haven't been posting cos I've been hard at work, unfortunately just not on the game. I am trying my best to make time to work on it, and I have been planning and designing what to do as soon as time becomes available.

Some pictures of the changes mentioned in the previous post.

Fixed the cars Turret mode.
Added Laser sights.
Took out the old 2d sight.
Improved new minimap (still confusing).
Added more mouse/keys support.
Added stand ins for all islands that need to be added.
Continued work on Cop character model (nearly done, will put it in soon)
Designing a mask for the protag/civilians... Cos... Well... You cant breath in space haha.

I'm working through a whole checklist of things to add/fix, so as soon as that's done (hopefully a few weeks time) Ill upload a new build, this time Ill post a web build alongside the download ling ;)

Due to the minimap glitching out at the expo, Ive been re-thinking how to do it, so far ive got an ok solution where it now follows the camera, unfortunately, that means that the minimap can rotate up and down, so its confusing as hell...

Also, due to players getting lost in space, Im adding an arrow at the bottom of the screen that always points to the city.

Ive also made a 'out of bounds' area that the player cannot get to, in the hopes of helping players to not get lost in space.

Im going to add afew more things, then publish a web build of inStasis.

Ive also been playing with last semesters project, just to see whats possible, and this is what I have so far:

I figure it will make a nice short web game... Only afew levels, some simple enemies, maby some leveling up... But something short, sweet and simple...

Added in the sounds for the explosions and for firing off shots. Tweeked hit boxes for projectiles so its easyer to shoot stuff.

Ive made both the lasers and missiles turn into sparks, heat waves and explosions on impact. Civs will die if the projectiles touch them.

Im working on a way to expand a collider outwards when the missiles explode to kill anything that it touches from size 1 and then when its fully grown to size 15. (Just having a collider wont work as the collider will just spawn and will not trigger as the other objects will not pass through the collider, but rather they will just be inside the collider at all times.)

Ive also written most the Cop AI and will implement that as soon as either Max or Maya deside to install on my pc.

Ive fixed most bugs now including the car camera and ive tweeked turret mode so its more viable as a means to move around.

I still need to fill some holes with props and cluster around some civs in other places. As well as needing to fix the end mission bug and mini map bag...

Im also writing sound tracks so I will try to implement those, I also have a run animation that I will put in with the cops. (then ill make a quick jump and shoot)

Today, I made the missiles explode on impact and cause an explosion (with sound and shockwave that affects props)

I edited sounds for shooting off the missiles that I will put in when I have time.

Added a waypoint that always points towards the objective on the mini map.

Coded the Cop Ai... Now Just need Mudbox to let me export the mesh...

Then Ill decorate with windows and crowds of ai civilians.

Heres the link to my latest video:

http://youtu.be/PVoUiJzt-aE

OK, Ive fixed the problems with the videos, so I will make a video and post it on youtube tonight.

Sorry about the delay.

Having trouble capturing videos atm... Not sure why, but I don't have the time to check it out...

Upgraded my Dev PC today, so I'll upload gameplay from my latest build of inStasis... Now that my PC can actually run it on anything Higher than low.

Fixed problems with player rig. Improved player model.

Adding props and background code into the city to give it 2 important things. Life and Density.

Not only does it add colour to the grey scene, but it also adds things for the player to manoeuvre through while flying, a big part of any open world game.

Im uploading the latest build of my semester project here: http://puu.sh/5cUnx

InStasis README

Build 1.09

InStasis is my semester project. It is non-profit and free in its current state.

It is not a representation of the final game in any way and is highly open to change and therefore input is highly appreciated.

InStasis is in many ways, an ode to my favourite games. Ratchet and Clank and Jak and Daxter. You should be able to tell right now how much its already like those games, and it will be even more so when its done.

Right now the plot is thin, so all you need to know is that the main character is stranded on a space island helping the rebels fight against Stasis, the company keeping the city afloat in space and is also secretly running everything.

You will need a Controller for your PC.

Secondly. The game runs on anything from an old laptop of mine with 2gb or ram, a dual core at 1.2ghz and a Intel gpu that cant even run COD 4 on lowest settings above 15fps.
It runs well on medium settings at 1080p on a quad core, 4gb of ram and a 7750 (550ti)

Now, onto known bugs.

