The normals of 3D models are vectors that are used to know the orientation of each face of the model and have many utilities, mainly for the rendering of a 3D model, for example they allow to calculate how the model will be illuminated, how the light will bounce, how the shading will be; they are also used in physics for collisions, so it is important that the normals of our models are consistent with what we need, occasionally some normals of the model are pointing in the opposite direction and this brings problems. In this article we are going to see how to make visible the normals of a 3D model in Blender.
In the following video we see how to display NORMALS in Blender.
We start from a generic 3D model like the one in figure 1 and we are going to enter the edit mode, this is IMPORTANT because the normals can only be made visible from the edit mode and they are only displayed in the edit mode.
Fig. 1: 3D model selected in object mode in Blender.
Fig. 2: The Edit Mode of a 3D model in Blender.
We click on the icon shown in figure 3, which displays a window that allows us to configure the elements that overlap in the 3D view window.
Fig. 3: Window of overlapping elements in the Viewport.
To show the normals we click on one of the icons in the “Normals” section, in general I am interested in seeing the normals in the center of the face, so I choose the option in figure 5, although sometimes I also use the option to show the normals at the vertices. Mathematically it does not make sense to talk about the normal vector to a point, but in the rendering the meshes consist of lists of vertices that form triangles and each vertex has a normal vector associated with it, those normals vectors are generally interpolated.
Fig. 4: Option to display the normals on the vertices of a 3D model in Blender.
Fig. 5: Option to display the normals in the center of the faces of a 3D model in Blender.
Figure 6 shows the normals in the center of the faces of the 3D model when in edit mode.
Fig. 6: The normals of the 3D model are now displayed in the center of the model faces.
Using the “Size” parameter we can change the length of the normals, as shown in Figure 8.
Fig. 7: Modification of the length of the normal vectors to be drawn.
Fig. 8: The normals of the 3D model are displayed longer.
Introduction
When modeling precision-based projects—such as replicating parts from technical schematics or preparing models for 3D printing—knowing the exact edge lengths in Blender is essential. Fortunately, Blender provides tools to display these measurements directly in the viewport. In this article, we’ll walk through how to enable edge length display for selected edges, ensuring accuracy in your workflow.
For a visual breakdown of this subject, you may find my video discussion helpful.
To begin, we’ll use the 3D model displayed in Figure 1. Edge length measurements can be enabled in either Object Mode or Edit Mode, but for this demonstration, we’ll switch to Edit Mode with the model selected. Once in Edit Mode, simply select any edge—as illustrated in Figure 2—to proceed with displaying its length.
Fig. 1: 3D model whose edge length needs to be known.
Fig. 2: In edit mode an edge of the model is selected.
In Figure 3, locate the Viewport Overlays icon (indicated by the cursor). Clicking this icon opens a settings panel where you can control which visual elements appear in Blender’s 3D workspace. From here, simply enable the Edge Length checkbox—as demonstrated in Figure 4—to display measurements directly on your model.
Fig. 3: Window of overlapping elements in the Viewport.
Fig. 4: Option to display the edge lengths of a model in Blender.
Once enabled, the edge lengths will appear on your selected model, as visible in Figure 5.
Fig. 5: The 3D model now has the lengths of the selected edges overlapped in the Viewport.
Introduction – Why mirror objects in Blender?
In this article we are going to see how to prepare a 3D model to use the “Mirror” modifier in Blender, which allows us to model with symmetry with respect to one or more axes.
When mirroring an object in Blender we can focus on creating just one side of the model and then Blender, in a procedural way through a “modifier”, will produce the rest of the model based on one or more symmetry axes, this makes it much easier to create symmetrical pieces, as it could be the basics of a human face, once you have covered the basics you can apply that “modifier” and continue working with the full 3D model, introducing asymmetries if needed.
Given any 3D model that we want to mirror, the first thing we have to do is to see where its origin is located, this is very important because the origin is the point from which the geometry will be mirrored, so it is important to place the origin in a consistent position.
In this particular case we are going to use the cube shown in the figure, notice that the origin of this object is in an unusual position, what we are going to do is to place the origin in the geometric center of the object.
Fig. 1: To configure the mirror modifier we start from a simple cube.
To do this we select the cube, right click on it, go to “Set Origin” and choose the option “Origin to Geometry”, as shown in figure 2. This, as the names indicate what it does is to move the origin of the object to the geometric center of it, the result in figure 3.
Fig. 2: The origin is set to the geometry of the selected object.
Fig. 3: The object has its origin at its geometric center and is also at the center of the scene.
