The process of creating a game about parkour on the example of Parkour Simulator 3D
And a little more personal experience from partners: this time, the Akadem company told us about how the work on the game was going on in the fashionable genre of parkour-action now. We invite everyone who is interested in the topic or plans to create their own title of a similar direction, to get acquainted with their history.
“Imagine that one evening after watching the“ 13th District ”film you suddenly wanted to make your own game about crazy stunts, jumping over chasms and wonders of acrobatics, and also such that David Belle himself put 6 out of 5 stars on the market and offered to star in the film based on, if one will be removed. Giving a glance to the Galaxy S7 smartphone lying on the table, you made a firm decision that the game would be launched on mobile platforms in order not only to shake down the Korean manufacturer with its coolness, but also to blow up the consciousness of players around the world. And then the main question arises: what should be the best mobile game of parkour and how to make it?
')
The theme of parkour at the moment remains relevant: this sports subculture is approaching the peak of popularity. Sequels of hits such as Mirrors's Edge and Vector are born. In this regard, while playing your game, users will unwittingly make comparisons. Of course, I want to take from the subject only the best, but at the same time submit it in its original and unique style.
Today we will tell how to make a game about parkour on the example of our current project Parkour Simulator 3D , implemented on the currently popular Unity3D development environment and its Mecanim system.
The bulk of the games about the heroes of "Yamakasi" at the start gives the player a character and shouts: "Run, Forest, run!". Where? What for? Unclear. After two minutes of such a game, it becomes simply boring, especially if no progress is observed and you have to perform the same actions time after time.
The player must have a goal. It is necessary to justify the desire of the character to run further, overcoming one obstacle after another. For example, in Vector, a player tries to escape and escape prosecution at every level, at the end of which he is in for a safe shelter.
In Parkour Simulator 3D, we made a simple statement, somewhat reminiscent of the NFS: Most Wanted prologue, but instead of steep cars, the characters use lower limbs for movement. The first animated scene makes it clear that you have to manage a cool and popular in his circle tracer, who was challenged by the antagonist hero, a type of unpleasant appearance. After a short race, being knocked out in obvious leaders, the character falls into a trap and loses the competition, while losing his high status and respect of his colleagues in the acrobatic shop. Inspired by the tracer player through the character is transferred to the goal - to take revenge on the scoundrel and return the former glory. Thus, we catch the user, taking him to the world of trials, the culmination of which will be the battle with the main boss.
At this stage, as a developer, you need to decide how easy it is to convey this information to those who will launch the game for the first time. There are many options: use text, static or dynamic images, cutscenes (game scenes on the engine). We chose the option with animated images.
You must decide how to build the gameplay in the game, how the player will interact with the character, the environment, the character development process.
In Parkour Simulator 3D, we took as a basis the mechanics of the runner, as the most suitable for a dynamic game. The world is generated procedurally, by alternating a certain set of blocks with obstacles for the player and for the enemy at random. Character development is achieved through the purchase of new tricks, acceleration and new costumes for coins earned in the race with opponents. With each new level it becomes more and more difficult to defeat enemies, respectively, the player must come prepared to the stage of the boss battle, having full ammunition with him.
To implement something like this, we need to have in our arsenal models of characters, environments and knowledge of Unity3D, in order to collect all this into one big system of interaction.
If you are good at mastering 3D modeling, then there are no questions for you. Create a model of the future hero, using, for example, Blender3D, you will not be difficult. The only point is: if you want to speed up the process, you can be helped by third-party visualization tools, such as the Manuel Bastioni Laboratory plugin, which allows you to generate a human model using the specified parameters in one click. But be careful with the generation: instead of the desired lean tracer you can get a terrible ogre.
What to do if you do not possess such skills? In this situation, there are several options.
One of them is to use the services of a third-party modeler, which, according to your desire, can create a model of Sébastien Fukan himself in a pose.
The second option will allow you to do everything yourself. There are special software packages that simplify the process of creating characters from scratch by changing certain parameters. Such is Adobe Fuse with a very thin and rich set of settings for the future hero. The only caveat is that at the output we get a high-poly model, the number of polygons for use on mobile platforms will need to be reduced to the optimal number in the above-mentioned Blender3D.
If this seems too complicated, then MakeHuman software seems to be a simpler and more suitable solution. It also allows you to adjust a lot of settings. For example, for a model to have a muscular body, you only need to move the Muscle Mass slider upwards. As a result, you can create a model that has an appearance in the range from the character Christian Bale in the film “The Machinist” to Arnold Schwarzenegger, or even their extraordinary hybrid (see figure). The advantage is that at the output it is possible to export a low-poly model ready for use on mobile devices.
