Serial Link Development Session

Posted on by Mike

I thought that I should really document my current set of challenges and how I tend to go about solving them on Serial Link as this is really where I have/am cutting my teeth as a game developer. So today, I am looking at getting the firing animations looking MUCH better as it could be said that using the guns in the game at the moment feels a little unrewarding. That’s bad news. The good news is that there was a time when I have the additive animations all working really well and the set up felt much better. The thing I changed (and it was the right thing to do) was to start using animation montages and the slotting system that they employ. From there, I just don’t think that I had to time to get the additives working as well as they need to. This feeds back into my goal on the course as I think that after some thought I want to be a solid generalist with an emphasis on logic and coding. I feel this way because I have discovered that yes, I do want to know a little bit of everything right now. Maybe I am just new to development and have not hit my stride yet but I don’t think its that. I want to be able to make games and I don’t want to have to rely on others for core pieces of that process. I mean, I like relying on others and I like working in a team (particularly with people that are smarter, more skilled and so on…) but I’m straying off topic.

So I thought that the first stop should be the Unreal Docs. This is the section that I am following.

I have started paying a little more attention to the Unreal Documentation as it really is unreal. See what I did…

Having followed the documentation, the first thing I noticed is that I am using an additive animation for the firing and while I do think that’s what I need I also want to follow the steps. The problem now is that I am getting a very exaggerated firing animation when the character is pitching up or down and a lukewarm version when looking straight ahead.

Ok-ish
Super trigger happy.
And again, very keen.

The other thing I am noticing is that the animation jumps in the direction of the neutral position. This is telling me that the animation is not adding to the current position of the bones and is trying to return to bones to the positions defined within the firing animation. This is where terms like mesh space and world space start to trickle into my head and I realise that I don’t really know what they mean (although I have an idea) Anyway, the documentation I have been following has concluded and not shown me what I needed. Onto…

I need to go back to some things and make sure that I really know how they work, this is one of them.

You can find this documentation here. Already, I feel more comfortable about what I am reading having had some experience now. It’s funny coming back to some of the things that I just followed tutorials for a year ago and just barely understanding what I was doing, to being able to read things like this and recognise lots of the content. Progress I think they call it.

Ah… (think evil guy finding the hero’s weakness…)

Could be just what I’m looking for.

I seem to have gotten to the end again without a solution. I’m going to choose the next content I read a little more carefully.

That’s more like it…

This one looks a lot more promising! You can find it here. Ha! No, not at all. I didn’t think it would be this time-consuming! Hang on just… one… second… I have a Udemy course from yesteryear that should remind me how to do this!

This was the first course that I learned from when I first decided that I wanted to be a game developer.
That’s more like it, that’s the one, insert generic ‘found it’ lingo here.

Ok, having watched this material again, I think that I am overlooking this. I took out the additive form of the shooting animation that I had put together a long time ago (following this course) and thought I should be using the ‘raw’ animation in the montage and then adding it in some ‘additive animation’ sort of way, in the animation graph. However, after much to-ing and fro-ing (take that Grammarly!) I have returned the montage to the original state of using an additive animation. That cleared up the imbalance between what the animation was doing depending on the aim angle but was still giving me a lacklustre shooting performance. And then (oh my) I noticed that the blend time was 0.1 in and out or that animation. But wait. That animation is only about .2 of a second. Could it be? YES! (rage, not Eureka) that upon changing it to 0, so that there is no blend, the firing animation has much more bite, while staying ‘additive’ as intended. What a painfully long-winded lesson to learn…

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Published by Mike

Hello, my name is Mike. I am an aspiring game developer enjoying a second chance at life. Sounds deep right? I know, but its true. I am from London and from 2007 I owned a clothing business selling Barbour, Hunter, Joules and so on. I didn't like it. I kind of fell into it and by the time I knew I didn't like it I was committed and needed to follow through. In 2009 I met Natalie, my Cornish maid and once our little girl came along in 2015, we decided that Cornwall would be a better life for her than London. In the meantime, the business had suffered tremendous difficulty having been burgled twice. Insurance? What can I say. I ended up suing (and winning) the broker for selling me an incomplete policy. It was hard. When I arrived in Cornwall having shut the business down and generally being in pretty poor health, stressed and disappointed, my Wife (whom I would need exist without) tried to talk me into having 3 months off! Ha, I said, I would go crazy. Well the question was 'what are you going to do then'? Turned out that I had a HND (most of a Degree) that qualified me for the course Games Design For Industry BA Top Up. I had always wanted to make video games for a living and so I applied, got on the course, worked like my life depended on it and came out with a 1st. If you're thinking 'why d'you have to say it like that and tell us the grade you loser'? Here's the thing, that HND was supposed to be a Degree in Computer Graphics and Games but, in my youthful wisdom, I played games more than studied them and failed. Then I went back to do the last year again and just couldn't hit my stride, so failed again. Imagine getting another chance to sort that mistake out... That was not going to happen again. Having completed that course I and a friend I met there, Ethan, have set up Sofa Ninja Studios and are working on a game that was born on the course called Serial Link. I am very proud of where we are and I cannot believe that I have the chance to do this for real. We have a playable demo and will hopefully run a kickstarter early this year. Its a mature (code for violence and swearing) shooter where the player gets to shoot and use powers gifted to him. Have a look at one of the latest videos although there has already been more development. I did warn you about the content... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv9R5ktCiA0&t=46sLinks to an external site. I took to the game design and logic (cant call it coding, its Unreal blueprinting right now...) very well and feel that this is where I am meant to be. I am learning C++ and would like to make the transition to 'proper coder' this year if I can. Being in business for myself taught me the value of self discipline and being intrinsically motivated and so I carry those lessons with me into my new career. With my beautiful family behind me, Im ready.

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