SHMUP Creator: build and blast (trailer and steam store)

A place for people with an interest in developing new shmups.
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schleichfahrt
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by schleichfahrt »

That's nice and all, but the question that's interesting is.. when do others get to play with it :twisted:
When you ruin some enemy, add to score points.
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suny
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

That's nice and all, but the question that's interesting is.. when do others get to play with it :twisted:
Very good question, indeed!
I'm making good progress right now, I'll tell more very soon.
S.
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qmish
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by qmish »

Will it be good fit for pre-render gfx? Like in Vasara etc.
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suny
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

Will it be good fit for pre-render gfx? Like in Vasara etc.
Yes, to a certain point:
You can use animated sprites, but the animation can only loop.

Another thing: an enemy will rotate with a rotation effect. You can't pre-render an enemy with 8 directions and use them to do the rotation. This prevent to make games like DDPwhere the view is 3/4 perspective.
But a top-down game like Vasara is completely doable with the SHMUP Creator, minus some animation controls.
S.
alexevaldez
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by alexevaldez »

Holy snaps this is pretty awesome. :O Will we get an early access soon?
I plan to make a maker as well for my weird game and im very curious how a better dev would do it.
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suny
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

Some news at last! I'm making good progress righ now, I'll try to keep up the pace until Christmas.
Original post: http://bulostudio.com/2019/12/07/november-update-2/

November update

Image

I’m a Technical artist by trade.
And the SHMUP Creator is my first C++ project: I’m learning as I go. I started to modify a sample and try to display a bullet on screen, then I tryed to understand what is object oriented programming, then I tryed to understand why Visual C++ gives me linker error messages with 150 @ characters etc.
In September I decided to do what I have never done before since I started the project: updating Visual C++ and all the libraries I’m using.
So, I did that…
Of course it broke everything, (API changes, compatibility issues etc.) and I had to modify the code for some weeks before being able to compile again. I converted all the shaders to .hlsl to get rid of .cg, which is now obsolete.

I also did something incredible: I installed Git and now I’m using GitHub. For devs reading this: don’t laugh. Until now I backuped my code manually. Which is ok because I’m the only dev, but which is really bad when things go wrong. Again, don’t laugh, please: It’s never too late!

MEMORY LEAKS:
I did a lot of work on memory: I xas doing very bad things, and memory was growing each time a level was loaded. It’s really better now and quite stable.

POLISH:
I fixed the grid, the update and import of textures, and added a lot of small UI improvements.
The Snap tool was working well, but was failing on some occasions. It’s quite robust now and really improves the 2D levels creation.

Some months ago I wrote a complex hack to add parallax to layers, and it kind of worked. But it was difficult to use and created a lot of bugs and unwanted complexity, as well as bugs with the translation and scale tools. I found another solution and rewrote the thing: it’s now really easy to use and allows users to add parallax to background layers, only for 2D games.

Image

We also did some work on the weapons to make them more easy to understand. Sometimes its only a matter of renaming, or moving some part of the UI somewhere else… Same thing with the waypoints. I’m quite happy with the result.

BETA:
The documentation is almost complete, I added sounds for 2D games, and we are working on another 2D sample game called “Dominique’s adventures”. I’ll write about it next time!

NEXT MONTH, we:
.continue the Content and Artist documentation
.continue to clean the UI and fix bugs
.create all the sound effects
.create a lot of bullet patterns and include them in the package
.I hope to be able at the end of December to distribute an early Beta to some people

Fingers crossed!
S.
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RetrocadeMedia
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by RetrocadeMedia »

Holy heck I can't wait. I've been following this project for quite some time and to hear it might be getting a release (even if small and to select people) is really exciting!
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suny
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

RANDOM BULLET PATTERN #2
Classic style.
S.

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suny
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

GAMEPLAY TEST #1
Using only the basic SHMUP Creator tools, I'm trying gameplay ideas.

Here: enemies spawning destructible bullets with a 0 speed.
S.

Image
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MrJBRPG
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by MrJBRPG »

Hi there, have you ever thought of implementing an upgrade array like Gradius?

