Month: September 2017

Demo has been updated!

Demo has been updated!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello folks!

As detailed in the previous Quickie, I’ve updated the Boss Golf demo to bring it to  version 0.04 of the Terrain and Drive demo!

As below you can download it Here!

The focus of this demo was on quality of life improvements and bug fixing. The ball deceleration/bouncing now works as expected, trails and shadows were improved, and I added some particles to make the game feel more polished! This is what happens when you drive:

Drive_Particle

And this is an awesome chip shot I performed, got painstakingly close to the hole too!

NiceChip

And even some water particles! (Only on the water you’ve placed, though! The system needs to be reworked a bit to sync with the water outside the build area)

Water Hazard

So there you go! Gameplay is getting nicer and nicer. One of these days I wanna sit down and make a video showing how to build a nice hole. And do it Bob Ross style, with trees and hills and rivers! So there’s something to look forward to!

Next week will be focused on more polishing and weeding out some bugs, as well as improving the UI. Perhaps I’ll even add paths and bridges! We’ll see!

For now, enjoy the demo! Don’t forget to drop by our subreddit to give us your feedback, and don’t forget to like our Facebook page!

Have a nice weekend!

Quickie: Anatomy of a Hole

Quickie: Anatomy of a Hole

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello folks!

I’ve finished the work I wanted done for this week. In fact, I’ll be releasing the new demo in a couple of minutes!

Now, the goal of this post is to show you how to play your awesomely create hole.

For that, I created this demo hole: Double Trouble

Here’s an overview of what the hole looks like:

double_trouble

The two little bodies of water in the middle add to the difficulty. The sand trap surrounding it is more for psychological terror, as they’re actually quite flat. Opposite of the fairway, which is angled all over the place, specially aimed to make you fall on the water. So to start off the drive, I aimed my shot in this direction:

stroke_one

My intention was to bypass the slope with speed and make it safely to the end of the fairway. But it actually happened much better! The ball bounced majestically off of the fairway, and ended up really near the green, albeit in a bunker:

stroke_two

From there, though, it was a short chip in to get on the green and be on a good position. This course was a par 4. This shot would put me at 2 strokes, with a potentially straightforward putt to help me to an Birdie. Which is what I did, since my chip in landed around here:

stroke_three

Extremely close. Like, way too close. The kind of close shot I’ve missed before because I forgot to account for slopes and stuff! This time around, I sank it like a champ!

All of this was thanks to a very lucky drive! I was not expecting it to bounce the way it did, but I was very pleased for it!

Well that’s that! Stay tuned for the new demo for Boss Golf!

Quickie: Quality of Life Improvement

Quickie: Quality of Life Improvement

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Heyo folks!

Today I spent some time ironing out a bug with the collision detection, where depending on the speed of the ball it would simply go through the terrain.

That looks fixed enough! Of course, should it happen to you after this weekend’s demo, please let me know!

Still smoothing out the new physics set up. And learning how to play my own game! Turns out sometimes you really don’t want to go full force, as seen below:

Failed_Shot

Or even medium force:

failed_shot_2

Finally, was able to do it!

quality2

Next, I wanna add some trail particles for when the ball is moving on terrain, so that you can more accurately detect the path the ball took. Plus some particle effects to make things look a tad more polished!

That’s all for today’s quickie, folks!

Dev Update #33: Shooting Improvements

Dev Update #33: Shooting Improvements

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Heyo folks!

I’ve tweaked the rolling resistance settings, and fixed the settings for bouncing. Now the ball will bounce a lot less on sand, but more on harder surfaces. So now Boss Golf has better golf playing gameplay, woohoo!

I’ve also gone ahead and improved the display of the shot, added a faux-shadow to it so you can have better sense of depth regarding where your shot is supposed to hit!

shoot_improvement

Also made sure to make the lines render above everything else, so you can always know how your shot will handle.

As you can see, I also removed the circle that was at the end area. This will be readded later when golfer attributes are in, so that you’ll have a rough idea of where you want your shot to be, and the circle will describe the potential landing areas based on your attributes.

However, I still fail at playing golf:

Shot_Improvement

I did have tremendous fun just playing around while tweaking the shots and stuff. This is a good sign I hope!

OH! And found a but with the putting system, where it pushes the ball way too hard for its own good, ending up with some hilarious consequences.

That’s all for today folks!

Dev Update #32: Rolling Physics Fix

Dev Update #32: Rolling Physics Fix

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello folks!

Today is a quick but important update!

