Hi all. While lurking around the forums, I noticed the lack of a topic where [aspiring] video game developers interact with each other. I feel this is important to further promote the indie game dev. scene in naija. I found none though... so if there is one, can a kind person direct me towards it? If not, let this be it then
I'm a strong believer in the video game dev. potential of naija, so I'd love to be able to communicate with others like me so we can motivate each other, critique our works or maybe work on something together
SO if you feel you're a dope artist, 2D/3D animator, programmer (with unity, game maker, unreal, etc), designer or sound person, come link up at this game developers' post! (if there isn't one already that is).
Here's a sample of what I can do. Thanks guys
-reggie02

Can you make 3d assists of that character you made,, but make him into a bokoharam fighter, and one of Nigerian army personnel, buratai if possible, been cooking an fps but need someone with maya skills,

reggie02:
Hi all. While lurking around the forums, I noticed the lack of a topic where [aspiring] video game developers interact with each other. I feel this is important to further promote the indie game dev. scene in naija. I found none though... so if there is one, can a kind person direct me towards it? If not, let this be it then
I'm a strong believer in the video game dev. potential of naija, so I'd love to be able to communicate with others like me so we can motivate each other, critique our works or maybe work on something together
SO if you feel you're a dope artist, 2D/3D animator, programmer (with unity, game maker, unreal, etc), designer or sound person, come link up at this game developers' post! (if there isn't one already that is).
Here's a sample of what I can do. Thanks guys
-reggie02

Cool! One of the few.
I'm good with Unity and I'm currently working on a 2D skeletal animation software.
I like your character, is it spritesheet-based or skeleton-based.

@appcypher nice! I'm learning unity myself. Have you made any game or prototype with unity? thanks! it's a spritesheet-based character. I've dabbled with skeleton based chars as well.
@kishimi8 hmm... I'm not sure what you mean by assists, but I can make 3D models and animations fairly well! (still learning). I use blender though... I haven't used maya yet.

reggie02:
@appcypher nice! I'm learning unity myself. Have you made any game or prototype with unity? thanks! it's a spritesheet-based character. I've dabbled with skeleton based chars as well.
@kishimi8 hmm... I'm not sure what you mean by assists, but I can make 3D models and animations fairly well! (still learning). I use blender though... I haven't used maya yet.

Sorry typo meant assets, I'm building using unreal engine I've done most of the level design. And almost all interactive objects blueprints, character design is da issue right now, however I'm looking to set up a proper team early next year,

After much search and research, the only game dev group that I have seen in naija is

https:///114589695560359/?view=group

But our naija dey dull small when it comes to interest in game dev / 3d modelling

kishimi8:


Sorry typo meant assets, I'm building using unreal engine I've done most of the level design. And almost all interactive objects blueprints, character design is da issue right now, however I'm looking to set up a proper team early next year,

Wow kudos to you Bro. You are working alone?

reggie02:
Hi all. While lurking around the forums, I noticed the lack of a topic where [aspiring] video game developers interact with each other. I feel this is important to further promote the indie game dev. scene in naija. I found none though... so if there is one, can a kind person direct me towards it? If not, let this be it then

I'm a strong believer in the video game dev. potential of naija, so I'd love to be able to communicate with others like me so we can motivate each other, critique our works or maybe work on something together

SO if you feel you're a dope artist, 2D/3D animator, programmer (with unity, game maker, unreal, etc), designer or sound person, come link up at this game developers' post! (if there isn't one already that is).

Here's a sample of what I can do. Thanks guys

-reggie02

While I love Game dev (my biggest hobby), Nairaland hasn't been so welcoming to game devs. Maybe because of the "all plan and no result" game dev groups that have come and gone, you know the similarities between all those groups/people? They don't ever finish. I tried igniting another one with a project that had all the backbones/skeleton implemented and needed some more hands for co-creation, got no response.



I think this should be a new group, but the question is are we ever going to finish what we start?



Here's what I can do (Incomplete, barebones):

www.nairaland.com/3246699/3d-pc-mac-linux-game

@kishimi8 oh yeah? that's cool! I'm looking to find some partners as well, which is the purpose of creating this thread.
@Scholar01 true, it's kinda dull but it's mostly because there hasn't been any "hit" game from naija devs so no motivation for others. If we can achieve that, the dulling will stop... I hope..

