ZeroTag Devlog OMEGA

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  • čas přidán 8. 02. 2022
  • Download Core to create games for FREE: bit.ly/Core-RobertThomson
    Please consider hitting Subscribe! Patreon / robertthomson
    Check out my Mobile Party Game, Gogogo!
    play.google.com/store/apps/de...
    apps.apple.com/app/gogogo/id1...
    Hopefully next video coming out more rapidly this time!
    Thanks once again for everything guys!
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Komentáře • 1,8K

  • @RobertThomsonDev
    @RobertThomsonDev  Před 2 lety +379

    If you choose to back me on Patreon, bless you! Next video coming out more rapidly.
    patreon.com/RobertThomson
    And don't forget to hit subscribe if you haven't :) Thanks all, you're the best!
    Side note, for those confused: I was using an old version Blender because it was the only way to get the plugin to work :D

    • @aidenchen2081
      @aidenchen2081 Před 2 lety +1

      Here here here here some advice on maybe um I know this sounds annoying the lake or maybe control X all your coding in control V or you could back in here

    • @johnkimani5889
      @johnkimani5889 Před 2 lety +5

      Hi Robert, To make Global illumination stop buffering uncheck the "progressive updates" box on the lightmapping settings. Best of luck in your game.

    • @kaktusknabe3851
      @kaktusknabe3851 Před 2 lety +1

      Heya, so sorry for all the hurdles you encountered, especially since I really love the ZeroTag project. I would like to fund you too so yu could keep working on it, but I'm not a big fan of patreon since they take such a big cut. Could you maybe open an additional page on steady? Would be greatly appretiated :)

    • @hegantreven7809
      @hegantreven7809 Před 2 lety

      Lol i am not the only one having seemingly unfixable problems, but my problems are already on the internet and brainnumbingly simple

    • @HexArt
      @HexArt Před 2 lety

      @RobertThomson Im watching your videos and saw you have great ideas! but I saw you made your life harder I can you help with achieve your goal if you want some consultations just write to me an email I can be you wiki with unity :D for example about cinemahine camera you can do that with simple raycast check from character pos to camera pos if something is between and adjust distance camera from player

  • @djinni2005
    @djinni2005 Před 2 lety +2523

    I'm so sorry for all the stress, man. If it's any consolation, what you have made is wonderful and fits very well with the story you've been building.

    • @RobertThomsonDev
      @RobertThomsonDev  Před 2 lety +264

      Thanks so much, I really appreciate it

    • @PSTNH_D_DNT
      @PSTNH_D_DNT Před 2 lety +35

      So true, he needs more recognition, that would be the minimum that we could do for him.

    • @anticstudios
      @anticstudios Před 2 lety +12

      @@RobertThomsonDev it's really quite bad how much work you've made and then have it do this and ive also finally found your channel (I forget the name) ive been watching your channel with out an account for ages and now I have one I can add to the some cool guys section on my channel I hope you dont have such problems in future

    • @chimklee
      @chimklee Před 2 lety +15

      @@RobertThomsonDev y’know, you should take a break. Dont worry too much about uploading, its better to get some rest than upload consistently

    • @Tajae.
      @Tajae. Před 2 lety +1

      @@RobertThomsonDev don't give up u have people to disappointed now😃

  • @gatoninjahyaah
    @gatoninjahyaah Před 2 lety +545

    From one dev to another, you made the best decision possible. If you make a bunch of small projects, you'll be able to get a familiarity with Unity's wierdness. Love your videos btw

  • @JulianKingman
    @JulianKingman Před 2 lety +480

    The first 2 minutes had me in hysterics... As a mobile developer, I experience similar pain on a regular basis, and it's so well put.

  • @vampbat
    @vampbat Před 2 lety +222

    "It's fine. It's not realistic, but I'm stupid so it's the best I could come up with." Not having a programmer brain but knuckling down and working on it is AWESOME dude and this quote speaks volumes to me. Good luck, very happy to see this update, even if you see it as just...a collection of roadblocks :')

  • @mayplemoon
    @mayplemoon Před 2 lety +621

    Hey, even if this means the end of zerotag I’m still really happy this channel will still keep going. You’re cool as hell, man.

  • @innacurate
    @innacurate Před 2 lety +349

    As much as I liked the concept of the first game, what drew me to your channel, and what will make me continue watching your videos is the incredible quality you put out. Especially your animations are top notch. I fully support your decision to focus on creating smaller games instead, and I hope to be able to play them in the future!

  • @encukie4924
    @encukie4924 Před 2 lety +229

    Talking about mistakes must be hard. But you did the absolute right choice making this video. It is actually quite interesting to see the hurdles of game development.
    Don't feel down, cool vid. I hope you came back to this game idea one day, it sounds amazing.
    : +1 view +1 like +1 subscriber

  • @maxwell_edison
    @maxwell_edison Před 2 lety +102

    You know, it's so weird - at 19:40, you say, "Apparently as a developer I'm at the bleeding edge of finding Game-Destroying problems in Unity"
    ..It's weird to think that I've felt the same way. I'm guessing most developers do. We share platforms but somehow don't share problems. Spooky!

  • @theeldritchhorrorknownonly7273

    0:08 fun fact: the brain cant actually support it own weight and would crush itself if you just like left it out. lucky, our skulls are filled with brain juice to counteract gravity so your brain is just going for a little swim

    • @Skjoldmc
      @Skjoldmc Před 2 lety +22

      I always knew I was a blobfish at heart.. err brain

    • @AschKris
      @AschKris Před 2 lety +8

      new fear unlocked

  • @Squiffel
    @Squiffel Před 2 lety +176

    This scope would have taken years even if you had a perfect run. It's enormous. Game dev is brutally hard and slow even with small games. You're making the right call.

