UnionVGF Indie Game developers (or thinking about becoming one) corner

Getting a bow (or crossbow) to animate is a lot of work. In my case, I had to also make sure it was in sync with my character's bow shooting animation because he had get the arrow out and load the bow, and all that. Then came the animation triggers to make the arrow shoot when it was supposed to. It took me a few days.
 
Think for crossbow bolt I will use the script I already have made, but I may need to adjust some on it as I use two bolts one that will move forward when pressing mouse key (then it will go into a layer that cannot be seen by the camera, then it will go back into same position and go back to default layer) and one that will be spawned at a spawning point.

I remember when I was little my grandfather made a wooden crossbow for me, looks very much like the one I have made here ( bow part a bit different ) , but release is the same ( will have to do some testing if I can get it to rotate the right way ).
 
I'm getting started on my AI book. I finished the first couple of chapters. I'm trying to do at least one chapter a day.

Once I get this book done, I should have a better idea of how to make interesting (or at least challenging) AI for my game. Also, it will help me make decisions on how I want to proceed on my game. A lot of things are not really set in stone yet, and I won't know what I keep or change until I test.
 
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Found a huge plot hole in the story I have been making, used many years on writing all of the story and now all off sudden I found that I once again have to rewrite some of it.

Also not sure how I will be able to fit in all the lore of the world (maybe going to have to use loading screen with text for the different factions).

Anyway once again I am rebuilding the world, I got some stored like the stronghold that I can re-import.

Did also buy a new asset:

 
It looks like Modo will be on sale next week or whenever it starts. Also, it's a new update with new features. I'm interested in what the automatic retopology is all about. It sounds cool. Maybe I can find a video on it or something. I haven't looked yet.
 
Alright, new video showing off snow, weather, footprints, and some other stuff. I had to record it twice because the first time I did it, I forgot to say a lot of stuff that I wanted to say. From now on, I'm making a list of things in notepad and keeping it on my second monitor.

 
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Its nice seeing your process Godsmack.

Anyway, I have a sad news to announce.

I am taking a break (until my health improved) from development works.

I had a checkup this morning & the nurse dignosed I have High Blood pressure, & I am only in my late30s (not super young but certainly not old), & not fat or anything & made decent sport, but its life. I figure I need to remove things that add stress, until I get better. This I figure is one of them, as work has to be done in mostly evening to late night & there is certain amount of stress invloved .


I probbaly need to take pills & make some lifestyle choices

But I will keep follow the thread.
 
starseeker said:
Its nice seeing your process Godsmack.

Anyway, I have a sad news to announce.

I am taking a break (until my health improved) from development works.

I had a checkup this morning & the nurse dignosed I have High Blood pressure, & I am only in my late30s (not super young but certainly not old), & not fat or anything & made decent sport, but its life. I figure I need to remove things that add stress, until I get better. This I figure is one of them, as work has to be done in mostly evening to late night & there is certain amount of stress invloved .


I probbaly need to take pills & make some lifestyle choices

But I will keep follow the thread.
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I'm sorry to hear that. I am taking care of a father with high blood pressure, so I know it can be stressful. I'm 34 myself. The last time I checked my blood pressure, it was a little low, so I don't think I have to worry about it as much, but I still have a hell of a temper. I guess it runs in the family.

I try to take care of myself. I work out twice a week with weights. I am absolutely terrible at sleeping, though, so I often feel tired. This is why I usually work until late morning (sometimes until 4), and then don't get up until 1 or 2.

The main stress I've found with game development is time. If you try to do things quickly, set deadlines, or too many goals that are based on time, it just makes things stressful. I mean, you can't work on a game forever, so there has to be some limit, but sometimes you just need to slow down and let yourself work when you are motivated. I dislike forcing myself to work when I'm tired unless I really have to.

I think you should take a break, and work on the game when you feel better. Maybe instead watch some videos on game design or do something casual like fun sketches or brainstorming with no particular goal in mind. When the motivation picks back up, you'll be ready to get work done.
 
