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.

3D RPG (Third Person/First person, 360 degree looking) Camera

This is probably been causing the most trouble recently.  I've got a Javascript 3d rpg(ish) camera but its only in third person mode.  I'm currently converting it to C# and adding first person camera compatibility to it.  It's difficult due to XNA's camera control style but I think in some time I'll have it the way I want it (I hope).

3D_RPG_Camera

Of course, this means if things don't work out, I'll either be starting the camera scripting from scratch (again) or using a previously scripted camera class to base my camera class from. In the end, it won't really matter because I think it's worth the wait for getting the camera class right since everything else is usually based on the camera class and the angles in which the players view the virtual environment.

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.

First time I've encountered this error for a mesh...

While adding some art assets to my content pipeline, I ran into an error that I haven't seen before.

My guess off the top of my head is that since this mesh was created without skeleton data and has a 'Weights vertex channel' then its causing the error since it doesn't have 'access to the skeleton data'. However, this doesn't explain why the error isn't present on other similar meshes that have been created without a skeleton. I haven't had this issue come up before with any other fbx files in my entire project so I'm curious what is causing this error. I guess I'll learn more after I investigate.

A nice cloth demo and morphing demo (Repost from my wordpress site)

This is the physics output that I think is perfect for most of the clothed garments for my characters.



Here is a pretty awesome morphing demo. If I implement content in my game that will make this concept desirable in game play, I will definitely code it in.



Also, I this animation reel is somewhat inspiring:

Been busy creating and designing art assets! (Repost from my wordpress site)

For the past few weeks now I have been busy creating and designing more 3D art assets for my game! I know I'm not the fastest at this yet (nor do I want to be) but I have molded decent geometry into very well drawn meshes.


   

After I have worked on them a bit more I may or may not post them here for the general public. I don't want to share all the good stuff, obviously! However, I will certainly show some video clips when I have progressed to that point. I have made some pretty nice banners and emblems with sketchbook as well....not exactly sure if I will use all of them. But if I do, I already have plenty to start with.

 

I'm not sure the next time I will post since I am busier at night rather during the day (my day job leaves me with plenty of mental stamina for my 'real' work ^^) so I may or may not post new art assets here depending on the free time I have left for posting on this site.

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.