Dev Blog
Hi, this is the Stranded III development blog (see also Forum Thread, Comment Thread).
Entry 70 - Kits & Boxes & A Tiger - July 16, 2017
Kits & Boxes
I changed the color of the first aid kit because red simply seems to make more sense (and because of my recylcing efforts):
First Aid Kit @ Sketchfab
Recycling FTW! Ammo boxes normally totally don't look like plastic first aid kits. They are boxy wooden or metal crates. I don't care. I just took the first aid kit and changed its texture to look a bit like a (somewhat weird) ammo box.
Ammo Box @ Sketchfab
<Random Justification>
Even though this is not what a real world ammo box looks like, I somehow embrace the fact that the boxes/kits in the game look alike. This makes them easily readable for players. I may still decide to change that later.
</Random Justification>
Tiger Model
I'm working on a tiger model. You can see my current progress in the following video. It took quite long (over 2h) so I made a 40x time lapse. The video is available in HD @ 60 FPS!
Tiger Modelling @ YouTube
The head still needs some changes. Looks too much like a bear. But I guess that a texture would also help a lot to fix that issue
Some words about how I create my models:
I do not blindly model them from my head of course. I have a second screen with reference images and sometimes even reference models. You can't see that screen in the video so I thought it would be good to mention it. The reference stuff allows me to quickly check proportions and details without minimizing Blender. Watch the taskbar closely and you can see when I switch to Chrome on my second screen to rotate my 3D Sketchfab reference. I use a mirror modifier in Blender. This way I only have to model one side of the model. The other side is just mirrored. Thank god that most animals are symmetrical! Other than that I'm mainly extruding, moving, scaling, rotating, knifing and merging stuff to make my models. For animals I like to start with boxes and to extrude them as required. When I make items I normally don't use the mirror modifier and I start with one of the primitive base shapes from Blender which is closest to what I want to make.
Unity 2017
Unity recently released the new major version of Unity: Unity 2017. I did not migrate Stranded III to the new version yet but I plan to do so because I want to take advantage of the improvements.
The downside of this is Unity's new licensing model. I had a expensive pro License for Unity 5 but they changed their license model to a monthly fee thing. I can understand that this is way better for them but I really hate monthly fees. Especially when they are rather high. My old Unity 5 Pro license is basically worthless now because I can't use Unity 2017 with it.
Is that a real problem? No, it isn't. The free version of Unity is basically feature complete. The only advantage of Pro is that you get some additional services and that you don't have to show the Unity splash screen in your game (and some limits in case you sell your games).
So I'll keep the free version for now.
I changed the color of the first aid kit because red simply seems to make more sense (and because of my recylcing efforts):
First Aid Kit @ SketchfabRecycling FTW! Ammo boxes normally totally don't look like plastic first aid kits. They are boxy wooden or metal crates. I don't care. I just took the first aid kit and changed its texture to look a bit like a (somewhat weird) ammo box.
Ammo Box @ Sketchfab<Random Justification>
Even though this is not what a real world ammo box looks like, I somehow embrace the fact that the boxes/kits in the game look alike. This makes them easily readable for players. I may still decide to change that later.
</Random Justification>
Tiger Model
I'm working on a tiger model. You can see my current progress in the following video. It took quite long (over 2h) so I made a 40x time lapse. The video is available in HD @ 60 FPS!
Tiger Modelling @ YouTubeThe head still needs some changes. Looks too much like a bear. But I guess that a texture would also help a lot to fix that issue
Some words about how I create my models:
I do not blindly model them from my head of course. I have a second screen with reference images and sometimes even reference models. You can't see that screen in the video so I thought it would be good to mention it. The reference stuff allows me to quickly check proportions and details without minimizing Blender. Watch the taskbar closely and you can see when I switch to Chrome on my second screen to rotate my 3D Sketchfab reference. I use a mirror modifier in Blender. This way I only have to model one side of the model. The other side is just mirrored. Thank god that most animals are symmetrical! Other than that I'm mainly extruding, moving, scaling, rotating, knifing and merging stuff to make my models. For animals I like to start with boxes and to extrude them as required. When I make items I normally don't use the mirror modifier and I start with one of the primitive base shapes from Blender which is closest to what I want to make.
Unity 2017
Unity recently released the new major version of Unity: Unity 2017. I did not migrate Stranded III to the new version yet but I plan to do so because I want to take advantage of the improvements.
The downside of this is Unity's new licensing model. I had a expensive pro License for Unity 5 but they changed their license model to a monthly fee thing. I can understand that this is way better for them but I really hate monthly fees. Especially when they are rather high. My old Unity 5 Pro license is basically worthless now because I can't use Unity 2017 with it.
Is that a real problem? No, it isn't. The free version of Unity is basically feature complete. The only advantage of Pro is that you get some additional services and that you don't have to show the Unity splash screen in your game (and some limits in case you sell your games).
So I'll keep the free version for now.