point collector (game)

[Endoperez]

Gave it a quick try.

The character is a custom model rigged and imported into Unity, right? Not bad! It's not pretty, obviously, but that's actually quite a tricky thing. The unwrap on the character's back is a bit broken though.

You should always be able to unwrap a cube or a rectangle in this manner:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cube_ ... apping.png

In Blender, mark the sides to "cut" with Ctrl+E, Mark Seam. Then change the window to Unwrap Mode (Ctrl+left or right arrow a few times if you don't know how), choose the whole thing and 'u' Unwrap. Usually, after unwrapping, you want to choose the unwrapped UV areas, then go Ctrl+A, Ctrl+P (all parts to the same scale, automatically pack all parts).

It will probably look better if the hands and arms are all weighted to a single bone, so the cube doesn't deform at shoulders.

As you noticed, the light and the camera need more work.
The spot lights you could just turn down to a much smaller intensity (0.1?) and put them close to a wall. That will give the idea that the wall is somehow giving off light, which is easier to understand than an empty spot of air giving off light!
Even before you have the time to do the camera script, you can just move the camera it a bit higher and rotate it to point a bit downwards. That'd help a lot, already.

Also, turn the character so that when the player first starts, he immediately sees the first green point he or she has to collect. It might be on a small platform, so that the player has a reason to try and jump, and he realizes jumping is allowed.

The particle effect is currently looping. Uncheck the looping box, and it should stop repeating endlessly. A simple "hurray! you did it!" particle effect would be balloons. Remove gravity and find or draw an image of a balloon, and they'll fly away. If you want to get something cooler, do the balloons but also add a second particle effect that explodes in a shower of randomly colored confetti, and have them both activate at once.

[rodeje25]

thank you so much!!!

in the next update i will uv map the cahracter and probably make custom textures for it.
and i will include the small changes. (maybe i can make a gap so you literally need to use the jump.
i used two bones in the arms so the arm swing would look a little more realistic (could weight painting help?). also in th course i'm doing there is a lecture about light mapping and i think that will fix the issue with all the flickering lights.

[Endoperez]

i used two bones in the arms so the arm swing would look a little more realistic (could weight painting help?).

That depends. The first thing is... this is a fake character. Is realism worth it? Does it make anything more beautiful, better looking?

The second thing is... Which two bones?

Shoulder-to-elbow and elbow-to-wrist? If so, you need to add detail to the elbow area, so that it bends.

Neck-to-shoulder, and shoulder-to-wrist? If so, the hand should probable be weighted 100% to the shoulder-to-wrist bone. Since the shoulder-to-wrist bone moves with the neck-to-shoulder bone, the bone will move in a different way. The neck-to-shoulder bone's effect could be visible even if it doesn't affect any vertices in the arm. You could, for example, use those bones to describe a shrug.

Or did you have something else?


Yes, either weight painting or, since this would be a very simple mesh, you could set those weights directly in the Vertex panel. It's more precise, but too time-consuming to do on anything but the simplest meshes. Vertex panel is also the fastest way to set a part of an object to 100% towards a specific bone, without affecting unwanted areas.

[rodeje25]

this is the characters rig

[+] rig

and i mean the upper arm bone and the lower arm bone

[Endoperez]

Okay.

Unless you add geometry so there's an elbow, or have separate "upper arm" and "lower arm" boxes... those bones do nothing.

Same with the legs.

[rodeje25]

they do work. they divide the arms so it has the function of an elbow same for the legs.

[rodeje25]

getting to know how to uv map (Many thanks endo!)

[Endoperez]

Nice!

Games usually use perfectly square textures. Often, the image width is exactly 128, 256, 512 or 1024 pixels (or any other 'power of two' number). Non-square pictures may not work on mobile.

Make the black area a bit larger than the uv borders, otherwise the seams might bug out and become visibly lighter or darker occassionally.

[rodeje25]

For the ones interested in the progress i'm making and who want to give feedback and don't think i'm advertising.

[+] uv-map character

i uv mapped my character and i think it's pretty good for my first uv-map.

Now i'm going to change the level and uv-map it and then i'm going to make the textures.

[Endoperez]

At that level of unwrapping skill, pixel graphics are your best bet. Otherwise, your images will be needlessly large. It should work with those unwraps without any texture warping (straight lines will be straight, not warped or wavy).

Once you've done the texture, make sure your UV map's corners match the texture's pixels' corners. Also, paint everything a bit bigger than the area.

[rodeje25]

paint everything a bit bigger than the area.

hahaha!
that's exactly what i've done wich immediatly confirms that the textures are done.

[+] textures

[Endoperez]

You can easily make it 128x128 pixels or so. That way it's actually pixels, and not just a, well, not-precise work.


For one texture, the difference is negligible, but if you have, say, a dozen textures they will add up to the DL size quite a bit. It won't matter on PC though.

Did you paint the texture in Blender,or did you use a 2D program? In either case, for pixel art you want to usually paint with 100% opacity and start by making big areas of clean color.

Also make sure the colors go slightly above the UV borders. When the model is far, Unity automatically scales the texture smaller. When that happens, nearby pixels are blurred together to get their average value. If there's orange on the inside of the UV and black on the outside, you get dark orange borders suddenly appearing on your model.

[rodeje25]

i painted in adobe photoshop and i just imported the character and everything is fine.
i actually like the borders
what did you do to the hair?! XD
the black on the front was hair.
a friend of me is making a score script.
i'm also looking how to make a menu and how to get you back to the menu onc you've collected three balls.

[Endoperez]

There's several ways to make a menu.

One way is to have the menu be its own level. When all the balls have been collected, you load the menu-level.

Another is to make a menu that is in the same scene, but is hidden/deactivated except when you want the menu to be visible.

-------

Okay, Photoshop! Cool.

If you like the borders, you should paint them in manually! That way they will always be visible from all distances. You can Invert the UV layout layer, so that it has white outlines, change the layer's Blending Mode to Overlay, and opacity to 25% or so. It highlights all the edges. Then you can remove the edges you don't want to highlight.

If you haven't exported the layout to Photoshop yet, the option is in Blender's UV Layout. UVs menu -> Export UV Layout, change Fill Opacity to 0.0 .

I didn't have the model, so I had to guess what's what, and where. I might've guessed wrong with the hair!

When you click B several times, or hold the mouse down on top of the brush tool, you get several options. One of them is the Pencil. It is better for pixel graphics, it can draw pixel-perfect lines.

[rodeje25]

this is really helpfull stuf you're posting and i will try them in my second game.
i have a deadline..... before the jam for leelah ends.
yep i decided to join the jam