Monday, November 30, 2009

A Lot Of Time Over Nothing

Hey everybody!

Over the weekend I decided to do a little research about the controls that go into the player character. I soon learn that the people who write the Unity tutorials know how to spend 100 pages teaching you absolutely nothing.

I'm considering switching the game engine I use

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Character Creation, Part 2

Even with today's limited time to work, I was able to create a green skinned demon-like character for the enemies. I probably spent less time on this than my player's character and yet it looks amazing. I guess it's because it's harder to create human characters than other characters. If I take away the armor on my demon I can create two characters, a drone without armor, and a demon general with armor. I think I have done a good job so I'll call it good for today.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Character Creation

I decide to take a step back from Unity, and decide to start using Blender. I need a character to portray the player, so I start with that. Even though I've used Blender before, my character is still not quite what I'm trying to get. I'll change him later but now I need a character to work with. I decide to slap some colors onto him and save him for now.
I import the character into Unity, and redo some of what I lost earlier. Everything seems to be working fine now, so I'll call it good for today.

Terrain Trouble

I begin today experimenting with Unity's terrain creator. Appearently Unity is built so you can easily create complex terrains within a short amount of time. I spend a lot of time making a mountain range that curves around in a bowl shape.
I go to the Game tab to see how it works, and see I didn't add lights to the scene. I do a little research, and add a lightbulb-style light to the scene.
I am still disatisfied with the gray texture the terrain has. I do some more research and add a rocky texture to the terrain. I don't even know if i am even going to use this terrain in the game, but it looks really cool. A lot cooler than gray.
I add more detail to the terrain, then I try to add trees, then Unity crashes. I lost all of that data so I'll have to start over. But I still feel satisfied learning all of the stuff I need to make terrain.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Basic Interface Interests

Right now I'm reading a tutorial on the basic interface of Unity. It looks a little difficult, but nothing I shouldn't figure out sooner or later. It seems Unity constantly updates the file you are using for the project. I may have lighting issues with this. I can also personalize the viewing area to my needs.
Everything seems to be catagorized into four basic catagories.
-GameObject
-Materials
-Textures (A subcatagory for materials)
-Animations
I don't know anything about programming yet, but I'll try to learn about this soon.

The Plan . . .

We've all thought about it once in a while. Could I make my own video game? The answer used to be no, but with a load of free game creation tools out there, it is really easy. However, most of these tools are "Click and Drag" type of engines. Meaning you don't do pretty much anything. These "Click and Drag" (Or as I will now call them,) Or "Cheating" engines don't give you the full experience of this.

Could I make an enjoyable game without a "Cheating" engine? I don't know, but I'll try. In fact, why not adding a new rule. It needs to be done by Christmas. This will give me the motivation to work faster. So, without any formal education of this sort, LET THE CREATION BEGIN!

The Plan:
To create a third-person type adventure game, similar to Legend Of Zelda. The Player will move around in a stereotypical dungeon fighting monsters until he is ready to face the ultimate boss. (Probably a dragon.)

The Tools:
-Blender (I've used Blender before and I've created great graphics with it.)
-Unity 2.6 (Have never used this before, but have heard good things about it.)
-Anything else that is free. (Hardware like a microphone & keyboard may be used.)

The Rules:
-No "Cheating" engines.
-Must be done by Christmas.

Now that we have that out of the way, It is time to start creating the game!