The next thing we are going to do is to make a cut in half using the command CTRL+R and bringing the mouse to the object, when the cut lines appear as shown in figure 4 we click to confirm. This adds an edge loop as shown in figure 5.
Fig. 4: A loop cut is added over the center of the cube.
Fig. 5: The cube now has a loop of vertices passing through its center.
I did this to obtain a symmetrical piece with respect to the X axis and eliminate one of the halves of the cube, for this I enter Wireframe mode, select the vertices that are in one of the halves of the object (do not select the ones in the center) and with the X key we eliminate those vertices, as shown in figure 6.
With this we obtain the piece shown in figure 7 and we are ready to apply the mirror modifier.
Fig. 6: The vertices in the left half of the object are removed.
Fig. 7: We keep one half of the cube to use the mirror modifier.
How to mirror a model in Blender – Mirror Modifier
With the model we want to mirror selected we go to the modifiers tab by clicking on the icon in figure 8 and add the “Mirror” modifier (figure 9).
Fig. 8: Modifiers tab of the selected object.
Fig. 9: The mirror modifier is selected from the list of modifiers to be added.
Immediately we see that the missing half appears and if we go into edit mode and modify the position of a vertex we see how the change is reflected symmetrically (see figure 10), note that in one of the halves the vertices do not appear, it means that the other half of the model is being generated procedurally.
Fig. 10: The object reflects the geometry automatically.
You can change the symmetry axis or add more symmetry axes in the modifier properties.
Fig. 11: Mirror modifier options panel in Blender.
The model going through the mirror
In this particular case, as we have configured it, the mirror would be like a vertical plane perpendicular to the Y axis and located at the origin of the object, which in this case coincides with the origin of the scene. Normally if we take a vertex we can make it cross the mirror plane, as shown in Figure 12.
Fig. 12: Result of the mirrored model geometry going through the mirror plane.
To prevent this from happening there is the “Clipping” check box shown in figure 13, when this option is activated the vertices that touch the mirror plane will remain attached to it and can only move in the two directions of the plane, in figure 14 the selected vertex is on the mirror plane and cannot move in the X axis, only in the Y and Z axis. If we need to remove a vertex from the mirror plane we can uncheck the box “Clipping” remove the vertex and then re-enable it or leave it disabled.
Fig. 13: The “Clipping” option prevents the geometry from crossing the mirror plane.
Fig. 14: Vertices that lie on the mirror plane cannot move out of that plane.
How to apply the mirror modifier
In case we need to work on the geometry of the object and add asymmetric details we will have to stop using the mirror modifier and switch to working with the complete geometry of the object. Before applying the mirror modifier it may be a good idea to save a backup copy of the model, for example by duplicating and hiding it or moving it to another collection.
Fig. 15: This object is used as the starting point for applying the mirror modifier.
To apply the mirror modifier we click on the arrow icon to the left of the cross to remove the modifier and choose the “Apply” option, as shown in Figure 16.
Fig. 16: Option to apply a modifier in Blender.
Now the model whose geometry was being procedurally mirrored became a full 3D model with all its vertices and faces that can be repositioned without being mirrored.
Fig. 17: When applying the mirror modifier the result is a mesh with the complete geometry.
How to revert a Mirror modifier that has already been applied
It often happens that we apply the Mirror modifier, we do several actions and then we regret it and we want to undo the changes until we have our object with the Mirror modifier applied but it turns out that we ran out of actions to undo, for this reason it was a good idea to save the backup copy of the model, However there is a very simple way to remove the vertices of the model and reapply the Mirror modifier, for that we select the model, enter the edit mode, switch to Wireframe mode (figure 18) and arrange the view in a convenient way to see the mirror plane vertically and have both parts of the model well separated.
Fig. 18: Switch to “Wireframe” mode.
Then we draw a selection box as shown in figure 19, in such a way that we select all the vertices of one of the halves of the object but without selecting the middle vertices, the result of the selection is shown in figure 20.
Fig. 19: The vertices in the left half of the model are selected.
Finally we delete those vertices and we have one of the halves of our symmetrical object, ready to reapply the Mirror modifier.
Fig. 20: The selected vertices are deleted.
Fig. 21: One of the halves of the 3D model is obtained.
Fig. 22: The Mirror modifier is applied again.
Fig. 23: The 3D model with the Mirror modifier was recovered.
Introduction
In this article we see how to get information about the geometry of the 3D models in Blender, that is to say the vertex count, the amount of edges, faces and also the amount of triangles.
If you prefer to watch a video I have the right video for this topic:
We start with a 3D model, what we are going to do is to locate the icon on which the cursor is located in figure 2, it may be necessary to change the working mode to object mode or edit mode.
