Hey everyone!
For this month's update, the game will look a little different.
That's because we've upgrade the version of Unity we build the game in, as well as upgraded the graphics pipeline to HDRP.
This means better graphics, lighting, performance, we have better tools we can use to make the game.
We've also overhauled a ton of our systems, scripts, and inspectors to make the game run better and quicker to update and change.
For example, we've gone and written custom inspectors with Odin (a plugin for Unity), so we can quickly visualize and tweak all sorts of things on the fly in the editor.
This means we make mistakes less often, and find mistakes quicker. It make it easier on the programming team to find bugs, easier for myself to test all kinds of gameplay variations, and in general, making working on the game way more fun to do.
If you're a game dev, I highly recommend doing this.
We also moved our entire folder structure to 'object-based' from 'type-based'.
That means that everything is organized based on what the object does.
So everything related to the Cannon in grouped together in the same folder.
Which just makes our lives so much easier. Highly recommend for bigger projects.
Makes it so easy to break down what's effecting what, and quickly make changes knowing we're not breaking something else.
We also brought in Peek by Ludiq, which DEAR LORD is a god-send for myself if you want to tweak levels quickly.
It basically lets you work full screen, and clicking any object in the scene opens things up contextually.
I can't go back, it just makes using Unity so much more intuitive and makes everything faster to do.
Unity, buy this plugin ASAP!
As for game updates, I'll write everything down here, as I go through the Commit History.
I'll try to get everything in here.
[h2] ENGINE [/h2][h3] UNITY VERSION [/h3]-Upgraded project to Unity 2019 LTS.
//A much more stable version of Unity, made for long-term development, with more features.
[h3] RENDER PIPELINE [/h3]-Now using the High-Definition Render Pipeline, designed for console games, with a year of new features, stability and performance boosts.
-Allows for better lighting in real time and better shadows.
-Skybox looks better
-Scene draws light from skybox itself.
-Fog is dynamic and not a flat effect
-Decal support to project objects onto other objects with little performance drops.
-Better control for materials and textures
-Volumetric Lighting
[h3]APPLICATION ICON[/h3]-Application now uses the new Rise and Fall 'crest' icon.
-Application icon scales properly on different sizes.
[h2]CONTROLLERS[/h2]-Stadia controller support. Buttons and UI will now work properly.
[h2]GAMEPLAY[/h2]-Charged swing uses the proper-sized collider on small, medium and large.
//Was accidentally using a tiny collider, making using the swing almost impossible.
[h2]PLAYERS
[/h2]-CPU Goalies now have helmets, making them look different from regular players.
-Air control when diving is fixed and back to normal.
-Players now have a shadow underneath them at all times, as well as their normal shadow.
//Makes it easier to judge height in the air, working to merge these two together.
[h3]SMALL[/h3]-Small size jump is now longer and more floaty.
-Running as the small size now has footstep sounds and your steps kickup dust.
[h2]GEOMETRY
[/h2][h3]GENERAL[/h3]-Fixed spots where players could get stuck in as the small size, which could get annoying given the new camera system.
-Added support beams around the arena to make it 'feel' more structurally sound and supported in the air.
-Added mountains in the background with a route to the stadium.
-A path wraps around both mountains towards the stadium.
-Rocks now use the same texture on all models, making it look better, and allowing us to make quick changes on the fly.
//Ever want a team colour that's different than red and blue? That's what we're building this towards.
-Removed some objects in the scene that were no longer used or needed.
[h3]CANNON[/h3]-Cannon now uses a new model that looks more like a cannon.
-Cannon firing effect is on end of muzzle.
-Lowered cannon's delay at the end of it rotating to 0.75 seconds from 1 second.
//Felt it was a little TOO easy to time this, instead of a little more risk and reward like we intended.
-Cannon's trigger volume (the sphere around it that pulls the ball in) slightly bigger to prevent the ball accidentally hitting the cannon and bouncing out.
//Also just felt better.
-Improved firing effect.
-Cannon has legs.
-Cannon has a ball decal on it to show the player what it's used for.
-Cannon uses new physics system in Unity 2019.4
-Cannon has a firing animation where the barrell recoils.
[h3]BALL[/h3]-Ball feels like normal again.
//We tried writing a fix for the ball temporarily stopping spinning when it's shot out of the cannon, but it broke the bounciness of the ball.
