Character Movement and World Building // DEVLOG #2

[@firedragon04]

Thanks for watching my second Devlog everyone! ▶ New Devlogs every Friday! I'd love to hear your thoughts on things so far and what you think of "The Coral Forest" prototype area. Stay tuned for Devlog 3 which is all in-engine as well, as we get our character climbing, rolling, pushing blocks for puzzles and swimming in our world!

[@Sunburst_No]

Liking the progress so far, I do suggest using the funky looking jump animation as a falling animation. U know, the one from super early on that u didn't enjoy? Not necessary though lol

[@Sunburst_No]

Perhapse some crab like creatures in corral forest???

[@utoherozv]

I find these devlogs extremely interesting. Seeing a series blossom from the art first is both really refreshing and interesting. It's also a great length too! :)

[@Morraak]

Man, that's such a sad backstory for that world. Hopefully the player can do something to help it in some small way. Really like the coral level, looks really good and like something I'd find in that genre of game. Next I think you should work on climbing along with a puzzle of some sort like in Tomb Raider.

[@BlazeHeartPanther]

Loving this little coral area. Has a beauty to it despite its grim situation.

[@dml00]

As a developer, I would love to see your art process more in-depth, from concept to creation techniques (and maybe some timelapses while you talk about your process). Nice progress so far, keep it up buddy!

[@firedragon04]

Sometimes it's quite hard to show that whole process because I have all these 3D environments, concepts and such in my head and the only way I really get them out is when I'm in blender modelling - but I will try to capture more of that going forward.

[@morgan0]

14:19 on the topic of water, are you familiar with the super mario galaxy water shader? basically combine vertex colors for edges and two or more scrolling blurry textures and thresholding it all to create a very good looking water cheaply. you could even add animated splash textures into it or offset texture coords using it to make the interaction with the water look more realistic, while keeping the stylized look

[@morgan0]

also texture displacement was used on the wii and the wii isn’t that much more powerful than the gamecube, which is one generation past n64, so imo it would still fit with the rest of it

[@funagengames1177]

Dude, this is so cool. I see a ton of PS1 inspired modern games, but not a lot of N64 styled ones. You’re nailing the look and sticking (mostly) with the visual limitations of the N64, which I love. One thing I noticed-everything looks super authentic, but the lighting is a dead give away. Don’t get me wrong, I love the look of retro styled games with modern lighting. But using unlit materials and faking the lighting in the art stage with vertex painting and blob shadows will really sell that N64 look. Again, you might not be going for 100% authentic, which is cool too! Keep up the great work. Your videos inspire me to continue working on my own projects.

[@dup4life]

As someone who is just starting a game as an artist without game making experience, you really are a inspiration and great creator! I wish you luck and I’ll be watching through all the devlogs! :D

[@artdude47]

The prototype level is looking really cool. I like the color palette a lot. I think it might be cool to add some random animations to your auto-jump feature similar to Zelda: Majoras Mask where Link does different flips as you jump between obstacles.

[@lucasbaker4556]

The design of the coral level SCREAMS Monster Hunter vibes to me! Absolutely loving everything about this project! This is my dream game and I am so excited to keep up with your development!

[@respecttheyoshi]

Heck yeah, found the first devlog yesterday, looking forward to more updates!

[@firedragon04]

Thanks so much, planning on posting these every Friday!

[@minilabyrinth]

WOW you know what made N64 environments charming

[@kreenbopulusmichael7205]

Character BPs in ue should have a “walking off ledge” event node that might help simplify your auto jump code

[@firedragon04]

Oh I'll have to take a look into this, I just built the system entirely not knowing there was something there already but that should help simplify it yeah.

[@paulshelkov7956]

That coral is super cool. You honestly get so much value out of simplicity. In a medium where there are thousands of moving parts, you'll be able to focus on gameplay and content. That's why I'm excited about this series. I bet we'll be surprised how fun the game is compared to modern high-fidelity titles. (Keeping in mind you're solo ofc!)

