Procedurally Animated Monsters in my Monster-Hunting RPG Roguelite | Vicious Legacy Devlog #2
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- Опубликовано: 17 май 2024
- Welcome to the third devlog for my procedurally generated monster-hunting game, Vicious Legacy! In this episode, we look at procedural animation, IK in Unity, and take a look at state machines!
Made in Unity HDRP.
Please share any questions or comments below.
Vicious Legacy
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Watch the first episode: • My Procedurally Genera...
OFFICIAL DISCORD! / discord
Website: www.viciouslegacygame.com.au
Instagram: / viciouslegacyaus
Email: viciouslegacygameinfo@gmail.com
Chapters
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00:00 Intro
01:30 Monsters
02:36 Procedural Animation
03:25 IK in Unity
05:28 Movement
06:46 Unity Navmesh
07:46 FSM Refactoring
09:04 Combined
10:39 Final Thoughts
My Other Stuff
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(art)
www.artstation.com/originsc/
(music)
drooble.com/shadowshow
Links
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I Heart Game Dev: @iHeartGameDev
Mixamo: www.mixamo.com/
Unity Walker: • Creating procedural wa...
Music
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/ @medievallofi
Bandcamp: medievallofi.bandcamp.com/alb...
#devlog #unity #indiegame #indiedev #rpg #roguelike 
Игры
Believe me, I understand the irony of posting a Unity video right now, but the show must go on 🤷♂ For everyone asking my thoughts, see 11:45 in video
I'd advise you to begin the switch as early as possible. Begin learning Godot or Unreal or GM or Construct (or Pico)... whatever engine you think will best suit you. Become familiar with the engine, so you can switch. I doubt Unity will change their questionable policies and model any time soon, and believe me being caught in the crash of an engine is painful. Take the out while you have the time. Any Flash devs will tell yo how horrible having the rug pulled under you can be.
@@paulkanja200k installations and 200k annual revenue ... yeah definitely a vaid reason for him to switch engines now. Holy cow, calm down everyone.
@@paulkanja Considering his day-job is literally working with Unity, I can 100% understand his reasoning. Also, and of course this is something that I'm making up, and not something that came from him - the changes might just never affect him, of course it is REALLY BAD to be defeatist or worse, getting afraid of being successful, but the reality of the matter is that the changes won't affect the majority of Unity users. Also, if things go from bad to worse, I'm sure there are lots of talented devs and communicators working on tutorials and tools to make switching from unity easier - and so he might as well wait.
Now, I fully agree and support that people SHOULD change engines even if there is absolutely no chance of the changes in policy affecting them (so if you make very small, unpolished games that you share with your friends and never publishes[which is as far as I personally went in regards to gamedev]) because of the ethics and politics of such a choice - but that kind of statement is not for everyone, and so in the same way as I don't push people to use Linux like I do, buy products that are always more expansive for the same functionality just for ease of repair or respect for my freedoms or actual environmentalism (so not green-washing)... I know that there will always be people using Windows and MacOS, I know these changes are not for everyone, and I know some people can't afford to let go of some things or in various ways can't afford to.
So, here's to hoping that in the future the switch is easier, here's to hoping that Unity backs from their position, here's to hoping that the game gets made and that it is as successful as possible without incurring whatever issues Unity monetisation or Unreal or w/e can present to make a dev lose money by being too successful.
@@paulkanja I agree with this sentiment. That last thing you want is for Unity to change that pesky TOS again and screw you over...
I've had this same idea a few years ago with the addition of procedural animations (and the creatures themselves) being generated through artificial evolution. Even writing a genetic code and implementing speciation. I'm not a game dev and I'm only one person though, so I never picked that up.
The slice through the blocks in the video instantly made me think of MGRR's free form cutting. It would be soo cool to get some clean slices through the random monsters and have the polygons get sliced in a similar way
Funny time to release a unity devlog 😅
😅
why though?