Fig. 1: Starting from two objects in Blender with Shade Smooth applied.
Fig. 2: Window of the overlapping elements in Viewport.
The window that appears, “Viewport Overlays”, allows us to configure the elements that are overlapped on the 3D view window, there we will click on the “Statistics” checkbox, this will show us in the upper left corner information about the models that we have in the scene and the amount of polygons.
Fig. 3: “Statistics” option that allows the display of 3D model information such as vertices, edges and faces.
If we select an object, the number of selected objects appears next to the total number of objects, as shown in figure 4.
Fig. 4: Polygon information is displayed in the upper left corner of the Viewport.
If we enter the edit mode of the selected object now the information changes and shows us the number of vertices, edges and faces of the object we are editing together with the total number of elements of that particular object.
Fig. 5: Information about the geometry of an object within the Edit Mode.
Introduction
Scale is a fundamental property of any 3D model, defining its dimensions and proportions. Ignoring scale normalization can lead to issues—from broken physics simulations to distorted UV maps. This becomes especially critical when assembling 3D environments, where consistent sizing ensures believable object relationships.
In this article, you’ll learn how to normalize scale in Blender effectively.
For a visual breakdown of this subject, you may find my video discussion helpful.
How to normalize the scale of a 3D model in blender
We begin with a 3D model exhibiting non-uniform scale, as shown in Figure 1. The cube’s scale values—(5.414, 3.813, 2.463)—indicate inconsistent transformations applied in Object Mode, likely from manual resizing or improper import settings.
Fig. 1: We start from a cube with a non-normalized scale.
To normalize the scale of the model what we must do is to select it in the object mode and “Apply the scale“, with the shortcut CTRL+A the ” Apply” window appears as shown in figure 2, click on apply to normalize the scale.
With this we are indicating that this 3D model is located in the scene in its real size. As seen in Figure 3, the scale of the model is now (1,1,1).
Fig. 2: Menu to apply different properties to an object such as position, rotation and scale.
Fig. 3: Object now has normalized scale, (1,1,1)
Introduction
In this article we see how to reuse the same material in different objects in Blender, that way when we modify the material that change is automatically applied to all the objects that are using the same instance of the material.
In the following video we see how to APPLY the SAME MATERIAL to MULTIPLE OBJECTS in Blender
Creating and assigning material to an object in Blender
The first step will be to create the material, if you have already created a material continue down to “How to reuse a material in Blender“.
We start with the objects shown in figure 1, these have not yet been assigned any material so we will select one of them and go to the material tab with the icon shown in figure 2.
Fig. 1: Set of objects to which a material is to be applied.
Fig. 2: Material properties of the selected object.
Now let’s add a new Material Slot by clicking on the + button shown in figure 3. An object can have multiple materials assigned to different faces of the model, so you can add as many slots as you need.
The next step is to create the material by clicking on the “New” button, at this point we are creating the instance of the material, this step must be done only once if we want to reuse the same material.
Figure 4 shows the material I have created and assigned a name and color to it.
Fig. 3: A new material slot is added to the object.
Fig. 4: This is the material to be reused in the other objects.
Fig. 5: The object shows the material that has been assigned to it.
How to reuse a material in Blender
To reuse the material that was created in the previous step in another different object what we are going to do is select the other object and in the materials tab, instead of adding a new slot and creating a new material, we directly click on the materials icon (the sphere to the left of the new button in figure 6) and select from the list the material we want to reuse. In figure 7 we see the result, both objects have the same material assigned.
Fig. 6: The instance of the previously created material is assigned to the second object.
Fig. 7: Both objects show the same material.
Modificar el color en un objeto en Blender cambia el color en otros objetos
This happens because both objects are assigned exactly the same material, precisely this is the concept of instance, a material has been defined in the scene and that same material has been assigned to different objects, the objects are simply using that material, so that when we modify it, for example if we change the color as shown in figure 8, all objects that are using that instance of the material will change their appearance, as shown in figure 9. If you want each object to show a different material you will have to create new materials as shown at the beginning of this article.
Fig. 8: The color assigned to the cube material is changed.
Fig. 9: The change of material applies to all objects.
Introduction
In this article we see how to load an image in Blender to use it as a reference for the modelling process, either to exactly trace its geometry or simply to have it there and consult it to help you with the modelling. We will also see how to orient the reference image in space and how to make it transparent.
In the following video we see how to load a REFERENCE IMAGE in Blender
A reference image in Blender is like any other object in the scene, so to add it we can use the shortcut SHIFT+A while in OBJECT MODE, this displays the “Add” menu in a floating way, we go to the “Image” part and select “Reference”. As shown in figure 1.
