Public Game Testing (Part 2)

So I tested my game out at a second public event, meant to promote my University and “Science” to local kids and families. Games are science, right? I did feel guilt about taking away a bit of attention from the other Computer Science volunteer who was showing legitimate educational tricks, but alas…

My experience with these events enhances my recommendation for all indie developers to find any opportunity to showcase their game, not for press but for general exposure and feedback. It doesn’t have to be at events strictly game-related either, and doesn’t have to have huge audiences. From roughly a hundred kids who came by and tried the game, I got enough feedback on the design of the game to feel more confident this time around.

Continue reading

Unity 3D – Textures Don’t Double in List

Just installed Unity3D Pro. Yes, I paid for it. Check out Studica if you’re a student, they make it a little more affordable to get the Pro commercial version of Unity. Grossly overpriced for what you get now-a-days compared to the free version, but what little you do get is valuable. Especially the “Profiler,” a great debugging tool that shows you what resources your game is using.

After a quick test, I think I found that an array of the same Material, no matter how big, will take roughly the same amount of RAM, CPU, GPU, etc. Sounds irrelevant, but it means I can probably redo my animation system, simply to list out animations in order, and if the animation happens to use the same frame in the cycle, I can list it twice without taking extra memory (if this is a huge error on the profiler’s part, feel free to say so below, but I’m just quoting what I saw myself testing it).

Also found out that to finish about 8% of animation for one character takes me roughly 12 hours. Dear God that’s a long time… but this also means I could theoretically finish animating a character in two weeks, if I really worked hard at it. Otherwise, at least a month. Better keep at it!

 

 

 

 

 

Animation Test – Drew – May 6, 2014

So, I’ve been testing a new workflow for animation.

Previously, I was only using Photoshop. Frankly, it’s terrible for hand-drawn animation. But I recently rediscovered Pencil, a free pencil-test program, and am trying a new workflow: rough animations in Pencil, put frames in Photoshop, trace over frames making sure they look good frame by frame, and export the final for use in Unity3D. It’s extra work, but I think it’ll lead to better animation, and may be quicker too when not second-guessing myself in Photoshop. We’ll see.

In the meantime, here’s some test animations made in Pencil so far. In my opinion, it’s a huge improvement over “James,” so I’m hopeful that I am getting better.

Drew - Idle, Running, Jumping Animations combined

Drew – Idle, Running, Jumping Animations combined

Continue reading