AA Shooting game: AI path-finding

For my game I'd like to have enemies that move up towards the player from cover to cover, before finally approaching the generator object and attacking it. In order to do this I need to use a navigation mesh and set points for the enemies to move between. I've created an array of points for the enemies to choose from, where they're limited to choosing from groups of four at a time. With the checkpoints set in rows of four, the enemies move from row to row advancing towards the players and generator.

rows of checkpoints

Unfortunately when all areas around the generator are occupied by enemies, even though I tell the next wave to wait until they're free, they try to occupy the spaces and cause a huge stack overload. Hence for now I've been forced to step back from the AI path-finding and had to stick with simply spawning them at set points around the players. I would like to play with this again when I have more time but for now, I have to give up on it.

Street Scene: Modelling the street & Mood Boards

With the buildings of my street scene in place, it was time to add some more detail to them. I was considering working on some of the smaller buildings first in order to fill the scene out quickly, but in the end thought that constructing the interior of my saloon would be a better idea. Each of the buildings in the street is designed to be looked at and admired by the saloon is a key focal point as it's the only building players can enter. So I made this my starting point and started planning out what would be in a Western saloon.

I wanted to have two floors so players would have even more to explore, so put in some stairs and a landing to start with. What to fill the actual floor space with took a little more planning, so after a short bit of research online and in games, I decided on having 3 main things: seating, a bar and a piano. I started by allocating the space for the bar and putting that in first, seeing as it would take up the most room. I followed on from the bar with tables and chairs in the main space of the room, leaving a wall free by the stairs for the piano.

When I was done with the ground floor, I planned out what could be done upstairs, with my conclusion being a single room that would tie in with the game aspect of the project.

Finished saloon interior modelling in 3DS Max

Finished saloon interior modelling in Unity

Dark Arts 4: Statics, XML and Shaders

Static classes cannot be allocated, therefore there can be only one of them in which every method and variable must also be static. They can be used to load in files and store variables from them, such as settings, as well as wrap up methods you know will be needed in multiple places. Static classes are never deallocated which makes them really useful for keeping data around between scenes in Unity, like textures which would save on loading times.

Static class to add and remove textures at will

XML was designed to be easily read by people as well as computers. All XML files must begin with the header of    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>    .  From there you have to define an element which will be the name to call when needing the data inside (similar to a class). Inside that other elements can be defined which contain the precise data you require, in the form of a 'Key Value' pair e.g <player lives="3"/>. Every value is recorded as a string.
To use an XML file, you need to first parse it into Unity and then select the base element you want. Then you can walk through any children and use the key/value pairs as needed.

XML parsing class

UI Card Game part 3

The final stage of the game, was the actual game mechanic itself. With the cards randomly shuffling upon starting the game, all I had to do was set the card backs to display as opposed to the front. I needed to set cards to flip upon being clicked and check if it matched the ID of the next card being flipped. If so then the cards needed to remain upright, otherwise flip them back.

To do this I needed a method in the card behaviour that passed the cards information to the game manager upon it being clicked. When two cards have been clicked and passed their information, a co-routine to compare the cards is started. If the two cards match, the tally for pairs needed to win increased, bringing the player one step closer to finishing and they then remain unclickable. If they don't match, both cards are flipped back and made clickable again.

Card game partway through

The final thing to do was provide a win screen when the player matched every card. This was easily done by checking if the pair tally equaled 8 or not. If so then a delegate message is sent to display the win overlay image and I even added music to make it more of a celebration.

Finished game with win display

Street Scene: Initial Street Building & Mind map

After the first week working on my street scene, I've planned out the layout and done some basic work an a few buildings. I decided on the five major buildings I was going to make and also wanted to add a few extra filler buildings to flesh out the scene. The smaller teal coloured buildings are the filler buildings that will have the same generic size and shape but a slightly different decorative roof board and decals. The far left building is going to become a church with a bell tower and stained glass windows. The light pink building will become a general store, the yellow one is the train station, deep purple will be a doctors and the big darker pink building is the saloon. I have plans for different props, to add more detail to the scene, such as barrels, crates, shacks and foliage.

Street scene in 3DS Max

I've imported the street model into Unity and edit it from there, so any changes I make in 3DS Max instantly appear for me to explore in-game. This way I can check scaling and the feel of things with ease as soon as I've made them. This also allows me to easily integrate my game mechanics with the street scene such as moving doors and interactive pieces when I get to that stage.

