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

Dr. Victoria (aka Vicky) Brighton, the older sister of Alice. Historian, Arsenal Fan, & all-around nice person (according to Vicky).

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She single? Asking for a friend.
 
Memory Fragment, the "audio log" equalivance in my game will show up base on context.
These fragments (orb shape) on contract, trigger vague memory events from the past like the example below (see video) of a conversation between 3 people.
Full in-game implementation to be showcase soon.



Video editing (Davinci Resolve) is a pain in S. Very choppy performance. Do simple actions like drag a clip in the timeline, can take 2-10 sec to register.

I also spent 2 hours or so learning node base (Fusion) editing but since I have experience in node-based editor, it wasn't so bad.

There are also minor issues that sounds not working, files cannot be transferred, video creation failures...but they add up. But it's free so I guess I cannot complain much.


Initially, I want the memory fragment people to be displayed in some silhouette like everyone gone to rupture but its too much work for a solo dev & I do not want to end up eating more than I can chew.
 
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Final update for the week showcasing Memory fragment in action. More refinement & programming need to be done still, but I think the video show off what the fragments suppose to do well.



There is a story/plotline that revealed the source of the supernatural of these memory fragments as you play, but I am not spoiling it. :wink:

It will be nice if you guys can sub to my channel. No string attached. The channel will be all my game stuff, no other BS.

A high sub count allows me to open more options.
 
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Final update for the week showcasing Memory fragment in action. More refinement & programming need to be done still, but I think the video show off what the fragments suppose to do well.



There is a story/plotline that revealed the source of the supernatural of these memory fragments as you play, but I am not spoiling it. :wink:

It will be nice if you guys can sub to my channel. No string attached. The channel will be all my game stuff, no other BS.

A high sub count allows me to open more options.

I subbed for you, bro...
 
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Working on cellphone interaction this week. I created also all the icons & art as I do not want to pay what I regard as expensive for things that take a small effort to make like battery & signal icons.
 
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Finished the cellphone interaction.
-created phone assert
-make scrolling works for gamepad
-Finished up all the text sms which will be used to solve a puzzle.

 
Very busy at work, but I manage to squeeze some time to work on PC UI. I did every art & icons. I wanted to use readily available they either have the risk of copyright ot cost money which I still need to edit, so I just create my own. No overly difficult as they are mostly basic shapes but it's time-consuming.

A lot of extra work is to make the UI work seamlessly with the controller, which is far harder than just the mouse/keyboard & extra work.

I still need to add login screen & email UI.

 
Very busy at work, but I manage to squeeze some time to work on PC UI. I did every art & icons. I wanted to use readily available they either have the risk of copyright ot cost money which I still need to edit, so I just create my own. No overly difficult as they are mostly basic shapes but it's time-consuming.

A lot of extra work is to make the UI work seamlessly with the controller, which is far harder than just the mouse/keyboard & extra work.

I still need to add login screen & email UI.


When it comes to art, I always create quick mock-ups until I'm sure I'm actually going to use them. Otherwise, you run the risk of spending a bunch of time on something that won't even make it into the game. I'm very guilty of this. Of course, I think it's unavoidable. I'm not afraid to cut features if it proves to be a problem or just isn't benefiting the game any. In any case, I always go back an refine the art later anyway because after looking at it a while I change my mind or see something I want to improve.
 
When it comes to art, I always create quick mock-ups until I'm sure I'm actually going to use them. Otherwise, you run the risk of spending a bunch of time on something that won't even make it into the game. I'm very guilty of this. Of course, I think it's unavoidable. I'm not afraid to cut features if it proves to be a problem or just isn't benefiting the game any. In any case, I always go back an refine the art later anyway because after looking at it a while I change my mind or see something I want to improve.
I used MS excel & google image to quickly mock up the look & position of things in UI before placing them in-game, as its faster. All photos you see in the game was taken by me iRL to prevent copyright claims. Paintings, I use classic paintings that has been public domain.
 
