Wind Up Robots Added to the Tree House

It took me a little while to play around with their waypoints but the Toy Wind Up Robots are now on patrol in the Tree House in level 03 of my "Bud the Spud" game. I was having some problems trying to keep the robot on the top look out deck from wanting to walk towards the waypoints in the actual Tree House, I had to do a lot of experimenting moving them around so as they would not be in line with the ones below. After much tweaking and playing around I think I have something workable. The robot in the Tree House walks along 4 waypoints arranged in a sort of box pattern of 3 sides;

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Sort of like that across the floor of the Tree House. The robot above walks a similar pattern, it took me some tweaking to get it so as he passes very close the hole in the deck that Bud must fall through onto the tree branch below. That way if he's not looking out and takes to long trying to figure out which angle is best to drop down from and is not aware then a sparking wind up robot will zap him.

Wind Up Robot & Other Discoveries

Well I've had quite the busy weekend with all sorts of tweaking going on and trying to figure out new stuff. One thing that had always been bugging me very badly about my blood splats effects was that because I'm using a top down projector to instantiate blood splats whenever my enemies are killed by "Bud the Spud" although it left behind a very nice blood splat effect that formed well against uneven terrain what would happen was if another enemy say was following close behind and would walk through the blood splat the projector would also project that blood splat on top of the enemy which looked very odd. Also when my enemies died and left behind a "Fertilizer Pellet" for Bud to pick up they too would be covered in blood from the instantiated projector, which I did not mind so much, but my other enemies passing through the effect, well that was another matter and did bother me quite a bit. I discovered over the weekend that if I place my game characters onto another layer like the "static" layer for instance and tell my projector to ignore that layer then it works perfectly. I guess I could make a new layer and call it "Characters" for simplicity. But in any event it works so now my projectors no longer cast a blood splat on top of my enemy characters if they pass through a nice gooey looking blood splat on the floor, How cool is that?

Next up was the challenge of creating my "Wind Up Robot" to patrol around in the Tree House for level 03. I wanted to be able to have him wander back and forth between "Auto Way Points" but I also wanted him to emit sparks that can hurt Bud if he gets hit by them... you might recall me mentioning that was my goal? Well it took me the better part of the day to get it working but I finally got it just how I want it using the "Walker Boys AiPatrol Script." I had to make some changes like "Tag" robot with a name; "robot" and then in the "Controller Collider Hurt Script" I had to add a few if statements and add a few Variables to the "Ai Patrol Script" and Viola! Success!

That particle effect for his sparking lightning bolts was fun too, I might tweak it a little more to add a secondary effect for a small shower of sparks to accompany the lightning bolts, I'll see ;) But what I've got works very well and now I have a walking wind up toy robot that will patrol and inflict damage, he does not attack Bud deliberately as he is simply a wind up toy but he'll dish out a good 35 damage which more than makes up for his lack of intelligence ;)

Tree House Placement

Took me a while to add all of the foliage planes to my model and then once I got the model into Unity 3D I had to change each material to the "Big Tree" texture materials in unity manually which took a while as I had to do each one separately and there are close to 200 of them. Then I had to go in and remove their colliders as they are not needed here.

While giving it a testing to see how difficult it would be for "Bud the Spud" to climb up the ladder to get into the tree I found it a bit difficult with just the mesh collider alone so I created a few empty game objects and gave them box colliders, tweaked them into position and scaled them to fit each ladder board. It makes it a lot easier to climb now although once he is at the top of the ladder it a bit tricky trying to jump onto the branch so I may need to make a small wooden board nailed to the tree branch to serve as a place to jump onto just to make that a lot easier because although it can be done it does not feel or look quite right as he kind of lands on the side of the branch which looks a bit awkward. I'll see about making a small extra model that I can just import and place into position and adjust as needed.

I place the 2nd key pick up in the location I wanted for it. You would really have too look for this one which is just what I want a bit of a hunting challenge for my players. But I'll mention a little clue here. On the lookout platform there is a hole in the floor that Bud can drop down through onto branches below ;)

I have to add a lot more decorations and things to do in this level but I'm trying to keep this one as simple as I can, that last level was much larger than I had expected it to be which kind of surprised me because there is not really that much to do in that level.