A window will open in which we have to choose the reference image we need.
In figure 2 you can see the result of this operation, the reference image was added correctly, the problem is that it was added according to the orientation that the camera had at the moment of adding, maybe that was what you needed although in many cases one prefers to have the reference image oriented according to the front, side or top views. If that is the case you can delete the image, orient the view properly and add it again.
Fig. 1: Adding a reference image in Blender.
Fig. 2: Reference image object in Blender.
Orient the reference image in Blender
As mentioned before, the best way to orient a reference image would be to first adjust the view and then create the reference image, in this way the image already appears with the proper orientation, however, as it is an object in the scene we can also transform it, apply translation, rotation and scale. For example we can select the image, press the R key to rotate it, constrain the Z axis and type 90, so that the reference image rotates 90 degrees with respect to the Z axis. We can also type directly its orientation in the transform panel shown in figure 3. Figure 4 shows a reference image oriented according to the XZ plane (front view).
Fig. 3: Transformation of the reference image.
Fig. 4: Reference image positioned in the XZ plane.
How to make a reference image transparent in Blender
In many cases we will need the reference image to have transparency to be able to see the 3D model we are making, to achieve this we first select the image. Then we go to the image properties using the icon shown in Figure 5, note that this icon appears when an image object is selected. In the image properties we enable the opacity checkbox and set the desired value, where 1 is completely opaque and 0 completely transparent. Figure 7 shows the result.
Fig. 5: Access to the properties tab of a reference image in Blender.
Fig. 6: Properties of the reference image.
Fig. 7: Reference image with opacity in Blender.
Figure 6 shows other options to configure our reference image, for example we can make the image visible only in a certain view.
How to add multiple reference images in Blender
We can add as many reference images as we need, one way to do it is to repeat the process mentioned above, i.e. add a new image object and select the file, but we can also take the existing reference image and duplicate it with SHIFT+D, as if it were a 3D model, figure 8 shows how I duplicated an image and immediately pressed the R key to rotate it 90° around the Z axis.
Fig. 8: A reference image is duplicated from another image as if it were a 3D object.
Once we have duplicated the reference image, it is now time to make the object show another image, for that we go back to the image properties tab (figure 5) and in the “Image” section we click on the “Open Image” button shown in figure 9 and load the desired image file, the result can be seen in figure 10.
Fig. 9: Modifying the reference image file.
Fig. 10: Two different reference images in Blender.
It’s your pet’s birthday and you decide to celebrate it in style by buying a huge cake, it won’t be an easy task to get it home because it’s so tall that at times it becomes a bit unstable.
How to play
Control the character with the WASD keys or the arrow keys. With the W-S keys or up and down arrow keys you avoid the obstacles in the street. With the A-D keys or left and right arrow keys you balance the cake, if the cake is falling forward press the D or right arrow key to accelerate and balance the cake again. If the cake is falling backwards press the A or left arrow key to slow down and rebalance the cake. Give the cake to your pet.
Developed for the Ludum Dare 49 Game Jam with them "Unstable" by:
MARTÍN HEINTZ
MUSIC COMPOSER
GAMEDEVTRAUM
UNITY DEVELOPER
AGUS
SOUND FX
Technical Details
Next we are going to review some information about the inner workings of this game and its mechanics, first of all it is a 3D project developed with the Unity engine.
Scene structure
This game is set up in three scenes, the first scene is the main menu which has two buttons, one to start the game and another button to close the game. By pressing the Play button we go to the game scene in which the stage and the character are set up. We go to the third and last scene when the character arrives home where his dog is waiting for him anxiously.
Character controlled by the player
The character to be controlled runs automatically with a preset speed that we can control by going forward or backward with the directional arrows or with the A-D keys, this will increase or decrease the initial speed to a certain value, the character can never go backwards, just go a little slower or faster, this movement serves mainly to balance the cake.
The character can also move to his left and right, this is achieved with the up and down directional arrows or with the W-S keys, this movement allows the character to avoid obstacles.
The unstable cake
The cake and the support tray were made in Blender and consist of separate pieces that are attached to the same skeleton, constantly playing an animation that makes the pieces of the cake jump as the character moves but also controls the angle of the bones of the cake to produce the tilt to one side or the other, The tilt of the cake responds to the character’s actions, that is, if the character accelerates the tendency of the cake is to tilt backwards, if the character goes slower the cake tends to tilt forward, in addition to this every now and then random events occur that take the cake out of its stable state and force the player to take action on it.
Music
The music for this game was composed by one of the team members. You can visit the Trepen el Paredón channel to see more of his work.