    • @needsloomis7164
      @needsloomis7164 Před 2 lety +22

      Totes. For something this big, you really want to make a basic prototype or vertical slice of some sort, then kick start/business loan/patreon and hire some people to distribute the labor. Its amazing what 3 or 4 trade professionals can do compared to a single "many hats" designer.

  • @AbuHagag1
    @AbuHagag1 Před 2 lety +107

    Oh man your animations are so goddam good, keep going man, even if this channel turns into story telling channel or animation channel it would be great!. Instant sub

    • @namesurname624
      @namesurname624 Před 2 lety +2

      Or use 2d animations as the visual language of the game

    • @mgkjs1584
      @mgkjs1584 Před rokem

      thats exactly what i said when i watched him for the first time

  • @fraser21
    @fraser21 Před 2 lety +226

    Wow. This so perfectly summed up my years of experience with unity that I was basically shouting along with you for the half the video. This 100% is not the solution for most people, but I've swapped to engineless now (well, sorta - I'm using the bevy framework) and the grass really is greener, couldn't recommend it enough :)

    • @r6scrubs126
      @r6scrubs126 Před 2 lety +23

      Agreed. I tried moving from Unity to UE4 and it was SO MUCH better in pretty much every way. Hell, the sample project in Unity didn't even render properly for me. The only problem is that UE4 uses C++ and the documentation is pretty poor. If you could just use C# with UE4 then it wouldn't even be a competition, but as I'm already very familiar with C# I keep coming back to Unity... until it crashes again and I regret everything.

    • @Spartan322
      @Spartan322 Před 2 lety +14

      I feel like any engine other then Unity would've probably been a better decision then going practically without an engine, UE is usually considered pretty reasonable, or Godot might be reasonable for 2D. (and it seems with 4.0 3D will be a practical thing finally)

    • @astroid-ws4py
      @astroid-ws4py Před 2 lety +12

      @@r6scrubs126 UE4 using C++ is a feature, not a problem, given the fact that C++ is a professional software development language and that C# is too much Micro$oft

    • @isweartofuckinggod
      @isweartofuckinggod Před 2 lety +9

      Same! I ditched Unity years ago because of how messy it became. I had been using it to make games for 6 or 7 years and it was a breeze, but as soon as they set their sights on beating Unreal Engine it became practically impossible to get anything done without the engine breaking. My problem now is that I haven't really found any alternative that has clicked with me. I haven't made a game in years now, and seeing how I used to make games every day, it's kinda sad.

    • @Spartan322
      @Spartan322 Před 2 lety +11

      @@astroid-ws4py Eh, C# is fine as a language, the problem with Unity has nothing to do with C#, in most cases C# can get pretty close to C++ performance and C# is also more portable since its a bytecode compiled language.
      I have my gripes with it, but neither C# nor C++ are optimal for a game engine script language. (they might be better if not for compilation, but neither them are short and sweet, they are very verbose for basic things and aren't designed for this)

  • @LaynaLatte
    @LaynaLatte Před 2 lety +379

    probuilder is meant for prototyping. not for full 3d modeling, so i'd recommend using something like blender for the modeling. probuilder is probably what is causing all these problems

    • @AlarkaPT
      @AlarkaPT Před 2 lety +80

      Came to the comments to mention this. Probuilder is fantastic if you're using it for what it was supposed to do: whiteboxing and prototyping. More than that and you should be using something truly meant for 3D modelling.

    • @LaynaLatte
      @LaynaLatte Před 2 lety +28

      @@AlarkaPT yea. that is practically what i meant to say if it wasn't clear.

    • @RobertThomsonDev
      @RobertThomsonDev  Před 2 lety +189

      Yeah fair enough. I didn't know it wasn't intended to be used this way. Perhaps I was a little hard on its utility as a level design tool.

    • @MichaelKocha
      @MichaelKocha Před 2 lety +67

      @@RobertThomsonDev I mean... It's called "pro" builder. I wouldn't have guessed it wasn't supposed to be used for anything other than prototyping... This is why I dislike third party tools in general.

    • @Dogman_35
      @Dogman_35 Před 2 lety +22

      @@MichaelKocha It's not third party though lol
      It would be much less annoying if it was just a third party tool that wasn't meant to be _officially supported_

  • @VyvyanTheGreat
    @VyvyanTheGreat Před 2 lety +308

    I've been making games with Unity for 10 years, and I really connected with this video. Game dev is brutal most off the time.

    • @unluckypanda5448
      @unluckypanda5448 Před 2 lety +9

      I think im slowly backing off of game making. If this is what it looks like most od the time with 10 years of experience then im not surprised i couldnt even start a simplest project in unity... Hopefully in like 20 years making 3d multiplayer games will be as easy as making a point and click game in scratch or soemthing, then i can start renewing my dreams... Ehh.......

    • @voropserg99
      @voropserg99 Před 2 lety +25

      @@unluckypanda5448 Well if it was that easy everyone could do it then. But dont be discouraged by your failures, if you work hard you'll get there eventualy. Don't let go of your dream, you can make it !

    • @ExploreImagineDefineCreate
      @ExploreImagineDefineCreate Před 2 lety +8

      @@unluckypanda5448 I mean. Core is the sponsor of this video. Haven't tried it myself but it's made to make game development easier. I've just started learning Godot and making my first few games/prototypes on it. It's tons of fun, but definitely a taxing experience. You just have to decide if it's worth it. I do it for a hobby, not a job. It's definitely worth it for me in that sense.

