Author: admin

Funding


 admin

Every project requires funding. Right now I work full time as Senior Java Developer and finance my game development this way. But, as a friend of mine has suggested, it would be good to find another source of income, possibly more passive one. As I have some skills in programming and in model creation I have decided to try to monetize on those skills. The plan is, to build a small portfolio of 3d models, build Unity Asset packages around them, and try to sell them. Unity suggest, that having enough assets in their store, may allow to fund complete game project. I will see if that is the truth.

The plan is to create different types of assets and to see if they will sell. Right now I have 2 space ship models, and want to create a bit furniture, as it should be quite easy. We will see what will be result.

If this works really well, maybe I will be able to live of that, or perhaps hire someone to help me with development.

First step will be to do some paperwork. As I am currently not registered for VAT-EU, I can not sell anything abroad, legally that is. If everything goes smooth, I should be able to sell first models in 2-3 weaks.

Here is first model:

Unstable Desk
by exverxes
on Sketchfab

Documentation approach


 admin

This is a bit controversial topic. As a general rule we should create full documentation before we start development. This helps in many ways. Helps us to structure whole project and avoid many pit holes. We may think about many problems we may encounter and avoid them before we write single line of code. Writing documentation gives us a full vision about what exactly we want to create and this can not be overrated.

But what if we are not sure if what we want to create will be any good. I’m not talking here about quality of software, but rather about its essence. We want to create a game, that has not been done before, and as such it may sound fun on paper, but will not be as fun in real life. So how to approach this?

What I have decided to do is write skeleton application with full functionality but limited content and without fixing bugs that are not major. This way I can push development quite fast, and see if what I have in mind is something I would like to play.

As this is not a first project I have worked on, professional and private, I know how big role good documentation can have. In large projects it tells development team what they should be doing. Every member can focus on small part without knowing whole projects, by just reading documentation of portion he has to do. In private projects it keeps project on track. When you start writing a creative project like game, you have lot of different ideas. If you have them at start, when nothing has yet been done it is great. When you have them in middle of project and they require throwing away 2 months of work, because vision changed it is not that great. It may have worked for Disney’s Frozen, but in small project you don’t have money to throw away on another “I have a great, beyond great idea”. This is where documentation comes in. You have to write documentation before writing code, and once you document your idea for a product, game in this example, you have to stick to it. It is very tempting to implement your great idea, but in reality, until project is finished you have nothing but ideas. Finished product without your great idea is better than a stack of great ideas.

Now, this comes to my project. What I implement is always documented first. I can find some logic problems and fix ten beforehand which saves me time. Gives me documentation for what I have created for future reference, which I have already used just to refresh how some part works. If I change something in code, I allays update documentation first. I have written complete overview of my game, so that I won’t stray, but I have not written all details. I think, that right now I want to test if my general idea of how gameplay should look, will in the end create fun and engaging game. For that, I don’t have to have full documentation of races, and even campaign. If gameplay is weak, great campaign won’t help that much.

There is one more reason, why I don’t create full documentation at start. I have lot’s of experience with business applications, but I have little with game development. I am learning a lot, but it is still not enough to create good full technical documentation. I have never finished a project using Unity and there are many things and limitations I may be not aware of. Creating skeleton application should allow me to find most of them, and at that point most of technical document will be already written.

Someone told me, I should just create mockup and don’t try to create working prototype. Write something that would show, how game will work and look. I could have done it this way, but if I want to write this game I have to learn. I won’t learn unless I try to make best I can and to try to grow as my project grows.

Problems of time and space


 admin

As I have mentioned in previous post, I am creating large scale space trading game. I do not plan to recreate realistic distances between planets, as this does not add anything to gameplay, but this does not mean, that space is small. Large space, requires large coordinate system, but float has limited precision.  Off course I knew that, just didn’t know it will hit me so fast.

