I looked into the frame rate and the higher the framerate the faster the battery drain - since Nullzone mentioned the fast battery drain im going to leave the frame rate limited by default
I forgot to mention - yeah this is a really good sugestion, and i wanted to do this since the beginning, but i can figure out how to make teh game tell the difference between two finger pinch and just two fingers, but its on my dream list
Gotta hop in a minute, so just really quick for now. I simply googled "iOS recognise pinch", got one from Stackoverflow and 2 from Apple: https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/WindowsViews/Conceptual/UIScrollView_pg/ZoomZoom/ZoomZoom.html https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uipinchgesturerecognizer https://stackoverflow.com/questions/39073327/ios-recognize-pinch-gestures-but-not-two-finger-pans No idea how useful/feasible any of those is for you, though. At first glance, the methods described by Apple's devguide sound pretty easy, though.
If you can ... pick up "Fingers Gestures" from the Unity asset store. It has pre-written functions for all kinds of gestures. I integrated it really quickly in my game and saw a huge improvement in the touch controls ... which will roll out shortly to all games. https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/input-management/fingers-touch-gestures-for-unity-41076 For resolutions, how exactly are you changing resolutions in Unity? I had a resolution option but on my iPhone 7, I only see a single resolution option appear. Do iPads and other devices support more resolutions?
Thanks you two! Well, can't resist: that's what you get when you have a professional wasn't difficult, to be honest. I just took Robert's testing requests, thought a bit about it and wrote a very simple testplan (like adding the "try with Nightshift on/off" thing). Didn't take me longer than 5 minutes. And no, I did not remember all that stuff. I just noted down the FPS I got next to my testing steps, really easy to do on oldfashioned dead trees without getting out of the flow. @curtis: If you want to test for more than just crashes, you should be able to use my post as testplan. If that doesn't work for you and you want one, give me a few days (very busy currently) and I can write one. My bad, I didn't think about that. *Of course* higher fps drains more battery, as the display refreshes more often. Also just noticed I forgot to take into account another thing: display brightness. I have mine usually pretty low, 1/3 or less. And while I don't have hard numbers, I know from my girlfriend (who typically uses her iPhone with eye-hurting max brightness) that this drains her battery a lot faster. Now I am curious: Does Unity allow you to automate tests like this? Of course you'll have to do it on a real device, not emulated. But can you e.g. add a script that automatically runs a specific route with several different settings, and records the framerates, e.g. as a nice graph? Would save a lot of hassle, and make evaluating changes much easier in the long run. UPDATE: yes, you can automate. But the first one I found (Froglogic) has a hefty pricetag, starting at 7000$. Second one looks better, though; it's free: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/72693 . But no idea how complicated it is to setup and run. Oh, and the "Finger Gestures" Wavelight recommended is currently 30% off, 27$ instead of 40$. Requires Unity 5.6.4 or later, and I can't remember what version you are currently on.
Thanks for the link Do you kow if it works with joysticks? My issue is how will it know if i have my move and look thumbs on the screen vs two fingers trying to oinch zoom. I think i will try one of these solutions though (i pit it on my list) because maybe they have already though of this issue. For resolution in BrightRidge there shgould be multiple resolotions to choose form on OPTIONS > SETTINGS > QUALITY > RESOLUTION and the four buttons across the top. L:et me know if you dont see this. Each devices has 4 resilution options - from low to high - but what they are exactly differes from deveice to device. The version currently in the apple store only does eithe iPAd 4:3 or iPhone 16:9, but this new 7.7 version we're testing now has opend that up to include different sizes for iPads, iPad Pros, iPhone X, regular iPhones - in fact its kind of crazy how much fragmentation is going on at Apple now - i am literally designing for a dozen or more devices and 5 or 6 different resolution sets, all from A7 to A11 chips To change the resolution in code is easy: Screen.SetResolution(1136, 640, false); I think you can choose any resolutions. What i do is find the max resolutions on each device and then i decide on 4 variants in the same aspect ratio. For example, here's my choices (in UnityScript) for iPhone 5S to iPhone 8: public function phone5inchLow(){ Screen.SetResolution(640, 360, false); } public function phone5inchMed(){ Screen.SetResolution(852, 480, false); } public function phone5inchHigh(){ Screen.SetResolution(1024, 576, false); } public function phone5inchUltra(){ Screen.SetResolution(1136, 640, false); }
Thanks for this, although i dont think i can do it right now - im on the brink of sanity with the game and my job and my inconsistent social life Im glad you mentioned the battery drain because i never would have known that about the frame rate - i was about to make it unlimited by default so you saved me some pain AND led me in the right direction
