Author Archives: vortex69

Working on this one now

Back to my old “escape the room” point and click. Named “Project 32”, while that name started as a joke, it ended up being part of the whole concept.

I already talked about this project a couple of times, but last time I ended up not restarting work on it.

Finally decided to use Unity to make it. Other contenders were Wintermute Engine and Flash.

The reason was because I needed more practice on everything related to Unity.

So for now I’m making 3D models, as usual they will be as simple as possible, after finishing the 3D models I’ll start coding, I believe most of it will be reasonably simple.

Anyway I still have to write all the puzzles.

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You see that door?

You do…good, but be aware that that door does not simply give you access to a building, no sir. It is some sort of time and space manipulator, do you know why?

Because the freaking building behind has an interior area that could cover the entire town.

Yes, as work starts moving forwards I start wondering about things that look like no brainers but are not, for example, most of the time – at least on adventure/horror/survival horror games – the interior area of a building/structure DOES cover quite a bit more than the exterior would make you think. And that is a problem for me, mostly because I like to be accurate when it comes to scale, but also because on this project the interiors are not a different map/scene, the interiors are…well…inside the exteriors. tuzki_bang

Posted in Codename 'Colina Silenciosa' | Leave a comment

Today on v69 dot tk

I hate to come up with post titles…HATE!!

Ok, now for something completely different.

You might have noticed that I tend to over-analyse and over plan things (please, tell me you did not notice :-) ).

So, the game isn’t even 5% finished and I’m already planning if the game will be free, free with ads or extremely cheap but not free (haha…truth be told, I’ve been thinking about it ever since we started the project). I have yet to reach a conclusion. (yes…this was supposed to be a meaningless part of this post)

Another thing that has bothered me ever since the start is…that I fucking suck at ‘sculpting’ terrains, while I suck at lots of ‘disciplines’ needed to finish the game, this one bothers me in a very special way, because every time I try to make a terrain for the game I end up not using a single bit of logical thinking, e.g. the current terrain, the things that were supposed to be mountains  ended up looking like walls since they surround the terrain in a very…errrmmm…vertical and geometric way.

So for the fourth or fifth time I’ll remake the terrain, one day I’ll end up with a good one.

Anyway I’m back to my productive days of work on this project, which, looking at the past, will end somewhere between this week and next week, since I have a tendency to get bored of it after a couple of days and then stop for months.

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The usual…

So, last time I posted, I said I was working a bit on the game. As usual I started pretty well (did 2 or 3 models) and then simply stopped. That’s my typical modus operandi, full steam for one day or two and then a big stop for 2 weeks or more. I guess that’s part of why after 1 year there’s no noticeable progress on the project (to my defence we did restart the project in September 2010).

Thinking on the positive side of things, during those stops I always get some new ideas, or plan a few more details. The latest planned detail was the camera FOV, seems like Unitys default 60º is a bit too much, at least for correctly sized 3d models, so I’m testing 45º and it looks nice enough. Before someone thinks “But X game has a >80º FOV and looks fine.” two things: models were made considering a large FOV…AND most of these ‘big ass FOV’ games use the horizontal FOV and not the vertical FOV (Unity uses vertical FOV).

That’s all for now.

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Back…

So, finally, after a pause of 2 months (or 3…something like that) back to do some work on my little pet project.

Not much, doing some 3D models and during this week — or maybe during the weekend — I’ll make the first working concept of the main menu.

Still, one game design question remains: Loads between interiors and exteriors (that being, different maps for each) or attempt to make it completely seamless. While I personally prefer the seamless way, don’t know if it is possible/practical to implement, but if it is, part of me says occlusion culling would play quite a big part on it, now is the part where I get a bit nervous since I’m using Unity Free and Umbra is pro only :-|

Fear not! I can still try to use M2H Occlusion System, while not even close to be as powerful as Umbra, I believe it will be good enough for my project. Although this is not a “It’s perfect for me.” it’s more a “It has to work, it’s the only solution.”

The biggest problems are buildings and other props, because since it is a ‘Silent Hillish’ game there are not many enemies or other things moving around, it also helps that we will be using some of that ‘Silent Hillish’ fog, at least in some zones of the map — this way I can simply shorten the camera clipping plane in those zones — , so overall I think occlusion culling mixed with some ‘manual’ culling will work OK. Guess I’ll find the answer sooner or later. Betting on later, since right now there’s not many objects to use occlusion culling on.

See you next time.

Posted in Codename 'Colina Silenciosa', My Rants | Leave a comment

Must…post…more…often…

Thing I’m actively working on right now:

  • nothing…
  • still nothing…
  • Fixing my car.

I really, fucking need my car fixed. Yet I left it waiting for 2 weeks before I finally moved my ass to see what was wrong. Well, I knew what was wrong, I just needed to pinpoint what it was, it was a brake hose that had a leak, fine, taking it to the mechanic…

(more…)

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Long time without posting.

That can’t be a good thing, right?

Right! Since the last post I have done nothing worth of mention. Well, worth of mention by my standards that is (and they are pretty low, believe me).

So these last two days I spent a few hours reading manga, which while it is something I like it’s also something I rarely do.

(more…)

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It has taken a while…

For me to post about the announcement of the release date for Duke Nukem Forever.

Watched the trailer over 10 times. And it looks like they DID actually manage to ‘remake’ Duke, even in this day and age, where censorship and “political correctness” run rampant, especially on the video game world.

(more…)

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Will it blend?

See, I’m terrible at making titles.

So, I’ve been using blender and while I still hate lots of things about it (the sucky FBX support comes to mind), I’m starting to learn to like it. In fact I’m almost as good with Blender as I was with 3dsMax, part of that is thanks to a 3DsMax interaction preset for blender 2.5 or else I would still be fighting the horrible right click to select and middle click to rotate and all the others.

(more…)

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This year on ‘Colina Silenciosa’

As I already said this project started on the first days of February, 2010. What progress do we have until now?

NONE.

At least nothing noteworthy. Why? Organization…lack of.

Although I won’t hide that for me this project is, first and foremost, a learning project. I doubt that the final result will be worth distributing, but I will do it anyway.

(more…)

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