Game Development So Far
Last week I finally got to move on from designing how to get clients to walk around like normal people and not act like muppets! So that enabled me to this week change up the pace a bit and get onto something different:
- Add new equipment types – A few months ago I streamlined the way to add new equipment and make it more modular. Since then a few changes have gone into place with regards to how equipment is handled in the game. It was a good opportunity to test that adding equipment was still a simple task and thankfully it is! I’ve added in a dip bar and it fits in nicely to the environment. The only thing missing was a dip motion animation. I decided to jump straight over to adding some new animations before continuing adding other equipment to complete the addition of the dip bar.
- Add new animations – The animations I already have in place are limited and I always knew I would have to come around to creating some new ones. Now is that time. With the dip bar being added and needing an animation I thought it would be best to jump over to Blender and start learning animation. Unity has a nice built in animation creation system but it doesn’t work with the character styles I use (humanoid) therefore I need to create them in Blender. What started off as a daunting piece of software Blender is slowly becoming a much more comfortable place to be. There’s still a mountain of Blender knowledge that I don’t know but I’m able to comfortably knock up what I need in not too long. The first animation on the list to be ticked off is the bench press.
I’m really happy with the way it’s turned out and the real test will come when I put it into the game. However I’m most happy with how easy and quickly it was to create, which makes me excited for the remaining animations I need to create!
Other Developments
My new found comfort with Blender is another example of just taking things one step at a time. Four months ago I was struggling with trying to come up with a good character style and the idea of having to design different character models, set up clothing and aesthetic differences and animating them was quite a scary thought and honestly something I thought I might struggle with to the point of having to bring someone else in to do that work. However taking it one step at a time, dealing with each task individually and not getting overwhelmed with what was next to come has ended up getting to this point. A point where I have a varied set of characters each with different body shapes, clothing and aesthetic styles all of which are becoming more and more animated in their environment and now bringing in new animations is just a case of deciding what needs to be added, opening up blender and knocking it up. There are plenty more daunting challenges to overcome before Gym Empire is gameplay ready but it keeps me confident in my ability to get it there.
Time Management
So this week’s tasks basically continue on from last weeks:
- Add new equipment types
- Add new animations
Gym Empire is now available to add to your Steam Wishlist.
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