Thanks for trying it Yeah, the game is pretty heavy so it can definitely be chppy on some devices. The upcoming version has a lot of optimizations, so hopefully it will run a bit faster on your device
The next beta is alomost ready - tonight i am going to write a component to manage resolution and effects on its own - right now i am hand coding all the different resolutions and changes for each device, but im realizing there are so may, this wau i can just select options froma drop down list for each device so i can change defaults more easily Meanwhile heres what will be inthe next beta: + Removed redundant titles and warning text from several options screens - simplify translation and declutter + Add visual indicator small green dot to show default buttons in options + Removed Soft Vegetation option - deprecated + Disabled analytics + Replaced text with icons for international audience: Sun intensity, ambient intensity, color filters, watercolor brush size and intensity, sun color, map location, contrast, slow time, + Moved Playground / Quality shortcuts between them to top right and enlarged for better usability + Removed Button SlideIn() code and expensive FIND code - was still firing on button use + IPhone 8 plus shadows increased to medium shadows / iPad Pro 12 2017 increased default to high shadows + Enlarged MUSIC and SFX Volume sliders, replaced titles with button icons + NEW expanded BLOOM Options > Playground > Bloom settings - HDR, samples, blue, threshold, intensity, quality and active + New Visual Manager component to manage screen effects + HDR bloom options - should help with colors blowing out at high intensities + changed strong lights options to 1.5 and x 2 srangth instead of x2 and x 4 (was too bright) The thing i like most is the new BLOOM panel - currently you can have bloom on or off. Now there is a dedicated bloom panel that lets you customize the bloom effect, where light bleeds into objects, with more control to achieve some neat looks. I am also hoping it will help with the lack dots or white dots that happens in some situations. After this build i will play through the game to make sure nothing is broken, then upload to the app store. Then i will add in the Game pad support for the next version NEW HIGH TEXTURES OPTION 16 times the resolution of the original game - you cans ee the differemce in the statue texture: NEW BLOOM TESTS Changes hos light bleeds into the scene - this is with some custom settings enabled
No worries, just wanted to have it out here before I forget about it About the framerate: Give me a bit to run some more tests, if limiting to 30fps drains the battery less. Most of the time I spent testing was with rather low framerates (definitely below 30), so my educated guess is that most of the drain came from all the effects. Also, "on brink of sanity" does not sound good. Looks like I have to send you into timeout for your health's sake take it easy for at least a week or two: take a vacation, read books, whatever gets your stress levels down. Doctor Nullzone prescribes no game development till Christmas, extendable till New Year if no substantial recovery is observed
Yeah, i agree about leaving some head room for effects - i just uploaded build 12 and on my devices it runs really smooth - plus there is a new BLOOM panel in Playground. The big change is i wrote a new component tonight so i can select resolution and quality using dropdowns on my end - so I ca set the four resolutions for your ipad using drop downs (i added the top resolutions we spoke about) and also set which resolution it starts at. So its super fast for me to change default options now - up until now i was writing them in code which was getting unwieldly I will definitely relax this holiday, i just want to get this update out for christmas so people with iphone 8s and Xs can play it since it has the bug fix but i am glad you care and yes health absolutely does come first. One bug in build 12 is the camera button is missing to take a photo. besides that i will play it through to make sure the rest is OK
On the X, everything seems to be running great. However, the graphics and shadow settings are on the lowest setting when I begin. After bumping them up, uncapping frame rate, throwing on all the weather, and pets, and the FPS was still around 30. Usually, I was getting closer to 60. The light changes seemed to have worked, which was nice! It began on default instead of plus one. I havent had time to go through the stories yet, but Ill give it a go when I can and let you know if I encounter anything. But its looking and running smoothly for me. However, yeah, it can be a battery drain. I didnt check the percentage, but I did notice a sizeable drop in battery during my testing. I might have flew around as a dragon utilizing two hand controls so I could get sweet screen shots there for a while. Its easy to start with a goal of testing and then get lost in the world.
@curtis: How many fps do you get when you uncap them and in addition to what you already did also switch all the special effects on? Battery usage you can find here: Settings -> Battery. Look at the line below "Battery Usage" where it says "last 24 hours / last 7 days". To the right of that is a small clock icon. Click on that, and it will show the time spent as well.
