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LANDNAV simulation game development

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grand marshal polycounter
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Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
A fully functioning military compass for a land nav simulation game. 

This is the game model, I gonna make a high version in zbrush and boolean out the ticks and numbers along the ruler, then I'll bake it and texture. It will be used in Unity so I have to find some magnifying shader for the peep sight. 

The mils and degrees are geometry, but they get baked onto the compass wheel. I used geometry because I find it easier to get the precision I need for this thing to actually work inside Maya rather photoshop.

Shoot an azimuth. The lens here has to be magnifying to work correctly.

I'm not so experienced with hard surface. Let me know if I did something stupid. For the high version I do subdivision without smoothing in zbrush, then on a very high level I slightly smooth some spots. It's a hero prop that will be large on screen and very often so I use plenty of bevels. (note though that the outermost top and bottom aren't seen at all in game, so I didn't bother to bevel them, hence the hard edges)

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  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    Well I made some mistakes, but this will serve nicely as placeholder for now. I forgot to Boolean out the word "meters" which goes on the inside of the top cover. *face palm* Also there should be some small plastic covers that go over the tritium strips on the top cover. 

    I also have some improvements I can make on the normal map. I am seeing a little bit of bad shading in some spots. I need to make an even quads version that I can subdivide cleanly to bake from in order to fix that. I should have taken a little more time and did that too begin with. Any time I try to go fast it always ends up costing time!

    I have displayed this in Toolbag. I'll need to fashion some shaders in Unity to get it looking right there. 

    The compass has about 7k tris, and uses a material each for the body, the compass dial, and the glass parts. 

    For now I will be setting this aside though and moving onto the next asset for this game: a Rite-in-the-Rain mechanical pencil.  I'll use this thread for all the art assets I make for this game.


  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    I don't got enough time to start new model before heading back to work, so I went ahead and fixed the issues with the normal map. Made some other tweaks to geometry and also changed the textures a bit too. 
    I made the green paint slightly smoother and added more contrast on the roughness map overall. I also exaggerated the rough finish on the black plastic as well -- before it all looked the same. I also took off the AO from the white paint area because the degree/MIL numbers were catching too much shadow. I look at reference and the white paint must have some kind of light reflecting/dispersing property because shadows are very faint even in strong light. Or maybe that's just because in 3d environment we don't have true GI or something. In any case, problem solved.

    The only thing I'd really like to do more is make the plastic molding that the tritium bits and the W & E letters fit into. But I need yet another shader for that because the way light goes through plastic like that would be different than any other part of this thing. I don't think it's worth the time right now, but maybe in the future I can explore that just for the fun of it. As it is, this compass will do. 


  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    It's a pencil. Coming up next, a notebook. I'll take my awards now, thank you.


    And I'll ninja the notebook in there too. No need to bump thread for that. Well, that is everything player needs to get from A to B. Everything except the map. But I wait until I get back to my home machine for that. For now I move onto the rucksack.

  • CybranM
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    CybranM interpolator
    The compass looks great but I think the edge wear is a bit too even. The lid edges also look a bit sharp compared to the rest:
    The pen looks a bit too artificial, perhaps adding some more roughness variation and some scratches/wear, especially on the metal tip, would help it look more realistic. Notebook and wood backdrop looks good, I like the small details but it looks weird to have "790" repeat so often.

    The artstation link in your signature is broken
  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    Been working on environment for the game past couple days. Still miles to go before we sleep but with speedtree and megascans it's easy to get off with a fast start.
  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    Some more environment work. Almost all the assets are speedtree or megascans. But still there is a lots of work to be done getting everything working together, and making it perform decently while not having to compromise on the look too much. I am using the old render pipeline still because I rely on a few tools and shaders which aren't updated yet. Plus, all these big acronyms change every week and get pretty damn confusing. It's tempting to jump after the latest tech but I know the game can work with the older tech + I am not making Call of Duty anyway.

  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    Now that I have a little bit better idea what I am doing with the environment, I try to simplify things. Both workflow and the art itself. A narrower color palette, fewer models, etc.

    Here is a fire killed forest. The fire must have came through just a few years ago or less. Many tree's have fallen. It's not an easy place to travel through. Visibility is good though.