So, let’s look at float. In theory it can represent very large or very small numbers, and it really can. Just not all at once. We can safely make calculations within 7 powers of 10. This looks like a very large number. Coordinates from -10 000 000 to 10 000 000 on paper look like something we can do without lose of precision. For most games one unit of mesure is 1 meter. It is simpler this way. For space game with large ships (up to dreadnought) 1 meter is a bit to low. We can use 10 or even 100m as one unit. As I will use very large ships, I will be using 100m as unit. But this means, that 0.01 is one meter, and to be honest, we have to be able to accelerate slower than by 1 meter in 1/50th of second (which is standard Unity “fixedTime”). We will walk fine line with 0.001 as our reference point of precision. There is one more bit. Apart from movement calculations, there are some visual calculations, that require precision, for example shadow calculations. So, let us take this precision and see what we have left from our 20Mx20M square.

10 000 000 moved by 3 spaces gives us 10 000. 000. Yeah, we have only 10k left. That is still about 1M meters (100 x 10k), so around 1000km. 1000km in space is not that far. It may be enough to simulate single point in space like space station and it’s surroundings, but It will not allow to make whole solar system, where you can fly around. Range from sun to earth is about 150M km, and we can simulate 1K km.

Ideas:

Go double

This will make all calculations slower, may still not be enough for larger systems, and what is most important, Unity does not support it.  – REJECTED

Create own coordinate system

This will make calculations slower, may require, to write some math operations for it, and Unity will still not support it.- REJECTED

Teleport player to special map

Well, many games do it, I wanted this world to be whole, not just a lot of maps player can visit. That  was general assumption. – REJECTED

Fake it!

Well, if you can not make it, fake it. And so I did. Whole game is layered. There is “Local Space”, there is “System Space” and there is galaxy. Local space is always located somewhere in global space. If you get to local space boundary it will move in global space, and will move some objects, and unload other. Player operates in relatively limited space, and this 1k km space is enough for local play, but if player want’s to fly further, it will be possible. It will be even possible to fly from one planet to another without fast travel.  As we have player in local space, all we have to do, is add objects from global space. For that we will render them using separate camera and make them look, like they are there. If object gets close enough it will be moved from global space to local space. This way it will be possible to die burned by sun, or crushed on planet. Planet landings are not part of this game.  There is one catch. Even if we say, that 1 unit is not 100m, but 100km, we get maximum of +-1M km. I could change it to larger scale, but this creates synchronization problems between local and global space. I could add another layer of illusion, and instead of 2 layers have 3, but this would add unnecessary complexity. Instead, I have decided, that for the purpose of this game it is enough. It looks good, feels right from viewer perspective, it does not really matter as far as game goes.

Time

There is one more little detail. When we move from one system to another, and get back some time later, it would be nice if planets in this system moved just right amount. But it means, that keeping planet position as Vector3 will give us nothing. Instead of that, we will be keeping rotation Axis, orbit range from center, position of center or center object handle, start orbit position (in degrees), and orbit speed (deg/min). This way, we will be able to tell where exactly object should be located, and we will still be able to use relatively easy method of updating position in current solar system.

Astra Nova


 admin

Astra Nova is working title for game we are working on. Right now project is in it’s infancy stage. I have created rough design document, and started implementation of most basic framework features, that I am sure, will be needed. My current goal is creation of working prototype. At the same time I am learning 3d graphics, to create models. What I’m trying to crate is a space game, where you, as a ship captain, create your own empire by trading, doing missions and fighting bad (or good) guys. There were many games like that, but what I want to make it in RTS style, not a simulator, and this changes whole gameplay.

Right now I have implemented basic combat and movement, and am In the middle of creating routines to move between star systems, which involves good object management. Desing of this part is done, just have to finish implementing it.

Next part involves trading. For now I just want to create market mechanics, that may not be accessible to player, but I have to test my idea of market, production and trade.

Here is first model that I have created. This is small transport ship that will be used in the game.

Cargo Transport Spaceship
by exverxes
on Sketchfab