@@ksalarang I assume because of unity being on fire over the last few weeks
@@ViciousLegacyGameAUS where can I learn more about it?
@@ksalarang If you google Unity it's pretty much the first thing that comes up but there's a link to a random article www.theregister.com/2023/09/22/unity_apologizes_announces_revised_runtime/
yes! I love piles of vague constraints and maths!
I did IK once, in scratch. it took me 5 hours, but now I have a stick figure with legs. totally worth it. also, look at rain world. first of all, it's a great game with what I think is easily the best procedural animation ever made. Also, when you said the "world will go on whether you're there or not", I remembered Rain World, because I think the developer of that game said something almost identical to that.
also I'm the 69th view
Ohh yes, Rain World is a perfect example for procedural animation, and when the world continues on, with or without you
I was also going to point to Rainworld. I'm glad it was already brought to his attention. It's a really interesting intersection of animation and AI.
Oh hey! Thank you for the shoutout! Subbed and looking forward to seeing more of your game!
Cheers! 🍻
-Nicky
Hey! Thank you so much! :) Love your videos
It might just be me but i feel like the water would look better by keeping with artsyle of everything else rather then trying to be realistic. Maybe something like Windwakers water would look cool. Just if you want though.
Just a matter of adding a different shader to the water. It's currently good enough to get the idea across
Disagree, really like the contrast, plus it’s some of the best water I’ve seen in an indie game
i dont know how it is called, but i think the particles from water interacting with the land are missing
I agree
@@urcitenetom5017 Yeah, generally people add a bit of foam or splash along the collision areas.
Some advice, it would be cool to see monsters having dismemberment and stuff, so like if you chop of a leg it ragdolls and wildly kicks its legs, also adding weak spots would be great (e.g. a head, lung or heart). Also it would be so awesome if you gave some creatures heard movement using a 'BOID' algorithm and also behavior patterns like eating stuff, and/or drinking or bolting away from each other in a playful way. Also I think you should try adding stealth, so for example if a creature begins to drink its cone of perception would be greatly decreased, eating would slightly decrease it, and while in a herd it could increase. you could make it so the perception and degree that an enemy may predict your movements and search for you is dictated by an intelligence value that would vary in-between different species or even individual enemies. Add these stats and unique elements between enemies like diet, hunting patterns, aggression, sociability and intelligence would make the game so much more unique and immersive, while encouraging the play to connect and observe the environment carefully.
This looks great! It's heading in such a good direction, honestly, I can't wait to see where this goes
Thank you very much! :)
I love that the monsters feet don't rotate. Very funny to see
I would definitely love to hear more about inverse kinematics and/or fsm
Looks great! I'm just starting out in game development (luckily I chose Unreal haha) and videos like these are really inspiring to me.
That's great, I'm glad you can still take something away from it :)
This is giving me vibes of how the enemies work in rain world and i love that cant wait to see
Nice video mate! I like how it's just a bit of a ramble for 12 minutes. Good luck with your game
Hey thanks! Love your content!
Great work, dude!
I think you ought to put the forward step goal of the feet considerable further forward; as it is, the monster looks like it's falling forward and catching itself, not *ACTUALLY* stepping forward and pulling itself. The reactive nature of IK is an unfortunate pitfall that can reduce the "proactive" look of movement, but you can kinda cheese it by having it *REALLY* thrust its foot forward to compensate. :)
Thanks! Yeah that's definitely an adjustment I'll be making :)
@@ViciousLegacyGameAUS Of course, honestly, I've gotta suggest that that you pause development for the moment in the face of all this Unity BS going on. Ya may need to be switching engines, and the less to port, the better...
12:13 wow this was my favourite moment of video, looking really good man
That practice segment of the spider creature chasing after the player and following looking at it was very eye-catching, good job! Moved a lot like a real spider, and looked very natural. :)
Glad to see you're back. I was worried by the prolonged absence.
Dang this is so sick! I'm excited to see where this goes. I can see this really being immersive.
