No Heroes - A realistic multiplayer FPS

Thanks.
I think my secret is that i actually like working on almost all of the parts of game development, programming, 3d modeling, texturing, animations, level design, environment, working with Unity, etc. So if i get bored or tired of a subject (extreme cases), then i switch workflow until i'm ready again to go back and continue what i was doing.
This allows me to continue work on the game without making myself tired of a subject. ( and keeping me sane )

It's very hard to work on a game like this while also studying in university ( and now also taking an internship ), so at most, i get about 2-3 hours a day to work on the game. I also get very tired of programming these days, since i spend all day programming in my internship.

 

Eskovas Your a Role Model to all Developers in the World Your game is a reflection of Perfection . Btw did you check out the Microsoft Game development Contest- http://unity3d.com/contest/windows
If you Enter your game Into this You will Surely Win and youll get all the funding you need to Make this the Best game EVER!

 

Hello Everyone
Finally have a little more free time now, after finishing my last test yesterday. Won't have any summer vacations because of my internship though.

Anyway,
I've been looking at how destruction is usually done, and looking at some real life references, and i think i'm getting a better handling of destruction meshes.
Here's a comparison (using my amazing Paint skills ) of an old destructible object and a new destructible object.
I'm also going to make a new (maybe large) post soon, describing what i've also been doing besides the coding part, what was changed and added to the game.



Edit:
Here's also a Gif showing Lux PBS and Natural Bloom

 

Wow that new model looks really awesome!!! The metal bars inside the model looks ultra realistic......Your game allready looks awesome, but with this you've blurred the line between virtuality and reality even more!!!! Hats off to you sir for this awesome Game......Good luck!

Just one question though, Now will you have to re-model every object in your game?

 

Awesome! I love the way buildings are destroyed :twisted: I read that you would release the alpha at the beginning of this year, Is it released?

P.S.: The tower's cap disappear when is destroyed (Massive Destruction Teaser 2)

 

No Alpha yet....and i dont think it will be released anytime soon either ;( But im sure the wait will be Worth Every bit

 

I did a game dev live-stream two days ago on Twitch, mainly working on the map ( didn't do much though )
You can check the VOD here and watch the stream if you are interested:
http://www.twitch.tv/drunkenlizardgames/b/534013900
You can also follow me on Twitch, so if i go live, you will know

Unless you have planned what and how to do it on a live-stream, then i do not recommend you to do what i did... It's very distracting and difficult to get anything done (also be ready for 'backseat developing'... people telling you how and what to do, all the time during the stream, unless you timeout / ban them).
Probably not doing that again. I'll probably only stream gameplay from now on.

Anyway, besides working on the programming part of No Heroes, i've also been improving some of the visuals. Here's a screenshot:



I was hopping to get No Heroes on Unity Awards this year, but after finding out they don't accept Steam's Early-Access games (understandable), then i will probably try to enter the awards next year
If you didn't know already, No Heroes was already accepted through Steam's Greenlight on October 2013, and will be released on Steam when it's ready as a free-to-play game

 

Gorgeous, never expected such quality from an indie developer, but actually a 1 man team too! Keep up great work! Inspiration to us all!

 

Will it released in 2014 summer?

 

Make your own pathways in No Heroes!



Excited to show the new destruction and new map very soon.
I might also make the new, long overdue, Video Update #44. ( maybe next week or the week after, depending on what i have to show )
I will reserve the new multiplayer framework and scripting remake in the update #45.

The island was also drastically changed, improved and scaled. Has a much more realistic feeling.

 

You know, personally I don't see a lot of problem in making some slightly more powerful pay-only weapons, I hate in-app payments as it's being done nowadays, but if it's reasonable, I don't see any problem in rewarding with a slight advantage the paying player.

Discussions about payments are always long and unproductive. Fact is, it's most unfair to leave the developer unpaid .

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You'll need to balance the quantity of explosives... you know... since the explosives in this game have more effect than just blackening the area temporarily and killing nearby players, you'll have to make sure they are rarer, if the entire map is destroyed on the 1st minute the game will significantly lose it's appeal. Specially because the destruction isn't procedural so there's a limited number of destructible stuff on the map.

So far it's awesome .

 

I think you should focus on the parkour-side of things: that would add the sense of originality to the game.

