Sophie’s Screenshot Saturday #4
Posted: August 20, 2021 Filed under: Patreon Leave a comment »OK so I admit “screenshot” is probably the wrong word for this week’s update, I’ve not been working on visual stuff so much until I have a better idea of the game systems and story they will fit into, unfortunately there will probably be a few weeks where I don’t have much to “show”, especially when I start writing, but hopefully the things I do have to share will make up for it!
For example, this week I made enough progress on thinking about how I want the game systems to come together that I have been able to write the first version of the game’s GDD (Game Design Document). This is a thing that will be updated throughout the whole development and unlike the more hectic notes I’ve been sharing with you, this document describes what I am aiming for the game to be, and not just random ideas of what it could be.
It’s only a few pages right now, but you can check it out and see what I am aiming for with the project right now. (Although story/character/world sections are all TBD, if you want to see what I’m thinking there you’ll need to dig through the updated notes I’ve been taking > here < (reminder: some of the notes may become spoilers!)).
The GDD is attached below:
Sophie’s Screenshot Saturday #3
Posted: August 20, 2021 Filed under: Patreon Leave a comment »So this week I have mostly been figuring out pre-rendered panoramic environments (which exist in a few games, but I don’t know of any that combine realtime 3D in them with occlusion).
Also I spent a few days improving/simplifying my camera system (it had some annoying issues before but they are gone!), and also also I’ve continued to jot down LOTS of notes.
You can check my full notes >>>here<<< (I don’t think I’m gonna dump them in these posts anymore. it’s getting out of hand :P) Heads-up though, starting this week the notes contain stuff that could be spoilers!
For the next week, I’m planning to familiarise myself with some blender rigging/animation tools, as well as unity’s mecanim system (I’ve only used the legacy animation system until now). A game like this will likely need a bunch of preperation/understanding for character models so that’s something I need to do.
Monthly Video – February 2020
Posted: August 20, 2021 Filed under: Patreon Leave a comment »As I mentioned when I announced this project, monthly builds will be monthly videos for a while. This is the first one!
As a rough guide to what is in the video:
- first 14 minutes are about my systems for pre-rendered environments in unity
- 8 minutes in, I show a panoramic pre-rendered environment
- 14-24 minutes I talk about rendering in blender with some substance material stuff too
- 24 minutes+ I basically waffle about wanting to figure out more of the game before I make much more stuff
If you have any questions or things you want me to cover next month, just let me know!
Also I say it in the video but I want to say it again here; thanks so much for your support! Without the pledges from all my patrons there’s no way I’d be able to work on a project like this! <3
Curse of Greed Ultimate!
Posted: August 20, 2021 Filed under: Patreon Leave a comment »♥ Hey, I made a new game for you! ♥
I originally made this for Ludum Dare, and then I spent the week adding to it and fixing it up (like, a LOT of adding and fixing up!)
If you want to play, > here’s a secret web link for patrons <
Or you can download the files attached below 🙂
I’ll probably talk more about my process with this game and what I’ve done for this Ultimate version another time, rn I’m hecka tired.
Off-topic but I’ll say it since I’m here; I am aware of the changes patreon is making to fees and how they are gonna impact patrons with smaller pledges the most. I just want you to know that if you need to delete your pledge for this reason (or any other) I totally understand, I’m grateful for all the support you’ve shown already and I hope getting this game early goes a little way as thanks <3
update: they aren’t making those fee changes! also the game is now free for everyone <3
Sophie’s Screenshot Saturday #2
Posted: August 20, 2021 Filed under: Patreon Leave a comment »Hey so it’s been another week of work on my RPG project! The first big news is I grabbed a subscription for the Substance Suite, thanks to a few new patrons I was able to justify this pretty easily, and so making detailed and interesting materials is SO much easier now! I think even in this week’s screenshots you can already see how much of a quality bump things like this can give!
Being able to make quality stuff like this *quickly* is going to make a HUGE difference especially with a project that could become so big and require a lot of assets! I think this is a perfect example of how much your support helps me so THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH! <3
There are a few other tools/systems/packs etc that I have my eye on and may grab in the coming weeks/months but we’ll see! I’m not going to go on a spending spree getting cool stuff I only *think* I might need and then find out I can’t get the stuff I *do* need.
~
Anyway, this week has mostly been about working on my blender-to-unity pipeline and all the key stuff there is DONE! I can render a scene in blender, import it to unity, I have a script to set up the cameras to match, shaders to draw everything, I know the settings for rendering reflection probes in blender and having them match in unity… it’s all there!
Well, I say *all* there, I still have to work out some tech (eg; reflections) but that is the kind of thing I can work on once things are actually underway.
~
As part of making 3D renders with fancy materials this week, I did a good amount of FREAKING THE HELL OUT.
Seeing high quality details and such was really intimidating – can I make good-enough realtime models that don’t look out of place? Can I make HUNDREDS of them for all the NPCs and monsters???? It’s terrifying to think about!
