[WIP] Airburner [Air Combat Game]

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Hello everyone. Sorry for my bad English . I’m good at listening and reading, but not so much talking and writing in English.

For this reason I will try to be concise.

I’m working on this game, which I call Airburner for 4 months now [I started in August but I had to stop from December to March to work on other projects].

In essence is an air combat game where I seek to take the freedom of a simulator in terms of control, to the simplicity of a GamePad.

At the moment, I’m working alone on this project, but I hope to change that in the future.

Gameplay video [03/2018] .

There is a playable version, but I need to solve something vital before sharing it with you. I need to implement a Terrain Streaming System to solve the Ram / Vram consumption, and errors due to floating precision limit.

The good news is that I am working on it for 1 week, and I already have the system working. I just need to implement it in the game.

This is a video of the system working where I’m using the Aircraft Jet from Standard Assets to quickly and safely test the tool outside of my game.

I plan to release it as an editor tool in the asset store in the future.

When I have this implemented in the game, I will share a link so you can download the game and give me feedback if you wish. That by the way would be of incredible help

I will publish the advances in the game in this thread, as well as release more details about the Gameplay and my Unique Value Proposition.

Thanks for taking the time to read up here

Latest Gameplay Video [10/2018]

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Nice work savage, and your English is solid. Don’t have to apologize. :wink:
Keep up the progress!

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Thank you very much !

Yes, I will continue working, as soon as I have some significant progress I will share it here

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It looks great! is this coming for PC, right? i love this genre, actually i’m working in an air combat game, but is more arcade and for mobiles.

Keep on the good work :smile:

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Thanks ! :slight_smile:

Yes, for now the platform is PC, and I also love this genre. One of my favorite games is F22 Air Dominace Fighter

Well, this took me a little longer than i expected, but finally the core of my terrain streaming tool is complete and i could implemented in Airburner.

There still performance spikes to fix, but is more related to the quality of the Terrain than the tool itself. Anyway , now that is working and therefore i don’t have the huge contrains of the size of my world, i can focus on make progress in Gameplay and other systems.

Also I’m testing an very, very early implementation of clouds (that appart to be nice to have visually speaking, helps hide the fact that a more altitud yo can see the lack terrain in the scene). For that i’m using Fog Volume 3.

I want to clarify, I’m not a tecnical artist and i’m still figuring out how the tool works. The result of what you see is not the final quality that you can achieve with Fog Volume 3 if you know what you are doing, unlike me.

Only i can say is a powerfull tool to have.

This is a short video of the state of the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H87eNUM9Vnc

Now the first thing i have to do is reimplement Weapons, Spawn System, Aircraft AI to work without global space coordinates because now the world is loading by parts and reseting to the origin to avoid float point precision errors.

In theory this shouldn’t took too long, because in the begining I designed my code to make this type of change in the future, but we wiil see.

I hope in the next weeks have gameplay implemented as i designed in the first place, to show to you and recibe feedback.

Thanks!

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That is so often the case with software development. :slight_smile:

Your time looks to have been well spent. Both the videos are really interesting and the visuals are looking very effective.

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Yes , because of that when I schedule a developmet plan ,i always reserved a coulple of weeks before the deadline (if is posible) as a buffer.

Thank you very much for your comment :slight_smile:

I’m getting closer to be able to release a beta version.

For now, finally i have all game components reimplemented to work with the terrain stream system and no global positions from Unity it self.

Also i fixed the performance spikes integrating Granite SDK to stream the textures from disk,i implemented flares to defense and made a better HUD for the machine gun. Now you can use it to attack enemy aircrafts.

In this point , I can start shaping the gameplay and build Levels/Missions .

I started in my website a DevLog where i will be posting updates and explain in detail what problems I face and how I solve it in the game. All that without stop posting progress here.

The only drawback is that for now the Dev Log will be only in spanish, because is my native language. When I find extra time i will do my best to translate it to english.

Here is the link to the DevLog, only has a one introductoey post, but in the next days i hope publish more.

https://www.savagecodes.com/airburner-juego-de-combate-aereo/

This is a video with the progress until now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWcabk1MbGY

Thanks to all that take the time to see the videos and read this!

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Hi Everyone, as always, sorry for my bad English.

It´s been almost two crazy months.

I want to share with you rhe progress that I made so far in this time.

What´s New?

- New Enemy AI : The enemies now act by them selfs or in groups (squads) using the clasic formations (Four Finger, VIC,Fluid Six) and they generate dogefights situations. Also they choose when atack the Player or one of the Allies (in this case the Hercules C-130).

