Mostly played through all the tutorials (which are all - mostly - really well done). I doubt anything of consequence will ever come out of this from me, but it is really relaxing to just jump into an empty scene and see what you can come up with.
. . .also some of the stuff the community has already jammed out is crazy.
this thing still works with the motion controllers, yeah, and it's intuitive?
i might pick it up this afternoon, even if only to fiddle with the art tools and hope for a forthcoming VR mode (which i assume is not ready but not yet totally dropped?)
edit: i mean i'll probably just buy it to pay my dues to the glory days of littlebigplanet anyway
love the imp quests and i can't wait to do more, but i'm sure that dreamverse dash one was created with the purpose of making me hate any and all snap/align/grid functions in the toolbox... perhaps as an aesthetic statement...
very surprised this thing isn't getting a bit more traction around here. it's very powerful and amazingly accessible. art's dream, as a showcase, was gobsmacking.
i'm feeling a lot more comfortable after doing the 'start dreaming' tutorials with both control schemes (moves / DS motion controls). lots of ideas whirring already but i'm going to do my dues with the imp quests and more tutorials. right now i just can't wait to spend time with this glorious machine...
I got this thing! Art's Dream is certainly an impressive showcase. The first few player-made actiony games I tried were pretty janky, but Akaoni impressed me, it's a perfectly functional baby Sekiro with a lot of potential and no jank at all.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I tooled around a bunch with this a few months back, but the big reason I see it failing to gain traction here is that Dreams is a) easy to make really really simple games in, b) a neat experience to make models/animations in, but c) extremely difficult to make anything complex and interesting in. The memory restrictions are such that you can make large, simple environments or interesting, complex environments but not large, complex environments, not being able to apply surface textures is incredibly restrictive, and the visual "coding" element, while instructive for showing a good cause/effect between triggers and events, is tremendously limited and tedious.
It really doesn't help that a lot of chips and functions don't work intuitively. Just as a learning project, I wanted to make a decent clone of the pulse rifle from Aliens. Creating the model was a matter of minutes, setting up the "programming" was several hours of combing through tutorial screens and Youtube videos to find out why my linked chip bits weren't working the ways they obviously seemed designed for. After something like 10+ hours, I was finally able to have a cobbled-together pile of chips that made a functional select-fire rifle that had physical bullets that actually impacted the environment, but the experience left me completely drained and discouraged because it was so frustrating. There isn't (or at least not when I did the project) even a decent way to comment on chips/functions, so I couldn't even put together a "master" chip/kit that would tell the user which pieces served which functions so they would know where to place things like the muzzle flash light or the bullet emitter. That meant that even replicating that rifle build system to other object (like, say, a pistol) would require a fuckload of adjusting and actual brain memory, nevermind how aggravating it would be to share the object so other people could use it. And the end result was still buggy, with bizarre things like the gun deciding to randomly dump an entire magazine from pulling the trigger once or miscounting rounds in the magazine.
I feel like somebody could put the same effort into learning how to use Unity and come away with far more useful experience in building fully-functional modern games, not just janky ripoffs of been-done-a-million-times short games. Sure, you'll end up making a lot of that same stuff in Unity anyway because it's part of the learning process, but at least Unity is a full-function platform for developing games.
i mean, i'm not sure comparisons with unity are necessarily fair - for the consumer purpose, this is a $40 arcade with a bunch of creative toys attached, while unity is an industry benchmark development suite. otherwise your points are good, but maybe you're underestimating just how engaging this (launch day) package is at luring audiences from idle players to productive creators - and also motivating them to team up and start collaborating on bigger projects
this is littlebigplanet 4 in all but name and sackboys. it's still a quaintly physical meccano box of playful joints, motors and gadgets that happens to also have a pretty cool set of tools for asset creation, made with quickly stamping out navigable 3D environments in mind. it's also designed for a controller, a couch and a tv, which is all a lot of us have access to...
the fact that you CAN theoretically get out as diverse a set of experiences as shown by media molecule is just super cool and inspiring.
bsjezz on
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Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
I'd love to collaborate! Still learning the ropes and I'm not much of an artist but I have a knack for logic and can record audio.
