About Me

I made a forum post in Unity 3d which had me going on how I started in the game industry. Here it is:

______________________________________________

Where are you coming from?

I've always wanted to make videogames ever since I was a kid seeing one for the first time when my brother showed me. Ever since, I've studied what it took to make a game so I got into programming and 3d art.

As a child, I've shown a natural inclination in art, but I also persevered with programming, and I'd say it paid off.

I would usually learn a programming language earlier than my peers in school, only to find out that what I studied was too advanced for my expected level. I remember being a freshman in highschool when two seniors were at awe when I started writing private variables and public functions in C++.

My very first game was a turn-based RPG combat in QBASIC, which I threw away because I thought it sucked. I regret doing that.

I've dabbled in other stuff over the years: sketching, 3d art, graphic design, Flash and web programming.

Game development is a very risky proposition here in my country as its not as established as other fields like advertising or information technology. Nevertheless, I always jump on the chance to go into game development because its what I love to do, stable jobs be damned.

My very first major project was an online game with Torque, and it was quite stressful being the only programmer in the team. I worked there for two years and eventually left from burnout. There was a point when I questioned myself and didn't want to do programming anymore (I thought about being a novelist), but that's all water under the bridge now. As a compromise, I'm making a videogame where I'm also writing the story.

Now I work in a start-up company making videogames hoping to establish ourselves in the local industry.

I'm also active in the Unity developer community sharing code in the wiki and forums. You can find me hanging out in the Unity IRC chat channel occasionally as AnomalusUndrdog.



Which languages are you working with in Unity?

I come from C++, so C# was a no-brainer to me, after finding out the equivalents to the STL data structures and whatnot.



What do you enjoy about using these languages in Unity?

Its what I'm used to, and no more need for pointers.



What do you find annoying?

Mostly not the language but the IDE, MonoDevelop is a weird one, double-clicking on an error doesn't focus the MonoDevelop window, its slow, and crashes sometimes. So I use Notepad++ when on a Windows machine and Unitron on Mac.

I'm mostly vexed with the fact that I can't afford Unity Pro for the foreseeable future. This has me tempted to try out UDK.

Blending Problems

So I got these indicators to know when a unit is selected or where he's going to move:

Its a projector, its not the fastest, but it looks good. Its blend equation is set right now to multiply. That's fine but:

Multiply darkens the blend, making it hard to see in dark places. So, I try an additive blend:

So that looks better. Only it does the opposite: in bright areas, its hard to see:

More so in very bright areas:

So in the end, I am forced to use a normal alpha-blend equation. It looks plain, but is sure to be visible in both bright and dark areas:

Unfortunately, you can't emulate the blend types in Photoshop like Overlay, because blending equations in videocards are fixed-function.

Here's the Unity shaderlab code for alpha-blended projectors:

Shader "Projector/Diffuse" {
	Properties {
		_Color ("Main Color", Color) = (1,1,1,1)
		_ShadowTex ("Cookie", 2D) = "" { TexGen ObjectLinear }
	}
	Subshader {
		Tags { "RenderType"="Transparent"  "Queue"="Transparent"}
		Pass {

			ZWrite off
			Fog { Color (0, 0, 0) }
			Color [_Color]
			ColorMask RGB
			Offset -1, -1

			Blend SrcAlpha OneMinusSrcAlpha

CGPROGRAM
#pragma vertex vert
#pragma fragment frag
#pragma fragmentoption ARB_fog_exp2
#pragma fragmentoption ARB_precision_hint_fastest

#include "UnityCG.cginc"

sampler2D _ShadowTex;
float4x4 _Projector;
fixed4 _Color;

struct v2f {
	float4 vertex : SV_POSITION;
	float4 texcoord : TEXCOORD0;
};

v2f vert (appdata_tan v)
{
	v2f o;
	o.vertex = mul(UNITY_MATRIX_MVP, v.vertex);
	o.texcoord = mul(_Projector, v.vertex);
	return o;
}

half4 frag (v2f i) : COLOR
{
	return tex2Dproj(_ShadowTex, UNITY_PROJ_COORD(i.texcoord)) * _Color;
}
ENDCG
		}
	}
}

MeleeWeaponTrail: Another Unity Asset Store Submission

This is my second Unity Asset Store submission, a weapon trail effect for your character attacks. Props go to Forest Johnson (Yoggy) and xyber for the original code.

You can find the wiki page here: http://unifycommunity.com/wiki/index.php?title=MeleeWeaponTrail

UPDATE: Asset Store submission accepted! http://u3d.as/content/anomalous-underdog/melee-weapon-trail/2ck

Web build demo here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/25260770/MeleeWeaponTrailDemo/WebPlayer.html

Funny

I hardly go out.

During the times that I go out, things hardly happen.

Today something happened.

I went out today to buy some PS3 games, and, funny thing, there's this person at the store, looks about at least 20 years old, and keeps on talking about American McGee's Alice.

He kept on asking questions and making conversation with anyone within his reach. What's up with this guy? From the way he speaks, you could tell he's not quite right in the mind, but well enough that he can go to a store by himself, and have his own cellphone. You can imagine that creates some problems everywhere he goes.

Eventually he reaches me, then goes on to say about American McGee, then about Suda51, about the origin of the 51 in his name, then about how its the same with how the word Konami came out to be. I'm mildly surprised Madness Returns came out already; I hadn't checked the release date at all.

He picks a copy of Duke Nukem Forever, goes on about the fact that it was 15 years in the making, "close to 20" he says. Talks about how the game's different: Duke, he's not eeemmo, he says, because the aliens took his... his girls.. he's fighting for his... uhuh pleasure, yeahhh.

He was obviously recounting what he heard in the developer interviews (I know, I saw those too). In that brief moment it made me think about what I'm making. I had better make sure Garwolf is a well-rounded character and I hope he won't be labeled "emo".

Because labels are dicks.

Even while I was finishing my purchase at the cashier he was still going at it. Me and the store people smile knowingly. Oh boy, we thought.

I do my best in not being a dick and even engage in conversation a few times; I was surprised Suda51 worked on an EA game, though I think he didn't get that I meant that.

Out of that guy's hearing, the store guy talks about how that person actually went through all of the store's branches, and that he even punched another person once, supposedly trying to recreate some scene in a game. Oops.

Walking home I thought, I'm just as much as a loser as that guy. The only difference is, his ignorance is his bliss.

Screen Space Dissolve Test

Just testing out the dissolve shader found in the wiki.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/25260770/DissolveTest/index.html

Wispy Smoke Test

An idea struck my head this morning. Hours later, here are the results:

Web Build here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/25260770/WispySmokeTest/index.html

All In

I did not feel inspired, I felt driven. I have to finish this. I'll shell my own money if I have to (don't have a credit card though). I need to do this. Time is running short.

Few days earlier I was trolled on the Internet. It distressed me. Now I feel confused. A mixed bag of emotions.

This time again I feel the urgency to complete a purpose larger than myself.