  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    Some more environment work. I got to admit, I could just sit here and make forest forever without even making a game. I really enjoy it. I want to take a little hike into the Blue Ridge mountains nearby to find some more inspiration. I like mountains and valleys and big sites like that, but something about the woods has always drawn me. It's an intimate place. It makes you feel alone, but not lonely. BIg places like mountains hit you with awe at first, but when you spend a long time in them, you feel small and lonely. You want to leave after awhile. No place for humans. Not so in the woods.This is home for humans.


  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    We've been doing a ton of testing to get the full 100km world to stream with good performance. Getting close but not quite there yet. I got some iteration done on the environments this weekend. I am trying to focus on composition and colors, so that where ever you go in the world it's going to be a nice scene.

    Everything is generated procedural, though using Vegetation Studio Pro I do have pretty good low-level control on how vegetation is spawned. I'm pretty happy that, taking a walk through the currently 8km world, I am finding lots of unique looking spots. This is important not just for the sake of visual variety, but it will help player get oriented when they get lost. "Oh, I've been here before!"

    I'm trying to find the right palette to really make it feel like brisk autumn weather. At the same time, I don't want everything gray and brown because that does get dull. I've also adjusted the terrain a bit for more height variation. This gives some nicer views, but also will help make terrain association more viable for noobies.

    Iteration on art is also iteration on workflow. As much as possible, I want a fully non-destructible workflow. I want to maximize the ease of iteration. I am not an experienced environment artist, so the more easily I can experiment, the quicker I can discover the best results. It's not so easy when you are using a lot of different third party tools, and dealing with a massive world, but for the most part I've got everything pretty flexible after a couple weeks of working with this as a focus.
  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
  • jStins
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    jStins interpolator
    Looking good Alex! Are you using Enviro for the sky/clouds/weather? HDRP (or URP as Unity is calling it now?)
  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    I am using enviro. I am using the old render pipeline -- i have no idea what anything is called anymore cause it changes weekly -- but I chose to stick with that for maximum compatibility. I'm using a lot of 3rd party tools and it's basically impossible to get everything working nicely on one of the new pipelines.
  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    Got the map and it's case done. I'll probably revisit the fabric textures cause I did it kind of lazy. It could look better. I'll probably dig up something made from cordura or whatever that is and take a high res photo to work from.

    The map is done except for that is has no details besides the contour lines. That's because I have to do a lot of playtesting the game first before I decide what will go where. But it has everything necessary to do some dead reckoning.


  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    Some of these tools I've been working on in action. Still lots more to do but we just about got all the functionality there.


     + another type of biome. I took some inspiration from a hike on the weekend and made a muddy, miserable creek. I also tweaked post process and lighting a little bit. I think there is a better sense of depth and space now. Was feeling a little flat or something, hard to describe but things just wasn't quite right.


  • DanikaPuzdrowski
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    DanikaPuzdrowski polycounter lvl 2
    Hey, this all looks really good, i'm impressed at the vegetation. i'm actually doing something fairly similar and was wondering how you got the compass working? That's something i've been struggling with, any tips would be very much appreciated 
  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    I can't say much about the compass animation. I am working with a contractor who takes care of the programming.

    I do know that we consider world axis of z to be north, and then I think it's not to complicated to lock the compass dials local rotation to always face that way. On top of that a smoothing operation, but I think you can find many examples of that from third person camera tutorials.

    Obviously on the modeling side this means I have set the compass dial as a separate sub-mesh and set its pivot at the right location.

    He (the programmer) also made this on the store, and said it works in a similar way:

  • DanikaPuzdrowski
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    DanikaPuzdrowski polycounter lvl 2
    ah okay, that makes sense
    i'll have a look at the radar, thanks a lot for the help :) 
  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    I've finished out the level design for a 12km area, to be played by our first public testers. I've filled in that portion of the map with relevant details. It was tedious work but highly enjoyable in a way. Something about the need for careful precision, and then being able to see that precision translate into real results you can use in the game world is really satisfying. This is definitely a fun game to make.

    I'm using natural boundaries to border in the play area. To the south I've added Jack Luck River and Fillerson Pond. These also work as good landmarks to help beginners have an easier time. And they are quite pleasant to walk along side, especially in the moonlight.