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Godsmack said:
I'm sorry to hear that. I am taking care of a father with high blood pressure, so I know it can be stressful. I'm 34 myself. The last time I checked my blood pressure, it was a little low, so I don't think I have to worry about it as much, but I still have a hell of a temper. I guess it runs in the family.

I try to take care of myself. I work out twice a week with weights. I am absolutely terrible at sleeping, though, so I often feel tired. This is why I usually work until late morning (sometimes until 4), and then don't get up until 1 or 2.

The main stress I've found with game development is time. If you try to do things quickly, set deadlines, or too many goals that are based on time, it just makes things stressful. I mean, you can't work on a game forever, so there has to be some limit, but sometimes you just need to slow down and let yourself work when you are motivated. I dislike forcing myself to work when I'm tired unless I really have to.

I think you should take a break, and work on the game when you feel better. Maybe instead watch some videos on game design or do something casual like fun sketches or brainstorming with no particular goal in mind. When the motivation picks back up, you'll be ready to get work done.
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I will follow tutorials which I find relaxing, & work & have more generous deadlines until I get better.

I do not have much sign, I am not easy exhausted or have unsual heartbeat or anything. I am doing mainly Karate now. Going for test on sunday, if I pass I upgarde to yellow belt. I have a little tummy but not anywhere to be regarded as fat, but I do anything to help.

Need to cut on burgers & fried chicken & stuff & more veg/fruits also.
 
Take good care starseeker.

Oh yeah making a game can be very stressful sometimes, specially when becomes stuck, trying to figure out what did wrong then test after test.
 
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Man, this has been a f*cked up week. First my second hard drive dies. I didn't lose that much, but still some things.

Then, a bug in Modo 10.2 caused half my animations to not work. I got help and reported it as a bug, but still I have to fix it when I get things back up and running. Just one more minor headache.

Then, a windows update kills my internet. In an attempt to get it back (something wrong with the network adapter or something), it somehow breaks windows completely resulting in me having to resintall windows. But, of course it won't just do an install on my ssd. It only wants to do a full install and delete everything, which I don't want. So, here I am on a win 7 install on an old hard drive that already has 20 gb left even though I have nothing on it.

I'm going to buy another ssd to install windows on soon. Screw windows 10. It's what started all this. I'm going back to 7.

Then, I have to make multiple trips to the dmv to get a registration renewed.

Plus, I haven't really been feeling that great this week anyway. And this weather gave me a splitting headache these last couple days.

During all of this, I also had an eye exam (have one every two years pre-scheduled), and they said my blood pressure was running a bit high. Awesome. One more thing to worry about.
 
Oh that is a lot of bad luck.
 
Bought me a new asset some time ago, since want to make a lot of caves and underground passages:

 
That looks cool. I'm just using Unity's built in terrain at the moment. I hope they make some improvements to it in the future.

Also, I'm still trying to recover my files from my ssd. Windows wants me to reformat it before it can be used, but I don't want to lose all the data on it. So, I found a program to mount the contents to a new drive letter, then used treesize to dig into the files and copy them (slowly...) to another drive. I had to do all of this because windows and its stupid permissions. It denied me from even opening the users folder. Then, I get media is write protected when I do sneak in. So, I finally worked around all of that just so I can recover a few files. Ugh.

From now on, I'm doing things different. I'm going to have an ssd with NOTHING but the OS and some programs. Maybe use it to backup some files too. All my main files will go on another drive that is nice and clean. I will also store my data somewhere other than the documents area, maybe in a folder in the main drive area (like c:/ new folder). This way, I can do a clean OS install without worrying about it too much. It's not going to get me again.
 
DLC said:
Take good care starseeker.

Oh yeah making a game can be very stressful sometimes, specially when becomes stuck, trying to figure out what did wrong then test after test.
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Thanks.

I am taking pills now, & the BP dropped to more reasonable amount. I did also check up on my kidney with ultasound on my kidney (like the ones you see done on pregant women lol) & throat. Kidney is okay, & doctor said my throat overall okay lack a bit of something & can't recall & had me took pills. I am reminder how I hate clinics & hosipital. I was at a huge clinic & alomsot everyone there was at least double my age. It felt bad. The silverlining is this badness will motivated myself to take better care of myself better.

