[RELEASED] TopDown Engine by More Mountains [new v3.0 : damage types, damage resistance, and more!]

@khrysller > If you think you've found bugs, please use the support form to report them, thanks!
And I'll also need a bit more info :
What version of the asset? What version of Unity? "If you use the ability" > what ability exactly? What teleporter? What else did you do?

And no, there is no script to pick objects with the mouse, but there is an open and documentated API to interact with inventories, that will let you implement that easily.

 

I wasn't sure where to look for this in the documentation. I'm not sure how to use textmesh pro as it seems that any TMP world object I make gets obscured by the level no matter what I seem to fiddle with. All the example text world objects seem to user the standard text and when I try to use those as a basis and replace the basic text component with TMP, the text becomes obscured again. I'm using the Minimal2D as a basis btw.

 

@nichjaim > How weapon aim works is described in the Weapons section of the documentation.
As for your TMP issue, I don't know why that would be, I'd recommend contact Unity if you run into bugs with their components. I don't use TMP myself, it's super buggy.

 

Does the topdown engine include damage popup text indicators (like the text that pops up when something takes a hit to denote exactly how much damage was just done). Not a big deal if it doesn't just thought I'd ask if it was built in before I tried making my own.

 

@nichjaim > No, it doesn't at the moment, but it's high on my todo list, it's been heavily requested.

 

Hi, just bought the asset. Does the asset support picking up items and throwing them? (Like picking up and throwing pots as in Zelda LttP?)

 

@shanemt > No, right now it doesn't.
When wondering if something is or isn't in the engine, a good way to know is to check the list of features at https://topdown-engine.moremountains.com/
If it's not listed, it's not in the engine. Feel free to submit requests via the support form though!

 

Hey everyone, any tip on how to make a shop system with harmony with the existing inventory classes in the engine?
I figured out how to do Sell.
You get to a shopkeeper and it opens the player's inventory. But now the use button does sell instead.
(I've added SellItem in the "Inventory" class, which removes the item and sent MMInventoryEvent ItemSold)
Then I've added next to the "Inventory Input Manager" new class "Inventory Context Input Manager" which changes the key mapping based on the context.
So the shopkeeper only switches the mapping and opens player's inventory.

But I have no idea how to create Buy section.
In the best-case scenario it would be non-player inventory, which would pause the game, opens and could be navigated by the same input manager as the players one. From there I could just once again change the mapping and do buy instead of use.
But so far I have no idea how to implement separated inventory in such a manner. And because the inventory is part of the camera prefab, that would also mean to at the end have who knows how many inventories for different vendors and storage chests throughout the game.

 

@M0ti > You might want to ask on the discord channel, I think some people already did that there.

 

@reuno We have a discord channel? I will run there right now!

 

@M0ti > Sure, link is on the asset's page.

 

I can't reference the Cinemachine namespace within any of the scripts from the asset, but I can access the namespace fine from my own scripts. Any idea why this is happening?

 

@shanemt > Yes, that's normal.

You can actually access them from the scripts that are within an assembly definition that contains Cinemachine. That's the case of all the engine's scripts that need to interact with that API. They're all under the aptly named MoreMountains.TopDownEngine.Cinemachine assembly definition. But you can't indeed access them from any other assembly, that's by design.

In any case, I'd recommend following good practices and extending classes instead of modifying them, that'll also help with that, as you'll be in control of your own assemblies (or lack thereof) and will be able to pick the dependencies you want.
Alternatively, you can simply modify the engine's assemblies, but it's as unsafe as editing the core classes when it comes to updating.

 

@reuno
Thanks for the quick reply.

In the case of extending a class, if the thing I want to modify is smack in the middle of a method, and I need access to the base class's private variables, then I can't easily modify the function to accomplish what I want without duplicating the code... For instance, I'm adjusting the behavior of the CharacterMovement script so that 'A' and 'S' circles the target, and 'W' and 'S' moves towards and away from the target.

Code (CSharp):

1.             //----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.             // Begin Commented Out
3.             //_movementVector.x = _lerpedInput.x;
4.             //_movementVector.y = 0f;
5.             //_movementVector.z = _lerpedInput.y;
6.             //----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.             // End Commented Out
8.  
9.             //----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10.             // Begin Adjustments
11.             if (string.Equals("Player", this.gameObject.tag))
12.             {
13.                 Vector2 mousePos = cam.ScreenToWorldPoint(Input.mousePosition);
14.                 Vector2 lookDir = (mousePos - new Vector2 { x = transform.position.x, y = transform.position.y }).normalized;
15.                 Vector2 lookDirOrthogonal = Vector2.Perpendicular(lookDir).normalized * -1;
16.                 Vector2 movementVector2D = lookDir * _lerpedInput.y + lookDirOrthogonal * _lerpedInput.x;
17.                 _movementVector.x = movementVector2D.x;
18.                 _movementVector.y = 0f;
19.                 _movementVector.z = movementVector2D.y;
20.             }
21.             else
22.             {
23.                 _movementVector.x = _lerpedInput.x;
24.                 _movementVector.y = 0f;
25.                 _movementVector.z = _lerpedInput.y;
26.             }
27.  
28.             //----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
29.             // End Adjustments

Any ideas on how I can implement this without essentially duping the code within CharacterMovement?