That seems to be a nice little stretch goal.
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suny
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

Hi,
You can't create a real Gradius weapon system.
But you can have power-up and items which change the weapon to another weapon. To have a gradius system, I'll have to mix the two systems, which I don't want to do right now because it would clutter a lot the UI.
S.
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suny
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

RANDOM BULLET PATTERN #3

.Ikaruga style.
S.

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suny
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

RANDOM BULLET PATTERN #4

10.000 bullets at 60fps.
Still working on the bullet engine optimization: after a while, I'm losing memory coherency and the cache misses slow down the pattern.

Image
S.
Hashtag-Underscore
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by Hashtag-Underscore »

Will it be possible to make larger enemy ships with multiple destructible turrets on them?
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suny
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

SHMUP Creator Tool #1 : attach

Can be useful to create boss or complex enemies.

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suny
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

Still working on the bullet engine optimization.

In this screenshot, there are 10.000 bullets with background and player collisions, at 70-80 fps on my 2016 laptop. I know I can do a little better, but I want to re-focus on completing the beta version of the SHMUP Creator.
I learned a lot of things along the way! Data alignments on memory, trying to avoid cache-misses... I guess those are basic things, but I discovered a lot of those things the hard way.

Image

S.
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suny
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

FEBRUARY UPDATE

Original post: http://bulostudio.com/2020/02/15/february-update-3/

Hi there,

No update in January: bad!
But still a lot of things happened.

DOCUMENTATION:
The documentation is complete! And it’s quite big. We still have to finish some small sections and add a few pictures.

ITEM PRESETS SELECTOR:
You can open a window to chose a behavior presets for the items: how will they move, react, are they attracted to the player… And like other things in the SHMUP Creator, there is an animated preview to help users chose.

MENUS:
A lot of contextual help messages have been added to the menus to help users understand what the properties are doing.

COPY/PASTE:
In the SHMUP Creator you can quickly duplicate anything: just hold Shift and drag the selection.
But sometimes, you want to paste your selection far away, and duplicating is awkward. So I added a copy/paste feature: select something, Ctrl+c, Ctrl+v somewhere else, and voila!

SOUNDS and MUSICS
We got rid of all the unlicensed musics and sounds, and we created sounds and musics to replace them.
The Blade of Death sample game has original musics now, as well as new sound effects, and the in-game tutorials too. We still have to do the same for the 2D space sample game.

OPTIMIZATION:
I optimized the engine a lot. Now we can display 10.000 bullets in 60 fps with collisions on my 2016 laptop! Maybe I’ll write a post about it in the near future. I’m quite happy with the results. There is still room for improvements, but it’s for later.

Next:
Steam paperwork (at last!!!), and keep working on the beta in the meantime.
S.
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suny
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

Original post: http://bulostudio.com/2020/04/01/march-update-2/

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MARCH UPDATE

Hi,

Very small update for March.

Since the middle of March, France is confined. The situation is stressful and it’s hard to re-organize our life. I’m working form home for my employer and am still trying to work on the SHMUP Creator.
But we are not making much progress on this project right now.

Nevertheless, I corrected a few bugs and polished the translation and rotation tools.
I also created a few bullet patterns which will be included in the package as well as some default assets.
I spent some time cleaning the SHMUP Creator datas too: there were a lot of old files, unused assets and missing sounds.

That’s all.
We’ll try to spend more time on this project in the next few weeks: I’m sure it’s important for the spirit to make progress on personal projects!

Take care,
S.
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suny
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

Hi!
Just a small update:

We are officially Steam devs!


[img]
https://i.imgur.com/aihjlHK.jpg[/img]

Still a lot of work, but an important milestone for the SHMUP Creator.
I'll write an update next week :)
S.
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EmperorIng
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by EmperorIng »

I'm looking forward to seeing where you're going with this, suny!
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suny
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

Image

APRIL UPDATE:
Original post: http://bulostudio.com/2020/05/04/march-update-3/

Hi everyone,

Despite the virus situation, we managed to make good progress on the SHMUP Creator.

