While still working on the new demo i already start to switch older models to nanite.
I think here you can see why nanite can be so great if used right and just pump up the polygon count.
Still normal maps in use for now.
1 Like
Nanite definitely looks like it will do great things for those older models; that is quite the “glow-up” for this particular asset! 
I’m also glad that I contributed some constructive feedback as well. I had a lot to say in my previous post, but I wanted to keep from overloading you with information you may have already heard from others. As someone who is not very familiar with rail shooters, your “Die to Survive” demo was quite revelatory, and I’m really looking forward to playing more of it in the future! 
1 Like
How do I get the demo?
Hi @TechLord, the demo should still be available on steam.
Die to Survive on Steam (steampowered.com)
Let me know if this not work for you.
But it is still the old version, just run into a something strange today, where UE5 stoped two times my whole system for 20 minutes doing anything. I am searching the forum if this is a already known bug right now.
HI @Zezkaii, yes nanite is really great. It was more like a test if i can modify easy older models or if i need to build all from scratch again. Turned out it works really good if you know how to do this easy. A lot of work but after finishing the newer demo (wich i run into trouble with UE today) i will switch all models to nanite and try to use the full power of Nanite and lumen.
And about the feedback. I cant have enough of it, things like adding control over mouse movement speed as you mention are most likley i miss a lot. Things that add and/or give more agency to the player are very important in my opinion.
If you have more in mind i would be really happy to hear all of what you think. It doesnt matter if good or bad 
1 Like
3 Likes
This! 
What ended up being your high score? @TechLord 
1 Like
The new Demo should be ready very soon if i do not run into problems again.
@Zezkaii, love to see the competition aspect i hope with the longer version this will be fun.
The demo version does not have the full point system in right now. Only headshots give more points.
To make it later more fun and for risk and reward playing, i have a system ready where you will get more points if you dismember first. It is just not fully usable in its current state and will be added later.
Edit:
Here is a pic where i use only one light source from above and emissive light for a scene. I think it looks pretty nice without the normal performance hit you have with a lot of lights.
Edit2:
Managed to also add a part of the playerprofile today. I guess this is more for lightgun users. But i also tested with this the savegame function for the playerprofile and how to use a standart profile as failsave.
In the demo you can switch or hide crosshairs and show/hide reload animations. Just a little short in time to add the whole profile with statistics now.
The new version of the demo is close to be finished now, i hope 1 or 2 days more and the level is also ready. Only playtesting and placing health is what i still need to do.
1 Like
Hello again, @Thorsten09; the lighting in your most recent showcased screenshot is perfect! Thank you for your continued updates, and again I’m looking forward to playing the next demo iteration; I can’t wait to see all the new updates you’ve implemented. 
The new and longer version of the demo is now available on steam.
Die to Survive on Steam (steampowered.com)
@Zezkaii thank you, i hope it looks also good while playing the demo.
1 Like
Thanks for the update, @Thorsten09; this is fantastic news! I will download the newest demo and play it over the weekend! 
1 Like
Hi @Thorsten09,
After playing Die To Survive Demo a few more playthroughs, I was motivated to prototype a Shoot-To-Interact subsystem. I can easily visualize the mechanic being useful for other genres and I would like to use it in my game RUCKUS to interact with Power Ups, Doors, and more.
The core of the concept is using Triggers that listen for collisions from Actor & Components and Line Trace for Instant Hit use by 2D/3D Cursor. When collision detected, fire off event dispatcher.
To kick off the R & D, I started building on top of my 100% Mesh-based 3D Text / GUI, MAUI3D. One of the many use cases I envision is Shoot-to-interact with 3D Gadgets to create 3D Forms for Logins, Surveys, Dialogs, etc (may even add Scoring to Gamify large boring Forms )
Keep up the Amazing Work!
2 Likes
Hi @TechLord ,
glad to hear what i do is motivating you, i do the same often, it was always good for me to see something that help me improve what i do or get new ideas out of it.
I heard from a few people they need to deinstall the demo before they could install version 1.0.2 and could not just update the demo. Does this also happend to you if i may ask?
In this image you can see the way i use the collectables.
The Enums and varibles are for the Base Actor where i can select the options.
For what i do at the moment i figured out is the best way just to use a damage event. I also use this for my event manager, to start and to switch the path trough the level.
This is easy to expand to other behaviors later if i need some more special collectables or similar.
At the moment i wrap my head around the level start menu as you can see in the next image. I figured out is the best way to do this now so i know how to use/expand the user profile.
It is also for the replayability of the game. Normaly such levels are between 5-15 minutes at max. So giving the player something to hunt beside highscores is always a good idea.
1 Like
I must admit, @Thorsten09, that was quite the extended demo update of “Die to Survive!” I loved it, and not only that, I’m getting better at rail shooters because I was able to complete the demo on my first try! 