My ideal long-term project is an island-based narrative explorer where the order in which you approach the landmarks sets the thematic undertone of the story and the visual motifs. So if you look at the map and head right to the lighthouse, it might be a story of solitude. It's a lot of writing and design, which is probably what I'm best at, and the art assets can pull their weight in multiple ways, which is necessary because I'm not the best artist and clueless when it comes to animation...
edit: I'd also looooove to figure out a way to create a small procedural dungeon ala nethack. I could have so much fun with that.
i had one (1) hour spare between getting home and picking up my son this arvo, so i decided to try out an idea for an effect i had after watching a couple of videos today... it ended up working so efficiently that i had time to save, edit and narrate the clip and then push it to youtube
Zavianuniversal peace sounds better than forever warRegistered Userregular
I was thinking about getting this, but have some questions. Can you import art and music? Do I really need Move wand controllers to make stuff or can I just use regular controller?
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Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
Can you import art and music? Do I really need Move wand controllers to make stuff or can I just use regular controller?
You can bring assets other users have made into your creations, but if you mean importing image files from PC and using those as textures, then no, you can't do that.
(Although I did have an idea for making a virtual 'fax machine'/modem/printer using the in-game logic that, could, in theory, do that...) 8-)
You can 'import' music/audio by plugging an MP3 player or your smartphone into a DS4 with a line-in cable to the headset port, or use the microphone on the PS4 camera.
You can use the regular controller. You only really need the Move controllers for advanced sculpting, etc. The game's campaign mode was actually made by Media Molecule using only regular DS4's!
Motion control with basic controllers works really well when you're used to it. Though I had to get a new controller cause Dreams is super sensitive with the analog sticks for some reason, sensitive enough to pick up a micron of looseness with my old controller that doesn't effect any other game.
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
The only definite advantage of the Move controllers is that, once you learn them, you can sculpt very quickly and naturally. You can sculpt the exact same things with the DS4 controller but it might take you longer, and the the DS4s are a lot better for precise moves since you can nudge anything a "tick" with the joysticks.
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Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
edited February 2020
I've mostly been spending my time with Dreams on this, as well as a few other experimental projects that might never get 'finished':
This is just one scene out of what will hopefully be a much larger project, perhaps 5 or 6 scenes packaged together into one Dream, eventually.
I have a rough draft of the text for the narrative done too, I just need to import it into a scene (you can use the website to input text), slice it up, and have a think about what to do with it all.
“I was approached by a European game development company who asked me to join their team,” he said. “I’m excited for the future and where this may take me!”
It's kind of amazing that some creations are actually getting noticed by established development studios.
this is the first step towards users being able to monetise their creations. it was always on the cards, but i didn't expect it to start happening so soon after launch!
i do think this can shift the perception of the platform. as a closed environment it has limited value for anyone but consumers and hobbyists; but the tools are powerful enough that this should attract some professional interest
Forgot I had this game. What a perfect time to get expert at it. The only thing I made was a weird looking grass lawn. Ready to go pro.
"Get the hell out of me" - [ex]girlfriend
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Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
The latest patch (v2.09) that came out this week seems to have completely nerfed audio recording. The new time limit is only 15 seconds, down from 5 minutes, thus making the whole feature effectively useless.
I strongly suspect this is Sony's doing, due to copyright issues. But it also makes it effectively near impossible for me to record any new V/O for my WIP game (see the screen-shots thread).
Incredibly frustrating, after all the time I've already invested.
The latest patch (v2.09) that came out this week seems to have completely nerfed audio recording. The new time limit is only 15 seconds, down from 5 minutes, thus making the whole feature effectively useless.
I strongly suspect this is Sony's doing, due to copyright issues. But it also makes it effectively near impossible for me to record any new V/O for my WIP game (see the screen-shots thread).
Incredibly frustrating, after all the time I've already invested.
I can't see how this possibly makes any sense to limit this outside of outdated assholes insisting it violates some insane IP laws. We can record any fucking thing on just about any fucking digital device, how the fuck is it a problem if you can do that on the Playstation? Is some moronic hack as Sony worried people will go through their audio libraries and transfer them into Dreams or some stupid shit like that?
This really does just annihilate any point to the function outside of short sound effects. Shit, you can't even properly do ambient stuff now since you'd have to do stupid crap like stitching a bunch of files together in playback.
+1
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Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
The latest patch (v2.09) that came out this week seems to have completely nerfed audio recording. The new time limit is only 15 seconds, down from 5 minutes, thus making the whole feature effectively useless.
I strongly suspect this is Sony's doing, due to copyright issues. But it also makes it effectively near impossible for me to record any new V/O for my WIP game (see the screen-shots thread).
Incredibly frustrating, after all the time I've already invested.
I can't see how this possibly makes any sense to limit this outside of outdated assholes insisting it violates some insane IP laws. We can record any fucking thing on just about any fucking digital device, how the fuck is it a problem if you can do that on the Playstation? Is some moronic hack as Sony worried people will go through their audio libraries and transfer them into Dreams or some stupid shit like that?
