One of the more problematic aspects of any programming is race conditions. Frequently code is dependent on other code that is dependent on other code. So what techniques can we use to make sure that our code initializes and runs without issue? These are my unwritten (no longer!) rules about the cycle of life of… Continue reading Games 101: The Semi-Rules of the Unity Life Cycle
Author: chris
Games 101: Making Singletons My Way
Singletons are a type of object used frequently in computer programming. As wikipedia says: …the singleton pattern is a design pattern that restricts the instantiation of a class to one object. This is useful when exactly one object is needed to coordinate actions across the system. So that means you only have one of the class, and you can access it anywhere. Using a… Continue reading Games 101: Making Singletons My Way
Games 101: Coding Gameplay
Let’s talk gameplay. What’s the difference between, say, ‘gameplay’ programming and other programming? If you are developing a game, you might need to make lots of things: shaders, engine, lighting, modeling, animation, in-app purchases, banhammers, web sites, the list goes on. But these things do not a game make. Gameplay makes a game. Gameplay is what you… Continue reading Games 101: Coding Gameplay
Game Development
This page is the portal into various game dev articles I’ve written. Similar to my Source Code Archive.
Project Search & Replace: Free Version, More Videos, More Features
In an attempt to shamelessly get Project Search & Replace into people’s hands, I’ve created a free version: Project Search. Free Version: Project Search Like its bigger brother, Project Search allows you to search across an entire project but is feature limited: Replace is not available. Search Scope is not available. Search while the application… Continue reading Project Search & Replace: Free Version, More Videos, More Features
Stupid Prefab Tricks
As I work on my Project Search & Replace tool I get to learn a lot about the internals of Unity. I’m currently adding the ability to search and replace prefab instances to the tool(edit: now out in v1.1!), and I’ve also written a free utility for prefabs (scroll down to the Prefab Hierarchy Inspector or check it… Continue reading Stupid Prefab Tricks
Why Git is Not Good for Games.
This is a post that I’ve been meaning to write for a while, mainly so that I can refer to it when someone can’t understand why I use SVN. So Git. Its the Golden Hammer of version control. Its really good for making Twitter so its great for games, right? It seems people are taught… Continue reading Why Git is Not Good for Games.
Howto: Remapping the Animation Hierarchy in Unity
Working with animations in Unity has some quirks. Sometimes I will make an animation and I animated the wrong object. I might have realized I want to animate the container for an object, or accidentally animated the parent when I wanted to animate the child (this happens more often than I’d like to admit!). Unity does… Continue reading Howto: Remapping the Animation Hierarchy in Unity
Games 101: Data Structures in Games
Frequently people’s first foray into programming is in games. Sometimes developers come from other disciplines such as design or QA. Frequently I see the same programming mistakes occur due to a lack of understanding of basic data structures. I’ve made them, it seems everyone makes them. So I hope to spread some data structure love (using C#/Unity… Continue reading Games 101: Data Structures in Games
Hideout Source Code Archive
Archived code lives on here. Also migrating the code to Github so I can update things. I’ll do my best to keep this up to date. Mostly little things, helpers, etc. Whirlpool Shader This is the whirlpool shader talked about in this post. CopyRef Language: C# (Unity3D) I never remember how Resources.Load() likes its strings formatted.… Continue reading Hideout Source Code Archive