Game Idea: DNA mutation

Imagine characters functionality like attach, defend, eat, join group, fear.

For example Bob can attack and join group, John can defend and eat, and Kate can join group and fear.

But all of them can share this functionality by bite each other and share some functionality. Like if Bob bite Kate, Kate gonna addiotionaly do an attack. It all just like natural breading works but much faster through biting, that suitable for games.

We gone setup this functionality just like gens with dominant and recessive gens. So functionality of NPC will be stetted by some kind of DNA that can change during gameplay.

How to travel between planets

Lets take Mars for example. First we send a lot of robots that have 3D printers. They build human base. 3D print building first, then 3D print human bodies with empty minds. Then we scan our neural network and convert it into signal. Then send it to Mars. Flash neural network of human dummies with out neural network. That's it. Fast planet traveling.

Game Idea: Why UI ?

Seriously. UI is a chunk that was developed in deep 70th like the only way to display information about surrounded worlds. But now we have 2014, millions of polygons, complicated light models and computation shaders but still same UI. We can simply display information directly inside game on the Hero, directly inside scene, so why to waste so much money on UI. I like the guys from Skyrim did it - just minimum. And all this games with tons of UI and bad gameplay looks so cheap.

Unity navMesh and rigidbodies

If you ever made navigation with navMesh you probably noticed that navMesh agent won't itteract with Unity physics. NavMeshAgent came through the rigidbodies without any problem. But there is a solution. Calculate path by calling static method of NavMesh.CalculatePath(from,destination, layer, path) then if method returns true, get second point of the path and apply force to your agent in that direction. Do it in every update. That's it. You even can not set navMesh agent, but be carefull with navMesh layer.

Game Idea: Untiy 3D texture packing

Unity 3D since 4.5 have awesome 2D feature like texture packing. It can be even more cooler if Unity will analyze game statistic and build sprites according to usage for minimizing memory usage.

Game Idea: UNITY3D physics

I can't understand why navMesh is totally physics not related. It make tons of problems and head ache. So don't use anything except physics when creating Unity game.

Game idea: Stars moving

Many 2D games have background with the sun or stars or clouds. But they always stay still when we are moving in 2D game. It's totally wrong cuz when I traveled by the train I have noticed that stars have complex trajectory of moving cuz we are moving not in one direction. So if we move in 2D game we move not in one direction straight we should calculate parallax moving more accurate.

Game Idea: Live assets

Imagine game where assets can be uploaded via internet with live web camera placed in real world location. Of course we need all the time internet access, but anyway.

Game Idea Walking tree

You are the tree. But you can walk by your roots. Water and sun make you feel better. We have location like jungles, city, pine tree forest. It is an Eco game and teach people to live in harmony with nature.

IT Unity

Today IT companies have too much ambitions. Google want to create mobile system that really sucks, Apple want to create maps that's sucks too, Microsoft creating search engine Bing that no one use. Seriously why not to deal and make good what you making good. Imagine cool Apple device with Microsoft OS and integrated with Google services. But this an old storie, they better prefer war.

Game Balance

Modern games have awesome balance. Like Skyrim, Risen 3, Witcher. They are so balanced that seems boring as for me. Never mind what skills do you improve result is the same. And whole gameplay of modern games is like Oblivion with auto calculation that depends on level. Old Gothic 2 have lot of bugs and not balanced things but element of randomnes make big fun.

Coding idea: methods inheritance

I know it can be done via simply calling base method, but wit oop it should be more natural to have such syntax:

void Initialize();

void InitializeAll() : Initialize;

Game Idea: What is the most important in games ?

Some developers make an awesome graphic like Crisis, some make cool stories like Gothic, some have awesome sound, some of them have cool game play like Angry Birds. But lets think in project of time. Any graphics will be improved with time. Like 3D  graphics of 90th is much worse then 2010th. Same with game play. With time we will have cool things like physics or destroying everything or burning in fire. Lets be honest Angry Birds will suck without cool physics. I think there are 3 things witch will be less affected by the time:

Story, Characters. Music.

So I think this parts of the game should be the best to make game classic. But it's just my opinion.

