Gameplay Screenshots from the early alpha version

Here are some gameplay screenshots from Crimelife 4.
Remember everything is from early alpha version of the game. There is still a lot of work needed to be done. A lot of what you see may change.
Every part of the map is carefully designed and modeled so I can get high fps and runs smooth on mobile devices.


 
  
 

Traffic AI - The basics

There are many ready made solutions for traffic AI on the Unity Asset Store. iTS Traffic System, TI Traffic AI, A.I Car Traffic PACK, just to name a few.
But if you are asking me the best way to do this is to write your own code from scratch.
When you have to deal with traffic in an open world game where you want to mess around and cause some chaos, control over your code is very important.
To save time I tried two of the above ready made solutions, but apparently I lost more time than the time I needed to write my own code that actually works the way I want.
I don't say that those assets are not good, they are actually great and very professional but apparently they are not what I needed.

To get started with my script I used waypoints to make the cars follow a path. I created a script that spawns the cars on each waypoint and only when the player is at a certain distance.
The cars dynamically follow the closest waypoint weather they are on the right or on the left side of the road. They will also stop if they find any obstacle in front of them. It sounds very simple but it does the job right.

To be continued...

Designing the characters

Some of the decision you must take before you model the characters for your game is if you will make it a realistic or more cartoon like. Something that will fit in to the game's art style.
For the 3d models I use a program called AC3D. It's perfect for low poly models and very fast too.

To make a virtual world beautiful it doesn't have to be realistic to achieve that.
Crimelife 4 is focused on a lowpoly world with more cartoon looking characters. Low poly models can look really great if you use the right textures. And I use high quality nice and clean textures to achieve that.

Most of the textures used in the game are hand made and designed based on sketches I did on paper and from other references. I use Gimp for the textures. Now you will ask why I don't use a more professional program like Photoshop. It's simple, time is important to me. If I want to fix a texture and in Photoshop it will take me around 10 minutes and with Gimp only 5, I will prefer Gimp.

Next step to bring the characters to life is to animate them. I use Milkshape for this. A freeware program that lets you rig and animate your characters the easy way. A few years back I was using Blender but it was very time consuming. I know that Blender has changed over the years and it may be more easy to use today but I still prefer Milkshape. It does exactly what I need.
I setup my character's bones on Milkshape, I do the animation and then I export it to Unity in fbx format. There are tons of animations in game and I'm still adding more when needed.

I hope you liked this article. Feel free to share this if you find it useful.
Also the comments are open for everyone so feel free to share your thoughts.

First environment screenshots

Here are some environment screenshots from the early alpha version of Crimelife 4 (working title).
The whole map is still a work in progress. There is still a lot to do. Buildings, city props and textures are all hand made and carefully designed by me.
I will need to buy some resources including 3d models and textures to help me with the development time.
If you like to support the game and contribute, a small donation is welcome through Paypal. You will see the donation button on the right side of the page.

Crimelife 4 (working title) Announced

I'm very excited to announce that Crimelife 4 (working title)* is in development! It's powered by Unity Engine so the possibilities are endless. There is still a lot to be done. For this reason and to keep you updated with the game's progress I will open a development blog soon to keep up to date with the game.
We will have a lot more to say in the coming months.

*The logo and the title will change in the final version for obvious reasons.