 

@shanemt > No, in that case you'd have to duplicate the code indeed.
Alternatively, you can drop me a line via the support form and I'll be happy to make changes to make your life easier by refactoring on my side or splitting stuff into more easier to extend methods

 

@reuno Thanks for the offer, I might take you up on that once I figure out what I want to do.

 

@shanemt > Please do, I'm always happy to help.
The only cases where I refuse requests like that are when they really don't make sense for anybody else but the person making the request. But aside from that, it's always great to improve extensibility!

 

I am having a hard time trying to get the most FPS as possible. I build only the Minimal3D scene and with only the ground and the character it goes around 30 fps with the fastest quality option



But I was building the game without the engine and got 60 fps with all the environment placed. If I place all the environment it goes between 18 and 21.

I tried to disable all the things I could do to speed up but no matter what I do I am not able to get more FPS.

I just wanna know if there is something that I could do to, for example, get the 60fps on the example above.

Thanks

 

@khrysller > If you look at the profiler, you'll see that your bottleneck is (very likely) rendering.
Any regular Unity optimization for mobile tips would apply, there's nothing specific to the engine there really (the engine doesn't do any rendering). My first recommendation would be to unlock FPS, disable post processing (they're the most expensive thing in that scene).

 

hi. in 3d will it be possible to have an npc aim down or up if the player is below or above them? right now i think it is not possible to activate slope aim when in script mode, so while the enemy model is aiming correctly at the player the weapon still shoots straightforward. thx

 

@Zetazed > That's already doable, aim takes a 3D position as input.

 

thanks for the quick reply. is there a specific way i have to setup my enemy first? for example in the loft scene in the first room on the right if i jump on the cupboard the model of the enemy (patrolandshootai) rotates to face me, but the rifle remains straight and that way he cannot hit me. Heres a screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/IAeekm3
Shouldnt it be the other way around?

 

@Zetazed > You'd need a custom action to have them shoot vertically, but what I meant is there's nothing preventing that at the moment.

 

only my coding skills are in the way . any any chance you could implement this in the future?

 

@Zetazed > Sure, I can add that to the todo list

 

I want to have the animations always play the one associated with the direction the character is aiming (ex. aiming north so always play the north idle and north walk). I used HorizontalDirection and VerticalDirection to get the aim direction and set it up similar to the grasslands demo animations but whenever the character moves it seems to only play the first animation frame, I think it's repeatedly restarting the animation rather than letting it play out and looping it or something. It's cool if you can't really diagnosis with just this info just thought I'd ask as you might have some insight. Also sorry for long question.

 

@nichjaim > I'd recommend reading on how to setup transitions in Unity, if your animation keeps "restarting", then you have a bad animator setup, and your transition is interrupting itself. Hard to tell without more info but I'd guess your "transition to self" settings are wrong. Very likely nothing to do with the engine though, so any generic Unity doc on how to setup animations will likely help

 

Hi there....is there something I am doing wrong for twin stick....when moving alone/not shooting...character won't default to face/look at move direction.

Here are my settings on Character and on Weapon...

 

@3CHO12 > It's very hard to tell what you may be doing wrong from just that video and screenshots.
I'd suggest comparing with the demo characters (the one in the loft demo for example) for differences.
If the issue persists please use the support form.

 

Is there some easy way to test the mobile controls (or even override them for testing) in the editor? It's hard to use the mouse for mobile testing, unless I'm missing something.

 

@alanmthomas > You can force one mode or the other via the input manager, as explained in the documentation.

 

Thanks. Sorry about that. I'll go through documentation more thoroughly in the future.

 

@alanmthomas > Oh don't worry, it's all good There's quite a lot to read, it's easy to miss stuff.

 

Both this and Corgi engine seem like a terrific tool for beginner developers like me. I'm a new game art student with limited Unity experience. I think the ability to sort through your demos and source folders provides a tremendous introduction into exactly how an artist new to game dev could go about making a compelling game, so thank you. As an initial exercise I might just limit myself to re-skinning a 2D level and tweak some parameters to suit. But I wasn't completely sure what the appropriate procedure was. Should I maintain existing naming conventions and modify the prefabs within the existing demos frame structure and just save my scene variant alongside the existing scene? Or should I be importing the assets I want from any number of demos into the hierarchy of a 'Minimal2D' scene of my own making, maybe? Any help you can offer to help me get going would be really appreciated.