• Explore it a bit
• Find the two keys
• Pick up a Health pick up
• Pick up a Extra Life pick up
• Kill Worms & Potato Beetles
• Jump over two Hibachi BB Q's
• Use the ball to get on top of the 3rd wall
• Find the exit

See not that much at all. This level it's more get across the mud bogs safely, kill Worms and Potato Beetles, climb the tree into the Tree House and find the two keys, make it the rest of the way across the mud bogs to the exit and you're done level 03 :)

Level 03 Tree House WIP Continued

In continuing with yesterdays post I thought I would keep you up to date on how the Tree House is coming along. I've been busy all day mostly just adding the foliage to the tree. Because it's going into Unity 3D in my game environment I figure I might as well use the "Big Tree Leaves & branches" from the standard terrain assets pack. Because Max does the transparencies a little differently than in Unity I had to make a new reversed transparency map from the alpha channel in the unity "Big Tree Leaves & Branches" PSD files and use that in order the get the same effect you see here in my Max render using "Mental Ray." As you can see I've added some more branches to the tree and started to texture a few of the simple things like the tin roof that only needed a simple box texture mapping. I'll see if I have time to do the UVW texture mapping for things like the tree house parts and the tree trunk but that will depend on how much longer it will take me to add some more foliage to the tree, I still want to fill it out a little more in a few areas, but overall it's coming along nicely I think.

I was trying to think of things one might see in a tree house although I could not think of much outside of a few things like wooden boxes to sit on, an old cable cart for a table, a crude wooden bench, and maybe some comic books. Maybe some toy blocks on the floor and the occasional cola can. I'll have to see if I can search the Internet and see if I get some ideas from there.

Level 03 Treehouse WIP

Here is a sneak peek at the Tree house "Bud the Spud" will have to climb in level 03 of my game. Level three takes place in a muddy bog filled area with a tree house located at the center. Bud will have to fight worms and potato beetles on the way to the tree house along with trying not to fall into deadly mud bog goop, climb up into the tree house and find two keys located inside that will unlock the exit door to this level. Inside of the tree house bud will also have to deal with a few rogue toy windup robots which should be not too much trouble as these robots are only stupid wind up toys that patrol back and forth across the floor, they will however on occasion emit sparks that can hurt Bud if he gets hit by them. Well that's my basic scenario for level three. I figured I'd share a sneak peek at the tree house model's work in progress (WIP) exclusively here on my blog.

Character Control Note: Based on the opinions of some of those who have test played my game I've been looking more closely at the character controller system, I've made a few tweaks, (not yet uploaded) and he seems to have a more tighter control now.

Level 02 Additions and Optimization

Sorry I didn't post an update yesterday but I was swamped trying to figure out some stuff. First it took me the better part of the day to work on and then texture map my exit door area for level 02 of my game. Not sure why really, I had made a good start on the actual model before going to bed on Thursday night so basically all I had to do was add a few more details and then texture map it but the texture mapping too quite a while to do for some reason. Finally when that was done I managed to make it so you have to jump on the "Potato Beetles" twice in order to kill them. I had some great help from Chad Walker of "Walker Boys Studios" on the scripting for that, he pointed me in the right direction and I was able to get it so you jump on the beetle once and you get a nice enemy pain sound a "Squishy" bug blood spurt sound as well and then on the 2nd jump he splats and leaves behind a nice gooey mess.

I had some other issues with Unity Crashing on me every time I tried to save out as a web player version. I kept getting some "Fatal Memory Error message" and then Crash!! I think it might have been due to a lot of the massive 2200 sized texture maps I had imported into Unity, I'm so used to working in the print industry where you always need the highest resolution images possible that sometime it's difficult for me to think in terms of "smaller is best" when it comes to game engines. I just always want to see super sharp detail in my textures. So I expect a good deal of the morning making then no bigger that 1024 X 1024 and smaller wherever I could get away with it.

Above Right: you can see "Bud the Spud" about to head across the final deadly mud bog in level 02 towards the exit. It's kind of had to see in this screen capture as I wanted to show the path he must take in order to get there. I promise I'll post a good shot of the level exit area later on today. But first I want to see in on my "Potato Beetle" I can make it so that after Bud has jumped on him the first time he will look damaged. Chad Walker had mentioned in his email that a change in the texture map material might be a way to go, and I have seen that done before, I just need to figure out how that is done.

