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ZOPU: Now with Ultra Instinct! Sorta...

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RealDeal View user's profile Send private message

Reply with quote Thursday, June 04, 2015

Waiting for next demo

Shenku RiO Incarnate View user's profile Send private message

Reply with quote Thursday, June 04, 2015

You'll be waiting for a while yet then, because ZOPU is nowhere near a playable demo state.

There's no mêlée mechanics, incomplete/barely functional Ki Blast mechanics, no menus, no Character Select screen, no fully functional AI(last I worked on it, all I could get them to do was follow the player, but not each other, and half the time they stopped following for no reason... And this was as of a few weeks ago), no online/multiplayer support, exc.

To put it simply, all there is right now is a single half-lazily put together level, and a player character who can fly around it and shoot Kamehameha blasts that do nothing at nothing...

That's about the jist of what ZOPU has at the moment... Do I want to add more? Yes. When will I add the rest? No clue, I have other projects (such as my newly released Novel) which are higher priorities for me.

Speaking of which, shameless plug and self-thread-derailment, if you like to read go check out my book on Amazon or Lulu.com if you haven't already(the links are posted in my other thread in the free forum section, posting from my phone right now and too lazy to repost them). The last fight in Book 2 was somewhat influenced by Dragonball Z's style of action actually, but don't tell anyone I told you that... Wink

RealDeal View user's profile Send private message

Reply with quote Friday, June 05, 2015

I was talking about the next gameplay video,it's been a year since the last one

Shenku RiO Incarnate View user's profile Send private message

Reply with quote Friday, July 31, 2015

Reworked the Character Blueprint a little today, and redid some of the rigging/exporting of the model to split the parts up. Goku's mesh can now be modularly switched around at run-time.

What does this mean? Well for starters watch the following video for a good idea of what it means...

https://youtu.be/7jM6Hou6rwg

Still need to hook up the appropriate animations, hook in the proper sounds for each tier, add in the different stats for each tier, exc. to make it all a finished system though, but the basic groundwork is done...

Eagle The Purpose View user's profile Send private message

Reply with quote Friday, July 31, 2015

Do you plan on making a world map or just maps representing precise locations as in ZEQ2-Lite ?

I'm super interested so far. Smile

Shenku RiO Incarnate View user's profile Send private message

Reply with quote Friday, July 31, 2015

Wh1t34Gl3(SAS) wrote : Do you plan on making a world map or just maps representing precise locations as in ZEQ2-Lite ?

I'm super interested so far. Smile



If I ever actually get to it (Probably won't while working on this by myself, would have to wait until after I bring others in on this, if I ever get that far...), I would like to have an actual open world map, yes.

The one thing about Dragonball Xenoverse that really bugged me was the cramped lack of exploration by forcing you into the Time Patroller hub (and the same goes for pretty much every other Dragon Ball Z game that excluded the ability to actually travel around the planet)... I would very much like to completely eliminate that, and just let you explore the world freely. Dragonball, and Dragonball Z by extension, were suppose to be adventure/fighting genre, but most games only focus on the fighting part, and forget about the adventure part. Granted, much of the adventure part is often touted as little more than gooey insides, but even still, by eliminating the adventure portion entirely, all you're left with for most games is a senseless Street Fighter with Flying knock-off...

But regardless, that's something for much further down the pipeline from where this is at currently (I'm still not even done setting up basic animation support yet for crying out loud), and probably won't even be worked on at all until I open the project up for others to work on it (Probably with only limited access at first, to avoid the pitfalls of "clans" or "players" showing up wondering why nothing works...)...

Shenku RiO Incarnate View user's profile Send private message

Reply with quote Friday, July 31, 2015

Small update, but added states for charging and transforming, so now the character will actually perform those animations (and root in place during, as they're suppose to) when either charging Ki or transforming to any given tier except "normal" state, which simply happens instantly.

Also added an additional particle system for the aura for Super Saiyan 2 style lightning (not tied to whether or not the aura is active), which will randomly spawn only while in Super Saiyan 2 or above. If I want, I can also make it spawn more frequently for higher levels as well, but for the moment I'm going to leave it at a chance of 5 out of 100 which seems to be a good range for now since it's checking every tick whether or not to spawn the particles...

