I wouldn't hold you to convey every aspect of being microscopic. After all the character would be surrounded by immeasurable amounts of particles and other boulder/body sized debris. I cant think of anyone that attempted such a theme for a game. Though I really enjoy the demo of the huge droplets of rain. I cant imagine the strain the P.C would take trying to render a level's worth. Curious tho why the have a place holder mesh, instead of a the completed turret. From a gamedev standpoint anyway.
vAfroCenTech: I will take some creative license with the level design for sure. For example, a garden full of grass sounds cool but in reality would make for rather tedious levels if all we had were jungles of grass blades.. So I think we can strike a balance between very accurate macro scale levels with some liberties taken with placement of these aspects to improve gameplay.
Ah, so the turret being a placeholder mesh is simply me being a little lazy. Currently the branch where we are working on the POD systems doesn't have many art assets (I have a separate branch for art prototyping, another for character controller etc). I will do a migration of the proper POD meshes soon though because I do want to see the actual POD looking less like a hollowed out shell
I added a little test wind physics this evening to see how the POD copes. Life isn't easy when you are less than a centimetre on a blustery day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rc_ACcA7M2k
j_swan: Thanks a lot. Larry: Those are scattered depending on material layer (instanced meshes via the foliage system). I am testing a few different approaches for doing terrain... some are parallax occlusion, some are tessellated displacement, some involved scattered instanced meshes. They all have pros and cons I guess
I may be a bit late as I'm commenting about a post from a few weeks ago, but the physics should actually move a lot quicker if they were small. gravity affects all things equally, but if a rock the size of a car and a pebble were both dropped at the same time, the distance traveled in a second would be the same, but very different relative to their size. large one might move 2x its length in a second, and the small one might move 100x its length in a second.
Yup, you are absolutely correct. Very early on I opted to make the aliens sensation of time significantly slower than our human equivalent. So, that accounts for the 'slower' nature of things - Ultimately I may also opt to make things seem heavier than they perhaps would, purely for aesthetic/game play reasons though to what extent is still very open These are all very simple things to change, so it'll likely evolve as the game develops and new gameplay mechanics come into play too.
I took a first stab last night at some "scale correct" FX for when the POD expels waste heat. I think it probably shouldn't break up quite as quickly but it's a start... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpDEyIWGNX4
I always loved Terrahawks when I was a kid. I particularity liked the rolling bots - so perhaps that is the source of inspiration for these training drones: Placeholder geometry but you get the gist. https://youtu.be/gf91Std7c3Y
Certainly am sir! it's been a useful starting point for this prototype level and a learning resource too. We likely won't be using it past prototype stage purely for setting/scale reasons.
Certainly am sir! it's been a useful starting point for this prototype level and a learning resource too. We likely won't be using it past prototype stage purely for setting/scale reasons.
I'm devastated to hear that. Haha. But I'm glad if it has been of any help. Finished watching the progress videos from previous pages until the last. You're doing some fantastic work with that (let me call it Sentinel). Something uncommon and in good hands. Can't wait to see more!
The materials within the landscape layers will be replaced with scale accurate ones that Ive been working on (sand, silt and clay grain size etc )... But the AL2 base layer/blend foundation likely will be kept/expanded for this particular planet. So don't feel bad! It will save me a good deal of time regardless!
Haha Yes, I suppose I just don't quite feel ready to take peoples money just yet. Kickstarters etc have suffered with a poor reputation recently and want to be careful not to jump too soon (or whether i'll jump into that pool at all!). That video was primarily to see if could get some dev grant money and additionally to have a one stop video overview that explains the project without people having to trawl through a forum etc. Indie game marketing seems to be a slow burn thing - in general this project is pretty unknown. I will admit my amateur marketing skills are likely a large contributing factor to that!
Haha Yes, I suppose I just don't quite feel ready to take peoples money just yet. Kickstarters etc have suffered with a poor reputation recently and want to be careful not to jump too soon (or whether i'll jump into that pool at all!). That video was primarily to see if could get some dev grant money and additionally to have a one stop video overview that explains the project without people having to trawl through a forum etc. Indie game marketing seems to be a slow burn thing - in general this project is pretty unknown. I will admit my amateur marketing skills are likely a large contributing factor to that!
you could always make a patreon, if people wanna give you money then its up to them. you could also have it just running and then bump up the marketing as you go.
Yeh, basically my day job contract ends at the start of November (game shipping soon!). Ideally I want to be able to work full time on Infinitesimals early next year as well as bringing on more help. I had wondered about Patreon though my impression was that it suited people who create content for the patrons on a regular basis (Jim sterling etc). All I could realistically offer before the game is complete is video updates (which I would do anyway of course). I'll have to do a bit of research on Patreon...
Well, I thought I had the weapon aiming system sorted but found a horrific bug and have to reevaluate the best method to control the hand IK... so I'll have to show him shooting weapons another time. For now, here's Orkney running around a test level a bit... generally less glitchy than the last time you saw him.
yep, @ZacD is right, there are many ways you can run a patreon for sure.
@cubitstudios - a shame you didnt get weapons working., You should be really proud of how natural the characters general movement feels at least, it looking really good.
ZacD: Yep, seems like it could be an option to think about then.
lotet: So I had the weapon aiming nicely aside from one issue that I eventually discovered was caused by an engine bug related to getting world space locations mapped to IK and it meant my entire approach would have to be changed to work around said bug I may just ask Cameron to do a c++ system instead! I had never before used any kind of animation state machines so the character controller is a bit of a mashed up combination of stuff. I learnt a hell of a lot from the community and some marketplace examples with a bunch of custom work to add more dynamics and getting the feel right. It needs to feel responsive but not overly snappy. There are lots of placeholder animations which will eventually be replaced too but that will have to come after the prototyping stage is past.
So, I've been working on the POD meshes, getting them finalised and adding missing components. This will be an ongoing task for the upgrade modules etc, but you can see it coming together here. Next video should be of these meshes replacing the placeholder ones, so you'll see a fully complete POD moving around instead of the previously seen shell mesh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78o-y6C2_ps
Tomorrow i'll be creating the game mesh and baking the normals etc for the foot wheel module. The HP model is below. This is another module the law enforcement POD will be outfitted with by default.
Okay, I've completed the POD's foot wheel modules (with basic materials, I'll do a proper pass on the textures tomorrow). Here the feet are retracted, allowing full wheeled motion...
thanks! Leg shape work continues, it's certainly not complete though. I'm holding off doing too much work on the shapes until further systems are complete that may have knock on effects on it.
Ok, just a snippet but this is a little test for a launch tube. If you need to get somewhere fast, this is the way to do it ... https://youtu.be/ZWUbdsPK-MQ
Replies
Larry: Those are scattered depending on material layer (instanced meshes via the foliage system). I am testing a few different approaches for doing terrain... some are parallax occlusion, some are tessellated displacement, some involved scattered instanced meshes. They all have pros and cons I guess
@cubitstudios - a shame you didnt get weapons working., You should be really proud of how natural the characters general movement feels at least, it looking really good.
lotet: So I had the weapon aiming nicely aside from one issue that I eventually discovered was caused by an engine bug related to getting world space locations mapped to IK and it meant my entire approach would have to be changed to work around said bug
oh shit that sucks man, hope u get it working somehow, re-doing the entire character physics dosnt sound fun at all
Can't wait to see it in motion.
It's a pleasure to follow your thread, thanks for sharing