I had also my weight measured & turn out I was not as slim as I thought I am, but this mean I have some room to work with. I changed my diet to have less meat, salt & more vegetables & fruit. I will up intensity of my fitness training but 2 times a week for Karate class which I am having now works well so far. I always prefer team activities.

I will start back to workng on the game, but with tutorial first.
 
Godsmack said:
Man, this has been a f*cked up week. First my second hard drive dies. I didn't lose that much, but still some things.

Then, a bug in Modo 10.2 caused half my animations to not work. I got help and reported it as a bug, but still I have to fix it when I get things back up and running. Just one more minor headache.

Then, a windows update kills my internet. In an attempt to get it back (something wrong with the network adapter or something), it somehow breaks windows completely resulting in me having to resintall windows. But, of course it won't just do an install on my ssd. It only wants to do a full install and delete everything, which I don't want. So, here I am on a win 7 install on an old hard drive that already has 20 gb left even though I have nothing on it.

I'm going to buy another ssd to install windows on soon. Screw windows 10. It's what started all this. I'm going back to 7.

Then, I have to make multiple trips to the dmv to get a registration renewed.

Plus, I haven't really been feeling that great this week anyway. And this weather gave me a splitting headache these last couple days.

During all of this, I also had an eye exam (have one every two years pre-scheduled), and they said my blood pressure was running a bit high. Awesome. One more thing to worry about.
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Sorry to hear that, any recommendation how to reduce the BP? I guess diet/fitness is the 2 natural ways. Thats what I am focusing on.

The funny thing is, I had my blood pressure test with my eye test too. My eye test was near perfect though.
 
starseeker said:
Thanks.

I am taking pills now, & the BP dropped to more reasonable amount. I did also check up on my kidney with ultasound on my kidney (like the ones you see done on pregant women lol) & throat. Kidney is okay, & doctor said my throat overall okay lack a bit of something & can't recall & had me took pills. I am reminder how I hate clinics & hosipital. I was at a huge clinic & alomsot everyone there was at least double my age. It felt bad. The silverlining is this badness will motivated myself to take better care of myself better.

I had also my weight measured & turn out I was not as slim as I thought I am, but this mean I have some room to work with. I changed my diet to have less meat, salt & more vegetables & fruit. I will up intensity of my fitness training but 2 times a week for Karate class which I am having now works well so far. I always prefer team activities.

I will start back to workng on the game, but with tutorial first.
Click to expand...

Not too fond of hospitals me either.
Nice that are doing some training, that do remind me that I should get in some better shape ( have been way too many months since did any sort of training).

Seems we all here are going to use long time on our games.
 
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DLC said:
Not too fond of hospitals me either.
Nice that are doing some training, that do remind me that I should get in some better shape ( have been way too many months since did any sort of training).

Seems we all here are going to use long time on our games.
Click to expand...
There is an ancient chinese saying,

"Resting is preparation for a longer journey."
 
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starseeker said:
Sorry to hear that, any recommendation how to reduce the BP? I guess diet/fitness is the 2 natural ways. Thats what I am focusing on.

The funny thing is, I had my blood pressure test with my eye test too. My eye test was near perfect though.
Click to expand...

Honestly, I'm hoping that the increased bp that day was a result of not feeling well and being stressed. I feel better now, but I haven't checked it yet.

I'm trying to actively relax more. Every now and then, just take a moment to relax my muscles and take a few breaths.

I'm cutting down on some junk food. I might ease back on drinking a bit too.

I ordered some new weight equipment. I ordered a power rack, a full size olympic barbell, and 200 lbs of bumper plates. I was using dumbbells and kettlebells only before. I'd like to get back into doing barbell exercises. They should be in in a few days. I'm also going to increase my workouts to 3 days a week instead of 2. Maybe something like Monday chest, Wednesday legs, Friday back. Something like that. It doesn't have to be exactly those days.

