Tag: unity3d

Don’t tear down this wall!

Don’t tear down this wall!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Or do, it’s your golf course!

Anyway!

Hello folks!

Today’s update is a simple but functional one: We now have walls surrounding your golf course, which will let you know more clearly the limits of your course. The wall is generated automatically when the game starts, and it is updated automatically if you edit the terrain around it.

tear_it_down

However, because the AI pathfinding is still not completely implemented, the AI will simply walk through it. Like a Boss. Golf. That will be remedied over the weekend, as I integrate a simple pathfinding system to stop the AI from trying to go to places where it shouldn’t try to go, such as the water, through a tree etc. I’ll also create the path object that you can place on the tiles to allow your AI to make smarter decisions when navigating the course.

That’s all for today, folks!

 

Striking has been fixed for good!

Striking has been fixed for good!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Heyo folks! Long time no see!

Today’s update on Boss Golf is a short one.

After wrestling with the physics engine I was finally able to solve the striking for good on Boss Golf.

Before, there were issues where if you stroke uphill, the striking maker would crash by trying to do some funky impossible math. Then I got it working better, but the display wasn’t working as expected, and there were still some edge cases that made things all kinds of wrong.

But now, finally, it is done. The striking is working perfectly; you can strike from any angle, from any distance, and it will always solve it according to plan.

shooting_fixed

Now that that’s done, I can reintegrate it into the game, and allow you to play the with your holes again!

There’s still some smoothing to be done when it comes to friction and whatnot, however, but that is easier to smooth out than the calculations for the striking proper.

So there you go! I’ll update the alpha this week with the striking. If you haven’t signed up for it, go do it now!

That’s all for now, folks!

Demo Updated! Play it with sound!

Demo Updated! Play it with sound!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello folks!

The demo for Boss Golf has been updated!

Download information and more, as always, are here!

New for this version:

  • Updated user interface for more fluid gameplay
  • Added option for adding rotation to your shots
  • Physics and other tweaks
  • Sound and particle effects

So there you go!

This may or may not be the last demo version of the game before entering alpha, as I plan to spend the rest of this and the next month into getting the AI and the management elements into the game. Still up for planning, though.

Now for some things I’ve built while using this new version!

Hole 3
Hole 2
Hole 1

That’s all for now, folks. Don’t forget to give us your feedback on our forums!

Dev Update #36: Basic Stroke Maker is In!

Dev Update #36: Basic Stroke Maker is In!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello folks!

Finished implementing the basic version of the stroke maker!

It now allows you to curve your shots in sort of the way you want it. To illustrate the process, I created a simple tiled hole so that you can better see the path created by the ball before and after the shot.

Below, you can see a top before/after view of hitting the ball off the tee:

On the left side, it’s the straight predicted trajectory of the ball (currently not taking into account the spin on the display!), and on the right is the result of the stroke. As per the stroke maker, you can see I went full on right-spin on it. You shouldn’t do that unless you really want it the spin. In this case, it deviated only slightly to the left.

Here, the ensuing shot, a chip in from a distance:

Again, full on spinning. It resulted in a nice curve cutting inside towards the center of the field. Just for displaying purposes, of course.

Finally, my attempt at putting with a curve because why not?

All of that was on flat ground, to make sure the curving calibration wasn’t affected by any other effects. Dang close from the hole too, if I had aimed just a tad more to the left, it would have gone in. But oh well, live and learn!

This doesn’t conclude the UI implementation yet; I still need to hook up the end state of the goal/retire option to it, as well as add more info regarding the stroke you’re taking, plus information on the hole and how far along you are. After, I’ll make some more icons for the terrain editing part, ensure everything is navigable, and that you can cancel your actions.

Then I’ll move on to AI, hopefully!

That’s all for now folks!

Quickie: More decoration!

Quickie: More decoration!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello folks!

