A while ago, I created a method of rendering out fixed direction Normal and Depth information from 3D models in milliseconds, rather than the seconds or tens of seconds that it would take using most common methods. That might not seem like a lot, but if you start rendering out animations, those seconds stack up.
I thought that I would mostly use this technique to make brushes and details for texturing 3D models. Sort of like 3D stickers. I’ve found a new use for it. If you look up baking out maps using Blender or really any 3D software, there will likely be a convoluted method that you have to follow, because hey, that’s just how doing anything in 3D goes. It’s a set of difficult to memorize steps and processes and when anyone new to 3D asks why, 90% of the time the answer will just be ‘because’. Odds are, the person you ask will either not know why, or they will and the answer will be too tedious and convoluted to get into. It will probably involve some decision about rendering made in 1994. So, rather than asking why, you follow those steps and you get a result, but if your particular use case or problem is even slightly different than the tutorial, well good luck to you. You have strayed well into the realm of the technical artist. The thing is, most applications don’t need the long route. The standard route. Sometimes you can ‘cheat’. Sometimes cheating is the best option. Cheating is what technical artists do. I have been working on an old school arcade game project. Something that looks and, more importantly, feels like it came from a late 80s or early 90s arcade. But, just because I want it to feel that way, doesn’t mean that it has to be made that way, or even be possible on old hardware. I started out by creating some hand animation, to test if what I wanted would be possible. It seemed like it was. Then I moved on to 3D art and animation. My experience very definitely lies in 3D animation, but I had to make sure that I could replicate a look similar to the 2D animation. After some work and some very distorted proportions, it worked. I made a set of 3D animations, that when rendered out, resembled my 2D tests. Now that the art and animation was in the 3D space, I could get weird. I had already created the Normal and Depth techniques, so what would happen if I tossed those at the problem? Turns out, it works pretty well. Rendering out an entire set of test animations from all the required angles takes a few seconds. Rendering out the extra Normal and Depth passes only adds another second or two. So, while the setup and animation times might be longer than a strictly 2D approach to art creation, for this project iteration takes almost no time at all. I can change an animation, change a model, change colours, and on and on with very little extra effort. I can change lighting on the resulting 2D sprites in realtime, thanks to the Normal and Depth maps. The result is probably not something that arcade hardware could do in 1990, but that’s not important. What’s important is that it feels like it could really be from that time. I’m probably going to waste more memory space than any of those old machines had just on a single character sprite. This project is only just getting started, and I’m not exactly sure where it will end up, but small successes like this are what move the whole thing forward. Now I know that the process works. The type of graphics I want are possible, and more importantly, possible by me as a solo developer. Maybe I will get to the place where I want to pay someone else to work on this with me, but right now I have to do what I can to make it real on my own.
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As I type this, my son is downstairs playing Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom. When he’s not playing it, he’s watching videos about it. The rest of the time, I’m probably playing it.
It’s a very good game. The controls are great, but not entirely friction free. The puzzles are great, but not entirely satisfying. The construction is great, but occasionally tedious. It’s pretty close to a perfect game. I think it might be that “pretty close” that makes me want to play more of it. When Breath of the Wild came out, a lot of people got very angry about weapon and shield degradation. It’s true that having a bow or sword shatter mid-fight is annoying, but it very quickly reached the same level of annoyance as having to reload in a shooter. It only slightly breaks your flow and, if you are ready for it, you can easily switch weapons to keep swinging. So what that teaches you, is to be ready for it. In the previous game, weapons shattering meant that you would have to sample all the weapons the game had on offer. At some point you would be up against a tough enemy and you would have to pull out that club or spear that you would never otherwise use. I thought it added some fun to the game, but some people, by virtue of being forced into it, were not as interested. In Tears of the Kingdom you can essentially create new types of weapons at any time by fusing items together. This flips the weapon breakage mechanic on its head. Instead of requiring that you use different weapons, you will want to try all of them. What happens if you fuse a stick to a rock, a sword to a glowing flower, an arrow to some monster parts? Who can say? It doesn’t take long before you are just hitting things with a badly fused weapon to break it intentionally so that you can try one of your new ones. Testing new weapons has become part of the game that you will want to engage with. Other than that one small change, the weapon degradation system is mostly intact. One simple change. Fusing weapons to create new items turns a mechanic that could be tedious into an opportunity to play. There is a school of game design wisdom that says you should always be building toward whatever is the most fun. When people bristled against the previous design, rather than tossing it out, Nintendo built toward something more fun. I think it worked. Best Games - Area 51
Arcade light gun games are a tough one. I can write about them here, but unless you happen to have an arcade or a barcade near you, I don’t know that there is an easy way to play them. You could always play them using a mouse on an emulator, but I can’t recommend that. It feels pretty bad. Years ago I bought a light gun that works with non-crt displays, but due to time and old drivers getting it to run on current hardware is challenging. It sits in a box inside my arcade cabinet. It will likely continue to. As a result I haven’t played many light gun games unless I happen to be at an arcade. That’s unfortunate because I truly love some of them. Area 51 is near the top of that list. Area 51 didn’t break any new ground for the genre. There were already more technically advanced light gun games available when it came out. It did some new things, combining pre-rendered and live action footage was fairly novel. It used some interesting hardware that was across between a home console and a pc. None of that makes Area 51 good. Area 51 is good, because it excels at hitting that ball straight down the middle. Arcade games are experiences. Some can offer a challenge or provide a way for people to compete head-to-head. Games can create a sort of fantasy or sense of escapism. At their heart, they are experiences, just like amusement park rides. Some of the best amusement park rides give you exactly what you are expecting. No hidden twists, no surprise endings. It’s just exactly what you are looking for. That might seem like another way of saying ‘mediocre’ or ‘dull’. It’s anything but. It takes real skill to create exactly the sort of experience a player is looking for, and keep that experience going for as long as they are playing. Not only that, but they have to want to come back to play again and again. Area 51 absolutely nails it. It is a consistently solid experience every single time you play. Here’s where I get to be very specifically nerdy. I used to play Area 51 using both guns. Every Area 51 cabinet has two light guns tethered to it so two people can play together. One day, on a whim, I thought ‘why don’t I just try both’. I wanted to play it that way ever since. John Woo-ing it up at the arcade. I tried the same trick playing Lethal Enforcers and the like, but only Virtua Cop played as well with both guns. I got pretty good at it too. Like actually good. I didn’t feel like I played well unless my left hand accuracy was above 80% and my score was similar on both hands. I’m not left handed. I probably didn’t set any records, but I was good at it. It was easy to get good, because the game is easy to love. It’s simple, straight forward, and it does exactly what you want it to do, and it does it very well. Area 51 might be a simple game, but it’s one of the best games. |
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