WEEK 9
This week was a little slow due to Memorial Day Weekend. However, we still did manage to get a bit done, from demoing what we had at TGExpo (wasn't able to test gameplay, but art was received well), accomplishing several gameplay tasks, strengthening our networking and audio, further building the levels, and even managing a few graphics features to boot. Morale is good, if a bit pressured with time running short: we’re going to make sure that next week counts!
We’re certainly getting very close to the end of the quarter - and it’s getting a bit stressful with only slightly more than a week to go. In part, this is also likely due to not getting all that much done this week - A lot of my time either went to 141 hw or Triton Gaming Expo this past weekend - both on getting the other game I was presenting there ready - a mobile game that I worked on with my brother who traveled down to present with me (shameless plug: http://app.chickenodyssey.fun [though it is free]), as well as being at the event itself to show both projects.
However, I still did manage to fix animation interacting with collisions (and animation blending), track down some crashing issues, and even finally add SSAO (which, for the record, was indeed ‘not too bad’ :) ). Plan for next week is to make our game ready for demo day! On my side, this will most likely be focusing on the last 2 rendering tasks I want to get done (cloth physics and multiple environment maps) and modeling / art work (character modeling, light placement, decals [runes & decor], and particles [fire & dust]). Morale is a bit worried, but excited.
This weeks goals were to assist with whatever tasks are needed to be done, as well as server integration. Due to work unrelated to cse 125, Justin and I ended up missing our Friday meeting, as well as being limited throughout the weekend, and thus did not work on too much until Wednesday. Our main goals are server integration, fixing raycast, and allowing scene reloading.
With regards to raycasting, the main issue is that we do not control the camera on the server side, and thus any raycasts done by “looking” will have to originate from the player, not the camera. This means that we always raycast from the feet of the player. To combat this, we will send the camera position and forward vector on every frame, and simply use those values for the looking aspect.
Server Integration, we got some new code to debug, and we are still going through it. Calculations on the server side work exactly the same as they do on client side only; transferring information from the server to the client works correctly, but the calculations needed for rendering seem to not be matching. Our assumption is that the client side physics seems to be affecting scene’s root, affecting all of our gameobjects. Updates will hopefully be prepared by the morning!
We have had issues with scene reloading in the past, as doing a full restart leaves some unattended pointers of some point. We did plan on getting some leeway on this, but due to integration issues, we will push this to friday.
Goals for next week are simply to make the game work! Its our last chance to get the full game up and running. Morale is still steady, but definitely feeling the time pressure D:.
What I did:
I fixed up some of the menu UI parts; put in an options menu, made a logo, and title name. Helped Stephen with him completing the full “components-to-unity-to-gamescene” pipeline. Now game play scenes can be pretty quickly built, which he’s been doing (shoutout, congrats, thanks, to all the work Stephen did this weekend).
By the time you read this, I should also have put in the new animations john gave us into our animation graphs.
My unaccomplished goals:
Help Stephen somehow. He’s been doing a lot.
My new hopes and dreams:
Touch up the UI and menus some more. Stephen expressed some interest in being able to support multiple games (and add a lobby system) so the game can be showcased more easily. This might take a while.
If Alex doesnt get to it, I want to put in turn rate.
Morale:
Better. Roughish personal issues, happens.
My goals for this week were to implement the view frustum culling as well as debug the new sound engine rewrite for Ara and Justin
I'm almost done with the creation of the view frustum culling as well as some bug fixes here and there for the sound. The HTML5 Audio API has proven to be incredibly frustrating but I think I can get things done.
This week my goals are to get culling finished and work out a few kinks in the Audio. As well as helping out with the last of the game play code needed to run the game. I starting to feel the stress with coming finals but still feeling good overall.
Like last week, my goals for this week were scene building and modeling. I got the characters more animated and worked with Alex to make sure we got the animations we need for the game. In so doing, I was able to fix a few rigging bugs in some of the characters. I built another one of the major “set pieces” for the game and continued helping build the level.
As I said last week, as we are approaching the the end of the quarter, there will be more pressure to build out the level and create these set pieces. I’ve now created two set pieces and will need to make one to three others (I’m fairly certain). The animation graphs should make the animations look really smooth (since the animations themselves look pretty nice).