    • @danieleziaco7092
      @danieleziaco7092 Před 2 lety +4

      @@unluckypanda5448 I mean in a way it's better this way, if it was so easy then everyone could make games and stores would be flooded with crap (more than they already are)

    • @danieleziaco7092
      @danieleziaco7092 Před 2 lety +3

      @@ExploreImagineDefineCreate I didn't try create a game with core, but I tried a couple of games made with it, and they aren't really inspired😅, 90% of them use the same models and are platformers

  • @antr_
    @antr_ Před 2 lety +61

    This is heartbreaking, this is the most creative idea I've seen for an indie game and seeing it all break is kinda sad

  • @Sk4lli
    @Sk4lli Před 2 lety +178

    I feel that so much. It's actually one of the reasons that made me switch to Godot. Godot is lacking in some regards and initial progress is much slower as there's a lot of basic tools missing that Unity has (like FPS controller etc.), but it's much more stable and intuitive for me. I ended up spending much more time working on my games than fighting the engine.
    I know it's not the right choice for everyone, but for me it was a big relief.

    • @Sk4lli
      @Sk4lli Před 2 lety +6

      @@8Kazuja8 well said! I can only agree.

    • @jesperpersson9388
      @jesperpersson9388 Před 2 lety +17

      ​@@8Kazuja8 I've been having the same thoughts honestly about both Unity and UE. I used Unity for a few months and all the bugs + not having source access just made it impossible to continue with it. I also didn't feel it was made from the ground up with a concept of modularity. In UE4 I haven't experienced as many bugs with the components themselves, more with the editor being a bit clunky and blueprints not updating properly when updating the cpp parent class. Also without Rider, coding C++ for UE is just not feasible. But the same I feel with Unity, UE4 engine classes are very monolithic and the blueprint system, while making everything integrated, makes things very complex.
      I haven't used Godot that much but already using it a little bit it felt much more modular than the others and it's nice that the editor itself is written using the engine. I guess the lack of tooling and barely any 3d games having been released on Godot makes it quite risky though.
      Seems we are still some years away from having user-friendly and battle-tested engines to work with.

    • @TheDetonadoBR
      @TheDetonadoBR Před 2 lety +2

      Godot's A* path finding is kinda buggy

    • @LineOfThy
      @LineOfThy Před rokem +3

      @@TheDetonadoBR and the damped spring just doesn't work half the time and is unintuitive as f*ck

  • @seraaron
    @seraaron Před 2 lety +65

    There's a quote about writing code that I can't remember who it's attributed to, but it's something like "debugging code takes twice as much smarts as writing it", the implication being that if you write the smartest code you can think of, then you're not smart enough to debug it. For solo devs especially, I think this is a really valuable lesson to engrain in your mind. Try to solve problems in the simplest way possible, because you're the one who has to fix it when things inevitably break!
    Your widow shader problem is a perfect example of that imo. It's a *really* smart solution, but it's almost too smart. You've said yourself that you're primarily an animator, not a shader artist. The other thing to bare in mind is to try not to hold yourself to the standards of the industry. The camera not jerking around, the transparency shader, global illumination, even the way you're making the city... these are all nice quality of life features, but they're not essential. Not really. You've gotta kinda roll back your standards by like 20 years. Think original ratchet and clank or mario 64, not the reboot games or mario odyssey. I think, honestly, you're way out of scope.
    Also yeah, although it seems like a nice ideal (one I had myself once), it turns out that using separate materials to color everything is a really bad idea. Materials are suprisingly graphics intensive. You're much better off making a single material with a single texture with all the colors you want to put on it in separate squares, and then vertex mapping all the parts of an object that you want to be that color to that part of the texture. It has exactly the same effect, and it's a bit more work in theory, but it's easier to edit afterwards (or do pallet swaps by just chaning the texture) and it's easier on the computer's processor.
    Still, I can hear the exhaustion and exasperation in your voice. You're burned out. Don't feel bad about scrapping the project. But if and when you do start another big project (or come back to this one), it may be better to post more regular dev logs. Even when you think you have nothing to show, your biggest sounding board and potential source of help is your audience here. You have 40,000 people you can ask for help from. That's 80,000 eyes you can put on a problem. Which, yes, may also be overwhelming in it's own way, but it's potentially better than posting on lonely forums for answers. (edit: For example, you could have saved yourself a lot of time and stress if you made a video two months ago saying "hey I'm using probuilder to do level design", you'd have had a lot of folks saying "nooo, don't do that it's not meant for that, it's just a prototyping tool"... like I've seen some of the comments saying now.)

    • @3u-n3ma_r1-c0
      @3u-n3ma_r1-c0 Před 2 lety +11

      true, everything you've said is completely correct.
      the window shader problem KILLED me.
      i was like "wtf you're trying to re-invent the wheel, just make the windows the hard way"
      he spent way too long trying to make a shader that he could've replicated the effects of (more or less) in around 10 seconds ((just make the hole for the window...))

  • @erikrutledge4940
    @erikrutledge4940 Před 2 lety +303

    I've really enjoyed these Devlogs, but if putting them on hold for a bit means we get more games like Gogogo and Platwormer, I'm all for it! Keep ZeroTag as a side project and work on it when you want to, it's not much fun having a side project that turns into a chore. Keep up the great work!

  • @Betruet
    @Betruet Před 2 lety +11

    I've been developing in VR for the last year and man that intro (and the whole video really) hit home. You have a kindred spirit in me my friend, from a fellow soufflé brain.

  • @T.O.L.D
    @T.O.L.D Před 2 lety +11

    I love the fact that you used townscaper for the buildings, I would have never thought of that

  • @HateSonneillon
    @HateSonneillon Před 2 lety +55

    Mesh colliders are also really expensive. You would end up changing them all to box colliders during optimization anyway so you might as well just build everything with box colliders to begin with.

    • @mitchell6679
      @mitchell6679 Před 2 lety +9

      This was my first thought as well. Especially if your character is just a capsule, then it won’t even benefit from any additional detail in the collider

  • @GonziHere
    @GonziHere Před 2 lety +128

    I absolutely feel your pain, however, I'm also dying from laughter here :D Your format is incredibly hilarious for this list :-D
    PS: Please, for the love of god, just create your models in blender, edit them in blender and just place them in your engine of choice.