Progress this weekend has been slower than I had anticipated. Finished integrating the UI for the old controls, but still working on the stroke maker. Struggling as well brainstorming the way to integrate it into regular gameplay.

Also spent some time thinking about how to organize the AI system so that I can begin prototyping it. Goal for this month is to have an AI character able to  playtest your course! (probably very poorly, but we all gotta start somewhere!)

So here’s an image of some new trees!

new_Trees

Good thing about this is that the system for adding new decoration prefabs works better than expected! With the added trees, we can begin to see some much nicer looking courses!

That’s all for today, folks!

Expect a proper update soon!

-Gus

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 #27: Improved Physics and Collision!

Dev Update #27: Improved Physics and Collision!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello folks!

As part of this weekend’s plan, I’ve added a feature that will allow the ball to react differently depending on the surface it is on. For example:

-If the ball lands on the bunker, it’ll come to a sudden stop

-If the ball lands on the fairway, depending on the angle it may roll further

-If the ball lands on grass/rough, it’ll stop quicker than on the fairway

You can see the results of that in my playthrough of a demo hole:

Boss_Golf_Hole_playing

The first shot with the driver rolls decently on the fairway; my second shot stops very quickly on the bunker. (I didn’t need to use a sand wedge this time around, but that’s coming!)

I also tweaked the physics settings to take into account the reduced scale of the game. As a result, the ball has a longer/nicer flight time and reacts more like it should.

That’s it for today! As a bonus, here’s how I created this hole:

Boss_Golf_Hole_Building

And an overview of how it turned out:

theslopes

Plan of the Week: More Golf Gameplay and Integration

Plan of the Week: More Golf Gameplay and Integration

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hey folks!

In order to keep things better updated and to make it easier for me to track the work to be done for the week, I’m start a new “Plan” category where I will outline the tasks I have set out for the week.

This will give you a better idea of what’s coming and how I pretend to tackle it!

So for this weeks, these are the tasks I have at hand:

  • Putting: Extend the golf gameplay to include putting the ball into the hole at the end. Includes adding a hole and flag mesh so you know what to aim at.
  • Hole Tracking: Add a feature for keeping track of your strokes as your progress down the hole, with an info panel so you know what’s going on, and a proper end state for when you sink it.
  • Water System Rebuild: Redo the water system so that it “flows” from the water placed by the player, allowing it to “leak” into neighbouring lower tiles, making it more dynamic and nicer to look at.
  • Independent Vertices: Add a feature to the terrain system that will also allow you to raise/lower tiles independently of the neighbours, dividing it from nearby vertices, so that you can create nicer links and other formations.

Those are the main 4 things I have on my plate for the week. Next demo should be much more polished than the current.

As always, welcome all your feedback!

-Gus

 

Build and Drive Demo Available!

Build and Drive Demo Available!

by Gus Martin ♥ 1 Comment

Hello folks!

It’s that time of the.. week? again where a new gameplay demo is available for Boss Golf!

This time, you’ll be able to not only build your holes, but also play them. Sort of.

Included in this demo is the basic gameplay for golf. You’ll be able to select between Build and Play modes, allowing you to modify the course and play the hole of your choice.

Controls remain the same, with left click selecting things, right click cancelling things, panning with WASD, rotating the camera with middle mouse button etc.

To play your hole, enter play mode, click on the hole you’d like to play, and press Play! This will open the action menu, and you can choose to Shoot or to Retire from that hole. Pressing Shoot will take you to the club selection menu, so that you can experiment with whatever you’d like, as shown below:

PlayYourHole

A hole is “completed” when you reach the hole tile at a decent speed. Putting mechanics aren’t in yet. If you want to cancel a hole, simply right click until you get to the Shoot/Retire menu, and select Retire. Alternatively, clicking Build will also work!

That’s it for instructions! You can download the new demo here!

As always, there will be bugs and issues. Anything weird you find, please don’t hesitate to contact me! A comment here, or on our facebook page, will be great!

Enjoy!

-Gus