Dare Looks

Lens Flares and Munching on Cars

Back from my vacation!

Haven't made too much progress during my time-off, I'm afraid, but here's a small update showing off two new things: Unity's lens flare effects (finally) and munching on cars that don't go down in one bite!

Lens Flares

Unity's "new" render pipeline has started supporting lens flares, last year, but due to a bug on their end I haven't been able to ...

Eat your Car(b)s

As promised, I've started prototyping an option to munch on the cars – a lot faster than I expected, too, but turns out this is a lot of fun to prototype!

At the moment, the animations are still very rough (which is why they keep nibbling on their own fingers) and the way it is set up, this will only work for small objects, really. For larger objects (or when the characters are still smaller) I will try to have them take a few chomps at the car before it disappears. Making that seamle...

Throwing Cars, Finale

Just one more quick update, before I post the final video to twitter, for everyone to see!

Not including any future polish (and polishing never really stops), I'm considering this feature 'done', now!

The most visible change is that there now is an 'aiming' animation, to give better visual feedback that a car will get yeeted, once the player lets go of the button.

In addition to that, enjoy these two short GIFs that highlight some of the inverse kinematics:

2022-04-05 17:36:58 +0000 UTC View Post

Throwing Cars, Almost Done

Here is some footage of cars getting flung around – again!

I have made a bunch of progress since the last iteration. So much so that I'm entering 'polishing' territory!

Here is a quick overview of the most important changes:

• Damage on impact
• Visualization of thrown object's trajectory
• Cars require a player minimum/maximum size, to be picked up and thrown
• Tweaked throw physics
• Improvements of controls
• Fixes, tweaking, etc.....
  2022-04-02 20:15:35 +0000 UTC View Post

Throwing Cars, Second(?) Iteration

Made good progress with operation "fling a bunch of cars", so I'll gladly share the results!

Since the first iteration, I have added...

• Basic "pick up" and "throw" animations
• Intricate animation blending, with inverse kinematics, to properly sell the action
• A simple setup that defines where cars can be grabbed, and how much the hand must open/close to grab it
• ...plenty of small improvements and fixes

It's all in the detail...

2022-03-26 19:48:49 +0000 UTC View Post

Throwing Cars, First Iteration

Heya,

I've been taking it slow and riding that high of finishing the car models, last week. Now, I'm easing back into working on mechanics: Picking up and throwing cars.

There's a lot of stuff that goes into that, but I thought it would be fun to show off the first iteration of this mechanic's development process! With each iteration I'll hopefully add more and more features and polish, but this is the rough starting point.

So yeah, here's a number of things still missing â€...

Catch the Bus!

Happy to present the finished bus, finally!

This was pretty exhausting, honestly, but the results feel very rewarding – with this, I now have 4 different vehicles that offer some nice variety on the city's street.

And that's another big milestone finished!

Now I can move on to the next ...

Bus, WIP

Hey!

Quick update with the high-poly WIP of the bus exterior; still needs some minor work as well as a (very simple) interior, before I move on to the low-poly models, baking, textures, etc.

I'm sorry progress is as slow as it is, currently; really hoped to have the bus completely finished and in the game, by the end of this month... But with all the horrible things going on in the world, right now, I'm taking it extra slow and try to distract myself, as much as possible.

S...

A Truck Gets Struck

Truck model and textures are finally done and in the game – yay!

I'm very happy with the variety of vehicles, already. I'm also getting really tired of working on cars, hah; but I'm almost done with them: A bus is next, and it's going to be the last vehicle, for now!

Thanks...

2022-02-19 16:21:03 +0000 UTC View Post

Box Truck, High-Poly Model

You know the drill: First there's a high-poly model, then a low-poly model, then a texture, etc. (For my next projects I'm going to go back to a more hobby-friendly workflow, sheesh...)

The box truck is going to be the bulkiest car; the only one that's going to be bigger, is the bus!

For this one, the undercarriage will be particularly challenging – not looking forward to that whole deal, really, heh. Hopefully the end result will not look too out-of-place, comp...

Van, Texturing Progress

I'm currently finishing up the van model and textures: So have two screenshots of what it will look like, in the game!

Next, I'll try to model a medium-sized box truck – hopefully it'll be just as quick and painless as putting together the van! It would definitely add another nice shape to the streetscape.

Patron Request: Growth Speed?

Note: This is a request that has been send to me by a patron. Whenever I can I'll gladly answer questions directly, or make quick videos like this one. So always feel free to ask! :)

I have been asked to make a quick video to demonstrate how fast/slow the characters are growing, in the game.

The growth speed has two important factors:

• Damage: The more damage you deal, the more you grow. No damage? No...
  2022-02-01 19:23:01 +0000 UTC View Post

How It Works: Damage Effects

Overview

Note: Initially, I've posted this article a few months ago, for "Unity Capsule" tier patrons only. However, people have asked me about the effects before and this will come in handy as something I can refer them to, in the future!

