Well that was a long month. At least for me. At the start of the year our agency recieves the most contract offers and we all know what that means: glorious overtime. I still managed to cramp in some time for my own projects, allbeit in exchange for some sleep.
The tutorial on Unity performance, that I keep mentioning, is in it’s final stages of writing. I only need to refactor some neat code snippets for the example sections. A few days, me lads. I also decided to make it more of a “Tips for Unity Performance” kinda thing. It’s a good starting point from which I can write more detailed tutorials on specific aspects of Unity. And don’t worry: There will be an example for the BurstCompiler aswell.
Meanwhile DronAR has seen some good updates on visual appeal. I added some placeholder effects for enemy entry and redid the UI. I also took some time to get familiar with Blender. Most of my 3D modelling skills actually come from working with Cinema 4D (looong ago), but I found that Blender can give me what I need without an expensive license. So there is also my second version of the HUB spaceship. It’s not 100% what I had in mind, but it serves well as a prototype. Same goes for the UI: I have this nano tiling effect in mind, but it doesn’t look…right. The perlin noise pattern is still visible, because my scaling algorithm just doesn’t work. I guess rubber duck will solve the problem later. Anyway, here is video proof:
Since not everyone wants to use VR to control the camera, there is already the ability to control the camera by the thumb stick in the bottom right. And mouse compatibility, because I may or may not upload a WebGL version. The thing is that while it can look pretty good and runs smooth with alot of drones, it’s very battery hungry at the moment. There is still room for optimization and I already have different modes dedicated for either quality or battery life. But I thought it could be a good idea to make it available for desktop devices aswell. However that kinda defeats the whole VR purpose of the game. So we will see.
I also noticed that “DronAR” sadly doesn’t really fit the more VR styled gameplay. Seems like I need to rename the project. But that’s a task for another day.
Late Edit: So I already redid the model and setteled on a more futuristic style. I think I will work on a hyperspace entry animation for the ship aswell. Maybe as a transition from menu to actual gameplay. Here it goes:
And that’s all for now. Stay frosty my friends.
