orvissblog-blog

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Device Testing and Setup

First off, I felt really proud after having accomplished getting our game onto Braden’s phone, but it really was a long and frustrating process. We failed on our first attempt because Xcode was not compatible with Unity 2019+ so we started by downloading Xcode, and Unity v.2018.3.3 (same as what we used on windows second time around). We ran the programs with a tutorial up to help us get our game on to a phone. The first real attempt took us a while and I lost motivation about half way through so because of me, we did not finish within that day. However, the next day when we tried to get our game on to Braden’s phone, we figured out how to use Xcode, and we started making progress. Progress was what motivated me to finish this task and we ended up getting our prototype game on to Braden’s phone (YAY). Once we did that, we realized the joystick was too small, and would fly off the screen when let go. I fixed those problems easily, but it caused more problems to arise; our game got destroyed by compiler errors but they fixed themselves, now when I launch Unity, I get a warning almost every time, but it has not affected our game yet.

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For a little while now, me and Braden have been working on our “practice” game. We decided we could polish it up by adding art, a working shop, a working inventory system, and touch controls for use on a phone or tablet. The first thing that I started was adding a touch joystick and connecting it to our previous movement controls. I had trouble with this at first because the speed power-up, and the missiles were not effecting the planes movement as they were supposed to. I had to create new speed variables for the joystick, and link them to our previous speed variables by using “get component”. Once I finished that, the bottles and missiles worked once again and have had no problems since. Braden begun complaining about how our plane could fly off of the screen and get lost in the void of darkness. So I did something about it by using “mathf.clamp” with new variables to detect the screen size on any resolution. I got that part working well, however it is a little bit off especially on the top of the screen. Once finished with that, I found that our coins value was no longer connected to the shop on the main menu; which is what I am working on fixing next.

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——————————- My Terrain Editing in Runtime ———————————–

     I have already made a blog post about this, however, I upgraded it quite a bit… With some of Unity’s recent updates, they added a new terrain system that allows you to place terrains in an open grid. This was a problem for my terrain editor. First, I decided to add a raycast system that selects the terrain below the player to be the terrain that will be edited to match the players height. this way, on big maps, there is no problem locating the players position and height when using the new multi-terrain system.

    The other change that I made was fixing the misplaced position bug. I used a slightly altered algorithm since I wasn’t working with big terrains, but multiple to find the players location and place the terrain directly under the player. before, the terrain would have been slightly misplaced to either the right or left. The terrain editor was done after this, and can now be used in true world as an open space to build your base on.

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Trueworld - work process

   For the Trueworld project that I am currently working on, I have been a little annoyed because I have not been assigned something to work on. Cade has been busy, and when I do ask there usually is nothing that I can do. What I have been doing in the mean time is helping Braden with his stuff. I helped optimize the convoys down to 1 ray cast so there is not tremendous lag when multiple convoys are in the game. Other than that, I have helped Braden do some troop control so they rotate based off of the direction that they are moving. I have been a little frustrated because I have just been helping people a bit and have not learned too much from it. I helped test the game and look for bugs like; shooting every time when you crouch, not being able to build on other people’s buildings. The fps camera is too high up so when you build a roof you see through it. Lastly, the turrets cause a lot of framerate issues, and it causes the GPU to use 100% power. 

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Our 2nd Game Jam - Sprint

   For my second game jam, we decided to make a game where you run around a maze trying to eat donuts and avoid the vegetables. At first my whole group which included Cade, Braden, Zach, Justin, and a few other people were working hard on this game, but after the first day or two, it was just me and Justin. I was assigned the task of making a pause menu, start menu, credits, collectable effects, and correcting Justin when he misspelled donut quite a few times. Once I started, I didn’t know quite how to use buttons because in our first game jam I couldn't figure out how to make a main menu switch scenes. After trying to figure it out, it was really easy. I just had to create an on click event on the buttons themselves. All I had to do was simply make a new function or void that would run once the button was pressed. It took me about a day to get a simple pause menu, main menu, and credit scene working. What I was working on after all of the GUI was AI. I had to work on an AI system where an enemy cube would try and steal your donuts. I got it working relatively well, but it wouldn't always go to the closest donut to it. This made me upset, but I got the AI to work decently. Once I got that figured out, I just helped Justin with collectables and I added a slight bit more to the map we had. Sprint was a good game jam because I learned a lot about GUI, AI, and some more about functions in C#  