This week, my goals are the same (like the last two weeks). I’d like to see a more set pieces in the game by next week as well as all of the characters instead of all the same. I’d also like to see more multiplayer in the level as we push to the final demo. My morale is high and I’m getting excited to see where the final game is going.
For this week the goals were to work on server integration, fixing issues with the raycast, and look into a way to create lobbies/reload the game. Not much was accomplished this week as Ara and I had a work related meeting resulting in our missing of Friday’s meeting. The Memorial day holiday also created a desire to relax so we did not have our usual Monday meeting either. The code from the various WIP branches have been merged into development so we will work hard tonight to get as much of it working with server as possible.
We have started to debug the issues with the camera with networking and it seems that there is some sort of problem with the world positions not being added correctly. We have a feeling that some changes with the collider resulted in a slight restructure that we are not taking into account. Raycasting is a simple fix from what is occurring currently (raycasting from the feet of the player) to raycasting from the camera. We just need to serialize camera object positions solely for the purpose of client side raycast calculations.
For this final stretch we will work to get the game as close to done as possible, ironing out issues with networking, and hopefully get lobbies/multiple games working. We will continue to integrate with the server for our final push.
My moral is good, ready to bring it home. Bring home the bacon.
This week I wanted to get working on the next set piece and get the coinciding AI for the first set piece and maybe the second.
I got another set piece in this week with most of the gameplay figured out as well. The main idea behind it is to introduce the idea of set pieces. So the puzzles are relatively straightforward and don’t require a large amount of cooperation between the players (in fact, it should be completable with only two people!). I still want to add in all the detail so the space is less barren, but I like how it’s coming along.
The AI is doing alright. I’ve added in some more behavior, like the abilities to damage players and to chase after a player when they’re within a certain radius. I’ve put off some of the details as I think that the animation will be very important going forward to figure out and integrate with the behavior trees.
The biggest feature I accomplished this week is the semi-completion of the gameplay pipeline. We’re finally able to create the levels in Unity, attached with our components, and get it imported into our engine. Singing now interacts with switches to open doors! However, the reason why I said semi-completion is that not all the gameplay code has been flushed out, most specifically raycasting (which Ara and Justin are currently getting to work better).
I don’t really know what to write about after I finished reading The Eye of the World. So I guess I’ll write about one of H.P. Lovecraft’s short stories I vaguely remember, The Rats in the Walls. Out of all of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories I read, this one I remember best, so that counts for something. Also, I’m really tired right now so I might not be very coherent this week, and I’m certainly not proof-reading.
The Rats in the Walls is really short, but if you are too lazy to read it, here is a less enjoyable summary.
Quick Synopsis: The main character returns to his ancestor’s estate in England to restore it, much to the chagrin of the neighbors, because that place is creepy and nobody likes it. And for some reason, a lot of evil cults are headquartered there over the ages. He also learns that his ancestor killed the rest of his family before fleeing to the States after discovering some deep dark secret. After he starts living there, he (and his cats, one of which has a name with a racial slur) start hearing rats scurrying around in the walls that no one else can hear. He also starts having these weird dreams of vaguely humanlike creatures being herded like cattle. One day he discovers a secret passage in his basement, and he goes on an expedition with several others. Short story even shorter, his ancestors are cannibals, and after blacking out while exploring, he finds out he ate his friend during his bout of insanity.
Review: I have read most of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories, everything except Call of Cthulhu I believe, and this is one of my favorites. But that could just be because I like stories that talk about the taboo of cannibalism. Either way, the story is extremely well written, all the detail, the insanity of the narrator, all good stuff. Even the writing for the backstory of the narrator was interesting. It was very detailed, and arguably some parts were not necessary for the story, but it left the reader hungry to learn more. On another note, one thing I found interesting in this compared to The Eye of the World, is that there is a lot of background lore, except in this case, it is never explained. The author just brings up certain terms, and never explains them. But for the most part, it doesn’t really take away from the story. Well, you could also read all his other stories, but who has time for that, and even then, it is hard to get a full understanding of the mythos. I certainly don’t understand it, but that doesn’t impede my enjoyment of his stories. Anyway, it is a really quick read, so just find a copy of it somewhere. It’s really good.