One Week of "Mind-Blowing" Video Game Development
Hello World!
Warning!: If you don't want to see cartoony-ish heads exploding you probably shouldn't read this. You have been warned!
I'm starting a new blog to document my journey as a game developer. I'm still learning and hoping this will be a source of motivation as well as a way to pay back the communities of developers out there that share tutorials, free assets, and cool techniques.
For at least a year I have been learning to develop games and VR experiences using Unity. I recently decided to kick up my education by basically developing some of my crazy ideas. Originally my plan was to enforce a weekly game-jam format but after the first week and half I think I've already given up on that idea. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. I think my first "game jam" was a little too successful and instead of putting it down to work on the next project, I think I'll push it a little further.
A little background... I have been programming since the Apple II on and off for years. My interests range from music, to film making, to sound design, photography, animation, and game dev. I have worked professionally for 15 years in feature animation as a modeler, texture artist, and fur grooming artist. But now I'm trying to combine my skills into game development. I use Unity3d because it seems the most intuitive to me as a programmer.
Here is a daily account of my progress for your amusement, horror, or inspiration...
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest
The idea: The idea was to have a vr game where you use your psychic ability to explode someone's head. This was inspired by the classic horror movie, "Scanners".
Base scene: started with a terrain with free mummy assets in the scene from an old test I never finished.
Character: downloaded the malcolm character with idle animation from mixamo
Mechanic: using raycast I detected a collider that I added to the head joint then scaled it up to indicate that it was being "scanned" and then scaled down to 0 to make it appear to "explode". Finally I added a red particle system to make it look like blood spray. Immature, I know, but it was effective.
Crosshairs: I used the 3d text tool with a "+" in the text field and modified the color to indicate that it found its target and that it was in "scanning" mode.
To test it, I manually changed the camera position and used the mouse button to activate the scan.
This was a good start.
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest1
created a prefab and duplicated it
Added forward death animation
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest2
added worldspace collision to the particle system
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest3
added a mouse camera controller for easier testing
agony animation
2 death animations (forward and backwards) with a randomly assigned blend value so they don't all look the same.
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest4
new prefab (green shirts) to indicate a major update
major update being the death animation switches to ragdoll
after death the scanning ability is supposed to grab the body but instead it kind of makes it wiggle and jump around
-- scannersGameThruGearVR
same as previous test but shot thru a gearVR headset
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest6
better telekinetic "grabbing" mechanic with throwing after releasing the button
added sounds: scanning sound with pitch modulation, exploding sound,
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest7
added screaming sounds
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest8
sounds balanced
you can knock down people and they get back up
glitch: if you "graze" their head while in ragdoll state they start screaming without the appropriate animation after getting up (needs "get up" animation)
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest9
knocked-down enemies stand back up.
things are getting complex and glitchy where a dead guy remains standing without a head
the enemies still scream without agony animation if you graze their head
frame rate is low
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest10
A little less glitchy, at least the dead stay dead for the most part
dead enemies sometimes stand up and fall back down a second time after dying (bug)
-- psychicExplodingHeads GearVR Oct 7, 2017
Another shot-thru-headset video
Stand-up animation sometimes looks wrong when switching from ragdoll to animation.
Sometimes a knocked-down enemy blocks the raycast of a nearby enemy. Probably due to the new capsule collider I added.
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest11
looks like I tweaked the lighting so it looks more shitty now
knock-downs feel more satisfying now
restart button
stand-up animation matches up a little closer now from face-down and face-up positions.
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest12
ragdoll shaking sound
blood squirting sound
wind sound
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest13
added walking enemies. they don't look so great yet...
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest14
Optimizations and fine tweaks. Starting to feel like a decent little target practice game with a pretty solid mechanic. Getting higher frame rates and runs on gearvr pretty smoothly.
Audio tweaks
enemies heal if not killed
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest15
More optimized, better walking animation using root motion for better foot grounding, spawning behavior, endless target practice. chugs a little on the gearVR with 20 enemies on the screen at once.
