HexagonLab : terrain disappear

It's all realtime. Video a bit latter

   

Advanced particle system for Unity

We have a small pause in games development.

Now we are working on Unity plugin for Visual Effects.

It's advanced particle system that we already used in Alco Invaders.

I think name will be "Hexagon Particles" or "Hexagon Lab" .

Some pictures:

And short video

On scene was near 80 fps. Reason of lags only in video capture :)

http://take.ms/v1lkH

We hope to release plugin in few weeks. So follow us on twitter and be the first users ;)

Blood On Hands. Ludum Dare 33.

Play our game for #LudumDare . Theme was "You are monster" .

This game not for fun. We want to show you in what mood we live in Ukraine last 2 years.

Game shows what can be the results of TV propaganda.

Immerse into war reality.

Who are you? You will find the answer in the end....

P.S

I think it has to be place for serious games. Not only jokes.
If you want something more fun - try our sci-fi game Alco Invaders.

Thanks !

 

http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-33/?action=preview&uid=26803

Alco Invaders Team !

Our team photo :)

How to fix burned videocard

У нас сгорела видеокарта :( 

Но мы решили это исправить, и даже сделали  видео-мануал !

How to repair burned GPU ?)

Alco Invaders Android release this summer

Have you seen last trailer ?!

Unity optimisation tips

My previous article was in russian. So this I decided to write in English. 

Maybe you have heard or even already played Alco Invaders on PC. 

But we also make Alco Invaders for mobiles. We tested it on wide range of devices:

-Kindle Fire 1,
-HTC One,
-Nexus 4, 
-iPhone 4S, 
-iPad mini 2, 
- Galaxy Tab 4 
- and even tablet Windows 8.1.

So on all this devices we tried to achieve 50-60 fps performance. And we did it! And on almost all devices graphic level is the same as in PC. Except Kindle Fire - it doesn't support bloom :)

When we only started to work on game - performance was horrible. 15-20 fps on Android. But we decided make good picture in any way. 

In my previous article I have wrote about core elements of optimisation. And this about polishing optimisation. Secret tricks, which can save 20-30 % of performance.

1. Never use .transform in circles

It was a great surprise, when I discovered this thing. But in Unity .transform = .GetComponent<Transform>().

Example is Bullet script 
https://gist.github.com/Oxygamer/20100d06e11a8494042d

And getting component cost much in circles. In my tests it save almost 12 % of performance. So, make variable of type Transform and assign it in the Awake() function.


2. Vector3.Distance() is expensive enough.

The reason - is Mathf.Sqrt() inside this function.

So if you can - better use predefined table of distances or calculate it not in Update().
I used such trick in my Hexagon particle system. 

If you have some kind of grid - calculate distances between all elements and write it to simple array float[].

It saves ~ 10 % performance.

3. Almost all physical is expensive.

Maybe it's obvious, but you can forget about physics of explosion, or bullets. Check all them and try not use much physical objects in one time.

4. Use delayed trash cleaning.

For this purpose better use .SetActive(false), store object to some list, and Destroy() it in pause or end of level. It depends of your game type.

5. Shaders - use VertexLit if you can.

Maybe it's not huge difference between VertexLit and Diffuse, but Specular cost much. The reason is per pixel light rendering in Diffuse/Specular shaders and per vertex in VertexLit.

6. Use Dictionary<key,value> for prefab storage.

It's useful when you searching object with some name or type.  For example you can use List<> for Editor, and then put all this prefabs to Dictionary<> on game start.

As example - Object Storage script

https://gist.github.com/Oxygamer/c93d958ae138aef607b2

P.S

Hope this tricks and techniques will be useful for you ! If you have some questions - write it in comments. I will help with gladness :)

3d artist searching !

Hi guys. We are launching Alco Invaders. It has in-game store with premium skins. So we searching for 3d-artists,who want sell skins here. We have statistic for all in game purchases Good feeling of humor is plus :)  #gamedev #unity

Привет всем! Мы запускаем Alco Invaders. Игра имеет свой магазин скинов. Мы ищем 3d дизайнеров, кто хочет  продавать свои скины в игре. Мы имеет статистику на все игровые покупки. 
Хорошее чувство юмора будет + !

Alco Invaders Help

Guys, we work on our game more then 1 year. And we want to share it to as much peoples as possible. So share our game, make review, and , yes, write to us if you want. Your support is invaluable.

Two Steves

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown our your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Steve Jobs

Flappy in space

Flappy fighter - the most epic ship.

"Enter the Code" first screen

From new project "Enter the Code"

Wave from dynamic mesh in Unity

Hello Unity devs :)

Today I want to talk about dynamic mesh generation and moving it. In other words we will create mesh wave like water wave.

Example of work you can see at this gif:

Quality of gif not so cool, but in Unity it rus very smooth )

To do this you need only one script.

All  work I have explained  in script comments

https://gist.github.com/Oxygamer/7cf831fcb54493fd64d4

To use it:

1.  Create empty GameObject and attach this script to it.
2.  Create Plane ( I use it because it have MeshCollider)
3.  Assign this plane to "MeshObject" in our empty object with MeshWave script.
4.  Run!

You can assign different materials to this wave. Mesh use material from our plane object.

MeshWave script has a lot of wave parameters:

When you play with values- you get very funny results )
Like this for example:

http://i.gyazo.com/033d74b14f8a391aca8b8e238c11c510.mp4


And I also put demo unity asset, which you can simply import :)


Get Asset

Icons for the shop

Новые иконки для кораблей. Почти как в Доте :)

Alco Invaders Mobile

Свершилось ! 

Мы закончили всю основную работу на мобильной версией AlcoInvaders. Теперь осталось найти способ, как донести ее до игроков :) 

Во время работы над мобильной версией собралось много советов по оптимизации. Поэтому в ближайшие дни напишу еще один пост посвященный глубокой оптимизации на Android и iOS. А пока выложу последние скрины из игры. 

Alco Invaders : Hangover

У нас новое видео из Alco Invaders Hangover . Много новых возможностей : боссы, крафт-бар, награды и новые режим "Survival".

Сейчас портируем все это на Android. Будем стараться выпустить как можно раньше. Также в ближайшие дни игра появится браузерном формате.

Скачать новую версию можно на Desura или нашем сайте http://indiastudio.com.ua/ .

Alco Invaders winter review

New AlcoInvaders video . Winter update review.

New craft system and redesign

Заканчиваем работу над новой системой крафта. Теперь коктейли создаются по рецептам, которые можно выбить с боссов или купить :) Всего будет 20-25 рецептов. 

   Также сделали редизайн окна прокачки.

  

  Теперь работаем над игровым магазином. Обновление должно появится на Desura в конце    февраля. 

  

Winter Party

Наконец-то мы выпустили зимнее обновление Winter Party. Теперь стратегические возможности не менее важны, чем сам корабль. 

Появилось 2 новых вида туррели - огненная и ледяная. С их помощью вы можете заморозить или раскалить астероид, а потом подорвать его. Как результат получите огненный ад или ледяной снегопад. 

Мы также изменили эффекты всех коктейлей. Теперь они значительно полезней. А в следующем обновлении будет полностью новая система крафта, с необычными рецептами и возможностью самому создавать алкогольные напитки.

Полный список изменений можно прочитать тут 

А последнюю версию игры можете скачать тут бесплатно, и без смс :) . Играйте, ставте оценки, пишите комменты.

Также подписывайтесь на мой твиттер https://twitter.com/Oxygamer