Game Idea: Dinosaurs against Zombies

You are riding tyrannosaur Rex. You can launch fire, destroy buildings by your tail. Your task is to destroy zombies and protect peaceful people. Zombies believe that you are an invader and want some evil for them.

Be careful of zombies. They can attack together and have some small mind. You can move next if more then 60% of zombies are destroyed and you can move on. Also you can heal zombies and make normal people from them.

We have different locations like city, forest, cold desert.

Unity 3D Anoxemia Heat Distort Tutorial

Hello. It is a part of Anoxemia tutorials. Here I want to share some experience of creating 2D game with Unity

What we going to do here:

DOWNLOAD:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/106482752/Dvornik-Unity-Distortion.zip

Root tutorial: http://kostiantyn-dvornik.blogspot.com/2014/07/anoxemia-unity-2d-tutorial.html

If you ever want to create cool effects like hot air waving or thick glass refraction or some underwater streams you will came to Detonator package and HeatDistort shader.But as for me it looks very complicated, so write my own and use it well with latest Unity 2D system.

NOTE: it works only with Unity Pro and Deffered lighting on. It works the same way how Detonator'a works. It tooks image and project it correctly on a plane with texture distortion.

We will split tutorial into 2 steps.
1.Explain shader
2. How to use it.

1.
Lets take a look at the shader:

Shader "Dvornik/Distort" {
Properties {
_Refraction ("Refraction", Range (0.00, 100.0)) = 1.0
_DistortTex ("Base (RGB)", 2D) = "white" {}
}

SubShader {

Tags { "RenderType"="Transparent" "Queue"="Overlay" }
LOD 100

GrabPass
{

}

CGPROGRAM
#pragma surface surf NoLighting
#pragma vertex vert

fixed4 LightingNoLighting(SurfaceOutput s, fixed3 lightDir, fixed atten){
        fixed4 c;
        c.rgb = s.Albedo;
        c.a = s.Alpha;
        return c;
  }

sampler2D _GrabTexture : register(s0);
sampler2D _DistortTex : register(s2);
float _Refraction;

float4 _GrabTexture_TexelSize;

struct Input {
float2 uv_DistortTex;
float3 color;
float3 worldRefl;
float4 screenPos;
INTERNAL_DATA
};

void vert (inout appdata_full v, out Input o) {
  UNITY_INITIALIZE_OUTPUT(Input,o);
  o.color = v.color;
}

void surf (Input IN, inout SurfaceOutput o) {

    float3 distort = tex2D(_DistortTex, IN.uv_DistortTex) * float3(IN.color.r,IN.color.g,IN.color.b );
    float2 offset = distort * _Refraction * _GrabTexture_TexelSize.xy;
    IN.screenPos.xy = offset * IN.screenPos.z + IN.screenPos.xy;
    float4 refrColor = tex2Dproj(_GrabTexture, IN.screenPos);
    o.Alpha = refrColor.a;
    o.Emission = refrColor.rgb;
}
ENDCG
}
}

We have just 2 properties. It is

_Refraction -amount of distortion
_DistortText - texture according to what we gonna distort our environment. You can use any colored texture. To make distortion. But in fact only Red and Green channels are working as distortion vector.

Tags { "RenderType"="Transparent" "Queue"="Overlay" } - We set Queue to Overlay because we want to render this effect after everything.

#pragma surface surf NoLighting
#pragma vertex vert

We used custom NoLigthing model and custom vertex shader to have deal with vertex color that used in particle system. There is a little chunk, cuz we write only Emission to have absolutely No Lighting shader.

 float3 distort = tex2D(_DistortTex, IN.uv_DistortTex) * float3(IN.color.r,IN.color.g,IN.color.b );
 float2 offset = distort * _Refraction * _GrabTexture_TexelSize.xy;
 IN.screenPos.xy = offset * IN.screenPos.z + IN.screenPos.xy;
 float4 refrColor = tex2Dproj(_GrabTexture, IN.screenPos);

Here we read distort texture, calculate offset of the screen and project on the model correctly. That's it.

2. 
Create a simple material and apply that shader. Next if you use particle system apply particle render order script to that. Other way some object will be rendered after distortion so it will looks weird. You can use particle Color or Color Over LifeTime to make distortion more/less. I often setup it thats way:

to make distortion fade in and fade out. Thats probabbly all that you need to know about.