[@coole8]

Please for the love of god I hope you are using some form of version control. It'll let you easily track and undo changes.. don't make the mistake so many other devs do. Just set it up, you'll thank yourself

[@firedragon04]

I’m not right now - and I know that’s a terrible thing. I was originally going to set it up earlier in my Dev process and I kept putting it off but I think you’re right, now is the time to start, if I lose any of this it would be a disaster at this point. Thanks for prompting me on it.

[@firedragon04]

ANNNND Version Control is set up! Thanks again for prompting me on that. I've actually lost projects in the past due to hard drive failures and such (many years ago) so it is stupid of me that it took me even this many weeks to setup Version Control... but it is done now.

[@coole8]

@@firedragon04 glad to hear my nagging was of use. One little neat trick, I noticed when you edited some files you didn't know what the old values were so you got it roughly back. If you commit regularly (atomic/small commits are ur friend!) You can go into your working copy, and just discard the new change to the particular file and it'll revert it back to the last one. It comes in extremely handy as an undo that works for all files, which lets you experiment freely without worrying. Branching is similarly useful, if you ever have an idea that would disrupt a lot of other systems, just branch and work on it as if it's another project. You can always go back to your original branch and you're safe. Would suggest watching some kind of git starter guide to see all the really useful stuff that you can do with it. Good luck!

[@spagettd]

I’ve been loving this series! I always wanted to make an N64 inspired game and it’s great to see you doing it justice

[@SodaPopBot]

lowpoly is so cozy to look at. nice joob with that coral reef! feels "alive" cus of the particles and vegetation movement

[@PieceofCraft]

i love that you're ACTUALLY trying to capture the style of those days. so many videos are "low poly" games people are making but dont match the style of the era well done cant wait to see more

[@cinebst]

incredible art design! the project has a wonderful vibe, even at this early stage

[@albedoalbedo712]

Hey man, a couple thoughts about the jump system. I think you should do it in two traces, first one forward from the characters feet to seek for ledges within a distance (preferably a sphere/capsule cast) and a second capsule cast directly above the first hit location. I believe that fixed most problems with such jump systems (jumping through walls, detecting too small ledges to jump to etc).

[@lemongummy7047]

the coral starting area looks gorgeous! really good stuff 🥶

[@FioreFire]

The visuals for the level design look really really good, but I think the lighting and shader effects go a bit too far and really quickly take me out of the N64 illusion. Bending some limitations is perfectly fine, but if you want a cohesive visual style then it's better to be mindful and deliberate in the ways you bend them than to discard them entirely

[@GrahamOfLegend]

Yo, these visuals are really speaking to me! And this is just the prototype level?! So dope! I can’t wait to see more of what you have planned 🔥

[@Jico762]

Cool devlog! I just realized I'm already subscribed to you and didn't know why until I saw that you were behind FyreUK back in the day:D Lots of nostalgia from those Minecraft videos. Good luck with your game!:)

[@monkeman1293]

I hope everything is going well and I wish you luck in making your game. I also can't believe I saw the first devlog 30 mine before this was released .

[@LastNight0]

So many materials 😅 go down to like 2 body and head.

[@itaypooO]

Great job again! You can really see the vision of the game now that there's a player moving in a level. Excited for devlog 3. Also, when I saw your explanation about the jumping mechanics I couldn't stop thinking that the second raycast (the one that's checking if there's a ground to jump to) can be inside a wall, thus reporting a collision, and making the player jump straight into the wall - did you address that?

[@SimonSlav-GameMakingJourney]

Am I the only one who can't unsee the 4 handed Link?

[@justtylermusic]

Reminds me of the Breath of the Wild water area. Super Vibey. I dig the VIBES!

[@BadTunes.]

These videos are really good 😅

[@midnightpolygons]

Really really nice devlog! Looking forward to the next one!

[@newtforgegames]

This is really beautiful and relaxing to watch! Keep it up!

