Nemox

Luckily it seems that in that last fix I've answered my own question with regards to character shading. xD Still though, environments are something I still have yet to figure out. I suppose on the off chance that someone who does have some experience with shaders happens by, there's still that to shed some light on. Pun intended of course.

Each time I hopelessly come back to my projects with such futile notions that I might actually get something done for once, one thing strikes me the most. My objects and characters look like crap, and my game thusly feels to crappy to care as much as I would like to. That is to be expected of course, given that I'm using little more than Diffuse lighting. But I've been learning about writing surface shaders and custom lighting models. I have a pretty good idea of the flow of data at this point, but not a very good understanding of common practice and stylized lighting. At first I attempted to copy Star Wars: The Old Republic's style, and at first I assumed that the rim lighting was an exaggerated Fresnel effect. As much as I tried, I couldn't get anything remotely similar. But then I tried walking around I noticed something in SWTOR that I had previously noticed in Sonic Generations: The rim hilights do not depend on any angle between light and view directions, but the rim light simply exists wherever the light is shining, and has a falloff based on viewing angle. In Generations, Sonic's rim lighting seems to do something similar, but I'm not sure what's going on. I see rim lights of some sort that seem to come from both a downward and faint upward light of varying colors, but not on the sides. I also can't quite figure out whether the effect is intended to be emissive or specular. What exactly is going on under the hood? EDIT: I've found a flaw in my old lighting, and tried again on the SWTOR shader, applying it to Sonic, and it looks spot-on! I think the extra light coming from below is just some extra light source in the grass. It even answers the confusion I had about making surfaces feel more vibrant. There's a nice contour along the rim light, and it doesn't feel forced like all the ones I had before, coming from all angles. Here's an example of a couple of angles with two light sources; white directly from overhead, and red on the side. I'm gonna mess around more with this and see how many types of objects this type of lighting might apply to...

You shouldn't have done that. Mothafucka.

I think Sonic's size might be the issue with speed. He may be going as fast as he does in Genesis games, but it doesn't feel like it since he's so tall. The issue of scale is one that can screw up all subsequent physics. Loving the art style though, and it's certainly what shines and makes this game stand out. If you could find some music that really compliments it (likely outside Sonic's usual themes), you'll have something very special.

That's pretty cool. I love Unity, and I've heard Torque is a mess, but depending on what it can offer free that Unity requires a license for I might try it. All the concepts should remain relatively the same. EDIT: I might make it a point to use Torque's terrain engine in Unity since I don't know how to make one from scratch. Unity's terrain is the only problem I've had in it so far, and it's TERRIBLY buggy.

When used really intelligently, touchscreens can have a great deal of flexibility to make up for their shortcomings. Each button must have a wide range of functions that react to the character's motion and environment. But touchscreen buttons also have an advantage that normal buttons can't achieve; they can be moved like a joystick. Imagine that what was once a static ability (Shiek's chain or Din's Fire in SSBB, hold button, move control stick) can now be controlled with the button itself while moving normally. Another advantage is that the environment itself can be touched, either for interaction or for camera movement. Meanwhile, one drawback is that you essentially can only rely on two thumbs at a time. An FPS almost necessitates a motion axis, camera axis, -and- a fire button at the same time. This can be remedied using the button-axis method I mentioned above, but it can still be pretty awkward. For something like a gun, you'd have to fire by releasing and re-pressing very quickly. The other major drawback is the sheer size of the screen, obviously. An iPhone RPG with this sort of action-button-axis thing could maybe fit four buttons; assuming one could be for jumping, that only leaves three other abilities. Tablets are quite a bit easier in this way. Ultimately, I find that most genres of games can translate alright into strictly touch-based controls. It's tough, but not impossible.

After many hours of diligence (procrastination), I'm finally reaching a playable point in my PhysX-based universal 3D control system. There's just some issues that are really messing with my head at the moment. They are subjects I've had trouble with in the past, but now that I understand them a lot more it's a whole different angle of what needs to be done. I figured this would be the best place to get some advice. I'll underline the real nitty-gritty questions. The issues are distinct, but interwoven. 1: Friction. In the past I merely settled for multiplying acceleration by friction. This is terribly, terribly wrong. Friction is not a multiplier, but a hard limit to acceleration, based on the pressure between the character and the ground. Currently, my system works like Sonic GDK; acceleration is constant, even when you're on the ceiling. The only time it ever slows down is when you're going up a wall fighting against gravity. First off, as I'm not very well versed in physics, how could I translate realistic PhysX friction (0.0-infinity for static, 0.0-1.0 for dynamic: Default value which will be used... by default on most objects would be 0.4) into Sonic-styled gameplay? 2: In a relatively realistic system, the character would have no pressure while running on a wall or ceiling, and thus couldn't accelerate at all. (I do plan to have a "traction" variable, which ranges from 0% to 100%, allowing up to full acceleration even with no pressure. Think Mighty the Armadillo, or Espio the Chameleon.) So in a realistic, emergent system, how could pressure be applied between the character and the wall or ceiling? It would logically come from the very "downforce" that allows Sonic to stick to walls in the first place. The problem? Sonic's speed really doesn't have to be very high to generate enough downforce to stick on a ceiling. That means at a very low speed (say... 5m/s?), he's generating 9.81 m/s^2 acceleration toward the surface to stay on. On walls, this means at 5m/s, he's got as much pressure as even gravity would allow. On ceilings, he exactly cancels out gravity, and cannot accelerate. But what about faster speeds, like 10m/s? At that point, he'd have twice the downforce. Though the force could be capped at gravity-like pressure, this would still leave him at 100% acceleration even while on a ceiling. Even still, if a character has enough downforce to stick on a ceiling, he will still accelerate 99.9% of the time. Is this reasonable? 3: EDIT: Number 3 resolved. Just realized I made the same mistake again as I had made on the previous project; Sonic was twice as big as he was supposed to be, so the loops were twice as big too. There really wasn't much of a problem here after all.