    Wanna playtest in about 10 days? Inquire at the discord .
    It's a tough game though. Not for those who give up easily!

  • Zi0
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    Zi0 polycounter
    Land nav simulation gam huh, thats actually a pretty cool idea, nice progress btw.
  • sacboi
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    sacboi high dynamic range
    Nice going, getting this to beta in a tad over 3 months?! and the game's title "Land Nav" reflects what it's bassically all about, kind of like cross country orienteering but for 'grunts' :) So anyway, hope all goes well with the testing, not to many bugs, also no crits from me on your hard surface modeling skills which in my opinion is fairly solid.

    Cheers. 
  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    sacboi said:
    Nice going, getting this to beta in a tad over 3 months?! and the game's title "Land Nav" reflects what it's bassically all about, kind of like cross country orienteering but for 'grunts' :) So anyway, hope all goes well with the testing, not to many bugs, also no crits from me on your hard surface modeling skills which in my opinion is fairly solid.

    Cheers. 
    Not 3 months. I was gone for a job. We've only been working on this about 1 month in total. :)


  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    Some work on a diorama type scene for the main menu. Character is placeholder but will have basically the same silhouette. I had an idea to make him real sweaty and then increase the intensity of a light I have near the camera which gives the small reflection on the m16. That way you'll see reflection in the sweat beads. Idea is to make it feel intense, but I think it may look best if it's straight black silhouette. We'll see. But I have higher priority things to take care of so I may not get to that for a minute.

    I'm not super confident about the UI. Just not something I ever do so let me know if anybody has some suggestions. Obviously I am stealing Army colors since it's an Army game.
  • teodar23
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    teodar23 sublime tool
    Hey man,
    I like the way it is now more than the more intense idea. I think this suggests a rest moment for your character which is in line with the fact that you are in a menu i.e. not in live play. I hope that makes sense.
    There is a dissonance between the menu text (which is military like and in theme) and the sliders and buttons (which are arcade-y)
  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    teodar23 said:

    There is a dissonance between the menu text (which is military like and in theme) and the sliders and buttons (which are arcade-y)

    Good point, I didn't see that but now I do. I'll take a look at some other military games and see what they've done to help spark some ideas there.
  • Taylor Brown
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    Taylor Brown ngon master
    Looking really cool Alex! Those enviros are lush and lovely
  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    Thanks Taylor. I'm having a lot of fun with it. I should have tried enviro art a long time ago.
  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    Some video of using the instruments to plot coordinates and move to a control point. This video is just for the dev diary. After we release the alpha on friday i'll spend a few days or a week building actual marketing content.


    By the way, we need some feedback noises for using the instruments. Enabling, disabling. Dragging them around. I don't have a clue what sort of sounds might fit. Any suggestions?


    btw, I've got the wrong post process profile enabled in the video. So never mind that, I know it's kind of janky looking. We have a different profile for if you are colliding with certain things and I had it enabled by mistake.

  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    With the correct post process, and some other tweaks to lighting


  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    Version 0.01a is now available for play testing.

    Drop in our Discord to get a download link.  https://discord.gg/jBBDXJd

  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    Gonna work on a trailer this week so I can get a coming soon page up on steam. First I need a character so I am working on this ALICE pack. Just got the base part of it simulated in Marvelous Designer. Tomorrow I'll work on the straps and details, then I'll need to simulate it on the character so he's got realistic folds where the shoulder straps and waist belt are pulling.

    The character will get a different face and some changes to the outfit. Also this placeholder model is all one material so I'll separate it into a couple for better resolution.

    I'm going to have to do the animations myself. I know I can do decent walk cycle and basic stuff. I may find some way to film around doing any up close face stuff because that might take me too long to do and not be worth the time.

    If you don't know, the newer version of marvelous designer has incredible workflow where you can trace patterns from UV's automatically. So you can create your blockout in maya and then basically just simulate it directly from that in Marvelous. Really fast and intuitive. I'm loving it. This ALICE pack was still a pain in the butt though. Took an entire day.
  • sacboi
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    sacboi high dynamic range
    Cool :)

    If I have time this week, will sign up for play testing.