Final Mud Bog Areas in Level 02

I finally got the final two deadly mud bog areas worked out in level 02. Here we can see Bud the Spud standing on top of a tin foil wrapped potato baking on the Hibachi overlooking one of the final mud bogs. You can see the key sitting on the cinder block in the middle of the bog, you can also see an extra health potato leaf pick up item as well hovering in the air over another cinder block below. In the next image you can see it as well.

In this screen capture you can see Bud the Spud has made his way onto the cinder block in the middle of the deadly mud bog and is about to grab the final key. I made these jumps a lot simpler as I know retrieving the first key from the mud bog located across the paving stones is a much more difficult jump series, getting across the first few rocks is no problem but landing on that toadstool in the middle of the bog takes a bit of practice I found. So I figured I'd give my players a bit of a break with this 2nd key retrieval scenario. There is one more mud bog to cross on the way to the exit pipe which I've still yet to work out. I'm thinking maybe perhaps a grungy wooden board in front of the pipe like a crude wall with a small door located at the mouth of the pipe with crudely painted text that says "EXIT."

I've still yet to add some direction signs and maybe those helpful butterflies I was talking about in an earlier post. I might try and do those with a particle system that has animated particles just like the Fire flies in the Underground level. Perhaps I'll see if I can get to that tonight. Oh as you can see I did make that "Drainage Pipe" I was telling you about to help justify why the Bud cannot jump off other right side of the wall, I think it turned out very well and does the job pretty good ;)

Potato Beetles Added to Level 02

I've been working hard on getting the Potato Beetles into Level 02. Could not figure out how to get my characters to work with the Way Points. The Walker Boys Scripts are set up way different than how I'm used to with my "Alien Zombies" project which was based off of the first person shooter tutorial on Unity 3D's web site. So for now I'm just going to have to settle for them working the same way the worms do in level one, on the plus side though at least I can adjust character speed, damage and a whole bunch of other stuff to make them a bit more of a challenge.

I have them placed here and there on top of the brick topped wall in the yard. These guys dish out 35 damage to Bud the Spud and are a lot quicker than the Worms. I have a few in the grass along with a few Worms as well. I was trying to figure out also how to make it so Bud would have to jump on a Beetle twice in order to kill it but so far no luck on that, more script studying is definitely in order. I did give him a more juicier "Splat Death" for when Bud does jump on them, it's quite tasty looking as you can see below. You especially have to love it if you kill one right by the edge of the wall. Because I'm using a projector it looks like his blood splatted all over the edge of the wall and ran down the face of the wall to the ground below, very yummy looking if you ask me ;)

One more thing I want to try and do today before calling it a day is do a drainage pipe running along the top of that last third brick topped wall to justify the character not being able to jump off the right side of the wall back into the yard. If I can get that done before bed time I'll be a happy little maniac lol ;)

Potato Beetle Testing & Set Up

OK I've made my animation for the Potato Beetle, they are pretty simple nothing too complicated. I was checking out some insect footage on YouTube last night before I called it a day and hit the hay to check out a little about how beetles actually walk. I've got something pretty close I feel. I gave him his attack animations, idle state, die, target enemy, run, and walk. So that part is done. I've set up his character controller and added his foot effects for when he walking on various types of surfaces his feet will make sounds and kick up a little dust as he moves. I gave him his blob shadow projector and assigned his enemy controller script. I'm trying to figure out his Auto way points because ideally I would like this lil guy to wander back and forth between two point across the wall tops in level 02 and attack Bud when he gets near. Right now it seems like that if I assign the way points script he ignores his attack range and leaves bud alone except to run right over him like a run away truck! lol If I remove the way points script then he performs just as he is supposed to from an "idle state." Hmmmm I think I might have to take a look at how I did the AI in my "Alien Zombies" game which is on temporary hold right now until I can get some help with that project as it's super complicated compared to my "Bud the Spud" game.

