Terrier Tennis Update 2

Game Mechanics

Since the last post I have only made a few updates to the core mechanics. For the player I included the ability to perform a high hit or a low hit. These types of hit are performed by the player inputting the relevant keys to perform either of these actions. I currently have the keys locked to "G" for low hit and "H" for high hit. I will most likely change these before release. Additionally, I included the same functionality for the bot so there can be some variety in their hits. Further, for the bot I added a few more aim points to add variety in their hit locations. The bot still seems to be "too good" and I will need to make some improvements to allow for the player to be able to actually beat the bot. 

In addition to adding functionality to the player and bot, you can probably see from the gif above that I also included a cinemachine virtual camera to take on a more grounded camera angle instead of just the static floating camera. I set the camera to follow the player but to look at the ball so the player should not get disoriented about where the ball is at any point in time. This works, but as you can see at the end of the gif this becomes somewhat strange once the ball goes behind the player. I also noticed that at some points it was hard for me to see where the ball was when it was on the other side of the court. I may want to add a glowing effect or make the ball a bit bigger to help with this in a future update.

Finally, I was able to add a sound effect when the player and bot hit the ball! It is just a punch sound that I picked up free off the asset store, but I was able to mess around with it and think it adds a lot even though it is a sound effect that doesn't necessarily fit the game. I will no doubt update this in the future, but wanted to test this out before looking for the right sound effect.

Environment

One aspect you will probably notice that was a huge improvement from the last update is the addition of some environment assets! I think this is really starting to add to the game and I cannot wait to add animations to my player and bot to make it feel more alive. I would also like to add other dogs and cats to the bleachers to make it look like a real stadium. 

Another subtle touch you may not be able to pick up on in the gif is the addition of post-processing effects in my scene. I have never worked with these effects, but I am already starting to see a drastic upgrade in lighting and atmosphere. I have never been able to find a good tutorial on post-process lighting, but I watched a tutorial by LMHPOLY and found it incredibly helpful. I really enjoyed messing around with the color grading and used ACES for the very first time!

Improvements

There is still a lot I need to do to this game before it is ready for release. I would like to add a UI so the player can see who they are playing against and the current score. On the topic of score, I need to add in a game manager to track when the ball goes out of bounds and when to add score for the player or bot. I will also need to make sure to code in the tennis feature of making sure they win by two. I would also like to add a title screen and some additional environment assets to the foreground to really sell the experience. Finally, I will want to add all my animations and accurate sound effects to work more on that skill.

Bugs

For some reason the ball will randomly clip through the ground after the player or bot hit it. I have not been able to come to an understanding about what is happening here, but will need to rectify this bug before release.

Final Note

I don't know if you noticed, but I was able to illustrate a logo for Cedar Cat Studios! As someone who knows nothing about vector art, I am quite proud of it. Additionally, I started up a discord server to chat with anyone if they want to talk about any and all things video game development. I was fortunate enough this past week to meet a few individuals who are hobbyists in the game dev space and thought it would be great to meet more. Feel free to join the server if you like. I will probably use it as a method to post interesting videos and articles I find as well as talk about random topics I come across in the development of my games. The server is completely empty right now, but maybe we can grow a community in the future!