Current Events > I've been working on a 3d platformer game (in unity) pt 2: the purge

(+) Yeah! (+)

was about to post yesterday to bump it but I got distracted by a crying baby

I've been working on what will eventually be a semi-open/metroidvania inspired 3d platformer inspired by Banjo-Kazooie/Tooie games. So instead of a hub world where you enter levels, each self-contained level is connected to others by branching paths.

right now I'm working on nailing down mechanics and setting up a basic tutorial level that introduces mechanics.

Here's a little video I had posted in the last topic:

https://youtu.be/cbmvUK_suO0

here's a new section I've been working on the past couple days:

https://youtu.be/ktP82dYh6z4

anyway I'm just going to post updates here, a bit of a blogfaqs since sharing helps keep me focused and also sometimes helps with solving issues, but I'd also like to see if anyone else has anything they've been working on and would like to share/discuss

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


I'm currently not finding a home between godot, unity, or unreal.

Godot is awesome for indie titles, but it's lack of tools or documentation hurts my development pipeline. It's been fun using asperite to make pixel art stuff in games, and it does excel at splitting up those animation sheets for you, but boy is it taxing work.

Unity is nice but last time I took it seriously was ~5 years ago and virtually every penny I spent on the app store is no longer relevant because those prior, 5 star, 1m+ downloaded tools are depreciated.

Unreal is the scariest but easiest of them all. AI assisted everything, Metahuman for characters, flowgraphs (with more AI) to help with programming. Megascan/Bridge/Quixel integration for 4k, AAA, pre-optimized assets ranging from sci-fi to grungy medieval stuff. I made an AAA looking horror scene for my friends to play in like two days but not a literal single pixel was made by my hands, on purpose. The shovelware in the next five years is going to be terrifying and look AAA.

TC, just a suggestion, you can pitch your game to Humble Games and if they like it they will fund you in advance. Obviously there is no guarantee they will accept, but you might want to look into it

C-zom posted...

I'm currently not finding a home between godot, unity, or unreal.

Im pretty satisfied with unity, but Im also not using any third party tools or add-ons. Both to not spend any money on it at this stage and also to learn how to do things myself

its also what I picked to learn a couple years ago and now Im just familiar with it

GATTJT posted...

TC, just a suggestion, you can pitch your game to Humble Games and if they like it they will fund you in advance. Obviously there is no guarantee they will accept, but you might want to look into it

Is this something they still do? I found a link but its dead

tbh that would be really cool, but also my plan is to work on it until I have a slice of the game resembling a real game, then maybe consider looking for outside funding. Right now I have a newborn and a toddler, and I make too much money at my real job to consider giving that up and making this something I work on more than 2-3 hours/day after they go to sleep

there are also some indie studios in town, and I noticed that the founder of one of them is getting recommended to me on Facebook as a people you may know through mutual friends, and Ive thought about trying to use that connection in some way but again, Id want to have something real, and the ability to dedicate more time to it

TheGoldenEel posted...

Im pretty satisfied with unity, but Im also not using any third party tools or add-ons. Both to not spend any money on it at this stage and also to learn how to do things myself

its also what I picked to learn a couple years ago and now Im just familiar with it

For sure. How are you approaching the modeling? Using Blender?

wow, it's looking great! it's come so far!

i remember when you started this thing.

TheGoldenEel posted...

Is this something they still do? I found a link but its dead

I think so, this link works for me:

https://www.humblegames.com/submit-a-game/

C-zom posted...

For sure. How are you approaching the modeling? Using Blender?

Yeah Im using Blender, and sort of learning as I go

the way Im approaching it is that this is a prototype and Im going to have to go back and polish everything up, so Im trying to strike a balance between learning what I need to, and also not spending too much time on any specific projects object. Im already way better at it than a few months ago when I started

Robot2600 posted...

wow, it's looking great! it's come so far!

i remember when you started this thing.

Thanks!

GATTJT posted...