Street scene in Unity

This was also the stage where I turned my brainstorm into a mind map. This wasn't very difficult seeing as my brainstorm for this project was relatively clear in the first place, but it still gives me a well laid out feel for my whole plan.

Mind map

Transparency and Decals

Transparency is used on textures to make parts of textures see through to make them more realistic. The degree of transparency goes from 1-0 where 1 is fully opaque and 0 is fully transparent. To make use of transparency you have to create an alpha source for the texture. Anything you want the player to see should be white, whilst anything you want to disappear and be see-through should be in black. Transparency is used mainly for fences, windows and even foliage.

To test it out we had to find a chain link texture and take it into Photoshop. The actual fence part needed to be made white with the space around the edge and inside made black so it becomes see through.

Chain link alpha source

We then added the original texture to the diffuse section in the material editor in 3DS and applied the alpha source to the opacity setting. This then applies the texture and the opacity meaning you get the effect of a chain link fence that you can see through.

Added texture and alpha source into 3DS Max

I then decided to add it into a scene in Unity to see if it looked the same and the effect works exactly as it did in 3DS Max.

My fence in Unity with transparency still working

We were then taught that transparency can be used for decals. This is the process of adding a texture to an object that already has a texture, in order to give it some more detail. The decal won't cover up the entirety of the original texture, it simply adds something more on top of it. Examples would be stains, dirt and graffiti on surfaces. I made a graffiti decal and then created the alpha source for it which was more difficult seeing as it was multiple lines for text rather than an overall shape. Eventually I managed to do it and applied both in the material editor, exactly how I did for the fence texture.

Graffiti on wall in 3DS Max

As I said earlier, foliage can be created by using alpha sources to make the space between and around leaves/plants transparent. We were shown how to create a leaf and then curve it slightly for realism and adding a lot of these leaves together gives the appearance of a small tropical plant. Another way to create foliage is to use the same texture multiple times with them at different sizes/angles and we used this to create a bush. The final piece of foliage made was a tree that I rotated multiple times to give a more 3D effect.

Foliage textures with alpha source

For home study I was tasked with creating some particle effects in Unity which is a something I've never tried before. In order to make a particle effect I had to add a particle system to my scene. This is a default effect producing white orbs at a steady state, in which a huge amount of settings can be changed. The 3 particle effects I created were: an explosion, exhaust fumes and a glowing golden ball of light. These 3 effects varied in size, speed, emission shape, lifetime and textures.
The explosion needed to be fast expanding and quick to end with the particle size decreasing as it blasts out. The exhaust fumes puffed out at a steady speed both rising and disappearing over time. The golden orb is quick and compact in a spherical shape with the particles fading quickly.

My particles in a GIF

Dark Arts 3: Delegates and Co-routines

Delegates are used as a reference to a method with specific parameters. We can use them if we have multiple versions of a method that we need to choose from and how to handle each one. To define the delegate all you need is:  public delegate <Type>   MethodName(<Type> variable);
Another good use of delegates is a messaging system between classes. A list of delegates can be created as a way to keep track of the receivers, that way we always know where the message will be going. The 'listeners' can then chose whether or not they act on the message depending on what it is.

Example of using delegates for message system

A co-routine is a method that can be paused and continued later. This is very useful to script events and create situations where something is waited for or triggered at a certain time. Using a co-routine that contains yield is what causes it to continue in the next frame from where it left off in the last one, rather than starting from scratch. This is what I've done in order to fade out the bullet holes in previous projects I've done so it's good to find out I did it to a proper standard. A co-routine can also be stopped at any time but only by calling it's name, giving you even greater control on how it carries out.

Co-routine that fades and resets colour

UI Card Game Part 2

With the main menu sorted from last week, the next objective was actually adding cards to the game scene. Rather than layout every card individually and be limited to the space available, we were taught a clever way to set up the scene so that cards are generated upon playing the game. In order to do this I needed to add a background to the game scene, which is what would control the card position and generation for me. The component that allows me to preset the positions and spacing of the cards is a 'Grid Layout Group', which has cell sizing and spacing values. I needed to add a few cards initially and set the cell size to fit the card, then adjust the spacing to my liking. From there I set the starting position (top left), alignment (middle centre) and constraint count i.e. number of rows(4).