1) It takes a while to start.
2) The start screen is buggy and has a red sky box and is not the latest version.
3) The players animations are not in yet.
4) The aimer is required to be active to move (press < on the D-pad)
5) While in the car the mini map is completely wrong.
6) The player can fly if you hold down LT (my bad)
7) Various holes in the environment.
8) The map glitches out through objects.
9) The player sometimes rotates.
10) REQUIRES CONTROLLER (I'm currently sifting through thousands of lines of code to re-implement mouse and keys, hence something's work, like the mouse, and others don't)
11) The splash screen is alittle... Bad...
(cant think of anything else right now)

If you do find something, just comment here on the blog and I will fix it: http://canyoudigit-gamedev.blogspot.com.au/

By: Juan van Litsenborgh

Added in my latest ver of the player and improved the controller. Going to edit the car controller to have a follow cam while moving and a free orbit cam while standing still.

Wrote my own character controller. It handles so much more like I want it to now. No animations tho... Ill add those in this week end.

Also found a cool shader that would be amazing for the mini map... Unfortunately it requires another camera... and that would put me up to 3 cameras...

I'll upload a new video tomorrow, as Ive fixed and changed a lot of things and I want to finish of things like the shooting and city lighting(rough so far)...

First prototype on lighting:

Added in civilians that walk around and when the player hits them with a car, ragdoll takes over... Very fun... Thinking up a way to spawn the ai in/out depending on which area the player is in... kind of like lod's I guess... But not... Also added in a mission marker, ill make a simple script that loads up the hover car tutorial level (ill make that quickly) and ill add in some options like "restart mission" and "oooops, reload the game I stuffed up and now its broken"

by the end of the week I will also have the cars combat mode fully functioning with bullets and stuff...

Then its just the character controller and animations.

I realised somewhere along the line that I was straying from my desired art style of clay or oil paint, which would be achieved by the use of barley any textures, but massive amounts of normal maps... So I've gone back to that line of thought and this is what I've got:

Been fixing the Hover Car.

I've added 3 different 'modes'

1) Default - Its a normal car, it sticks to the road and it rolls around and turns using wheel physics.
2) Hover - Click L3... Its a hover car, so now it controls like any car you've ever played in a game... But if you pull back on the stick it can pull up/down.
3) Attack - Click R3... Its now a mobile turret that controls like a first person shooter... If the character was some sort of helicopter... The camera is on the bonnet here so I can put in some lasers and turrets with an aimer and well... Attack

Then Ive been polishing and bug fixing the car. I know the car isn't the entirety of my game, but I feel I'm like this as a batman fan... They always make sweet batman games, but you can never use the Batmobile... So I guess the car in my game is kinda like your own Batmobile or Kitt... So its 50% of the game I figure.

Fixed the bug where the character spawns into the world at the same rotations as the car if you get out of it. The character will always spawn at 0.0.0 rotations.

Fixed Wheel alignment bug where wheels would turn like a clock when they were inactive.

Fixed controls where sometimes controls wouldn't pick up.

Fixed the bug where you could not use Y to get in and out of the car.

Added car damage.

Added real time car reflections

Currently Fixing mini map. Adding Laser pointers and guns. Adding a mission as a tutorial for the car. Adding a reward to be used to purchase boost from the shop. Adding save game feature to apply upgrades from the shop. Adding waypoints on mini map.

Then Ill add in the character with a cutsceen to start the story as well as some missions/upgrades.
Then Ill polish the level.

Fixed many bugs with the car, Tweeked the cars feel and handling as well as its controls. It now has the same controls and feel as GTA combined with Jak 2.

Added boost, as well as several effects that compliment it such as a larger FoV, Dof and trails that follow the lights. It looks very... Need for Speed underground... Wich is good.

Heres that Vid I promised: http://youtu.be/IcOuf-79iSQ

Proud to announce that the hover car is feeling really good and handling really well. I'll upload a vid and get testers to start testing.

Now I'm onto character and objectives, then props and polish.

Fixed the video, so here it is: http://youtu.be/jIwN5w5SKW0

Re-did all the controls to work ONLY on controller thanx to the flying car... It turns out the only way to fly the thing is with a controller else its stupidly hard to control.

Uploaded another video, but its so low quality Im rather ganna delete it.

Expo went well.

Finishing up the last things before next weeks expo.

the hover car is coming along extremely well. It now rotates on every axsis, hovers off the ground and even has a button to enable gravety so U can come back down to the ground to re-stabalise if you've skrewed up. big thanx to Anthony, andy and Hamish for the ideas on how to get this going. as of this moment im happy with it. Now just to get in/out of it...

Also, im done riging and skinning my character, so ill animate her and get in some gunplay against robots as cops and plumbers as civilians.

Each cop kill will give some cash to buy an upgrade. That's it for the demo.

I still need to decorate the shop and make a save game script so it remembers your cash, upgrades and spawn point when you enter and exit the shop... as that's a load level...