Warning!: If you don't want to see cartoony-ish heads exploding you probably shouldn't read this. You have been warned!
I'm starting a new blog to document my journey as a game developer. I'm still learning and hoping this will be a source of motivation as well as a way to pay back the communities of developers out there that share tutorials, free assets, and cool techniques.
For at least a year I have been learning to develop games and VR experiences using Unity. I recently decided to kick up my education by basically developing some of my crazy ideas. Originally my plan was to enforce a weekly game-jam format but after the first week and half I think I've already given up on that idea. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. I think my first "game jam" was a little too successful and instead of putting it down to work on the next project, I think I'll push it a little further.
A little background... I have been programming since the Apple II on and off for years. My interests range from music, to film making, to sound design, photography, animation, and game dev. I have worked professionally for 15 years in feature animation as a modeler, texture artist, and fur grooming artist. But now I'm trying to combine my skills into game development. I use Unity3d because it seems the most intuitive to me as a programmer.
Here is a daily account of my progress for your amusement, horror, or inspiration...
Oct 4:
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest
The idea: The idea was to have a vr game where you use your psychic ability to explode someone's head. This was inspired by the classic horror movie, "Scanners".
Base scene: started with a terrain with free mummy assets in the scene from an old test I never finished.
Character: downloaded the malcolm character with idle animation from mixamo
Mechanic: using raycast I detected a collider that I added to the head joint then scaled it up to indicate that it was being "scanned" and then scaled down to 0 to make it appear to "explode". Finally I added a red particle system to make it look like blood spray. Immature, I know, but it was effective.
Crosshairs: I used the 3d text tool with a "+" in the text field and modified the color to indicate that it found its target and that it was in "scanning" mode.
To test it, I manually changed the camera position and used the mouse button to activate the scan.
This was a good start.
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest1
created a prefab and duplicated it
Added forward death animation
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest2
added worldspace collision to the particle system
Oct 5:
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest3
added a mouse camera controller for easier testing
agony animation
2 death animations (forward and backwards) with a randomly assigned blend value so they don't all look the same.
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest4
new prefab (green shirts) to indicate a major update
major update being the death animation switches to ragdoll
after death the scanning ability is supposed to grab the body but instead it kind of makes it wiggle and jump around
-- scannersGameThruGearVR
same as previous test but shot thru a gearVR headset
Oct 6:
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest6
better telekinetic "grabbing" mechanic with throwing after releasing the button
added sounds: scanning sound with pitch modulation, exploding sound,
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest7
added screaming sounds
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest8
sounds balanced
you can knock down people and they get back up
glitch: if you "graze" their head while in ragdoll state they start screaming without the appropriate animation after getting up (needs "get up" animation)
Oct 7:
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest9
knocked-down enemies stand back up.
things are getting complex and glitchy where a dead guy remains standing without a head
the enemies still scream without agony animation if you graze their head
frame rate is low
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest10
A little less glitchy, at least the dead stay dead for the most part
dead enemies sometimes stand up and fall back down a second time after dying (bug)
-- psychicExplodingHeads GearVR Oct 7, 2017
Another shot-thru-headset video
Stand-up animation sometimes looks wrong when switching from ragdoll to animation.
Sometimes a knocked-down enemy blocks the raycast of a nearby enemy. Probably due to the new capsule collider I added.
Oct 8:
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest11
looks like I tweaked the lighting so it looks more shitty now
knock-downs feel more satisfying now
restart button
stand-up animation matches up a little closer now from face-down and face-up positions.
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest12
ragdoll shaking sound
blood squirting sound
wind sound
Oct 9:
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest13
added walking enemies. they don't look so great yet...
Oct 10:
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest14
Optimizations and fine tweaks. Starting to feel like a decent little target practice game with a pretty solid mechanic. Getting higher frame rates and runs on gearvr pretty smoothly.
Audio tweaks
enemies heal if not killed
-- scannersHeadExplosionTest15
More optimized, better walking animation using root motion for better foot grounding, spawning behavior, endless target practice. chugs a little on the gearVR with 20 enemies on the screen at once.
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