I used MS excel & google image to quickly mock up the look & position of things in UI before placing them in-game, as its faster. All photos you see in the game was taken by me iRL to prevent copyright claims. Paintings, I use classic paintings that has been public domain.

Cool, I've never used excel for my game. I either use photoshop or just build it in Unity and place things until I am happy. Of course, I usually have some kind of reference. I look at what other games did or whatever reference I can find. I don't copy them so much as just use them for inspiration. However, I do try to stick to what people will be familiar with or at least recognize otherwise I have to do a tutorial or make it clear how something works.
 
Excel & other MS office apps have a lot of basic shapes, & they are vector so they scale without loss of details. You can also change the color, outlines, the gradient of these shapes very fast.

In fact the icons for the folder is entirely created in Excel, & export (copy paste) to photoshop to make PNG. I use MS office intensively at work (I am an senior automotive developer) for reports & presentations & I find it much faster to layout UI using MS office.

I like using Excel, as opposed to say PowerPoint as the excel sheet is like massive pasteboard.
 
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I did not work alot on the game this week as my iRL work was very taxing. It was the final week where I have to finish every design detail , close all topics with my business partner & release for making actual physical parts. It will be the equalvalant of Gaming dev; Going Gold & disc ready to be printed.

Except there is no day on patch, and if something goes wrong, we have to pay $$$ to fix it, & I have to take responsibility since I am the main designer.

But I try my best to get something done nevertheless. I worked on this game for long enough to know consistency is the most important quality.

Back to what I did this week:
I added a Login screen (still a lot of work to do) as well as fix some bugs, & documents can be read by clicking on it now. Email UI will be next.
 
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I am hit by a terrible setback. The UE4 editor crash every time I open certain levels, including the main level (which t load another level). Thats 1/2 decades worth of blood & sweat. I prepare the bug report to epic including the whole project folder. Hopefully, I can get it resolved.

I am devastated, & I have to pray it gets resolved.
 
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I am hit by a terrible setback. The UE4 editor crash every time I open certain levels, including the main level (which t load another level). Thats 1/2 decades worth of blood & sweat. I prepare the bug report to epic including the whole project folder. Hopefully, I can get it resolved.

I am devastated, & I have to pray it gets resolved.

You may be able to recover, but I don't know much about how Unreal works. I mostly use Unity, which has had its share of problems. I had to update to a new version recently because of random lag that could last 5 seconds to a minute when doing any action at all. I also had my computer crash once when saving a level which corrupted the level entirely.

Needless to say, I start keeping a backup of the whole game somewhere outside of the editor so at most I will only get set back one or two days.

In the event of something bad, I can start a new project and import my old one. I don't know if you can do that in Unreal, but it's worth a shot.

Of course, it would help to know what is actually causing the error, and I'm not that familiar with Unreal crashes to help in that regard. Perhaps some googling will reveal how others dealt with a similar crash if you want to investigate possible solutions.
 
I have a backup, but I also override backup, & I didn't know if the backup has the same issues...Since its been a while I work on other levels.
It could be a new version problem which is bad, as it's not a new revision, its an update of a revision that could be the cause.
4.25.3->4.25.4 There is no way to go back to 4.25.3....I can go back to 4.24, but my project is 4.25 & not compatible with 4.24 anymore.

I tested 4.26.1, the latest version, & the crash still happened.

Had a horrible night's sleep, or lack of it, which usually happened when something went bad. I try to look for some solution today, like upload an old version, while waiting hopefully for Epic support to get back to me, if not I have to seek some expert help (expect to pay) to help resolve the issue. The issue is, I will expose my entire project, asserts & code to them so I have to make sure they are not fraud to steal my assets to sell off or something.


It came so sudden, but I will get it resolved. I was getting so competent in the coding part that what I want to do in-game, it more a routine than having to think & brainstorm, make logic flowchart like when I started. I think that came with experience naturally. Same with assert creation & texturing, you get faster as you do more.