- Allies & Allies AI: This needs much more work, but now you have Allies fighting side by side with you.

- AI Airforce Commander : Is an AI in charge to Spawn new enemy Aircraft when is needed and to reasign objetives to squads for more dynamic gameplay

- New Missile Physics : Until now the Missiles were doing simple Lerp interpolations, but now they move with Physics and using pro nav algorithm to intercept rather than chase. Still need Work but it feels a lot better.

- Free Cam Mode & Machine Gun Cam : The first explains itself bay the name, the second was only a experiment but now I intended to mantain it and improve it. Is based in an Ace Combat Assault Horizon Cam

This is a video in what you can see a Demo mission that most probably will not be in the final game , but allow to test and see better all this features.

Now I have to stop working in the game for a month because I need work in in other project that gives me money to live and finance this project, as well I have to prepare final Exams.

But when i resume working I expect in 3 weeks finish the Allie AI and in that point i would be able to share a build with you to get Feedback

Thanks for read this!

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Wow, man - I love it! It really looks like it plays well. Honestly the only thing that feels lacking to me are the explosions and vfx. I assume you’ll get back to them and tweak them. …In the meantime, do you want to use some explosions I’m never going to actually find a use for?

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Thanks!

Yes that’s the plan. In fact, just before posting here, when i posted in my Linkedin , i mention that in this point really needs a New UI, 3D Models and Sounds

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6419375363738136576

My plan is ,as I said , first finish the artificial inteligence for be able to make the gameplay as I designed. So then I can share to get Feedback, to make changes.

There is not point in sharing it now because, bugs aside, dont reflect yet my design.

About the video looks great ! . To be honest, I’m currently working in my own Shaders and a Editor Tool to make Volumetrics Explosions,but i’m running out of time.

I see that you release it for free, I will test it well when I resume my Work in the game in a month. If i see that suits the game i don’t mind talk with you and pay you to modify it if is needed.

For now I’m a one man army but I know that is practly imposible finish this game in that way. So I want have some solid Gameplay as well “acceptable” graphics, for try to get the funds for hire the team that I need (3D Artist,Technical Artists,UI Designers,etc), or talk with anyone that wants to join. But always parting from a solido project and no just a Idea.

Again, Thank for comment !

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Well, I´m back

The 1 month pause , end it up been 2 months , but i´m back.

For the moment i´m working in optimice my Terrain Streaming tool ,for achieve a large draw distance without kill the performance.

Improvements made:

  • Terrain tile change detection uing a 2D grid instead of raycast
  • Dynamic terrain pseudo-occlusion
  • Dynamic pixel error based in camera distance

Also I updated the main 3D model for the F-22 , and i fixed Shadows and Lighting in general, but there is still a lot of work remaining in this aspect

My goal with this changes is be able of use less fog and clouds, and achieve a more realistic atmosphere.

By the way, i created a Facebook page, check it out if you like Redirecting...

Thanks

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Continuing the work in airburner, i started to work in the VFX of the game.

Until now i was using Detonator Framework as a place holder, but doesn’t work in Unity 2018 (I recently upgraded to that version) and i had planned replacing it anyway.

This is a quick test of a prototype shader that I made with Amplify , that will be the base of a custom editor tool to create custom volumetric explosions.

The idea is only have a few displacement maps, a base mesh and a color ramp , so with the tool you can animate the explosion from scratch, an save it for later use in the game.

Also i’m planning that you can mixed it with the Particle System for better results.

I don’t know if it will work as i have planned, but for now the progress seem promising.

Here is the video

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New quick update!

I have the custom editor tool to create/modify/animate the volumetric explosions working. Still needs some work, but is working.

Now to polish it, and integrating it in Airburner

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New Update!

This month the progress was not abysmal because I had to dedicate time to other projects that today generate income, to be able to invest in Airburner (and do not forget to be able to live …), but still I want to share this progress with you

This is the same battle sequence from months ago, but with the new explosions, 3D Models, Minimap. All of that working on our Level Streamer System, to which several optimizations were applied.

Although I still consider that 3D Models, VFX and Sounds are not final (not to mention that the UI redesign is still pending), it is an advance and I wanted to share it.

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Hi, this isn’t a progress update, but it’s something that’s means a lot to me.

This Saturday Airburner was part of the Argentine video game showcase in EVA2018 .

Sorry for the quality , i filmed this with my phone

Thanks for watch! And Thanks to ADVA for the opportunity