Shader Sandwich - Released!
9 years ago - Sean Boettger(Spike1)

Unity Asset Store page!



It's out! I had to fix a few more issues, but after that it was uploaded pretty quickly :D. I've updated the Shader Sandwich page to show that it's out, and also made a thread on the Unity Forum (here) so yay! Not much else to say really, other than hopefully it all goes smoothly from here on out :).

I'll be putting together a potential road-map over the next few days so users can see what I'll be adding/fixing first in Shader Sandwich, and I'll take any suggestions into account as well.

Well, this is pretty exciting for me. Not much else to say without rambling and sounding like a teenagers diary, so I'll stop here :D. See you in a week!

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New Screenshots from Charlie's Rainy Day
9 years ago - Sean Boettger(Spike1)

Hi everyone! I haven't yet got a response from the Unity team, however it'll probably take until Friday or next Monday :). Anyway, I did stuff! I've been working on Charlies Rainy Day, really trying to work out the look. I think I've got it :D. Here's a (tiny) video showing what I have so far:



And a couple of higher resolution images:
Edit:Updated images with smaller sized jpgs to increase load speed :).




I have a good reason for rendering the video so small; the render times for this thing are looooong. Not Pixar long (4 hours a frame!), but at full HD CRD takes 2 and a half minutes to render a frame, which means that video would have taken half a day to render! However, at that size it's down to a more manageable 10 seconds a frame, so that's good.
Since render times are so high, I'm thinking of upgrading some parts of my computer which'll help considerably.

One other thing I'm not sure about is whether I want to make CRD episodic or not. I'll definitely be releasing it in parts, but I'm not sure whether the parts should be self-contained, or simply flow together to form a film. This'll be important as it changes the flow of the story drastically; then again I haven't even totally worked out the story, so maybe I should do that first!

Ok, see you in a few days with results, trying to keep a good blogging flow :).

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Resubmitted!
9 years ago - Sean Boettger(Spike1)

Hi everyone! So Shader Sandwich got declined (With good reasons, so fair enough). Anyway, I've resubmitted with hopefully all of the problems the Unity team pointed out fixed, so fingers crossed again!

Along with fixing some of the problems I added a couple of new features. The main one is a bug reporting system, with an online interface and stuff. For those interested it can be found here, or through the Forum.

I also forgot to talk about it in the last blog, but I updated parts of the website. You'll notice the new menu bar, a sleeker interface and a bunch of other stuff. The website is far more secure now as well, passwords are actually hashed..... I'm sorry for not doing that sooner haha XD. I've tightened everything as best as possible so it should all be good.

Because of having to work on Shader Sandwich I haven't gotten around to any other projects, but I promise they are happening :). I've managed to speed up CRD renders, but I lost some important documents regarding the story (this seems to be a recurring thing); it shouldn't be a problem though, I'll be rewriting bits anyway so not much was lost.

Ok, see you in a week with results and some other news (hopefully with images XD).

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Hologram Shader
9 years ago - Sean Boettger(Spike1)

Well, still waiting for SS to get approved/rejected. I thought I should keep up the post rate though, so I'll do that by sharing a cool hologram shader I made:

EDIT: Have updated the shader to work with Shader Sandwich V1.2, sorry for any inconvenience :).

It's super expensive performance wise for DX9, but on DX11 its only 2 times more expensive than the new Standard shader :). I'll need to look into more optimizations for Shader Sandwich, and maybe add an vertex and fragment instruction counter in the next version.

Anyway, you can download it for Unity 5 here: Linky!, and once Shader Sandwich is out you'll be able to open it up and study it :).

So yup, Shader Sandwich is still pending approval, it's been pretty boring waiting for it haha XD. In regards to other projects, Charlie's Rainy Day won't be rendered in Unity, I just can't get the same style for it :(. I'll be spending the next few days trying to cut down render times, they're at a minute and a half per frame, which isn't much compared to stuff like Pixar (rendering a frame every 4 hours!), but it's still a nuisance.

Anyway, see you in a few days with the result, fingers crossed :D.

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Holy Sh*t It's Done!
9 years ago - Sean Boettger(Spike1)

Hell yus!


