Welcome back! A lot of things happened since I last posted. For starters, I've made the PayPal donations amount public and activated google's AdSense for some extra income (give it a click!). Soon, I will also begin to donate to the treasury; I just need first to recover my monthly budget from the last investment I did by purchasing several Unity tools for Underlair.
One of the assets is visible in the image below, which provides day-night cycle, weather, volumetric lights and fog, sunbeams, and other features. Other changes are present in the UI. I've tuned down some colors and made the avatars' blood darker. I believe this works better with the game's dark atmosphere.
Also, I've permanently disposed of my Facebook account and activated a brand new one for the sole purpose of managing the project. I was fed up with getting pointless notifications of everyone's personal's lives.
And that's all for now. Stay safe!
Sweet progress!
ReplyDeleteI actually like the toned-down gui a lot more than your last mockup - it feels a lot less cluttered and doesn't pull your eyes away from the world window nearly as much.
Still think some information could be relegated to just "pop up", that is, become visible only as an alert (something having changed in status, such as equipment being broken) or when needed gameplay-wise (such as skills than can only be used in an active combat situation).
That is something that can definitely be revised, but consider that, there will be tons of abilities that can be used outside of combat, like repairing, crafting (weapons, alchemy, cooking), enchanting and healing. Some combat related abilities can in fact be used before combat. For example, you could use the stone psycrum pool to harden the skin of party members or using other abilities to place traps, just before attacking critter triggering combat.
ReplyDeleteOne problem with hiding and showing elements as needed is that, the camera is currently resized to fit only the visible 3D viewport area, this provides a performance boost while keeping the perspective centered. Making UI elements disappear would force me to extend the camera to place elements on top of it, hiding potential usefull 3D information and inevitebly off-centering the perspective.
True. But already now you can switch individual character information between inventory and stats. Maybe this could switch in a reaction to current gameplay context? That way, for example, it would also indicate clearly that the party has entered combat.
ReplyDeleteThat is a possibility, one I will check as the mechanics take shape. Entering in combat mode will be highly noticable. There will be sound effect, combat music and a list of avatars on the screen telling you the initiative order. But yeah, that is really something that can be further analyzed but the 3D viewport will mostly stay the same.
ReplyDeleteThe reduced saturation was a good call. Beyond the aesthetics, I find it a helpful to keep the values of assets bit lower overall than what they might typically get so it's easier to add new elements on top (usually in the UI). The extra punch can be applied where needed once everything is in.
ReplyDeleteWould you mind sharing the new icons pack asset page? I was just looking for ability icons the other day and came across the same portraits you're using. I have time to do portraits myself, but could really use a placeholder asset for the abilities. These look perfect as such!
BTW - what's the new FB account? Are there other channels like Twitter or Discord?
DeleteI'm glad you mentioned it. I really need to add those contacts, I'll take care of that this night. But bear in mind that, I'm using FB only to post on groups related to gamedev/dungeoncrawlers, this means that I don't announce news or any progress using this medium. Regardless, I will make it available for contact. I also will create a discord server, sometime in the future.
Delete@shoTgun. You meantioned that you will do the portraits yourself; you do illustration work?
DeleteThis is the studio where you can get the icons from:
ReplyDeletehttps://assetstore.unity.com/publishers/11032
I'm using Flat Icons 2 and Flat Icons 3.
Thanks! I looked up some more icons following your link and ended up with this publisher's flat icons pack that contained a few more things needed (like bow, crossbow, want, among others):
Deletehttps://assetstore.unity.com/publishers/38930
I follow this blog to show support but I don't actually get update notifications. Discord is my favorite, I'm not much on FB either, but it's good for marketing outreach. AFAIK Twitter is the best for networking within the indie industry.
Ye, I do illustration, graphic-design and UI for the most part. Sometimes you gotta wear different hats as an indie dev... as I'm sure you know :)
Yeah, I know PONETI publisher and I did checked it before getting the other icons.
ReplyDeleteI think that, in order for you to get notifications here, you need the check the option "Notify me" in the bottom right corner of the posting window.
Do you have a portfolio I can check?
Oh, I see! so I can be notified about replies - that's useful :)
ReplyDeleteIs there a way to be notified about a new blog entry?
I'll mail you some stuff!
I really thought that by following the blogger you would receive notifications about new posts. It is not working? You have never received a notification of a new post?
ReplyDeleteNope, never. Nothing in my mail's spam folder. Couldn't find any mail setting here in the Dashboard either.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I'm getting any email alerts as well.
ReplyDeleteBut I've been collecting all the newsfeeds I care about as RSS on a single webpage for years. Any new postings form your blog show up fine.
Ok guys, thank you for the feedback. I'll see what I can do about it.
ReplyDelete