Level 03 Sandbox Exit

I finally got around to creating a level exit scenario for the Sandbox level. It took me a little while to come up with something I was happy with that fit into the theme of the other items in the sandbox. What I eventually came up with was a mound with a door fashioned out of Popsicle sticks and mouse trap parts. The mound has a hole with a black collider inside of it so that when Bud has both keys the door will open and he will be able to enter into the black collider which will load up the Tree house level, right now I just have it loading up the "Thanks for Playing Screen" just for simplicity sake for now. But yeah that's my exit for level 03 and the Tree house level you are more than likely already very familiar with if you've been keeping up with my posts ;)

Sand Box Level Updates

I've made a lot of changes and additions to the Sand Box level this week. I played around with the Blob Shadow projectors for the Potato Beetles so now they project the blob shadow offset in accordance to the sun's position in the sky.

I added a terrain to the outside of the Sand Box, it's never really meant to be seen, it's more there as a place to put the trees which I figured made a nice touch the the scenic background detail to this level. They cast nice shadows onto the sand terrain inside of the Sand Box and on the accompanying toys inside of the Sand Box.

I'm still working on tweaking the Sand Box shooting robot's fire control a little, it's taking a bit of testing it out trial and error to see what works best. Sometimes if you just keep Bud the Spud moving and zigzag a lot you can usually get by the wildly shooting robot but sometimes he gets a lucky shot in and it's curtains for Bud. I'm trying to get it so it's that good balance between not being too easy but not too difficult.

I'm thinking about adding some more scenic details outside of the Sand Box like perhaps a row of those little garden fences from level 02 perhaps in the form of rendered images on 2d planes to save on the poly count. I'll try it out perhaps tomorrow and see if it looks good for the scene.

I'm very pleased with how this level is shaping up with the new shadows cast into the Sand Box by the trees outside of the Sand Box. I find it breaks up the look of the sand terrain very nicely and makes for a more vibrant environment.

I need to do something with these toy wind up robots that patrol the mote bridge, I need to find some way to make their patrol pattern a little more complex just so they are more of a challenge for Bud to avoid while attempting to cross the bridge. I'm wondering if perhaps I can place Auto Way points onto different layers and have them ignore way points that are on another layer, I've never tried that before so I'm not sure but if I can do it that way then it may be possible for me to perhaps make a more complex patrol pattern for the toy wind up robots to follow. Something else I'll try and experiment with tomorrow as well perhaps.



Sand Box Robot Fire Control

I was able to get the robot working pretty close to the way I originally wanted in that he shoots fire balls in a circular pattern, the only thing is, is that he deliberately targets my player which I did not want I wanted just a random shooting of fire balls in an off set circular pattern. But this does make getting across that mote bridge a lot more difficult which is good in many ways as it should NOT be easy! So I may leave him like this with perhaps a little more tweaking on his fire rate. Right now it's pretty good and gives Bud the Spud a good deal to worry about if he gets close to that bridge entry way. One hit and it's "Mashed" Bud the Spud!

I also added in some Potato Beetles into the Sand Box and placed a key pick up inside of the toy rubber Shark and another key on top of the Sand Castle tower. I placed a health pick up way above the toy Rubber Duck so Bud will have to do a double flip jump in order to get it and I placed an extra life heart on top of the Toy Wooden blocks. Over all I'm pretty happy with the way this level is shaping up. I still need to make the entry and exit scenario but it's getting pretty close to being finished.

I want to add the toy Chattering Teeth character but I'm having difficulty with the way the character works and I'm pretty sure it has to do with my Max 8 exporting my FBX files out as "Z" up instead of "Y" up, the exporter says it's exporting as "Y" up but when I get it into Unity 3D it shows up as "Z" up?? Very frustrating I can tell you because I'm sure this is the reason it's making my code not work as it should. It seems that if bud gets attacked with his back facing the enemy then he takes damage but if he is facing the enemy then those toy teeth could chomp away all day and do no damage??? I have NO idea why this is the case but it's putting a block on my progress here. I tried re installing Max 8 today to see if maybe that would fix the problem... it didn't, so I'll keep at trying to figure out what that Frack the problem is while I work on getting some of the other stuff done I need doing.