Welcome to the thread guys! if you know anyone that's good at any aspect of game development, direct them here please! Also, if you have anything to show off, that'll be awesome.
Here's a [non-game dev.] sketch i did some years ago:

reggie02:
@kishimi8 oh yeah? that's cool! I'm looking to find some partners as well, which is the purpose of creating this thread.
@Scholar01 true, it's kinda dull but it's mostly because there hasn't been any "hit" game from naija devs so no motivation for others. If we can achieve that, the dulling will stop... I hope..

Welcome to the thread guys! if you know anyone that's good at any aspect of game development, direct them here please! Also, if you have anything to show off, that'll be awesome.
Here's a [non-game dev.] sketch i did some years ago:

Sketch looks good but they are all anime characters, can't we get our own characters ?

Oh yeah .....thatz what i have been waiting 4...More useful coment so the thread can go 2 d permanent site

@kishimi8 Thanks! of course we can always make our own characters (see first post for the character "Dike". I'm only putting up stuff to encourage others to put up stuff. Stuff that they made of course
welcome @Nomswag! oh I didn't know about the permanent site, but it sounds good.

appcypher:

Cool! One of the few.
I'm good with Unity and I'm currently working on a 2D skeletal animation software.
I like your character, is it spritesheet-based or skeleton-based.

Skeleton systems are a lot better for 3D models. If you insist you want a 2d skeleton system then you'll better prepare to use vector-graphics and a lot of different character parts. 2d skeleton isn't as efficient as 2d sprite systems.

Advice.

kishimi8:

Sketch looks good but they are all anime characters, can't we get our own characters ?

I don't have enough time for a detailed response (am actually working on a game presently), but i will tell you that I don't belong to "our own brand" band anymore. Virtually every nigerian website, application and game that I have seen tries to portray the message 'this one na naija product'. But unfortunately, it's not easy to make money off nigerians.

The two main ways to making money from digital products are through adverts or sales/in app purchases. A lot of our people hardly play games with their network on (limiting the first one), and even if they click, you can't compare a nigerian click with say that of US

Also, we hardly buy pay for anything online (including yours faithfully), so making sales/ in app purchases off nigerians na die. As for me, I just dey crack my brain on how to get more of US/ Western european users as they are much more eager to part with their cash

Am following the progress of this game

https://www.facebook.com/ThroneofGodDevs/

To see how they will fare in the Nigerian market

if you are a developer, a newbie, average or dummie or whatsoever, and you have the following

1. Desire to learn
2. Desire to help others
3. Desire to be part of a team
4. Desire to be an online curator

etc...
whatever you want to do lies within you.

Join us here;

http://www.thejido.com

registration is less than 30secs and you're off
it'simply good and simplified.

Scholar01:
I don't have enough time for a detailed response (am actually working on a game presently), but i will tell you that I don't belong to "our own brand" band anymore. Virtually every nigerian website, application and game that I have seen tries to portray the message 'this one na naija product'. But unfortunately, it's not easy to make money off nigerians.

The two main ways to making money from digital products are through adverts or sales/in app purchases. A lot of our people hardly play games with their network on (limiting the first one), and even if they click, you can't compare a nigerian click with say that of US

Also, we hardly buy pay for anything online (including yours faithfully), so making sales/ in app purchases off nigerians na die. As for me, I just dey crack my brain on how to get more of US/ Western european users as they are much more eager to part with their cash

Yeah true sha, but I buy everything I use games and apps inclusive, cuz I know that pain of software development

I agree with @Scholar01.. I don't believe in limiting your market by making "by Nigerians for Nigerians" games.
I've been wondering though.. Why do so few naija game devs develop for PC/web?

reggie02:
I agree with @Scholar01.. I don't believe in limiting your market by making "by Nigerians for Nigerians" games.
I've been wondering though.. Why do so few naija game devs develop for PC/web?

Games for PC and consoles typically require more than one or two persons, and to the best of my knowledge, there's not one game company in the bloody whole of Nigeria. I just wonder why the lack of interest in the 3d world in Nigeria. Perhaps some see it as for kids or something

Scholar01:


Games for PC and consoles typically require more than one or two persons, and to the best of my knowledge, there's not one game company in the bloody whole of Nigeria. I just wonder why the lack of interest in the 3d world in Nigeria. Perhaps some see it as for kids or something

bro i agree with u on this one , for u to b able to develop such games u need a crew and not just dat , finance is not excluded .I was opportune to watch the production of CALL OF DUTY INFINITE WARFARE

@Nomswag true, a team is usually required for pc games. Though there are lots of smaller games being developed these days by a single person or a very small team (2 - 4). That can be done here no?

dueal:


Skeleton systems are a lot better for 3D models. If you insist you want a 2d skeleton system then you'll better prepare to use vector-graphics and a lot of different character parts. 2d skeleton isn't as efficient as 2d sprite systems.