[@devzindie]

Them animations looking pretty nice! Any tips on "N64 style animations"? Would love to hear your insight for my selfish needs :)

[@FireallyXTheories]

The advantage of an autojump/climb system is it frees up the face buttons for your classic Zelda item management, however, if the auto-jump tries to do something the player doesn't want it to do, it can get frustrating. I think you've done a good job of making failsafes to prevent that issue and I'm sure it will only get better with testing! the camera being Ocarina of Time-esque I don't know. I think being able to spam it is a good thing, because I really hated the camera in OoT being slow to react to my input or locking onto an enemy on-screen when I wanted to turn the camera backwards and back up (fire temple), and I never felt like I could look at my surroundings effectively due to that cooldown/delay and first person made it more disorientating because I lost character control and my viewing was closer to the ground than it normally was which threw off my perception of scale. In Dinosaur Planet though I would quickly press the camera four times in a rotation to see everything around me and figure out which way to go. I did that in Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess too. However, the bigger question is: Will having no free camera (like Wind Waker) improve how the game plays/feels? If you think the answer is yes, then I'm excited to see how you answer it! I think the Coral Forest is cool. Helps get the visual style and pipeline get going at the same time as the gameplay implementation pipeline which is very useful even if it ultimately is scrapped. Having the elevation of the tree is fantastic for trying out the climbing and jumping (and apparently rolling too from your comment, which is the greatest button you can push on a controller) mechanics in quick succession to ensure movement feels just right. I kind of wish the large grass area texture had more variation or modular texture generation (advancenine goes over techniques to do that in his devlogs if you're curious) since right now it feels like a blurry upscaled version of the jumping tiles, however, the N64 did that too so I understand if you want to keep it that way. I suppose Devlog 4 might have concepts for what the items of the game are and how they're used in puzzles and other interactions (less items that have more interactions are always more fun), I guess like the main gameplay loops. From my understanding right now, it's going to be similar to Ocarina of Time and Dinosaur Planet with combat, items being core to progression, dungeons, and puzzles? Maybe with some level of branching decisions like how the shadow temple and water temple can be done in any order iirc?

[@laudj_art]

That's it, i'm subscribing, i'm starting to learn about game development and (trying to) making my own games just for fun, i like how you tell your ideas and story, this is looking amazing

[@StiffAftermath]

24:24 - "Oh mi gosh! I swear this is where I parked my gunship!" Panic ensues 😮 24:32 - "Noooooooooooo!" 18:47 - can you this for a short underwater enemy intro cinematic also.

[@AlynneTheFlorifant]

You should add some mudskippers and basic buglife, birds might be weird at a previously ocean planet. Maybe flying fish? Love the de log beautiful area

[@ACouchpirate]

I love the auto jumping! I'm just thinking if the velocity check should be based on input value instead of velocity, as movement acceleration might result in the player fully pressing one direction but falling down anyway because the character doesn't reach the threshold velocity in time for reaching the edge.

[@longdongsilver3267]

Nothing really to say, but I enjoyed this video. Thanks for making and sharing it.

[@wellhellotherekyle]

This devlog is BEEFY. Looking great man.

[@patrick8099]

This is a great video! I love the mid air dab jump it cracked me up. Keep up the good work man! I am really impressed with what you where able to do in a short time, and the pixel filter and everything really ties it together. Looking great I can't wait to see more.

[@luminousblackdesigns9011]

I'm enjoying how your approaching this dev-log series. Keep up the good work and excited to see how your game grows! Don't forget to take lots of shots of your work so that you can add it into your game dev portfolio for future employment should you want to work with an organization in the future.

[@benjoe1993]

Sir, that's an F pose not a T pose xD Good devlog. Looking forward to the next.

[@FATBOI_GX]

With the modern lighting it looks like a game from the early 2000s with the lowest graphic setting.

[@JayFolipurba]

The round coral level is giving me The Force Unleashed vibes. And I love the water

[@cmbaz1140]

I really love the way the character walks/runs...i dont know why...lol

[@bigkebizino8970]

I've got a name idea: Astral Adventure 64 (or AA64!)

[@lambbonesdev]

Man that level looks really amazing, great job

[@pvthinge]

wow fam keep pushing your game is a gem!

[@MarathonGuy1337]

This is just amazing great little video series to stumble on and a very interesting and cool environment.

