Apollo Accord Movement Update

TL;DR

• Crouching works!
• Snappier movement
• Leaning in the works; conflicts with mouse yaw.
• Raycasted bullets

Long Version

So I was somehow able to get crouching working. It’s more of a semi-crouch, since I haven’t implemented the humanoid animator yet and it works by moving the camera down. (Yikes)

In addition, I’m currently working on leaning, but it’s not really stable yet and conflicts with the mouse yaw. I think it’ll be fixed by the next devlog. ??

Last, I got a comment on the last devlog suggesting a raycast + physics based solution for bullets and implemented that.

[RANT] Character Animation Woes

I have ALOT to say about Unity’s Humanoid animation system.
Like, why do I have to go through the Animator thing that has wayy too much parameters, that override each other and create a jumbled mess??
And WHY actually WHY??? does the character dip through the floor when it’s idle??? Who in the world decided that humanoids should ignore all boundaries and start dipping through the floor when there’s nothing playing??? Why is the default animation like that??? I literally have no idea. [^1]

[^1]: I eventually got it working somehow. Really frustrating process.
Edit: I just noticed that the video looks really bright. That’s because I’m recording in SDR while the game is in HDR. In reality, the game looks much darker.

Very minor update.

I changed the weapon script so it fires physical bullets instead of raycasting. Shooting moveable stuff like chairs now interact with the bullet upon collision, and also bump into other objects in the process which creates a domino effect. Very cool to see.

In addition, I added a flash light to the underbarrel of the gun so players can navigate dark environments (which I predict will be a lot of)

Apollo Accord Minor Update

Finally finished the (temporary) control center.

• Control center made!
• Performance & Color Improvements
• Also detailed some other parts of the ship

The main idea was to have a bright, high-tech command & control center, so I took reference from a lot of NASA and Sci-Fi media and made this. It’s supposed to encompass the people inside it.
     
In addition, the control center has chairs that are moveable. Since this is in space, I turned down the gravity quite a lot so now they float when you bump into them, and settle onto the ground after some time. Feels more like a physics simulator now.

Next Steps

I’m going to start working on the storytelling next. While development has definitely slowed over the past week, I hope to maintain this pace, and accumulate small improvements over time to make this into something I’m proud of.

Apollo Accord Minor Update: Main Menu Changes

Added Features

• Added Earth, Mars and Moon (Luna) to the main menu’s background. (With animated clouds and rotation!)
       
• Added a options menu that allows the player to change the planet in the background, or set it to random on start.
       

Comments

     
Just a minor update. More settings to tweak coming soon.
     

Planned Features

• DLSS/FSR upscaler support
       
• Ability to change enemy difficulty
       
• Ability to change volume
       
  Probably delaying these features for more important stuff, like storybuilding, etc.

Apollo Accord Update #5: Curing Loneliness

The Premise & Changes

     
Decided I was lonely so I added some background characters and a “colleague” character to spice things up a bit. While not fully AI, these guys can say stuff and makes the atmosphere a bit more grounded.
     

• Added dudes talking military lingo
       
• Changed up the environment lighting a bit more so it looks more like a emergency and not just a house on fire.
       
• Assisted the player a bit by shining spotlights onto path signs. The guys also act as blockades to assist player navigation.
       

Next up: More environment building

• Expand the right side of the base a bit more
       
• Clean up messy geometry
       
• I STILL HAVEN’T WORKED ON THE MAIN MENU
       
• Detail the control center.
       
• Script systems for campaign flow & to make it a true RPG, a inventory system
       

Quote of the Update

     
Animating these guys is DEFINITELY something I am NOT looking forward to.
     

Apollo Accord Minor Update: HDRP

Changes

• Finished the dialouge thingy
       
• Changed rendering pipeline from URP to HDRP (mostly for volumetric effects)
  It was a pretty daunting task, and as you can see from the time I spent just changing the rendering pipeline, was painstakingly buggy.
       

Major Issues Solved

• Exposure being weird, everything was either white or black.
       
• Materials not being ported from URP to HDRP - I had to create them from scratch.
       
• Artifacting when backing lighting.
       
• The Earth disappearing?!?!?!
       
• Emissions and lighting combined made things really complicated. To make it easier to maintain, I decided to only use material emissions for baked environment lights and actual lights for dynamic lights.
       

Quote of the Update

     
It’s really hard to debug visually
     

Apollo Accord Update 4

What’s New

• Lots of animations for jumping and shooting, all smoothly transitioning between movement animations.
       
• More work on the environment. Showcasing the power of baked lighting.
       
• Optimizations to improve performance. ~150k vertices in total, around 200 FPS on my Mac rn.
       

Next Steps

• Expanding and detailing environment (mostly blocking, textures later)
       
• Finishing up the main menu
       
• Working on game characters & HUD
       
• Animating the character model
       
• DLSS? Maybe?
       

Quote of the Update

     
Don’t want to get close to C#
     

Let There Be Light!

Long Version

     
Small update onto the development of Apollo Accord. Implemented baked lighting to optmize performance early on. Had trouble deciding which light type to use (directional, spot, point, area) but ultimately I decided on a option E - emissive materials.
Basically, emissive materials make the material itself a light. The downside is that it’s only baked, so non-static objects, like the gun and player, isn’t affected by it. So in short, it makes non-static objects unlit.
     
To resolve this, I had to use Adaptive Probe Volumes, which are basically version 2 of Light Probes. These take data from baked lights to approximately light moving objects. In combination with reflection probes, these make great visuals - or at least visuals better than my last devlog, w/o sacrificing performance.
     

TL;DR: Baked lighting beautiful computer go brrr

Apollo Accord Update 3

What’s New

• Major refinements to UI. Found a way to combine in-world text (weapon ammo, etc) and on-screen text.
       
• Animations for walking, running and idling
       
• Wrote scripts for core gameplay systems, like weapon switching and character communication (putting alot of emphasis on the RPG mechanics this time around)
       

Next Steps

• Incremental changes over time for the shooting system.
       
• Getting started on the environment.
       
• Adding a core story.
       
• Finishing the UI/Load+Save systems
       

Thoughts

     
I’m trying to get things right the first time, so I’m putting a lot more work into my initial “draft” for the game. I’ll work on hud legibility, procedural recoil, and more afterwards, once the core gameplay mechanics are pretty tidy.
     

Quote of the Update

     
I really don’t like C#

Apollo Accord: Assets & Envisioning Roadmap

Summary

     
Started moving forward into the start screen. Thinking of a soldier on the ground w/ a M4 to their left, and then being helped up to fight the offensive. During that, the player listens to the main character speaking about the past. Then, FF a few days and the player is promoted to commander, where then the main gameplay starts.
     

New Changes

• Added spacesuit model (player)
       
• Added M4A1 model
       
• Scripted & animated scene
       
• Performance improvements here and there (player settings, using Vulkan, etc.)
       
• Early HDR Support

Space is calling!

     
Started work on Apollo Accord, a game where you command Earth and discover new aliens. You can trade, fight or form alliances with aliens, and lead Earth to become a galactic empire.
     

What I did today

• Created the banner and logotype for promotion purposes.
       
• Finished a temporary main menu with a cool little animation.
       
• Made a rather detailed README.md
       

Welcome to Stardance!