World obstacles
The main obstacles are construction fences, trees and cars, which are static elements; later on, pits are added in which, if the character falls into, the game is over. In addition, there are some cheerful workers who carry a piece of glass, these constitute a mobile obstacle.
The stage
The 3D models of the scenery are models that we made using Blender, the scenery materials have no textures, they only have applied flat colors. The character was modeled from a reference image of a low poly character that also had the position of the polygons and the topology.
In Patagonia, during the Cretaceous period there was a legendary struggle for the survival of the species, the Neuquensaurus, a noble herbivore species, had to endure constant attacks by the Overoraptors, carnivores of small stature but that, attacking in herds, are a great threat. Feed on what your environment provides, scare or step on the Overoraptors and make your offspring survive.
How to play
Move with the arrow keys, you can sprint with SHIFT and also roar with SPACE, but be careful, the Neuquensaurus will consume more energy in both cases.
Developed for the Patagonia Game Jam with theme "Dinosaurs from Patagonia" by:
MARTÍN HEINTZ
MUSIC COMPOSER
GERARDO
GAME DESIGNER
GAMEDEVTRAUM
UNITY DEVELOPER
SEBASTIÁN
GAME DESIGNER
ANDRÉS
SOUND FX
About the Patagonia Game Jam
Patagonia is a region of southern Argentina and is the region where I live, this jam was organized here and the theme was the dinosaurs in Patagonia, which had a strong presence in this region. For the event they created a discord server in which we had channels for each team and we could also talk to paleontologists to learn about the topic or ask questions and that our games have some correlation with the history of dinosaurs.
Technical Details
Next we are going to review some information about the inner workings of this game and its mechanics, first of all it is a 3D project developed with the Unity engine.
Music
The music for this game was composed by one of the members of the team, I really liked the result, especially the gameplay battle music, you can visit the “Trepen el Paredón’s” channel to see more works.
Scene Structure
This game is set up in two scenes, the first scene is the main menu that has some buttons, one to start the game, one for the credits window where you see our faces and links to our networks, we have another button to close the game and there is also a button to continue a game, but this only appears when we have already played at least once and passed the first round, which means that this information is stored in memory and then retrieve it and decide whether to show the button or not.
Dinosaur controlled by the player
The player controls the dinosaur using the directional arrows or the WASD keys, can sprint by holding down the SHIFT key and roar by pressing SPACE. The dinosaur has an associated hunger level that decreases passively but depletes faster if the dinosaur walks, even faster if it runs, and each roar costs a certain level of hunger to produce.
If the hunger bar reaches zero our dinosaur dies of starvation so we must be sure to consume the food that appears on the stage, for this just go over the bushes, also the dinosaur has an indicator that all the time points to the nearest food source.
Dinosaur egg
At the beginning of the game there is a dinosaur egg located in the nest, this egg has an associated incubation time and health level, both values are reflected in the bars in the upper left corner of the screen. The incubation time increases steadily and the health of the egg decreases if it is attacked by an enemy dinosaur. When the incubation time is up, the egg hatches and a miniature dinosaur emerges from inside.
The carnivorous dinosaurs will try to attack the egg, if we allow them to get close enough they will do some damage that will be subtracted from the health level of the egg, it can be seen in the indicator bar of the graphical interface. When the egg is completely damaged the game is over as no new dinosaurs will be born.
The egg appears again when the small dinosaur is fully developed.
Dinosaur baby
The new little dinosaur emerges when the game finishes hatching, at that moment the indicator bars change to show the dinosaur’s health and state of growth, in the hatching state the carnivorous dinosaurs will attack it in the same way as they did with the egg.
Initially I wanted to make the dinosaur hatchling have an artificial intelligence that would allow it to move around the stage independently and feed itself, for that reason there is a 3D model that looks like little colored balls, the idea was that the hatchling would look for those food sources to develop, but in the end there wasn’t enough time.
The stage
The 3D models of the scenery are models we made using Blender, the textures were made with Substance Painter.
The protagonist of the story argues with a friend, who ends up sending him to hell. Our hero takes these words very seriously and decides to fulfill this task so that his friend can forgive him. Help him in his mission to descend to the bowels of the earth without dying in the process.
How to play
Move with the WASD keys or arrow keys, you can jump with SPACE, move the camera with the MOUSE. Descend to the bottom of hell so that your friend forgives you.
Developed for the Ludum Dare 48 Game Jam with theme "Deeper and Deeper" by:
GAMEDEVTRAUM
UNITY DEVELOPER
NORBERT
VOICE ACTOR
Technical Details
Next we are going to review some information about the inner workings of this game and its mechanics, first of all it is a 3D project developed with the Unity engine.