Oh, and found a way to get the hair and facial morphs to animate, and fixed the materials so they don't look so dang shiny like plastic too...

Edit: Apparently I also broke the mock-up of Kamehameha I had setup for testing attacks... Not a big deal since it was temporary anyways, but I guess my next task is decided for me; the skill/technique system... And fixing the HUD to show current health and Powerlevel, of course, since they're directly related to the usage of skills...

Shenku RiO Incarnate View user's profile Send private message

Reply with quote Monday, August 03, 2015

Replaced the non-working health bar with a functional but rather un-interesting Scouter HUD element using widgets to track and display the character's current powerlevel (Probably going to replace it later...)...

At present, my idea is to only track and visually display the Powerlevel, and not the character's "health", since technically that was never really a trackable stat anyways, nor does it make sense to be able to know exactly what it is. Instead, it's something you more need to "feel" than just see.

So instead, the health stat will be hidden, but will be used to help determine the current maximum powerlevel a character is capable of maintaining. In other words, as your character takes more damage, their maximum potential starts dropping as well, meaning their maximum powerlevel becomes lower and lower according to the percentage of health they're at.

Example: 100% health = Max Powerlevel of 5000.
Health drops to 50% and in kind Max Powerlevel drops to 2500. Lowest powerlevel of course being 1, as 0 means you're dead...

Other visual indicators that can be used to judge a character's health will be the character's current visual damage to their model. If the character looks fine, they're probably fine. If they're bleeding out of every orifice, then they might need a Sensu Bean...

Or at least, all that is the plan...

In the end, I want to go with a minimalistic HUD similar to ZEQ2-Lite (Hence why I say I'm probably going to replace the current Scouter widget, but for right now I just need something that functions), and I want to simplify the controls as well so there's not a convolutedly absurd number of buttons for every function...

Namely, I'm considering outright eliminating Transformation buttons entirely, and tying them directly into the current powerlevel of the character. If you think about it, the transformations aren't just "instant", the characters had to power up to reach them. So, powering up your powerlevel to a certain point would automagically transform you to the next form. Likewise for each additional form. Can probably put in some kind of "barrier" range that you need to "push" past in order to achieve the transformation (contingent on whether the character has already unlocked the form, or whether or not they meet the "conditions" to unlock it.), in which as you're charging Ki you slowly gain less and less towards your powerlevel until it either "tops out" or "breaks through" to the next level...

At least to me, this seems like a more ideal setup than having to manually transform.

As for "Jumping" or "skipping" to specific transformations instantly, for instances such as when Vegeta attacked Cell (2.0) after he killed Trunks, I have some ideas for that already, involving utilizing Ki Boost (which normally does nothing when charging), and having it increase the charge rate by a specific amount.

Anyways, at this point I'm just going off on random semi-related tangents, so I'm going to leave it here...

Eagle The Purpose View user's profile Send private message

Reply with quote Monday, August 03, 2015

That's some good and logical concepts we have here ! Surprised
Can't wait to see how all of that will look/work once done.
*laughing out loud*, for once, I agree and go forward something at 100%. Laughing

I'm mostly curious about the transformations and the HUD. These will surely need a bit of thinking, to take some certain factors in mind, etc..

By the way, may I ask you some quick explanations on how (globally) is working your aura system ?

Shenku RiO Incarnate View user's profile Send private message

Reply with quote Tuesday, August 04, 2015

Wh1t34Gl3(SAS) wrote :
I'm mostly curious about the transformations and the HUD. These will surely need a bit of thinking, to take some certain factors in mind, etc..



Took a lot of thinking and rethinking, but I think I finally got it mostly figured out. The issue was setting the variable to get progressively smaller the closer you get towards the current powerlevel maximum.... It was a bit of a pain to get the math figured out mostly (Math is not my strong suit...)...

As it's setup now, it's taking the inverse percentage of the character's current powerlevel compared to their maximum powerlevel, and using that to multiply the charge rate (Current Max divided by 1000). So at 50% power, you're charging at 50% the speed, at 60% you charge at 40% normal speed, at 90% you charge at 10%, and so on...

