Some more terrain from custom heightmap

I might update this post with more terrain pics as I build the terrain.

I already have a few levels created but not fully filled out with props and other game elements. I'm taking my time and getting things done as I get to them.

Been busy learning how to use Unity! Have a scene to use as a base!

It's been a while since my last post! I've been busy doing other 'real life' things but most importantly I've been busy learning the ins and outs of Unity.

I've decided to use the below scene as a test scene to base everything off from until I get more familiar with Unity and the new Mecanim animation tool they recently included.

I have alot of the menus done that I'm most likely going to use but I now have to understand how to get 3D and 2D to play nicely together in Unity since this will be a first for me with Unity's game dev kit. I hope that it will be as fast and easy to get a basic scene going as quick as it was to get my menus done! If so, I'm sold on Unity and will probably use XNA only when I have to.

A song I made for one of my game scenes

Soothing Destruction

There should be more to come and I hope it's game worthy!

Switched over from XNA to Unity3d

After playing around with Unity3d for about 20 minutes, I made a quick prototype Main Menu and was amazed how easy it was to code in C#.  I played around with Unity several years ago and I didn't care for it very much.  Now I'm convinced that I need to switch back as soon as possible and start developing with it again!

Unity3d seems to have a very active and very helpful community of developers that seem very open.  The developer community also has models and scripts you can use to help get you going.  Goodbye XNA community.

Merged two projects and couldn't get 3D models to show

After getting through the menu screen coding and merging it with another project, I was unable to get the 3D model to show and the camera view was to high from the 'ground' (heightmap).

The heightmap was fine so I couldn't understand why the 3d model wouldn't show.

So I went and decided to ask over at the XNA forums.  I hope they get back to me soon.

In making a test demo... (Repost from my wordpress site)

During the weekend I began coding additional components for my test demo that I will use for internal testing. It is pretty fun learning the XNA 4.0 framework and integrating fbx data structure, bmp, png and visual studio's capabilities together. I have a few rigged characters ready to be added to the test demo as well as a few structures, houses, mobs and npcs. I haven't coded the Artificial Intelligence (AI) yet for the mobs or npcs but I'll get around to it next weekend if I have time.





Right now I've decided to stop for the time being on coding the keyframes for the animations for certain movements of the characters but I plan to get back to it this weekend. Hopefully I'll have the opportunity to learn about attaching different armor pieces to fbx connection points and implementing in game icons & various player, configuration, combat menus. I'm still new to 3D game development so I'm just learning as I'm going along.


In any case, I'm really enjoying the learning curve and I plan to take as much time as I need to get the right 'feel' and desirable experience for the game, even at the expense of time. I feel that the overall game experience is what counts most in any quality produced game and all aspects of the game should be evenly weighed for quality. In short, I don't think that the storyline of the game should come at the expense of having good art assets. There are far too many games in recent years that suffer do to this and this should not be. Even more curious is the recent loss of gameplay quantity due to increased 3d game art assets. It wasn't very long ago that a $30-$40 game would allow you untold hours/days of gameplay. Alot of complaining from gamers in recent times are that the games are beatable in a day or so. Not to mention that there aren't many medieval fantasy game makers as there used to be.


I have also looked around for some wav files to add to my sound collection for additional sound effects. What most likely will happen is that I will make some of my own sound files for specific content but I'll leave most of it up to people that make a living doing that sort of thing.

Possible Visual game assets to be used (Repost from my wordpress site)

After creating, modifying visual assets and modding already previously created assets I have a somewhat small list of visual assets I may be adding to my content pipeline.


 


 


 


 


 

I have much more to add but I've limited space on this webpage so I'll add more interesting visual game art later.