Crafting Dimensions 101

| Patrick | 25 | PA, USA | A full time software developer making web apps for use by fluid handling mechanics companies. Thrilling, really, but I have aspirations of shifting industries to gaming, because really, who wouldn't rather create worlds? Here are my developmental hobbies.

[the-worldbuilders-apprentice]

If I got a nickle every time I created a "private fload" I'd be able to afford my own dev team.

[the-worldbuilders-apprentice]

learn.unity.com drinking game:

Take a shot everytime the Asset Store is mentioned when I didn't need to be.

[the-worldbuilders-apprentice]

Unity - Roll-a-ball tutorial

Unity is the ultimate game development platform. Use Unity to build high-quality 3D and 2D games, deploy them across mobile, desktop, VR/AR, consoles or the Web, and connect with loyal and enthusiastic players and customers.

This is the Rollaball game tutorial I just finished.  A+ beginner information.  I’d post pictures or gifs of the result...but uh... its pretty boring.  Scratch one tutorial project though, and on we go!

[the-worldbuilders-apprentice]

“G”

So I’m adding UI/text interaction to the Rollaball tutorial game.

Naturally, I decide the optimal win text is “YOU FUCKING WIN!!!!!!!”

...however, I have miscalculated how the text is displayed and how the font size is going to interact with what is basically a text box.

The result:

You know what?  I think that’s fine.

[the-worldbuilders-apprentice]

Back in the saddle.

Back to poking around with game software.  Got a vague idea into my head and figure I’ll see if I can’t use it to drive some more self-imposed edumacation.

This time around, my poison of choice is Unity.  (Because I’m shooting for a graphically simpler concept here and don’t need the power of Unreal)

I vaguely remember trying Unity out ages ago, I think my freshman year of college and frankly wasn’t impressed by it.  It was *good* but the performance on my machine at the time was abysmal.  I couldn’t even run professionally made games.  ...despite my laptop not actually being shitty.  My understanding was the the optimization was just shit in favor of an engine that was easy to use.

Soo... kewl, but not something I cared to make use of.

This time around, and searching for an isometric-pixel-friendly engine led me right back to unity. ...which seems to have improved by leaps and bounds since I’ve last laid eyes upon it.  The software has gotten even better, and the community has exploded in an awesome way. ...and so far, the performance... isn’t bad.

I’ve spun up Jira again locally, and a board to keep track of ideas and progress.

Its oddly therapeutic to go about this in a really “”professional”” manner.  I’ve dabbled in this crap my whole life, but now work habits are starting to rub off on my hobbies.

(I even had an urge to log my time tonight!  ohgodwhy.jpg)

As it stands, the documentation on Unity seems pretty sweet, and as I explore around for various solutions to ideas I have, I’m trying to grind my way through some SUPER BASIC tutorials to get the verrah verrah basics understood.

Started with a Rollaball game tonight.  Need sleep, so I didn’t quite finish it, but I really love just how easy and fast everything is to get going.

Also starting to ramp up on “learning” C# ...which I literally can’t remember how long its been since I’ve used a C or Java-like language.  The ruby habits are strong with me, and going back to the OO code I learned on is a weird sensation.  The scripting aspect of unity is a BIG DEAL with what appears to be no graphical alternative...but the implementation is pretty awesome, and I don’t actually want a graphical version so far.

(Although with gods as my witnesses, I need to find an alternative to VisualStudio, I’m <50 lines in and hate it.  Maybe Microsoft sucks ... maybe IntelliJ has me spoiled. ...its probably the former.)

In additional cool news: Unity defaults to accepting input from about a dozen different sources out of the box... which meant that on a whim, when I tried using an xBox controller, it JUST WORKED.  ...that was an awesome surprise which is going to make testing a lot of fun moving forward. XD

</rant>

I will leave you with a gif of what happens when the camera is a hard child of a sphere:

The damn tutorial tricked me into that bug specifically to make a point. XD

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I’m baaaaaack.

Hopefully with something approximating updates.  We’ll see.

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So more fun stuff with the Unreal Engine.  Blueprints, or if writing code was like legos.  As a dev, and a huge lego fan, you can guess how this might work out for me.  I’ve used node logic before (Blender), but am so far intimidated by the breadth of logic options inherently available in UE4.  Having flew through the quick-start, (and learned a valuable lesson about reading the fucking instructions) I’m quite excited for the potential this feature offers.

Downside, I’ve lost almost all motivation to go back and re-learn C++.

Truly, what a shame.

[the-worldbuilders-apprentice]

YOOOooooo.

Technical and not at all flashy image here, but this is kind of cool.

This here application is called Jira, and is a commercial grade team-coordination and issue-tracking system.  Its a web app that replaces the much more traditional practice of covering a wall with sticky notes.

We use it extensively at work, and I’ve got to say it works pretty great.

Commercial/professional licenses are kinda expensive though, BUT I found a fun alternative, it I host it myself, its a very cheap 1 time cost, after a 30day free trial.

Running a Kanban board alone is the development planning equivalent of talking to myself, but I’m looking forward to being able to use a really solid piece of software to vomit my ideas onto.

[the-worldbuilders-apprentice]

This Blog

Fun facts.   The background is a screenshot I took 15 minutes into the first unreal tutorial.

The Avatar(Needs to be changed) is the axis from Blender

I manually edited the html on this theme to get the gee dee background to be fixed.

[the-worldbuilders-apprentice]

The First Post

I hate first posts.  But here goes.

Vanity is a marvelous motivator, so why not show off the cool stuff I’m trying to teach myself.

Also, as I start working, I’m getting very very very excited about this stuff, so this give me a place to shout into the void.

Cheers.