Chattering Toy Teeth Character

Bud the Spud is going to have a new toy enemy to deal with in the Sand Box Level these comical looking Toy Chattering Teeth that will chase after and snap at Bud the Spud.

Right now just a WIP but soon to be finished. I'm thinking that this will be a toy he will be able to destroy by jumping on top of. Not sure what manor of destruction I should give the toy teeth for when Bud jumps on them though??

Sand Box Imported into Unity 3D

OK now that the modeling of the Sand Box level is completed in Max 8 I have got it imported into Unity 3D and all of the materials applied to each part. Unity does a lot of this automatically for most imported models but you usually have to tell it which materials are specular with bump and which ones are just bump diffuse, transparent etcetera. Here you can see a screen capture of Bud the Spud standing on the far side of the mote bridge overlooking the vast Sand Box level. I think I need to adjust my suns position in the sky as my shadows are bit too long for my liking.

Here you can see a shot of Bud standing close the the bridge that crosses the more to the other side where the main part of the Sand Castle is located. Just behind him and to the left a little you can see the hole in the ground that I have set for where the Toy Revolving Robot Torso will go once I have the code all worked out for when Bud gets close the robot's chest doors will open and he'll shoot fireballs in an uneven circular plane strafing the ground at the entry way. That's if I can figure out the code to do that, it's kinda complicated and I'm not very good with code to begin with, always takes me much longer just to get that aspect of my game up and running properly.

Here we can see Bud standing by the large plastic beach pale and rusty metal shovel. I've added the foot particle effects for when he is walking through the sand and also for the sand inside of the bucket. I still have to add particle and sound effects for the other surfaces that he can walk on in this game level, mostly woods, plastic, rubber, and the metal shovel that although he can't really walk on it his feet might touch the surface if he jumps at it right so I'll be sure to add a sound effect for that just for the "What if factor."

Here we can see Bud standing by the Toy Rubber Duck. Another Sand Box decoration just for scenic detail although I will add a sound effect for the Duck to "Squeak" or "Quack" when Bud jumps on him. In fact I'm thinking that what I might also do is place a Health Pick up way above the Rubber Duck so that Bud will have to use the Duck like a spring board to be able to jump high enough to get the healthy green potato plant leaf health pick up. I think all I have to do for that is tag the Duck accordingly and he'll bounce higher up when he lands on the Duck.

Here we can see Bud standing by one of the Toy Boats in the Sand Box. There are two toy Boats, this one you see here and another red plastic Tug Boat toy. Again these are more for decoration but it is possible that later on I may find a more significant use for them just to make them a bit more interactive but for now they are just for scenic decoration more than anything. This one does have a little cabin that Bud can go inside of so it may serve very well as a place to hide a pick up item of some type.

Here we can see Bud standing close to the Toy Wooden blocks area of the Sand Box. You can see the plastic Beach Bucket and Metal Shovel way in the background near by. Again more for scenic detail more than anything but it will be a good place to explore and try and out run or hide from "Hunter potato Beetles."

Here we can see Bud by the other plastic Tug Boat I mentioned earlier. Again more thrown in as scenic details and something to explore because you never know what items are going to have a more than just scenic detail orientated purpose.

Ah now we come to one of my most favorite of the Sand Box toys next to the revolving Shooting Toy Robot torso, the Rubber Shark! Doesn't he look menacing? I was going to and may still animate the shark's jaws so they open and close at certain times second intervals but what I'm going to do for now is place a key inside of the Shark fro Bud to find and just make it so as the teeth are dangerous. That way if Bud runs into or lands on the Shark's teeth he'll take a good deal of damage. I test jumped into the Shark's mouth several time to test the feasibility of that scenario and it works quite well, we'll see once I've added the danger colliders to the teeth to see if that still holds true though. In any event it'll make it a lot more difficult to get that much needed key ;)

Once all of this is done I'll need to add in the enemy characters and work out an exit door scenario. Entry will be simple though an overhead pipe leading into the Sand Box, a bit odd I know.