    Cheers.
  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter

    The alpha version out right now has got a bug that causes a crash pretty regularly. It's fixed but we are working for 3-4 more weeks before putting out the next update. Of course you welcome to try whenever you like but just to let you know, right now you got to save the game manually like every 10 minutes which can be kind of annoying.

    Mostly military types in the discord though so you'd be among kin :)
  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    Got the straps blocked in. I tend to get carried away trying to make tiny details perfect to real life. Like the quick release system. Lots of small pieces. But you won't be able to see it, so an approximation is fine. Give the illusion of detail but don't spend an entire day modeling a piece that will be 3 pixels on screen.

    Even as an approximation still pretty tedious. But it's done so next I go into zbrush and put fold details in. I tried to do this all in Marvelous Designer but for these pieces it was more trouble than worth, so I did it all in Maya. There is a ton of stitching going on but I think i'll do that in substance painter.

    Workflow that is pretty good for straps I found is to use quad draw to make a quick strip with the right curvature, then drop an edge loop in center, convert it to a curve, then use bonus tools>curve to ribbon mesh and then you got some nice options to build a strap from, plus a curve to nudge it into place with.

    i also picked up this great model from turbosquid. Its better than what i was gonna do. I just have to sterilize his patches and dirty him up. it was only $79. I think it's scanned model with a lot of work put into it. Stuff like this should be in the thousands really.
  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    Well the ruck is done. Could be much better and I'm not happy with it. But, priorities is priorities and it will get the job done it needs to do.

    Main issue is the fabric doesn't look correct. It looks too soft and stretchy. Not the right kind of folds.

    Anyway, there isn't a single ALICE pack model I can find for sale online so I'll put this on the unity store.
  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    Some background props I've been working on the past week. Still working on the water buffalo.

    Just a few more and then I'll be done making models for this game.

    The watch tower came from the unity asset store, but I rebuilt it's geometry and UV's, as well as re-textured it.

    The tent I tried to do in Marvelous Designer, but that didn't work out well for me so I sculpted in zbrush. It wouldn't be passable in AAA for an up close prop because the folds aren't always believable, but it has enough detail to be convincing as a far away prop I think. So no need to get carried away.

    You might wonder why the Huey's windows don't look like glass - for whatever reason, the real life version I am basing this on must have the glass painted or something. It's an old vietnam chopper that's on display at camp mackall. I figured I'd follow suit because that also means I don't have to model anything on the inside.

    The water buffalo might be something player can walk right up to, so I am putting more detail into that. I still have a bit more blockout to do for it before moving forward.




  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    FInished the water buffalo. For this one I started with a scan I picked up from sketchfab. But it's a big polygon soup, so I built a new clean model just using block modeling techniques. It's kind of fun to model that way. Like a game to see how much you can do with just cubes and cylinders. But I also got to use some boolean techniques which I haven't used much before.

    As I'll only have like one of these models in the game, I could have just put the polygon soup version in and been fine. But by rebuilding it I can then make use of mirrored UV's, which in total allowed me to cut down the texture file size by half. Plus I needed to retexture it, and that is a much easier process with clean UV's I done myself.
  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    Made some changes to this project. Keep hitting a memory leak issue when spawning the forest, despite performance being otherwise fine. It's an issue that can be solved, but I got to pay for the time to troubleshoot and that does take too much time. Will put me over budget. So I decided to switch to mountains which won't require as much fussing over the optimizations.

    With switch to the mountains we change the theme too. Now instead of taking on special forces training, you will be a pilot in Afghanistan who has been shot down. Use your wits to escape Taliban commandos.

    Interesting note, the heightmap here is from where I was in 2010. That's cool. Can't say I recognize it very well though, so maybe it's not super accurate.

    Nothing in the scene but terrain and textures. I'll get some boulders ready to accent the rocky ridges, and then need a bit of foliage and props for villages in the valley below. Trying to wrap this game up in next couple months.
  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    Reworking the terrain to actually resemble afghanistan more accurately.