    • @GonziHere
      @GonziHere Před 2 lety +50

      On a more serious note, it feels to me like you are trying to really bend Unity to work like you want, instead of learning how to use it properly. For example, doing 4 separate wall collisions is absolutely normal. While on topic - creating this kind of house (4 straight walls, A roof, one window) in Blender would take you like 10 minutes (if that), setting it up with collisions as a prefab in unity would take you another 10 and you would be done.
      Or you could create "kitbash" style pieces and a) build more complex meshes from it in Blender, b) build more complex buildings from it in Unity.
      I don't know about your specific input bugs, but IMO the speed differences might be from your code being tied to the framerate.
      Anyways, engine isn't end all, be all solution, you are supposed to just glue your game together there.

    • @relix3267
      @relix3267 Před 2 lety +1

      @@GonziHere I don’t know how to use Blender and for some reason I can’t wrap my head around it

    • @lucbloom
      @lucbloom Před 2 lety

      @@relix3267 you will feel at a loss when you don’t start simple, and then concentrate on using shortcut keys.

    • @artisanmage5378
      @artisanmage5378 Před 2 lety +9

      @@relix3267 Its actually pretty easy after the first couple months. I had some students do some great renders in a week or two and totally learn modelling enough for lowpoly stuff.

    • @Agent_Solace
      @Agent_Solace Před 2 lety +8

      @@relix3267 it takes practice, i didnt understand it at first and took me awhile but its basically a continuous hill where there is always something to learn.

  • @ronthehuman3618
    @ronthehuman3618 Před 2 lety +23

    Though, you don't have to give up on this concept! You can make a small game using the robot and a small city, I think that will give some meaning to all the effort you went through (the polished character movement looks really fun) and also be a prototype if you ever do come back to making a big game.

  • @snage-thesnakemage
    @snage-thesnakemage Před 2 lety +8

    as someone trying to learn the craft, this has been incredibly inspirational. Before watching this video I thought that my dream was just outside of my skillset because I kept running into dead ends or would have to trash huge parts of work, but hearing this, seeing you have such similar struggles, and keeping motivation and moral to move forward and keep growing just warms my heart. thank you so much and keep being awesome, cant wait for the next upload!

  • @suitNtie22
    @suitNtie22 Před 2 lety +40

    thank you. Too often these Devlog channels make everything look so simple so when I try I feel so discouraged. Seeing you go through the same type of issues I do and the challenges really makes me feel better about my projects and everything :) thank you !

  • @juliefranca7491
    @juliefranca7491 Před 2 lety +73

    The animation is amazing, loved it!!

  • @Hopecho
    @Hopecho Před 2 lety +8

    I’m making my first game right now. And I know how you feel. It’s a real struggle.
    But look at it from the bright side. You already have a big amount of people who got your back.
    So one of the hardest challenges of game design is already done. Getting an audience.
    Keep up the good work!

  • @JC-jz6rx
    @JC-jz6rx Před rokem +3

    This was great. I love seeing a more complete picture of game development. I follow A LOT of Devlogs. And most of them just make it seem so easy as if nothing ever goes wrong. This was refreshing.

  • @DragonplayerDev
    @DragonplayerDev Před 2 lety +7

    Having many materials on your mesh is a MASSIVE performance killer in the long run (1 extra draw call per material). You'd be infinitely better off making 1 tiny texture with all the colors you need and UV mapping the faces you want to each color inside the texture. (similarly to what Imphenzia does in his 10 Minute modeling challenge)

  • @bourbonbobo
    @bourbonbobo Před 2 lety +73

    Hey Robert, as a Unity dev trying to move to Godot ASAP due to increasing frustration, I feel so much for you in this video. I think I might have tried to warn you away from Cinemachine in a previous video's comments. I also had a really frustrating undocumented issue when trying to use it on tight deadline for a commercial 3D platformer project. I feel it's good for a prototype but in the end you'll always want your own camera system on something like this.
    For level design I can however highly recommend trying the free plugin Realtime CSG. It has it's quirks but it's more stable than a lot of unity's official plugins and it's really good for quickly blocking in simple geometry. I've been using it in my current game and built a very large intricate level with it and am using baked GI for all my lighting with it (I'm using emissive materials to light the whole game) and it works pretty well! I'd love to see you give it a try for one of your upcoming smaller projects, it really revolutionised level design for me and I'll miss it so much when I'm (hopefully)fully moved to Godot for all my projects.
    I also just wanted to say how much of a shame it is to see this project put on hold due to no real fault of your own. The worldbuilding you outlined in this episode got me really excited, Hopefully one day I'll be rolling down the corrugated iron rooftops of this city you envision. Good luck with your next projects, excited to see more from you!

    • @psychic-lizard
      @psychic-lizard Před 2 lety +4

      I believe godot has a few csg nodes built-in

    • @bourbonbobo
      @bourbonbobo Před 2 lety +3

      @@psychic-lizard yeah, I'm excited to try them out though from what I've seen they'll be more awkward to work with than RTCSG. I'm thinking I may end up using an external level editor with Godot.