Sand Box Shark

I have finished all the details for the Sand Box with the final addition of the Toy Rubber Shark you can see here. I was going to animate the jaws of the shark to open and close at intervals of a few seconds or so but I thought maybe what I might do just for simplicity is to just make the teeth hurt Bud the Spud if he lands on them. Maybe I might decide to animate the shark latter on I don't know. but for now I'm anxious to get the Sand Box level built so I can export it into Unity 3D and start adding the material textures and code the surface effects for particle foot dust and sound as my character walks across the sand box terrain and other objects. I made a simple bridge that is just a slab of plastic that has a red brick texture on it for now simply because I could not immediately think of anything special to make for a bridge to cross the mote to the sand castle. If I think of something better later on down the road I'll replace it with whatever i create, but for now this plastic slab will serve a suitable albeit temporary solution to my "What to do for a bridge?" conundrum ;)

Toy Boat Added to Sand Box

Even with taking a bit of a break today and going out for a nice long bike ride I still managed to somehow find the time to create this simple toy plastic boat I added to the Sand Box level of my game. I like it but i keep thinking my sand box needs something bigger in it, maybe a bigger boat that I could place this one in the foreground of and have a big plastic ocean liner behind it? I dunno, maybe that might be a bit much?? I'm liking the idea of adding a toy rubber shark though. I'll see if I feel like doing that tomorrow ;) 

Sand Box Level Toy Robot

I made a toy robot for the sand box level of my game. He's a broken down rusty toy robot that will give Bud the Spud some trouble if he gets within range. He has no legs and bud will find him buried in the sand up to his waist guarding the entry way to the bridge that will cross the mote to the sand castle on the other side. This toy robot will be a little lopsided so when his chest doors pop open and his cannons pop out and start shooting his torso will spin and he'll shoot deadly fireballs all over the place in a lopsided 360 degree circle. He has no aim being just a toy robot but even still if Bud should get hit by a fire ball it's curtains for Bud the Spud. Similar to the blue wind up robots what they lack in intelligence they make up for in deadliness.

I have him all rigged for animation so tomorrow that will be my next task, animate his attack sequence and then export him into Unity 3D for the fun code stuff. My thought is that he should work pretty much the same way that the machine gun turrets work in the FPS tutorial. He'll have an attack range although he will not rotate and deliberately shoot towards the player, he'll just start shooting while spinning around in circles. 

Sand Box Level 03 WIP

I have been working all weekend on the new level 03 which as you may recall from my last post that this will become level 03 and what I was working on as level 03 the "Tree House" will in fact become level 04 ;) Anyways here is a sneak peek at the sand box level in progress being constructed in Max 8. The sand texture may change once I get the final finished version into Unity 3D, right now this is a quick and dirty texture I whipped up in Max 8 just so I can better see how the overall effect will be. If you look closely you can see that I have already begun adding objects for Bud the Spud to explore in the Sand Box. You can see a toy rubber ducky that I was working on over the weekend.

Here you can see a better view of the toy rubber ducky rendered in Max 8. I created a dirty texture for it so it looks well used. In the top image you can see a toy plastic beach bucket which I figure will be a great place to hide some Fertilizer Pellets for Bud to collect. The sand castle in the corner will serve as the exit to the level once Bud has found the two keys needed to unlock the door to the Tree House level. There is lots more I need to add like some toy wooden blocks, perhaps a plastic shovel, a bridge of some kind to cross the mote and a few other sand box type toys that would be typical of a scenario like this. It's going to be a fun level to create, and best of all I'll have another cool level to use those toy wind up robots in.