I was using a controller. After I went back and played Sonic Heroes, I saw that it's because the camera always rotates toward wherever the player is running - thus changing where the new "forward" leads. In Heroes, it doesn't rotate immediately, but pans to the side along with the character. This makes the controls feel a bit more accurate. As for the physics, it seems like there's almost no air-time; I jump very quickly, and am slammed back to the ground very quickly. Gravity seems a bit too strong. I wasn't sure if my physics framerate was simply too fast, but it seems like his running/acceleration is about right, so now it really just seems like gravity is what's fast.

Just checked this out for the first time. Really neat! Not sure if it's my computer or what, but the physics seem a little too fast. If that's normal, a little smoothing could be useful. Also noticed that doing minor direction adjustments while running quickly was kind of hard, and I believe it's a camera-based issue. Since my own game is the same way, it must mean I'm doing something right. xD Seems to be common with free-range cameras.

Depends on the probability of developing safe wormholes. Distance is the only major obstacle I see.

Earth would be gone, but there's always the chance that a galactic civilization could continue onward.

Billions of years from now, all other galaxies will be so far away, and moving away so quickly, that civilizations will only be able to this galaxy and not even the cosmic microwave background. All the science can be perfect, but it will reach the wrong conclusion; that this galaxy is the only one out there. But... what if we live in a time that's also got an inherently inaccurate picture?

99% of all mass murderers within the past century have used toothpaste at least once in their lives. Toothpaste is a clear detriment to our society!

I've had this song Discord stuck in my head for days: Apart from that, I've also been listening to Nightwish's new album: Edit: Haha, hooray for thread necromancy. While I may have cast the most powerful thread necromancy spell in the history of this forum, at least this one still has an applicable discussion!

Haven't tried either one, but I will note that the running animation still seems terribly slow. That's what caused people to think Sonic felt slower than Genesis in the first one, despite the fact that he was actually faster.

I liked the spirit behind it, as it attempted to be an Adventure-like game. I could halfway forgive the gameplay enough to play it now and again, and the story was easy to ignore. The levels had some cool themes to them, too. Overall, a bad game that I kind of still like anyway.

Holy, 2 years already!? I need to get my life together so I can actually work on something for once...

Skyrim's a cool choice. Big, open world with lots to do, and a vivid experience. ... Just make sure to wear kneepads.

Wow, that looks really cool! Any idea how the workflow is compared to Unity? I may port all my stuff over if it's especially good.

I got the same thing with Mozilla. Says it was reported as a dangerous website, but I don't think it picked up anything real.

Eh, lots of things involving family and current life situations. I'm able to develop this control system and the various other subsystems on the grounds that putting it on the Asset Store might bring me some of my own income, even if it is small. The Tornado Twins seem to be doing well with that sort of thing though, and their system... eh. My Skype is NinjaTuah, but my mic died and I keep forgetting to get a new one. Text chat could work though. xP

When I started off several years ago, I definitely was the naive noob who figured game development was within my grasp, and I definitely didn't start out with the mindset necessary for it. Even when starting this project a year and a half ago, I still didn't truly know what I was doing. But I stuck with it and learned a great deal. I accept that there's still a long way to go, but I have an insane amount of spare time, and I think I'm meeting my goals rather nicely. Regarding the level, it's simply a testing sandbox and doesn't require a great deal of dedication; that effort is going into a snowy level, which I'm waiting to build until I've spent this time refining stuff, and until I've properly learned shaders. In accepting random pieces from said random guy, I can determine just how well my system is designed at its core; whether my system is truly as universal as I have tried to make it. Proof's in the pudding though. I'll just keep workin' until I can show you how much better it's getting. ;3

That sounds great! I would need lots of generic pieces, and perhaps some themed ones as well; any theme you'd like from the Sonic series, and I'll make a themed test level around it. (Or hell, any game series for that matter. xD) I think the big thing with my designs is the perspective involved with everything; my numbers are all based on interaction with arbitrarily-sized blocks, so I'm not quite sure how everything plays out realistically. I would like to strive for Adventure-scaled levels if possible. @Raz: Good question, I would really like to keep my stuff as open-source as possible, but real life might get in the way. I am trying to keep my designs as flexible as possible to allow anyone to make use of and expand upon it while still keeping it closed-source; at least until I can solve some external issues. EDIT: Updated the main post, by the way.

Hey, it animated properly! Wasn't meant to be serious anyway. xP But yeah, I'm actually getting into developing actual -systems- rather than functional odds and ends. Currently working on the camera, which I haven't spent even a moment working on before.

Wow, I'm surprised anybody would have posted in this topic, especially after so long. And even for me to have come and read the forums on the same day. Lucky, that. Anyways, my overall skill and perspective on the whole thing has impacted the projected design a great deal. I've recently redone the whole motion system to be almost entirely momentum-based, and while there are a few calculations that aren't perfect, I've decided to settle on ones that are more functional for the time being. I've got several more parts to tidy up, but I should be almost ready to make a little content for testing. In a few days I'll perhaps edit the main post with updated information on where the project has gone, and where it is going.