This really does just annihilate any point to the function outside of short sound effects. Shit, you can't even properly do ambient stuff now since you'd have to do stupid crap like stitching a bunch of files together in playback.
@Ninja Snarl P Yeah, pretty much the whole of the creator community is (rightfully) up in arms about this change in functionality.
i just threw my (flimsy, straw) hat into the ring on the audio issue. i hope it's addressed soon, and knowing media molecule i think it will be. there is reason for optimism!
meanwhile, i now have two weeks off work. maybe it's time for this open narrative experiment... but i need at least:
one (1) open world island environment
one (1) cutesy yet mysterious playable character, perhaps in the style of journey
fourteen (14) characters inspired by seven (7) discrete locations on the map, in two (2) categories: [mentor / friend] and [antagonist / narrative catalyst]
seven (7) equippable objects or items
seven (7) slayable monsters / enemies
at least fourty-two (42) pre-recorded endings...
...maybe that will do it. hmm.
+1
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Zilla36021st Century. |She/Her|Trans* Woman In Aviators Firing A Bazooka. ⚛️Registered Userregular
Thanks for your support!
I've gotten pretty good at environmental design. I might have a go at making a deserted island-type environ scene for you tomorrow.
(Now that my main project is impossible to finish, 250+ hours down the drain, thanks a lot, Mm).
the island kinda has to be particularly arranged. it needs 7 features, tentatively:
- a windmill
- a field / pasture
- a graveyard
- a church
- a jetty / wharf
- a small village
- an obelisk / memorial
and they all need to be equidistant - or in equidistant areas - from the centre of the island, ie, as a ring around the coast (in any order). the player needs to have total agency in which of these island features they travel to first, no subtle direction from the game or landscape
Posts
Launching a little earlier for EA owners, on Feb 11th.
Easy Allies launch coverage:
. . .also some of the stuff the community has already jammed out is crazy.
this thing still works with the motion controllers, yeah, and it's intuitive?
i might pick it up this afternoon, even if only to fiddle with the art tools and hope for a forthcoming VR mode (which i assume is not ready but not yet totally dropped?)
edit: i mean i'll probably just buy it to pay my dues to the glory days of littlebigplanet anyway
i'm feeling a lot more comfortable after doing the 'start dreaming' tutorials with both control schemes (moves / DS motion controls). lots of ideas whirring already but i'm going to do my dues with the imp quests and more tutorials. right now i just can't wait to spend time with this glorious machine...
It really doesn't help that a lot of chips and functions don't work intuitively. Just as a learning project, I wanted to make a decent clone of the pulse rifle from Aliens. Creating the model was a matter of minutes, setting up the "programming" was several hours of combing through tutorial screens and Youtube videos to find out why my linked chip bits weren't working the ways they obviously seemed designed for. After something like 10+ hours, I was finally able to have a cobbled-together pile of chips that made a functional select-fire rifle that had physical bullets that actually impacted the environment, but the experience left me completely drained and discouraged because it was so frustrating. There isn't (or at least not when I did the project) even a decent way to comment on chips/functions, so I couldn't even put together a "master" chip/kit that would tell the user which pieces served which functions so they would know where to place things like the muzzle flash light or the bullet emitter. That meant that even replicating that rifle build system to other object (like, say, a pistol) would require a fuckload of adjusting and actual brain memory, nevermind how aggravating it would be to share the object so other people could use it. And the end result was still buggy, with bizarre things like the gun deciding to randomly dump an entire magazine from pulling the trigger once or miscounting rounds in the magazine.
I feel like somebody could put the same effort into learning how to use Unity and come away with far more useful experience in building fully-functional modern games, not just janky ripoffs of been-done-a-million-times short games. Sure, you'll end up making a lot of that same stuff in Unity anyway because it's part of the learning process, but at least Unity is a full-function platform for developing games.
this is littlebigplanet 4 in all but name and sackboys. it's still a quaintly physical meccano box of playful joints, motors and gadgets that happens to also have a pretty cool set of tools for asset creation, made with quickly stamping out navigable 3D environments in mind. it's also designed for a controller, a couch and a tv, which is all a lot of us have access to...
the fact that you CAN theoretically get out as diverse a set of experiences as shown by media molecule is just super cool and inspiring.
A mind blowing achievement, IMO. And the creator has made many of the assets remixable too.