Anyway, a tip, do not just back up, back up multiple copies instead of overriding the last one. My suggestion is to keep at least 3 months' worth of updates. You d not have to keep every day, Maybe every day for the past week, but weekly or bi-weekly for the rest of the previous months


Edit: The backup I load in November works, Now I am testing one from last month (the last time I backup). (I do not however have enough backups & tend to override the previous one (bad idea) which is why there is a massive date difference between the backups). Lesson learned
 
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I have a backup, but I also override backup, & I didn't know if the backup has the same issues...Since its been a while I work on other levels.
It could be a new version problem which is bad, as it's not a new revision, its an update of a revision that could be the cause.
4.25.3->4.25.4 There is no way to go back to 4.25.3....I can go back to 4.24, but my project is 4.25 & not compatible with 4.24 anymore.

I tested 4.26.1, the latest version, & the crash still happened.

Had a horrible night's sleep, or lack of it, which usually happened when something went bad. I try to look for some solution today, like upload an old version, while waiting hopefully for Epic support to get back to me, if not I have to seek some expert help (expect to pay) to help resolve the issue. The issue is, I will expose my entire project, asserts & code to them so I have to make sure they are not fraud to steal my assets to sell off or something.


It came so sudden, but I will get it resolved. I was getting so competent in the coding part that what I want to do in-game, it more a routine than having to think & brainstorm, make logic flowchart like when I started. I think that came with experience naturally. Same with assert creation & texturing, you get faster as you do more.

Anyway, a tip, do not just back up, back up multiple copies instead of overriding the last one. My suggestion is to keep at least 3 months' worth of updates. You d not have to keep every day, Maybe every day for the past week, but weekly or bi-weekly for the rest of the previous months


Edit: The backup I load in November works, Now I am testing one from last month (the last time I backup). (I do not however have enough backups & tend to override the previous one (bad idea) which is why there is a massive date difference between the backups). Lesson learned

Yeah, I keep various backups from older versions. I also have a duplicate project set up for additional backup and also for testing of anything that might break the game.

Have you tried building the game and see if the error persists outside of the Unreal Editor?

Are you seeing any specific error messages that could give you a clue? Like maybe a reference is missing that is needed to load the level or something. Or perhaps a specific asset you added recently is causing trouble. I always keep in mind what I've done recently so I know where to start if something goes wrong.

Is anyone else having this issue? If so, what happened and how did they solve it? A bit of googling will be needed for this.

When does the editor crash? Is it right when you load the level, when trying to play the level, or at any other specific time?

If only certain levels are crashing, what is in these levels that's not in the others?
 
Yeah, I keep various backups from older versions. I also have a duplicate project set up for additional backup and also for testing of anything that might break the game.

Have you tried building the game and see if the error persists outside of the Unreal Editor?

Are you seeing any specific error messages that could give you a clue? Like maybe a reference is missing that is needed to load the level or something. Or perhaps a specific asset you added recently is causing trouble. I always keep in mind what I've done recently so I know where to start if something goes wrong.

Is anyone else having this issue? If so, what happened and how did they solve it? A bit of googling will be needed for this.

When does the editor crash? Is it right when you load the level, when trying to play the level, or at any other specific time?

If only certain levels are crashing, what is in these levels that's not in the others?
The last backup on 11 Jan work. So something happened between then & now. I am now pondering which is better. Transfer the working levels from last backup that works( can be open & played) to the latest project, or transfer the class blueprints & asserts I made since to the older (11-1-2021 project).

I have a working backup project that isn't too old (11th Jan) so at least it's not the end of the world.

But I am glad at worse I lose 1-2 weeks of work at best. Not ideal but better than 1/2 decade worth of work.
 
The problem is harder to fix than I expect. If I try to migrate the assets from the bugged version to the stable one, it crashed. Almost like there is some virus.

So I have to one by one move & it takes forever. Still no reply from Epic yet....

I really need an extra SSD. It takes 10mins to backup a projekt & I need to do so constantly now as if one crashes, I have to delete & start again from a stable version.