I think so, this link works for me:

https://www.humblegames.com/submit-a-game/

Oh, cool. Yeah when I have a little more to show for it Ill definitely submit something there, nothing to lose I suppose

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Did you ever look at that tutorial I shared in my last topic? Its specifically about moving a sphere in a platformer

https://catlikecoding.com/unity/tutorials/movement/

Any news on the fart button?

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

That tutorial also sets it up so that everything is super customizable, things like air speed and drag, slope angle you can stand on, double jumps, etc

its still the foundation of what Im using in my game (although I definitely have to fine tune movement and will probably add some different physics to make it feel better)

my personal project for the Unity tutorial took like a month tbh. The more in depth you get the more you learn and thats really all youre doing it for

here's a screenshot I took three months ago of the basic framework of this level I'm working on

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/6/6c42715d.jpg

and here's what I have today:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/5/5dc3a690.jpg

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Whats not working

tag

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Do you have the inputs set up in the input manager and the capitalization correct?

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

is it giving a compile error or not registering input at runtime? are you on legacy input or the input system? cus if you're on the input system, it'll ignore legacy input by default (although i think it should give an error, idk cus my projects are usually set to use both input handlers)

if you're on legacy, go to project settings > input manager > axes and make sure the name for both horizontal/vertical are spelled exactly how you have it written in the quotation marks inside Input.GetAxis lines

also i wouldn't recommend using strings at any place like that, cus it won't give an error if you misspell something. instead I'd use a const and fill in that instead from a static class you can refer to from anywhere, so if you misspell or its void you will get an error.
then later on, if things don't work, instead of having to go thru every single stupid way that unity decided to use strings (comparetag, i am looking at you), you only have to fix one thing rather than find which line has the typo.

that code in Update() isnt doing anything to the spheres transform yet. So it shouldnt do anything when you input. Its just setting the playerInput value to a normalized vector. If youre following that tutorial it should continue to actually setting the position of the transform

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

oh, so for that, you are setting the position of the sphere to the new vector3 based on current input.

in your screenshot, it is reading input, but not saying where the sphere should go
also if it has a rigidbody i'd recommend avoid using transform.position or localposition, instead rigidbody.moveposition or apply a force to move it

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Just fyi if youre having trouble each chapter has a link to the repository of the finished code for that chapter at the very bottom. Its kinda easy to miss but helpful if you have any bugs

working on blocking out the next section

Getting better at using geometry nodes in blender which really simplifies some tasks. I built a water wheel, and also a node that can be used to build wood structures

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/d/d154de22.jpg
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/2/2f0f152f.jpg

Have you been following any particular blender tutorials? Those sculpts look quite good for just mucking about. Nicely done.

C-zom posted...

Have you been following any particular blender tutorials? Those sculpts look quite good for just mucking about. Nicely done.

I used this one to build a rope bridge a few weeks ago, and it covered a bunch of different stuff which I think gave me a decent foundation. From there Ive just been experimenting

https://youtu.be/5hFdgNllC98?si=Ht0rq0OEIXU-EwXc

made a little bit more progress

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/9/9d05520b.jpg

Got everything for the area done and imported into unity now

here's the section as I originally blocked it out:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/f/f1d49612.jpg

and here's how it looks now:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/bde023f0.jpg

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/9/91ff9f7c.jpg

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/0e5ef4af.jpg

Heres the repository if anyone wants to take a look

https://github.com/dm-2028/unity-3d-project

added another little shrub to fill in the background, eventually I plan to have a whole bunch of different plants to give a jungle feel

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/7/72900586.jpg

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/a20abc0e.jpg

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/d/dc0e5dc3.png

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/1/1f205097.jpg

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/c/ce75fcc8.jpg

decided to go with pro mesh colliders to build out the invisible walls in the game. Initially had tried to just use primitive colliders but placing them is a huge pain in the ass