Components in the background object

Once the card layout was done I could clear all cards off the scene and start on the generating scripts. To start a card face is needed so we created a card model class that creates the variables, then a behaviour class which assigns them to the card. The next step was having a game controller that creates a grid list for cards to be generated into and then fills it. However this on it's own would put each matching pair together, so we need something to shuffle the cards around. We were provided with a complex method that made use of the generics we were taught two weeks ago by Richard. The method uses the 'RNGCryptoServiceProvider' class which is essentially a random number generator. From what I can gather, it uses this to generate a byte for a box position and then assign a card to that space. The finished product of this week is a game screen filled with shuffled cards.

Shuffled cards in game

Shuffling code

Street Scene Project & Brainstorm

All of the game design work in recent weeks has been building up to be put in a GDD, where somebody can look through it and get an idea of exactly what my game is and how it should look. That section has been finished now and in it's place I have a new project. This is to construct an interactive street scene that is created in 3DS Max, then has a game created around it in Unity. Straight away my idea was to make the western high street I had planned for my game design process. I had already put plenty of thought and planning into how everything would look, so adjusting it slightly into a more open street would be no trouble and I'd love to see how it turns out. My inspiration for the design is going to follow the town of Armadillo from Red Dead Redemption, therefore this is almost going to be the guide I try to recreate. I won't be making the buildings look identical and will have my own take on them, the town layout is simply my aim.

The town of Armadillo from Red Dead Redemption

As for the game aspect, I'd like to have a story based, walking simulator. As the entire point of the street scene is to make it look great, I'd much rather have the character explore the area and appreciate the scene rather than run around ignoring everything because they're too focused on a crazy objective of some form. I've planned out the story of a middle aged man who lost his wife and children along with his farm and home. With nothing left in the town he heads down the street towards the train station but along the way players will encounter glowing orbs of light. Upon walking into them, they will hear a voice recording where parts of the characters tragic backstory is revealed. The player needs to find every glowing light before they can head to the train station and leave town. The glowing light look that I'm aiming for is similar to the ones that appear in 'Everybody's gone to the Rapture'.

Lights from Everybody's Gone to the Rapture

Sound Design: NanoStudio and CGD Ident

In the final week of sound work we were shown the most complicated program yet, NanoStudio. This is the most industry standard program we've used so far and it's easy to see why with the amount of settings and editing options that can be used on it. First of all we set to just learning the layout and what different settings did, but then we were given the task of mixing a track. NanoStudio has a list of premade tracks to showoff what can be done, so I had to open one of them and then play around changing as much as I could without adjusting the actual notes being played. Fair to say I had plenty of options to toy with so spent the next 20 mins adjusting as much as I could. I recorded the changes I made using OBS and then overlaid the music to create a small video of the outcome.

After sorting all of that out, we were given an ident for the CGD course. An ident is essentially a tiny clip with sound used to represent (identify) a company/brand. An example would be BBC2 and the different clips of the number 2 they show in between shows. Another is whenever you load up a games console and get the tiny splash screen to begin with. Our new task was to take the video clip and change the sound to something new and different that we could make in any program we wanted. I chose to use Audacity and add in audio because it's easy to manipulate sound and get it just how you want it. In order to separate the video from the sound I had to use Adobe Audition and in order to put the two together required the use of Premier. When I finished the sound and wanted to add it to the video I was at home so used a website called wevideo which unfortunately added a watermark and advert at the end.

Original CGD Ident

 My Finished Ident

Dark Arts 2: Singletons and Entities

In the second of our dark arts sessions we were taught about the uses of singletons and entities in our coding. As I've already covered the singleton pattern in Java, it was simple recap when Richard talked about how to use it, however it was very useful to see the examples he gave of where in a game it could be used such as for UI managers. The singleton pattern is where you set something up that is only created once and called anytime it's ever needed. This stops multiple copies of the same object from being instantiated, lowering the amount of errors you could get and also keeping memory management tidier. The downsides are that it isn't thread safe and everything can access it, which is just as useful as it is a liability.

How to instantiate and keep an singleton

Virtual methods were the second subject Richard covered, which are methods a class can essentially inherit from, unless the method is overwritten. Essentially it allows you to write one class with a lot of methods in for a variety of objects that will use them, but be able to change it for each object if needs be. The base class is essentially the game entity with all other classes using it if they require the methods.