After wrestling with Unity’s physics system for a while, I was finally able to land on the settings I wanted for the ball physics.

The current system works like this:

-If the ball is in the air, apply a constant drag of 0.3 to simulate air resistance. This will guarantee that the ball has a nice arc when travelling.

-If the ball is touching the land, starting a 0.3, increase the drag by a factor dependent on the tile type. (IE: increase drag faster if on sand/grass, increase drag slower if on fairway/green)

The results are roughly as seen below:

phystest

In the image you can see the end position of the ball on the 4 different terrain types. The aiming of the arc was around the 5th tile from the tee. So on the fairway, it rolled about 2 tiles more, whereas in the bunker it rolled a lot less. The values still need to be adjusted, but the important point is that the new system works!

Next will be bounce! This will also come in handy if we add different types of fairway/etc. Harder surfaces = more bounce, softer surfaces = less bounce! This will be done tomorrow!

So here’s a couple of gifs should the ball rolling differently! Enjoy!

fairway_shot

rough_shot

bunker_shot

grasshit

 

Demo has been updated!

Demo has been updated!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello folks!

This week was particularly difficult for me as I had to fight exhaustion coupled with being sick. Couldn’t find the energy to work on the game very much. But was able to finally progress on development and finish last week’s tasks!

To that end, I’ve updated the Demo so that you too can give a try on the new features.

Here’s a nice and challenging course I built in it:

lonelyisland_hole_Redux

You can provide your feedback on our subreddit!

Enjoy!

Dev Update #31: We have dynamic(ish) water!

Dev Update #31: We have dynamic(ish) water!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello folks!

This weekend things have been slower than I’d have wanted, partially due to the typhoon, partially due to spending the afternoon making pizzas, partially due to other life things that happen!

Still, progress was done. I was able to prototype the dynamic water system, allowing water to “flow” to nearby tiles if they are below the waterline. You can see it in action below:

Boss_Golf_Dynamic_Water

It still has a couple of bugs, namely with the water sometimes not disappearing if you move the tile back up above the water line or cut its connection to the water source.

I’ll also need to figure out a way to let the user know where exactly the water source is, so he can quickly remove all the water by simply erasing it. Maybe some particle effects that look like bubbles would do the trick. I’ll test that next week.

For now, it is playable enough for the demo, so I’ll leave it in. Last thing to knock off, tomorrow morning (since it’s a holiday, yay!) will be the putting mechanic. Now that we actually have a hole object, it’ll be a matter of adding a new club option and checking when the ball collides with the hole. Should be simple enough!

That’s it for now. Apologies for the delay, but sometimes life happens.

Stay tuned for the new demo!

Dev Update #30: Independent Tiles!

Dev Update #30: Independent Tiles!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Heyo folks!

Another task bites the dust! This time, it’s the possibility of raising/lowering a tile independent of neighbours!

This will allow you to create some nice breaks in the terrain! You can see the functionality below:

Boss_Golf_Independent_Tiles

As you may notice, you can also move vertices independently after raising a terrain tile. However, they will snap back to normal if they come in contact with another vertex. So as it stands, you need to work the terrain a bit if you want to move things around in a cool manner.

But I thought of a new solution for the vertex height. Instead of using by point, which is kind of hard to know which face you’re actually mostly touching, I could do it by face corner so that I could implement a “independent” lifting based on it, so you wouldn’t need to move the entire face first before getting the freedom to move the vertex. It’ll depend on people’s feedback, as usual!

So there you go! Now only the water system and the putting to go for this week’s tasks!

See you guys tomorrow!

Dev Update #29: Flag in the Hole!

Dev Update #29: Flag in the Hole!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello folks!

Today’s update is a quick one due to lack of time to work on the game, but it is a pretty good one!

I’ve implemented the hole mesh into the hole tile! Hurray! It also has a flag in it! Hurray x2! It also moves with the hole! Hurray x3!

You can see me creating a new hole and manipulating it below:

ezgif.com-gif-maker (4)

With this, you’ll be able to actually finish a hole by attempting to sink your putt. I’ll try and add collision to the flag mesh as well, allowing you to attempt to hit it.

Now, in the future I’ll also add the possibility to move the hole inside the green, so that you’ll be able to customize it further. Having it as a separate object will also improve accuracy of some measurements used in the game.

This system works better for attaching things to the tile than the ones I currently use for the trees and other decorations. So eventually I’ll migrate them to this one as well, and use it for anything else that is added to tiles. Accuracy++!

That’s it for today’s mini update! Stay tuned for more!