Bedtime Bunny Tales

Gamers look away! This is not something I would normally associated myself with, it is an interactive children's bedtime story book on iPhone and iPad. I love it for 3 reasons. The bunnies are cute and cuddly, it's beautifully drawn, and the bunnies are cute and cuddly. Yes, I'm a big girl/child/whatever. But really my pathetic intro really doesn't do this wonderful piece of work any justice. You can learn more from it's official site.

Alright, honestly. The reason this is on blog is no other than I help code the event editor that are used to handle the touch input and various effect and component interactivity in the app. This makes it the first iOS apps that I have a somewhat significant contribution (in my mind) in. I like to talk more about the technical details of it but I think no one will care. Especially when the art is just brilliant.

So, If you have kids, get it. If you love cute and cuddly bunnies and beautiful art work, get it. Did I mention that it's cute and cuddly. At any rate, at least get the lite version and see it for yourself. Here's the links to AppStore:

iPhone

iPhone-Lite

iPad

iPad-Lite

Ah, I feel so good being part of this.

TDTK v1.3.1 released

Straight to the point, the new additions in the latest version:

• Improved path-smoothing, the creep no longer clip through tower when moving diagonally and will try to cut the shortest path in open-space.
• Path-validation check before tower building in open-field mode are now added. Player can no longer build on spot where it will effectively block all possible route.
• Further optimize component interaction.
• Fix bug on iOS where restart and next button doesn't work after level end
• Slight adjustment to the shader used in iOS scene for more consistent dynamic batching

 As suggested in the title, it is now live on Unity AssetStore.

Also, check out the latest webplayer demo! 

Finally, it has been almost 5 months since the toolkit went on sales on Unity AssetStore. I like to take this opportunity to thank those who have purchase and used the toolkit, as well as those who have actively given me feedback. You have made it possible or me to improve the toolkit to current state. I hope the toolkit have serve you well and there will be more improvements to come.

TDTK v1.3 (iOS) Released!!

A moment many of TDTK user have been waiting for, TDTK is finally iOS compatible. It has been upload and now available on Unity AssetStore.

You are welcome! :)

Another note, I dont see myself doing any major update on TDTK any time soon. I'll be working on a new project.

Procedural City Block Filler

Just another showcase of the work I have done. Something I've build for a client which I think it's rather cool. Big thanks to him for allow me to disclose this. Like the title of the post suggested it's a procedural city block filler. The idea is a algorithm that placed the building prefab for you on a cityscape defined by lot.

The algorithm can place the a fixed list of building prefab automatically based on three method.

• Fill - Try to occupied as much space as possible in the lot.
• Edge - Just line the building on the edge of the lot.
• Random- Randomly place building on the lot until a certain amount of place is occupied.

Different building type can be placed on different type of lot, which can be specified manually. The idea is the user can easily lay down as many lot as they want and specify the lot type via tag. The lot for simplicity sake will just be a rectangular plane object. The user can then assigned the building to be placed on each type of the lot. The building can be an any size and height, but they are assume to be cubical. The algorithm can be run in editor mode as well as in run time.

There are other parameter which can be adjusted such as the building spacing, filled rate for "Random" placement, spacing from edges, etc

Here's a link to a demo webplayer for those who are interested in seeing the algorithm in action. The adjustable parameter in this demo is limited as I'm too lazy to build a full run time interface for it. The screenshot below is taken from the demo webplayer. For simplicity sake, I just used primitive cube of different size and height and color to represent the buildings.

Taken from demo webplayer

Announcing TDTK v1.3, it's iOS compatible!

Haven't been active recently. My gaming urge has finally caught up with me and I've spend all my free time, even a bit of my suppose working hour jamming game. Witcher2 in particular. Try it, it's brilliant. It's the only RPG in years that have me going hours after hours just to find out how the story goes.

Finally, good news to all those that haven been waiting for requesting for an iOS compatible version of TDTK. I finally got all the licenses and hardwares this last weekend. Like I promised to some of the user, I have start work to port the toolkit to iOS immediately following that.

It certainly has taken a lot more time than I thought. But I'm very close to wrapping things up. Testing on iPhone4, the toolkit manage to achieved a steady FPS of 20 and above with the example scene. It should do better when a better optimized art asset is used.

Anyway, the toolkit will be ready by December or early December.

PathFinder Version1.0

PathFinder is now it on Unity AssetStore!

 So here's feature in current version:

•  A* Path-finding algorithm
•  GridGraph Generator applicable in just about any terrain
•  Line-Graph Generator based on user hand-place waypoint
•  Configurable parameter to fine-tune the grah
•  Queue based path-finding call so no lag spike

The package is designed to be flexible, robust and easy to use. Feel free to try out the both demo with custom environment and smooth terrain. Also the link to the documentation.

Here's the link to the Unity AssetStore

TDTK v1.2.3 (fix and minor improvement)

Following the release of version 1.2.2. I found one or two nasty bug, with the newly added open-field gameplay mode off course.

In version 1.2.2, the spawner call the path finding and store the path. The creep never find they own way, instead they relied on their respective spawner to pass them the path. A recipe for disaster, when the circumstance is right.

With version 1.2.3, each creep call the pathfinder to find their individual path. To avoid lag spike when every creep call the pathfinder at the same time, a queue has been setup for the calls. So essentially one pathFinder component can handle all the creep and spawner in the scene. Less memory usage too. There may be a slight delay for the creep if the queue is long but most of the time is hardly noticeable.

The new version has also change the basic way a creep move. This fixes a bug where the creep stray off path and never recover if the waypoint is missed, somehow, most of the time due to a lag spike.

Anyway, version 1.2.3 is now available on Unity AssetStore. Here's a demo WebPlayer if anyone's interested.