Issue #177 — Art, AI and More

This article was originally published on GameDevDigest.com

Some great stuff on how to improve your workflow, improve your AI, your art, and much more. Enjoy!

How to build Hot Reload For Unity — I’ll share a way with you to hot-reload those changes without both full-domain-reload and playmode reset so you can see results in ~500ms and iterate on your code insanely fast. [Also, part 2 How to build unity hot reload on device] immersivevrtools.com

Wind Waker Style Stencil Buffer Lights (URP & BIRP) — Last week someone on the discord asked about the (original) Wind Waker style lights (in URP), so I recreated them. Minions Art

Improving and expanding use cases: Physics changes in Unity 2022.2 — Any successful tool needs to keep evolving and adapting to its new usages. With this in mind, the 2022.2 Tech Stream delivers changes to existing physics functionality in the Unity Editor, each of which is aimed at improving fitness for existing use cases while opening new ways of using the same approach. Unity

The Rise of AI Art — Over the past ten years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) have steadily crept into the Art Industry. From Deepfakes to DALL·E, the impact of these new technologies can be longer be ignored, and many communities are now on the edge of a reckoning. On one side, the potential for modern AIs to generate and edit both images and videos is opening new job opportunities for millions; but on the other is also threatening a sudden and disruptive change across many industries. alanzucconi.com

Refactoring Bloated Code in C# — In this article, we will learn what anti-patterns belong to the group of code smells called bloaters and different techniques for refactoring bloated code in C#. code-maze.com

Videos

How to Steal Like a Game Designer — When it comes to mechanics, a great source of inspiration is other video games. But how do you make sure those features will gel will the game you’re actually making? Game Maker’s Toolkit

Better Enemy Chasing with Intercept Courses | AI Series 44 | Unity Tutorial — Learn how you can have NavMeshAgents calculate an intercept course to better chase the player. We’ll use the historical velocity of the player, project it forward, and calculate a path to that location. Make sure to also check the agent isn’t just running in front of the player by adding a Dot Product check! LlamAcademy

Creating an Enemy Wander AI (Unity Tutorial | 2D Top Down Shooter) — In this Unity tutorial we’re going to look at how to make enemies randomly wander around. Ketra Games

This Unity Cutscene Has SO MANY Layers — Ron De Feijter breaks down their team’s extensive use of the timeline feature. Upon exploring the inner workings of the game it became clear that Unity’s timeline was the foundational backbone upon which the rest of cinematic game was built. Unity

How to Implement Adjustable Font Sizes in Text Mesh Pro with Text Styles — In this tutorial, you will learn how to offer adjustable font sizes to your players by using Text Mesh Pro. We will use Text Styles, and the Overflow: Page setting. Christina Creates Games

How to call C# code from an Ink Dialogue File in Unity | Ink External Functions — This video covers how to call C# code in Unity directly from an Ink Dialogue File using Ink External Functions. Trever Mock

Unity 2023.1 Beta — Unity Roundtable — While there’s a very long list of features, improvements, and fixes listed on the official change log, the biggest changes focus on improving features and render quality for both the HDRP & URP, along with platform graphic improvements, and multiplayer solutions. AndrewDavidJ

Assets

Meshtint Publisher Sale — Get 50% off Meshtint Studio assets in this Publisher Of The Week sale. Meshtint Studio provides over 500 unique, game-ready assets to help you realize your creative vision faster. Including: Monsters Ultimate Pack — Cute Series, Polygonal Alien Pack, Robots Ultimate Pack — Cute Series, and more!

Plus get a free gift! Add Boximon Pack Mega Toon Series to your cart, then enter the coupon code MESHTINT at checkout to get it for free. No purchase necessary. Unity Affiliate

Synty’s POLYGON Game Dev Assets Bundle 3 — Build your 3D game with these stylish, versatile assets. Add some low-poly, high-style 3D characters, environments, and props to your game with our latest POLYGON bundle from Synty! This flexible and eclectic library of over 5000 assets will help you develop games for a variety of genres in Unity and Unreal. Create treacherous dungeons, Wild West worlds, and wartorn battlefields. Prototype natural forests and bustling cities, and help support charity with your purchase!

