3D Videogame DevLog

16 Oct 2022 - ongoing | Author: Laurin

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Current Progress

1-14-24

  • VROID models walking around with Mixamo animations. Can change to a healing class. Have one party member following you.

So far I have:

  1. Inventory & Inventory UI
  2. Quick Inventory / Equipment Selection
  3. Weather
  4. Ocean / Water
  5. Third Person Character Controller & Camera
  6. Pickup Items
  7. Hunger / Thirst / Strength Depletion & UI
  8. Read NPC Dialogue
  9. Take damage from Enemy
  10. Fully rigged 3D character

I’m working on creating:

  1. Affinity system (at least with party members)
  2. Combat
  3. Swimming
  4. Climbing
  5. Sailing / Boating
  6. Puzzles
  7. Camping (to fill Hunger, Strength needs)
  8. Armor / Clothing effects

Among other things…

Introduction

Many developers start out creating small games, I’m no exception. In high school I was creating my own versions of Mario, Pacman, etc. However I wanted to create something bigger for several years. I developed characters: their personalities, looks, etc in high school. I jotted down gameplay ideas for years during and post college. During the pandemic lockdowns, I finally began creating my dream game: A 3D Zelda-like world with an invisible spiritual world. My favorite games have mostly all been in 3D: Mario Sunshine, Mario Galaxy 1 & 2, Breath of the Wild, Wind Waker, Harvest Moon.

What I’ve Learned (Quick Reference)

3D Modeling

Workflow

So the flow I’ve found that works for me

  1. Create mesh (preferably find a base-mesh online with a usable license and modify it. SketchFab has a lot of models)
  2. Rig using rigify
  3. Create detailed animations in blender
  4. Bake the animations and generate a game rig with Game Core Tools add-on.
    • If you are missing bones, have too many, or the bones are disconnected, fix the rig. It’s still less work than doing it yourself.
  5. Shift select the mesh and the rig
  6. Export to fbx
  7. In Unity, click the fbx obj and update the inspector to use ‘humanoid’. Apply the change. If there are errors you can choose ‘configure’ and see what bones are missing, etc.

Rigging

  • Game rigs are different from animation rigs.
    • Animation rigs, like rigify in blender, help you get animation details down but are too rigorous for game engines.
    • You have to provide a seperate game rig for game engines that has less bones but specific ones for a humanoid. You then ‘bake’ the animations made in blender so your detailed animations are beautifully kept and the engine can run smoothly (physics) with the game rig.
    • Game rigs also can use generic animations like mixamo.
  • Mixamo has free characters and free animations that can be mapped to any rig.
    • Downloading Y or X bot is great for programming 3D humanoid movement if you’re model isn’t finished. It gets you many animations you’ll need while you finish the art.

Blender

Keyboard Shortcuts

Alt-H : UnHide all hidden objects

Timeline

  • 2020 I began learning Unity. With the help of the Brackeys youtube channel I slowly became familiar with the popular game engine. I also began learning about shaders, which I found is a feat of itself.
  • 2021 I began learning modeling, and was still trying to pinpoint what I was going for in the story and for gameplay.
  • 2022 I found Thomas Brush and learned what I was doing wrong:
    1. I had no design document - therefore I was creating without knowing what I was supposed to be creating. The worst nightmare for a programmer trying to program - you can’t think creatively and program it at the same time. The design needs to come first.
    2. I needed to create a small polished version of my game showing what it was all about, not start creating the entire thing. And I needed to get feedback on that small polished version to see if the game was interesting to others.
  • 2023
    • Found a 3D modeling program (VROID) that is easy to create 3D human models, fully rigged.
    • Able to transition to the ‘Battle’ scene
    • Basic character animations and UI
    • Still working towards that small core snippet to show publishers

Bugs

Tears in model in animation

Solution: The model needs to be in T pose

Unity crashes when stopping play mode

Solution: something has a leak. The red items in the world are the culprit. Delete them and it should work again.

objects are weight painted red but don’t move with the bone

Solution: Blender doesn’t always weight paint the back of the object. You’ll have to do it.

Unity C# Blender

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