0:42 ty for the lotr reference
Just find your channel and your stuff is inspiring, thank you for putting yourself out there and sharing! Proud of you.
Thanks! Appreciate it :)
Most impressive, and always learning something new myself.
Thanks! :)
Hell yeah. Hope leg length will factor into step height for what they can traverse
It would be incredible for monsters to have specific weaknesses, abilities, and behavior patterns. Like in the game you could happen upon monsters that won't move if you're looking at them or ones that require different weapons to fight effectively, ones that can burrow in the ground or climb and hide in trees. Making it mod-able would add a huge community aspect to the game and increase its lifespan as well.
That's the plan. Not sure about modding though but we'll see
I'll actually be talking a bit about the first part of your comment in the next video
@@ViciousLegacyGameAUS I'm looking forward to it! Good luck with the codding... I know it can be a lot of head bashing and scratching.
@@lordbranch thanks yeah it's been a bit tricky but I'm making progress :)
Looking good! I always enjoy these updates as its a cool game concept and I hope to see it completed one day; whether that is on Unity or something else. I am glad you mentioned the Unity garbage. I just want to encourage you to continue work in hopes that Unity stops its madness, so that you and other game devs can continue to use it without fear of stupid fees. Best of luck, keep up the good work!
I really like the concept. Very original. Best of luck moving forward, and I can't wait to see more!
i absolutly love the game's concept, and also the videos aren't too long, 10-12 mins is perfect
Thanks very much :)
@@ViciousLegacyGameAUS i don't really know if rain-world inspired you for it, but i am making a 2D game a bit like rain world and when i saw your video and your idea for the game i knew i was gonna love it🤩 (also i am very happy with the new unity annoucement :) )
@@emberdragons8244 I hadn't actually heard of it before making this game but I've looked into it since and for sure it's a great reference for the ecosystem
Ambitious! Wonderful!
This looks incredbile! Good job :)
Great to see you back!
This project looks and sounds super cool so far!! It's definitely the sort of thing that I would fantasize about doing in my head, but never actually think of bringing to life. It seems incredibly, brain-blastingly complicated so kudos to you for even finding it within yourself to give it the college try. Will definitely be keeping up with these logs going forward. Excited to see where this heads
The idea of you being subject to the world around you and monsters existing beyond the player reminds me of rainworld
Wow this game sounds so cool!
Very cool! Those movements reminds me of Miyazaki's Spirited Away monsters. I think it's because the target location for the legs moves "late" compared to the body's movement; or at least it depends on it. The result is a "dragged" walk. Which however is very impactful for some types of monster!
I absolutely adore this implementation and your break down.
It is wonderful to follow your progress! Thank you for another update :)
Keep it up!! It's looking awesome, can't wait to see how you progress further :)
Game looks pretty cool.
the animation looks great!!
its looking amazing and this journey is going to be epic, definitely be interested in watching some explanation/break down kind of things or topics or theories of game design or something like that :)
I love seeing procedural animation it always looks so cool when done right!
Oh boy, just the words "Finite State Machine" triggered some university-related PTSD I didn't know I had.
I love this take on the genre (if I can even say that being it is so unique). I think the procedural generation already brongs the world to life in a way that many developers dream of. Cant wait to see what the future holds for your project!
I really like the headtracking effect
Some short videos of concepts, even almost tutorial-like, would be great.
Awesome
Love it!
Looks good
Very cool 👍
nice job!👏😄
a game like this with the ecosystem at the level of rainworld would be insanity
🤞
man these videos are soo good!
❤️
I've noticed that many people say the water looks weird. But I think it's good, altough not side by side with the style of the terrain, either he reworks/enhances his models and textures for the latter, or he changes the water shader. Both are time consuming but in my opinion, considering the direction he wants to take, the first option is better, i actually like the water and could fit better with the core idea if applied to everything.