    • @joshuaanderson6609
      @joshuaanderson6609 Před 2 lety +5

      Heyyy welcome aboard the Godot train xD

    • @noxabellus
      @noxabellus Před 2 lety +1

      Godot is even jankier

    • @ap1evideogame44
      @ap1evideogame44 Před 2 lety +3

      @@noxabellus I mean, yes and no. It's certainly a WIP

  • @Bassalicious
    @Bassalicious Před 2 lety +6

    Oh my days, I can relate to this entire video way too much. I laughed until my stomach hurt and was stun-locked in awe hearing more about the lore and design ideas for ZeroTag.
    Whatever content you decide to make I'm certain I will absolutely adore it. You're such a gifted artist it's absurd.
    Please don't get demotivated, frustrated or even depressed by all the stupidly large rocks on your path - conquering them will make you a skilled rock climber, but giving up will only make you wonder what could have been.
    I believe in you and whole-heartedly wish you strength. Much love

  • @RugbugRedfern
    @RugbugRedfern Před 2 lety +7

    I think you perfectly managed to capture the frustration I have working on projects in Unity. Sometimes things just break for seemingly no reason. Sounds like you were extremely unlucky as well! I really enjoyed the video, especially all the cute animations. Best of luck on your new game ideas :)

  • @HateSonneillon
    @HateSonneillon Před 2 lety +56

    Having all those buildings in one level was going to cause GI to take forever, its not cheap. I suggest splitting the level by sectors into smaller levels and dynamically streaming in and out the sectors as you enter and leave them. This could likely also help with those loading times you were having.

    • @jjacobs321
      @jjacobs321 Před 2 lety +3

      I mean, there *should* be optimizations so that the GI isn't calculated from any lights that won't be able to hit the visible pixels within their bounce limit

    • @MonsterJuiced
      @MonsterJuiced Před 2 lety

      Imagine having the make smaller levels bwcause GI does this.. the devs should have realised people the want to make open world games and use GI and therefore account for that in someway. I thought GI was screenspace only anyway?

    • @HateSonneillon
      @HateSonneillon Před 2 lety +1

      @@MonsterJuiced Not sure if you understand what I was saying. The game could still be open world and be fairly expansive, just the world has to be split up into several smaller levels that seamlessly connect. The sections that you're not in and cannot see would be unloaded from memory. This is a very common method that games handle large levels.

    • @MonsterJuiced
      @MonsterJuiced Před 2 lety +3

      @@HateSonneillon yea I understand what you mean but his location was already very small anyway, about the size of trade district in WoW. Since it was more open plan if he split that into a grid not much could be unloaded without it being visible

    • @HateSonneillon
      @HateSonneillon Před 2 lety +2

      @Monster Juiced You should watch the video again. He is fitting several city blocks worth of buildings together to make a city. Which is definitely big enough to need separating into sublevels. Even different rooms in a house would get streamed in and out, let alone multiple sections of a city like the one this dev is making.

  • @TheGamingzombie1
    @TheGamingzombie1 Před 2 lety +21

    Dude, Thank you so much for this video. Honestly, all us game devs need to see this kind of stuff every once and a while. You literally broke my heart seeing all the struggles you went through in this video. I fell in love with you game when I first found your channel and see so much of this game that you’re clearly super passionate about not work hurts my soul to see! Take the breaks you need, we’ll be here when you come back to this project! Keep being the amazing person you’ve been so far!!

  • @TheDeadSource
    @TheDeadSource Před 2 lety +1

    Thanks for the video.
    It was simultaneously funny, sobering and humbling. I am glad to have seen it before falling into the scope trap which everyone ALWAYS warns one about, but that is so so hard to actually see and avoid. I am sorry for the stress you've experienced and hope your next projects bring you more joy and help you develop your toolset.
    This is a well-earned sub. I'll be keeping an eye out.

  • @VirtuaVirtue
    @VirtuaVirtue Před 2 lety +14

    at the city part i was so immersed that i felt like i was working on the city, and my heart dropped as soon as you changed the models to static

  • @user-or9ey2ld6s
    @user-or9ey2ld6s Před 2 lety +18

    I feel your frustration. But I want to say that I really love the story and the artstyle you envisioned for the city. It‘s a very creative and interesting idea. Keep at it, it‘s a awesome project. You got this!
    Also: just get a video out even if it‘s not much progress rather than failure. There are many people in here who also have encountered problems and can maybe help you :)

  • @dreaming_dolce
    @dreaming_dolce Před 2 lety

    The animations are so adorable and your overall style is just so enjoyable. Keep up the good work!

  • @DocGeraud
    @DocGeraud Před 2 lety +1

    I love your devlogs SO MUCH

  • @imaneeldealwithit969
    @imaneeldealwithit969 Před 2 lety +21

    Geebus man, all these issues sound really painful, proud of you for moving on though, you're one of my favorite devs on youtube and i really want to overstate that there is no pressure on how fast you make games, I just hope you keep doing what you love and don't sacrifice your mental health by exerting too much pressure on yourself.

  • @AndrewDavidJ
    @AndrewDavidJ Před 2 lety +6

    Setup a separate, fixed Cinemachine virtual camera inside the house with a higher priority value than the regular camera, and disable it. Save it in the house prefab.
    When you enter the house, enable that camera. When you exit the house, disable it.
    Cinemachine's blend transition system should handle the rest for you.

    • @AndrewDavidJ
      @AndrewDavidJ Před 2 lety +1

      Regarding ProBuilder: The delete key deletes vertices I think? If not, you can select the faces that the vertex connects and then use the merge tool to combine them into one and remove that vertex.

    • @AndrewDavidJ
      @AndrewDavidJ Před 2 lety +1

      Clearly I'm commenting as I watch lol. Regarding the speed/momentum not working in the new scene, could it be that your new scene doesn't have the same physics materials on the models/objects?

    • @RobertThomsonDev
      @RobertThomsonDev  Před 2 lety +1

      @@AndrewDavidJ ah yeah I did check that. Same physics materials, tags and layers unfortunately. Also same collider setup. I tried also bringing in the arena from the other scene and no luck. Thanks for troubleshooting!

    • @RobertThomsonDev
      @RobertThomsonDev  Před 2 lety +1

      @@AndrewDavidJ well, if it does then I have a special version of probuilder where it doesn't haha!