But yeah, just gotta work out those little issues which I think are minor and I'm hoping to have this lil guy placed into Level 02 by the end of the day. I have to make a nice bug splat for him just like the worms but different, bigger and juicier if ya know what I mean ;)

Cartoon Potato Beetle WIP

A sneak peek at the Cartoon Potato Beetle I'm developing for my "Bud the Spud Game." Just a WIP right now but he's starting to shape up nicely, big and plump just the kind of thing Bud will want to squish when he jumps on them just like the Worms in level 01.

I've never animated a beetle or anything with six legs before so I'm sure this is going to be fun. I have a few ideas on how insects actually walk but I'm not sure, maybe there is some video on YouTube I can study to get a better clue as to how I should have this lil guy move. I do need to make his antenna and texture him fist before I get into the whole rigging him and animating bit. I'm going to try and use another Biped as I seem to have better luck with those that fiddling about with the bones option, I never seem to get the hang of it right. But I'm pretty sure I should be able to use a custom biped and just move things around a bit.

Character BlockerWalls

I added some more eye candy to the scene in the form of these functional "Character Blocker Walls." I originally thought just having the bushes there was justification enough for why the character could not go over the other side of the wall but it just seemed kind of funny when I was testing out the game so I thought maybe I need some kind of fence or railing, or wood structure, maybe even more brick walling that is higher in the back, just something to really justify the characters restriction of movement within his 3D environment. So I came up with these boards of wood mounted to the back of the wall on long metal posts. I got the idea when I was out for my walk and looking at various fences in people's yards. I remembered seeing something like this last year when I was out on my bike doing some garage sale hunting last summer and thought; "Yeah... that's what I need here." It works very well for this portion of the wall but over on the 2nd Hibachi BB Q that Bud will have to cross on the 3rd wall I have it on one side but I need to come up with some way to justify restriction of not being able to go off the other side of the wall?? Maybe a drainage pipe or something?? Not yet sure on that.

I need to start making the "Potato Beetle" as they are introduced in this level as a new enemy for "Bud the Spud" to have to deal with. I also need to make a few bricks to use as character blockers in some areas as well like in behind the backs of the Hibachi BB Q's.

Level 02 Mud Bogs

I've added a couple of deadly mud bogs to level 02 and worked out the positioning and scenario for getting the first key, it's located on the big rock in the middle of the mud bog on the right. This is another tricky jump. The first three stones are pretty easy but getting onto the toadstool is a tricky jump. Once you have the key getting back is much easier, you just have to jump onto the toadstool and the stones just right and you are home free.

The other mud bog right now just serves the purpose of confining the player the the game environment, although I could place something in the middle of that bog too, maybe an Extra Life Heart perhaps?

I also worked out the scenario for using the Soccer ball to get onto the thirst brick topped wall. Bud will have to push the ball over to the wall and then jump onto the Soccer ball and leap onto the top of the wall. Pretty easy but it might take some players a little time to figure that out, which is a good thing ;)

In the underground level I was using the "Fire Flies" to give players clues as to where to go or hints that something interesting was close by, but above ground in the day light fire flies would be out of place, so I'm trying to thing of something similar, maybe butterflies perhaps??

Bud the Spud with Baked Potatos

Here we can see "Bud the Spud" safely standing on a tin foil wrapped Potato baking on the Hibachi. This is the ONLY safe way to cross the BB Q's one step on those hot grills and it's one big burn out for "Bud the Spud." Just like his Mud bog death I'll have to make a nice "Burning Death" for when he ends up on a hot grill. Maybe something like he runs around in a frantic circle until he busts into flame and then turns into a pile of ash lol :)

You can see a little more of the yard in this screen capture. Also note the Soccer ball on the grass in the background. Bud will need this ball in order to get on top of the next wall. ;)

Bud the Spud and Tin Foil Box

As "Bud the Spud" navigates his way across the top of the garden wall he'll not only come across the Hibachi BB Q's but also boxes of tin foil, a grim reminder that his fellow Potato people are being turned into Baked Potatoes. He'll even have to jump on Baked Potatoes in order to safely get across each BBQ. I still have to make the tin foil wrapped Baked Potatoes, but when I do and add them into the game scene they will cry out in pain each time Bud jumps on one. It's a little twisted I know but then again I like things with a little twisted humor ;)

The Hibachi WIP

A sneak peek at one of the Hibachi's that "Bud the Spud" will have to deal with in level 02. I have not yet created the tinfoil wrapped Potato's that he will have to jump onto in order to safely cross the tops of each Hibachi BBQ. The plan is to have each tinfoil wrapped Potato shout "Ouch" each time Bud jumps on one in order to cross. There is still a lot to do and workout in level 02 like the Soccer ball he will need to get up on top of the far wall. Placement of enemy worms, Placement of the Keys, Extra Health and Life pick ups and placement of a few good old Mud Bogs. I also need to create his new enemy "The Potato Beetle" as they will be introduced in this level as well.