But anyway great work with the animations, it gives a weird nice vibe 🎉
Quick tip, I saw your animator states, I've already been there bu I've now a scalable solution wich could interest you
Basically making a state machine of possible action of your player is the best things in the world
Make a class called "CharacterAction" wich is always linked to an animation
This class have base functions like "StartAction" (who also play the right animation), have interruption parameters etc
Then in your Character class, make a field "currentAction" and Start / Stop functions etc
You will see that adding new functionnalities in a specific script representing the action, then adding actions to character is a life saver because every logic responsible for doing one thing is in one location ;)
And then I suggest you to not use animator transition but instead script based transition, it will keep your animator states clean and scalable as well as having more flexibility to design transitions trough code ;)
Ah yeah, very interesting. I'll need to clean up the animator states for sure once I'm done prototyping, but I'll definitely look into this
Can’t wait to see how the monsters will look in the future. They already look cool even though they’re just white cubes.
Great vid as always, already exited for the next one.
makes me think so much about rain world
good job!
heart for the algorithm: ♥
amazing devlog, keep it up
Thanks!
Damn I am still struggling with making a ant like creature move and you are here making new species, impressive! I hope to learn a lot from your video's!
looks very slay bestie
Great Video. I recommend looking into Were Beast Where Born as it has many similar concepts as your game and might help you in creating the enemy's.
Finite state machine is probably the better solution, but a switch/case could also flatten out your enum checks.
My solution to IK's chaotic maths problem is to define extreme possibilities with various animation clips of body parts, then read the bones' position over the timeline of those clips and then apply them to the actual character's bones in the LateUpdate() phase (I'm pointing out "phase" as I'm not doing it in the actual LateUpdate function, but in a Coroutine that act variously through the various updates phases. Such as the AI-beharior being managed during the normal Update phase, but the bones being managed during the LateUpdate phase).
The hard part of this method is that there's no inherent way in Unity to get the bones transforms' values via an animation clip or, at least, on a build/standalone. (As soon as the build is done, all animation clip are converted into something else.)
So what I did is create a mini-game with an UI button that allowed me to record and save the bones positions and rotations per frame for various body parts as the mini-game would automatically plays various animations with various creatures. Things like landing soft or landing hard, short or extended paw strikes, close or large bites, etc. As I save those data onto a data file, this mean that I can add more animations by updating only that specific file in my game so, for example, I could add a new set of animation for a new breed of wings for some flying creature.
Then, I simply load those animation values into the game's RAM and read & apply whatever animation I want to use on a per-body-part basic.
For example, if a monster has back legs like a horse and from paws like a lion, I can use the animation of the walking horse back legs for the back legs bones and use the lion's from paws animations for the from legs. I can mix thing up as I need based on the "nature" of the monster's body parts.
That's definitely a good idea to make refactoring when it starts bothering than making video in half a hear "creating my game from the scratch :')"
This is getting insane. Here's hoping you don't get burnt out or anything causes this game to not get finished. Really looking forward to it!!
Not sure if you had covered it or not (bad memory). Do you need to make these skeletal frames for the procedural generation to then build from? Or does the software handle all of the work?
It's unbelievable to me as someone who doesn't know anything about coding and such. My mind is thinking of it like Spore almost, you make a bunch of frames/skeletons then the software picks and chooses legs, torso, arms etc. until it has a full monster with special rules depending on the limbs it choose. Be awesome if there is a "ecosystem"/evolution line that you can see as you travel. Monsters with increasing similar traits you find in a circle, you progress inwards until you find the apex predator that started the line without their offspring's situational adaptions. Maybe as mini bosses with islands of great important if you go that route like Raft. If you go that route.
Absolutely confident this is gonna be an amazing game no matter what direction you take it!!! Keep it up!!
In one fkin line you just made me understand what IK is!!!!!!
Or im just dumb lol
Nah I think it's one of those things where once the penny drops, it seems so simple, but up until that point it's like.. huh?
nice
The legs seem to lag behind the monster a bit. Perhaps shifting the target positions forward some would fix this.