 

@waxman63 > Naming conventions have no impact on anything in Unity, they're entirely up to you.
I wouldn't recommend modifying the prefabs, or the code. It's usually better to make your own, and if you want to modify something, just make a prefab variant. But there are no rules really, and whatever works for you is ok.
You can learn more about all that in the documentation (this section and others) : https://topdown-engine-docs.moremountains.com/creating-your-own-game.html

 

I'm trying to have the player character start with some weapons and ammo but anything I place into the main or weapon inventory's content list gets removed when the scene actually starts. I looked a bit at the inventory documentation but I likely missed something important. I'm using minimal2D as a basis if that matters.

 

@nichjaim > That's normal, you can't just add stuff to the main inventory's content list, it gets built at runtime.
Instead, you can either create a save file that you load, or a more robust and simple solution would be to create a script that populates your inventory with your settings (that's usually how it's done).

 

I made a custom health script that inherits your health script and overrides your damage function. I placed it on the object and disabled the original health script that was attached but for some reason the new damage function isn't being called. Is there something I'm doing wrong?

 

@nichjaim > Remove the old one, don't disable it.

 

Hello!

I'm trying to get some things working with the CharacterGridMovement class and was hoping you could provide some guidance.

1. Programmatically move a character 1 block in any direction without any user input. This needs to work for both a Player Character and for an AI Character.
2. Create a script to cause an AI character to follow the player, one step at a time.

I was hoping these would be built in features but it doesn't appear to be the case. If that's true, that's ok, I can build it, but could use some guidance.

I extended CharacterGridMovement and found if I directly alter _horizontalMovement or _verticalMovement during a frame, it'll work for a Player Character who also has an InputManager assigned to it. The problem here is, it doesn't appear to be working for the AI Character. If I switch that AI Character to Player and assign the InputManager to match that player ID, suddenly it just works with no other changes.

Any thoughts on solving this? Or am I taking the wrong approach to begin with?

 

@RadTT > I've added methods to do that to the next release. Don't hesitate to use the support form if you need that urgently.

 

Hi Reuno,

Thanks for an interesting and inspiring engine! A few initial questions/ suggestions:

1. Maybe you should add an orthographic camera 3D example scene it is a very used perpective. For example I find it a bit tricky to properly set the camera confines; guess I will need a collider2d but can't really get one produced.

2. Healthbars in 3D have poor orientation. They don't face the camera but just seems to follow the targets rotation. That is almost never what you want in a top down game. Also in game mode the healthbars are spawned at the root of the scene and really clutters the view. Could they be somewhere else? See attached image that illustrates these 2 issues.

 

@MrMartinlll >
1. I wouldn't recommend using a confiner2D for a 3D camera. It's technically possible with a weird 2 camera setup, but a regular 3D confiner will work just fine and is probably what you're after. And you can do 3D isometric out of the box, like in the Lof3D scene for example, set camera to isometric, select the whole world, rotate 45°.
2. The orientation is by design, you can change it, it's purely cosmetic. Healthbars come with quite a lot of options. And they're at the root for performance reasons (ideally all your moving objects should always be at the root to avoid updating all their neighbours when moving). Feel free to change that if you want to prioritize readability over performance. In prefab mode that'll be the default behaviour.

 

This issue is still in 1.7.
Open MiminalGrid3D
Create a 3D cube and place it to position 0.5, 0.5, 0.5.
Play in editor, walk into the newly created cube and watch the character get stuck.

edit: referenced a wrong scene

 

@Mechanical-Paladin > I don't believe both issues are related, that person was referring to a grid issue, and there's no grid in MinimalScene3D.
I tried reproducing the issue you described and couldn't. There are tons of obstacles in the demo scenes, I'd recommend looking at how they're setup for reference. I'm not sure what you could have done for this not to work, maybe a wrong layer? In any case, if the issue persists, don't hesitate to drop me a line via the support form, I'll be happy to help

 

I'm sorry, I meant MinimalGrid3D. And it was indeed a layer issue. Sorry I wasted your time.

 

@Mechanical-Paladin > This has also been fixed, along with other fixes and improvements to the grid manager. In general if you think you've found bugs, don't hesitate to use the support form to report them, it's easier to deliver fixes if needed that way.

 

Hi Reuno,

Just out of curiosity: Is there any reason you tile the floor in your demos (for example Loft3D) Instead of just having it be one large cube. Does it improve performance to have several small cubes instead?

Cheers,

Martin

 

i used the support form for this issue but I never received a response. i sent my email around April 5

 

@ItachiTGM > I answer each and ever request I get from the support form. I tried looking for your message but I can't seem to find one that has wording similar to your message, I'd recommend sending it again.
@MrMartinlll > No, it doesn't, it's just more modular that way.