@bsjezz Can you post a link to your indreams.me profile so I can follow you? Maybe we could collaborate on something?
I'd love to collaborate! Still learning the ropes and I'm not much of an artist but I have a knack for logic and can record audio.
My ideal long-term project is an island-based narrative explorer where the order in which you approach the landmarks sets the thematic undertone of the story and the visual motifs. So if you look at the map and head right to the lighthouse, it might be a story of solitude. It's a lot of writing and design, which is probably what I'm best at, and the art assets can pull their weight in multiple ways, which is necessary because I'm not the best artist and clueless when it comes to animation...
edit: I'd also looooove to figure out a way to create a small procedural dungeon ala nethack. I could have so much fun with that.
signal generators are cool. i was actually looking at them to solve the procedural dungeon problem, but this was an early, effective test...
@bsjezz That's some great work! I have been thinking of trying something like that to build a procedural race track generator.
Speaking of racing games:
(Although I did have an idea for making a virtual 'fax machine'/modem/printer using the in-game logic that, could, in theory, do that...) 8-)
You can 'import' music/audio by plugging an MP3 player or your smartphone into a DS4 with a line-in cable to the headset port, or use the microphone on the PS4 camera.
You can use the regular controller. You only really need the Move controllers for advanced sculpting, etc. The game's campaign mode was actually made by Media Molecule using only regular DS4's!
motion control is a must, though!
This is just one scene out of what will hopefully be a much larger project, perhaps 5 or 6 scenes packaged together into one Dream, eventually.
I have a rough draft of the text for the narrative done too, I just need to import it into a scene (you can use the website to input text), slice it up, and have a think about what to do with it all.
had me tearing my hair out getting some elements of the movement and camera (fuck the 'stay onscreen' effect), but it's feeling good
can't wait to add some real monstery monsters for the community jam 🐲
edit: does that tweet even work? it's acting strange...
edit edit: may work better now
It's kind of amazing that some creations are actually getting noticed by established development studios.
the bad news is the logic kinda breaks the game
edit: alright i guess we don't need 2,000 raytracers for this. a few hundred will do.
now i hope anyone plays it. also that it works.
this is the first step towards users being able to monetise their creations. it was always on the cards, but i didn't expect it to start happening so soon after launch!
i do think this can shift the perception of the platform. as a closed environment it has limited value for anyone but consumers and hobbyists; but the tools are powerful enough that this should attract some professional interest
I strongly suspect this is Sony's doing, due to copyright issues. But it also makes it effectively near impossible for me to record any new V/O for my WIP game (see the screen-shots thread).
Incredibly frustrating, after all the time I've already invested.
Damn.
I can't see how this possibly makes any sense to limit this outside of outdated assholes insisting it violates some insane IP laws. We can record any fucking thing on just about any fucking digital device, how the fuck is it a problem if you can do that on the Playstation? Is some moronic hack as Sony worried people will go through their audio libraries and transfer them into Dreams or some stupid shit like that?
This really does just annihilate any point to the function outside of short sound effects. Shit, you can't even properly do ambient stuff now since you'd have to do stupid crap like stitching a bunch of files together in playback.
It would really help us if you could add your vote/opinion here:
https://feedback.indreams.me/forums/917383-dreams-feedback/suggestions/39974401-feedback-reduced-recording-time
And perhaps we can get MM to consider rolling back/reverting this change.
meanwhile, i now have two weeks off work. maybe it's time for this open narrative experiment... but i need at least:
one (1) open world island environment
one (1) cutesy yet mysterious playable character, perhaps in the style of journey
fourteen (14) characters inspired by seven (7) discrete locations on the map, in two (2) categories: [mentor / friend] and [antagonist / narrative catalyst]
seven (7) equippable objects or items
seven (7) slayable monsters / enemies
at least fourty-two (42) pre-recorded endings...
...maybe that will do it. hmm.
I've gotten pretty good at environmental design. I might have a go at making a deserted island-type environ scene for you tomorrow.
(Now that my main project is impossible to finish, 250+ hours down the drain, thanks a lot, Mm).
All I've been doing lately, since this stupid, regressive, audio issue cropped up, is remixing other people's memes, to try to fix bugs in them and to try and cheer myself up.
- a windmill
- a field / pasture
- a graveyard
- a church
- a jetty / wharf
- a small village
- an obelisk / memorial
and they all need to be equidistant - or in equidistant areas - from the centre of the island, ie, as a ring around the coast (in any order). the player needs to have total agency in which of these island features they travel to first, no subtle direction from the game or landscape
easy, right? 😂