Yeah it's all very early, like I mention there's a lot of tweaking needed
Ah, refactoring. Right behind bugtesting for favorite part of game deving. It's always nice looking at your old code and half-cringing at the load ahead, but being proud of how far you've come in the meanwhile.
I'm really happy to hear the Vicious Legacy is continuing though, in light of... absolutely mind-boggling decisions that I can only imagine were discussed as "$$$ ?" "$$$ !!!". Especially since the aspirations you mentioned in this video are something I, personally, would *love* to see come to life. I'm weak for games that live beyond the player, what can I say? And your use of 'ecosystem' in reference to that has me all kinds of jazzed up. I can't wait to watch this evolve and grow.
Oh my, what a timing for a dev log 😂. On the other hand, why not? If not now, there could be a chance that later will be not relevant any more.
I'm on a little bit earlier stage making personal game then you are, but still I believe I know how you feel...
Yeah, it's tricky. I'm still a few years away from being ready though so who knows how it'll look by then
@ViciousLegacyGameAUS I know one thing, it will look gorgeous no matter the engine. Because people like you have passion about what they are doing and this passion is exactly the force which helps to make thing's done!
What if you added a variety of personalities to the monsters both to make the islands more alive and also to provide diversity or other types of difficulties? (Examples: Territorial monsters that make gestures to intimidate the player and only attack when the player ignores to their warnings or attack them. Monsters that outright ignore the player until the player attacks them or monsters that, either in response to damage or the player's presence, simply run away).
The game you want to achieve hype me a lot as Monster Hunter fan.
But with all the procedural animation and dynamic stuff I also hope that your game will not be too CPU heavy.
feels weird watching unity content with all thats going on.
What's going on?
@@MoleATron1unity is posting a bunch of fees for games - even ones that are already on the market. Like they are making devs pay $0.25 for EVERY DOWNLOAD. And it’s coming out of the blue with no regard.
@@MoleATron1 they are being dickheads to their Devs by implementing fees with stupid business models.
They just won't accept a revenue share like unreal or any normal engine would do.
This is awesome stuff, procedural animation is so cool! Quick question, how did you get your channel off the ground? Did you blast out announcements into discord servers?
Hey thanks for that. At the start I didn't do anything really at all, I just released the first video and it took off, then from there I made the discord and everything else after :)
Wow fast response! Cool stuff, I can’t wait to see where you take the project!
@@vectorprodstudio cheers thanks for the support :)
I love your videos, man. There's not much else to say at this stage other than that. The game is early in its making. I suppose it's like a first draft. I'm a writer. I haven't done much with developing games past concepts or dreaming mechanics. Messed around with tabletop games since they require construction paper and glue instead of coding. Hit me up, if you want to talk worldbuilding, lore, or mechanics.
Thanks so much :)
Is there a way to make models with free software and send them to you (I'm thinking of something like Spore Editor). I know it's still a bit early for creatures, weapons, armor, etc, but I'm just asking in advance. I normally only provide drawings, but that has always interested me
you can make a system in which the character will get some raw material in ocean just like raft game but in some unqiue way
The problem with animating movement with inverse kinematics is that it always ends up looking like the body is flying forward and dragging the legs behind it. Probably happens because in normal animation charcters that are running put their legs forward ahead of them, where they plan to go. But in procedural animation done through inverse kinematics the legs don't "know" where the creature is actually going and can only react to the movement of the body, which leads to them dragging behind it. But I saw a pretty solid gallop done through procedural animation, so it's not impossible to fix.
If you're using navmeshes to control the agents, how do you intend to bake them at runtime when the islands get generated?