Know bugs:

1.

How to resolve:
Add particle order script to PS and set order to  bigger then foreground sprite.
Effect is not working with orthographic camera

2. To much distortion on large distance to camera
How to resolve: add script that decreasing material property distortion with distance to camera.

Mobile App Idea: Golden section

A lot of time I need to find a correct number in some interval. For example in [0..100] I need 30. I can do it via half dividing method, but golden section is much faster for finding solution. So all i need is to choose between two intervals divided into gold section and ability to move back. 60% 40%

Mobile App Idea: Interesting Way

You have a list. You can add words there. Any words or even phrases. Like "go to movie" "read a book" "clean up your room" etc. That application will combine activities that you put into a row, interesting way like game designers do. So every day you will get activity or any other word you have put. You can add dishes like "soup" "cake" "meat". That's way you will never forget something cool and make your life more interesting. By the way if that application will have a lot of users and internet connections we can manipulate a lot of people.

Draft RPG Map

Found on my computer when cleaned up:

Game Idea: Stop faking

There is a lot of fakes in game industry. Some of them:

1. Epic rendered trailer with extra awesome graphics and animaition
2. Cool posters also with awesome graphics

1.  Yes you can spent millions on render, but as Skyrim trailer madden on game engine proof that real can be epic too.

2.  2D painted art is mostly better than in-game graphics. Especially it about icons in App Store. I simply can't judge game by icon at all. It better to have animated gif of game actions that such representation that take my time to click and see and than back

So stay real please

United States of Europe

2054:

Territory: Current Poland, Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine, Border West Russia
Capital: Kyiv
Language: English
Coat of arms: Tryzub
Population: 40 000 000
Model: Torrent
Philosophy: Knowledge, Art, Development
Flag: 23 White tryzubs on Red-Black stripes
Currency: Euro
Anthem: Epic ( 2023 )

Game Idea: Build and destroy everything 2D

It is a complicated task to make environment from peaces in 3D like Minecraft do, but it is much simpler to make in 2D.  I mean we can have natural physics for blocks and they can looks cooler and realistic, not cubed. With such structures we can explode everything or build everything.

Doctrina Kharkov Free House 3D Models Low Poly

10 Holland house 3D models with extremely low polygon count. Will be useful in game development and city or landscape visualization by Julia Maylina Potapenko .

DOWNLOAD:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/106482752/Houses.zip

Neural Network Animation Tutorial

DOWNLOAD:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/69eugwd65fl7476/Neural%20Animation.zip?dl=0

Previous post about neural network animation:
http://kostiantyn-dvornik.blogspot.com/2014/07/more-neural-network-animation.html

Now its time to came from idea to implementation. I've captured video tutorial, so I think it can came much easier for you. You can create your own GIF files in Photoshop or other software from series of images. BTW you can create colored animation with it.

SEO tips and tricks

I've promoted my blog over 2 years and want to share some exp.

1. 90%  people are lazy egoists who are looking for easy ways like lottery. They don't care what you have done, they care what you have got. That's why promote results of your work instead of your work.

2. Try not to post something on weekend. People are resting, they have life and don't seat on computer like you. That's why my views on weekend is twice lower than other days. But this post is for you, not for them, that's why I'm posting on Sunday.

3. Try not to post anything on Monday and Friday. This days are also not very good to promote.

4. Keep in mind about  time of day of your target audience. If your target audience is USA try to post in most active time in the USA like 2-4 PM.

5. Ask for help your friends on sharing data on Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, etc.

6. Try to keep all in one place. I use blogger for this. It have cool statistic so I can analyze audience.

7. Try not to post only links on your data in social networks, you will became not interesting for your friends so they will ignore your links like spam.

8. Bring information for people who interesting in it. If you promoting games do it in games communities. If you say something about Linux shell for random people they just ignore you.

Game Idea: Woodpecker simulator

You are a woodpecker. You can fly over big forests through the clouds, you can pick worms and join other bird clans. Game will have dynamic wheatear system and auto forest grooving system, so environment will react on your actions and will change themselves. It will show different aspect of human and nature iteration and study to make our life green.

