something big

[bearded]

I got time to play with both demos a bit more this weekend. This definitively has potential, Bearded! I've send some money your way for the licence.

Speaking of which, if you're unsure what to tackle right now, I'd suggest working on your site a bit, to show what you've done and what you intend to do. It'd also help to state how people can contribute, what you intend to do with the money and why it's useful to get Unity Pro. You might also want to clarify your game's intended business model and licence type. For example, if you're looking for contributors, the cvarious open source and copyleft licences might attract more collaborators and donators.

And of course don't forget to recap this in the first post here and to add a link to your site there and in your signature/profile.

the above test does not have the stats i plan on using, i was simply dropping something in for comparison.
and good questions. got me thinking.
do you know of any good site making software?
i had never heard of copyleft, that sounds good. in regards to that, if anyone ever decides to help code, i'd like to imagine somehow keeping a control over what's added, so there will be an official version instead of various tangents. but i dunno, that might work also.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

"copyleft" is simply a term used to indicate the use of copyright laws to protect the rights of people to freely use and distribute a given thing instead of restricting it, which is the normal use.

If you want multiple contributors, then it might be best to dive in the world of SVN, as that's what it's made for.

[lugaru]

I really like Joomla for site design... it spits out a finished site but then it is super versatile as you get deeper into building. The way I like to describe it is "It is as easy as setting up a blog, but a blog is just one of hundreds of plug ins"

And some inspiraton from my favorite "unfinished" to "never will be finished" (like minecraft, constantly tinkered) games and their websites:

http://www.minecraft.net/

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/

http://www.wolfire.com/overgrowth

[bearded]

joomla had 55 page tutorial...
i'm using another unity tutorial, and will most likely have another level to play saturday morning. maybe even a way to let ppl play at the same time.

[bearded]

ok, so i did a tutorial about bullets, and sound fx. and rotation. here's the result:
www.brightideagames.com
click on the liberty_fighter button to test it out!
i want to do everything that epymithee suggested, but i feel like i need to create something more meaty for ppl to sink their teeth into.
meanwhile, if you test it (it's a webplayer), let me know how the controls feel. wasd and the mouse button.
also, trivia question! which mission is the music from?

[lugaru]

Ran around and did some shooting... very cool! It emits light as you would expect and overal looks and sounds great.

I guess this makes Liberty Lad the Bucky, since marvel has retconned Bucky into a totally hardcore soldier. 

[bearded]

yes, that was my bucky tribute. i have a new demo up today. it is simply the same scene with manbot. what i have learned, and you will see if you test it, i am learning to finally merge animations correctly, the way i want. when you fire, he will duck down a bit, repeatedly, even while running. the ducking isn't going to be the end result, as is, but i am imagining the ducking being a button you can use while doing other various things. picking locks low, or crawling, or meleeing short ppl.
after i import a couple more, i am going to work on the character selection, and then either branch out to a multiplayer demo, or using the previous drawing board/phone booth character maker to select your character. eventually both.
meanwhile, i have a complete level, similiar to the minute man level, from using tutorials. help me pick out 4 ff characters to choose from? they should be primarily ranged based. then, after i drop in some voices, i can upload it for you to try. or make it a webplayer, or both.

[Epimethee]

do you know of any good site making software?

I don't know much the free/cheap WYSIWYG options (apart from Dreamweaver – which certainly isn't cheap –, most output terrible HTML), but you'll eventually want a dynamic site, which require a good code view. On the Mac, I'm using Coda, but a couple of other good choices which are also available on Windows are Netbeans and, with the proper plugins, Komodo Edit.

i had never heard of copyleft, that sounds good. in regards to that, if anyone ever decides to help code, i'd like to imagine somehow keeping a control over what's added, so there will be an official version instead of various tangents. but i dunno, that might work also.

Intellectual property (code, story, names and art assets) could be a problem down the road. Before deciding on a licence, I'd suggest you re-read Unity's licence to see what you can and can't do. For example, Unity's closed source might mean that your project might not be compatible with some of the commonest open source licences, such as the GPL 2. Mind you, I'm not an expert on the subject! Anyway, a look on Wikipedia and on http://creativecommons.org can't hurt (well, as much as legal stuff can't hurt).

[bearded]

not looking at the legal documentation, it appears in essence that unity co doesn't want any control or rights over anything created, other than using the 'powered by unity' logo, until you get the pro license, then not even that. i'll look more into it.
meanwhile, i have created a demo learning how to add sounds, and rotation, and a couple of other things. the tutorial i used resulted in another playable level:
brightideagames.com/liberty_fighter.zip

[bearded]

could someone playtest this and give me a bit of feedback?
brightideagames.com/WebPlayer.html

[lugaru]

could someone playtest this and give me a bit of feedback?
brightideagames.com/WebPlayer.html

Works for me, I click a spot and he moves. Looks nice too. Is there anything else in there I should be testing?

[bearded]

that's it for now, just wanted to make sure it works ok. thanks.
i've used some of the donations to get an asset called playmaker. it's going to speed me up a lot. i've got the setup for character creation to morph from male basic to male hulking now, with a slider, in addition to the height and width slider. so, there will be morphing for character creation! basic face, to flat mask, and any variation in between. or morph into various animal heads.
i'm not sure, but i think this will allow morphing as an aspect of a power.