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My next job for Trueworld was working on a runtime terrain editing system where the ground would flatten at your feet to make it easier to build. At first, I struggled with getting the terrain to be a flat surface instead of spikes. I ended up having to use the heightmap for the terrain. I made a float for heightmap width and it allowed me to start transforming the terrain into a square shape at any location I wanted. The hardest part was getting the height to be exactly at the bottom of the capsule (a normal players feet). The numbers I was trying weren't working for quite a bit of time and it made me a little upset. What I decided to try after they didn't work was using the heightmap value and multiplying it by whatever the y position was of the capsule. I got the height working perfectly. The only problem with the runtime terrain flattening system I created was that it would destroy some of the terrain in a nearby area. I have NOT fixed this yet as Cade told me to scrap the idea until we get a prototype going, but when I looked at the issue, I could not figure out what was causing it. Either way, this was a good challenge for me, and it helped me learn about heightmaps and using terrain in a script.

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Off Day 11/29 - Math

   Mathematical practices that I have done in this class would be the A* Pathfinding algorithm, and learning Binary plus the bases. The A* pathfinding algorithm was less complicated. Basically, you start with 3 variables, G cost, H cost, and F cost. the G cost would be the distance from your object’s location from the destination point. The H cost would be the distance from the starting position. F cost is the sum of the two. The F cost is the best way to determine the bath, you take the distance from the start and end location and add up the F cost for all the points directly next to the starting point. From there, you would chose the lowest point and repeat from there, in the end you will end up with the best path from your starting location to your end location with a direct path avoiding obstacles.

   For Binary, Justin Hammer taught me that you take the starting values: 1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128 and add a 1 for that value and a 0 for no value. you would sum up the ones and determine which sum would be equal to letter A,B,C, etc. For example, a=97 so the binary code for a would be 01100001. It’s not easy for me to explain since I just learned it but the bases follow a similar pattern. for example. the 3rd base’s starting numbers would be: 1,3,9,27,81 etc. and you would find the values for 3rd base numbers and do the same as before except now you can use 0,1, and 2.

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Off day homework 10/25

Sam Orvis

When I first started looking up research about “video game addiction” I thought I was going to find a lot of useless blogs or news posts. Instead, I found an article on WebMD (https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/addiction/features/video-game-addiction-no-fun#1)

And it actually talks about how young people, like me, actually can be diagnosed with a mental disorder for the addiction of video games. The article states that gaming addiction is along the same line as gambling addiction. It releases dopamine and gives people like me a way to escape the real life. I do agree that i use video games to escape real life sometimes, for example; if I had a bad day, I can go home and play a game with my friends. I enjoy this not because i feel withdrawal symptoms but its my hobby. The article also stated that video game detox could be a way to help deal with the addiction. I personally do not agree with this at all. If people really do get upset when they can’t play games, then they need to be introduced to a more natural way of having fun as well. I also read another article on amen clinics (https://www.amenclinics.com/blog/how-to-overcome-video-game-addiction/)

And it stated the ways of dealing with the “addiction”. First of all, I was interested in the topic of the WHO (World Health Organization) and how they stated that the “Gaming Disorder” actually only affects 3% of people who play video games. I could see how some people would actually experience some sort of “addiction” to video games, but I do not think it would be serious enough to detox them and dehumanize them because they enjoy playing something made to be fun and enjoyable. I also read the topic of ADHD with video games, and they stated that these people can get lost within the game. The way I see it, people with ADHD who play video games aren’t addicted when they play for long times, I personally think that it’s a activity for them to do to help settle their minds and let them have fun doing it. The only other topic I really cared about was the dopamine depletion, basically, you could run out of this chemical in your brain and actually be miserable. I have experienced this before whilst playing video games. But for me personally, when I get sick of games, I just stop playing and do something else. All in all, I don’t really think video game addiction really exists. I think the people showing symptoms of addiction just need something else to do with their friends or their family. These people should be pushed to do more physical activity, like sports or instruments. Just my thoughts.

