Dev Blog
Hi, this is the Stranded III development blog (see also Forum Thread, Comment Thread).
Entry 84 - Banana Plant & Palisade - April 14, 2019
Oops! Exactly 90 days without a dev blog post! I'm still alive!
Nested Prefabs
Basically everyone working with Unity for some time already has been waiting way too long for nested prefabs. Some Unity updates ago this feature has finally been released in a "stable" (non beta) version of Unity.
For Stranded III they are especially useful for UI. I can now make one single slider prefab for instance and re-use it everywhere. When I think the slider looks ugly I can just change the prefab and all sliders in all menus will be changed accordingly.
This did not work with earlier versions because the menus themselves already needed to be prefabs and Unity did not allow to put prefabs into prefabs (in other words: It did not allow to nest prefabs).
To benefit from this change I had to replace all non-prefab objects with prefabs. Some manually and others with the help of some scripts I wrote. This procedure wasn't a lot of fun but now it's done.
Banana Plant
I made a banana plant with hand painted leaves!
Bananas can just be picked and eaten when they are ripe. This makes them an easily accessible food source. Useful for survivors which are not well equipped yet.
View Banana Plant on Sketchfab
Palisade
Moreover there's a palisade now. I just modified and copy & pasted the log model to make this one.
Even though there is a version with a window the palisade is only meant to be used as a protection for your camp and not as a wall for buildings.
I plan however to add some more log based building blocks. Some ideas*:
a gate which can be opened and closed (like in Stranded II)
... and maybe a way to close the window in the palisade as well?!
a wall walk which can be built behind palisades and other walls
various different parts to build a log house, tree house, towers etc.
a jetty (yes, again like in Stranded II)
*) Just ideas. I don't promise that all of them will make it into the game.
Cool Links
I found a very nice guide in case you're interested in stylized 3D modelling.
It contains a ton of advices and common mistakes that should be avoided.
Stylized 3D Production Guide
There are also many other interesting and useful game dev articles on 80.lv!
So if you're interested in this topic you should definitely take a look!
Nested Prefabs
Basically everyone working with Unity for some time already has been waiting way too long for nested prefabs. Some Unity updates ago this feature has finally been released in a "stable" (non beta) version of Unity.
For Stranded III they are especially useful for UI. I can now make one single slider prefab for instance and re-use it everywhere. When I think the slider looks ugly I can just change the prefab and all sliders in all menus will be changed accordingly.
This did not work with earlier versions because the menus themselves already needed to be prefabs and Unity did not allow to put prefabs into prefabs (in other words: It did not allow to nest prefabs).
To benefit from this change I had to replace all non-prefab objects with prefabs. Some manually and others with the help of some scripts I wrote. This procedure wasn't a lot of fun but now it's done.
Banana Plant
I made a banana plant with hand painted leaves!
Bananas can just be picked and eaten when they are ripe. This makes them an easily accessible food source. Useful for survivors which are not well equipped yet.
View Banana Plant on SketchfabPalisade
Moreover there's a palisade now. I just modified and copy & pasted the log model to make this one.
Even though there is a version with a window the palisade is only meant to be used as a protection for your camp and not as a wall for buildings.
I plan however to add some more log based building blocks. Some ideas*:
a gate which can be opened and closed (like in Stranded II) ... and maybe a way to close the window in the palisade as well?! a wall walk which can be built behind palisades and other walls various different parts to build a log house, tree house, towers etc. a jetty (yes, again like in Stranded II)*) Just ideas. I don't promise that all of them will make it into the game.
Cool Links
I found a very nice guide in case you're interested in stylized 3D modelling.
It contains a ton of advices and common mistakes that should be avoided.
Stylized 3D Production GuideThere are also many other interesting and useful game dev articles on 80.lv!
So if you're interested in this topic you should definitely take a look!