In Parkour Simulator 3D, part of the characters was modeled from scratch in Blender3D, and the other part was made in the MakeHuman package.
A very important part of parkour is animation. There are many examples of games with characters that use movements, created by hand and not very high quality. For example, this video makes the user feel like a noble puppeteer, but not a cool guy. Therefore, we definitely decided for ourselves that plastic should be natural, created on the basis of the movements of a real person. Our studio, unfortunately, does not have the ability to use the technology of Motion Capture or similar to it, so we have to use the invention of Tim Burns-Lee, that is, the world wide web. I would like to highlight two main resources for finding suitable animations:
- Actually, the Asset Store from Unity with its must have set for Mecanim.
- The site Mixamo.com puts at your disposal a huge amount of ready-made animations that you can use for free in your game. The site has the ability to animate the finished model taken from the resource library, or upload your own and in a few clicks get the result, feeling like an all-powerful creator.
In Parkour Simulator 3D, we used the animations from the Raw Mocap Data for Mecanim asset described above. In it, we found jumps and tackles suitable for the hero, as well as running animations. The animations provided by Mixamo are currently used in the game update.
So, the heroes are ready and are on a low start, and now you need to lay the ground under their feet. Here again there is a choice - to give professionals the opportunity to earn their bread or do everything yourself.
If everything is clear with the first one, then in the implementation of the second variant your Asset Store will again be your best friend, where you can find many ready-made solutions that allow you to either get a ready location or assemble it in parts.
Suitable Assets:
In Parkour Simulator 3D, we had the opportunity to simulate the main large elements of locations from scratch, and only some small elements of the environment were taken from the Asset Store.
Having all the components, you can start developing by applying all your knowledge of C # programming in the Unity3D environment. We will not duplicate in this article all the principles of optimization, which followed in the development of Parkour Simulator 3D. About this you can read, for example, in this article .
We hope that our experience has seemed interesting to you and will inspire you - what the hell is not joking - to create your own masterpiece in this subject. ”
“Imagine that one evening after watching the“ 13th District ”film you suddenly wanted to make your own game about crazy stunts, jumping over chasms and wonders of acrobatics, and also such that David Belle himself put 6 out of 5 stars on the market and offered to star in the film based on, if one will be removed. Giving a glance to the Galaxy S7 smartphone lying on the table, you made a firm decision that the game would be launched on mobile platforms in order not only to shake down the Korean manufacturer with its coolness, but also to blow up the consciousness of players around the world. And then the main question arises: what should be the best mobile game of parkour and how to make it?
')
The theme of parkour at the moment remains relevant: this sports subculture is approaching the peak of popularity. Sequels of hits such as Mirrors's Edge and Vector are born. In this regard, while playing your game, users will unwittingly make comparisons. Of course, I want to take from the subject only the best, but at the same time submit it in its original and unique style.
Today we will tell how to make a game about parkour on the example of our current project Parkour Simulator 3D , implemented on the currently popular Unity3D development environment and its Mecanim system.
Outset
The bulk of the games about the heroes of "Yamakasi" at the start gives the player a character and shouts: "Run, Forest, run!". Where? What for? Unclear. After two minutes of such a game, it becomes simply boring, especially if no progress is observed and you have to perform the same actions time after time.
The player must have a goal. It is necessary to justify the desire of the character to run further, overcoming one obstacle after another. For example, in Vector, a player tries to escape and escape prosecution at every level, at the end of which he is in for a safe shelter.
In Parkour Simulator 3D, we made a simple statement, somewhat reminiscent of the NFS: Most Wanted prologue, but instead of steep cars, the characters use lower limbs for movement. The first animated scene makes it clear that you have to manage a cool and popular in his circle tracer, who was challenged by the antagonist hero, a type of unpleasant appearance. After a short race, being knocked out in obvious leaders, the character falls into a trap and loses the competition, while losing his high status and respect of his colleagues in the acrobatic shop. Inspired by the tracer player through the character is transferred to the goal - to take revenge on the scoundrel and return the former glory. Thus, we catch the user, taking him to the world of trials, the culmination of which will be the battle with the main boss.
At this stage, as a developer, you need to decide how easy it is to convey this information to those who will launch the game for the first time. There are many options: use text, static or dynamic images, cutscenes (game scenes on the engine). We chose the option with animated images.
