Archive:
Had a few hours over the weekend, so I made a start texturing the props for the intro sequence. It’s coming along!
And I did the big job: made a Cecconoid arcade to go in there. 
There’re a few easter eggs – Zorzin’s Pizza, and the Immortal Joysticks logo – but you probably won’t see them in the intro sequence. I know they’re there, though :)
I emailed Gill Wakelin, Bob Wakelin’s wife, to see if she’ll let me license Bob’s Head Over Heels artwork, for one of the picture frames on the wall. Bob had agreed to do the key art for Lumo, before he passed, so it’d be cool to legit get something of his in, this time around. If you don’t ask, you don’t get, but let’s see. It’s a bit cheeky.
Back on Sandy Whites for a while.
I’ve been trying to think of things that reinforce to the player that the rooms will rotate, and to match the other two zones, I need the first room to have some “hidden” exits. Thought I’d come up with a genius idea: a toggle that actives “things” in the world if the camera’s facing in the correct direction.
So, three levers, you can only pull the levers if the camera is facing them straight-on. Pull the lever, the outer ring rotates, and shows an exit. Means the first time you enter the level – before you have the camera unlock doo-dah – there’s only one exit. Second time, two more.
It’s all working, has audio, and stuff fades in and out nicely, but I’m not sold. I don’t think it’s going to work as well as I thought.
Dunno, I might use it again for a secret, but I don’t think it’s good enough to be a thing.
(Future Gareth: Totally ended up using it again, in Nu-Antesher…)
Only had a half day, so did some tidy-ups to Sandy Whites. Added some nice wind VFX, a golden duck above the duck-exit-door in the second room, and some collision that disappears if the camera’s been rotated to face the correct direction. (Gotta love a Dot Product!) This fixes some long-standing bugs where you could walk around the edges of rooms and access stuff before the camera had rotated and actually shown them to you…
Dunno why this popped into my head – must have seen it in a Mario game somewhere – but I woke up with a hamster wheel in my head, so I made one. It’s not as smooth as I’d like; I’m taking the player’s CharacterMovementComponent velocity, converting that to angular velocity, then rotating the wheel, which leads to some pops when the character jumps and suddenly shoots forward. I guess because the movement component thinks it’s running forward, when it’s actually running on the spot. But it’ll do.
Not had a reply from Mrs Wakelin. Guess that’s a no. Shame.
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