Author Topic: Updates 6/20: Mr. Hammond, the phones are working.:)  (Read 3795 times)

Offline x4000

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Updates 6/20: Mr. Hammond, the phones are working.:)
« on: June 21, 2017, 04:55:46 pm »
Just an update to note that I'm making excellent progress on the sound effects front.  All of the bus and mixing stuff is working brilliantly, and battles now sound... well, pretty darn epic in my opinion.  The original game sure never sounded like this.  I'm really pleased already with the wider array of other sound effects we're able to handle, like construction sound effects that are satisfying, and a notable pause/unpause sound effect, etc.

So why no release today?

Weelll... I want people's first impressions of this to really be of what I intend it to be like.  Craig/Pepisolo did some amazing work with the sound effects for the various weapons, and only one of those (the most basic one) is even in use yet.  Why?  We only have one bullet type at the moment.  There are 22 different types of defined munitions in the game at the moment, but they all look (and sound) the same.  My goal is to fix both of those things at once, and knock some more big items off my list.  Knock on wood, that should be possible tomorrow.

In an ideal world I'd also like to get the first couple of batches of voice acting lines in there (there's a couple of hundred lines or so which Craig helpfully split apart), as that will help to show how that's intended to work, too.  But I don't want to spend so much time on that tomorrow that this winds up going yet another day before a release.

So if I'm not done with all the shots stuff by lunch tomorrow, then I'm going to skip the VO work and just move to release the rest.  I'm not sure where Keith is right now with batch 7 of the ships, as to whether that will be tomorrow or Friday or early next week.
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Offline x4000

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Re: Updates 6/20: Mr. Hammond, the phones are working.:)
« Reply #1 on: June 22, 2017, 12:58:07 pm »
Well, it's lunchtime now and I have not remotely finished the various shot graphics stuff, so the voice acting is definitely out for this build (which is ok).  I'm going to spend the rest of my time today getting as many of the shots done as I can visually, and then go ahead with the release even if they're not all done.

I sidelined myself this morning with several other bugs that were definitely worth diverting to fix.  One of them is the facepalm of the month, and thankfully not our fault:

* Stumbled upon a fix to a moderate-to-severe performance bug in unity that was calling a lot of shuffling-around of gui elements that were not even moving.  It's a bug relating to them having a parent that is not at position 0, with details you can read about here if you like: https://issuetracker.unity3d.com/issues/canvasrenderer-dot-ontransformchanged-is-called-on-ui-objects-which-transforms-are-not-moving
** In some cases this dramatically reduced stutter that was coming from the GUI.

;)
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Offline Cyborg

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Re: Updates 6/20: Mr. Hammond, the phones are working.:)
« Reply #2 on: June 25, 2017, 03:46:21 pm »
Sounds great (pun intended).

Curious, when is the GUI going to be ready?
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Offline x4000

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Re: Updates 6/20: Mr. Hammond, the phones are working.:)
« Reply #3 on: June 26, 2017, 10:13:28 am »
Cheers, thanks.

In terms of the GUI, I have no direct information on that; that's a Keith thing.  As soon as he's done with the current batch of ships, then he's going to be focusing on usability/playability/fun/balance in general, of which the GUI is a huge part.  Blue obviously will be involved with that a lot as well from an artistic standpoint, but there's just a lot that needs to be done in general to make things functional there.
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Offline BadgerBadger

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Re: Updates 6/20: Mr. Hammond, the phones are working.:)
« Reply #4 on: June 26, 2017, 10:04:05 pm »
Speaking of the GUI, I'm wondering if there are plans for additional GUI elements. I am going to wish upon a star and ask if there's a possiblity to get some text whose location and content can be set in C# code like the buttons in a buttonset. Specifically I'm looking for the ability to have a variable number of buttons appear (this can be done right now with a ButtonSet), but with text labels associated with the buttons. The problem now is I don't see any obvious way to do that with BasicText, since for me the location and number of the buttons isn't determined until the code runs, so hard coding the locations in KDL_UIWindows.xml seems hard. I could try coding every location possible for the text labels and then try to set them in C#, but that seems fraught with peril.

I'd be fine to have just something that looks "slightly less like a button or a bit different" and isn't clickable rather than BasicText.

I know y'all are limited in what you can do given everything else on Arcen's plate, but I figure I'll ask!

Offline x4000

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Re: Updates 6/20: Mr. Hammond, the phones are working.:)
« Reply #5 on: June 27, 2017, 09:19:20 am »
Technically that could be done simply by creating a new prefab buttonlist with a new button assigned into it that just doesn't have any background, etc.  It's extraordinarily flexible.  It would still catch mouseover and such, which is the only downside -- if that isn't desirable, then another control could be created.

But yes, there are other controls we plan on, in general.  There's some table-based stuff that we have in the source code but not hooked up that does some pretty advanced stuff.
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Offline BadgerBadger

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Re: Updates 6/20: Mr. Hammond, the phones are working.:)
« Reply #6 on: June 27, 2017, 09:42:06 am »
Ah, a button list that could provide background-less pseudo-buttons would be fine. Mouseover text is fine. Speaking of mouseover, it's not in yet, right?

Offline x4000

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Re: Updates 6/20: Mr. Hammond, the phones are working.:)
« Reply #7 on: June 27, 2017, 10:01:41 am »
Ah, a button list that could provide background-less pseudo-buttons would be fine. Mouseover text is fine. Speaking of mouseover, it's not in yet, right?

That's missing at the moment, yes.
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Offline BadgerBadger

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Re: Updates 6/20: Mr. Hammond, the phones are working.:)
« Reply #8 on: June 27, 2017, 03:02:10 pm »
I'm having this ominous feeling, like the power has gone out while I was in a car right next to the Devourer Golem paddock.....

Offline x4000

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Re: Updates 6/20: Mr. Hammond, the phones are working.:)
« Reply #9 on: June 27, 2017, 03:12:03 pm »
Where's the goat?  What happened to the goat!?
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Offline BadgerBadger

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Re: Updates 6/20: Mr. Hammond, the phones are working.:)
« Reply #10 on: June 27, 2017, 05:08:59 pm »
For .500, want to include http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=19191?
Also http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=19184, if that isn't fixed by Keith's changes already. In both cases the code required is in the mantis
« Last Edit: June 27, 2017, 05:34:35 pm by BadgerBadger »

Offline x4000

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Re: Updates 6/20: Mr. Hammond, the phones are working.:)
« Reply #11 on: June 27, 2017, 07:44:05 pm »
Missed both of those, sorry.  I was focused on some things that were preventing build, then actually getting those out.  I hadn't realized what had happened in terms of not everything going until I'd already sent a partial build up to steam (which doesn't hurt anything), and then now I'm submitting the rest of the build since dad duty is over for now with the kiddo in bed.
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Offline BadgerBadger

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Re: Updates 6/20: Mr. Hammond, the phones are working.:)
« Reply #12 on: June 27, 2017, 07:47:08 pm »
Ah, no worries. We'll get em next time!

Offline x4000

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Re: Updates 6/20: Mr. Hammond, the phones are working.:)
« Reply #13 on: June 27, 2017, 08:27:58 pm »
We'll get em next time!

You betcha!  :D
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