I’ve been learning about making shaders lately.  Summary:  Making shaders is really fuckin’ interesting.

For starters, I added some extra niceness to the shader used on the main obstacles (the stuff you’ll be picking up).  Part of that is a slight reflective term for their shiny bits – for example, here’s a picture of a CRT monitor using the original shader:

And here’s a picture with the new shader, with a bit of extra flair in the screen:

Objects also get a smidgeon of rim lighting, which is, uh, kinda pretty.  Here’s a big screenshot (click for full size) of the way a current full level looks:

There’s also a wacky full-scene shader that gets applies while the player is using a special gadget called Teleport+.  Teleport+ can be ridiculously useful:  It pauses the game and lets you pick a new position, and then you can resume play whenever you’re ready.  Using it to escape a dire situation can be kind of cathartic, so I wanted to pick an effect that would complement that feeling.  Here’s what it looks like (again, click for full size):

The game’s getting to a point where I’ll be ready to start testing it online pretty soon…normally I like to get playable demos online as quickly as possible, but this game has a lot more to explain than any of my previous stuff, and I don’t want to put it up while it’s still a little difficult to decypher.

Also I need some help thinking of a title.  It’s most likely going to be the main character’s name, but I don’t have a name for him yet.  He’s a sneaky robot thing who rolls around stealing office furnishings so he can melt them down for materials.  Any suggestions?

I updated the level generation code yesterday and today, and now it can finally create buildings that aren’t rectangular.  This turned out to involve quite a few changes to quite a few aspects of the code, but the results are pretty cool.  Here are some top-view pictures with no obstacles for the sake of demonstration.  Click any of them for a slightly larger image.

Hello again!  Got another art update for the stealth game.  The biggest new feature is automatic tinting, so different buildings can have their own color schemes.  The three colored bars on the outer walls are the building’s main colors, and they also pick their own wood tones for a little bit of extra variety.  The carpeting matches one of the three main colors, and a lot of the objects end up getting tinted, too.  Seems to work pretty well so far!

As usual, click for full size images.

It’s only been a day, but I worked a bunch on the aesthetics for the stealth game starting immediately after I posted the previous screenshot, so here’s a new one.  I’m running the trial for Unity Pro now, so I could toss in some dynamic shadows, which mostly help to show that the objects are sitting directly on the carpet instead of floating slightly above it (this problem isn’t particularly noticeable in the previous image because of the tiled floor).  I’ll actually buy a license for the fancier version some time between now and when the game is finished.

More importantly, though, the existing art has been getting more tweaks and iteration, and it’s all generally looking more pleasant (and less harsh).  Still a buttload of placeholder bullshit floating around.  (Deal with it.)

Hopefully the game is starting to look relatively decent, but aside from the art, playtests have been going excruciatingly well lately.  The past six in a row have all been enormously positive.  Get stoked.