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Weeks 7, 8

For weeks 7, 8 I joined Cade and Justin’s True World project. I was assigned to do the A* Pathfinding for the convoys that Braden was working on. When I began, I looked at the A* algorithm, which involves G-values, H-values, and F-values. Basically, I learned that the G-cost was the total value of the distance in units to the end point. H-cost is the value for the distance from the starting position, and F-cost was the G-cost + H-cost. A* runs these values and continually checks the lowest F-cost until it find the path to the end point. I tried to program this by following a tutorial(which didn’t work) and i got everything except the actual path to work. From here, i decided to do more research by going to the unity manual.I found that they have a built in A* algorithm which is used in combination with the NavMesh feature under the Navigation tab that you add with AI. From this part of the manual, i was able to create a fully working pathfinding script of which one game object would translate slowly toward another game object until it was at its exact location. When we added this to the convoy, it worked but the physics that we wanted on the hovercraft did not work any more. Now, Cade and Braden have discovered a way to make it work, which is being implemented right now. After i finished adding th pathfinding to the convoy, I now have the part of doing the resource management by creating a grid with nodes. I just started this. For weeks 7 and 8, I learned the A* algorithm and how to use NavMesh, NavMeshAgents, and NavMeshObstacles.

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Weeks 5, 6

During these weeks, me and Braden polished up the practice game we made, and we began working on our own project for a little while. We started working on an base building game like Halo Wars 2, and 8 Bit Armies. We started by creating a map(you saw us making the map and helped us realize it was a waste of time)with the terrain editor in Unity. This was the first time I had used the terrain editor in Unity, and I learned how to make very basic levels or maps. Once we made the map, we began working on the mechanics. We first made a cube to be part of the base, and we made it spawn units(capsule prefabs) upon the right click. We used getmousebutton to accomplish this aspect of the mechanics of the game. Once we got the units spawning, we wanted to have them spawn in a 3 x _ array so it would be easy to select specific units and have those units move in part of a formation. Justin and Cade helped a ton in creating this bit. We had each unit determine whether or not it was spawning on top of another prefab, with this we made them spawn in an infinite line to the left. Braden and Justin figured out the rest and I don’t know how they did it. Once the got that working properly, we started making on click movements for the capsule prefabs to go to the location of the mouse when left click has been pressed. We did this by creating a raycast from the camera and finding the location when it would hit the terrain. All we did once we got the raycast to find the X,Y,Z location of where it hit was turn the prefabs toward it and run a simple move forward script. The only problem we had was making the units stop at the position, which we never got working. I was not here for about a week after this, and Braden did not accomplish much because he began working on a new project for Cade, and Justin’s team. During these weeks, i learned even more about how raycasts work and how to make a simple on click movement control for our “War Game”.

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Weeks 1, 2, 4.

For the first few weeks, Me and Braden Proc were working on a little practice game to help us figure out the basics of C# with Unity. I learned how to do basic movement controls using input.getkey and Transform.translate (0,Time*Deltatime,0). This simple line of code allowed me and Braden to create a square and add simple controls to it so it would move around the map. When we were ready to move on and learn something new, we learned about public gameobjects, and public bools. Using these (Justin Hammer taught us how to use them) we made the cube interact (destroy) other game objects, which in this case were also cubes. What I learned from bools, and game objects, is the ability for the game to detect a certain characteristic allowing specific interactions between game objects by checking for a bool marked “true” or “false”. Once we got all of this working, we decided to add a score count and life count. The way we input these was using public bools, and the canvas to change text displayed on the screen. For the score section, we used bools, and if statements to allow the game to discover that our cube was destroying another. Using this all we needed was a simple number change. Now, with the life system, we used the same text technique but instead of using bools to see if our cube interacted with another, we used the change in the X axis, and once a cube would go past a certain value on the X axis, the lives would decrease and the object would be destroyed. From this, if (lives <= 0) then the scene would reset. All in all, i learned a lot about c# and a few of its features including: bools, game objects, getkey, time*deltatime, and if statements.

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Week 3

Our 3rd week was the week of the Game Jam, this is when things got tough for me. I was assigned the task of making a main menu, and helping make teleportation, and grabbing in VR. I was way out of my comfort zone and was rather nervous that i would let the team down, however, I did end up helping Justin create the grabbing and the teleportation using some of his old techniques. We implemented the getbuttondown command to determine whether or not we were trying to grab the objects. We mostly used Justin’s old code for the teleportation aspect, however it was the first time he introduced me to raycasts. The raycast would shoot out of the controller and find the position of where the raycast would hit the map, from there all he did was translate the player to the position found by the raycast. I thought it was very impressive and i’m glad he explained it all to me. From there, I made the start menu by creating canvases and buttons which would run code upon a touch from the controllers. My menu did not work at all, but i made a credits portion so we would at least have that in our game. Overall, when we did the game jam, it was the first time i discovered raycasts, and Justin taught me a lot about them. It was also the first time i had used buttons to run a script upon contact. Not just that, but we did this all in VR so i discovered a few more aspects to the way Unity would run the scripts, and how we were able to make it work in VR