Fun with Bézier!

Short video of a Bézier curve made in Unity as a college task for last semester.
In the video you can see four Bezier curves oriented by a different number of points each. They make an eletron travel to an atom (any scientific innacuracy, my sincere apologies).

Other than the curves there are also a few image effects (Motion Blur, Bloom) and a Rim Light Shader.

Insanitas at SBGames!

After a very busy weekend we finished yesterday the registration process for Insanitas to be on the XII Brazilian Symposium of Games and Digital Entertainment, known as SBGames. The symposium also hosts the brazilian version of Independent Games Festival, in which we submitted Insanitas.

The Gameplay video was posted yesterday (but since Blogger wasn't able to find it and attach it here, I'll leave a link for now):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOXyJ6zAC1E

SBGames is the biggest game related academic annual conference here in Brazil and a great opportunity to meet fellow developers and new researches & trends. :D

Insanity, sweat and a post mortem

Although the semester isn't officially over, it's a relief to say that in the end, everything worked out. It is a relief to be able to say we delivered the result of one (REALLY) sweaty year of work. It is a relief that the game did so well. And it is a relief it exceeded our expectations and apparently the ones of everybody who accompanied us during development.

Actually it is more than a relief. It is truly rewarding.

Screenshot from one of the rooms

For those of you who think post mortems suck have no intentio to read this Post Mortem and, luckily, learn one or two things about Insanitas and it's creative process, and just want a link to play, unfortunately I'll have to let you down postponing in a few days the download. Polishing and bug fixing never ends. :P

Optimizing Unity at CECON (and some other stuff)

I recently had the pleasure of being invited to speak to the students of the CECON game development course.

In the one hour I had to speak, we discussed the constant market growth to professionals who work with Unity, the main challenges of developing for mobile, optimization techniques and useful tools in the process of creating games for mobile devices.

It was a very good experience and I hope to have that opportunity again. A special thanks to Lucas Criscoullo, course coordinator, for inviting me.

As soon as I have some time I intend to improve and translate the material and maybe post it here.

Meanwhile, some preview images:

Global Game Jam 2013: A little bit about the experience

Some time after (a few hours to be more precise) my last post, I embarked on a three hour journey to the countryside of Minas Gerais to participate on an experience I can only describe as incredible.

To the ones uninformed and the ones who are not familiar with the game development field, last weekend took place the 5th Global Game Jam, an international game development event. In 270 localizations in 58 different countries, programmers, artists, designers, musicians and writers got together with a single objective: to create a game in 48 hours.

With my notebook on my back and sleeping bag on my hand, me and three friends drove down to Rio Pomba, one of the host towns of the event. We were extremely well received and the structure, although it wasn't perfect, proved itself to be more than enough for a stable Jam (which was a relief considering my last experience with such event). There were two days of a lot of work, dialogue, a few disappointments and a lot of new friendships - most of them extremely talented developers.

As usual the theme was announced by the beginning of the Jam and as usual the theme was surprising:

Facebook, iPad and the cookie's issue

The ones who follow me in the social networks were, sometime ago, witnesses of a short storm of "unusual" posts (I fear the less patient ones may have blocked me :P).

One of my most recent activities at Gaz Games was the study of plugin by Prime 31 (company specialized in developing plugins for Unity), the iOS Social Networking Plugin, responsible to connect Unity iOS apps with Facebook, preventing the developer of having to deal with Objective-C to do so. The plugin allows you to publish images, status, links, photo albums and retrieve user information such as email, name and age.

The so called storm of posts was part of a series of tests regarding the settings and functionalities of the plugin, resulting in the publication of many "Awesome iPad + Unity Integration test!" and prototype interfaces in my timeline (all of them deleted shortly after being posted).

Ironically, the plugin, which was acquired with the intention to avoid the direct use of Objective-C, was exactly the cause of a fast study about the language and its integration with Unity.

Graphs & Resurrection

Calm down ladies and gentlemen! The blog's hiatus (which was essential for me to close the semester with a golden key) is happily over!

According to the post I wrote here, my free time is a geometric progression of negative common ratio directly proportional to the moment of the semester, therefore, the closer to the end, less free time I have. As a consequence of that, some of my most beloved activities had to be left behind so I could ensure the stability of my academic life, resulting in the abadon of the blog (but still being responsable for the joy of being approved in all the subjects).

