The weather today was exceedingly pleasant: a storm passed in an adjacent area but didn’t hit here, and so the air all throughout the day was clear and cool. Unfortunately I got absolutely no work done today; and not only that, I didn’t even try. These past few weeks I’ve just felt a constant state of exhaustion. No matter what I do I can’t shake it off. Sometimes it recedes enough that I’m able to maintain a good day or two but most days it just clouds everything.
Not too much work today, it was too humid and I slept horribly last night. I finally implemented a gradient solution for the shadows though that allows the shadow surface to be “faded out” depending on the amount of available light present. The shadows consequently will be very dim when it’s raining.
As a part of that I also created new independent weather states for overcast and foggy weather, which gives me finer control over switching between weather states. There’s still a weird bug where the rain audio will for no immediately obvious reason fade out about a minute in and then fade back in to full volume – but that’s been around since last year, so I’m probably just gonna have to figure out a better implementation some time later. For now the weather seems to work fine.
Took the day off, nothing to report.
I spent the day working on a few new rooms, and then built a “new” shadow system (really, just a recalculated version of the former one) that’s much more realistic in terms of the length and angle of the shadows relative to the actual position of the sun.
I’ve also disabled the occlusion layer for now – ever since moving all the shadows to one surface I’ve been having some problems with the occlusion layer drawing improperly over objects – and I’m thinking about just disabling it altogether.
Lastly, I cleaned up several of the trees to look more legible. It’s an ongoing concern that I’ve noticed – how harsh some of the environments are, especially in screenshots – and I’ll have to be particularly vigilant about it moving forward.
Didn’t get much work done today in way of the game itself, just a few very minor backend implementations that don’t really need to be elaborated upon. Work has been going much slower than I would have liked and I think it’s gonna be almost impossible at this point to finish the first zone by the end of the month like I’d wanted last week. Hopefully this weekend I’ll be able to get some more work done…
I did however spend some time revamping my Github site this afternoon, which feels a lot better now both to look at and to use. I significantly reduced the site load and resources, and cut away a lot of the unnecessary elements of it, including all the subpages. I finally feel it’s something to which I can refer others without shame now.
Much cooler today, and even better, much less humid. The pressure in my head has largely dissipated. Spent the day working on a few new rooms. In the process I also managed to implement an effect for the standard grass (which was previously static), which now waves about slightly in the wind. In the meantime I’ve also disabled shadows for buildings. I hope I’m able to get more rooms done tomorrow. I made decent progress today and was able to work all throughout the day.
Despite the godawful heat and humidity once again, I was able to work steadily this afternoon and got a decent amount of work done. I made a few new tree variants as well as several new rooms. I also got a decent amount of backend work done on various effects, including improvements to the item pickup UI, and reallocating the shadows to their own independent surface (not sure what this can be used for yet, but it’s now available in case anything comes up in the future).
Got a steady amount of work done today despite the awful heat. The biggest one involved the total reorganisation of the map, with which I’ve been struggling for the past several days: each side of the gorge is now inverted (both mirrored and flipped) relative to the other, which I believe will further exacerbate the effect of disorientation without directly impeding upon the player’s ability to navigate. The nexus I think will be the suspension bridge (which won’t be available from the start).
I also implemented a new item pickup UI for objects such as sticks and stones, which feature a “portrait” of sorts for the object as well as the option to either take or leave it. It looks a lot better now I think, although I think it could still use some improvements.
Overall I think I’ve definitely overcome a major hurdle that was preventing me from working well the past few days. I hope I’ll be able to return to a normal pace of operations tomorrow.
Another day with little meaningful work. I had a strange dream about people from my past – old friends, I guess – that filled with intense anxiety. The day was hot and humid, just like yesterday; I spent it in a state of listless fatigue. I tried my best to work on some new foreground elements (and actually got one done!) but it turned out looking kinda like shit, so I didn’t end up implementing it. I’m really gonna have to step up my rate of production: June is somehow already almost over…
Didn’t end up working today at all, it was too hot and humid when I awoke and I just had a headache all day. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.