 

Here's an early look at the, basically new, improved island. The image was taken right inside the editor, without post-processing effects.
It's still work in progress. This improved island will be almost twice as big as the old one.



I'm preparing things for the next video update while also adding new destructible objects and structures.
I also improved performance, adding on average 20fps while maintaining the same look.
It's also possible to change Terrain's shading quality for faster performance.

One big, not so big change is the complete removal of vignetting post-processing effect. the final image is much better without it.

 

Getting back into animation after about 6 months.
A bit rusty but liking the results. Did that in ~45 minutes

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As you might have noticed, from videos and images, The hands and arms were rotated in a weird way. That was because of how the IKs were set up.
Today i fixed the Inverse Kinematics on the player and the final (fixed) result is much, much better.
This IK fix should have been made a really long time ago, but i just kept postponing it so i could work on other things.

Here's an image showing how it was and how it is now.

 

fixed the classic retarted arma 2 wrist, nice lol

 

Fun with particles



I'm also making a new dynamic weapon movement, i think everyone will like it when i show it in the next video update

I'm planning to release the new video update this week if everything goes well. I'm still fixing some things and adding a few others.

This will be the biggest update yet and i think everyone will enjoy the current state of the game

The update after this one will focus on Networking, multiplayer, menu functionality, scripts rework and many other technical things.

 

You guys have been working hard on this. cannot wait to see the outcome.

 

Here it finally is!

Here's the new and biggest update of No Heroes, #44

Hope you enjoy the current state of the game
Support by sharing and rating the video

Changes in this update:
- Island has been remade, making it much more believable,
- The map is still WIP and will be almost 2 times bigger than before,
- New Dynamic animations when player is not performing certain actions,
- Various animations while sprinting,
- Improved reticle effect,
- New gun sounds ( still place holder ),
- New particle effects,
- New and more believable destruction objects,
- Using a new Terrain Shading Solution, amazing improvement over the old one,
- Now using Physical Based Shading,
- Using a new Weather and Day/Night Cycle Solution,
- Lights switch On/Off during day/night transitions,
- Added Natural Bloom,
- Fixed IKs inside Unity, Arms look much better and more natural than before,

- It's also possible to retract or extend the stock of weapons in real-time inside the game
I forgot to include it in this update, but you can check it out by clicking here to see the video

 

Hey, this looks really great. I have a few questions if you don't mind:

• Your map is big and very detailed. There are a lot of buildings, grass and vegetation. How do you get it to run smoothly?
• How did you do your destruction system?

 

eskovas ,
Just wanted to say you've been a big inspiration to me , so much so I've started on my own FPS *AGAIN*.

One question, After browsing your youtube channel & Facebook , how do you deal with everybody wanting the game to be released right now?

 

Don't listen to them and stick to your own schedule, not much else you can do i guess : )

 

I can guarantee that at least I will not play games that give advantages to people who spend money on them and with me a lot of other people as well. Implementing that kind of business strategy will kill any good game.

 

1- I try to use as much static batching as possible, smart geometry placement, not abuse on high quality small objects, etc.
2- I can't really say how i do it, but it's not that complicated. Research a bit in the subject and you can figure it out.

Thank you. I've heard so many times that people started making their games because of me and i don't really know how to respond to that I guess, thank you and good luck
On the top of my head, i believe around 50-100 people have said that to me.

At first i did respond to every single question asking when the game was ready, but after awhile, i didn't have the patience to respond to so many ( believe me when i say i get like 2-5 "when is the game ready?" questions every day )
Also with the community getting larger, they also respond to those questions for me, which is great. I also make sure the "release" is on every main section (facebook banner, youtube channel, forum first page, etc).

Nice to see you still come to this thread

Don't worry, the only thing that will be purchasable are cosmetic items.




EDIT:
Updated the main page with new and way better screenshots of the game.
I will also remake the description of the game soon. The one currently used isn't good.

 

How did you manage to go through 3 years making this game "alone"? You sir are now my new role model T_T.. I have to say I thought this was going to be a crappy I did this in two hours love me kinda WIP thread. But this is very outstanding.

 

I follow this thread almost everyday, just mostly lurking in the shadows : )

 

I wasn't alone for 3 years ( it was a team of 3 in the beginning ), but i've been working on the game alone for something like 2 years now.


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Adding explosions!


Really enjoying making particle effects

 

Any alpha(or beta) gameplay yet? I'd love to play the game.