Just stumbled on some very interesting material, fitting right in with your more religious theme for Vangdels; as so often recently, courtesy of the prolific Mr.Smith: http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.nl/2015/07/gen-con-true-detective-sleeping-kids.html https://medievalbooks.nl/2015/07/10/chain-chest-curse-combating-book-theft-in-medieval-times/ : the pictures are great, as is the article. There you have your temple/church library From there, I followed some links to interesting-sounding articles on the same site, but didn't read them yet: https://medievalbooks.nl/2015/09/04/medieval-posters/ , https://medievalbooks.nl/2015/04/17/texting-in-medieval-times/ , https://medievalbooks.nl/2014/08/29/strange-medieval-books/ (fun stuff, like a heart-shaped or a circular book) , https://medievalbooks.nl/2016/04/29/the-secrets-of-medieval-fonts/ . Good inspiration material to add some more atmospheric details, methinks.
Thats good to hear about the exploration. When do you find time to test the game and do all that video? This is really appreciated. Thanks for checking all of this. I pretty much decide i will keep the cap at 30 for the battery by default (although as you know you can change this). Once thing is even if i change the start res the button doesnt change to reflect this, so im working on a way to change the buttons too when i manually change the res. Here's a screen shot of the component i created, with the iPhone X specs: You can see i decided to start it i high res instead of full - in general and after hearing your guys experience, i think its good to leave a little headroom instead of starting things maxed out - so like at the 75% capacity. I still have to add the shadow and effects changes to this component - the resolution and texture quality has been added but the shadow quality etc are still hard coded. i just fixed the take a photo button on my end and am making good progress. I am hoping to ahve the update ready for monday
Thats really neat about the different shaped book - what a great idea - i can see this circular book on a stand in my head. there is actually a nice sized library in the Vandgels Citadel, right below the debate room - maybe i can add that in there. I also love the idea of chained or otherwise protected books - like keeping knowledge out of the hands of people and who to fight that. i bookmarked them all - thank you for the links BTW the latest build should start without the buttons squished - if you se any more squished buttons please let me know.
The odd-shaped books are Books of Hours (for prayer and contemplation), and were meant to be carried around as far as I got it from the article. No idea if that's easily possible, but would be cool to see someone walk around with one of those I read around a bit more there, lots of inspiring stuff, e.g.: - Nametags for orphans: https://medievalbooks.nl/2015/04/24/rare-medieval-name-tags/ just in case you have an orphanage somewhere - Medieval desktop setups: https://medievalbooks.nl/2014/10/10/medieval-desktops/ . Note the awesome bookwheel, and the horizontal desk that can obviously be adjusted. - Recycling parchment books: https://medievalbooks.nl/2014/10/31/destroying-medieval-books-and-why-thats-useful/ . That mitre (technically only the inside lining) looks absolutely great, would be right at home in a fantasy setting. Same for the dress, I can perfectly imagine devout followers wearing clothing with scripture on it for festive occasions, church holidays, etc. Gives off a Warhammer vibe, where such decorations are very common. Example: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/bc/20/03/bc20038541fd860684041d32b71caf23--dark-blood-fantasy-costumes.jpg That article (and at least one other I read) also mention that scraps from old books were often used to stiffen books' backs. Would be a fun way to drop old and obscure information on the player. - Books on sticks, like medieval e-readers/tablets https://medievalbooks.nl/2015/04/10/book-on-a-stick/
Wow! Yeah, thats a good call. 75% is probably a good amount. Looking forward to it! And thanks for the iPhone X screenshot. Gives me a good idea of the interface you work with. That seems super convenient! Glad you dont have to code all of that. Man, I should look into game engines. If only I had more free time! Hope you have a good weekend and get some down time. Ive got to go test the Monster Hunter Workd demo. Have you ever tried a Monster Hunter game? Your world has a lot of that exploration feel that MH has.
Sorry I missed this! Just tested it, and when it was snowing or raining, with all the objects and effects I averaged a little more than 20fps. With a couple effects and all the filters on I averaged 40-45fps! And thanks for mentioning the battery thing! Ill have to check that when I play the next update.
That sound pretty good to me As long as its at 30fps i am happy. I played through Love and Tin and am playng through Ballad of BrightRodge to note any bugs - after fixing those i will upload a final (hopefully) beta for release BrightRidge 7.7. Then it is back to Vandgels (although i do have controller support and, if it works out, a BIG surprise for BrightRidge's update 8.0)
