A quick update! (Patreon)

Hey everyone, a huge thankyou to all my subscribers new and old!

I pushed the new maps up to the itch.io build so they should be updated with the latest content. The two new maps don't have anyone in them yet. They are a cliff side walk and a first draft of the University. These maps are not by any means finished but a good start. I've also started to add a new Music triggering system and a dialogue chunk for the guard at the port.

This is my last post before I head off to Christmass. I won't be doing another update until week! I hope everyone gets the chance to relax and enjoy themselves over this break.

I'll be keeping this one short. I played around with a bunch of different ways to load scenes.
Originally I was going to have a small building between each environment like the original pokemon games. But the camera angle makes this very difficult. I mocked up like a dozen ideas but in the end I'm workin on the Half LIfe strategy. Which is to create a zone that will just pause the game and load the next area. With any luck at a point where you can't see the next area yet. Unfortunately getting Unity to completely stream a level with no pauses is alot of work. For the moment I just do it in one quick hit. But I don't unload the previous area allowing access to both.

I've also been working hard to learn how to construct environments. I've done a number before but I've never had to create them on this scale before, and have them link up. I'm working a little slower than I'd like so I've been creating better tools as I go. The good news is that each environment is getting faster as I learn how to better use the tools I have access to.

A big one was creating a way for me to see all camera angles at once. I'll never make things look perfect from every angle but at least I can now spot big issues.

You can see heare my debug character I use to scale. It has 4 cameras attached that help me see each of the main 4 camera angles.

Then I just keep building out into specific chunks. I then place down all the little links I need to trigger the level loads.

So the cliff side is an example area that has little purpose during the day time other than walking from point a to point b. It provides a nice introduction to the island and gives you an idea on where the University is located. But at night it will become a ghost hunting area.

I need to do a bit more work on these maps but my aim is to start working on the Universtiy and University interiors. I want to build a Administration area, Gym and the college housing. These will allow for 3 more little tutorials. The Gym will give you an example combat you can practice on and the Room will be a good chance to introduce the Time of Day system.

That's what I will be working on when I get back along with doing what I can to further speed up building environments and characters, but we are off to a great start! I'm getting the hang of building things in this game and I'll just keep getting faster as I go.