In the past month I’ve been working with AC and Unity, learning each day, asking for help and such.
I’m creating a very small adventure game about an astronaut (John) sent to Mars to find out what happened to the previous explorers, that went missing. His only link to earth, during this mission, will be an AI named Elle.
It’s a First Person Adventure, featuring:
Real Mars topography, from NASA, obtained from Curiosity;
Real NASA 3D models;
A lot of material creation / editing;
Full voice SFX.
It’s going to be free, since It’s a learning process for me.
Implemented the “player limits” concerning freeroam. The player is now “stopped”, while listening to a warning from ELLE, but still can walk in anyway he wants, in the “mission area”, which is about 100x100meters, with an huge crater, and its surroundings.
Removed MiniMap, since It didn’t gave the gameplay any more substance and I prefer an hudless game screen.
One of the things that really surprised me about NASA’s recently released 360 degree video of the Martian surface (must see, but on a mobile device!) was just how “non-Mars” it really looked. Just like a rocky desert on Earth or something. The one thing I think would make it seem so alien is how quiet it would be. Assuming you were in a suit of some sort, you’d really only hear your breathing, the rubbing of your suit as you moved, and the crunching of rocks and soil beneath your feet, I assume.
@alimpo83 What kind of audio effects are you planning on using to make the environment feel alien?
The player only has two sounds, and his voice while communicating with ELLE. While walking you’ll get a breathing sfx, and while running you’ll get a similar one, but a bit faster and stronger. You’ll get the voices from the astronauts and such while listening to comms, but there are no “exterior” sounds. The martian surface is completed by a soft, desolate soundtrack.
Since I’m using mostly free models (it’s both for saving for next games and also to improve reskin capabilities), I’m taking some more time, but it’s coming good. It’s also good for creating new and different prefabs from available meshes.
Finished live camera implementation in the game, since I wanted a video of a character, but since I’m in Unity Free, used renderToTexture;
I’ve decided to finish implementing all text before creating all the sound, organizing all in-game dialogue;
Changed GlobalFog script to suit my needs, simple mod.
Implemented manual door openers, created lift and some small assets.
A small screen showing the base model for the astronauts shuttle.
The breathing sounds I used a free sound and edited. Still working on them They work good separated from one another, and when going from walking to running. But I’m still figuring the running to stop or walk to stop fades.
The ELLE speech is recorded through a text to speech app and then edited. I wanted the voice to be realistic enough, but still a little bit robotic, since it’s an AI.
The player voice is going to be fully recorded and added when all dialogues, hotspots and such are added to the main scene.
Well I have to say, that’s one of the better text-to-speech outputs I’ve ever heard. My experience with British women is sadly limited, but it sounds pretty spot-on to me.
To my ear, it seemed like the breathing noise was only happening while the character was moving. Is this true? And if so, is that what you intended? Because I don’t know about you, but I still breathe even when I’m not moving.
Finished implementing all mechanics on the Mars Scene!
Continue to work on scene 1 decors and details.
Started implementing mechanics on scene 2.
In March I’ll release the game. I would like the players to have 30-60 min of gameplay on a first run, and I’m trying to point to that. Maybe next week or so I would like to have beta testers, please leave your name and I’ll put you on a beta testers list.
If you’re using Unity 5, any of the features available in Pro are also available in Personal. This wasn’t the case with Unity <= 4, so older tutorials aimed at the free edition may be having you do workarounds you no longer have to fuss with in 5.
That said, you’ve got a perfectly functional hologram there!
I’m now on the process of recording all the SFX voices! It’s taking a while, but It’s coming out nicely.
I’m trying not to rush things.
PS: I’ve bought UFPS, so my next adventure will feature much smoother FP Control, it’s great. I’ve wondered if I should use it on this little adventure, but I’m not going to do so, and try to keep focus.
