[W.I.P] 2.5D Fighting Game Framework

You mean move links? Like c.LP, Fireball, Super Fireball? That is done with Move link.

 

Yeah like how Sagat performs his super art a tiger knee into a tiger uppercut then a super tiger uppercut . I figured your system already supported this functionality just wanted to be sure

 

Do you think you can have a poll to where people vote on compatible plugin support like Suimono for water or
Ruaumoko deformable snow or sand or even The Hightlight system in the future?

 

I'd sure love to have something like that, but I don't know how they do it. My idea was to build up a website with its own forums:
General
Questions
Suggestions
Custom Addons (Community sharing)

while keeping a post here to serve as general as well.

 

Cool!, it would be great to have some plugins supported, the asset store features some amazing plugins and using them in unison with your engine would create some truly amazing work.

 

That sounds great. I can not wait to see what you do with the website. Do let me know if you need any assistance with it. I create and edit Joomla websites everyday. It is a fantastic CMS with a lot of great forum / chat plugins. Very quick and easy.

I love the idea of a community site where we can all share ideas and contribute. I am also working on a generic character who can be repainted an accessorised. Always helps me to have a solid base to work from. I also have iClone 5 and 3D exchange pipeline which has a massive library of fighting animations and a mocap system.

 

What kind of options do you have for attack and damage states like knockback wall bounce, knock down bounce, launchers, crumple, guard breaks, fall down on face or back
Also with the push block option can we choose an animation for that state?

 

For bounce, currently you can have ground bounce as an option. If you have it on, if an attack pushed the character down at the minimum force defined in the bounce options, the character will bounce back up. You can choose rather or not they will have hitboxes after the bounce and how high it bounces back from the force applied, aka, how "bouncy" the ground is (does not affect jumps).
Launchers can be configured in the move itself by setting a high Y force when the move hits. Crumple exists as a hit type, but since I don't have an animation for it to run tests, it basically just means a character stays in hitstun for a longer period. Guard break is an excellent idea, I need to take note of that. In fact, that's where a suggestions forum should really come in handy =)

As for fall down on face or back I have not that setup yet. I do plan on having different animation triggers for sweep or knockdown and I even have a couple animations for it, but I'm currently focusing on the Editor GUI to try to speed up the release and move some of the original ideas as post releases, and that might include push block (not sure yet)

The more animations I get the more ideas I can try really, but these always depend on third parties and any free time I get between the TODO list.
Since this might as well start becoming a community project, we can all definitely try all sorts of things on post release. I was also planning on having our own asset store inside the website where people can sell and buy assets built for UFE. That might include "UFE ready character-animation packs", addons, GUIs and a lot more. But that is on the long run. These things take time but if I can make a living out of this, I'll never stop working =)


Just a small update here guys, and I thought I just let everybody knows since I'll surely need more assets very soon:
After release I plan on having a small viral video demonstrating the engine by recreating none other than "Evo moment #37". For that I'll need a female character and a male character (no need to look like Ken and Chun-Li, but its nice to resemble them) and the entire set of animations that compose that scene. Unfortunately, unlike SF4, we won't have access to a high quality video to tracing down frame by frame, so it will really depend on how good you are at recreating the scene in 3D. At this point in production I'm sure no one wants to talk about money, so what I offer is the entire source code version of the product when its released (including the editor). PM me if interested!

 

I wish I knew about this product sooner. I would of helped with the assets and animations. I am currently knee deep in asset development for my game, but I have a lot of ideas, and if animations are the only thing from stopping you from implementing certain features I can help with that. The infamous Diago scene would require a bit of committed time so I can't commit to that at the moment but anything else I am willing to help.

 

I am happy to help out and can definitely make some characters that look the part for you.

 

Really interesting, will keep an eye on this

 

Looks really good and the editor is quite nice but I think your prices are too high and the number of tiers too great (all it does is creates confusion for customers).

Not to say the work isn't deserving of the price, but you are almost certain to make more money with lower prices. With a baseline entry of $100 and virtually all the features limited you will miss most of the market. Its a bit too expensive for people to just try it out, and the ones who do may be disappointed becasue they don't get a lot of the key features that are considered a must for a fighting game.

Spreading your reviews across mutliple tiers will also hurt. People are more likely to leave bad reviews than good ones and if you get 1-2 bad reviews in a tier it might never recover.

I'd say have 2 versions:

Fighting Game Toolkit - LITE: Core features (similar to your advanced), no source - $50

Fighting Game Toolkit - PRO: All features + source - $150+

At $50 you will get a bunch of people who just want to try it. You will also get people who really want to have the full kit but can't afford it and can make do with the liter one (i.e. students).

I'd keep top tier around $150 maybe push to $200 (you can always experiment once its on the store). If you go to high you will just discourage people from buying it and will be left with the people who "MUST" have it.

Wow that turned in to a long thesis.