But as the week went on I started to chill a bit, if things become a problem, I can solve them. Otherwise I’m just gonna have confidence in myself because I am awesome 💪 (I hope)
~
Anyway here is the note-dump from the week, (as an FYI I’ve started moving my notes to a workflowy list here. This way they are more organised, and collected in one place rather than a series of posts);
 – – – –
A legendary fisher character!
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Learn new input system!
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Learn new animation system!
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Start thinking about what challenge/conflict can bring a party together, develop relationships, and be cool as fuck to fight
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What if reincarnation is real in some form,  it it’s understanding is suppressed, and exploited by the powerful for their own benefit?
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What if there are lots of hidden underground caves/temples that are like other worlds?
What if these are gateways to other worlds? What if a character was taken from one and is looking for the right gateway to get back home?
I like the idea that each world has some great power that can be bestowed upon a character, party members can each claim one of these powers?
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Tools/tech to look into:
- substance suite
- Uv pack master
- TexTools blender
- Decal machine
- Extreme PBR for blender
- Retopoflow? (2.8 remedying good enough maybe?)
- Speed sculpt?
- Edge flow
- Box cutter
- Mesh machine
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A cat person with a catapult!
Wait, isn’t that a dark cloud character?
Yup 100% it is. Tbh tho that’s just proof it’s a good idea.
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Figure out a way to refract through a pre-rendered foreground element like a magnifying glass?
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For battle scenes, maybe just… bake all the channels? I dunno maybe full PBR stuff is easier and better looking but single unlit texture materials will load WAY faster and be kinder on mobile? But maybe it will be negligible compared to pre-rendered textures anyway…
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Experiment with blender compositor! It could be cool to get an NPR effect but even if sticking with realistic BGs, colour adjustments and such are important! (If making look-up tables, those should be able to be used in unity, right?)
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Keep this link handy! https://rsci.app.link/IntBAke0L3?_p=c71d29c59b1c66f2eb038cf4
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“Bellows” could be a cool name for someone?
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If I did paintovers of renders, it could really fix the “rigid” realistic look and make something more stylistic characters could exist in, but it more than doubles the environment work for each shot…
Perhaps with the right shaders and compositing I can achieve the same goal?
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Think about using detail contrast in shots – limiting areas with lots of texture detail to make them stand out in a composition rather than having high detail textures everywhere making for busy images
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Maybe just ditch the principled shader and try others for more stylistic effects?
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Accessibility:
- make sure all dialogue and menu selections are output to text files that can be read
- Full UI scaling
- Be able to skip/auto-win battles
- Mode where all interactive things & entrances/exits at a location are listed, described, and selectable through a menu – the character can then run to each and interact as needed
- Don’t forget descriptions of scenes and key events!
- These can appear in the stage manager system but are passed over when the mode is disabled
- Make a Sinput-style wrapper for the new input system if necessary. Rebinding is a MUST.
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Making monsters, things to incorporate/experiment with:
- insects!
- Mix animals
- Classic cryptic but DON’T USE THEM IN CLASSIC WAYS/APPEARANCES
- Eachies!
- Tizzy-whizzies!
- Think about locations
- Evolution
- What kind of fear/dread or other feelings it should evoke
Locations:
- think about what locations inspired by forms of random things might look like? A city with architecture like a keyboard? Like a hairbrush? Like a ladder?
- Think about all the places there could be
- Underwater
- Seaside
- Built into a cliff
- In mountains
- Underground
- In the sky
- On a bridge
- In space
- In unreal places like dreams, memories, ideas
- Think about age
- Ancient (ruined? Preserved? Updated constantly over the ages?)
- Decrepid
- New
- Under construction
- Abandoned
- Think about how a place gets used, what for, by who, why, where is it relative to other places? Does it hold a value in culture.
- Time of day
- Weather
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New input system is gonna need some WORK, I might have to make Sinput2 whilst putting this game together?
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Reflection probe setup:
- camera, facing -y in blender
- Panoramic, equirectangular
- Cube texture shape, lat-long (cylinder) mapping in unity
Transparent occluded setup:
- project UVs from camera
- PrerenderedBGtransparent shader, transparent queue
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RESIDENT EVIL HD USED PRE-RENDERED DEPTH MASKS!!?!!
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Could divide screen into tiles, each one being a depth mask. By having tiles offset in the scene and of varying depth, could get around the bit-depth depth mask issue and pre-render a whole shot’s depth some? Would still have granularity issues *within* tiles covering large depth changes tho…
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Party member who turns out to be a (not obvious) bad guy, they become a serious opponent, genuinely believing that they are making the right choices and doing good but eventually reach a point where they *are* aware they are wrong but can’t admit it. They could become a serious endgame threat, fuelled by anger at their wrongness and utter denial of it, they lose all ability to see sense.
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Evading a global manhunt?
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Super duper gay boys rescuing each other
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That’s it for now! For the next week I’m probably going to do most of my work lying down listening to music because for one, my back is fuuuuuucked up rn, for two, I need to just brainstorm a whole bunch more story stuff, but also how I’ll approach the next few systems. Pre-rendered third person stuff is easy enough because I know how it’s going to be for this game, other systems though I don’t have a CLUE yet, and I can’t make them until I know what they want to be.