Scene structure
This game is set up in two scenes, the first scene is the main menu scene that has only two buttons, one to play and another button to close the game. Pressing the play button starts a sequence of images and sounds narrating the story, this sequence is implemented in the same scene of the main menu and can be skipped by pressing space, when the sequence ends or is skipped, at that moment the change to the game scene occurs.
Player-controlled character
The player controls the character using the directional arrows or the WASD keys, the camera is controlled with the mouse. The first-person control was programmed from scratch before the game jam, I was doing experiments with platforms and so that a character can take fall damage, plus make that the jump has some momentum.
3D models of the city and the pit to hell
The 3D models of the scenery are models I made using Blender, some textures were made with Substance Painter while others like the textures of the buildings were taken from the browser.
A character floating in the cosmos attached to a heart and trapped in an infinite loop of rings closing over him.
How to play
Move by clicking on the screen to avoid the rings as much as you can. The click and drag mechanic is not implemented.
Developed for the Ludum Dare 47 Game Jam with theme "Stuck in a Loop" by:
ÁLVARO
PIXEL ART
GAMEDEVTRAUM
UNITY DEVELOPER
CHEMA
GAME DESIGN
About the development of this game
On October 2, 2020 the Ludum Dare 47 game jam was held, an event where you have to make a game in 72 hours based on a theme chosen by the community. The theme of the jam was “Stuck in a loop“. We participated in a team of three.
Most of the event I was live streaming what I was doing on my computer and also the discussions we were having to reach an agreement. I transmitted a total of approximately 32 hours and in the following video you can see all those hours of work summarized in 5 minutes.
40 hours of live streaming summarized in minutes
Brainstorming
A few days before the jam starts we met to propose ideas based on the candidate themes, there were three rounds of voting with 16 themes each, we took the first round and chose 4 themes at random. Then everyone took 5 minutes to think of an idea with a simple mechanic. Coincidentally the theme “Stuck in a loop” was among our chosen ones so for the jam we already had a previous idea.
Art
The general aesthetics of the game is based on the Synthwave style, with saturated colors and fonts according to that style.
The sprites are made in Pixel Art style using Aseprite software.
Technical Details
This game is a 2D project developed with the Unity engine.
Scene structure
This game is set up in two scenes, the first scene is the main menu that has some buttons, one to start the game, one for the credits window where you see our faces and links to our networks, we have another button to close the game and there is also a button to continue a game, but this only appears when we have already played at least once and passed the first round, which means that this information is stored in memory and then retrieve it and decide whether to show the button or not.
Mechanics
The character is controlled by clicking on the place on the screen where the player wants to move. The character starts to accelerate in that direction until it reaches a maximum speed and then starts to stop, this makes that for each pulse the character moves a predictable distance.
During the game there are concentric rings that are generated, each one with twice the scale of the previous one, there are different types of rings that have one or more outputs. While a ring is active it will shrink in size until it becomes tiny. The character must move to escape through the openings because, if touched by a ring, the character dies.
This is the first game to which I implemented a translation system which has a record of each text that appears on the screen and arrays containing the translations for each one, by pressing the language change button we go to the next language of the system and the system is responsible for updating each of the texts on the screen.
The game is set up in two scenes, the first scene is the initial scene of the main menu in which you can also see the credits screen. By pressing the “Play” button we switch to the game scene. Since in the game scene we have on-screen texts, it was necessary to think of a system to transfer data between scenes in order to assign the text in the appropriate language.
In the Android and Windows versions the sun sprite that appears in the background of the game scene changes size depending on the amplitude of the music, this is done by reading a chunk of the bytes from the audio clip and averaging them to get a value that will then be related to the scale of the sprite. It is not possible to do this in WebGL because one of the functions that allows us to analyze the audio clip cannot be used in WebGL. An alternative could be to pre-calculate these values for each song and to have these data organized in lists to be applied to the sprite scale.
In this game, data is saved using PlayerPrefs to remember what the maximum score was and update it if it is exceeded.
Escape from the maze
DOWNLOAD the source code of this project on ITCH.IO
You can download the source code of this project in the card from below. You don’t have to pay for it but if you want to support this project and new upcoming projects you can pay the suggested price or name your own price. If this product receives support I will update with more mechanics like multiple levels and a level selector.
Plot
A character is trapped inside the maze in which there is only one door to escape. The exit is blocked and to open it you have to find the key, which will appear when you have found a set of objects.
How to play
Move with the WASD keys or the arrow keys and orient the camera with the mouse. Pass over the objects to pick them up.