Doctrina Kharkov Free 3D models Milling cutter

Hello. This is a free 3D models set by Julia Maylina Potapenko.
Here is: Capitel Console Cover Pilaster Plinth Socket Angle.

DOWNLOAD:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxgYUKP-c4dJS0JacDl1M0l3LU0/edit?usp=sharing

All models is hand-maded and optimized for milling cutter.

Game Idea: Anorexia

Game is about correct diet. You playing as a young girl. You need to avoid popular magazines that causes bulimia, also avoid fast food and not became too heavy. Should take vegetables, fresh meet and stuff like that make you faster and cooler.

Mobile application Fellow Traveler

Last weekend we have traveled from the forest to the city. We stand at bus stop and I have notices that most 4 passengers cars are filled wih 2 people. Thats a huge waste of resources. A lot of people are standing at the bus stop and here in Ukraine buses are overfilled and totally unsafe. What if to create mobile application ( Windows phone for example ), where people can share where they want to travel and drivers read this data wia 3G or bluetooth or EDGE and can take additional passenger for speciefed price - some kind of peer-to-peer taxi. That can save tonns of fuels and cars per year.

Tree's emotions

What if trees have emotions. Like a big neuron network tree can theoretically have some kind of mind. I think they work very slow but they exists. Probably that's why if you be angry on tree next year you can get a lot of fruits. Or in years of war tree have no fruits at all.

Food idea: Scotch sausage

3D print sausage as scotch tape. You can take it in the forest, work, school. Sausage - scotch is ideal solution for your bread.

Future game development

Imagine that we have device that can read our emotions. In fact it is exist now but not for wide audience. Games have a lot of parameters like speed, mass, health, tons of parameters behind the scene. And it is always a buthurt for designers to tune this parameters. Imagine that we can auto change parameters after playing game basing on gamer emotions. That can be done via neural networks.

Game idea: fart-boy

You are a boy that collecting peas, burritos and stuff like that. You have abilities like super jump and flying. You should avoid crocodiles and fat people who want to eat you.

Game balance

If you have no experience in building gameplay and your games is too hard or easy for gamers you can you use RANDOM. If all main parameters of your gameplay is set by random function your gameplay will be balanced by statistic of many players. For example you can randomly set Health, Ammo, Shield etc. Of course parameters of your random function like min-max value also should be balanced. But it much more easier.

Development resources

When you create something depending on resources of people who use it you must take in account million things. For example you are creating game. You have a 32 inch monitor and you creating mobile game for iPhone. It is hard to understand that limits if you have no them. Like rich people will never understand poor people, high performance developers will never understand average user. So development computer must be 25 percent more powerful than computer of average user to compensate developing overhead and feel comforting.

Global feedback service

Sometimes we need a lot of feedback. Specially when we start to make something. But if you try to use social networks or YouTube or anything else you will notice that no one care about things you do. At least when you start something. What if create global feedback service where you can showcase art, music, stories, games. Main goal of this service is if you want to showcase something you should review something. It can be organised as money system, but called feedback points.

It mean if you give a lot of feedback you can wait a lot of feedback at your products.

Android idea

How to make to make android cool ?

1. Remove jvm. Leave pure Linux and c++ code only.
2. Make one standard for all devices. I mean same resolution, aspect ratio and hardware
3. Don't support previous version of android at all.
4. Make green light voting system for android apps in google play like steam have.

More neural network animation

Previous animation:

http://kostiantyn-dvornik.blogspot.com/2014/05/neural-network-animation.html

Щастя здоров'я!

Per user diffuculty level

It is quite strange idea. But what if all people that installed game have different level of difficulty. I mean game have global constants that control level of difficulty like health, amount of enemies etc. At the end of install game generate random level of difficulty for that install. And don't tell about it to users. I think discussions will be much more interesting.