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/9/9acace6c.jpg

I don't know enough about materials/shaders

these water wheels I build in blender have a wood texture material on them

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/5/5bdc74ca.jpg

but when I import to unity the material doesn't show up on the round edges

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/0/046c62eb.jpg

I have everything uv mapped the way it should be, I think

is it separate meshes for the round part, or are all of the objects on one big mesh + UV map? blender to unity can mess up depending on how your UV is scaled within blender, or if the mesh has multiple UVs for some reason.

a good way to quickly check whether everything is okay without having to import into unity is to use a program like "FBX Review" (free program made by AutoDesk Maya)

if its separate meshes, a few things you can try are:
-select the fbx in unity, select the model tab, and at the bottom make sure "swap UVs" is enabled
-if that doesn't work, find the texture file in unity, and see whether the wrap mode is set to "repeat" in the inspector
-on the object/prefab, select the material then mess w/ the tiling and offset settings for the albedo (idr if that's an option on the default Standard or URP lit/unlit, I don't use unity shaders so its been a while since I looked)

those steps may or may not work, it really depends on what happened.
i'd check the model in a separate program like fbx review to see if it looks okay in that. that way you can see whether it's a problem with how blender exported, or if it's a problem with how unity imported. if it looks correct in fbx review, then you can at least narrow it down and know unity is messing up somewhere.

hopefully those tips help. at the very least they could be something to keep in mind for the future

BucketCat posted...

is it separate meshes for the round part, or are all of the objects on one big mesh + UV map? blender to unity can mess up depending on how your UV is scaled within blender, or if the mesh has multiple UVs for some reason.

a good way to quickly check whether everything is okay without having to import into unity is to use a program like "FBX Review" (free program made by AutoDesk Maya)

if its separate meshes, a few things you can try are:
-select the fbx in unity, select the model tab, and at the bottom make sure "swap UVs" is enabled
-if that doesn't work, find the texture file in unity, and see whether the wrap mode is set to "repeat" in the inspector
-on the object/prefab, select the material then mess w/ the tiling and offset settings for the albedo (idr if that's an option on the default Standard or URP lit/unlit, I don't use unity shaders so its been a while since I looked)

those steps may or may not work, it really depends on what happened.
i'd check the model in a separate program like fbx review to see if it looks okay in that. that way you can see whether it's a problem with how blender exported, or if it's a problem with how unity imported. if it looks correct in fbx review, then you can at least narrow it down and know unity is messing up somewhere.

hopefully those tips help. at the very least they could be something to keep in mind for the future

I'll that review program. Its all one mesh that I manually set seams for to unwrap so that the texture would go around the circle. I baked the shader into a texture png

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/ae84df11.jpg

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/e/e90b89e9.jpg

Here's a video of the new section in action

https://youtu.be/496gKPB0dBA

alright I spent way too long fucking around with the material/shading on that wheel and could not figure out how to make it any different. I think it's time to move on haha

In the home stretch of mapping out this first level. Just adding a jump across pit section and a final combat arena. I scrapped a different element I was working on because this is meant to be a tutorial level, and I couldn't think of a "tutorial" justification for it. Plus you gotta save things for later

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/aa5cc31d.jpg

trying to come up with a way to handle "pits"

I don't want a fall to nothingness so I was thinking of doing a spike pit similar to this (as seen in Bug Fables)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/4/4219203a.jpg

but I'm not sure how to model something like that in Blender in 3D

how about something like that?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/30327351.jpg

and here's climbing vines

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/c/cf38ff20.jpg

or rather, something like this

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/a4cef790.jpg

maybe with a little more randomness?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/9/93ebf2c5.jpg

Ooh, I remember your other topic. Youve made a lot of progress. Will you be adding sounds/music to it?

shyguybry posted...

Ooh, I remember your other topic. Youve made a lot of progress. Will you be adding sounds/music to it?

Im planning to add some simple sounds in the near future but I have no idea what Im going to do for music

Something like this for a spiky vine pit

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/a/ab9e4ace.jpg

that might be a way unnecessary amount of geometry idk. I'll have to see how that performs in a real game situation. I haven't done anything with level loading/streaming yet

Do you have an estimate date or timeline for the full finished product?