Advice.

Reverse is the case actually. Skeletal 2D animations are generally preferrable because of the flexibility it offers. All you need are the parts of the character. For spritesheets, you need more than just that. You need the image of the character for every frame of animation.
So here are some of the reasons why one would prefer Skeleton-based animations to spritesheet:

- Spritesheets take up a lot of memory than skeletal-based animations do. This is usually bad for mobile game dev where memory mgmt is vital.
- Spritesheets require you to draw each frame of animations. This is very tedious. What if you needed several dozens of animation.
- Spritesheet animations cannot be more than the fps they are drawn. If you drew 5 frames for a particular animation, then that is what you get. Skeletal animation can interpolate to whatever fps you chose. You can even do slow motion or fast forward with the same data.
- Spritesheets are not programmable. i.e. you cannot interpolate, mix or change the animations at runtime. For example, you can't make your characters head track the position of a mouse cursor.
- Skeletal based animations allow you to reuse the same animations for different characters. For spritesheets you'd have to redraw such characters animation.
- Because Spritesheet consume a lot of memory, you can't have high-res characters. But with skeletal based sprites you can have relatively high-res characters because you are reusing the same set of sprites every frame instead of new ones like spritesheet does.
- Sprite sheets are rigid, you cannot simply edit/change an animation you've already drawn, you have to redraw another. Skeletal-based allows you to edit your animations, show your client or team and go back and edit if needed. You cant simply do that with spritesheet, there would be a lot of wasted efforts drawing each frame by hand.
- For teams where there are several animators and where the animtor is different from the artist, skeltal animation will make the workflow easy cos animation data is different from sprite and there is only one set of sprites to share.
- And intros and cutscenes (e.g. translation of title bar, flipping page, etc. ) are better done with skeletal animations than spritesheet drawings.

There are many more reasons I can't list here, but you get the gist. I'm definitely not implying that skeletal animations are better in every way than spritesheets. There are definitely use cases for spritesheets, but most of the times skeletal-based animations are preferred.

Another thing. Vector graphics are not really used in game dev due to the way OpenGL works and I probably wont support it.
Raster images are good enough for most cases. And vector graphic rendering are performance killer, so definitely not what you will want to be using too much in your game. I may look into that later though. But it is definitely not on priority list.

There are several 2D skeletal products out there.
- Spine, industry standard, but expensive.
- Spriter, cheaps but lacks some features like FFD/mesh deformation
- Creatures, feature-rich but expensive and complicated.
- Dragon Bones, free but buggy and lacks proper documentation.

This is where mine comes in. It is called Crude and it is free and open-source. It will sure cover a lot of important features.

The development of Crude is inspired by UbiArt the engine used to develop Rayman Legends and Rayman Jungle.

reggie02:
@kishimi8 oh yeah? that's cool! I'm looking to find some partners as well, which is the purpose of creating this thread.
@Scholar01 true, it's kinda dull but it's mostly because there hasn't been any "hit" game from naija devs so no motivation for others. If we can achieve that, the dulling will stop... I hope..

Welcome to the thread guys! if you know anyone that's good at any aspect of game development, direct them here please! Also, if you have anything to show off, that'll be awesome.
Here's a [non-game dev.] sketch i did some years ago:

Your illustrations are nice. I love the color composition. I draw too

@appcypher I agree with you. Skeletal systems are generally less stressful to animate than sprite based. You only have to make one drawing using 2d skeletons unlike sprites where you draw every frame of the animation.
While I was learning 2d skeletal animation, I completed 60 frames of animation in a lot less time than the animation in the first post (8 frames).
Also, thanks @appcypher! can I see some of yours?

appcypher:

Reverse is the case actually. Skeletal 2D animations are generally preferrable because of the flexibility it offers. All you need are the parts of the character. For spritesheets, you need more than just that. You need the image of the character for every frame of animation.
So here are some of the reasons why one would prefer Skeleton-based animations to spritesheet:

- Spritesheets take up a lot of memory than skeletal-based animations do. This is usually bad for mobile game dev where memory mgmt is vital.
- Spritesheets require you to draw each frame of animations. This is very tedious. What if you needed several dozens of animation.
- Spritesheet animations cannot be more than the fps they are drawn. If you drew 5 frames for a particular animation, then that is what you get. Skeletal animation can interpolate to whatever fps you chose. You can even do slow motion or fast forward with the same data.
- Spritesheets are not programmable. i.e. you cannot interpolate, mix or change the animations at runtime. For example, you can't make your characters head track the position of a mouse cursor.
- Skeletal based animations allow you to reuse the same animations for different characters. For spritesheets you'd have to redraw such characters animation.
- Because Spritesheet consume a lot of memory, you can't have high-res characters. But with skeletal based sprites you can have relatively high-res characters because you are reusing the same set of sprites every frame instead of new ones like spritesheet does.
- Sprite sheets are rigid, you cannot simply edit/change an animation you've already drawn, you have to redraw another. Skeletal-based allows you to edit your animations, show your client or team and go back and edit if needed. You cant simply do that with spritesheet, there would be a lot of wasted efforts drawing each frame by hand.
- For teams where there are several animators and where the animtor is different from the artist, skeltal animation will make the workflow easy cos animation data is different from sprite and there is only one set of sprites to share.
- And intros and cutscenes (e.g. translation of title bar, flipping page, etc. ) are better done with skeletal animations than spritesheet drawings.

There are many more reasons I can't list here, but you get the gist. I'm definitely not implying that skeletal animations are better in every way than spritesheets. There are definitely use cases for spritesheets, but most of the times skeletal-based animations are preferred.

Another thing. Vector graphics are not really used in game dev due to the way OpenGL works and I probably wont support it.
Raster images are good enough for most cases. And vector graphic rendering are performance killer, so definitely not what you will want to be using too much in your game. I may look into that later though. But it is definitely not on priority list.

There are several 2D skeletal products out there.
- Spine, industry standard, but expensive.
- Spriter, cheaps but lacks some features like FFD/mesh deformation
- Creatures, feature-rich but expensive and complicated.
- Dragon Bones, free but buggy and lacks proper documentation.

This is where mine comes in. It is called Crude and it is free and open-source. It will sure cover a lot of important features.

The development of Crude is inspired by UbiArt the engine used to develop Rayman Legends and Rayman Jungle.

Since your inspiration if from UbiSoft then I hope you know they used vector-graphics and alot of character parts, some general, some action specific. Yes, the programmability of skeletal over sprites is one thing and the memory budget another. But how much memory, and how much programmability?

A pack of sprite frames for one character in a fighting game like street fighter, with combos and power moves cos just a lil above 200KB.

And in most games you don't need all that tracking stuff and fancy programmability. Remember, you don't only deal with memory budget, there is processing and cache management to think about, where on mobile you typically have 65MB+ for you game and lower clocking CPU's.

Yes, 2d skeletal system will be useful where the situation allows, but only where it supersedes sprites in a 2d game.

More knowledge, less search applies to game dev too.

Scholar01:


Games for PC and consoles typically require more than one or two persons, and to the best of my knowledge, there's not one game company in the bloody whole of Nigeria. I just wonder why the lack of interest in the 3d world in Nigeria. Perhaps some see it as for kids or something

Yes, the whole bloody Naija doesn't have one game dev company working on titles for the PC or Console space. But that is not because people here can't, PC doesnt sell as much anymore, and for Consoles that's a wild west of large budgets and big losses.

Besides, where is the money coming from?

dueal:



Since your inspiration if from UbiSoft then I hope you know they used vector-graphics and alot of character parts, some general, some action specific. Yes, the programmability of skeletal over sprites is one thing and the memory budget another. But how much memory, and how much programmability?

A pack of sprite frames for one character in a fighting game like street fighter, with combos and power moves cos just a lil above 200KB.

And in most games you don't need all that tracking stuff and fancy programmability. Remember, you don't only deal with memory budget, there is processing and cache management to think about, where on mobile you typically have 65MB+ for you game and lower clocking CPU's.

Yes, 2d skeletal system will be useful where the situation allows, but only where it supersedes sprites in a 2d game.

More knowledge, less search applies to game dev too.

Yeah, UbiArt uses vector graphics, but raster-based images are still the staple in the industry. I will probably consider it in the future, but only when it is really needed.
You do know that street fighter spitesheet pack are low-res images. You can't have HDs of those without consuming megabytes.
Even in spritesheet-based games there could still be elements of skeletal animation like rotating, translating or scaling sprites.

And you said most games don't need tracking stuff or fancy programmability. I call that BS. 2D games are not the way they are before. Retro 2D games that look like Mario or Street Fighter are smaller niches now.
Developers definitely want great programmability over their animations. At least most I've seen do.