Example of two classes using a base class but one overriding the method

UI Card Game

Over the next 3 weeks I'm going to be taught how to use the UI system in Unity to it's full capabilities. The game is a simple copy of a card matching game where you flip the cards to try and find the pairs. This first week covered the basics of the new Unity canvas system and how to make a menu from it. The first step was to add the background for our menu that everything else will be laid on top of. I needed to play around with the anchoring to make sure the background covered the whole screen upon playing the game.

The next focus was adding buttons so the player can navigate from the main menu to the actual game.
Buttons in Unity 5 are far easier to use because they come with a preset OnClick() section. All I had to do in order to make a working button was create a script containing no more than:

public void LoadLevel(int _levelIndex)
    {
        Application.LoadLevel (_levelIndex);
    }

This is all that is needed to create a loading button. I checked the build settings so I new which scene had which number, then added the script and game number into the button script. When I started up the game and pressed play, it took me straight into the game scene. I then just needed to position the button using anchors again then add a title and I had finished the main menu.

Finished menu screen

Figure and Launchpad

In the sound session this week we also played with an app called Figure, which is available on the iPad. I would have added both tracks I created to the other sound post I made this week however I wanted to play around with them a bit more before putting them up. Figure is also a very easy tool to use in the sense that you can personally play around with and record 3 separate pieces and stick them together. You're limited to using drums, bass and synth but there are a lot of different types to choose from for these instruments. The app also allows you to set the rhythm, scale steps and range of both the bass and synth, whilst choosing which parts of the drum kit do what. There is also a tweaks section where you get to modify and distort sounds in case you wanted something slightly different from what you recorded.

The first track I recorded made use of the Studio drum-kit, 'Scream At Me' bass and the Coffee synth set. It was mostly the result of me playing with each instrument to see what I could get rather than planning out a tune and replicating it.



The second tune I created in Figure was much more structured than the first and had a far better beat to it in my opinion. This one used the Elektro drum-kit, Multipass bass and Unpredictalead synth.



The other app we were briefly shown was called Launchpad. We were only given a quick demonstration and rather than practice it in session we were told to try it out in our spare time. This app was possibly the most fun as it takes care of all the timing for you, not initiating the pad you press until the next bar starts. This makes it sound far more rounded than the music I could produce in Figure and far more detailed than Bosca Ceoil. All you have to do is tap the pad you want to play and the app will leave it going until you press it again, which makes it very easy to have an underlying beat whilst you focus on developing the track.

My first recording in Lauchpad used the 'House 2' pad set. I played around to see which pads I liked best and when I had a small plan in my head of which would work well together, I hit record and did what I could.


I then looked at what other sets were available and the 'Drum&Bass' set caught my eye. After exploring the pad I found a lot that I felt I could weave together to make something pretty decent. So I messed around finding good combinations then hit record and was pretty happy with with I had afterwards.

Sound Design: Bosca Ceoil

Having used Audacity last week to produce sound effects, today we moved onto something we can create music in. We were introduced to a program called Bosca Ceoil which is incredibly easy to learn but difficult to master. To make a song you simply choose your instrument from the wide selection, then click on the page to play a note. Each 'page' of notes is 8 beats so you set up your song in small chunks, with a massive choice of how each note sounds. Making a little tune is very easy but recreating 8-bit music proved much harder than I anticipated.

My first practice tune was simply adding more sound to each section as the song progressed. I tried a few different instruments to mix things up and try out a variety of sounds. In the end I used velohigh guitar, SiON drum-kit, chopper bass, Dis.guitar3- and voice o3-o5.


The second track was similar to the first in the way that more was added over time, but I dragged it out a little more and made more of a build up by having the start slower than later parts. This tune made use of the SiON drum-kit again, Polysynth pad and a special item called Digital 2.


The third and final track I produced was a more upbeat happy tune using a mix of the Aco piano, Midi drum-kit, clarinet and Dis.guitar3-.

Dark arts 1: Generics

This week we had the first of our ‘Dark Arts’ sessions with Richard Weeks. Richard is head of a company called Total Monkery that operates from Plymouth and we’ve been lucky enough for him to come in and teach us some industry standard programming methods. Having somebody who runs his own company and has experienced the games industry first hand come in to teach us is an excellent opportunity. While what I’ve learnt so far at University has been essential, Richard is going through ways to make Unity work in ways it normally wouldn’t, hence why these are called ‘Dark Arts’ sessions.