Eit: I am pondering if I should take a break & focus on other areas, like story, as the time to fix while not know what exactly cause the problem is not efficient. But I am the type of person that wouldn't feel comfy (to extend of nightmares and insominia) until something critical is resolved.

Yesterday night I had the typical pre-exam anxiety dream again. That usually happened when I am face with anxiety or stress.
 
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The problem is harder to fix than I expect. If I try to migrate the assets from the bugged version to the stable one, it crashed. Almost like there is some virus.

So I have to one by one move & it takes forever. Still no reply from Epic yet....

I really need an extra SSD. It takes 10mins to backup a projekt & I need to do so constantly now as if one crashes, I have to delete & start again from a stable version.

Eit: I am pondering if I should take a break & focus on other areas, like story, as the time to fix while not know what exactly cause the problem is not efficient. But I am the type of person that wouldn't feel comfy (to extend of nightmares and insominia) until something critical is resolved.

Yesterday night I had the typical pre-exam anxiety dream again. That usually happened when I am face with anxiety or stress.

Can you migrate the assets by date? The old ones were not causing a problem (unless one of them became corrupted), so maybe if you add in the ones before you had any problems, you can figure out which of the newer assets is causing the problem. Maybe pick a date, and any assets made before then are safe to group together and bring in, then bring in the newest assets one by one. Just trying to come up with ideas.
 
I do not need to migrate old asserts, as the old asserts already exists in the stable version. I just need to migrate the new one.

However. What Unreal 4 do when migrating asserts (from one project to another) is to export also all dependency which include assert that wasn't new but depend.

What I did (with success so far) is to only check the new ones & leave the depend assert which existed in old one alone. I wil sse if I can complete the asset transfer today or tomorrow.
 
I manage to get to game to where it was before the big crash, & also finished the Login-in coding to allow the game to save the status of login (locked, locked but have password, unlocked) to a save file & load.

The E-mail is the 3nd last major UI to make, which I will start later. I already has all the 2D art done. Now whats left is add fuctionality using the UI designer in Unreal.

What left is the keybind Setting Ui, & the Journal:

The journal, will store every story related unlocked video, docs, ready to be view/read/hear in chronigical order of timeline so the story is easlier to track. It is neccesery as the story spin over 500 years, & unveiled to player not in linear fashion. But the journal is only meaningful to work when all the main stuff already in the game.


Also, I bought a new rig which should arrive any days now (AMD Ryzen 5600 & 6800XT) with 2T SSD, so I will be spending some time installing all the programs (Tonnes of them) & Unreal 4 market place asserts (which I have LOT) in the coming days. Hopefully the increase performace means more stability & speed to push the final phases of this labor of love project.
 
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I can't remember if I showed off any of the animals here, but I have added a boar, wolf, and bear. Here is a quick screenshot. They were a bit tricky to make. I did the models, rigs, animations, and textures. These were also my first ever animals I've done.

the last cohort new.jpg
 
I can't remember if I showed off any of the animals here, but I have added a boar, wolf, and bear. Here is a quick screenshot. They were a bit tricky to make. I did the models, rigs, animations, and textures. These were also my first ever animals I've done.

View attachment 5105
I can imagine the among of work you put into this game. Keep it up. The animals look nice.
 
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Anyway, there is a 50% discount for Affinityphoto now. Be sure to check out if you want a cheap non-live service version of Photoshop.
https://affinity.serif.com/de/photo/
I am not paid to promote this. For clarity.

I just upgrade my PC, hopefully, improve productivity, & the process of redownloading & setting up the multiple apps I need to use for development work & saw this offer.
 
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Finally some update. I have been working slow, focus on writing, now returning to some artwork.

Captain David Harris Portrait. First artwork is done on my new PC. I have to change some shortcut settings. Took a while to get up to speed, since I haven't done artwork for a while, but once the engine warmed up, it was smooth. Took me about 2.5 hours on this.

tQ3nsNR.png
 
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