Game mechanics
You must decide how to build the gameplay in the game, how the player will interact with the character, the environment, the character development process.
In Parkour Simulator 3D, we took as a basis the mechanics of the runner, as the most suitable for a dynamic game. The world is generated procedurally, by alternating a certain set of blocks with obstacles for the player and for the enemy at random. Character development is achieved through the purchase of new tricks, acceleration and new costumes for coins earned in the race with opponents. With each new level it becomes more and more difficult to defeat enemies, respectively, the player must come prepared to the stage of the boss battle, having full ammunition with him.
To implement something like this, we need to have in our arsenal models of characters, environments and knowledge of Unity3D, in order to collect all this into one big system of interaction.
Models
If you are good at mastering 3D modeling, then there are no questions for you. Create a model of the future hero, using, for example, Blender3D, you will not be difficult. The only point is: if you want to speed up the process, you can be helped by third-party visualization tools, such as the Manuel Bastioni Laboratory plugin, which allows you to generate a human model using the specified parameters in one click. But be careful with the generation: instead of the desired lean tracer you can get a terrible ogre.
What to do if you do not possess such skills? In this situation, there are several options.
One of them is to use the services of a third-party modeler, which, according to your desire, can create a model of Sébastien Fukan himself in a pose.
The second option will allow you to do everything yourself. There are special software packages that simplify the process of creating characters from scratch by changing certain parameters. Such is Adobe Fuse with a very thin and rich set of settings for the future hero. The only caveat is that at the output we get a high-poly model, the number of polygons for use on mobile platforms will need to be reduced to the optimal number in the above-mentioned Blender3D.
If this seems too complicated, then MakeHuman software seems to be a simpler and more suitable solution. It also allows you to adjust a lot of settings. For example, for a model to have a muscular body, you only need to move the Muscle Mass slider upwards. As a result, you can create a model that has an appearance in the range from the character Christian Bale in the film “The Machinist” to Arnold Schwarzenegger, or even their extraordinary hybrid (see figure). The advantage is that at the output it is possible to export a low-poly model ready for use on mobile devices.
In Parkour Simulator 3D, part of the characters was modeled from scratch in Blender3D, and the other part was made in the MakeHuman package.
Animations
A very important part of parkour is animation. There are many examples of games with characters that use movements, created by hand and not very high quality. For example, this video makes the user feel like a noble puppeteer, but not a cool guy. Therefore, we definitely decided for ourselves that plastic should be natural, created on the basis of the movements of a real person. Our studio, unfortunately, does not have the ability to use the technology of Motion Capture or similar to it, so we have to use the invention of Tim Burns-Lee, that is, the world wide web. I would like to highlight two main resources for finding suitable animations:
- Actually, the Asset Store from Unity with its must have set for Mecanim.
- The site Mixamo.com puts at your disposal a huge amount of ready-made animations that you can use for free in your game. The site has the ability to animate the finished model taken from the resource library, or upload your own and in a few clicks get the result, feeling like an all-powerful creator.
In Parkour Simulator 3D, we used the animations from the Raw Mocap Data for Mecanim asset described above. In it, we found jumps and tackles suitable for the hero, as well as running animations. The animations provided by Mixamo are currently used in the game update.
Environment
So, the heroes are ready and are on a low start, and now you need to lay the ground under their feet. Here again there is a choice - to give professionals the opportunity to earn their bread or do everything yourself.
If everything is clear with the first one, then in the implementation of the second variant your Asset Store will again be your best friend, where you can find many ready-made solutions that allow you to either get a ready location or assemble it in parts.
Suitable Assets:
- Low Poly Street Pack ;
- Stylized and Modular City ;
- Industrial Object Pack ;
- Sample Racer Env Pack ;
- The Wasteland Lite ;
- Free Shipping Conteiners ;
- Building Kit 1 ;
- Free Steel Frame Pack .
In Parkour Simulator 3D, we had the opportunity to simulate the main large elements of locations from scratch, and only some small elements of the environment were taken from the Asset Store.
Development
Having all the components, you can start developing by applying all your knowledge of C # programming in the Unity3D environment. We will not duplicate in this article all the principles of optimization, which followed in the development of Parkour Simulator 3D. About this you can read, for example, in this article .
We hope that our experience has seemed interesting to you and will inspire you - what the hell is not joking - to create your own masterpiece in this subject. ”
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/326516/
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