OK! I've upgraded the project to Unity 2018.2, and gone through and cleaned up the code base, and upgraded things that were either deprecated or dodgy.
Post Processing V2 I've deleted all the Image Effects of old and moved to Post Processing V2, and it's great! You can set up a Post Processing Volume, which can be applied to the gameplay camera globally, then have another global volume for "Slow Mo" effect, which can be "weighted in" as needed, using a lerp. Quite easy once you get your head around how it's all designed to work. I went a bit crazy with the effects... just a bit. Added lots of bloom, grain, vignette, and dirt on the lens. Shall tone that back in due course. ;) Explosions Reworked my explosions so they are triggers instead of colliders. (It was super stoopid before). Now enemies get hurt if they touch an explosion trigger, and take damage based on how far they are from it, and also a killing explosion will add force to the player based on direction and distance. (Feeling like I'm getting better at working with Vector3 math these days!). Stealth Upped the stealth values so they come into play properly again these days. Player can now hide in the shadows, but once they trigger an enemy's attention, their alertness values go higher, and they will now spot you in shadows, and you'll have to run away and hide for a bit to lower their alertness levels back down again. THE FUTURE Cleaning up! So, I'm feeling pretty good about having cleaned up the project, ready to start on some new features. There's still some things to clean up, like...
Making the enemy pathfind smoothly even if you are currently out of reach - they are a bit jerky at the moment, sorta stuck between two states.
Making the drone fly around with drone sounds, and tilting into movement, and rotating smoothly at all times - generally making them look and feel more physically believable.
Turning the effects down to a reasonable level! :D
What's next?
Looking further into the future, my design goal are to...
Play around with another 3 or 4 systems / tools / mechanics - get a core set of things into the sandbox that feel fun, and work together nicely, and create something a bit more unique.
Then build a single level that really puts all those elements to the test, together, in context. Give the player an objective, and have it balanced to be a challenge to use all your wits and abilities to reach that goal.
A quick video showing some highlights from putting everything together in the level. I added some collections of glowy screens / window-lights.
So there's the baddy cyborg froods, the slow-mo ability, and the drones flying around, along with keys and doors. It's all a bit clunky currently, and I need to go through and clean up / smooth out the keys and doors, the way explosions look and feel, and how explosions react with enemies. Gotta get drones flying around a bit better, with sounds and tilting. Lots of tweaking and cleaning up to do!
I've started working on a new AI type... a DRONE! It's inspired a bit by the "manhacks" from HL2, at least in terms of getting it moving. It may be a meany, or it may be friendly. Maybe some of each. In the first video, I've just got it doing basic hovering movement. I'm looking to do AI in a fashion that lets them navigate spaces dynamically, as I'm considering procedurally generated levels. I'd also like my humanoid enemies to be able to jump, climb, etc, so I don't really want to just be tied to a NavMesh. The second video steps through some more stages of progress with the Drone.
I got it moving to a position in space, which I'd move around by hand, just to get that working and visible.
Then I got it moving to random points around itself. Then I made it so that if it sights the player it moves to random points around the player, as if tracking/following them.
Next up... I want to start adding "vibe" to it, though tilting into movements, and having cool sounds that match it's motions. It needs to be smoothed out and made more fluid, and also to only move to points that are comfortably far from the ground and walls.
I've added a basic system for DOORS, including the ability to have them LOCKED and openable with a specific KEY.
I still want to tidy it up and make it more versatile, so doors can be activated by one or more triggers (invisible, or physical buttons), and to improve the inspector interface, so it's easy to make a variety of custom "doors", like extending platforms, etc.
Put in a basic Bullet Time / Slow Mo system!
Currently just toggled on & off with a button press. But gonna link it up to a power source, so it is limited.
Here's I've tweaked up the level layout a lot! Note: It's hard! This video shows two failed attempts. :D OBJECTIVE: "Reach the Radio Tower to win the level!"
Lots of little fixes and improvements:
Improved "grounded" check: I now use four spaced raycasts near your feet, to check if you're grounded, even when near an edge. It now reliably jumps all the time, allowing for much more control!
Prevent the player from pushing through walls: I use a raycast to check in the direction that you are trying to move, and scale down the movement if something is in the way.
Tumbling death: Player falls over / tumbles when killed (detach camera, add force and torque, and have it bounce around).
Bullets falls to the ground after colliding with things.
I'm also trying out a few different musical tones, using some existing tracks I've made over the years. :D Definitely thinking about making a full game out of this! Something small, 3 - 5 missions.
Get ready to SUCK IT DOWN! "Romero Plissken" is back, in this cyborg-exploding grenade-imbibing game of generic Quake-like action. Hehehe. I'm building an action game system, basically from the ground up. I'm starting off just focussing on a Quake-like shooter, to get down the basics of creating NPCs. Getting a character moving around using a skinned mesh, Mecanim, NavMesh and AI code. Ultimately, I want to build a versatile AI character for Unity that I can apply to all sorts of different circumstances:
Guards, in a fantasy game.
NPCs, who walk about town.
Characters in a scripted cutscene.
An ecology sim of different characters, creatures, agents.
Dev Diary #002 Enemy AI
Here I've made the enemy attacks hurt the player, and if the player dies it restarts the level.
The Soldier has Grenade attack, and at some point will also have a MG attack, probably firing short bursts.
The Slicer has a Melee slice attack.
The Kamikaze runs at you and Explodes.
Explosions hurt the player and also nearby enemies.
The AI characters also have different sensory attributes based on their state.
Once they have sighted you, they go into a heightened alertness state (Chasing) and aggressively try to track you down.
When in the Chasing state, they have 360 degree vision (to prevent you from just "running behind them" to elude them), and a greater ability to detect the player at greater distances, and in less light.
If they lose line of sight with you, or drop below a threshold of visibility of you (considering distance and lightness), then after 5 second they drop back to their Neutral state. This is when you have escaped, and eluded them.
Dev Diary #001 I started this project at Global Game Jam 2018... and here's where it was after that first weekend.