My mouse sensitivity within the game felt much better; It wasn’t as fast/frantic as before, making aiming much easier! I’m unsure what changes you made in that area, but thank you for tweaking that aspect. I ended my initial session with a score of over 17,800, which I’m proud of! The only issue I noticed during this play-through was that when I swapped from the six-shooter to the standard pistol, my crosshair would turn utterly invisible until I switched back. This bug occurred in every instance, unfortunately. 
P.S. The flying enemies you added are incredible; they have a fantastic design and are a lovely addition!
A small red cursor on a red enemy on a red background makes it pretty much invisible and I’m not even color blind 
Very Nice Interaction Implementation. The Enums appear to be a very elegant way to select with a multiple Collection Type/Activation Method Pairs. Can a collection have more than one type of Activation?
Only one type of event for collision
I actually do have other ‘events’ to consider as my ‘Gadgets’ are 3D UI mimicking UMG Widgets, but there is only one type of event for collision. Either its colliding or its not and the shoot-to-interact component handles the collision detection.
The Shoot-To-Interact component provides the collision detection another component to generate the other ‘mouse’ events ie hover/unhover, hold, etc mimicking a UMG Widget. My goal is to match up to UMG where possible for a 1 to 1 swap to build a true 3D GUI.
I’m keeping Shoot-to-Interact component separate and portable for use in other projects.
Speaking of GUIs, the Level Menu Layout looks intuitive to read and not too cluttered. I’m no fan of 2D GUIs cluttering my view of a 3D game world. This is another driver for me to dev a True 3D GUI. I can easily visualize that Menu in 3D
I honestly don’t know of any modern games that just calculate only high score. I reckoned players enjoy chasing down all those stats. From your list of challenges above I can easily visualize further granularity for more stats, sub stats sub sub stats. haha. This is something I need to consider tho.
First i want to thank all of you for the feedback, this really helps me.
@Zezkaii making it to the end in one go with this score is really good, congratulation, you are getting used to this kind of games.
And it seems like you enjoyed the demo
About the mouse sensitivity: I did not change anything beside the fixed size of the images for the crosshairs, i need to look into this if this might caused this. It is great to hear it works better now, but i need to figure out why. Thank you for telling me this.
Need to check also why the crosshair is not visible after switching the weapons. So far this did not happend while testing.
I am glad you like this flying enemies. First i was not sure if i should use them. But after a few test i thought they just fit the environment. The only thing i will change is maybe a color change after you killed them. I guess at the moment you cant really tell if you killed them if they are to close.
@Roy_Wierer.Seda145 Thank you for the feedback. This red on red is a good critique, thank you for pointing this out. I will think about how to change this. I guess a different color in the middle or just a 2 colored crosshair would be a good idea. Need first to do a color check with all enemies and environment colors. Maybe i will change the whole look of the crosshairs.
@TechLord At the moment the collectables have only one method for selection to activate. But this is easy to do, just need to put the enum into an array. Maybe it is a good idea do this now, later changes always take longer and are harder to do. And as such it is much easier to expand later if needed. Thank you for this question.
Like this menu i always try to keep things simple and clean if possible. I like myself to see all at once in a menu. Just not always easy to do or possible. For me it was always good to see only what i need to, this is what i try with the menu to archive.
The stats are mostly there already, i need lots of them for the dismembering (wich i sadly needed to tune down a little in the demo because of german laws). There are many things that could shown, the problem is only how much to use of it for showing the stats. And you are right you could expand this to do crazy amount of statistics and lots of people love to see and archive them.
2 Likes
Sorry for my short reply haha I was tired. Doing a “color” check would be expensive, done on a post process shader. I have something else in mind. First you need to dive a bit into color theory, because having a lot of the same colors on the screen is usually a bad sign and very bad for accessibility. For example some types of color blind people might not see the difference between red and brown. Pick a color palette for the scene which fits both the vibe and the level of accessibility you want to achieve.
https://www.colourblindawareness.org/colour-blindness/colour-blindness-experience-it/
As for the cursor in particular, you might just have situations where a cursor is difficult to see (white on light sky, dark on ground etc.) So it is common to add a colored contrasting shadow, edge or trail to it. You could also notify a player of where the cursor is by playing a short animation when the player starts moving the cursor from A speed to B speed.
2 Likes
Thank you @Roy_Wierer.Seda145 , this are great sources of information. I did not even think about color blindness before. I will have a deeper look into this later, but before i start to finnaly decide the colors of the enemies and environment.
For example, i wanted to stand specials(range in this case) out of the crowd. This is why i use some sort of doctor in blue for example, so you know this enemy will use projectiles. And if using another enemy type with range weapons, still use this color so you could always identify range enemies.
This was also the idea behind using emissive material for the eyes. I hoped you can see every time where enemies are even in more darker areas. And also to make it easier to shot them in the head.
I will play today all of the rail shooters i have again (older PS3 ones like house of the dead, time crisis and so on for example). I never noticed the crosshairs would have something you mentiont for the contrast.
2 Likes
Maybe they don’t, old games often have a poor accessibility level, meaning you can get bonus points on that. Many websites still do it wrong (example css):
2 Likes