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August

Thursday 1st​

  • Adapted docking sim to use Unity physics
    • Lots of small fixes to work with the more complicated physics
  • Added 3d rings in space, showing docking axis

Friday 2nd​

  • Fixed control inputs when craft is rotated
  • Fixed kill rot/kill lar when craft is rotated
  • Properly wrapping angles in displays
  • Discovered that the FUI framework uses a deprecated Unity component (Animation).
    • Investigating the newer replacement (Animator)

Monday 5th​

  • Changed Panel to use an Animator for expanding and collapsing
  • Modified OverlayMessage to use the new Panel expand/collapse animation
  • Added numerical readouts of rotation and position offset
  • Adding more sfx:
    • Humming
    • Computer noise
    • Creaks
  • Playtesting (Graham):
    • Rotate approach boxes
    • Swap number boxes
    • Make computer noises louder
    • Remove static crosshair lines
    • Brighten mobile crosshair
    • Replace static central crosshair
    • Make creaks quieter
    • "SONAR"

Tuesday 6th​

  • Rewrite theme system to use explicit method calls instead of Unity message broadcasts
  • Added debugging aids to theme system (showing the node a colour came from)
  • Theme system custom editors
  • Added "Theme Debugger" in ThemeNode inspector
  • Docking sim difficulty modes:
    • Easy: nothing changes
    • Medium: random impact - costs about 40% fuel to scrub off
    • Hard: fuel leak - constant fuel drain and torque
  • Adjusting volume based on thruster power
  • More playtesting:
    • Avril:
      • Roll is confusing (which button is which)
      • "Fine control" toggle
      • Add black outline to position offset indicator so it can be seen against bright background
    • Solon
      • Click on the text log to select difficulty
        • just add menus tbh
      • Ignoring the tutorial prompts
        • Maybe show things the tutorial is expecting you to do and cross them off as they're done
      • Some indicator of which is positive and negative
      • Enter to kill rot, space to kill lat
      • Fix kill mode eating fuel forever (rotational thrusters fire continuously)
        • It's due to high frame rates!
      • Run in background mode
    • IHave
      • Inverted controls (pitch only)
      • Q/E for roll
      • Ignoring the tutorial prompts
        • Maybe show things the tutorial is expecting you to do and cross them off as they're done
      • Indicator when you're looking away from the station
      • Click Kill Rot/Kill Lat indicators to activate it
      • Limited oxygen, to force a bit of speed
      • UI blocking things
        • Intentional - see weds notes
      • Misinterpreted red lines as excess lateral offset, not speed
      • Audio alarm for some warnings
      • "No Prop" text on the right is broken/wrong colour
    • Hourd
      • Thruster "bang" too loud
      • Text log too small, can't scrollback
      • Misread speed indicator bars as thrust indicators
      • Unsure of roll keys (which is which)
      • Unsure of how reticule works for positioning
      • Trying to prevent angular velocity, instead of zeroing it
      • Units on numbers
      • Consider IJKL for rotation and UO for roll
      • Mouse wheel for thrust power
      • Mouse for angle steering?
      • Show key inputs on screen

Wednesday 7th​

  • Fixing corner case leaks of IDisposableComponent in CommandBuffer (Myriad.ECS)
  • Swap Kill Rot/Kill Lat indicators so they're on the same side as the controls for that axis
  • Made kill Rot/Kill Lat indicators clickable to toggle independent kill modes
  • Deliberately made tutorial UI overlap more of the HUD, to make it harder to ignore!
  • Moved later speed indicators to be attached to the moving reticule, less overcrowding in the middle of the screen
  • Added more control over panel theming from scripts
  • Added actual target model (ISS)
  • Made various parts of the panel not raycast targets
  • Added collision geometry to station and ship

Thursday 8th​

  • Added separate buttons for kill rot/lat (enter/space respectively)
  • Modified tutorial to add separate prompt for kill rot/kill lat
  • Added a skip mode to tutorial in editor
  • Gave the spacecraft an initial "kick" for some lateral movement
  • Given a little more starting fuel, to account for that
  • Collision handling
    • win condition
    • loss condition

Friday 9th​

  • Experimenting with a new "text log" component
  • Learning more about Unity layout system
  • Created ScrollView and ScrollViewPanel prefabs
  • Created a few experimental "callout" panels

Monday 12th​

  • Experimented with callout panel layout. Walking back up the tree adding up margins, so that the root can be resized such that the leaves are the target size.
  • Experiment with multiple scenes for menu loading
    • One "background" scene, with multiple menu scenes being loaded and unloaded on top:
      • Sim
      • Main Menu
      • Game HUD
  • Added "tinting" to the theme system
  • Building a button prefab (using tinting to show when the button is hovered over)
  • Added theme support for inverting colours fetched from a redirect
  • Created FUI button prefab