1 week to go here and theres still stuff to do. Hopefully ill get it all done. I know I've probably been over ambitious with this... but I needed to push myself to learn so much that I didn't know before this... its why I picked this game idea, its pushed me to work hard and learn so much. I have no doubt im better off for it.

- Added Train Tracks
- Added Civilian AI that walks around
- Added Skybox
- Tweaked colours / bloom / sun shafts / SSAO
- Added some new placeholder textures to help differentiating objects

- Currently having problems with my version of Unity. Its very slow and crashes every time I try to build.

Highest (45fps) vs Lowest (120fps)

Fixed one of the many camera bugs. The camera no longer shakes when looking up. Its also closer to the character as there have been complaints that while playing you would feel more disconnected with the camera further away. Also locked the rotation of the mini map, regardless of the cool effect of the 3d mini map and looking up and down, it would glitch the mini map most the time.

Added ALOT of graphics options into the menu. I'm building to make sure it runs on any thing from my laptop as the lowest build at 30fps lowest settings (which is not even as good as my phone) and all the way up to my pc at max settings 50fps (which is worse than a class pc). I have a feeling that when all the objects and textures and AI is in the game I will be getting around 30fps max settings on my pc... So If you have anything over a 550ti, 4gb of ram and a quad core, you should be rolling around with the max settings. I think its a good target and that its very scalable.

Over the next 3 weeks I will finish the map with buildings added in (no other props) cars to drive, bikes to ride, civilian and cop AI to fool around with and the main character with weapons and animations... That's all I will make for the first public build that will go on show at the expo in 3 weeks. It seems like an achievable goal at this point. Maybe I can squeeze more in with in that time, but I have to take into account bug fixing etc.

Build progress - Added in depth options/pause menu that can be easily obtained on unity.wiki and added more indepth graphics options, its safe to say that it runs quite well on everything Ive tried it... Though the map isn't finished (working on that from now till its completed)

also fixed a bug where the camera would move while the game was paused.

Uploading a video to show off the GUI improvements I've made, I still need to make it look pretty and make waypoints on the mini map, but other than that its functional enough for Pre-Alpha.

I'm now on the task of placing in my own character with animations and weapons as well as enemy AI and civilian AI... Just to get into fights with, as well as hover cars, the flying motorbike and lastly, polishing JUST the roads, buildings and main map assets (not props) into a state that I'm happy with.

I'm hoping these things will take no longer than 3-4 weeks as then My ideal Pre-Alpha will be on show at the just make games expo.

http://youtu.be/uYs8k7xgGs4

So, I've been fighting against the clock here to complete, texture, rig, skin, animate and import my main character into unity for the video I was going to upload today with gameplay, but alas, because of life and family drama, I've not been able to meet todays dead line... But no worries, I will be done by Monday earliest and Tuesday latest, I will upload a pre-alpha video then with some gameplay.

Its no use showing the pre-alpha now as its not representative at all of the feel of the gameplay, but Im going strong and Ill upload a screen or two to show my current progress.

As you can probably see, I've made good progress on getting the functions behind the hud working to the point where I just need to replace the text with gui sprites, and I even have an aimer in there somewhere... And the character is coming along well.

I keep feeling anxious about poly counts, but then I look at this page, and feel ok again on the inside.
http://beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=43975

Been hard at work on my alpha city... Ill put up a pic for all you people that want to see it. Other than that, I've been thinking about my main character, I'll do a quick 3D mock up in mudbox this week, maybe I'll even rig it and get it into the alpha.

I also want to make sure I get the gameplay done... At the moment I have a character that can run, jump and orbital cam... So I need to add the shooting/strafing/cover/FLYING controls to finish up the alpha... But the progress is good and I'm going strong... Or at least I think so...

Ran into some alignment problems with the sidewalks... Fixed them now. Also changed the shader on the sidewalks so they stand out a little ore till I put on textures and normals.

I got a little concerned about the poly count, regardless of the Occlusion Culling it seems like it may get a little high.

So I looked into old open world games like GTA:3 and saw that their poly count is far higher than mine is. So I'm not worried... In fact, I'll probably make higher poly assets than GTA:3 as GTA:3 is quite old... but that's quite the relief... Obviously I'm not aiming for textures, shadows or normal maps equal to GTA:3 hahaha.

Making the alpha for Project Dak... Its going well, I'm placing roads, and buildings. I have the basic character in with basic working camera and movement along with image effects etc (All assets are not final and are mostly placeholders)

Did my first pass on my GDD. Things are coming together nicely. Here's a concept map to look over. I've planed it to be simple and easy to make with repeated assets to work with my time constraints.