    • @AndrewDavidJ
      @AndrewDavidJ Před 2 lety

      Well then, consider me stumped as well haha

  • @ataud9754
    @ataud9754 Před 2 lety +2

    Okay but the player character youve made is absolutely cute, from the actual Desing to its little animations, it just has so much personality, I love them

  • @gimemy2bucksback911
    @gimemy2bucksback911 Před 2 lety +1

    Love that this video is more of a story of the pain of game dev rather then a fleshed out devlog of a finished game. Makes it one of my favorite

  • @lemonpaperplanes
    @lemonpaperplanes Před 2 lety +6

    I really love your content, so it's great to hear you'll be aiming to upload more frequently! But I also understand that ZeroTag is your passion project and that it's hard to make the decision to put it aside, but I like to think of it as you can come back to it in the future with with fresher ideas, not to mention the extra experience to be able to make the game even better! Keep doing you king, you're awesome ☆

  • @jazzwell
    @jazzwell Před 2 lety +4

    I've loved these devlogs, partly because I love the concept of Zerotag, but in larger part because I love how you present things and your thoughts and personality. So if Zerotag is bringing you so much stress I 100% support pivoting to other projects and I'll continue to be here for it.
    I very much relate to your experience as well -- not in game dev specifically, but with other creative hobbies. Things can be so frustrating and stressful and just not go how you expected it to, and it's so easy to burn out or lose drive. I hope you find more success (literal and mental) with your new plans!

  • @doriansmith4094
    @doriansmith4094 Před 2 lety

    Super exited that this channel is going to be expanding more! Love the idea of small games!

  • @benjamino5
    @benjamino5 Před 2 lety

    I appreciate your honesty, and your beautiful animation style. Good luck the short games! I -- and many, many others -- will be here to cheer you on.

  • @codakairos8082
    @codakairos8082 Před 2 lety +44

    I think most of your problems come from your meshes being too big...
    During rendering and physics calculations, the engine relies on "Spatial Partition" optimizations like "octrees" for example, to try to avoid making as many collisions tests or rendering calls as possible.
    For example, if your whole city is only one mesh, rendering only one triangle of this mesh requires the whole mesh to be iterated... (and frustum culling won't work) the same goes for physics.
    A better approach would be to create "building blocks" like walls, roofs, stairs, and assemble them inside unity to create houses. (you can eventually use tools to merge them into one mesh if they are close enough).
    If your scene starts to be overpopulated by gameObjects, you should also look into "additive scenes".
    Unity is not made to create open-world games, and additive scenes allow you to split a scene into multiple ones and load only the parts that matter.
    I hope this comment will be useful 😊 your project is wonderful and will surely become a great game
    take care

  • @katamari_
    @katamari_ Před 2 lety +5

    i love how smooth the animation is

  • @kai-72
    @kai-72 Před rokem

    I found this channel yesterday, watched all your videos, and I'm so taken by your sense of design and just everything about your videos! I totally get this frustration, and I wanna echo what everyone else is saying - making a bunch of experimental small things to break and then bugfix is the perfect way to get comfortable, figure things out in manageable chunks, and feel less overwhelmed by your bigger visions. You've already got me in love with the world of ZeroTag, so take your time to make that as you feel comfortable, and learn a little along the way! We'll be here to cheer on your progress regardless

  • @kiricappuchin
    @kiricappuchin Před 2 lety +1

    cool stuff man, this is my first time hearing about your project but it sounds promising and fun! i love the little animations and the city concept especially sounds really awesome

  • @ModderOwls
    @ModderOwls Před 2 lety +5

    Heya, (2D) unity user here and thought I'd mention this: the probuilder extreme lag problem is something *extremely* similar to another one I had with the tilemap, it even caused certain unrelated unity problems in- and outside the scene like my controller disconnecting alot or even disallowing controls entirely (comparable to your input system problems). I had fixed this by instead making the tilemap a unique object (likely right click>prefab>unpack_completely would work, but i just made a new gameObject entirely and re-attached the scripts to it) and it fixed the input and player handler bugs.
    Apart from that I would recommend creating a back-up and opening said back-up with either an Long Term Support build or if that doesn't work, try creating a new project and re-import the ZeroTag "Assets" and "ProjectSettings" files. Only other way I could see it else would still be a problem would be through infinite loops such as no IEnumerator returns or for loops, so try checking those. Hope this could in any way or shape help you if you see this and sorry for the poor English.

  • @supermemio8098
    @supermemio8098 Před 2 lety +6

    right after a nintendo direct dam he's quick

  • @_Junker
    @_Junker Před 2 lety

    I feel you pain and stress through this video.
    Your character is lovely in everyway, from the design to the animation !
    The vision that you have for the town and the buildings is amazing and the story feel really interesting.
    For what it's worth i do believe in you and this project !
    Even if it's not coming out anytime soon, i really wish for you to revisit this project at some point in the futur !
    Keep it up !
    💪🏾

  • @mohamedmada4159
    @mohamedmada4159 Před 2 lety

    Duuuude what u have done so far is amaziiiiing, Keep at it and never stop.

  • @Eclectimaniac
    @Eclectimaniac Před 2 lety +15

    I was laughing too hard at your analogy at the start. And all your small animations to emphasize points were so good. I've never seen your channel before but this was such a great video. Only critique is im a blender-er and seeing 2.79 for the first time in a long while 🤢
    Edit: just finished watching the video. Unfortunante zerotag didn't work out but that's ok. Good luck with with your future endevors!

  • @pedrocassenote4996
    @pedrocassenote4996 Před 2 lety +14

    This is a very important video for everyone involved in game development or in the process of doing a project. Thank you for showing us the journey can be difficult and stressful and sometimes we are not ready yet to finish something. I hope you find success in the new format of videos coming up and I'm looking forward to watch them.
    I also love your animations, they are so fluid and funny.