[Randomdays]

Bearded, I just found this and it looks very interesting for your project....you could generate the map, export as .obj, texturing as fits. The one screen shot link still works and looks good.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-872466.html

[GogglesPizanno]

Bearded, I just found this and it looks very interesting for your project....you could generate the map, export as .obj, texturing as fits. The one screen shot link still works and looks good.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-872466.html

This is another one that has been around a while as well, that for whatever reason i tend to like better -- at least for the stuff I ever attempted. Its been a while since I played with either of them though.

http://jerome.le.chat.free.fr/index.php/en/city-engine/news/

[bearded]

thanks, this helped me find a good city generator, for when i'm ready for it. on cat's advice, i'm pushing toward making a complete character tool first. meanwhile here is a screen shot of gren's ogre on an island asset.

[Outcast]

....on cat's advice, i'm pushing toward making a complete character tool first...

How would the character tool look like? Would you be able to make the character move by pressing buttons like WASD too?

[Randomdays]

I was just going to ask about keyboard movement. Also;

Is there a maximum map size and how big would it be?

Can you zoom in to First Person View?

[bearded]

i'm still plugging away at the ctool.
my plan for movement is first, similiar to ff, click or drag to choose and click to direct, and then have a toggle to move into fp with wasd or controller movement.
as i was falling asleep last night, something occurred to me. i have seen a unity example that uses decals for bullets. when you shoot a wall, you get a bullet hole. i think i can actually adapt that to the drawing board/phone booth/ctool. pick a logo or spike or anything, and then click on the character somewhere and it should apply it there. the trick will be to make it save and load the same way.
this is good, but means i need to rewrite a lot of my code.

[lugaru]

That is nuts, but potentially a huge payoff. My impression is that decals have some degree if system requirements though, hence the fact that they often disapear after a couple of seconds. That said if it eventually leads to some freedom to apply logos, scars, tattoos, emblems, splotches of color anyplace you want... well rock and roll!

[bearded]

i think the decal system requirement problem is cause the bullet holes start really adding up, with every shot.
maybe i will be able to merge the decals onto a single tga material, single draw call, i think that is a thing that pro license can do. and i think, i'm not sure, that when character creation is done, the complete final mesh can be exported as a single fbx!

[bearded]

i have a new demo, this time i created my first power, i'll let you see what it is. the buttons are in the middle of the screen for now, you'll see them. eventually there will be a hud with right click pie menu.
the character is a new design, by me. (needs a better skin.) the city is by tommyboy.
brightideagames.com/WebPlayer.html

also, hmar are you getting my replies to your pm's?

[lugaru]

I just spent a while pretending to be a plain clothed Juggernaut running through buildings.

Very cool, and great to see size morphing working... I'm guessing this is 1 model and not 3 given all the cool stuff we have seen so far.

BTW one of my recent favorite games was made with Unity... it is called Rochard... it is a 2d half life ripoff, but it is one of the few games that gives me the joy that playing half life does.

[hmarrs]

i have a new demo, this time i created my first power, i'll let you see what it is. the buttons are in the middle of the screen for now, you'll see them. eventually there will be a hud with right click pie menu.
the character is a new design, by me. (needs a better skin.) the city is by tommyboy.
brightideagames.com/WebPlayer.html

also, hmar are you getting my replies to your pm's?

Yes sir I am just sent you another one.
Played the Demo and I am loving it.
Awesome interaction.
Loving the directional keys for movement.

[bearded]

i need help. i need a director. someone with a good idea of a universe, and what i need to build to make it. i have the skills now, i can make the game that you want.

[lugaru]

Lets exchange emails... Im a big veteran of homebrew rpg design so I can skeleton up a world in no time and the forum is full of legitimately talented writers who can be roped in through other sections of the forum.

[bearded]

i check my pm's here a lot more than my email.
i need more than a writer, you being a veteran of rpg design, you could help me come up with the game engine itself. and you've playtested most or all of my demo's so you know what it's capable of.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

I'd also be willing to help.  As you've seen in some of my posts, I have some very clear and specific ideas and what I'd like to see and some ideas on how the engine itself should work.  Plus, I've done enough coding and tinkering with engine to have some idea of what can be done and how to implement it. 

Perhaps what we should do is get the three (or more) of us on some kind of chat so we can talk things over for a while.

[bearded]

chat sounds good.
what i need to do at this point is focus on some characters and settings, light plot, and universe. doc challenger said he has a universe built around public domain characters, sounds interesting.
i'm trying to create everything all at once. if i can focus on a few, and let the rest evolve from it, i will get more done.

[Randomdays]

If I could, I'd like to suggest a few things.

If possible have "adjustable" stats, IE "The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets" Strength increases each round of continous combat, decreases when not. Both Moonknight and Nighthawk have strength increases during the day and Superman is Solar Powered and might have power decrease at night. Items could change stats as well, like a potion of speed or belt of weakness.

No matter how good a campaign is, most people probably won't go through it multiple times. Instead maybe an open world like the GTA's - trigger events that happen once a day or once a night if a character is in the area - like a bank robbery. Random events happening every now in then. That way when a character is "on patrol" he won't know what might happen and every time he wanders the city, things will be different.

And last, if possible, a good multiplayer mode in co-op or death match, with a way to keep characters close to each other's power level, so you don't get the problem you had in FF multiplayer

[bearded]

i'm afraid i'm going to have to go with some base campaigns, just to get me really started. i've decided to run with doc challengers idea and use public domain golden age characters. i'm going to start with some simple heroes and try to adapt the stories into gameplay. after i get a few of those done, i'll have the start of a game engine and various powers and stats. then i'll try to get back to character creation and sandbox play.
trying to create everything all at once was wiping me out. soon, there will be some levels to play.