A Look Back Over 2021

It's hard to believe that 2021 is already over and done with. Little did I know that when the global pandemic rolled-in in March 2020, it'd still be lingering about in December 2021.

A lot has changed for me over this past year.

Back in January, Vicarious Visions was moved under/merged with/taken over by Blizzard. Previously, they were under Activision, which itself was under the larger entity known as Activision Blizzard King. It all gets confusing. Not only did this transition mean that VV would no longer be able to work on Activision games (Tony Hawk, Crash Bandicoot, Call of Duty, etc), but it also meant that the entire studio (outside of a small handful of folks) would be entirely devoted to supporting Diablo.

From January to July, I was specifically working on the Tools team on Diablo IV. I won't get into the details here, but I'll just say that that position was less than ideal for me and the direction I wanted my career to take.

In July, I got married! The ceremony was on a beautiful day on top of a mountain in Vermont.

In July, I also left VV/Blizzard. I had been at VV for longer than any other place in my career, and it was hard to make the decision to leave. They allowed me to branch out, try new things, take risks, and grow my skills way more than anywhere else I ever worked. I will forever be thankful to them for that.

On my second-to-last day at VV, the news broke about the widespread gender discrimination at Blizzard, which I was saddened, but unfortunately not surprised, to hear about.

In August, I began working at Tripwire Interactive as their Lead Engine Programmer. My team helped finish up the raytracing update for Maneater that was released on the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 in November. We are now hard at work on an unannounced title.

Meanwhile, I've also been working on something big in my free-time. I'm not quite ready to fully unveil it to the world, but know that it combines my love of graphics and my background in tools. I've given myself a deadline of GDC to have something shareable, so look for more information in March 2022.

Hang in there everyone! Everything can, and will, get better.

A Positive Note

2020 has been a crazy/scary/disappointing/frustrating year for many different reasons.

Thankfully, I've had at least one big great thing happen this year.

I was officially a graphics engineer on a game that some folks called "one of the best games ever made": Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2.

It's crazy to think of where I started, back with those simple XNA projects. It just goes to show you that you never know where you might end up!

Here's to the rest of 2020 and the hope that there are many more happy moments! We need them.

Another Year

I started this devblog 11 years ago (wow!) to showcase the game development tech I had been working on in my free time.

Almost three years ago I (finally) got a job in an actual AAA game dev studio. In those three years I've been busy working on several games but I've also been very active on a private, internal devblog shared by the studio.

Unfortunately, that leaves little desire to write different devblogs in my freetime.  On a positive note, I'm scratching the devblog itch with something officially supported by my employer, which is great.

So the lack of posts here shouldn't been seen as me no longer working on any game dev projects.  In fact, quite the opposite is true.

I'm not going to commit to posting here more, because that frankly seems untenable. I hope to keep up the minimum of one per year, which I barely hit this year.

Onward to 2020!

NuGet For Unity Released!

In my free-time for the past several years, I've been working on building a NuGet client from scratch that runs entirely within the Unity Editor.

I have finally launched NuGet For Unity onto the Unity Asset Store.  It is completely free and open-source, so have at it!

Asset Store: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/utilities/nuget-for-unity-104640
Source Code: https://github.com/GlitchEnzo/NuGetForUnity

Making Blender Like Unity

I'm not an artist let alone a 3D modeler.  Whenever I open a 3D modelling app, I quickly become frustrated due to cumbersome user interfaces that are different than everything else I'm used to. Game editors and videos games don't have user interfaces even remotely similar to 3D modelling apps.

Several years ago, I was able to tweak Blender to behave somewhat like Unity. However I soon after lost that computer as well as the configuration. I kept meaning to configure it again, but I never remembered what I had done.

Today, I finally installed the latest Blender (2.78c) and decided to get it configured correctly again. Here is what I did.

1) Open the User Preferences 

In the Info window (the default menu bar on the top), select File → User Preferences

In the User Preferences window click the Input tab

2) Make the Left Mouse Button the selection button

Blender is very strange in that it defaults to use the right mouse button for selection.  Let's change that to the standard left mouse button. In the left column, set the left mouse button.

3) Ensure View Navigation is set to Walk

Blender allows for two navigation modes: Walk and Fly. Fly might sound like what we want, but it behaves more like a spaceship where the rotational speed is based on the position of the mouse onscreen and you use the mouse wheel to control "throttle". Walk is actually what we want, since it behaves like standard FPS controls.  This is the default setting in Blender, but we should ensure it is set.

You should also ensure that the Gravity checkbox is unchecked (the default) to prevent falling due to gravity.

4) Create a new input configuration called Unity

We don't want to muck with any of the existing input binding configurations, so let's create our own. Click the + button next to the Blender/Max/Maya settings.

Give it the name "Unity" (or whatever you want) and click OK.

Ensure that is now your selected input configuration.

5) Disable the setting of the 3D cursor

Normally the left mouse button sets a "3D cursor" in Blender. I'm sure it's useful to many people but I find it confusing and gets in the way. Since we switched left mouse to be selection, Blender switches the right mouse button to set the 3D cursor.  We don't want this, so we disable it in the input bindings.