Tuesday 13th​

  • Fixed button background animator
  • Added Remove to Myriad DyanmicSystemGroup
  • Added GameTime and WorldHost to MyriadUnityIntegration package
  • Updated main Ephemeris project
  • Installed FUI in Ephemeris project
  • Begun creating DockingSimulator scene in Ephemeris
  • Added support for system groups owned by a MonoBehaviour to Myriad integration package
  • Improved "system providers" in Myriad.ECS integration package

Wednesday 14th​

  • Added editor display to WorldSystemGroup in MyriadUnityIntegration
  • Moved orbital systems into a separate WorldSystemGroup in docking scene
  • Created a Phobos moon mesh
    • Phobos is really small, this may have been a waste of time.
    • Might need to consider special handling for very small astronomical bodies (e.g. asteroids)
  • Creating docking sim menu
  • Investigating Unity audio assets

Thursday 15th​

  • Fixed script reference error
  • Phobos normal map
  • Modified SolarSystemLoader to activate child scripts when loading is done, allowing further subsequent loading to proceed
  • Tripped up during initialisation by one frame delay on MyriadEntity binding to Entity

Friday 16th​

  • Investigating AssetBundle for streaming scene content (planet by planet)
  • Developed a prototype for content loading using scenes
    • Each planet is in a scene, with the planet having the same name as the scene
      • Other GameObjects can exist
    • System loader can load those scenes (additive, async), transfer the GameObject to the main scene, and then unload the holding scene
      • Unloading ensures that other objects in the scene (lights, cameras etc) do not get loaded in the main scene.

Monday 19th​

  • Started creating Docking Sim menu
    • Initially using split scenes, with the full scale solar system
    • Switched to a hand built scene with the planets all very close together. This makes composing the camera shots and transitions easier
    • Built a colour slider for TextMeshPro text
    • Switched to simpler Lerp, it looks better anyway
  • Updated SpaceGraphicsToolkit
  • Improved Europa normal map
  • Built Ceres using NASA data

Tuesday 20th​

  • Updated Myriad "count" queries to accept an optional query description
  • Built out docking sim menu (buttons from FUI framework)
  • Improving panel show/hide animation in FUI library
  • Adding settings/custom difficulty panel
  • Improved handling of Panel elements starting in hidden (collapsed) state

Wednesday 21st​

  • Added show/hide events to panel
  • Set up orbit for Ceres
  • Created a way to pass info between scenes when they are loaded
  • Loading DockingSimulator scene from menu
  • Modified game setup script to use the difficulty/location info sent from menu
  • Added support for vertex colour to BackgroundStripes shader

Thursday 22nd​

  • Improving Kepler orbit calculation usability
  • Generating a random orbit for target + player
  • Constructing DockingSimulator scene, ensuring all the various components works together
    • Camera focus
    • Instanced icons
    • Planets
  • Adjusted atmospheric scattering on Earth

Friday 23rd​

  • Rewriting how entities are resolved after creation in Myriad.ECS, simplifying setup code
  • Updating everything based on Myriad.ECS
    • Protologic
    • Unity integration
    • Ephemeris

Monday 26th​

  • Bank holiday
  • Investigated BEPU physics
    • Used it before with Heist
    • Unfortunately not compatible with netstandard2.1
  • Jitter2
    • Also no support for netstandard2.1
  • Jitter1
    • Third party port to netstandard: Jitter.Core
    • JVector and JQuaternion instead of standard vector/quaternion will get annoying, but it's usable.
      • Forked and refactored here

Tuesday 27th​

  • More Jitter.Core refactoring
  • Imported Jitter.Core into Unity, making some tweaks to make it work
  • A lot of cleanup work:
    • Removed soft bodies
      • Removed IBroadphaseEntity, previously this was the abstraction layer between rigid and soft bodies, so it's no longer necessary
    • Removed multithreading
    • Removed terrain
    • Rewritten a lot of the vector internals (preparing to remove custom JVector type entirely)
    • Removed JQuaternion (using System.Numerics.Quaternion)
    • Replaced JVector type with System.Numerics.Vector3
    • Enabled nullability checks in some files and fixed nullability issues
    • Detailed clean up in RigidBody

Wednesday 28th​

  • Moved Jitter.Core into a Unity package so it can be easily installed in Unity
  • Fixed subtle bugs with pooled resources in Arbiter/ArbiterMap
  • Started basic implementation of Jitter.Core with Myriad.ECS
    • Bound to Myriad, using a shared world for all entities
  • Endless cleanup

Thursday 29th​

  • Further cleanup on Jitter.Core constraints
  • Imported Jitter.Core into main Ephemeris project
  • Started building systems for having many small worlds (owned by specific entities)
  • Reimport all, attempting to fix a unity error ("inconsistent result on import" whatever that means)
  • Setup basic systems to copy from Jitter RigidBody into Unity transform
  • Written a quick test script to apply forces to the RigidBody when an input is pressed

Friday 30th​

  • Rewritten some of Jitter.Core to remove support for mass points
  • Built Unity inspector for Jitter World
  • Built systems for copying orientations into ECS (from Jitter) and from ECS (into Unity)