  • @HH-sn5qp
    @HH-sn5qp Před 2 lety

    Been watching since the first log. Really lovin these vids

  • @drousinfo435
    @drousinfo435 Před 2 lety

    bro, you are the best I swear.
    I'm going through the depression period of every game dev, where I want to make something, but at the same I don't feel like doing anything.
    Watching your vids gave me motivation to start working again.
    Thank you so much
    and amazing content if I say so myself.
    Best of luck with future projects

  • @ics_de
    @ics_de Před 2 lety +3

    Damn, i can imagine how frustrating it must be encountering one issue after another. You've got all our support! :)

  • @cazlindgren
    @cazlindgren Před 2 lety +3

    Looking forward to everything your going to make from now on! I'm sorry that zerotag didn't work out as planned, but I think this is a wise decision!

  • @nickbell1198
    @nickbell1198 Před 2 lety

    You put so much into this it is amazing. great work !!

  • @MultsElMesco
    @MultsElMesco Před 2 lety

    Man, your devlogs are really entertaining to watch. I can relate to the suffering that comes when things don't wanna work.
    Also, I was really happy when you named my country (Chile) as an inspiration for your design. Love the content man!

  • @dlxinteractive
    @dlxinteractive Před rokem +6

    This is the most realistic game dev log I’ve seen. I don’t think us devs have a high life expectancy with all the stress

  • @Husmanmusic
    @Husmanmusic Před 2 lety +5

    I feel your troubles man! I felt myself silently screaming at the screen: “why doesn’t he use blender instead of pro builder”. I would really look into asking someone else to have a look at the pure bugs/errors. There are so many people who are happy to help. Keep it up! Love the videos!

  • @rayovacsj2902
    @rayovacsj2902 Před 2 lety

    Very good. These videos actually helped me with my own game. Keep up the good work!

  • @lefthandedartist
    @lefthandedartist Před 2 lety +1

    I really like your art style. Also the way your game character moves is very pleasing to me. This video popped up in my recommended feed, and it's the first I've seen of your channel. It sucks that you've had to go through all that stress. I hope that you find time to rest.

  • @billyb6664
    @billyb6664 Před 2 lety +29

    You should use probuilder for a rough "scetch", then another tool (like blender) to create the finalized model with help from the probuilder "sketch" and import it.

    • @r6scrubs126
      @r6scrubs126 Před 2 lety +4

      I see people say this all the time, but without being able to do simple things like delete vertices I struggle to use it for even that

  • @firememes
    @firememes Před 2 lety +22

    As a solo game dev, I totally feel every signle thing you're struggling with in terms of broken unity features that are claimed to be "resolved", broken omnisharp/vscode and just the general isolating struggle of encountering bugs that no one seems to have. Overall, Zero Tag's development has been a huge inspiration and motivation in my own journey and maybe with more resources, you could assemble a team to make things easier. Either way, love your content and your ability so I'll be sticking around!

  • @BraianStrak
    @BraianStrak Před 2 lety +1

    This video was so relatable hahah, having only done small projects with random spaghetti happening everywhere I can't even begin to imagine how frustrating this must've been. Best of luck in your future projects, I think it's definitely a better idea to make smaller ones for youtube videos even from a motivation perspective, as you're not looking at the same things constantly over and over, definitely more fun imo.

  • @kryob1
    @kryob1 Před 2 lety

    Cool dev log! Love this style

  • @SMABSYSTEMS
    @SMABSYSTEMS Před 2 lety +17

    Imagine 'ZeroTag coming to Switch' or something in 5 years or so and remembering these videos 🥰🥰🥰

    • @KustProductions
      @KustProductions Před rokem

      I'd be surprised if people were making games for the switch 5 years later

  • @rijkbrouns7133
    @rijkbrouns7133 Před 2 lety +9

    Hey man it's alright! Take your time! It already looks so good! I'm stoked to see how to final product will turn out. Thanks for the devlog.

    • @rijkbrouns7133
      @rijkbrouns7133 Před 2 lety

      Also don't forget to take breaks. Like you said in the video, I also think that it'll be better to let the project sit aside for a small period of time. Stay good man!

  • @DEV_XO
    @DEV_XO Před 2 lety

    Love ur animations mate, stay strong!

  • @deerdev6511
    @deerdev6511 Před 2 lety +1

    Every now and then, when I’m on the verge of crying over my chemistry theory, I go to this video and just watch it, mostly because of the intro. Because the intro ist the best description of live I’ve ever seen. And then I sometimes watch the rest for your watching and my entertainment. Thank you and have a great time

  • @Mightrue
    @Mightrue Před 2 lety +4

    Hey, professional game dev here, I've been following you for a while, I feel your pain :(
    Not sure how useful that'd be to you, but in my experience one thing that really helps with modeling big cities is using modular kits:
    Instead of separately modelling each building, you can model a 4x4m wall, a 4x4m wall with window, a 4x4m wall with door... You can then vertex snap those modules to each other and build convincing buildings suprisingly fast. You won't need to rely on an in-engine modelling tool if you pick this method.
    Another benefit of working this way is that when you improve a module, since it's used in a lot of buildings, it instantly improves the whole city.

    • @unrelentingpest
      @unrelentingpest Před 2 lety

      Have you noticed a performance impact of using thousands of modules per level rather than a few normal buildings?

    • @snailtan4332
      @snailtan4332 Před 2 lety

      @@unrelentingpest I mean, the vertex count wouldnt be that much different, maybe a 30% increase. And the fact that each wall is its own object probably helps performance (up to a certain point) as you, or the engine, can unload walls and objects quite efficently now.
      And I mean, this method is used everywhere in gamedesign so I am sure its not a bad idea.

    • @unrelentingpest
      @unrelentingpest Před 2 lety

      @@snailtan4332 In UE4, having multiple static meshes at once requires a separate draw call for each one for geometry, then a separate one for the material, even if they have the same material. If all the meshes were combined into one, it would only take 1 for the geometry and one for the material.
      But I don't know if the draw calls for a smaller object are less performance heavy, and if that would cancel out the increased number.