//It's been reverted. Still looking for a fix on it not rotating right away.
-Ball has real-time shadow and a fixed shadow showing it's position in the air.
-Ball reacts to hitting glass by lighting the glass up temporarily.
-Ball has a yellow glow around it, that directly matches the distance you need to be from it to hit it.
//If you're inside the glow, you will hit it.
-The circle around the ball UI is now sized to match this distance.
[h3]BUMPERS[/h3]-Fixed a spot where a bumper may not have acted like a bumper and bounced balls properly.
[h3]WALL CHEESE [/h3]-Wall cheese now have X's on them to show you shouldn't shoot at them.
-Wall cheese is now handled through code, and can be tweaked on the spot if needed.
-Wall cheese stays a little longer to give players more time to get set.
[h3]WATER[/h3]-Water is a new shader built for HDRP, that moves more dynamically and reflects light better.
[h3]GLASS[/h3]-Glass now has a hexagonal pattern running across it.
-Added a transparent finish to the bottom so you can see where the arena boundaries are better, but can still see through it.
-Roof glass is now visible.
//It gets disabled during gameplay, but we'll eventually put in an effect to still see it when you need to.
[h3]LAUNCHER[/h3]-Launcher on blue side now has blue colouring to match.
[h3]GOAL POSTS[/h3]Both the red and blue goalposts now have a nice real-time light emitting from them.
[h3]CLUBS[/h3]-Clubs now have a more detailed wood material on them, giving them some definition.
[h3]RAMPS[/h3]-Ramps are now built and modelled and will be implemented soon.
[h3]GROUND[/h3]-Added the Rise and Fall 'crest' logo to the middle of the arena.
-Ground is now grass, instead of dirt.
-Chalk is now projected onto grass and not it's own object, looking better.
[h3]LIGHTING[/h3]-Now uses HDRP Lighting, with more options and control, and better performance.
-UV Overlaps are fixed, improving performance.
-Lights are now placed in corners of the goal glass, giving you a sense where the boundaries are without making the glass opaque.
[h2]AI[/h2]-AI will not run inside the nets after a goal.
-AI will not walk into a weird position when the game starts.
-Offscreen markers disable themselves when that player is not active.
-Fixed some timescale bugs with diving.
-Stopped AI from sometimes spamming their DiveFX over and over.
-Stopped things from happening to characters while in pause menu.
-Players will no longer recieve input when the game is paused.
[h2]UI[/h2]-Added Off-screen makers for players when they go off screen.
//You'll see a coloured arrow following you, so you know how to get back into the frame.
-Built a Rise and Fall 'Crest' logo: The two clubs and ball on a shield.
//This will be used as the game's 'main' logo in situations where writing the text out doesn't make as much sense.
-Fixed 'Last 15 Seconds' UI appearing above the Timer UI.
-Fixed the audio not being controlled by the audio settings.
-Re-organized hierarchy so the Pause Menu will always appear above any in-game UI.
[h3]GOAL SCORING[/h3]-Goal lights now fade in and out and last longer.
[h3]Victory Screens[/h3]-Victory effects like confetti and fireworks have been updated to fit the larger map.
[h2]AUDIO[/h2]-An entire audio pass has been done on everything in the game, meaning there's less highs and lows of sounds.
//Audio is more comfortable to listen to.
Swing:
-Club audio was weirdly playing from far in the distance, so we've moved it back to the club itself.
Charged Swing:
-Disabled an extra sound in the charged swing that wasn't supposed to play.
Ball:
-The fuse is slightly quieter.
[h3]CLUBS[/h3]-Hitting a post with your club makes a satisfying 'ding' sound.
-Hitting rocks with your club makes an impact effect and a sound.
-Club hitting sound has been brought down to be less loud.
-Hitting the cannon with your club will make an effect and a sound.
[h3]LAUNCHER[/h3]
-Launcher's audio is normalized and more consistent.
[h2]CURRENTLY FIXING[/h2]-Lighting on the glass panels isn't lighting up as expected.
-The launchers' treadmills are animating the speed they're supposed to be.
[h2]CLOSING[/h2]We've pushed this all to beta branch, which you can go and play right now.
We'll eventually push this to the main branch once we've added a few features and fixed a few small things.
Thanks guys!
-Dave
