Woah, it’s been almost a month since I posted here with my first batch of questions. Unfortunately I’ve barely had any spare time since to work on it until the past week! Still, I’ve learned a fair bit, still figuring out exactly how things work. I understand the logic behind the code, it’s just working out exactly what to type!
Thanks to those who helped me out on the questions I asked! I’ll probably be filling the forum up with more questions as I get chance to work more on it.
There really needs to be some kind of OSX emulator for Windows, like Boot Camp in reverse or something, lol!
Anyway, here it is, let me know what you think! It’s still an early beta, there’s a few bugs and plenty of features I still need to implement and figure out. Not to mention more levels!
Control scheme is simple: use the arrow keys and the space bar. If you’ve got a gamepad, it should work with that too! It’s definitely easier and more fun with a gamepad!
a) I sometimes fell into the endless blue - by the way a fantastic movie “le grand bleu”.
b) When i reloaded&restarted sound wasn’t playing anymore.
c) Groundborders (grass/pattern) are flickering.
d) Sometimes the grass texture is scaled false.
e) Steering is a bit painful with the keyboard.
f) Camera isn’t this good. It’s way too hectic. It doesn’t fit to the game well. Sometimes you have walls between the character and the camera.
g) You fall of the edges too easily.
h) No feedback that i can press the start button.
Have you placed elements which you collect also in the modeller or in unity?
I really like this! Here are the main issues I found:
The controls are hard so I fall off for no reason a lot.
The camera script is decent but needs vast improvement.
When I fall of the edge of the map sometimes I never stop falling. I assume this is because you are using OnCollisionEnter() or something to detect when the player is out of the map.
I would use if(player.transform.position.y < floor.transform.position.y) instead.
Minor things:
The vegitation could use some better placement and stuff to maximize how nice it looks and minimize performance drain.
Sonic’s collider is too small. lots of things stick through him when I walk around.
and more… but I am sure you know there is lots to do.
I love the art style and general look. It is good right now and with some fine tuning this could be really exellent!
Yeah, I added a collider to the bottom plane, but for some reason it doesn’t work half the time!
Hmm, odd…
Yeah, that’s the models being too close together, it’s something I’ve kept meaning to fix and just not got round to.
How do you mean? Sorry, I’m not sure what scaled false is!
Really? Then again, I’ve probably just got used to it! The controls are definitely more intuitive when using a gamepad imo, but I’ll look into tightening it up for keyboard users.
Yeah, right now the camera is just the basic follow script with just a couple of alterations. I’m not certain how I want my camera to work just yet so I’m leaving that for now.
Well, I dunno about that, lol! People say that about the official Sonic games. I’m of the camp that if you fall off too much you’re not playing it right!
Yeah, currently the start button on the opening screen is “OnMouseDown” only. That’ll be altered next time, I’m only just learning how to do these menu bits.
The flowers/trees/rocks etc were all placed in Maya along with the main geometry. But due to the backface culling I’ll be reimporting and repositioning them in Unity itself. Does this affect performance at all?
The rings were all placed in Unity, but again, I’ll be replacing them all once I get one all coded up so when you collide with it, not only does it vanish, it’ll play a sound and add to a tally at the top of the screen.
Oh cool! So that would go something like:
if
player.transform.position.y <
{
Application.LoadLevel("ghz-01b");
}
So if he ever falls below the water it’ll automatically restart the level?
Yeah, originally (and possibly still) the camera was going to be a side-scroller type so the game would be more like 2.5D rather the full 3D like this demo has. I think if I can get the 2.5D camera working right I’ll include some kind of option so people can choose which they prefer or something. So, uh (got off track there!), the arrangement was all from a side-scroller point of view. Also, I’ve had issues with the backface culling which I just found out why it was happening so I’m altering some of the models and then will be reimporting them and placing them all in Unity.
That’s more so he can get into tighter spots to collect stuff when I need him to.
Oh yeah, I’ve got a massive list of stuff I want and need to do with the game. I’m gonna have to convince work to lend me a MacBookPro to take home with me I think, lol!
I’ll be reimporting and repositioning them in Unity itself. Does this affect performance at all?
it could hit performance big time. group objects that share materials and don’t need special lighting as much as possible in maya.
nice start! haven’t played sonic in a while. i agree the keyboard is tough. i fell alot. maybe with some practice but i might try to slow the turning (or not have him move forward as far when turning?). might be because my gpu is slow - 733 quicksilver. it was a little laggy. maybe it’s easier on a good puter.
Ah, ok. So I should stick with positioning them in Maya then? Cool.
Ah, yeah, it could be the computer. The first beta I did right at the start (That no one will ever see, lol!) was ok on the G5 Tower but when I put it on a G4 Tower in the office it was laggy and I kept dying because it wasn’t updating fast enough.
Still, I know what you mean about him moving forward when he turns, that’s been bugging me too. I’ll see what options I can tweak to stop it!
Yikes! I remember that! I’d totally forgotten about it, thanks! I’ll get that retectured for the next release.
Awesome Sonic clone! With some work, it could easily rival the upcoming Sonic game on PS3/360. I want to see more, please keep it up!
Note for OTEE: I actually had a hard crash while playing the webplayer. I can submit a traditional bug report if desired. The finder all applications became unresponsive except for my mouse, and the music kept playing and looping.
Same here, although from what I could tell it seems like the gamepad controls are a lot more usable than the keyboard if it weren’t for that minor issue. Careful you don’t get sued by Sega!
One of the trickiest things about the control is when you press back key and it walks forward a bit before it turns around … I bet that’s accounting for many premature deaths.
Yeah, I definitely want him to go faster, I think I need to make future levels bigger or something. It’s weird looking at the old Sonic game while making this and noticing how, well, platformy and slow it is compared to the newer games. I always remembered it as blazingly fast, lol!
Eeks! Has this happened on any other webplayers for either of you? Oh, are you both on Macs? I’ll have to install my gamepad on a mac at work and test it out.
I’m not at work this week unfortunately but I’ll have to see if I can call in and get myself on a mac to take a look at what settings I can alter. I’ll admit I didn’t even think about gamepads when I built this player, it wasn’t until saturday that I realised it might automatically work and it just did, lol!
Hehe, Don’t go that far! Actually, yeah, do go that far! Sounds good to me, lol! I do want to release the final version around the same time as that one.
Ack, that’s not something I’ll have done wrong when building the thing is it?
Oh no! So you didn’t even get to play it?
Yup, I’m starting to think I’ll probably end up haveing to do my own character controller script, I’m dreading it, but I’m starting to think that’s what’s gonna have to happen.
So, am I right in thinking most of the problems encountered here (crashes and controller issues) all occured on a Mac? If so, I’ll have to build a mac standalone next time I think and try that. I know on the iMac I built the webplayer on last week, it definitely didn’t feel as stable as it does on a PC. It all worked fine and I didn’t come across those issues, but the music played 2 times too fast, which was a bit odd.
If you want to get the whole feel right (loopings…), you probably have to.
That said, we’ve been working on the super mario controller scripts a bit and a new version of the example project will be released along with 1.5.1.
Joysticks: you probably just want to check the invert check box on the vertical joystick axis in the input settings inspector.
Falling through: Since you are probably using triggers, you want to use a box collider with a larger box on the y-axis to avoid falling through at high speeds.
Also you really want to make the characters capsule radius larger. Hitting the coins is really hard with the tiny capsule.
I really like how you captured the graphix of the original sonic. A bit more speed will definatly add to the feeling. I am eager to see it, when the controls are reworked!
