Developer Diary 102 - Working On Palace Scoring Suites

At the moment I am working on a couple of scoring suites, that will make up the background music of Lakini's Woods. I have made decent progress over the last couple of weeks and I will release a bunch of them at the end of this month.


 

Developer Diary 101 - Fear & Perseverance

Over the last two months I have created two asset lists for music and SFX and pulled a ton of SFX audio from soundrangers. I categorized them and set up Pro Tools sessions for music and SFX.

I originally planned to finish all SFX by the end of May, but as always life got in between. I'm genuinely afraid I'm working too slow, getting too little progress done. But I can't neglect my girlfriend, my family or my job. There is little in my life I have ever wanted more than to create this world and yet I feel constantly torn between my responsibilities and my passions.

There is a part of me that won't allow me to quit, whatever happens. It would feel like the ultimate betrayal, as if I would cut out a part of myself. I catch myself sitting at the piano, playing Lakini's theme over and over again. Improvising while closing my eyes .... I lose myself completely ... and for a second I am back there, inside the woods, trying to find the light I so desperately need.

Surviving as a musician means, that you constantly have to be on guard. Your next paycheque is never secure and your network, your professional performance and discipline determines whether you will survive. It takes constant maintenance and effort to grow and learn.

Ever since my dog died I noticed that I have grown weiry of my everyday life. She used to bring so much energy and light into my life. Now that she's gone I'm sometimes struggling during times when I'm alone. I grow tired and cynical and I don't want to be this way. I'm used to pulling myself back up when I'm knocked down, so this is nothing new to me. But it's hard at times to maintain a steady routine or constant effort in order to persevere.

I have this vision of myself lying in the sun. I am close to a river and I can hear the sound of flowing water in my ears. The wind in the trees, the sun on my face .... I just drift off and clear my mind for the first time in years. I believe in that moment and I want it to happen. I will do what I can to make it happen. Whatever it takes ....

Developer Diary 100 - Final UI Layout

After 2 months of work. This is the final layout of Lakini's Woods UI.

Developer Diary 99 - UI Development Progress

These last couple of weeks I have been working on various UI Interfaces. Here are the most recent versions:

I will in all likelihood settle on the last one: gothic windows with glass mosaic paintings of dharmapalas. There's still a lot of work ahead. I need to replace each individual color segment with individual screenshots tinted with colors corresponding to each element.

Developer Diary 98 - New UI Attempt with 3d Widgets

My best attempt so far. Shapeplanes with translucent Lensflare Materials merged in a single blueprint which is itself attached to the player character.

Developer Diary 97 - UI Attempt

Another attempt .... I don't know if I like it or hate it. On the one hand it looks as if a child drew it .... on the other hand it has something innocent and human about it .....

Developer Diary 96 - UI & HUD

Over the last couple of weeks I worked on keyboard and controller (XBox) functionality of the main menu and the game. After a lot of trying I finally found a way to make the main menu work with joypad controls, but a new problem came up in the process .... and it's a problem that is giving me headaches.

For testing purposes I had linked each element to the number buttons on my keyboard. 1 = Void, 2 = Wind, 3 = Fire a.s.o. So when I wanted to switch from throwing fire at an enemy to throwing a water elemental, all I had to do was press the corresponding number button and BAM - the game switched it for me.

But this doesn't work with joypad controls. So right now I'm trying to figure out a non-invasive way of incorporating a basic HUD into the game, that gives players with a joypad easy access to all the different elementals and dharmapalas. I can't expect players to learn keyboard controls while wearing the Oculus Rift. This is especially important, because I need people to test my demo levels, so I can focus on better level design. And nobody can test these levels without proper controls.

I have no idea which direction to take. All I can do is rely on my own experience as a gamer and go from there. Which kind of HUD would be the most non-invasive? How much immersion am I willing to sacrifice? In how far can I use 3d Widgets?

I have already figured out that non-transparent, non 3d Widgets look shitty. As you can see from this test screenshot I made...

So my next likely approach will be using 3d objects as part of the in-game HUD. But I need to find a system that isn't heavy on FPS either ... and currently all my elementals contain particle FX, which will reduce the overall framerate to 0 if the player is constantly staring at 10 of them. Not to mention the sheer annoyance and loss of immersion with an animated HUD.

Tough road ahead.