STEAM
First of all, we are now an official Steam developer!
This is a really great milestone for us. We are in the process of integrating the Steam DRM and uploading the game on Valve’s server for the first time. We still have work to do on the store and the library, but it means we are going to be able to start the closed beta in a few weeks!

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UNICODE
Until now the SHMUP Creator wasn’t working on OS using foreign characters: for instance, on a Japanese Windows, the tool crashed. We are in the process of modifying some of the tool code to allow the import of assets on foreign systems. It also means modifying external libraries, like the one responsible for the FBX 3D models import.

LIBRARIES
Speaking of which, we updated all the libraries we are using (Ogre3D, MyGUI etc.) to their latest version.

NEXT
It’s still difficult for us to find enough time to work on this project, and it’s more difficult than ever right now, but we are quite excited: the beta is really almost ready!
Also, we are working slowly on the SHMUP Creator store on Steam. It means working on a trailer and such.
Still so many things to do…

S.
Hashtag-Underscore
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by Hashtag-Underscore »

Awesome! I assume you will tell us how to sign up?
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suny
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

Yes, I will!
I'm not exactly sure when and how though.

I'll start slow with a few people I know in a few weeks, and then I'd like to find other people willing to spend some time with it and not be afraid to communicate when they found an issue.
For now, if you are interested and have a project in mind, don't hesitate to write to: contact@bulostudio.com
S.
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suny
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

Original post: http://bulostudio.com/2020/06/03/may-update-2/

MAY UPDATE

Hi there!

We are making good progress, and the closed beta will start in a few days.
At last!

POLISH
Last month, we corrected a lot of bugs as well as adding last-minute features to the SHMUP Creator:
. better collisions
. scores and multipliers fonts are now using the same engine as the animated sprites
.small sprites can now be scaled and use a special shader to keep the pixels sharp. Perfect for games using pixel art.

Image


UNICODE
A lot of work went into correcting the code to make the tool work on systems using foreign characters. It was not a trivial thing, and it should work now. I had to implement a new 3D importer library, for the better: it will allow me to add new 3D formats in the future.

STEAM INTEGRATION
We completed integrating Steam to the SHMUP Creator. The store is almost ready, we received the first keys for the beta and everything seems to be in order.
Exciting times!

NEXT
We’ll start in a few days to distribute some Steam keys for the closed beta, starting with a small group of people.
There are still a lot of things to do on our list: marketing, translating the tool in French, creating a website for the game, completing the 2D game…

Don't forget to subscribe to our mailing list to know when the game will be available:
http://www.shmupcreator.com/

See you soon,
S.
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suny
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

Original post: http://bulostudio.com/2020/07/10/beta-v ... ne-update/

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beta version (June update)

THIS IS IT! WE STARTED THE CLOSED BETA!

This is really emotional and exciting. We started this project years ago, slowly, part-time. And now, real people are using it. There are only a handful of beta testers for now because we want to have time to properly listen to everybody and address the (numerous) issues. But those people are already creating incredible things with the tool! It’s a really great feeling to be surprised by its own application. Thanks people for your time and dedication, you give us the energy to make the SHMUP Creator even better.

PROGRESS:
. the SHMUP Creator is on steam for beta testers
. the on-boarding is better
. use a new inputs library: better gamepads compatibility and hot plugging
. lots of crashes and bugs fixed
. better UI
. new small features added

NEXT:
Fixing the issues is taking a lot of time, but we really have to progress on the trailer if we want to open the store on steam, ideally at the end of August.
I’m going to add some new people to the beta and continue to listen to advice, critics and bug reports: there are already some areas of the SHMUP Creator I want to modify to allow more creativity.
That’s quite exciting, and exhausting (doing this on top of our daily job), but also rewarding.

Stay tuned!
S. & Z.
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suny
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

Original post:
http://bulostudio.com/2020/08/12/july-u ... tote-bags/

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JULY UPDATE AND TOTE BAGS

Hi everyone!

