Intro

With new knowledge after prototyping the core gameplay, we set up a planning for the first sprint and created a task for each element we could think of that we will need in the game. We have also done a lot of research on the technical side, created a new unity URP project and added the first base functionality.

URP project

We set up the universal render pipeline project and added some early visual settings: Ambient occlusion, Anti-aliasing, shadow quality etc. Later in the next sprints we will also add different graphics qualities for the settings.

Substance in unity

We wanted to have a lot of control over our materials and in the end over the generation of our city, this meant we needed a procedural material that is highly customizable. Substance Designer seemed like an amazing tool to use for this task. So we added the plugin to our unity project. Unfortunately, it was a bit harder to get right than expected, the plugin has not been updated recently so we had to work around some of its issues. To fix these issues we made our own custom shader that now works with the procedural material.

Water 

The water will be a big mechanic in our game so it was important that we already have a rough visualization of what it could look like. We wanted to get a good stylized version, but not too cartoony. Some important first elements that we added to the water are:

- Depth detection

- Edge detection

- Scrolling normals

- Opacity with depth

Here is the result! The next steps will be adding caustics and maybe some vertex displacement.

Multiplayer

Next up was reimplementing the multiplayer code in a more organized and flexible way. This was done by adding a separate script to handle all the core player input and input system functionality. Because of these changes we were able to quickly implement a new improved lobby and menu interaction.

Characters

Our first character Vanilla has been sculpted! His legs were sculpted to look a bit more muscular, that constant biking never lets him skip leg day! 🦵

Environment

The environment has also been updated! A new design was made and transformed into a blockout! This blockout will be made into what will be the final arena for the game.