Good question! There are different methods that can be incorporated for changing / creating navmesh information at run time for things like this. It won't be a one size fits solution, but this video is a good start if you're interested :) ruclips.net/video/2f2azhep87I/видео.htmlsi=gCPLVdBXufpA51gH
I am loving this series! Good luck with unity
Thanks! ❤️
will there be some potions or equipment system? i think it could be really intresting
Yeah definitely, I really want the "preparation" for a fight to be a key component to victory. So preparing potions, traps etc
5:51 @cog ❤
Someone got it :')
I suggest switching engines. From the videos so far it doesn't seem like it would take much to port your work.
You need to change the colour palette, the models are not bad, but the overall scene doesn't look great because the colours do not go together.
I'd recommend you find a reference and try to copy the colours.
I myself suck at picking colours, so that's what I tend to do.
Will you add flying monsters? I feel that it would add so much variety (but it would also be very difficult, probably)
100% will
Can you tell me where the clip at 2:48 came from? That is extremely impressive.
www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/cqbcyu/i_made_a_snake_a_bird_and_a_hydrathing_using_only/?
u/Mystic_Mak made these awesome proc gen sequences. I don't know any of their actual links
How did you control the character?
I need tutorial for this view :D
I talk about it a little bit in Devlog #1 but it's basically just a simple isometric character controller, with some camera shifting for the targeting
Why do all IK walkers look like they’re weightless? It’s like the legs are being dragged by the body, not the body propelled by the legs.
For one reason, the body isn't moving much, if at all. A walking organism has a lot of body sway and such. Second, in this case, his legs just are set too far back in their movements. He needs to have them set forward more.
Just a quick heads up... Two segment ik is stupidly simple to roll yourself, once you break it down into a few small mathematical problems. If you know how to use vector functions and trig functions in unity, you're there.
Also, if you script the ik yourself, you can have it update in the editor so you get realtime feedback!
rember it is not about making a game, it is about makeing a peice of art. if you can't make a long video thats fine, if you have to leave the project for months due to burnout that is fine, just remeber to make the game into somthing you are proud of. no matter how short the videos become or how many weeks you take off for any reason, it will in the end make your game better than if you give yourself impossable deadlines to complete. pls take care, and I wish you luck on this project.
Where did you find the clip at 2:50?
www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/cqbcyu/i_made_a_snake_a_bird_and_a_hydrathing_using_only/?
u/Mystic_Mak made these awesome proc gen sequences. I don't know any of their actual links
"Like I said at the start, I have not made as much progreses as I would have liked"
Do not undervalue the experience you picked up on the way.
Also nice game idea, I wish you the best of luck to get through with it.
I also wish you all the strength to cope with the gamer-community, it can be such a terrible crowd. And don't listen to the "I have the best idea since sliced bread, you need to put XY into your game"-backseat gamedevs ... at least not for now ... they usually have no clue whatsoever ;)
Thanks! Appreciate the support:)
Bamzooki?
Correction: Refactoring is taking code that is shit and trying to make it less shit. (When you come back and look at it later it will always be shit.) 😄
Aha true
The “Raw and Wriggly” devlog.
Uhhhhh
*gollum intensifies*
If you don't think you have the time to change engines now, you REALLY won't have the time to change engines later.
True but I'm sticking with Unity now anyway
This is coming along swimmingly....Pity about the Unity thing.....Hopefully, you can switch to Godot or Unreal without losing any of the steam you built here....Idea is sick
do you think characters should poop and the poop makes more things grow and that's the circle of life?
Well this certainly took a strange turn
The problem with navmesh is that you can't use it for procedural generated maps...
There are definitely ways you can create / edit navmesh data at runtime, which is likely the route I'd be going in
@@ViciousLegacyGameAUS If you find out can you shortly explain the method in the next video? 🙏
@@echilateral4497 certainly!
The new unity fees are dumb and should be changed/reverted, but I increasingly get the feeling that bunch of people who have never actually made a credible attempted at making a game are riding it as the new "current thing". Almost nobody who's in the middle of a project, and who has a realistic outlook on the financial side of indie gamedev, is going to erase months / years of work.