BETA
We don’t have the time or luxury to make a real big game with the SHMUP Creator: we made test levels and such. But some of the beta testers are going crazy and doing real games!
And the reality comes back to us: the SHMUP Creator uses too much memory, we didn’t thought of this or that, why on earth people are clicking on this and make the tool crash??? WHY?
AND we are so happy to fix problems ! That makes the SHUMP Creator stronger and better!

I divided by 5 the memory used by the tool, the levels are loading way faster, a lot of small issues are fixed everyday.
We are far from the end of the beta, but the SHMUP Creator is making great progress, and we are still amazed by what people can make with it!
Beta testers are incredible, dedicated people. Thanks again for your hard work!

TOTE BAGS
In order to go out and do something completly different, we made some tote bags! We have access to a silk screening workshop and we made 10 nice SHMUP Creator bags. For what? Not sure.
Maybe for an video-game exhibitions (like the Stunfest in Rennes (France), who knows?

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suny
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

A small update.
Original post: http://bulostudio.com/2020/10/19/september-update/

September update

BETA
We are still testing the SHMUP Creator.
We invited a few more people from all over the world and I’m really looking forward to having a bigger community on Discord soon.
When I look at the change-log since last month, that’s crazy the number of small fixes, corrected bugs, polish and so on we did!
For the first time since the start of the closed beta the tool “seems” to be almost stable.
To be honest, that’s a relief, and we can at last go back to the other tasks we are postponing since a few weeks: a tiny bit of marketing (like writing this post), working on the trailer, completing the 2D game, etc.

NANOFORCE
Image

The most impressive creation made with the SHMUP Creator right now is Nanoforce, made by Alec. I think Alec tried every feature of the tool and is really doing amazing things! His game has multi-directional scrollings, a lot of different weapons, huge enemies and boss, a lot of scripted things (moving backgrounds, texts, sounds…). He is doing everything by himself: the Art, the music, the gameplay…
Watching people do crazy things with our tool is really great, and NANOFORCE is really impressive.
You can check-out Alec’s work on his youtube page:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt-kQY ... J7eRlYtMDQ
… and his Twitter account:
https://twitter.com/colossal_cedric

Here a short work in progress preview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0O_9ALkU91A

See ya!
S.
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suny
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

Long time no see. Too long.
Link to the original post: http://bulostudio.com/2021/01/25/december-update-2/

January update

We are still in closed beta.
It’s hard to find the time to make as much progress as we would like, but we are still fixing bugs and adding small features to the SHMUP Creator.

MATERIAL EDITOR:
We added a material editor for 3D objects. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it!
You can choose textures, shininess, reflection for imported models and see the result in the editor.

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NEW FEATURES:
We also added a lot of new features to the SHMUP Creator:
. Users can exclude levels from the final build. It allows people to keep test levels in their projects.
. Layers can be locked to prevent moving some objects.
. Some additional controls were added to the weapon editor: Charge Shots like in R-type, ways to have a Tap Weapon and an Hold Weapon and Invincible Bullets
. A dead enemy can cancel its own bullets
. A new explosion component: light

NEXT:
We are now in 2021. Times flies!
June 2020 was the start of the beta, and was an huge achievement for us!
I really wanted to release the SHMUP Creator trailer before the end of the year, but couldn’t for a variety of reasons. This trailer, and opening the Steam store is still the next big milestone for us.

S.
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suny
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by suny »

Link to the original post: http://bulostudio.com/2021/04/08/march-update-4/

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MARCH UPDATE - TOUHOU PATTERNS

PATTERNS MONTH!
Last month I decided to recreate patterns inspired by Touhou games.
It was interesting: sometimes it’s impossible to recreate them in the SHMUP Creator (Touhou is using a complex scripting system more akin to computer code), sometimes I found and corrected bugs but most of the time I was positively surprised by our Weapon Editor and what we can achieve with only a mouse moving some sliders.
With only a few settings and some smart uses of the Weapons and bullets features, I managed to create some complex patterns very close to the originals!


The Weapon editor:

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Here are some of them:

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Image

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See you!
S.
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Angry Hina
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Re: SHMUP Creator: build and blast

Post by Angry Hina »

Whoah, such beautiful patterns <3
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