 

Not yet.


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I'm thinking of ether getting TNet or Bolt networking solutions.
I'm still going to research about these two a bit more, but is there anyone who has worked with both (or one) and can give some opinions, pros/cons of each one? Would really help me out to make a final decision.

The reason for this is that i was switching from photon cloud to UnityPark, and i already got many things working with UnityPark, but i don't think i will continue with it because, you know, a single game indie license is close to 700€ and i probably won't have that many funds by the time i want to release the early access alpha on Steam.
I'm still saving up to pre-order Unity5 student commercial upgrade. Almost there though.

So if there are some of you with feedback as to how these networking solutions work, i would appreciate the help.
My main focus is authoritative servers

 

Hi,

I have been following your great work for sometime and I would like to have access to alpha release when It's available.

 

Exactly 3 years have passed since the very first update of No Heroes.
Go down memory lane and check out how the game was when it was first shown and how it evolved to become the game it is today.

 

During the next 4 days, i'll make 4 posts of what's new/improved in No Heroes. These are already done and i'm now working on setting up the new database and making the networking and multiplayer framework. ( I had to switch networking solutions again because of licensing costs )

Here's the first post:
Free Look has been added to No Heroes.
You will be able to rotate only the head, so you can walk/run in a direction but be able to look around at the same time. It works really well

 

Free look sounds complicated. What if I see a tango. My gun will not be ready and boom!! headshot!!
However, it would be good for Snipers, as they can take a position, and move their head as to not give away their position.

PS: When can i play the beta? lol.

 

You could just rotate the body instead of the head. Free Look is better used when running in a direction and look around at the same time. Everything works very fast, so if that scenario happens, it's fast to still aim at the target.
No date for the alpha yet.

------------------------------------------

Performance has been improved with almost no visual changes.

This image is where the performance is the lowest on the island, and on high settings and 1080p i was getting on average 33 FPS with Update #44 build. ( Update #44 was recorded with medium - high settings)
After some tweaks and improvements, i was able to increase 10 FPS to an average of 43-44FPS on high settings 1080p. On everywhere else on the island, i get on average 50+ FPS. Memory and video memory usage has also been improved.

Performance on lowest settings has improved 50+ FPS. Getting on average 150FPS.

 

I'm still amazed at how bad Youtube video compression is...
If you are familiar with Youtube, you should know by now that their video compression is really really bad.
You should never judge the quality of a game through youtube videos.
Here's a comparison i made of the latest update.

 

You did an amazing work.
But what appened to the bloom&flares and vignetting effects ?
The game was beautiful in the update #41.

 

This is probably one of the most important things i've added to No Heroes.

I'm working on a new technique that will make it possible to have:
- no player/weapon clipping with the environment,
- shadows from every object in the environment,
- 2 camera setup, letting the player change the field of view of the environment camera and the player/weapon camera will still have the same field of view with no distortion



This setup is commonly used in today's FPS, but due to how Unity works ( and probably every other engine ) it's not possible to do this out of the box.

I'm aware of one method to achieve this, which is by duplicating the environment geometry and using a shadow caster on that geometry, but that basically requires twice the objects in a scene, really difficult to make animated skinned meshes and cloth meshes to work with that setup, and a few other issues.

This method won't be doing any of that.

I've been searching the forums and other places, on and off for about 1 and half years, and never found the solution.

Yesterday i had a simple thought out of nowhere and tried to implement it, and today i'm starting to really like the results

I'm only having a few issues with post-processing effects, but all should be done soon.

EDIT:
With this, it's also possible to create incredibly accurate first person world/self shadows on the weapon and player.

 

Why don't you just use animations to keep the weapons from colliding with objects, like for example the player can raise his weapon or lean against a wall. Try to be unique, don't go for other FPS games. You have potential. And please focus more on the parkour as well! I love that feature! Make it something people want to use!

 

I think you are missing the point of this method.
This is not copying what other games do... This is finding a solution to a very common and problematic problem.

This is used to prevent first person character/weapon clipping with the rest of the environment. There will be many many times that it's impossible to avoid clipping, and using more animations won't be enough.

One other thing that this 2 camera setup allows, is separate field of views for the environment and first person player.
Meaning the user can set the FOV to 90 and the first person character won't be affected by this, meaning there won't be any weird character views and no distortions on the character and weapons.