Anoxemia Unity 2D tutorial

DOWNLOAD:https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxgYUKP-c4dJLXZIY3YwbWU2b1E/edit?usp=sharing

Part of Anoxemia game that we are working now:
http://kostiantyn-dvornik.blogspot.com/2014/02/game-prototype-aqualung.html

Play now( use Google drive instead of Dropbox cuz with high traffic Dropbox block your links ):
https://962c300c790d3372b0c690cf560cefe72ccc1822.googledrive.com/host/0BxgYUKP-c4dJNG11ZTRBUmo4Y1U/2D-Tutorial.html

NOTE: most art is blurred. You CAN'T use animation art and level art. You CAN use code fluently in your commercial and non-commercial projects.

Now it is time to make 2D game with Unity. It is an advanced tutorial so if you just started Unity please do something simpler at first. It will be suitable for:

1. The ones who came from 3D
2. If you have some experience of games creation
3. If you using C#
4. If you are level designer

Cool things that we have here in tutorial:

1. Full 2D game mechanic ( start menu, levels, end, game settings, gameover )
2. Level variations system.
3. Optimized for mobile. ( on iPad 2 runs fast )
4. Hero can move in any of 4 directions ( up, down, left, right ) setuped animator controller
5. Smooth transiction from left to right instead of fast flip of a hero
6. Controller is separated from ModelView so you can add any type of controls ( touch, kinnect, wii )
7. Joystic controller support ( tuned for Logitech )
8. Lego style code. You can add remove feautures easily
9. Singleton, State machine ( classic and own ) , Algorithm, Upserver patterns used.
10. Implemented hunter AI using default navMesh.
11. Bubbles, blood and acid particled settuped.
12. Folder classification

Now I explain how to use everything:

1. Game use state machine that choose state by level name and implemented in Singleton SceneRoot. Game suitable for designers you can choose any level and start playing without entering a menu. Each singleton is stored in scene.

2. Class Constants have dictionary with level and sub level name. So you can have different variations of a level. Everytime new level is loading it is choose from level variations.

3. Used Unity sprites for minimizing alpha rendering. Used ambient light instead of dynamical light, minimum particles

4. The hardest thing of 2D game is smooth animation into any directions if setuped in Hero animator controller.

5. AnymationsSync sript is added to the Graphics of a hero. So we can process events from animation like picko bject or turn left or right.

6. Scene root singleton have OnIterract event. So you can subscribe and process platform non-specific commands like sweem, hit, drop. Extend it via enums.

7.Hit play in menu on your joystic and you can play via sticks. Look in StateLevel.cs for implementation

8. Nothing to say :)

9. SceneRoot - singltone, See State begins classes, Inside behaviors stated implemented via animator state machine, creatures have algorithms that can be overrided in derevided classes, all behaviors derived from GameBevahiour that have even OnActionNotify. You can subscribe and do anything.

10. Whole game is rotated and working in XZ for navMesh working.

11. See prefabs.

We talking about Anoxemia:

Щастя, здоров'я

Backpack-pillow

When you travel a lot you need a pillow. It can be very useful to have air pillow in backpack. And all your stuff in safe place under head.

Doctrina Kharkov Woman in black art

By Julia Maylina Potapenko ( acrylic ) 2014

Auto correct logic

All we know about syntax correction like iWork, word do. But what if go deeper and create logic correction in specific field. For example sun is green. Sometimes it is correct but in most cases it is wrong so program can make advice to you.

Smart trash can

Imagine so smart trash can that have gps, product scanner, wifi. So such trash can analyse products that have been putted in and make statistics for people who build stores.

Anoxemia painted art

Painted art by Julia Maylina Potapenko on Anoxemia game:
http://kostiantyn-dvornik.blogspot.com/2014/02/game-prototype-aqualung.html

Web service Healthy food

This idea came to me from Silpo food market web service. I have entered all data about people who live with me and according to my buy list web service they give advice like check tea. I guess they can analyse how's healthy my buying is, and give advice what to buy or even what to cook and of course make iOS android app for a phone.

Google glass game awesome

Google glass is awesome. The most amazing and coolest thing that ever happend in whole Universe. The first glass that was invented after glass.

Imagine that you are ram and some things are falling down from the sky  like fruits, vegetebles, iPads. And you need to smash them by your head. You should have propper speed to do it. But you can't smash everything. Sometimes it happend that anvil is falling or stone anyway something very solid that can kill you, so you should avoid it. You also have special abilities that you can get smashing thing like flying hornes that can smash things at the distance.

