Alien Zombies Unity 3D Game Progress - Mar. 15, 2011

The Stone Circle UFO

While still NOT being able to solve my animation issues of trying to get my Alien Zombie character imported from Max 8 into Unity 3D to work, I thought I would work on the stuff I can for the moment. I've decided to break my game level up into smaller levels after having Unity 3D crash on me multiple times for what I'm sure are multiple reasons, most of which I'm pretty sure were to do with some of the very high poly stuff I had imported into my scene like the "Pumpkin Patch", a very high poly model, and the "Spooky Pumpkin Patch Tree" also another very high poly model, both of which were made a good many years ago when I was first learning 3D modeling using an application called Amorphium Pro. I now have Bob's Homestead, Old Barn, Windmill and old abandoned farm house all on one level. This is where the Flying Saucer crashes after launching from the ancient stone circle located by Bob's house and then crashes over the hill close to the old barn.

I had a very tough and frustrating weekend trying to figure out how to do this, but with help from Unity Answers I was able to get my UFO to take off as Bob gets close to it and then disappear over the hill range. The way I had done this first was to give the UFO a really big "Sphere collider" which was set to trigger an animation. It worked but I knew there had to be a better way to do it. I was also reading up on "Animation events" which before this weekend I knew practically nothing about. My animation for the UFO was done in Unity 3D so I knew that using "animation events" was the way to go so I also knew that I was on the right track.

After this weekend on Monday I had a major victory with some help from Unity Answers and a whole lot of digging on Google, I was finally able to have my stone circle UFO take off as Bob gets within a certain range off the craft. I also managed to have and explosion occur about midway through the UFOs flight path which knocks the UFO off trajectory and causes the UFO to crash on the other side of the hill range. Once the animation finishes it disappears and leaves behind a dead replacement "wrecked UFO". I was even able to get fire in the wreck and a Alien Zombie "Rag Doll" component which slumps over nicely into the cockpit seat when the wrecked UFO instantiates.

Now I would like to have a REALLY big explosion to occur at the end of the animation cycle as well although I'm not sure it would be seen or even hear ed given the distance away as even my "Mid Air Explosion" you kind of have to watch for even though it can be clearly seen if you watch the UFO take off. I even fixed up the green fire trail from the UFO as it takes off as well.

So it was Happy dance time after that little victory. :)