Devblog 4: IronEqual.com, Unity vs UE4 VR Editor
This week is about our new website, a Unity vs Unreal VR comparison, REPULSE and other little projects!
FENO (@feno42)
New Website
Hey, this week I made a brand new website for IronEqual. As the site uses a lot of videos, I made a little system to load different videos or images depending on the user’s network speed. I basically start a very inaccurate & short speed test at the loading of the page in order to have an idea to what type of content I will be able to load while keeping the loading time small. There are some secrets in there, go check it out! I still have to work on the SEO though. (the site is still in construction)
I Want To Be Astronaut
I made some progress on I Want To Be Astronaut. I tried to create different rooms with the atmosphere I crafted. I also tried to play around with colors to bring some variation to the game.
I might drop the game on the 28th.
NATHAN (@grange_nathan)
SUPER SECRET NASA PROJECT™
This week I mainly worked on a project that we will talk about soon
It’s not in VR (“Wow enol, wtf man, are you sick or something? What’s going on? VR, CAVE’s system and all that shit, it’s dope”).
Unity vs Unreal VR editor comparison
Yeah I know, I feel weird too. But you know what? The Unity VR Editor has been released in experimental state. You can learn more about it here and test it yourself!
I took a little time to try it out and I was thinking about comparing it to the UE4 VR Editor, who’s also been in public experimental state for 4 month now.
I had no experience with them, didn’t read tutorials, and just wanted to do a scene with a flat floor and two spheres (please imagine it’s a snowman)(please).
UE4 took around 4 minutes (and I messed around with other things):
Unity took around 6 minutes (but I had a hard time getting used to controls):
These short footages are not that easy to understand but you get the idea. Both engines have things in common and differences in the way their VR Editor works. Both are great as experimental features.
See you next week!
BENJAMIN (@Valgoun16)
Hey,
SUPER SECRET NASA PROJECT™
This week I worked a lot on our biggest project (SO SECRET). Even if I can’t tell you a lot, I can show you some of the stuff I made:
3D modeling
I’m still not an artist but you know sometimes you need to help your artist. These are not tremendous but I like them for what they are :
UE4 Custom Editor
This wasn’t fun and it was long. Extending the UE4 editor is clearly not something easy. I had to made a custom blueprint editor button to implement my wall generator. There is so much to say about this but it will be for another time. Here’s the result, a procedurally generated wall:
KERYANN (@KeryannM)
Due to some technical issues I couldn’t record any visual content. I’ll add it later on when theses issues are fixed. Sorry…
Hey! This week I worked on REPULSE (as always)!
I improved the fresh new modes, RAM, and TAG!
In RAM, deathrays are replaced with deadly cubes, spawning randomly at the start of the mode ; players now have to move around them carefully and push their rivals against them to win!
In TAG, I’ve had some troubles regarding the situations where several players had the same score or when all players had no score at all ; I had no draw game situation.
But from now on, when those situations appear, all the players concerned are eliminated at once. Like that, the mode is a more dynamic, shorter and interesting: players really have to mark points.
I’ve also added a new mode, called BURDEN, where each player has a cube attracted towards him, as in BOMB when the bomb’s timer is at 0, charging at a player.
When a cube touches a player, it eliminates him; on top of that, his speed continually increases, therefore players have to avoid all cubes while trying to get other players to get hit by them!
And last but not least, I’ve implemented the mechanic that when a player is eliminated, he reappears as a cube on the terrain! He can slowly move around with it, annoying other players and has the same capacities has the other cubes on the terrain. If cubes are deadly, eliminated players’ cube will be too! But if there are basic cubes, they can be hold and repulsed!
NIELS (@NielsTiercelin)
I kinda fucked up this week. I started 3 new projects instead of finishing the 20+ already started… But hey, they’re cool in a way so maybe it’s not that bad!
Name Generator
I first quickly made a name generator, to get to handle a bit more of random generation. It’s okay but not really advanced. (I can release the ugly dirty code if anyone’s interested)
My life is empty now.
Then I focused my work on a minimalist project about some guy with a poncho trying to find his purpose in life. It’s not good but was really funny to make. I just have to code one final scene and it will be released!
Ballet game, turned into space exploration
I also started experimenting on making a “ballet” kinda thing, using different forms, and trying to put them on a procedural choreography. I ended up adding random sizes to the objects, then made a space ship with procedural shapes, speed and pretty much started to randomize everything I could, from the specs of the spaceship to the way the forms rotate in the air, change their appearance, color etc.
I still have to figure out which interactions I want to add to the game to give it more depth, tweak the color palettes and I’ll hopefully be good to go!
I’ll also add the name generator I made earlier to name every spaceship depending on its randomized seed.
(Fun Fact: it’s the 2nd time I try doing this ballet project and end up with something else, the 1st time’s result is Glamour)
I really have to stop experimenting on new prototypes and focus on the ones I still have to finish…
See you next week !