Sorry for the swear guys, I try to keep this site pretty PG but wow, it's done! Shader Sandwich has been completed and sent to the Asset Store!! I've just got to wait for approval now. I've got a feeling it won't be approved right away (I'm sure they'll find something wrong with it), but still, it's pretty incredible that it's finally out there. 9 months of work and 3 rewrites are finally coming together into a finished product!

Anyway, so there's a new page you can find from the homepage for Shader Sandwich (Here) and you can find documentation on there and stuff. Please tell me if you find something wrong with it, this is my first time doing anything like this so I hope I haven't made a colossal mistake or something.

So, what now? Well, first off I've still got a bunch of tutorials to work on and (maybe?) make video tutorials, but for the moment Shader Sandwich will take a back-seat. In the future I'll be adding all sorts of other things though, so that'll be fun.

Other than that though, I guess my primary other project will be Charlie's Rainy Day? I'm not gonna deny that my initial excitement for it has dwindled, but I'm gonna give it a shot anyway. My main problem was render times, but if Shader Sandwich sells well I'll just use a render farm. I was also experimenting with using Unity to render Charlie's Rainy Day, but I couldn't get a similar enough look (Primarily since CRD uses a ton of GI and AO). Maybe if I buy one of the better AO solutions from Unity's Asset Store I'll be able to do that.

One other thing I kind of want to do is a 2D animation test, I've been inspired after listening to Adventure Time's Commentary. I'll hopefully be teaming up with my sister who's a much better artist than me, and we'll make something cool :D.

Alright then, I'll be back in a week or so once Shader Sandwich has been approved/rejected, no more two month long hiatuses hopefully haha XD.

Bye!

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New Homepage and Unity issues
9 years ago - Sean Boettger(Spike1)

Hello!

First off, Shader Sandwich is having a slight delay thanks to some rather rubbish Unity 5 bugs :(. The new Unity5 shader compiler really is a piece of

Anyways! I've got a new home page! It's got some of the stuff I've been doing, and also some future things :).

First things first, you may have noticed Morte Grimm is no longer anywhere on the site. I'll say it straight, I probably won't ever end up making it. I've got a few reasons for that though. First off, I am completely sick of Unity, and programming in general. Shader Sandwich has sucked the life out of me in that respect, so I'd prefer not to continue, at least for a little while XD. Morte Grimm also had a rather complex story, and.... I lost it. I have no idea where I kept it, nor what it contained :D. Sooo yeah, no more Morte Grimm, sorry :(.

Now for what's on it! There's the two house assets I've posted on the Unity Asset store, Shader Sandwich, and something I've been working on in secret called Charlies Rainy Day. I'm sure most of you know what Shader Sandwich is, but if not just check out a few of the previous posts, I made a video of it :). The page for Shader Sandwich will be coming soon, I've just got to make a few more demo shots. Here's a picture of it though:


As for Charlies Rainy Day, the reason I've kept it secret for a while is because I wasn't sure I was going to do it, but since I'd prefer not to program for a while I though it was the perfect time to raise it up :D.

Charlies Rainy Day (CRD) would be an animated web series of around 8-10 episodes, around 10 minutes each. I've wanted to do an educational series with a dark twist for a while, and have put at least 30 hours in total doing world and character building. I think I've got a fairly special idea here and would love to be able to run with it.

Charlies Rainy Day would focus on a boy named...Roger! Just kidding, Charlie, who lives in a strange world filled with living raindrops, evil scientists and giant world ending plugs. However, this world is not the whole story, and around the edges is a dark mystery that Charlie and the viewers would slowly decipher. Everything in the world is a metaphor with Charlie right in the middle. Everything is real, and yet none of it is. The series would cover topics like the existence and meaning of a consciousness, while also being highly educational, and fairly safe viewing for kids. I've tried to state this fairly generally to avoid spoilers, but hopefully that sets the scene slightly XD.

I made a fairly rubbish three minute pilot episode for school, however it's definitely non-canon and isn't that great. If I go ahead with this fully, I'll dedicate myself to ensure it's of really good quality, spending a month to two months on each episode. Here's some pictures of the pilot though, to get a feel for "one" of the art styles:



Anyway, sorry for the fairly dry post, and hopefully Shader Sandwich is completed eventually XD. See you soon? Maybe? Bye!

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