GODDAMNDAVE

I think.

I have a dinky little project in which the standard pill shaped FPS Controller can move around shoot cube primitives. Yesterday, any compiled version of the project would not shoot, even though playing it within the editor still worked just fine. I couldn’t figure it out and knew of no recourse to investigate (I hate troubleshooting with no leads, would rather quit and play someone else’s game).

Just now I figured I’d open the island demo that comes with Unity and make that one shoot. I didn’t use anything from the original project, and I actually copied the script verbatim from the Unity Script Reference. It all worked just fine, both in the editor and in the standalone build.

Switched back to my project. Noticed that the build and data directory from the first time I built this project appeared in the Project pane. It’s actually not the first time I’ve noticed this, but it stuck out because I’ve deleted those files and run the build with new names earlier today in the hope that somehow those files were mucking with my new changes. So, I deleted them from the Project pane and rebuilt. Shit works. I removed those assets from the Project pane before doing one more build test, so I can’t know for absolute certain if that did it. However, if that wasn’t it then the entire period during which it wasn’t working was completely a fluke.

So, the moral of the story is, the output of the build process should not show up in your Project pane.

The remaining question is, how the hell did it get there in the first place? And why did it matter?

and just about pissed myself with glee. I’m only about 20 minutes in, but this game has already achieved pants-shitting greatness in my book. The intro was good, the integrated tutorials are seamless, the hand to hand combat is simple yet robust, the graphics are unbelievable even on my PC, and already I’ve experienced several gameplay elements that are fundamentally superb and well executed. Like that hand to hand combat stuff. It’s dope.

Great job by Rock Steady Studios - never heard of ‘em. Their website is butt. Well, here they are on twitter: http://twitter.com/rocksteadygames/

Fuck Yeah Googley Eyes!

NullReferenceException: The prefab you want to instantiate is null.

I’ve been working with Unity3D for maybe 4 cumulative hours now and already I’ve frustratingly learned the same simple lesson twice. I have a little scripts that makes my camera shoot a cube whenever I clicked the left mouse button. In order to make that work I need to set the value of a variable from within the editor UI. But, when I select the script in the Project pane and then set those values in the Inspector pane, I still the error above.

That’s because in the Unity editor even scripts have instances made of them, which is an understandable but foreign concept to me. So, as you’ll see in the screenshot, you need to select the object in your scene to which you’ve previously applied your script (Main Camera here) and edit the variables’ values for that instance of the script.

You may select the script itself in the Project pane and it will allow you to set the values of the variables the same way, but it won’t work. That being the case, I’m actually not sure why it’s possible to do it here as well. Perhaps if I had set the values before applying the script to the object. I don’t know, suppose I’ll learn soon enough.

Oh, and here’s a forum post about this topic:

http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?p=220010

I beat Blueberry Garden...

after about 5 attempts. You get a password to a secret page on the developer’s site.

I’ll be vague to avoid writing a spoiler, but I’m kinda disappointed because I may have missed something at then end by doing something right before the fade to credits. Meh, probably not. This game was decent in a very strange way, but not real big on the payoffs. I mean content wise.

and already I feel like this and Twitter should swap hype/popularity levels.

and though it starts of well enough with the destructive play, the controls are messed up. There is extreme delay between the pressing of a button and onscreen response. This is most noticeable when driving a vehicle, as I can press the left arrow key and watch the wheels take a full second to rotate.

There was similar delay in Far Cry 2 when I first started playing it. The solution was to switch the game from DirectX 9 to DirectX 10, and now it seems the same may be true for Red Faction: Guerilla. At least I hope the solution is that simple. The bigger question is: Wtf is wrong with DirectX 10?

Also, I hate Games for Windows LIVE! Anyone who has been forced to use this shit should already know that it sucks, it’s just an impediment to play that is usually broken or in need of a game stopping update. Last night, once again, it threatened me with an inability to save my game if I didn’t sign in. Then it threatened me with an inability to play at all if I didn’t let it update itself. Note that this update does nothing for my game, which is the piece of software that I, the user, chose to run and therefor GfWLIVE is taking up time that I did not choose to give it.

Then it fails to connect, tells me my webernets might not be working. So, now what? Can I play? Can I save my game? I continue on and do both of these things, proving that the threats of GfWLIVE are both bullshit and idle. Yes, it is good that they don’t stop you from using your software when they have their own, unrelated technical issues, if you’re comparing that behavior to effectively bricking your game. It is still assinine bullshit if you compare this behavior to what they should be doing, which is staying the fuck out of my way and not impeding my play. Yes! Yes, it rhymes because Microsoft makes me angry! Speaking of Vista…

After I quit playing Red Faction, whose input delays I believe can also be blamed on Microsoft via DirectX 10, I find one of Vista’s ubiquitous “security” popups. It’s from the firewall. Apparently, Microsoft was blocking Microsoft from connecting to Microsoft to update Microsoft. I love it when a plan comes together.