  • teodar23
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    teodar23 sublime tool
    Just wanted to say that thats a drastic change and it sucks that you could not find a fix for that because your project was well on its way. I guess the lesson here is that life is unpredictable and you just have to adapt.
    Anyhow, the new terrain looks good so far. Are you using world machine or what?
  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    It's a problem that can definitely be solved, it's just a question of how much time. We had fixed it before, but then needed to change engine versions to deal with another issue, then the issue came back. Just takes lengthy troubleshooting measures that eat up too much time.

    So this workaround I think will actually make a better game though. I see a couple benefits:
    1. impending danger is more motivating than passing a training course
    2. mountain environment is easier to learn navigation in than woods

    Once we get the game out though, if it is making ROI then I have time to solve the memory problems when spawning dense woods, and can get that map back in the game.

    I am using World Machine to make the mountains and splatmaps, and then microsplat to texture them. My first attempts I tried to use satellite imagery to get started, but it just wasn't really looking like afghanistan. So then i did a lot of research using google earth, measured out actual proportions and characteristics of mountains there. Then I drew out my mountain range manually with layout generator and went from there. Much better result that way.

  • jStins
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    jStins interpolator
    I see how the change in terrain / biome could create a more intense tone. The new terrain is looking good so far. That said, I hope you can release the forest level as well someday. It was looking very nice!
  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    @jStins , yeah I really want to finish the forest but right now it just takes too much development time to troubleshoot the issues related to running it. It's not actually so much a raw performance issue, it actually gets deeper into engine specific stuff so it takes a lot of time to troubleshoot. Since it's really unknown how this game will do market wise I don't want to have my programmer debugging for an extra month... but if we make decent return first thing I want to do is get the forest back in the game.

    I also drop a link to patreon for this game here: https://www.patreon.com/creator-home

    You can get access to more detailed devblog there as well as early access to the full game and development builds.

    I won't be making too much unique art for this game but I still have a lot of world dressing left which will come closer to the end of development, so I'll have a bit more to show here on polycount.

  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    Hey just a small update: 

    Working on moving this project to Unreal. Nothing to do with UE5 - timing is just coincidence there. I am working in 4.26. I've wanted to try Unreal for a long time and had a feeling some of the performance issues faced in unity might not be as hard to solve with Unreal. 

    So I've started out doing some testing and I am really surprised how much time I could have saved doing this project in Unreal from the beginning. 

    Floating point errors due to distance from origin are not an issue with same scale world in unreal. 
    Tested same size world with dense foliage and its not even necessary to stream terrain tiles. 
    I did test world composition tools and these dramatically save time with tiled world setup, however it looks like its not necessary to use. Performance is basically twice as good as was in unity - though I do need to get more familiar with tools to measure this more in depth than just watching FPS. Right now I am using some nature packages from store and all the textures are too big. I believe reducing those will make the biggest impact. I have to investigate virtual texture streaming as well.
    I am going to reduce size of the world to 64sq km anyway. Doesn't need to be bigger than that. 



    there is cons though.

    My programmer only works in unity. I haven't been able to find reliable help at a price I can afford for general programming. So I've been learning how to use blueprints. Since the mechanics in this game as simple and limited I believe I can do most of the work there after several weeks of training. My brain despises programmer stuff but it is nice to be able to do some things on my own so hopefully it will get easier.

    So far I have proofed pipeline for the 3d and 2d map generation. Stress tested performance and it seems the show stopping memory issues faced in unity won't be an issue so I will continue with Unreal then.

    Still have to get familiar with procedural foliage spawning but that can be done later. 

    Have to get more familiar with material graph to create a performant landscape material and possibly make some auto-splatmap generation tools. There is plenty already on the store but I dont like documentation that is hard to understand and materials that have many features I don't need. I'd rather have something simple that I know how to control even if it has fewer features.

    I got some help in creating a material that generates contour lines plus taught how to use render target blueprint so I can speed up my 2d map making workflow. that's a big bonus and will make experimentation faster. 

    Main focus right now is getting up to speed with blueprints so I can recreate mechanics for the map, compass, and other tools. 


  • jStins
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    jStins interpolator
    I thought that looked like the UE4 material editor in the material breakdown you posted and was curious about the engine change. Good luck with the transition and looking forward to seeing some screenshots out of UE4. 
  • sacboi
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    sacboi high dynamic range
    "Main focus right now is getting up to speed with blueprints so I can recreate mechanics for the map, compass, and other tools."

