GameDevHQ Intensive Training Week 02 [Day 11] And Week 1 Recap

Oops 😶

I’m so sorry for the lack of blog post 😅 ; how should I Update you guys about it?🤔

If you are a more visual individual I made a small recap on my YouTube channel here 👇:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fnJ_X8VrlU&t=176s

Now, week 1 is done………….but there is some stuff that I’m having troubles and I know is not my fault.

Early to week 1 I was able to tackle all the tasks of week 1 in less than two to three days and then play around with ideas and everything was working wonderfully, but before the group coach call on Friday, the SpawnManager and Pooling Manager stopped working.
How can it not be my fault? Simple, the spawn manager and pooling manager works every time I rewrite the script, but they lose communication from each other at once I turn off my computer, and when I boot it up again it stops working.

Our First group coaching call shows us another approach, using scriptable object, to make our SpawnManager and Pooling Manager; personally I have hear about Scriptable Object but had a hard time to visualize how there used and in this training I was able to see how valuable they can be 😍. I tried implementing the Spawn system they showed us and it worked…….for a few hours...once i turn everything off and boot everything again the scripts loses communication; so it seems is an issue with unity and I may need to recreate the whole project and implement everything little by little.

NOTE: The SpawnSystem I have implemented in my project it works but it only works since the pool system and spawn are inside a single script😅. The whole point is to have everything nice and tidy.

ENTERING WEEK 2

Now we are in week 2 and I’m still having trouble with my spawn BUT that is not the most intriguing part of week 2…….we had a lot of material to cover before starting week 2😮.

To have access to week 2 you need to see a workshop / video of TWO hours in order to have access to week 2 now you can cheat and just press complete and continue but you will be hurting yourself if you skip a video, I don’t recompense to do that.

This are the task for week two:

Camera Controller:
Smoother Moving Camera
WSAD panning Controls
Bounds respected for the playing field
Zoom in/out using the scroll wheel
Use the mouse to move up, down, left, right of the screen

Tower Placement:
Pre-defined positions
Display tower in position when hovering over an available spot
the turret should follow your mouse when placing towers
Red/Green Radius displaying the field of coverage
Red = not over a predefined spot
Green = over the available spot
Left-click to place tower
​​​​​​​Require warFunds
Right-click to stop placement
System to support multiple tower types for selection
Can't place tower on top of an existing tower
When placing towers, play particles at available locations

I was shocked when I saw the “Tower Placement” task is longer than the one for “Camera Controller”😂

So before I tackle any task for week two I sit down and got caught up with all the material / videos to start week 2; on Tuesday since got a little bit of frustrated that I could not fix the spawn i decide to relax, so i tackle the “Camera Controller” task😄.

It did not take me that much time to implement the CameraBehaviour, it took me some trial and errors to identify the X and Y of the camera.

The camera is already in a giving position for the project so the axis are inverted; if you move the Camera GameObject on the X it moves up and down, if you move the camera on the Z it moves left and right and the Y behaves like a zoom feature. Before the individual coaching call I decide to use the Camera GameObject transformed to move it, then I was giving a hint to have the camera inside a regular game object and move the parent game object using the normal x and z axis😂 and it is a very good tip but I like how i approach it and leave it like that.

For the zoom I decide to use the Camera FieldOfView when I move down and up the mouse wheel; this once was a fun one to work with. I declare two bools to identify if the scroll wheel was going up or down; if either was true will determine the min or max of the field of view and then add or remove from the fieldOfView of the camera.

The following pic will show the camera controller script.

Now to the “Tower Placement” task……..I got scared with this one😂. Once I saw the material I BRUTE FORCE my code and the system works😋, now I have to see I can make this more modular will also wait for the coaching call to see the tips my instructor give me but I AM PROUD in how it works.

Now to wait for the group coaching call on Friday and implement the tips given to use to start to mentally prepare on Sunday for week 3.

Lets keep coding,

TO BE CONTINUED 😎