Good luck

 

Thanks for the feedback JohnnyA. Love your package btw =) I do agree and understand (in parts) with what you are saying and I might in fact review some of these prices a bit more before release. In a previous reply to spartan I explained why I choose those values.
One thing I didn't mention there is that production value is also getting very high at this point. What was suppose to be a quick 1 month project suddenly became a daily 10 hours power through for the past 3 months, not to mention the extra people helping and the possibility of a second character with +40 animations being added by the end of all this. Thanks to the new added editor gui system, UFE (now called Universal Fighting Engine) will be an incredible robust tool. A lot of things that would otherwise need a secondary asset store package has already been covered by this tool (bitmap font, 2D fighting physics, GUI scripts, menu, custom inputs, hit detection and much more) just so it would be utterly independent. The idea is that with this package one could get all the necessary assets to have not only a 2D fighting solution, but also a general 2.5D brawler solution.
Also, the open source option should not be considered a part of "trying to make money". =) I purposely left it at a very high cost to not only reduce piracy but to reduce the overall access to the source material. I honestly do not want the source code in the hands of just about everyone, just the ones who are really committed.

Now, on another subject, here is another screenshot from the Editor Window GUI:



It might change a bit more, but just letting you guys know I'm getting close to finish this and move to the tutorials!
I plan on having about 10 video tutorials, teaching from terminology of fighting games to each option in the huge list of variables.

 

+10
most of people here are indy poor developers.

 

Apologies if this has already been answered -- is there a plan to integrate AI with this package, or will it strictly be for two-player games?

 

Yup there are plans, but the initial package will not have the AI. I'll be adding the AI as a post release feature and it should be integrated with all versions of UFE.

 

Update:
Move Editor is now complete. Here are 2 screenshots from the new system:




When previewing a move you can also preview the camera movement, hurtboxes, and block boxes. The previous hit stun system has been changed to a more commonly known type: Frame Advantage.

Whats next on the list:
GUI for Character Editor and Global Options. Luckily these are not as complex as the move system so I should not take as long.
However we should have delays. I did not expect taking this long to finish the Editor GUI so it might take at least another 2 weeks of work.

Stay tuned for more updates!

 

Very thorough!

 

This looks great! very clean and easy to find stuff.

 

Armor breaker works like this:
In each move you can set a fixed amount of "armor points". That is the amount of hits it takes to be interrupted. If a move has armor breaker, it doesn't matter how many armor points the other move has. It will interrupt immediately on contact.

 

Very cool

 

Just noticed something it looks like for a single move you can create multiple hit active frames at different times in the animation that's pretty cool

 

Yup. You can even define how "invincible" a character is during a move that leaves them invulnerable for a certain period of the animation:


This is a representation of how an EX Tatsumaki Senpukyaku would behave like as far as invincibility goes.

 

The amount of control you're giving users in this version is amazing this tool is worth much more than the asking price I wish you much success
You have my support day one purchase for me

 

What are the options for hit strength besides crumple?

 

Thank you I appreciate the support =)

There are 4 kinds of hits: Weak, Medium, Heavy and Crumple. They can all be defined in the hit options over the Global Configuration file:


This can be used to configure the different impacts caused by certain moves. Freezing time is the small amount of freezing the game has during a hit. Notice that the hit impact is not Time.Scale = 0, but a conjunction of shake, animation freeze, physics freeze and particle effect casting.

Sorry this screenshot is not as nice looking as the previous one. The Global Configuration file hasn't been treated yet.

 

It looks fine to me but I understand wanting to add extra polish to the UI. I just wanted to see if they had animation options for each of the hit states doesn't seem like it at the moment but the freeze time option and shake on hit is great

 

Different hit animations will be determined by where it hits. Unfortunately I don't have the getting hit low animation to show this feature yet =D

 

while you'll be doing the documentation I would recommend telling developers the way they should create their animations set. Mean how they should start or end, how many frames should be used for a go back to idle or some specific stances etc ... You kit is really complete ( even if you're thinking about adding some new cool features on top of it ) but would need to have a proper documentation to allow developer to spend as less time as possible creating the content without bad hick ups.
Keep it up

 

Oh yeah definitely. I plan on having a video tutorial just for that. I also plan on having a little "Help" icon next to each field that should open an online documentation.

 

About how many hit animations are needed?

Also love the Logo very Naruto-esque :wink:

 

For getting hit you need:
Get hit air
Get hit crouching
Get hit standing high
Get hit standing low


Thanks = ) cudos to wickedeman for making it!

 

Screenshot of the new Character Editor =)


We are getting close!

 

Nice Job!

 

Very nice

 

Holly crap!! that's awesome!!
is there any E.T.A? or price range?

I really cant wait to play around with this

 

I have no exact E.T.A. for it, but shouldn't be longer then a 2-3 more weeks.