Developed by:
HERNÁN
UNITY & BLENDER DEVELOPER
About the development of this game
The game Escape from the Maze is a first person game made in Unity and consists of finding a series of objects before time runs out. This prototype was a commissioned work.
Initially the project was much simpler than what you can see in the prototype below, since it was a work with clear instructions that emphasized the logic and mechanics of the game rather than the graphical aspect. After delivering the work I continued doing lighting and post-processing experiments, I added a 3D model of a person with animations from Mixamo so that shadows of the player are projected on the walls of the maze. The project is not optimized for the WebGL version so it is likely to run very slow in full screen.
Technical Details
Next we are going to review some information about the inner workings of this game, first of all it is a 3D project developed with the Unity engine.
The 3D models of the scenery are models that I made using Blender and the textures with Substance Painter, this process took about an hour approximately because I already knew exactly what I had to do and I had even done it before.
Given the simplicity of the prototype I used a single Unity scene, so there was no need to worry about transferring information between scenes.
All the GUI elements of the main menu are children of a GameObject that is inside a Canvas, the GUI during the gameplay is also built that way, so when starting the game what is done is to deactivate the GameObject that contains the GUI elements and activate the GameObject that contains the game’s GUI.
Game mechanics
Player-controlled character
The player controls the character using the directional arrows or the WASD keys, the camera is controlled with the mouse. I don’t remember well but it may be the prefabricated “First Person Controller” from Standard Assets.
Objects to find in the labyrinth
The six objects to be found appear in the maze randomly and at a certain distance from each other. To achieve this, an instantiation system was created that takes into account the shape of the parts of the maze and the regions where the objects could appear.
The objects emit a sound whose intensity depends on the player’s distance, the closer the player is to the object the louder the sound will be heard, this is a clue to locate them.
In order to detect that the player picks up the objects, Colliders and the OnTriggerEnter event are used, when picking up an object, it is checked if all the objects have been picked up, if this is true, the key is released.
The key to unlock the exit
The key is like a seventh object that is instantiated using the same system as the previous objects, the difference is that doing so we immediately deactivate the GameObject of the key so that it disappears from the stage, when the player finds all the objects the GameObject of the key appears and a sign in the graphical interface indicating that you have to find the key.
The door to escape from the maze
The door is a 3D model divided into two parts so that it can be opened, and there is a Collider just ahead to check if the player is in front of it.
If the player enters the region in front of the door we check if he has picked up the key, if not the action is ineffective, but if the player has the key the door opens with a rotation animation for each object in the door.
You control a spaceship that fires one projectile at a time. Waves of alien ships advance threatening to destroy us. Take down the enemies before they reach us.
How to play
Move sideways with the A-D keys or the left and right arrow keys. Shoot with the SPACE key. Eliminate all the ships.
Developed by:
GAMEDEVTRAUM
UNITY DEVELOPER
Technical Details
Next we are going to review some information about the game’s internal workings, first of all it is a 2D project developed with the Unity engine. The sprites were obtained from the internet. Given the simplicity of the prototype I used a single Unity scene, so it was not necessary to worry about the transfer of information between scenes.
Game Mechanics
Nave controlada por el jugador
The ship can only move horizontally from one end of the screen to the other with a certain speed, for the movement we use the directional arrows or the A-D keys. Pressing the SPACE key the ship fires a projectile that travels with a certain speed which will increase as we advance to the next wave. By design requirements the ship can only fire one projectile at a time, that is to say that there can only be one missile on the screen, when it hits an enemy ship or goes off the screen, at that moment the ship is enabled to fire another one. The ship controlled by the player is destroyed when it is touched by an enemy ship. The player has three lives to kill as many waves as possible, eventually all of his ships will be destroyed and the game will end.
Enemy ships
In each wave five enemy ships appear at the top of the screen, which will start moving horizontally to one side of the screen, when one of the ships reaches one end of the screen, the whole set of enemy ships drops slightly and then moves in the other direction with an increase in speed. The speed of the enemy ships also increases with each wave.
Introduction
In this article we are going to analyze an algorithm to add the numbers from 1 to 10, that is to say we will create a function that solves the operation 1+2+3+…+10, this function will be programmed in a generic way to calculate the sum of all the natural numbers from 1 to N, being N any natural number, for example if N is 100, our algorithm will add the natural numbers from 1 to 100.
How can this situation be solved?
One thing we could do is to explicitly add up all those numbers, as shown below:
sum = 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10
Here the variable sum is assigned the sum of all natural numbers up to 10.
However this way of doing it is very rigid, it only allows us to solve that particular situation, if we would like to add the numbers up to 15, we have to go to the code and add the numbers manually and this of course is very impractical and cannot be modified at run time. Besides, why go to the trouble of writing the sum when you could directly assign the value 55 to the variable sum, right?