Sooner we can add multiplayer so you can play with your friends that can be same rams even with argumented reality.

Amazing Quest Idea

Some old and even new rpg is quite linear. They have line event system. Everything goes step by step and looks like this:

 Some awesome ( Witcher, TES, Gothic ) new RPG have tree like quests. Thats can be different trees but anyway:

Of course some gamedev guys are cheating and do something like:


And no one have quite simple but the most interesting way of quest system that was quite obvious:

Of course it is much complicated, because amount of connections. But as result much more ways to complete the game. 

 

Life idea: Robo fish

Some people love fish. Buy aquarium and stuff like that. I also like this smooth motion. It is so relaxing to see. But it is also a big responsibility. I mean feed fish, clean aquarium and a lot of things you don't even know. What if create robotic small fish. Anyway they have simple AI and can be done easily. That's how we simplify our life.

Interesting Advanced Particle Tutorial Unity

We gonna make motion of underwater bubbles using Unity Shuriken particles system.

This tutorial is based on our current game Anoxemia:
http://kostiantyn-dvornik.blogspot.com/2014/02/game-prototype-aqualung.html

I dont care about anything here. Just give me prefab :) -
Download: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxgYUKP-c4dJcXVZSldhYk43VzQ/edit?usp=sharing

Common and the most important part of tutorial.

Philosophy( skip it dude, anyway people never learn on others mistakes )

So why do they move that's way ? The reason is Physics. It is simple and complicated part of all tasks. The problem that designers never study physics so they do everything just like they see it and use wrong instruments as results, but anyway get quite acceptable but not accurate results. Even programmers often don't know anything about physics but I was lucky and sadly at same time studding at Physics department.

Theory

1. Bubbles is a big couple of air placed into water that trying to take spherical form.
2. Arhimed power is applied on a bubble so it moves up and increasing velocity
3. Bubbles become bigger because water pressure depend on depth. The deeper object the bigger pressure applied on it so they small.
4. Bubbles change it shape because of anisotropic of water and forces like colliding etc.
5. Bubbles movement looks like sin function with some randoms because of colliding each other.

Practice

1. Create Shuricen particle system
2. Main section of PS
   Start speed set to 0 because we have no start speed on bubbles
   (Your taste) Start Size set to 0.01 it is 1cm middle size of bubbles under water
   (Your taste) Start life time to 1 how long our bubble is alive
   Simulation Space set to world because we want our PS react on movement
   
3. Emmision
   (Your taste ) Emission set to rate at about 20 and Time

4. Uncheck Shape because particles often emitted from one point like hole of oxygen balloon

5. Uncheck velocity over life time because we dont need to control velocity if we control force

6. Check force over life time and set to random between two curves and setup curves as described here

By Y constant force and sin forces by XZ plan to give sin movement and set to world simulation space because we dont want to have troubles when we attach out PS to some object.

7. Set size over lifetime to growing because of bubbles growing

8. Need some artist help. My girlfriend helped me a lot, thanks Julia Maylina, love you. Draw 4 types of bubbles in a row for a bubbles deformation and setup sheet animation as follow.

Texture should looks like this:




Thats how we minimized a lot of components of Shuriken particles and improve perfomance by the way. But just a little bit :)

In app purchase

Now in app purchase is everywhere. But I am sure that it is unnatural. Imagine that you want to buy the TV. They say it comes free. Awesome free TV. But you know dude you can watch it just 2 hours per day. If you want to see it all time please pay some money. Our engineers wil came to you and fix it. This TV can switch channels but only if you pay us. You can also change brightness for a bucks. So what have I tooked ? Something that is not called a TV. That's how I spent my own time to investigate what is locked and what is not. Why not to sell full functional TV for a reasoned price. I can just watch at price and reviews to make my choose and not to download and investigate.

App idea Argument reality for everyone

Now argument reality is quite cosmic thing. What if make it more popular. What if allow people add their own 3d planes into iPad video by making photo and cropping alpha. With hand drawing mask functionality. With interpolation between keys frames aka semi 3d.

 When we take couple of photos we use compass and gyroscope to determine iPad position. Then interpolate transformation between frames. It is like apps that makes 3d objects from series of photo shoots.