This method also allows for near pixel perfect shadows on the first person models, meaning the quality will also improve.

One other use for dual camera rendering, is the weapon camera can be zoomed in to get a better aiming down sights effect. ( less distortion )

I actually have yet to find a Unity game that was able to achieve this method.

 

Hello everyone

I'm currently making a new technique that uses dual camera rendering.
This new technique will enable the game to have the following:

- No Clipping
- Shadows from every single object ( objects, trees, cloth, animated objects, etc )
- Separate Field of View for first person and Scene Cameras
- Near pixel perfect shadows on first person objects
- Better aim down sights effect ( no distortion or other weird FOV problems )

As opposed to other methods that achieve somewhat similar results but very limited,
This method doesn't need duplicated objects in another layer, and it's much simpler to set up everything.

 

Awesome work! Have you considered putting this up on the asset store?

 

Well, i do know that this is highly requested by practically everyone who's making FPS games.
I've also been one of those people who have been searching every corner of the internet for this solution and never found anything like it...

I've been considering offering this for free, or maybe put it on the asset store with tools to set up everything ( some things do need to be set up for this to work, and a tool would be very very useful )

 

I feel like the shadows are too soft.

 

id suggest bolt, it has tutorials, even on authorativeness. And honestly, you should look for a solution that works outside the box, something that doesnt require access to a specific server that can be blocked by the firewall (like the built in raknet solution and not photon).

 

nice work over the years, have you thought about joining a company? or selling the FPS System's source?

 

Mmm, that weapon shadow system would be super nice.
Would love to know how it works, as I'm working on my own FPS and the lack of first person shadows is just about unacceptable to me.

 

It's been awhile since i posted something
This is mostly because i've been working only on the networking part of the game.

It's progressing very well. Here's how things are:
- Database working perfectly,
- Lobby Server working very well. I'll still have to make the Login by using Steam, but i'm still waiting for Valve on that one...
- Game Server is progressing very well. Servers will be authoritative.
- Framework for game modes is done and it's very easy to add/change game modes.
- Client. I'm going to start working on the client soon, with player movement and more.

When i have the game playable again with the all new networking, then i'll be making videos again and maybe some streams

While during the week i work on that, during the weekend i don't have my main PC, so if i have some free time during the weekend, i take the time to experiment on other features ( using Unity indie on my old laptop ).
This time, i've been working on destruction meshes and blending of destruction textures, and i'm pretty happy with the results i'm getting:



This wall was made really really fast and only for testing/prototyping, so expect the quality of destruction meshes to be higher in the game.

EDIT:
Just so everyone knows why it's taking so long, here's how things were before this networking rework:
- No Database
- No Lobby
- No game servers
- Networking was peer-to-peer ( not authoritative), easily hackable
- inconsistent
- many other things that didn't exist

I'm also not only working on the networking side, but i'm completely remaking almost every single script ( i explained awhile back what i was changing and i'm still changing it)

EDIT2:

Here's a comparison with and without destruction texture

 

Did you eventually switch to Unity Pro or was this made exclusively with Unity free version.

 

No Heroes was using free for a while. Update 34 showed the switch to pro. I am now wondering if No Heroes is going to be using Unity 5 Pro. Real-Time GI!!! The only problem with doing that is @eskovas will be required to post MANY screenshots then.

 

Dude, your game is amazing. I have been following it for the past year. Can I suggest something?
If you have ever played Far Cry 3, you probably noticed that when the player gets too close to a wall, the gun will lift upwards. This is used as a mechanic for blind firing. If you could implement such a mechanic, your game would be much cooler! Especially since you are going for the realistic feel. Just a suggestion that I think people would really like.

Anyways, I cannot wait to play your game when it comes out!

 

Yes, i will be using Unity5. I already pre-ordered it a few weeks ago

I already had that feature awhile back, but i changed it. I might bring it back again.

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Giving a little update:

I'm finally a steamworks developer, meaning i can finally implement steamworks functionality in No Heroes,
I've been learning the API and been implementing authentication and other things. Login is automatic ( no need to login manually ) and registration only requires a valid username. It will be really easy to get into No Heroes.

Everything is now going great and soon i'll finally go back to the actual multiplayer networking, servers, gameplay ( Gameplay will receive a major overhaul ) and other things.

I'll post more updates when things are more advanced.
Thanks for the support