Then, to make boosting not so lacking in identifiable function while charging, I made it so it then multiplies the above by 10(Only while boosting, and will possibly have a health cost included in future changes to limit possible abuse of boost-charging...), which at higher levels makes a transformation from base form to Super Saiyan 2 nearly instantaneous.

Unfortunately, I need to find a way to slow that down so that the charge rate is more proportional to where the character is currently at. They should be able to boost-charge into a form(I.e. Vegeta's insta-Super Saiyan 2 retaliation against Cell for killing Trunks), but not naturally shoot past it by just charging normally... Otherwise sparing with significantly weaker opponents would be guaranteed death for the poor saps when you'd hit them a little too hard and cause their bodies to explode Super Saiyan 2 Gohan style......

By the way, may I ask you some quick explanations on how (globally) is working your aura system ?



You mean as far as getting the "bubble" effect? I cheated a bit, it's not handled by any code/Blueprints at all... Put simply, I setup a cylinder offset on the particles(set to surface only) to get the round shape, set the emitter to be in local space, and added the particles to the character blueprint and parented them to the Camera Boom, then manually adjusted the scale from inside the character blueprint to fit properly... The camera itself automagically rotates the aura for me so I don't have to calculate anything out...

It's not as elaborate as ZEQ2-Lite's aura, but it does the trick for the moment since I haven't a clue how to setup the necessary convex hull calculations for a proper form/pose-fitting aura (Which ideally, I'd want, but know better than to think it can be done through Blueprints)...



Edit: Oh, and the below screenshot is something I'm tinkering with as an idea for an added effect when transforming to help hide the model "popping" between forms... Currently, it's just reusing the current Kamehameha Flash mesh which is a touch too "tall", so I intend to change it with something more fitting soonish... Most likely, I'd like to do a swirl effect, similar to the ZEQ2-Lite one that was never fully implemented(Possibly reusing those textures even)...

And ignore the blue numbers on the left, that's just some debug text from when I was reconfiguring the charge rates...

Edit 2: I kind of wish the transparency sorting worked a little better in Unreal; the more I look at that screenshot, the more obnoxiously discomforting that smoke overlapping the flash mesh becomes... I've been having nothing but problems with transparency handling in Unreal, and it's really starting to bug the trash out of me...

Eagle The Purpose View user's profile Send private message

Reply with quote Tuesday, August 04, 2015

Too bad my project doesn't advance as much as yours, I would be able to think of some ways to realize some of these concepts at the same time.

For the hiding model thing when transforming, there is multiple ways to achieve that. You can see most of them in the official games (big white flash, blurred zone etc...). Another one would be to play with the camera to simulate the same type of transitions as the anime. Both are possible also, but it has to follow the style of Dragon Ball Z a minimum, with less adds as possible.

As for the overlapping particles, isn't it possible to establish layers ?

Shenku RiO Incarnate View user's profile Send private message

Reply with quote Tuesday, August 04, 2015

New video showing the transformation changes, as well as the powerlevel charge-rate handling.

https://youtu.be/qNxbVNZ0xHU

Still needs some tweaking, but it's nearly there...

Shenku RiO Incarnate View user's profile Send private message

Reply with quote Tuesday, August 04, 2015

Wh1t34Gl3(SAS) wrote :
As for the overlapping particles, isn't it possible to establish layers ?



I don't believe particles can be put into any sort of layer, it's all got to do specifically with the way the engine handles sorting the order of transparent objects, which depending on the Anti Aliasing rendering mode can be rather inconsistent.

Unfortunately there's not very much I can do about that....

Shenku RiO Incarnate View user's profile Send private message

Reply with quote Wednesday, August 05, 2015

Another video update, this one's kind of cool in my opinion...

https://youtu.be/hyVBI2F7ba0

Extended the Transformation sequence for the first time transformation to Super Saiyan... You'll see why in the video... Not perfect, but meh...

Zeth The Admin View user's profile Send private message

Reply with quote Wednesday, August 05, 2015

Camera Shaking will add about a ten-fold emphasis to your sequences.

Shenku RiO Incarnate View user's profile Send private message

Reply with quote Wednesday, August 05, 2015

Zeth wrote : Camera Shaking will add about a ten-fold emphasis to your sequences.