Worked on a new area. Did the calculation today for how many cells I’d have to finish on average per day to be able to meet my goal of finishing the first region by next week: each day I’d have to make at least seven cells. That’s pretty insane… but I think that once I get past this initial hurdle of more complex topography, the rest should be much more straightforward. (I always say that, it seems like every time I do I’m working on something that’s very much not straightforward…)
Not too much visible work today, most of it was in spritework that I’ve yet to import into the main project file. I really need to start getting some actual visible work done; it’s quite a stretch goal but I’d like to be able to get all the cells in Zone 0 done by the end of next week. If I’m able to accomplish that I’ll be able to effectively set myself relatively back on track in terms of progress.
Added two new varieties of large trees: birch, and dead trees. Tomorrow I’m gonna work on some more small vegetation, including stuff like shrubbery and low-lying dead trees. In general I’ve been interested lately in experimenting with some visual effects.
I made some adjustments to the opening area as well, including removing the border around the precipice, and separating the barren tree into its own object, with a shadow and wind physics. It makes the scene feel considerably more natural in a subtle manner.
Missed my entry last night because I was kinda spent after writing for a few hours consecutively. In any case, between yesterday and today, I just finished up the Kickstarter update for this month, and continued working on story-related planning. I think I have a very good idea now how I want to handle certain parts of it which previously left me kinda confounded and stuck for weeks. Tomorrow I’m gonna get back to work proper on the environments.
Started working on new areas earlier but quickly got distracted by fixing some weird visual bugs, nearly all of which had to deal with volatile surfaces that I failed to properly clear up. I went through my code and – at least to the best of my current ability – cleaned them up. I haven’t been able to reproduce any of the issues I was facing earlier since, so hopefully I actually managed to fix them for good…
I also implemented a pretty straightforward dynamic letterboxing effect that gradually eases in/out the margins when moving from areas where the letterboxing shouldn’t be present (ie near precipices) to areas where it should (ie within the forest), and vice versa. It looks pretty good and does a good job I feel transitioning between the spaces somewhat naturally.
Gotta do the write-up for this month’s update tomorrow…
Didn’t end up working today. I woke up well into the afternoon around 1530 following a series of rather intense dreams that left me in a dazed state. It’s alright though, as long as I make up the work tomorrow.
The constant rain yesterday cleared up all the humidity and as a result it was actually very pleasant outside today. I spent the day working on a new environment and connecting it to the opening area. I’ve also completely mirrored and retouched the first overlook area which begins the game: it makes more sense spatially to have it in the original position rather than mirrored (as it was previously). Tomorrow I’m gonna try to figure out how to transition the areas more seamlessly into forest. The problem, as usual, is the complexity of the terrain and foliage distribution in reality versus the perspective and visual style I’ve chosen to work with… if there was ever a temptation to move to 3D, this would be the impetus.
Heavy rain all throughout the day, incredibly humid and unpleasant. Continued working on environments, and in the process I also finally got around to implementing diagonal collisions so that the player no longer gets stuck on diagonals and will instead slide along them depending on the direction being applied. It still looks rather rough, but it’s far better than getting stuck on every other stray pixel.
Ludicrously hot today, I spent most of the day with a wretched headache. In any case, not really much to say in terms of work: just worked on a new room today. I still have yet to add any collisions into the environment, but as far as appearances go, it doesn’t look too bad. The hardest part is making sure the environment feels continuous both with regards to the topography and map, and more importantly between adjacent cells. I’m still working through photographs and videos frame by frame trying to piece together some kind of cohesive vision but it’s proving much more difficult than I expected. Maybe I shouldn’t have chosen such an inherently frustrating terrain to work with from the start. Well, too late now…
Whatever work I got done today, I lost it all because GitHub – of all things – fucked up and overrode all my commits. Fucking hell.
EDIT: After about an hour of frustration and fucking around with all sorts of reflogs and reset –hards and shifting .gits around I think I’ve managed to recover the bulk of the work I lost. I’m too irritated right now to do a full rundown of what I did today but basically I just built the foundation for the grid-based map system and improved a bunch of smaller effects across the board. Not many front-facing changes.
The week didn’t start nearly as eventfully as I planned – I didn’t even turn on my work computer today – but I still managed to get some stuff done. I made a good amount of progress on the story this afternoon, and spent some time looking up footage of the region on YouTube. It’s not much – a lot of is aerial drone coverage which, while certainly impressive, isn’t nearly as useful as on-the-ground material – but it definitely does give me a better sense (however limited) of what the area looks like and more importantly the scale. I’m certain now that attempting anything even close to a 1:1 recreation is gonna be an exercise in futility and frustration, to say the least; I think instead I’m just gonna build a general sketch around a few obvious points of interest / geography and then improvise the rest from there. I’m gonna start working on environments first thing tomorrow: I’ve delayed long enough.