As for the prices, its currently set at the following table:


[table="width: 680, class: grid, align: left"]
[tr]
[td="width:120"]Universal Fighting Engine[/td]
[td="width:120"]

Lite​

[/td]
[td="width:120"]

Advanced​

[/td]
[td="width:120"]

Pro​

[/td]
[td="width:120"]

Pro (Source)​

[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Special Moves[/td]
[td]

yes​

[/td]
[td]

yes​

[/td]
[td]

yes​

[/td]
[td]

yes​

[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Projectile System[/td]
[td]

no​

[/td]
[td]

yes​

[/td]
[td]

yes​

[/td]
[td]

yes​

[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Gauge System[/td]
[td]

no​

[/td]
[td]

yes​

[/td]
[td]

yes​

[/td]
[td]

yes​

[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Display (combo counter, etc.)[/td]
[td]

no​

[/td]
[td]

yes​

[/td]
[td]

yes​

[/td]
[td]

yes​

[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Camera Move System[/td]
[td]

no​

[/td]
[td]

no​

[/td]
[td]

yes​

[/td]
[td]

yes​

[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Parry[/td]
[td]

no​

[/td]
[td]

no​

[/td]
[td]

yes​

[/td]
[td]

yes​

[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Move Link[/td]
[td]

no​

[/td]
[td]

no​

[/td]
[td]

yes​

[/td]
[td]

yes​

[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Open Source[/td]
[td]

no​

[/td]
[td]

no​

[/td]
[td]

no​

[/td]
[td]

yes​

[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Prices[/td]
[td]

$95.00​

[/td]
[td]

$175.00​

[/td]
[td]

$195.00​

[/td]
[td]

$250.00​

[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]



Prices may change depending on demand, so chances are they will still suffer some revision. The source code however will probably stay at a high price to reduce chances of piracy or repackaging.

 

Can we get a teaser of the character select screen?
How many character slots are available? Because I have a pretty large roster of characters for my game

Lastly did you get a chance to include a level select screen in this version, because I also have a lot of stages readily made

 

As soon as I finish the character GUI I'm moving to the Global Options GUI. Luckily this is being faster than I expected.
After that its "wrapping up": Finish the character and level selection screen system, rounds, winning pose and startup screen. If we are lucky, with me at a 12 hours a day overdrive, we can get this done in 2 weeks.

After that its documentation and tutorials.
Documentation first and it shouldn't be that hard (its as pleasing for me as answering this forum so piece of cake)
As for the video tutorials, I think the product can be released with just a couple video tutorials right off the bat and more being added as time goes by. Unfortunately I have absolutely no idea how long this step takes, so lets hope "a couple videos" means one week.


Don't worry about slot limit. There are no limits in this engine. Also, I forgot to mention this small update I had to the Move Editor:


You can now visualize the startup and recovery frames of you move. Should help in case you are reading move data sheets from other fighting games.

 

The visual data is really a nice touch but I also noticed you have hard knockdowns as a hit type what other options are there for hit type

 

Yup. recently added.
These are the options now:
High Low - Can be blocked high or low
Low - Can only be blocked low. Does not cause knockdown
Overhead - Can only be blocked high
Launcher - Knocks the opponent straight into juggle state. Should work directly with force push up
Knockdown - Knocks the opponent into the ground
Hard Knockdown - Knocks the opponent into the ground and doesn't allow quick stand
Unblockable - Cant be blocked

Notes:
-Launcher simply forces the player into the "get hit air" animation so it doesn't create any visual bug in case of a soft push.
-Knockdown and Hard Knockdown will use specific knockdown animations witch I'm still working on it. Should be up in the next video preview.
-Hard Knockdown only works if you have quick stand active in the general options.

 

Very cool you're doing an amazing job

 

Introducing your work space!

Big Version:
http://i44.tinypic.com/6yodag.jpg


This is the preferable layout for most of the work you will be doing.
Also, just a few updates:
- Icons representing the window you currently have it open
- Toolbar "U.F.E"
- Ability to freely orient and test your camera work on the fly using the move editor's Camera Movement system.

 

Nice! What's the difference between the animations and the moves folder?

 

In the animations folder you will store your fbx files containing each animation. In the Moves folder you store the move files you create using the animations. Its just personal organization preference really. I like to divide some file types into folders.

 

Oh ok. Nice work as usual greatly anticipating the release

 

Which versions of Unity is this compatible with? 3.5, 4.0 Indie or Pro?

 

It will definitely be available for Indie and Pro.
I'm not sure however how it would behave with anything bellow 4.3 right now. I had to change some of the policy in the visual editor because of changes made on 4.3 and I'm not sure how they look on previous versions.
On post update however I believe it will have to be 4.3+ only. Unity made some very interesting additions to the Mecanim system and I might revisit that alternative.

 

MMind, when do you expect to release it?

 

The engine is nearly complete but I still need to finish character select screen, rounds and intro. Character Selection screen and intro won't have all the pretty looking options like move, character and general gui so I'll leave those completely open source for all versions. On post release I'll have a better look at those.
I've just finished the general options GUI and I'll soon be posting a screenshot. I've also finished the website but I still need to add more content to it.
After this are the tutorials and documentation, which I should be able to start by Monday. I'll give you guys more updates and a better estimate when I reach that benchmark.