.

I also started molding terrain features and designing features for the new level.

[QOG]

I really like the topographical map backgrounds, any plans to integrate that look into the game itself?

[♒ben]

Log 2015.09.19


We finally got down to business with level design today. The structure for the build we will be showing in a week is one moderately sized run. A giant portal at the bottom, brings you back to the portal at the top from which you start. This allows you to relatively quickly re try challenges you might have messed up before.

I really like the topographical map backgrounds, any plans to integrate that look into the game itself?

Thanks, the white one is our current, very placeholder title screen menu. It's something i'm going to keep playing with going forward but we're far from committing to anything graphically. All the visuals are still 100% placeholder assets we made for the jam version of this game!

[♒ben]

this is what mountains look like, right . .

[♒ben]

Log 2015.09.20




Spent the day designing. Got a few other loose ends tied up. A bit more to do tomorrow morning but otherwise we're ready for texas next week.

[richardeflanagan]

So Ben totally killed it on level design - the build heading to FA is a lot of fun (if a bit advanced/impenetrable - but that's OK). I've been swamped with baby stuff - but managed to spend a bit of time on trees and sound design.

And by trees I mean these things:





It's a quick first implementation, but they add a lot to the spaces, both in terms of mild traversal obstacles, but also add to the sense of motion