Spent about an hour this afternoon working on story stuff outside. The weather was exceptionally nice today: the horrid humidity that characterised the past week or so finally dissipated overnight and the temperature was comfortable, with sunshine and a strong persistent breeze all throughout the day.
I hope by the end of this coming week to completely finish all story-related planning. As of today I think I’ve finalised the zoning for the various areas of the map: tomorrow I’ll start on zone 0 and work my way outwards along the river. The hardest part I imagine is gonna be establishing a sense of scale and verticality, which is consistent across each area; it’s been difficult to gauge as there’s not too many extant photos/videos on the internet that I’ve been able to find which demonstrate a good sense of how the area’s laid out in reality. I suppose in the worst-case scenario I’ll just have to take creative liberties with it… but seeing as I’ve gone this far already to ensure a degree of verisimilitude, I feel like it’s a bit of a copout if I just start bullshitting at this point.
The other day I went through some scans of the area using both Google Maps and OpenStreetMap; I’ve been using the height map exported from the latter to Cities: Skylines to visualise scale and distribution thus far, but the quality of overhead data from either is predictably kinda lacklustre given the amount of tree coverage in the area, plus the failure of Street View (as there are obviously no roads). I’ve been trying to convince Haleigh to get up there at some point and take some pictures for me, but she understandably has school stuff. If it weren’t for the pandemic I would just go myself. At this point I’m strongly considering just opening up a general paid call on Twitter or something…
Completely forgot to make an entry these past two days. Well, it’s not like I accomplished anything whatsoever anyways – in truth, I didn’t even make the slightest effort to try. I started Darksiders 3 some time in the afternoon yesterday and just now completed it: just a few more collectibles until I clear the 100%. I had a good time with it, much better than I expected.
I think I’ve taken long enough of a break now to be able to get back to work again starting Monday. Although I still kinda feel like shit, at least my head’s clear enough (or as clear as it’s gonna get for now, anyways). I’ll write up a more comprehensive plan tomorrow, but I reckon I’ll probably just start right away on environments, and see what happens from there.
Managed to finally get in a bit of work. Spent about three hours this afternoon working on mapping: setting up grids,
regional boundaries,
figuring out how to distribute content evenly across cells, etc. I decided to do most of the work by hand this time. It was surprisingly calming although my hand now feels stiff since I haven’t written anything in so long.
Being on the computer for any extended duration of time just feels strange to me now, I can’t really describe how or why but it doesn’t feel so right. I haven’t been able to play any games either since last week so it’s not just work. I think that, whenever I’m able to finally get back to work proper, I’m just gonna stop working on the outpost for now and start building locations within the world. I’m just not in the right mindset to work on systems – and haven’t been in some time now, before this all started.
Another day without any meaningful work. I’m in a constant state of barely-subdued rage from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep. Even when I go to sleep my dreams are filled with vicious and grotesque visions of extraordinary violence. I think I really have to take a break now for my own good, not just from work but from looking into the outside world in general.
Well, for better or worse, June’s finally here, meaning this year is already basically half over. I woke up this morning around 1100 and spent the next two and a half hours just lying there in a state of growing despondency and rage. I thought I was gonna take the day off again but I did end up getting a little bit of work done after all: some writing and a bit more conceptual planning for what I think will end up to be an inventory weight management system. I don’t have much more to say about that now – mostly because I just don’t have that much energy to say much right now – but I’m gonna try my best to continue working every day, however much I’m able to get done.
It’s getting harder and harder to focus on my work; every minute, without exaggeration, I feel inflamed by a spike of anger and restlessness, the desire to get up and do something, to hit someone. I wasn’t even able to write a single full sentence all of today. It’s already June by the time I’m writing this, and the progress on the outpost is not anywhere close to where it should be by now… I think I’m finally beginning to feel a sense of urgency (and the concomitant anxiety) that I’ve fallen behind. I feel like I need to take a break: an actual break, not one in which I’m just sitting around waiting for the bad feelings to pass so that I can work again. I also feel like I’m running out of time though for some reason.