3D View → 3D View (Global) → Set 3D Cursor

6) Create new input binding for Right Mouse Button to enter View Navigation mode

This took a bit of sleuthing, and is one of the most important parts. Blender lets you enter View Navigation mode by hitting Shift+F.  Searching through the input bindings I found the Python command Blender binds to that key combo.

We now want to replicate that functionality for the right mouse button. In the 3D View → 3D View (Global) section, add a new input binding by clicking the + Add New button

Now, change the input to be when the right mouse button is pressed. Enter the view3d.navigate Python command to the binding. Like so:

7) Disable the Right Mouse Button from cancelling View Navigation mode

By default the View Navigation mode is cancelled by any right mouse button action. We want Blender to leave View Navigation mode when we release the right mouse button, but we want it to retain our final position and orientation. In Blender the is Confirm action, versus the Cancel action, which resets to view to whatever it was before View Navigation mode was entered.

In the 3D View → View3D Walk Modal section, disable the right mouse cancelling binding.

8) Add new Right Mouse Button confirmation

Now to make Blender save the position when releasing the mouse butotn, we have to bind it to the Confirm action. In the 3D View → View3D Walk Modal section, add a new input binding by clicking the + Add New button

Then, set the right mouse release to be confirm, like so:

That's it!  You should now be able to use the right mouse button to fly around a Blender scene just like in the Unity editor!

Unity Issues

I've been using Unity for over 6 years.  While it has many aspects that I love, no engine is without issues.  Over the years, I've encountered many of these issues, some of which I've found workarounds for.  Several times now, someone will ask me, "Didn't you encounter this issue?  How did you solve it?"  And I'll usually answer, "Yeah, I've encountered that, but I don't remember the details".  What follows is my list of Unity issues.  I'll try to keep it up to date as best I can for issues I encounter, as well as provide any workarounds I come up with.

Issue #1: No adjacency information in geometry shaders
You cannot construct a mesh filled with adjacency information, which is incredibly useful for many things.
Workaround: None

Issue #2: Frustum culling cannot be disabled
Let's say you have an object that has it's vertices displaced in a shader.  If the object is outside the view frustum and the displacement places the vertices inside the frustum, Unity won't render it.

Another example: If you have created a mesh consisting of screenspace/viewspace vertices, Unity won't render that mesh unless the containing object is inside the view frustum.

It would be great to be able to disabled frustum culling on specific objects, or even disable it entirely, but there is no such ability.

Workaround: Change camera view angle.  Change object bounds. Change object position temporarily.

Issue #3: Generic ReflectionTypeLoadException error
This error is incredibly frustrating, especially when you are dealing with a lot of DLLs.  This error can occur for many reasons, and Unity never gives you any details inside the Editor.

- It could mean that you're missing a DLL.  Dig through the editor log file to try to figure out what.
- It could mean a DLL targets the wrong .NET version (> 3.5).  Which DLL?  Who knows.

Workaround: Scour through the editor log to find any info to help.  Good luck trying to support a giant team of developers.  You basically have to have them email you the log file.

Isometric Platformer

Now that video games have been around for several decades, we've seen many different genres as well as countless hybrids between multiple genres.

Normally, I would say that a good game could be made regardless of the genre, but I am now of the opinion that there is no such thing as a good isometric platformer, nor will there ever be I suppose.

Let me recount a tale for you.  I was searching the Interwebs for a top-down Metroid type game.  I saw some folks mention a game called Scurve: Hive.  It was a game that strangely launched on both the GBA and Nintendo DS.  The game sounded oddly familiar to me, so I opened my box of NDS games and found that I already had a copy that I had apparently found in a bargain bin for $10.

Scurge: Hive

I popped it into my Majora's Mask New 3DS (gotta flash my nerd-cred!) and gave it a go.  While I generally like the coloring, enemy design, weapons, and environment, there was one thing that really bothered me that made the game near-unplayable for me.

Nerd-Cred!

Platforming.  In an isometric game.

What does a platforming game consist of?  Jumping from platform to platform using precise timing and coordination.

Using precise timing and coordination!

What does the isometric view entail?  A camera projection that makes everything the same size regardless of distance or height.

Regardless of distance or height!

What happens when you mix precision jumping with a camera projection that prevents you from judging platform position?  You get a terrible game, that's what!

Flash forward a couple months to the current day and I recently got Rare Replay on my Xbox One. Included in the collection are several old isometric platformers from Rare.  While I will admit that the use of lighting and shadows in Snake Rattle 'n Roll made it not as frustratingly difficult, others, such as Knight Lore are abysmal.

Rare Replay

Snake Rattle 'n Roll

Knight Lore used a monochromatic artstyle that made the isometric plaforming incredibly difficult.  It took great effort for me to be able to figure out which platforms were where.

Knight Lore

While I can't seem to find any screenshots from Scurge: Hive of the specific spot that was annoying enough to make me want to throw my 3DS on the floor, here are a couple that kinda give you an idea:

In summary: Never make an isometric platformer!