[@kheredrain]

I really enjoy this series of devlog, it makes me want to come back to a small project I had long ago

[@rabbox4513]

I'm just 4 minute into the video so maybe you'll talk about it later, but just in case : There is an override function "OnWalkOffLedge" that triggers as soon as the character walk off a ledge. You can increase the character jump count to 2 in the character movement component to create a pseudo-double jump (otherwise he'll refuse to jump since you're not on the ground anymore) and then call the "Jump" function. That should make an auto-jump system like in the first Zelda game.

[@firedragon04]

Someone else in the comments mentioned this to me but I end up making a system that doesn’t use that. I am debating switching to it though.

[@KillerDudeT19]

Is the camera system just the spring arm?

[@souzaluis251]

It would be nice to have the players jump animation height proportional to the distance he has to jump over. Looks more natural

[@firedragon04]

I have no idea how to do that currently but it is something I’m going to look at as well as the max distances of the jump that the player can do

[@coreymatthews5210]

Bravo, I already want to play it!

[@AmeHart]

I know you're a few devlogs ahead of this already, but if you REALLY wanna nail that N64/PS1 style--assuming you haven't done these already--you should disable casted shadows and have the materials be *vertex-lit* instead of *per-pixel lit* . To regain (and possibly expand on the look of) shadows, you should use *vertex colours* which should multiply its colours with the texture (and interpolation between colours is free). Lastly, to have the character be affected by shadows, try using *shadow volumes* , which should shade things inside them (including level geometry, should you desire !).

[@firedragon04]

This is actually apart of the N64 look that I'm not interested in, this game for me is going to be a mix of modern game engine features fused with some of the design aesthetic and gameplay approach form the N64/PS1 era. But you are totally right about how to achieve the look more closely but it's not something I'm targeting.

[@AmeHart]

@@firedragon04 fair enough ! wishing you the best of luck. Just finished watching all that you have up so far (including the one from today !) and it's exciting to see. keep up the great work

[@Gloriaficent]

does your game have any room for mini games? or will it just follow the story the whole? I appreciate the idea of mini games break up the theme like Take two to Tango did.

[@firedragon04]

There are puzzles in the world and dungeons to get collectibles and keys. These work like mini games but the game’s key mechanic is exploration.

[@indiebutterknife952]

Do you need a musician?

[@雪鷹魚英語培訓的領航]

The level looks excellent dude!

[@jinenjipeke]

bruh this is spectacular

[@Arrynore]

I am very interested in how you made and/or acquired the textures, because you skipped over that for the most part. It looks incredible but for me personally texturing is still quite an obstacle to overcome. I've no idea how to make acceptable textures

[@firedragon04]

Most of them are handmade in photoshop, some are photos turned into seamless textures and others are temporary and will be redone. I can go over making some of them in a future Devlog.

[@Arrynore]

@@firedragon04 It's amazing how you can make them from scratch. I've got a lot of game dev elements down but texturing is still something I dread. Anyway, cheers for the answer and I appreciate all of your work!

[@deniskushnirenko7600]

17:48 what is the music?

[@AlbertBalbastreMorte]

Metroid Prime 64

[@Ashty]

Nice

[@LionKings]

this gives me starfox adventure vibes and i love it i cant wait for the next video

[@LionKings]

i had to comment again, this is going to be so cool to watch develop and immerse myself into your thoughts on how you are building everything. i watch so many devlogs and this is genuinely one i am excited for and hope you keep up with the project.

[@BlazeHeartPanther]

Well, considering that he did get inspiration from Dinosaur Planet (StarFox Adventures original game) its not surprising.

[@Justyn-yt]

Looks awsome

[@robertjag167]

Looks amazing so far! Can't wait to see it with a n64 type of shader.

[@sleepynuigurumiamalgamation]

awesome.

[@peterplatter]

I had this idea to keep the title Space64 and also name the character Space64. Make them meet Space63 and Space65. They can be clones or not, I don't know. I just thought it would be funny. They could even reference that it's a weird naming scheme :)

[@spinach1472]

That was fast

[@firedragon04]

I'm actually working on Devlog 5 at the moment, the first 4 are done and scheduled to release every Friday at this time :)

[@spinach1472]

​@@firedragon04 can't wait!

[@DaddyVader87]

As an unreal engine creator and as someone who just bought a n64 so I could play the original and not just another emulator..this is so cool man.