    At a glance It's nodal system seems fairly straightforward for the uninitiated to at least grasp the basics of 'game logic' and in my opinion the correct decision to make given the switch to another engine plus assume overall control.
  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    sacboi said:
    "Main focus right now is getting up to speed with blueprints so I can recreate mechanics for the map, compass, and other tools."

    At a glance It's nodal system seems fairly straightforward for the uninitiated to at least grasp the basics of 'game logic' 

    It has helped a me a lot. Main problem i had (have) with code is understanding how one thing points to another, or derives from it, etc. The vector math and logic and all that is pretty straightforward - can just look it up and seems like people all doing the same thing there. But nobody ever really explains how inheritance and the overall architecture works - visual scripting has made that a lot more clear to me. Now I can actually look at scripts and understand what is going on even after just a week of doing some blueprint tutorials.



  • sacboi
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    sacboi high dynamic range
    "But nobody ever really explains how inheritance and the overall architecture works [...]"

    VERY simply put, another way :) in OOP these visual scripts may be 'interpreted' per line via an application's API which enables access too it's data, classes and functions then executed at runtime.


    Hence, UE blueprint sub-classes for example, are typically based off of classes written in C++ also as an aside, the scripting blocks are represented in plain language. A sort of pseudocode if you like so quite useful for those with minimal to no exposure too programming concepts.   
  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    Spent several days getting art to a "good enough for alpha" state. It gets a bit repetitive with only a handful of assets but I am just trying to get things back to a playable state ASAP. I'll add in the nice fall color trees and extra goodies later.

    Now that we have a new terrain, have to rebuild the 2d map for it, then get back to technical matters, finishing out the player controller. I can't wait to get back to art though because it's so easy for me to spend days building my little forest. 

    I built pretty much everything in speedtree 8, and used megascan textures and atlases.

    Performance is fine, staying above 60fps on my machine at max specs. There is a little more I can do to reduce draw calls. If I need to make any serious boost I'll have to get some help because I am not sure what more can be done besides just reduce draw distances and crunch triangles.


    I added temporal dithering to the billboards and grass. This helps everything blend together nicely and eliminates a lot of bad shading issues with low poly planes. I also only use shadows on the biggest trees. I found that you don't really notice a difference, and that boost performance significantly. 

    I started from real world heightmap of the sandhills area where I did landnav training, but it is so flat and featureless I am afraid it will be too challenging for noobies. So I amped up the verticality a bit. I also spawned vegetation in a little bit of a gamified manner more than realistic - big clumps of thorns make obstacles you have to go around, this way you'll never be walking in a straight line too long, getting bored. 

  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    Couldn't help myself, worked too late cause I wanted more colors in there. Really happy with how things are looking. Once I get some far distance background meshes I think some players will enjoy the view when they get up on the hills. 

  • Alex_J
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    Alex_J grand marshal polycounter
    Ive done a bit of art stuff in the past week. 

    I tried but couldnt get a good parallax or fisheye technique for looking through the compass sight, so I just added a vignette for now. It's functional, maybe in the future I can get some help to get a really nice effect here.:



    I added in Ultra Dynamic Sky for some time of day and weather effects. 



    I added this HMMWV model. I couldn't find a decent looking game model, so I had to get a cinematic model and spend a day and a half turning it into something suitable for a game. A much better job could be done condensing materials and reducing poly count but I have to get this game finished so I did a quick job. But at least the model fits with the environment, and it's not making a detriment to performance. So far the project is under 3gb so I am not too concerned.


    The HMMWV's purpose is to be a where you start and end exercises from. Later I might put an animated cadre inside who sticks out his arm when you approach to take your notepad for grading.


    I also had to redo the protractor model to get it perfectly accurate down to the millimeter. What a chore that was.


    I cleared the bigger long leaf pine trees from the taller hills. Right now most the map is pretty homogenous - I'll need to create various zones so that people can get to know different places, and also help prevent boredom and satisfy a sense of wonder. I also added in some background meshes. Just from a freebie pack but it gets the job done. I'd like to make some custom stuff but that comes later.

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