But, as I am finally free of my responsabilities with college, I can return to the writing and research. And I have a lot to post about the projects and studies I participated on during my time of absence here. Starting with graphs.

As a college task I developed along with the great Nosirrahh and other two colleagues the base for the creation of an artificial intelligence in a tactical RPG battle system (like the awesome Shining Force II :D).

To be clearer, our objective was to create the root of something like that:

Brasil Game Show, a little about the experience

As previously said on this post, I was from October 11th till the 14th on Brasil Game Show, the biggest videogame fair of the country, participating on the third national Game Jam. For two days, our team developed a game based on the theme presented to us on the beginning of the Jam. Those were two days filled with problems, ideas, learning and lots, LOTS of work. Everything you hope for from a first game jam.

And even though we didn't take the trophy home, it was an amazing experience, as fun and fulfilling as it was stressful. The kind that remembers me why I chose to work with game development.

But even with my feeling of self realization it is impossible to deny that the event was in many different points badly planned and structured. From the availability of internet and water to the preparation of the support team.

Quatis Project: Biodiversity and digital learning

I mentioned, a few weeks ago on my semester's preview, my participation on a UFMG (a brazilian University) project for the development of an ecologic educational game about Mangabeiras Park. And as promised, here's a post with a little more about the game.

Formed by an ICB (Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Biological Sciences Institute in english) studies group from UFMG, the project's main objective is to teach the population about the variety and fragility of the species that live in Mangabeiras Park, a natural park with a green area of approximately 337 hectares. Through events, long range campaigns and research about the behavior of the creatures that inhabit the park, the group has acted to educate and guarantee the balance of the huge ecosystem that is the park.

Changes

First of all I would like to appologize about the recent irregularity on the posts of the blog. The last weeks were extremely busy, with results that will echo through many of my upcoming posts.

This text will be a little more personal than usual, serving as a summary, preview and reason for the events that will occur on the next weeks.

One thing at a time.

Xbox 360 Joystick Controller + Unity

A few weeks ago I acquired a Xbox 360 joystick controller for Windows and, although my initial objective was to play with it (something I did, of course), my developer's mind did not allow the controller to remain in my desk without becoming part of my studies/experiments with Unity.

I configured Bitz to work with the joystick besides the keyboard and mouse. And with some quick changes I adapted Unity's script, MouseOrbit.js to take the the controller's input. The result can be seen in the video below:

So here's a short explanation of how to set Unity to receive the Xbox 360 controller for Windows.

Frame by Frame: exporting animations made in Unity

Playing with some resources and inspired by some sessions I watched on Unite, I developed a small Unity plugin to export animations. The algorithm, available by the end of this post, allows the definition of parameters like frame per second, image quality, name and directory.

The classes that derive from the Editor class (EditorWindow, EditorApplication) are simple to implement and extremely flexible, allowing the creation of add-ons without any big difficulty to fulfill almost any need.

Unite 12, a little about the experience

Alternative title: "How spending a week in Amsterdam made me fall even more in love with Unity".

Last saturday, after spending 13 hours of my day inside a plane, I finally stepped in my home town again. And although I was absolutely tired and affected by the jet lag, I was (and still am), equally satisfied.

The week was occupied with sessions, round tables, workshops and cocktails of incredible content not only about Unity but about development and the industry. I had acess to tools and resources yet to be launched and talked to developers with more than 20 years of career. And all of that contributed to make my opinion
about the future of the game scene even more positive.

Unite 12

Next week, from day 21, I will be in Amstedam attending Unite 12, the annual Unity Developer's conference.

The event, that happens since 2007, gathers developers from all over the world in four days of talks, workshops and debates with Unity's creative team and studios that use the tool.

It's my first time attending to an event that big and, in case I don't post about it during the week, I will sure write a post as soon as I come back. It's a fantastic opportunity to learn and know people who share my passion for Unity.

