Entry 9

 Fall Week 8 Worklog

10/16/2024 - Cloudskipper Greyboxing
With my player controller and such FINALLY in a working state, I began working on putting together some rough modular assets to greybox out the cloudskipper level. I want this level to feel surreal and liminal in nature, I'm pulling from a lot of surrealist and weirdcore/dreamcore artwork and photos when thinking of how this thing should be structured. While getting the basic modular pieces made and beginning to assemble the stage I realized another really good source I could try to pull from for this would be Mario 64, as many of the levels in that game have that sort of aura I'm going for with the Cloudskipper level(s... If I have the time). That'll be something I do later this week though.

For now I don't really have much to say aside from I spent today's work period (roughly 5ish hours give or take) learning and playing around with probuilder in Unity, creating some structures with those tools, and I began to try and code in some mechanics for the platforms (spinning, moving, stuff like that. I'd like to maybe add falling platforms to). Of course this was towards the tail end of my work period and I have some issues I'll need to fiddle with (namely the spinning platforms not rotating in the center like I want them to and the player not moving with the platform) but I'll figure it out. I'll finish the general layout next work session

Beginning to make some modular stage pieces/platforms

10/22/2024 - Even more greyboxing
...so that was a lie and by later this week I meant the end of this week apparently. I meant to work more on this but couldn't until tonight, but to make up for this I actually decided to go ahead and greybox more than I initially intended to as I realized A. the other two areas I had in mind wouldn't take very long to get a BASIC layout done for and B. Cloudskipper is turning out to be a bit more complex than I had anticipated. So turns out I actually have some trouble when it comes to determining the scale of objects in an open 3D platforming space, and wasn't entirely sure how I wanted to structure the level (and even now I'm a little unsure). What I do know is that Cloudskipper has some mechanics that are going to take a bit to fully work out, so it'll be in a weird state for a bit while I figure out the scripts for that. In the meantime though here's what it's currently looking like:

As you can see I did not finish building Cloudskipper out yet... this is because 1. I'm currently fixing the problem where Doc doesn't travel with the moving platforms, 2. I want to re-balance Doc's physics as they currently feel heavier than they should, and to add onto that 3. I need to get a better idea as to how I should structure these platforms. As I mentioned before, I'm having some trouble getting a good game-feel when it comes to the player moving around in a 3D space like this, so I think readjusting Doc's physics and maybe doing some more research (...playing games) on what feels good to play in 3D platformers is an order. So in the meantime, most of the work done on this stage will be the technical aspects as opposed to the art aspects (in other words, it's gonna take awhile for this stage to look pretty lol)

For the remainder of my worktime tonight I greyboxed out the Subway and Press N Hold. The subway was definitely the easiest thing to layout so far, only taking about 30 minutes (half of that time being spent figuring out more probuilder controls/tools, fun). It's the only area with a fixed camera angle plus its only really used for cutscenes... so that means I don't have to worry about modeling the entire thing! I extended it out a bit more than I needed to just for the sake of having that extra wiggle room, but generally speaking the camera is really only going to be seeing the first set of seats where the doclet is standing, and the doorway.

To wrap up I decided to get a head start on Press N Hold's greybox. My due date for this one isn't for like two weeks, but if I'm running into slowdowns on Cloudskipper I might as well. Plus I figured this area would be relatively simple, as its a mostly circular arena.

I added physics to the one ball for the sillies, they'll be a lot more bouncy in the final build

Given the slowdowns I'm having with Cloudskipper, I think I am going to readjust my schedule a bit to get moving on these other stages a bit more. I'll still be chipping away at Cloudskipper's code, but I also would like to get to getting these other stages cleaned up.