New Training Ground Level

I made a new beginning to the game level where "Bud the Spud" now starts off inside of a small training level just to introduce players to some of the things they will need to know in order to better understand the game. You can still go inside of Bud's house only now its just a silly game extra, but there and can be explored never the less ;)

There is a slight bug though because if you have collected game objects like Fertilizer Pellets and Keys and lets say you have even killed the occasional worm or two. If you go into Bud's House or the training level and then return to the game's main level 01 you loose all of your collected items, this is because the level re sets itself. I think I know how to fix this. With that "Do not destroy on load." code. ??

Optimization & Tips

I managed reduce the file size from just over 40 MB down to 33.6 MB by reducing a lot of the texture maps from 1024 down to 512, the quality still looks pretty good even when viewed at full screen in the web player so I'm pretty happy with that.

TIPS

Making it across the 2nd or middle deadly mud bog

OK now I know there are some people who have been having a difficult time trying to figure that one out. It's actually pretty simple. The normal instinct I guess would be to try and jump to the broken dock on the other side of the mud bog and although it can be done it is a difficult jump. The easy way is to jump to the right towards the glowing mushrooms with the Fire flies flying around above. Much safer and easier jump. I was originally going to remove that little patch of land so you HAD to jump to the other dock but I thought that might make it too difficult for a first game level. I dunno though, what do you think?

Extra Life Heart & Fertilizer Pellets

There is a large broken pipe located at the 3rd deadly mud bog, inside are extra Fertilizer Pellets and an Extra Life Heart. You can always tell when an extra life heart is near by by the "Beating Heart" sound. Climb up to the floating platform and jump onto the 2nd platform, from there jump onto or into the pipe to collect your rewards.

The First Key

This one I notice some people miss when playing the game as they make there way down the path towards the middle deadly mud bog. Be sure to look for the first deadly mud bog to your right as you head towards the middle bog. It can be easy to miss if you are not looking out for it. In the middle of that bog on a rock is the first key needed to unlock the door to the surface way above. jump from the glowing mushrooms onto the rocks to get to the key. Remember "Fire flies" often give important clues, be sure to look for them in the game.

Mud Bog Drowning

Took me a little while to finally work out a good way to do a better death scene for when "Bud the Spud" falls into a "Deadly Toxic Mud Bog". But I managed to cobble together something that works pretty good. If he falls into a Mud Bog there is a splash, he sinks and can't move except play his drowning animation while a nice drowning sound plays, and after a few seconds he explodes and looses one life.

Bud the Spuds House Interior

Bud's House Interior

Here is a sneak peek at the interior of Bud the Spud's house. It's very simple since I figure a potato does not need much. I might add some more details but I'm not sure what at the moment. I want to keep it pretty simple and basic, I was even debating about the stove but I kinda liked it so it got my vote to stay since he has a smoke stack on top of his house that you can see in the exterior version in level 01 of the game. I might add a crudely wooden framed picture or two on the walls, something "Potato" related, again not sure what at the moment.

Load Bar issues:

I'm not sure if my load bar is or is not working?? It seems to work sometimes and then others the web player stops and says "Bad File Length" whatever the hell that means?? I don't know if anyone else has had the same issue with it as no one has contacted me or commented on the blog about whether or not it's working or not so buggered if I know. It would be nice if someone did let me know either way. I can't fix it unless I know what the problem is and if I can't fix it then you can't play and that's gotta suck six ways from Sunday!

Load Bar Fixed

As near as I can tell the load bar seems to be working now. I made a few changes to the code. It does take a little while for level one to load so I still think I'll need to make a small inside of Bud's house kinda into level and see how that works. I'll see how far I get with that over the weekend. In the meantime it works and you can play it if you have a little patience.