Everyday of the conference (except the first one), there are 3 different sessions and a workshop happening at the same time. All of them are equaly interesting, but that's what I've got planned for me:

• Tuesday: Unity Training Day - From 13h00 to 16h00
• Wednesday:
• Special Guest Keynote Peter Molyneux - From 10h00 to 11h30
• Performance Optimization Tips and Tricks for Unity - From 12h00 to 12h30
• Road Map & Wish List - From 14h00 to 15h00
• Using the New GUI System - From 15h30 to 16h00
• Creating Retargetable Animation Assets with Mecanim in Unity 4.0 - From 17h00 to 17h30
• Thursday:
• The Power of the Crowd - From 10h00 to 10h30
• Unity, Network Code, and You - From 11h30 to 12h00
• GameDraw: Editor customization techniques and challenges - From 14h00 to 14h30
• How to Benefit From Unity's Substance Integration Without Paying a Dime - From 14h30 to 15h00
• Transcending Unity's Frontiers: From game development tool to cross-media platform - From 15h30 to 16h00
• The Unity Rendering Pipeline - From 17h00 to 17h30
• Fryday:
• Advanced Editor Scripting - From 10h00 to 11h00
• Union: The Places Your Game Will Go! - From 11h30 to 12h00
• Creating Interactive Installations with Unity - From 14h00 to 14h30
• Creating the Universe with Unity - From 14h30 to 15h00
• Linux and Flash Publishing with Unity 4.0 - From 15h30 to 16h00

Like I said, I will write a detailed post about the conference when I come bacj. I am sure it will be a fantastic experience to meet new people and learn abou the market. :)

A preview of my semester

With college classes starting again the geometric progression of negative common ratio that defines my free time according to the time of the semester begins to act once again, as the papers and exams start to get more frequent and scary.

So here's a short list of the thing I am going to do in this second half of the year:

Contrast: A little bit more about the game

A week after being online, Contrast was played a total of 464 times (339 at Kongregate and 125 at GameJolt :D). This way, and having the last post being a complaint above all, I feel like I should talk a little bit more about the game that took me a week to make.

Made for Mini-Ludum Dare #36, event that serves as a warm-up for the actual Ludum Dare that happens every four months, the game was made from Monday 07/09/2012, till Friday 07/13/2012 using an idea I had written down a few weeks ago that, coincidentally, fit the theme of the compo ("contrasts"). In it the  game, the player controls a black and white cube and needs to cross different obstacles manipulating the environment around him.

The idea I had written down weeks ago is the following: "Light Dimensions: the player changes dimensions creating paths for himself in another dimension". Although it sounds vague , that idea represents the basic mechanics of the game.

About disappointments and jams

A little summary of my week.

Sunday I received the news that the event I had been helping organize was not going to happen. Not because of structure or staff problems (stuff we dealt with in the beggining of the planning), but because of lack of interest. The 1º PUC Game Jam, event elaborated exclusively for the students of the course of Digital Games Development was supposed to happen from july 10 to july 13, from 8h00 to 18h00 and the winning team would have the right to represent the course on the national game jam that happens in October during Brasil Game Show. And all the participants would receive a certificate that compensates a good amount of the complementary hours needed to graduate.
Disappointment is the best word to describe what I felt (and still feel when I think about it). I do not blame the ones who had to work or were traveling on the time of the event, certain responsabilities cannot wait, but I reffuse to believe that in a course with almost two hundred students, only six had time to participate. Six. Two teams.

Monday, lots to do, too little time.

Bitz in Time - Time manipulation gameplay

Before we begin, a little video to introduce the post:

"Bitz in Time" is a demo created to demonstrate the application of data structures in a time manipulation system. It was initially made as a college task for my Algorythms and Data Structures class, but it was challenging, fun and educational enough to make me want to keep developing it, adding Bitz to my list of personal projects. :D

So, what's on the video besides the awesome music?

Starting the blog :)

So, I finally decided to stop procrastinating and create my blog!
The page, that already existed for over an year, was violently taken from its former owner and adapted to serve my purposes of taking over the world: to talk about games, projects and ideas.

And to begin with the right foot, a little post about the recently "finished" game I worked on:
A Fuga de Blue (In english: Blue's Escape)! :D

It's a 2D and a half, fantasy themed platform game. You play as Blue, a black kitty who was abducted by a Witch with the intention to turn him in one of her minions.