I know you like/prefer spritesheets, but you can't just simply close your eyes to the benefits of skeletal animation. From character's hand/gun following the mouse, to blending between animations (running and jumping), to using the same set of animations on different characters. The list is endless. Skeletal animation doesn't limit you to a set of spritesheet, you can have enough animations and your sprites at high resolution. You can't have both with spritesheets.
As for performance, skeletal animations indeed take more oomphs from the CPU, but spritesheets also have memory bottleneck due to the command queue delay between CPU and GPU. But caching is greatly improved with skeletal-based system because you have fewer sprites to deal with.

I for one, plan to create a game that needs a lot of procedural animation going on, that I will never be able to achieve with spritesheets (not unless I go back in time and change the meaning of spritesheet). The game requires smooth interpolation between different animations so that it looks like one continuous animation (think the combat-style Batman Arkham games). I've not seen stuffs like that in 2D games and that's one of the reason I had to create Crude. This combat style also requires the characters to react dynamically to each other's attack. Spritesheet is too rigid for this, I will have to draw out every possible animations, which is impossible.

Anyway, I'd love to see how many dudes prefer spritesheets to skeletal animations.

Can we have a Whatsapp Group for game devs?

reggie02:
@appcypher! can I see some of yours?

Just some character I drew to test animations in Crude.

dueal:

Yes, the whole bloody Naija doesn't have one game dev company working on titles for the PC or Console space. But that is not because people here can't, PC doesnt sell as much anymore, and for Consoles that's a wild west of large budgets and big losses.
Besides, where is the money coming from?

I don't believe pc doesn't sell as much. If that were the case, there wouldn't be so many indie game developers emerging. Also there are publishers that focus on indie games (Devolver Digital) which really helps in commercializing them. As for consoles, MS and sony are beginning to realize the potential of indie games, so they are making it easier for these developers to push there games to consoles because it's always good to have a bigger selection of games for consumers. See spelunky, limbo, towerfall, don't starve, and the vast collection of indie games on steam/ps store/xbox store.
Our African homies are realizing this as well (see Aurion [by kiro'o games, Cameroon], broforce [by free lives, south Africa]).
As for where the money is coming from... Peoples' wallets? I'm not sure what you're asking.
I feel there is a huge misconception regarding non-mobile game development in Nigeria.

appcypher:

Yeah, UbiArt uses vector graphics, but raster-based images are still the staple in the industry. I will probably consider it in the future, but only when it is really needed.
You do know that street fighter spitesheet pack are low-res images. You can't have HDs of those without consuming megabytes.
Even in spritesheet-based games there could still be elements of skeletal animation like rotating, translating or scaling sprites.

And you said most games don't need tracking stuff or fancy programmability. I call that BS. 2D games are not the way they are before. Retro 2D games that look like Mario or Street Fighter are smaller niches now.
Developers definitely want great programmability over their animations. At least most I've seen do.

I know you like/prefer spritesheets, but you can't just simply close your eyes to the benefits of skeletal animation. From character's hand/gun following the mouse, to blending between animations (running and jumping), to using the same set of animations on different characters. The list is endless. Skeletal animation doesn't limit you to a set of spritesheet, you can have enough animations and your sprites at high resolution. You can't have both with spritesheets.
As for performance, skeletal animations indeed take more oomphs from the CPU, but spritesheets also have memory bottleneck due to the command queue delay between CPU and GPU. But caching is greatly improved with skeletal-based system because you have fewer sprites to deal with.

I for one, plan to create a game that needs a lot of procedural animation going on, that I will never be able to achieve with spritesheets (not unless I go back in time and change the meaning of spritesheet). The game requires smooth interpolation between different animations so that it looks like one continuous animation (think the combat-style Batman Arkham games). I've not seen stuffs like that in 2D games and that's one of the reason I had to create Crude. This combat style also requires the characters to react dynamically to each other's attack. Spritesheet is too rigid for this, I will have to draw out every possible animations, which is impossible.

Anyway, I'd love to see how many dudes prefer spritesheets to skeletal animations.

I prefer tech/tools based on problem and possible solution. If skeletal is the way for d job then i'll go with that.

I hear people talk about high-res vs low-res in 2d or 3d but thats all relative. Is a 512x512 lower than1024x1024 texture? It depends on how closely you intend to view it on screen.

Here is an image from PS2 street fighter, doesn't seem at all low-res.