In this post, I want to give a more detailed outline of how the damage effects in the game are...

A Van! High-Poly Models Done.

Quick look at the second type of car, for the game: The van!

I'm done now with the high-poly modeling, so I can go on to create the game-ready, low-poly versions, next.

About The Modeling Workflow

Again, you'll notice lots of details missing from the high-poly models (i.e. windows, lights, etc.). That's because those would be a pain to model in the hi-res subdivision mesh; it's just so much faster to paint those things on, in the texturing step.

Similarly,...

Time To Wreck Some Cars

Here's a fun thing to look at: The new damage and deformation effects!

The particle effects are pretty basic, but the main attraction is the deformation, anyway.

Now, you may wonder what's so special about it, since I've already had mesh deformation in the game, for building damage... Truth is, i...

Cars in Color

Finally had some time to get the car's texturing done, and I'm really happy with the results!

The different color variations (as well as the taxi and cop configurations) provide some nice variety already, even if it's all the same car, technically.

In the game, the textures are pretty low-res (512x512) – but except for the free camera mode, you'll never get that close to the cars, anyway, and I should try to reduce memory usage wherever I can. Also, it makes the look a bit more ...

Fun with the Car Prototype

The car still needs to be textured, but I've already had some fun prototyping it in the game – so I thought I'd share!

I have baked the normal maps for the low-poly meshes, and I'm very happy with the results! Some of the missing details (i.e. windows, gaps for the doors, etc.) I will paint on, in the texturing step.

Also still missing from the WIP footage above: The car's damage model,...

First Car Model WIP

First post of the new year – a small patron-only preview!

As planned, I've finally started working on some cars to populate the city's streets with.

Here are some screenshots from Blender, showing off the high-poly car model, as well as the work-in-progress low-poly version that I will use in the game.

I have also modeled a very rudimentary interior, that I will use for the damage model (when damaged enough, I want the glass to break and doors to fall off).

So I don'...

Steppies! Final Update of 2021

Here's a quick one – just squeezing in one more update, this year!

I set up animation events to trigger the foot hit boxes, every time a foot comes down. It was a bit tedious to implement, but now we finally get to cause damage, just by walking around!

The timing still needs to be tweaked a bit, as you can see in the video, but that's just some simple busy work.

At the moment foot...

2021 End-of-Year Supercut

As promised, here's the 2021 end-of-year supercut!

Depending on when you have found this project, you may be surprised to hear it's been going on for more than a year, haha.

It's always refreshing to see how far you've come – even if there are some large gaps between March and August, where I've done nothing but boring work on character models, heh.

In the beginning of 2021, there wasn't a single street, character model or custom animation, in the game. On top of that, the...

Character Selection, Input and UI Animations

I'm back from my Christmas break!

Here's a small update, showing some changes to the character selection screen, which I hadn't touched in a while.

Local multiplayer UI input in Unity is a complete mystery to me, so this whole screen is very hacky; but at least it seems to work, for now!
If I get more of a clue, some time, I can come back and clean this mess up a bit.

And while messing with this screen, I've also decided to add some UI animations, to make it a bit juicier...

Character Growth, Slow-Down

This was a change to the growth mechanic that I snuck in a short while ago, but never had a chance to show off properly, so I thought I'd make a short patron-only video!

Characters get bigger when they cause damage, just how they did before. But the bigger they get, the slower they become!
It's not too obvious in the video, and it gets very subtle at the end, but it's definitely noticeable when playing – believe me.

2021-12-21 19:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post

First-Look at Local Multiplayer

Here's something Patrons will get to see early: The first split-screen image I've shared of the game!

This has been working for a while now, but I have a hard time recording split-screen gameplay to show off, because I can only control one character at a time, heh.

What's planned for Multiplayer?

First things first: It will only be local, split-screen multiplayer – so no online mode, I'm afraid!

But the idea is that players destroy the city and try to sc...

Time Out and Scoreboard

Here's a look at the new scoreboard! Both UI and camera animation still need some love, but at least in principle everything is there. With the scoreboard, the game now has a complete loop, with start and finish!

It currently tracks how many buildings each player has damaged and destroyed, as well as the total value in property damages. Once I add vehicles or other categories, those will be kept track of, too... Although this screen will probably only the show the most relevant info. 2021-12-18 18:58:12 +0000 UTC View Post

HUD, Timer and Scoring

The game now has a time limit and a simple, first-iteration scoring system: It's almost like a real game! (And no worries, of course there'll be options to turn off time limits and HUD.)

The HUD is still all placeholders, but I kind of like the minimalist look; for the finished game I'll probably go for a more cartoony style.

Scoring

Player score is tracked by the amoun...