Author Topic: What I've been doing since LoK:Revival  (Read 5923 times)

Vincent

  • SGDK2 Addict
  • Expert
  • Fanatic
  • *****
  • Posts: 612
  • Legacy of Kain: Revival is completed!!!
    • View Profile
    • Chivalrous Games
    • Email
What I've been doing since LoK:Revival
« on: 2017-03-29, 06:36:53 AM »
Hi everyone!

I've been pretty silent these last years in the SGDK2 forums.  After the LoK:Revival release, I took a little break from game development projects for a couple of months.  But, eventually, I could hear the siren's song again and I knew I had to start out a new project.

With the 2D games realm already conquered *cough cough* (no modesty here!), I decided to get started on a 3D project.  For 2 years I worked with the jMonkeyEngine to learn Java and 3D game development at the same time.  The end result was: I learned a lot but completed no project whatsoever.  It was a lot of work, almost everything had to be done.  In those 2 years, I made a fully dynamic sky system, with a day/night cycle, moving clouds, sun and moon.  The sky took around 6 months to do...  So nowhere near a new game.  Then I started to make a vegetation system to distribute grass, flowers and trees based on a height map and with impersonators when the camera was far enough.  That took more than 6 months.  Finally, I made a dynamic weather system, with wind, rain and snow which interact with the vegetation system to blow on trees, grass, create waves of water, etc.  That took more than 6 months too.

And then I looked at what I did and stopped.  I mean, it was cool!  I was proud of myself.  But I didn't have a game at all.  Not even the base of a new game.  Two years is the time it took to do LoK:Revival from start to finish.  With jMonkeyEngine, I spent two years and I wasn't even started.

Conclusion: SGDK2 rocks!

But I still want to create a 3D game.  It lives inside my head, I want to get it out of there!

So I moved on to Unity where I discovered that the whole sky system I did with matching sunlight in 6 months with jMonkeyEngine was pretty much a checkbox in Unity.   :o
I'm about 2 years down the road with Unity now, and although I don't have a game (not even started yet), I developed a very cool asset to create 3D levels procedurally.  It's called the Dungeon Master.  If you want to know more about it, you can see the thread in the Unity forums right here:
https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/unreleased-dungeon-master-level-generator.458178/#post-3011333
There is also a ton of information on my website:
https://chivalrousgames.com
Although this is not a game, it was a lot of fun to create!  With it, I created a small demo game under 50 hours.  This demo game is available on my website, right here:
https://chivalrousgames.com/products/dungeonmaster/demo/

I still have some work to do on my asset, but very soon I will begin a game based on my asset.  I can't wait to get to it.  ;D

So that's what I've been doing these last years.  By the way, I still think fondly of SGDK2.  I really loved my experience with it when I was creating LoK: Revival.  SGDK2 is a great tool for 2D games.  If I was planning to create another 2D game, I would have done it with SGDK2.

Come around and say hello on my website or the Dungeon Master thread in the Unity forum.  It would help me a lot to raise interest in my asset and eventually would bring me some money for all my work.  (Which I will all reinvest in making more projects, let's be honest!)

I wish you guys all the best and thank you for taking the time to read this post!
Legacy of Kain: Revival completed!
http://lokrevival.webs.com

See also my company website:
http://chivalrousgames.com

bluemonkmn

  • SGDK Author
  • Administrator
  • Fanatic
  • *****
  • Posts: 2761
    • ICQ Messenger - 2678251
    • MSN Messenger - BlueMonkMN@gmail.com
    • View Profile
    • http://sgdk2.sf.net/
    • Email
Re: What I've been doing since LoK:Revival
« Reply #1 on: 2017-03-31, 05:41:38 PM »
Funny, I too started a project in Unity a few years back and I too created a dungeon generator... a 3-D maze generator that generated a 3D array of rooms with various walls, doorways and light sources.

Vincent

  • SGDK2 Addict
  • Expert
  • Fanatic
  • *****
  • Posts: 612
  • Legacy of Kain: Revival is completed!!!
    • View Profile
    • Chivalrous Games
    • Email
Re: What I've been doing since LoK:Revival
« Reply #2 on: 2017-04-03, 06:10:49 AM »
Really?  Haha!  You're right, that's funny!  ;D  What happened to your dungeon generator?  Did you finish it?
Legacy of Kain: Revival completed!
http://lokrevival.webs.com

See also my company website:
http://chivalrousgames.com

Vincent

  • SGDK2 Addict
  • Expert
  • Fanatic
  • *****
  • Posts: 612
  • Legacy of Kain: Revival is completed!!!
    • View Profile
    • Chivalrous Games
    • Email
Re: What I've been doing since LoK:Revival
« Reply #3 on: 2017-04-03, 06:21:10 AM »
Oh, is that the project you talked about in the thread "Unity" that you started in 2012?
Legacy of Kain: Revival completed!
http://lokrevival.webs.com

See also my company website:
http://chivalrousgames.com

bluemonkmn

  • SGDK Author
  • Administrator
  • Fanatic
  • *****
  • Posts: 2761
    • ICQ Messenger - 2678251
    • MSN Messenger - BlueMonkMN@gmail.com
    • View Profile
    • http://sgdk2.sf.net/
    • Email
Re: What I've been doing since LoK:Revival
« Reply #4 on: 2017-04-09, 07:00:00 PM »
It's at http://enigmadream.com/UnityTest/Gar.html
It takes a minute to load after the progress bar is done (at least on my system).
If you go into the castle behind the starting point, and into the large room in the center of the castle, then follow the right wall through another door, down some stairs, and around a huge room until you find a magenta box, then you can enter the dungeon I'm talking about by touching the magenta box.
I gave up working on that project when it stopped being manageable in Unity. I think Unity won't even load the project any more. I should try again with the latest version and see if it's gotten any better.