Adding that and a Matinee sequence for the camera to shift around cinematically(close-ups, character reactions, long shots, exc.) are already on my list of things to add once I figure out how to add them.

A bunch of other stuff is on that list as well, because ideally I'd like to cinematically recreate that entire scene from Krillin Exploding, to the style of aura Goku had. It makes for a good test to start learning Cut Scenes/Matinee, since I need to start figuring it out for another project, and this scene is already shot for shot planned out if I reference the anime. It's a good excuse to start learning Matinee if nothing else...

Eagle The Purpose View user's profile Send private message

Reply with quote Wednesday, August 05, 2015

Remember my anim.cfg syntax concept ?

Full control on animations and major optimizations, can call existant effects (or external functions defining new and specific effects) , much more possibilities, and a syntax everyone is familiar with. Wink

I'm sure it will be useful for the future.

Shenku RiO Incarnate View user's profile Send private message

Reply with quote Friday, August 07, 2015

Minor update:

Fixed the AI to actually keep following the player (It was randomly stopping before due to some mistakes on my BP node layout), and corrected some issues with the AI always zipping past the player when flying due to a sideways drift resulting from slight changes in player's location.

Also added the SVN's Teen Gohan base-form mesh because Goku was getting "lonely"...

Now that I have a simple AI who actually does what he's suppose to(Follow the player, match player's movement mode), I can start putting together the mêlée and technique systems (and lock-on mechanics, since they're related), and actually have something I can test them on...

Shenku RiO Incarnate View user's profile Send private message

Reply with quote Friday, August 07, 2015

And apparently I can do this now... Razz

Shenku RiO Incarnate View user's profile Send private message

Reply with quote Friday, August 07, 2015

And added Gohan's Super Saiyan 2 head now...

Just need to normalize the textures or something, so his head doesn't so obviously have a different skin color than his body... Likewise with Goku's transformed heads... Also need to correct the rigging some so Gohan's not always looking "up" all the time...

emirh08 View user's profile Send private message

Reply with quote Saturday, August 08, 2015

camera shake and some post processing flashes would make it look that much better, but not bad so far Smile

Zeth The Admin View user's profile Send private message

Reply with quote Saturday, August 08, 2015

camera shake and some post processing flashes would make it look that much better, but not bad so far


Why would you want to post-process the flash? A simple render-order-adjusted camera quad can do the exact same effect with a lot less performance cost.

Shenku RiO Incarnate View user's profile Send private message

Reply with quote Saturday, August 08, 2015

Valid point, I agree with Brad. You definitely don't want to handle too much with post process effects, because they can add up quickly and can start lagging the gameplay down relatively fast if you're firing off too many different things at once, especially for slightly older machines.

Plus, my Laptop isn't the best to begin with, so when testing these things I need to keep performance in mind constantly just to keep things testable.

emirh08 View user's profile Send private message

Reply with quote Saturday, August 08, 2015

Zeth wrote :

camera shake and some post processing flashes would make it look that much better, but not bad so far


Why would you want to post-process the flash? A simple render-order-adjusted camera quad can do the exact same effect with a lot less performance cost.


Meh all the same I just know ue4 runs most effects/particle systems with a lot of post processing anyway attached to them, so unless you create a nice effect with no post processing on it and tweak it to how'd you like then add it to the scene that would probelly be the best way to go. But the camera shake is needed most definitely, and what you should do is put a little blur in the air to give it a nicer look, just a slight blur to make it look likes its giving of a little hear haze.

Shenku RiO Incarnate View user's profile Send private message

Reply with quote Saturday, August 08, 2015

emirh08 wrote :
Meh all the same I just know ue4 runs most effects/particle systems with a lot of post processing anyway attached to them, so unless you create a nice effect with no post processing on it and tweak it to how'd you like then add it to the scene that would probelly be the best way to go. But the camera shake is needed most definitely, and what you should do is put a little blur in the air to give it a nicer look, just a slight blur to make it look likes its giving of a little hear haze.



I was re-watching the transformation sequence A few days ago, and there was a very slight heat-like haze (almost imperceptible) as he grew closer to the final transformation point.

I can probably do the effect with little trouble, but I'm iffy on how much it would cost in performance...

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