So we are going to solve this problem with a more flexible strategy, we are going to do this operation in several steps using mathematical properties such as the associative or the existence of the neutral element for the sum. This will allow us to have an algorithm that not only adds the integers from 1 to 10 but from 1 to any number we want.
Algorithm for adding N natural numbers
We can think this big sum in smaller sums, for example if we start from 0, first we solve 0+1 and store this result in a variable, then in another step, to the result of 0+1 we add 2, in another step, to that result we add 3 and so on until we reach the last value that we want to add. The number of steps to be taken goes from the first element to be added to the last element, that is, in the example, from Step 1 to Step 10.
This can be solved by using a variable that works as an accumulator of the sum and a repetitive loop that adds the numbers to the accumulator in each iteration. So for the variables we declare:
public int sum; public int n=10;
The accumulator is initialized to 0, because 0 is the neutral element for the sum, 0 added to any number is equal to that number. We do this with the following instruction:
sum=0;
Then we define a for loop, if you are using Visual Studio something you can do is type “for” and press the Tab key twice, that will autocomplete the syntax of the for loop.
We are going to initialize the loop in the value 1 and make it end in the variable N, in this particular case it is important that we use the sign “less or equal“. Summarizing what we are going to obtain is a first iteration in which “i” is 1 and in the last iteration i is 10 (in this particular case).
for(int i=1;i<=n;i++){ sum=sum+i; }
Inside the loop we will execute the instruction that is observed in the code fragment from above, variable sum equals the variable sum plus i, this means that first we will calculate this operation and then we will assign it to this variable, in the first iteration, sum will be worth 0, to that we add i that is worth 1, 0+1 equals 1 and that we assign it in the variable sum, in the following iteration sum is worth 1 and i is worth 2, so that the operation 1+2 is solved and it is assigned in the variable sum. So on and so forth until the last number is reached.
Algorithm test run in Unity
The complete code in C# language would look approximately as follows:
public int sum; public int n=10; void Start(){ sum=0; for(int i=1;i<=n;i++){ sum=sum+i; } }
We proceed to test the code, save the changes in the Script and execute it, in our case we do this by assigning the Script that contains the code to any GameObject of the hierarchy of our Unity Project and entering the game mode. When doing this, Unity automatically executes the Start function of that Script and the result of the sum is stored in the variable sum.
As the variable “n” is public, you can modify its value in the inspector, for example set it to 100 and solve for the sum of the natural numbers from 1 to 100.
Introduction
A Script is a document that contains programming instructions in a certain language, which is the one understood by the tool we are using to develop any application that requires programming.
Some examples of the use of Scripts
For example, a Script may contain a list of instructions for an Arduino to perform a function. It can also contain a set of rules that define the style of a web page. A simple game could be coded in a Script.
C# language scripts used in the Unity engine
In our case we are going to use Scripts within the Unity engine, these Scripts will be written in C# language and most of the time we will make these Scripts fulfill a certain function within Unity, using the objects and components of the hierarchy and performing logical and mathematical operations necessary for the development of the mechanics of the game.
What’s inside a Script in Unity
When creating a new Script in Unity, inside it will be defined by default a PROGRAMMING CLASS with the same name that we gave to the file, this class will extend from the MonoBehaviour class defined in the Unity Engine, it will also have two methods (or functions) defined, the Start function and the Update function.
How Scripts run in Unity
In order for the code we define inside a Script to be executed, the Script must be assigned to at least one GameObject in the hierarchy (the Script has to extend from MonoBehaviour in order to be added to a GameObject) and also that GameObject has to be active in Hierarchy.
This is enough for Unity to add it to its execution cycle, when entering the game mode, Unity will execute at certain times some of the functions that are defined within the Script, for example the Start, Update and FixedUpdate functions, and it will do it automatically.
What scripts are used for in Unity
Unity is a software that is known as a graphics engine, this software facilitates many technical issues when creating graphics applications, because if we did not have it, we should manually program functions that tell the graphics cards how to render what we want to appear on screen, using libraries such as DirectX or OpenGL. Unity also provides us with a physics engine that allows us to detect collisions and represent interactions between objects as if they were rigid bodies, with the most common physical properties they have. Audio processing is also an important feature of the engines.
Unity offers us a series of very useful tools and that otherwise would require a lot of technical knowledge, but to be able to handle these tools two things are needed, one is to know the Unity engine, that is to say to become familiar with these tools and to understand what function they fulfill. And the second thing we need is to know how to program to make use of these tools, and we will do that through programming scripts.
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