Your purchase of this bundle will help support Direct Relief in their ongoing humanitarian response efforts for the people of Türkiye and Syria impacted by the recent tragic earthquakes. Humble Bundle Affiliate

kShading — kShading is a package of shaders for Unity’s Universal Render Pipeline. It includes: Refer to the Wiki for more information. Kink3d Open Source

Unity-Texture-Packer — Pack any color data into texture channels. JMargevics Open Source

Ores and Minerals — Mini-pack (24) [CC0] (FREE) — These icons are can used in any game or project without need for attribution. 256x256 versions of each icon individually. An icon sheet for each category and one for everything combined. Full-sized assets that haven’t been scaled down and placed into a square icon. (Dimensions vary) kdrn.itch.io

Alembic to VAT (Vertex Animation Texture) converter for Unity — This is a repository that contains a simple tool to convert Alembic files to Vertex Animation textures. Gaxil Open Source

NewGraph — A general node graph solution for Unity powered by UIToolkit (UIElements). This is based on the idea to visualize complex data structures as graph networks without having to modify already established data classes, except adding [Node], [Port], [PortList] and [SerializeReference] attributes to all classes that should show in the Graph View. Gentlymad-Studios Open Source

Learn To Make Survival Games With Unity — Create Your Own Survival Games Learn to build your own survival games with Unity! Inspired by AAA games like Rust, Valheim, and the upcoming ARK 2, these courses will help you master developing inventories, resource gathering, base building, crafting, AI enemies, and more — no prior experience required.

Plus, you’ll support NPower with your purchase! Humble Bundle Affiliate

Genesis — Experimental package that auto-generates depth textures for skyboxes created with Skybox Lab. As of right now, this project’s main purpose is experimentation. julienkay Open Source

Planeta Match Maker — A very simple and light match making system for P2P online game. Server binary for linux and windows, and client library for C# including Unity are provided. CdecPGL Open Source

FamilY For unitY — FYFY is an Entity Component System (ECS) made for Unity. ECS software architecture is interesting for two main reasons: optimization and modularity. Mocahteam Open Source

Lucid Editor — The Lucid Editor customizes Unity’s Inspector and enables powerful editor extensions using attributes. Over 30 attributes will be available to make the Inspector easier to use, and many more features will be added to make it easier to extend the editor. AnnulusGames Open Source

State Machine Unity — State Machine Utility Package for Unity Projects nicholas-maltbie Open Source

CC/iC Unity Tools HDRP — Package for importing and auto setup of Character Creator (3 & 4) and iClone (7 & 8) character exports for Unity HDRP Pipeline. soupday Open Source

MoonFlow™ Lens Flare System — This is a Lens flare render system by render quad meshes in front of your camera. So it can be used in any render pipeline. These system support multiple lens flares at the same time, and each flare line cost one draw call. Reguluz Open Source

Unity Build System — Provide an Editor Extension which allows adding multiple build targets and batch building all, one or a subset of these targets. kwnetzwelt Open Source

Buoyancy simulation — This is a simulation of the buoyancy on mesh objects. This method is applicable to any mesh to simulate a floating behaviour. This method works for a moving water surface. corentin-ryr Open Source

tension-tools — The project contents contains the code nessesary to calculate tension data on inside Unity Shaders 3D. It also contains some other tools generic tools required to create the “Skin” material that you see in the showcase above. The following implementation will work with Rigged Geometry as well as BlendShapes/MorphTargets. apilola Open Source

Automated Explorer Cam — This is an Automated Explorer that will explore your scene for you. TheWizardsCode Open Source

NetworkAudioSync — Keep your audio in sync across clients in your multiplayer Unity game! LambdaTheDev Open Source

UniTyped — UniTyped is a source generator for Unity that provides strongly typed access to serialized data through SerializedObject / SerializedProperty. It helps you write more concise and safe editor extension code. ruccho Open Source

Quick Start Asset Pack — Prototype faster with resources that require minimal coding. Save 50%. Build your game faster with adaptable 3D models, audio, textures, and more with this mega bundle. Unity Affiliate

Music Producer 2023 Plugins And Software Essentials — A must-have mix for musicmakers. Listen up, music producers, artists, DJs, vocalists, and everyone who dreams of making their own music — this bundle of software essentials was mixed for you! Featuring a pack of plug-ins to add punch, power, and polish to your productions, along with a library of royalty-free loops, beats, and samples to help you construct your melodies, this value-packed collection will help take your digital compositions to new levels. Plus, your purchase helps support Alzheimer’s Research UK. Humble Bundle Affiliate

Spotlight

Colossal Cave 3d — Colossal Cave is a reimagining of the original text-based adventure game, first introduced in 1975 by Will Crowther and Don Woods, as a fully immersive 3D VR experience.

Colossal Cave is already well known to tens of millions of gamers worldwide. Several elements of the game, such as the codewords “Xyzzy” and “Plugh”, are recognized instantly by many gamers.

Roberta Williams, who has received widespread industry recognition including several “Hall of Fame” awards, and who is the designer of several industry leading hit games, including King’s Quest, Phantasmagoria, Black Cauldron, and many more, is adapting the game for the VR world and bringing to life its many characters.

[Ken and Roberta Williams of Sierra adventure game fame are back! And it’s built in Unity!] Cygnus Entertainment

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