The first session covered generics. This allows us to make custom types for classes, methods and variables which has lots of uses. When used for a class, it allows the user to get the variables and constructors, meaning you can create objects in the generic class from another. When using a generic method, the type of object you want to pass in must be specified before the parameter, this way a single generic method can perform an operation on many varying data types. One example (shown below) is a method to create entities where a list of different entities can all be passed in. Dictionaries can use generics to form lists with a variety of different types by having a generic key with a corresponding value.

In an example we were shown, one method assigned class types and names, while the other passed in a large variety of different types of entities.This is something I could use in my game to make it less prone to errors and easier to work with as a whole.

Entity inheritance example

Brand New Game Idea

Following on from my demo session on Monday, the last person to go over my game was my module instructor. When he played through my game he started talking about an entirely different game concept to the one I'd planned and constructed. Rather than talking about my original idea of the western themed target based shooter, he brought up the idea of an anti-aircraft style shooter. My characters are locked in place so can't move, yet can still look around and shoot from those positions. He said this reminded him of an AA turret style and that idea would probably be far more interesting and immersive. Originally I was skeptical of this idea but the more I thought about it and went over it in my mind, the better it was sounding and I've now decided to take this concept forward as my new game.

The new idea revolves around each player being in command of a turret and trying to defend a generator from swarms of enemies. Player 1 will control a machine gun turret which fires very fast but doesn't do a huge amount of damage. Player 2 will control a cannon like turret which fires slower than player 1 but packs a much bigger punch with it's shots. Both players must defend the generator from oncoming waves of both ground infantry and air forces. Infantry will be easier to kill, therefore there will be a lot more of them rushing the player, whilst aircraft are far tougher and in fewer numbers. If the enemy destroys the generator it's game over.

AA gun appearance I want to recreate

For extra mechanics I thought about airdrops every now and again to buff the players or hinder the enemy in some way shape or form. These will float down from the sky and players must shoot them before they land in order to activate it. On top of these, players will level up based on how many enemies they've killed. Leveling up allows players to add extra weapons, increase their fire rate/damage and increase the generators strength for example. I will be going through the entire design process for this game shortly in order to come up with a more refined and complete plan.

Airdrop that players can receive 

I think this game concept will be more successful because it's far more immersive for players compared to my original idea. I liked the Western game but I could see how people could become bored very easily, especially since I made it quite slow and the need for precision is necessary. This new idea is much faster paced and has far more explosions, which everybody loves in games. I was sold by what little my instructor suggested and feel what I've built on top of this is nothing but an improvement.

Demo Results

So Monday marked the first presentation of our games for the development module so far. For the past 2 weeks or so I've been working on a variation of the Western themed shooter that I've been designing. The mechanic of target shooting has stayed the same however I've chosen to lock the player in place and situate both players next to each other. I made this change because if both players could see each other then I would need to spend a lot of time making character models and animations. Locking the players in place together meant I could have a nice looking game without the need to make character models.

In preparation for the game demo I made a google form with some questions on it to record peoples feedback for my game. I asked questions about everything I'd currently implemented such as the characters shooting ability, the targets and the dual wield power-up.

Character Shooting - Overall the feedback for the shooting was that to firing was too slow, even   though it was meant to represent a revolver, and that the aim sensitivity was far too high. Changing each of these is very simple and just involves adjusting a few variables in the inspector. Other feedback around the character was that UI elements were too small to notice.

Targets - The size of the targets was commended however many people said adding a variety of sizes worth different points would be a good idea, which is something I was planning to do. Moving targets was also something that was suggested that I'd planned to do meaning I'm along the right track in terms of targets for the game. The only suggestion I hadn't planned was to vary the spawn rate throughout the game. Either a random time generator or perhaps more spawning as time goes up to ramp up the pressure of hitting them.

Re-sized targets

Dual Wielding - A common comment about this idea is that the controls are confusing. I'd set it up so that LMB fires the right hand weapon, like in most games but then RMB fires the left gun when active. This was a bad move because it confused most people, even myself at times. A few comments suggested sticking to LMB alternating the shots rather than 2 separate buttons which I agree with. One person suggested adding tougher targets to make use of the extra fire power which I quite liked the idea of.

Enjoyed - People seemed to enjoy the whole concept of shooting targets in a shooting range style.

Disliked - The things that cropped up the most were the using alternate mouse buttons to fire, the sensitivity and the small UI messages.


Taking everything into account I have plenty to work on to make the game smoother and more enjoyable as a whole a few of which I've already started on. Refining the shooting is the feature because it is the main element of my game.

Re-sized UI text