modeled the outside of the fancy place and tried to do the environment around it but without a solid plan all i did was move thigs around and hope for the best… something i haven’t been doing since the start of the year, dunno why i fell into that time-wasting hole now that i know what it takes to make a visually interesting map. So tomorrow i’ll keep doing research and map it out. I think I already have a good plan, namely make properly textured terrain modules for elevation, it’s gonna look great. Gotta do some trees too.
Author: kiririn51
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february 9
i’ll admit i didn’t do much today aside from tweaking some ui elements and gather references for the next scene on the list, which is rather complex for being a pretty fancy mansion and that’s something i’ve never done before. Made the layout, gathered a bunch of pictures, next is drawing a rough concept of how the interior looks like and then block it out in unity. I also playtested project X a bit and there’s some stuff to fix, mostly on the design side where the first rooms have to teach players how to play, and telegraph a bit more the tasks. Newprogrammer fixed an issue with transitions and scene loading for the objects holding main functions. Save system is done, what i saw of the skill tree an augment menus are done, so once he’s done with scene management we can start timeline managers, then new enemy integrations.
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february 5 & 8
i did work last friday, i just couldn’t be assed to log my progress, too tired.
friday progress was all about wrapping up the entrance to a club, which proved to be a waste of time to do it all in blender since much of my tweaking is inside the engine when it comes to environments. Still looks good but past this entrance it’s already looking better and it doesn’t even have textures yet.
I shared it on twitter if you wanna see, though chances are you already follow me there.
today’s progress was quite thick, for i finished the sketch of a new poster, two new environments (the stuff past the aforementioned entrance), and finally figuring out a solid-ass workflow for project x’s backgrounds (different beast from what i’ve done before). Newprogrammer is now working on the asynchronic scene streaming for large levels but that shouldn’t take long. I need to playtest his progress tomorrow since i’ve been churning out environments without checking on his work which might be incredibly dangerous.
see you all tomorrow.
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february 4
welp, i’ve caved in and worked until late to make up for a lost day (woke up late with my bad sleep, had to assemble a new chair while being a complete dummy at that kinda thing). Began work at 5pm and ended at 1 30 am, not proud of that and shoulda just taken then day.
as for work, newprogrammer is almost done with the save system, i need to go back to the save and load interface to make sure it meets his cool demands (he wants a screenshot of the game, playtime, chapter name, etc.) but that’s gonna be tomorrow. As for me, i’m continuing my blender experiments with project X to middling success. The program crashed on me several times making me lose some work, and the road to make them as stylish as the original prototype is gonna be painful but hopefully rewarding.
it’s gonna be a long road before i manage to capture the SOUL of the old one at higher fidelity. Finished a new scene in project D, not too happy with it! and might go back to the drawing board (mostly that i can’t find good camera angles, a sign of bad visual layout), but for now i’ll spear ahead with the next scene: a club.
Something’s off, and i did this way too tired to notice, so this is likely getting reworked later. Boy, I really really need my healthy sleep back, i’m feeling the consequences super hard. And sign up to that gym!!!
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february 3
whoops, forgot to log my progress today.
not a lot to say for i basically tested battles, doors and the last bit of the blocking out phase of the scene i was working on and all that’s left there is iterate as we play around with it. after that i did some drawings to plan out the next environment and i think i’m halfway through the whole ordeal since only 4 environments are left to be made for file 03, so i’m pretty excited with the speed i’m going. newprogrammer had some big headaches so he wasn’t able to properly work today, and honestly, same, my sleep has been atrocious since friday, i go to bed and i really don’t wanna go to sleep, i get all anxious and all i wanna do is watch a good movie, play a game or work on a hobby project. Speaking of which, i tried to play around after work with some middleware implementation on a project i use to test stuff and my brain simply shuts down, i might be getting old or my body really doesn’t wanna do anything resembling work on my main computer. maybe if i start using my laptop for side projects i’ll be able to trick my brain but i’m getting sidetracked. Tomorrow the grind must continue.
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february 2
blocked out roughly three sections now from the scene i’m working on, following some useful tips i saw in some gdc talk about game cinematography. Since this map is focused on battles i’m mostly just doing arena-style layouts and corridors so the player can just fight and proceed, fight and proceed. I need to practice more complex layouts since i still don’t have a proper feel for level design outside my new understanding of the aesthetics…
I really wanna wrap this up tomorrow so i can jump to another scene that has a pretty interesting outdoor set up that i want to experiment with.
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February 1
Woke up super late so i worked past my usual cut off. Still worked the same amount of hours though.
So i partially finished the scene i was working on, and tomorrow onto the next. I seriously need to stop getting hung up on minute details and get used to block things out…
Newprogrammer is doing some research on how to make proper unity extensions in order to better build stuff like skills, dunno how long he’s gonna take but I’m looking forward to the results.
Self reminder to answer pending emails.
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january 29
took it a tad easy today for i’m a bit blocked on how to proceed with one of the playable environments, needs lots of careful planning before i waste my time like in the previous map, so it’s been mostly brainstorming and drawing. Been also working new skills and logistics for the skill tree with newprogrammer so we can complete that in a timely manner before i can start working on file03’s content. For now i’ll try to relax over the weekend while i come up with ideas and then go all monday morning.
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january 28
project X: finished room permutations and tweaked the main interface, now i gotta do generic rooms. Need to be careful with my render workflow since i already had some mysterious color inconsistency, but since the floor is already made i can just take that into account for the next batch.
project D: did a bunch of new parts for a rather large scene that’s gonna be half playable, half cutscene so it needs props that actually work as a level. Pretty fun, I already had a solid idea of what i wanted and tomorrow i’ll sit down and properly sketch the level, need to find references for large basements. Newprogrammer has been knee deep all week integrating a bunch of new code to the UI I made weeks ago, some bugs arised but we’ll properly address them later. Gotta come up with fun skills and augments.
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january 27
Was able to start early, that means time to jump between projects. For Project X i finally came up with a rather funny way to churn backgrounds, but it took a bit of tweaking and i need to figure out the right workflow to keep consistency.
first i do a render in blender
then I draw on top and apply a dithering using a palette lookup.
It’s pretty fun, saves a lot of time, just gotta nail the right steps to produce many of them in a short time.
For project D i continued with the list of environments, this time a morgue scene that’s halfway done now, just need to do one more room with its props and textures. Had to put in some extra work with the waiting room for i wanted to visualize a particular style of “cinematography” before polishing further, pretty happy with the results.
That’s it for today.