Triple Feature: Charged Shots and Fickle Billboarding

You don't always solve a problem the way you'd thought you would.

Here we have another one of the bullets the player can fire. The projectile, in its finished form, consists of three…well, four, technically, but you can see the trail effect here…elements.

One is the actual bullet.

Two is the glowy aura thing surrounding the bullet.

Three is another glowy thing (you can see this behind the bullet on the right).

What I wanted was…wait a second, I need to explain what billboarding is first.

Billboarding is an effect that makes an object always face the camera, no matter what angle you're looking at it from. It's commonly used for particles and glowing objects. You can see it being used in the image on the right.

What I want for this charged shot is for the glow surrounding the projectile to be billboarded, but only around its z-axis, so it surrounds the shot at all times. The other glowy object will be fully billboarded, and surrounds the projectile when looking at it from the front or the back.

I tried modifying the billboarding script to get the effect I want, but to no avail. However, I did come up with a different solution.

Instead of making the first glow a billboarded plane, I realized I could use the line renderer effect – this creates a plane that follows a line, and rotates around the line so it faces the camera. Exactly what I was looking for.

Here's the final product.

See you next update.

Triple Feature: Progress Report

Well…it's been a while. I've made some progress since I last posted.

I've written AI scripts for enemy behavior. The Seraph I showed you now has two different attacks – a claw slash and a laser projectile shot – which she uses in several different fashions. She can figure out the player's position and respond accordingly. If she's close to you, she'll lunge and try to tear you to shreds with her claws, alternating between a left hand claw animation and a right hand claw animation. If she's at a distance, she'll blast you with her laser. If she's above you, she'll go on a bombing run, circling like a vulture and shooting her laser beams. She even leads her fire.

I've tweaked the player's behavior. The hero will now smoothly aim her gun up and down, and, when strafing, aim forward instead of the direction she's moving. She can be knocked down by powerful enemy attacks. If she's flat on her back, she recovers with that stylish jump-flip sort of motion that ninja and martial artists are so fond of these days. If she's face down, she can roll to the side to avoid people fightin' dirty.

I've modified the status screen, or heads up display, or whatever you want to call it. The hero's life bar is very nifty now. It goes up and down as she takes damage or gets healing items, and it does so gradually – I'll show what I mean later if I feel like it.

I've also worked on the player's weaponry. She has two…no, wait, three…different ranged weapons, and I'm starting to work on her melee weapon.

Perhaps most importantly, I've gotten a firmer idea of how the game will work. I've come up with concepts for equipment that the player will get and how it will be used for combat, exploration, and puzzle solving.

But you're not here for a progress report, are you? I didn't think so. You want tips on how to make two different visual effects work in unity. I will provide…In the next two posts.