I currently weigh about 205 lbs, but I'm not fat. I have 16" biceps from years of working out. I still have a six pack, though it's nowhere as good as I when I weighed 165 in college, but it's passable.

These last few days I've been taking some time off of work to get my computer back in action and prepare space for the weight equipment. I'm following some tutorials on either exercise (like this) or coding (like this).

I'm also thinking of working on a secondary project just for fun. You know, just something to work on when I'm not working on my main game. Just something that I can goof around with like a skateboard game or something. Who knows, it may even make for a good game someday.
 
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Posted in the Black Friday thread, posting here as well:

E7C03iL.jpg


https://www.allegorithmic.com/
 
I seen the discount on my mail. I will look into it. Hope for some cool stuff in the store.

Anyway, my little medical drama, which has improved, motivated me to look deeper into life. Its almost like a 2nd chance. had I not taken a test, I could be having a sudden stroke or something & I wouldn't even know.

So I decided to reward myself with a new hot hatch a BMW m135i with a little over 300hp. :banana:. I have always been very stingy with my $, but I figure life is a balance. Its reasonable price.

Anyway, Hoepful I making my first update again here soon. took too long a break.
 
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starseeker said:
I seen the discount on my mail. I will look into it. Hope for some cool stuff in the store.

Anyway, my little medical drama, which has improved, motivated me to look deeper into life. Its almost like a 2nd chance. had I not taken a test, I could be having a sudden stroke or something & I wouldn't even know.

So I decided to reward myself with a new hot hatch a BMW m135i with a little over 300hp. :banana:. I have always been very stingy with my $, but I figure life is a balance. Its reasonable price.

Anyway, Hoepful I making my first update again here soon. took too long a break.
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Sometimes you just need to splurge a bit and enjoy yourself.

I look forward to seeing what you are working on. Coming back fresh can make a difference.

I am working on learning a bit more about programming. My next update will probably be something about group formations since I am wanting to test out party-based gampeplay. I thought about maybe having a party of 6. That way it could make gameplay more interesting. It does have a few challenges of its own though, but I am making progress.
 
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I put up a new video. This one is about the party A.I. Now, you can control a group of people and have them do what they are supposed to. Also, the attack system has been tweaked. And some other stuff too.

 
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Testing Megascans, did buy two packages, too expensive to subscribe, could be that will buy some more packages a bit later on as they are still on sale:

Using Quixel Megascans Tessellation Shader, Speedtree and TENKOKU - Dynamic Sky:

mUKwZpk.jpg


And with Scion - Filmic Post Processing:

wNW5dvU.jpg
4FQDP8v.jpg


Also have been trying Voxeland, will see if I can manage to combine this with megascans:

2I1vWRP.jpg
 
And changed render path to deferred and color space to linear:

NzQfDD3.jpg
riz8oUK.jpg


Hdr:

xXNCjhi.jpg


Without Depth of field:

UOZTlSx.jpg
 
And the RPG Barbarian Pack PBR I bought some time ago.
Have adjusted a bit on Depth of field:

vIDkdkF.jpg
3eZHOYb.jpg
 
Made the area larger.
Will later test how it does on terrain, now only using plane (area is made by 64 planes) , if does not work well on terrain I can however use Probuilder.

onsW5jJ.jpg


And adding more characters, I expect there to be some performance drop when I make them attack.

aRHQpno.jpg


Adding in Aquas water, just to test if performance is still good:

225434B.jpg
 
DLC said:
And adding more characters, I expect there to be some performance drop when I make them attack.
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It seems odd that making characters attack would use that much performance. Especially with 3 characters anyway. Maybe if there were 20 on screen at once I could see maybe a performance drop, but there are games with much more than that.

In my game, I barely notice a difference if 4 characters are idle vs attacking or whatever. Maybe there is something odd about your scripts or the way it is set up.

Anyway, it looks good so far, Keep testing. The real test is making everything work together with everything you will have in the final game.
 
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