April 2021: World Building

So over the past several months, I've been reworking game mechanics, looking at competing physics packages similar to games like Boneworks where physics interactions are a primary focus. I've ultimately decided against switching due to how responsive and fun Ninjato currently feels. While physics games are indeed fun, I don't think it's worth the risk switching as I may potentially lose alot of really great game mechanics that are already working well such as the current movement system, climbing & jump mechanics as well as the functionally of alot of the weapons and inventory system.  All that would have to be redone if i switched.

And since game mechanics are mostly complete, I've started on the most rewarding part of the game development journey; creating the worlds. The screenshots below are 3D assets I'm currently using as set pieces to build the environment. Due to Japanese architecture being quite complex, the 3d models have high vertex / poly counts as well, so I'm reworking, reducing and re-texturing them to get everything working smoothly in VR.  The benefit if you can believe is that the textures look EVEN BETTER up close. See below for an example.

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Photo Reference example:

The way I'm going about improving the models is replacing the old textures with actual photos references then using my own texturing techniques to add details. This texture then gets passed through Substance Painter to add edge ware and special effects.

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Original model & texture before ninja magic applied:

The problem with most existing models used for VR usually occurs when you get up close. You can see how things become blurry and imperfections become easily noticeable.  Even the brass metal work has little to no detail. This single model uses 1 material which contains 3, 4k textures and cannot be shared across other models which results in a great deal of textures to be required by the environment and becomes quickly unusable for any VR game. The only solution is to redo the artwork for VR specifications and find a way to optimize game assets.

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Retextured 3D Model:
(Photo Manipulation + Substance Painter + Hand Tweaked FX)

This is the end result (Above) applied to a 3D model where you can see the improvement even when up close. I no longer have to restrict the player movement as these models are much more efficient, contain less geometry than the originals and can display much more detail in the texture as well. As a comparison, the old models (Top), while they look amazing at a distance use 3 (4096x4096) textures on each model.  That quickly adds up to 120+ textures for 40 models. The models in the image above only needs 1 material (2048x2048) with 3 textures (diffuse, normal, gloss) that can be shared across all 40+ models for a total of 1 material (3 textures), NOT 40 materials (120 textures). These new textures are efficiently designed to use better UV coordinate space to give better visual quality and to improve the speed on the Oculus Quest. So when they say 4k is better, that isn't always necessarily true.

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In Game Test - Oculus Quest 1 & Rift  72+ FPS

Screenshots taken with my iPhone 5se while the game is running on the Oculus Rift with default lighting running at a solid 72 FPS in Unity's Editor.  This will only improve once the new models are finished thus resulting in more detail, performance and allows for more decoration, enemies or effects in each environment.