Vincent

  • SGDK2 Addict
  • Expert
  • Fanatic
  • *****
  • Posts: 612
  • Legacy of Kain: Revival is completed!!!
    • View Profile
    • Chivalrous Games
    • Email
Re: What I've been doing since LoK:Revival
« Reply #5 on: 2017-04-10, 06:11:36 AM »
Oh, the project has a hard time in my browser.  I managed to find the magenta box and enter it.  It looks like an "ice palace" (that's a literal translation from French "Palais des glaces"... you know the attraction in carnivals where you enter a maze full of mirrors and windows? I don't know the extract translation in English).  I think I got lost in the second or third room...  The fact that my browser is having a hard time didn't help.  Everything in this project seems really big!

How is it that Unity couldn't manage it anymore?  You were getting error messages?
Legacy of Kain: Revival completed!
http://lokrevival.webs.com

See also my company website:
http://chivalrousgames.com

Vincent

  • SGDK2 Addict
  • Expert
  • Fanatic
  • *****
  • Posts: 612
  • Legacy of Kain: Revival is completed!!!
    • View Profile
    • Chivalrous Games
    • Email
Re: What I've been doing since LoK:Revival
« Reply #6 on: 2017-04-12, 05:47:42 AM »
Hey!  My Dungeon Master asset was accepted and is available on the Unity Asset Store!!!   ;D
Here is the link!  http://u3d.as/Gmb
Legacy of Kain: Revival completed!
http://lokrevival.webs.com

See also my company website:
http://chivalrousgames.com

bluemonkmn

  • SGDK Author
  • Administrator
  • Fanatic
  • *****
  • Posts: 2761
    • ICQ Messenger - 2678251
    • MSN Messenger - BlueMonkMN@gmail.com
    • View Profile
    • http://sgdk2.sf.net/
    • Email
Re: What I've been doing since LoK:Revival
« Reply #7 on: 2017-04-12, 05:55:22 PM »
I tried loading the project into the latest version of Unity, and things seem to be alright now. I might have to pick up where I left off on this project. However, you can tell even at run-time, looking in the direction of the castle has some serious optimization problems. I get about 1 FPS outside the castle looking in its direction from a ways back.

But I'm pleased I was able to build a WebGL version of the project! I think it may run slightly slower than the old web version, though. How is it on your system?
http://enigmadream.com/UnityTest/WebGL/

Vincent

  • SGDK2 Addict
  • Expert
  • Fanatic
  • *****
  • Posts: 612
  • Legacy of Kain: Revival is completed!!!
    • View Profile
    • Chivalrous Games
    • Email
Re: What I've been doing since LoK:Revival
« Reply #8 on: 2017-04-13, 05:55:43 AM »
I'll try it tonight at home.  My work computer has a very bad graphic card so I won't even try here.  ;)
Legacy of Kain: Revival completed!
http://lokrevival.webs.com

See also my company website:
http://chivalrousgames.com

Vincent

  • SGDK2 Addict
  • Expert
  • Fanatic
  • *****
  • Posts: 612
  • Legacy of Kain: Revival is completed!!!
    • View Profile
    • Chivalrous Games
    • Email
Re: What I've been doing since LoK:Revival
« Reply #9 on: 2017-04-13, 05:05:14 PM »
Well my home computer is not super-powered now but it was a couple of years ago and it definitely has a hard time with your project.  If I look at the castle, it gets very laggy.  If I look at the ground it's okay but as soon as the castle gets in view: ouch.  The maze is also pretty laggy.  The collisions in the stairs are a little painful too.

I agree with you, it seems slower than it was.
Legacy of Kain: Revival completed!
http://lokrevival.webs.com

See also my company website:
http://chivalrousgames.com

bluemonkmn

  • SGDK Author
  • Administrator
  • Fanatic
  • *****
  • Posts: 2761
    • ICQ Messenger - 2678251
    • MSN Messenger - BlueMonkMN@gmail.com
    • View Profile
    • http://sgdk2.sf.net/
    • Email
Re: What I've been doing since LoK:Revival
« Reply #10 on: 2017-06-08, 06:52:05 PM »
I have a new system and I've re-installed Unity and re-imported the data. Unity now supports directly importing from Sketchup, which I don't think it did before. So the data is a fraction of the size of the project I compiled a couple months ago. But my new system is too fast to get a good idea of how well this performs on low end systems. Can you determine how this new build compares to the recent build and the old build?
http://enigmadream.com/UnityTest/NewGar/index.html

Vincent

  • SGDK2 Addict
  • Expert
  • Fanatic
  • *****
  • Posts: 612
  • Legacy of Kain: Revival is completed!!!
    • View Profile
    • Chivalrous Games
    • Email
Re: What I've been doing since LoK:Revival
« Reply #11 on: 2017-06-10, 05:14:34 PM »
This new build is definitely faster.
Legacy of Kain: Revival completed!
http://lokrevival.webs.com

See also my company website:
http://chivalrousgames.com