  • @jkr9594
    @jkr9594 Před 2 lety +6

    10:39
    I HAVE actually run into that issue.
    for me, it was the straw that broke the camels back, and i switched to another engine.
    and while that engine has "a few" less features, it also has "a few" less bugs.

  • @AngryBeardGaming
    @AngryBeardGaming Před 2 lety

    I love your animation/cartoon style. It really reminds me of Purple Ronnie for back in the day. Keep up the good work, pal.

  • @LordnachCTM
    @LordnachCTM Před 2 lety

    Hi Robert! I'm from Chile and I was so suprised when I heard Valparaiso, you made my night with your research, thanks for uploading your devlog, Hope to se other no matter how much time it takes, I will wait until you feel that you can go more

  • @dazcarrr
    @dazcarrr Před 2 lety +5

    i like the cute animations

  • @abelcruz9151
    @abelcruz9151 Před 2 lety +4

    Can’t even imagine the amount of work something like this takes, great job!

  • @kiki-drawer2669
    @kiki-drawer2669 Před 2 lety

    No rush man! We all love seeing your devs or any other work you do! Take a break or work on other smaller works! We are here for you! As much as many love zerotag, your mental health comes first! Sending love bro!

  • @Kiwi-fl8te
    @Kiwi-fl8te Před 2 lety

    I only just discovered your channel from the first Zerotag de log, and I can't wait to see what you do next ! I agree with most people in the comments I think, that you should keep getting experience as a game developer with smaller game, building up your channel with content that's faster to produce but also helps you learn, and then apply that knowledge to Zerotag, or whatever big project you might consider in the future.

  • @Roockert
    @Roockert Před 2 lety +8

    From my experience all these issues all originate from wanting a shortcut, and it breaks. I personally don't use probuilder for anything but prototypes, only placeholders. Some unity extensions are as you say extra on an already broken mess, but in some cases use a program that is dedicated for that use instead of something half baked that is in a game engine

  • @TeLLeK
    @TeLLeK Před rokem +3

    While it sucks you're dealing with all that it's also kinda selfishly nice to see someone experiencing the same bullshit luck I deal with regularly.

  • @doctercoff5854
    @doctercoff5854 Před rokem

    Keep up the good work, I love the series and hope more episodes are to come even though it might kill you :)

  • @merlinmelon
    @merlinmelon Před 2 lety

    I love these kinds of videos. Also, the little 2d animated segments are adorable

  • @OtakuG
    @OtakuG Před 2 lety +3

    GREAT CONTENT! So entertaining!...

  • @quintongordon6024
    @quintongordon6024 Před 2 lety +4

    From your previous dev logs, I thought the animations and movement controls looked really nice but now that you've gone over some world building and what not I'm genuinely interested in exploring this world.
    Update:
    dam, I finished the video

  • @sirbadger4095
    @sirbadger4095 Před rokem

    XD
    I've stumbled upon this randomly and the comedy is *gold*! The add was great too

  • @jashum8554
    @jashum8554 Před 2 lety

    This is actually supper interesting and educational for newbies like me!!! Seeing others mistakes, approaches and solutions are as interesting as tutorials and working demonstrations!!!
    Thanks a lot for making this. Hope for the best for you and looking forward for more vids!!!!!!!

  • @Skeffles
    @Skeffles Před 2 lety +3

    I really like how you've used townscaper to make the city for the game. It's a shame everything else seems to be falling apart. Hopefully you can come back to ZeroTag later but in the mean time I'll look forward to see the smaller games you make.

  • @TheWilsonChannel
    @TheWilsonChannel Před 2 lety +3

    Damn, usually when watching devlogs I would get kinda disappointed on my attempts because every time Unity start going wrong in ways I couldn't figure out how to fix, it was what made me stop trying to learn Unity for some time.
    And yeah, working on smaller scope games with shorter development times is definitely the way to start getting good at it and grow confidence on what you can build, even if it's just "let's try to see if I can make X mechanic without actually making a whole game".

    • @3u-n3ma_r1-c0
      @3u-n3ma_r1-c0 Před 2 lety +1

      tbh, at some point, you'er gonna try to make a whole game and realize
      "... fuck. I cant make this feature, something on this game engine is bugged."
      and your only option is "ok scrap it"
      the game is GONNA break, the engine is GONNA break, everything is gonna fuck itself up at some, inevitable point.
      i think the best thing any game dev could do is just prepare for it and be ready to find a workaround- or give up on a mechanic all together, unfortunately.

  • @rimmertf
    @rimmertf Před 2 lety +1

    Just do what you want man, I love your vids either way!

  • @aldrigvila
    @aldrigvila Před 2 lety

    Dude. Thank you for this very honest and well made video!

  • @seandaley8350
    @seandaley8350 Před rokem +4

    It flabbergasts me that you’re world building, coding, and making building seemingly all by yourself. It’s okay if the game is gonna take a while to make, but I’m so excited when it finally comes out!

  • @Whimfoome
    @Whimfoome Před 2 lety +4

    That's why having the source code of the engine is such an important thing for me. That's also the reason I love Godot.
    It's open source, easy to grasp and most of the things are working as intended and make sense. If you find an issue, you can report it and try to fix it yourself by looking at the source code or ask the wonderful community, which actually helps a ton.
    After working with Godot for 2 years I came back to Unity for a project that required me to use it, and to be honest I hated it... Endless errors with no real explanations and there is no one else that encountered them before; slow loading times and compile times that killed all my productivity. Now I am back to Godot and I won't be looking back again :D

  • @mohamedbensaid2258
    @mohamedbensaid2258 Před 2 lety

    man your story telling is fun + the animation you really could make something from it

  • @AndGoatz04
    @AndGoatz04 Před 2 lety +2

    No matter what happens, you gotta give him credit for being so good and clean wigh such a simple looking art style