There has been a lot of updates since the last blog post and in my opinion everything is coming along great! So what's new? Well for starters I implemented a water system, the setup I am using that assists me with this is called "Suimono Water System" and it is by far the best water system for Unity3D on the asset store.
Although the asset above helps with the visual aspect of the water it does not provide the actual swimming system, I would take note of this if you plan on purchasing or using the asset in the future. Currently it is still in beta since the 2.0 version is not fully complete but this also means that it will only get better and better as the finalization comes closer. I can already hear you asking "Is this an important feature in the game?" and the answer is yes, yes it is, I want this game to be very open world and so interactive to the point where there's really no getting bored if you love the game.
Of course there's a ton of work to do before the game get's to that point but an important feature is to be able to explore lots of different environments with as little restriction as possible. I plan to have lots of underwater areas where you can explore different sections that range from small to large ponds/lakes and underwater caverns, very deep areas, etc.
Next I added in the ability to have a bow, combo attacks activate, water splashes occur when Shyla's feet collide with the water and water ripples occur when Shyla touches the water, all of this really started to make the character come alive but something was still missing. What is it? The trees, bushes, etc. were too still! They had no physics to them and needed some life given to them, so I went ahead and implemented a wind flow and configured the trees, bushes, etc. to react to it.
The underwater sound effects are not perfected as of yet and I am currently working on getting a reverb effect going when the camera drops underneath the water, below is a video displaying the different water setups currently available.
In between working on those things I realized I didn't like the dark red trees all that much so I decided to switch them out with a brighter and more vibrant tree that also reacted better to the wind. This gave a whole new feel to the environment and after setting up falling leave effects below these new trees, floating pollen particle effects and getting the Warp Gate looking nice I decided to put up this video to display a bit of these new additions.
After watching this video a few times myself and having a couple people mention it, the lighting on the Warp Gate seemed a tad bit too dark so I adjusted this, here is the follow up image to the changes.
After getting all those things in there I wanted to expand on the initial setup of the movement and underwater systems so I decorated the floor area of the underwater section displayed in previous videos, I tried a few different water types to find the one that best fits with this scene, I added in bubble effects that puts off a small amount of sound effects giving the notion of you being underwater but it does not suffice for accomplishing the full underwater effect, so what do you do then? Well I added in some fish that looks quiet nice when your swimming along side them and of course fish only live underwater ^_^ Last but not least I implemented the ability to climb up and on specific items, this will be a very handy feature especially for when Shyla will be climbing huge towers, cliffs, hidden areas and much more!
The last thing I have to share is some updates on Kroelaks modeling, he is coming along great! Below are images of the process, the first four images are inside the modeling program and the rest of the images are inside Unity3D.
That is all I have to share for now but as you can see things are progressing and at a nice pace I might add, thanks for taking the time read and keep watching for more updates!
