HELLO WORLD!
If you’re reading this, it’s because you’ve either:
Stumbled across this website via random websearch then clicked the “Blog” button.
Clicked through a link via the Dark Acre Facebook page.
Clicked through a link via the Dark Acre Google Plus page.
Clicked through a link via the Dark Acre Twitter feed.
Subscribed to the Dark Acre RSS feed.
If you’ve visited the site in the past, you’ll notice a change: a slimmed-down theme, and the removal of all of the previous content. It’s all still there, floating in an archive, and may once more see the light. For now, consider this something of a digital renewal.
[Lost content: Likely a screenshot of my Grand Theft Auto Online profile showing hundreds of hours spent. Caption read “Almost no time spent AFK, this is what legit GTA Online progress looks like.”]
There hasn’t been much production on the Acre for the past two months. Most of the blame lies with a crippling psychological addiction to Grand Theft Auto V: when the output of a creative studio relies on a single person, and that person is waylaid by distraction, things grind to an immediate halt. It’s periods like these that make me glad I’m not beholden to any financial backers, riding a crowdfunding campaign, or have open promises to deliver. Some say the pressure of those obligations produces better work, like coal into diamonds, but after having labored most of my life under similar stress I’m convinced that it’s no good for me.
There are 6 drafts open in my word processor right now: the third main title in the ongoing Solarus series; three “interlude”, character-based novels that will serve to flesh out the Solarus universe; a supernatural story, developed from the shell of an incomplete NaNoWriMo attempt; and a memoir-ish piece of non-fiction. I’ve spent the better part of the last two years jumping between these narratives, whittling away at them with steady persistence. It would be spectacular to finish all of them at once and unleash them on you, though if and when such an event will occur I can’t say.
There are also 3 ongoing videogame projects: an iteration on the classic Space Invaders formula; a (for lack of a better term) “point-and-click” adventure that’s been on the workbench since early ‘11; and a game about explosions. Again the if and when of these beasts ever showing their monstrous faces to the public remain to be seen.
For those of you who are interested, here’s a list of the tools used in day-to-day production:
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Excel
Nevigo articy:draft 2
Epic Unreal Engine
Autodesk 3DS Max
Autodesk Mudbox
Autodesk Motionbuilder
Allegorithmic Substance
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
Image-Line FL Studio
The biggest change has been the move to Unreal from Unity, which has been a very positive experience. I’ve gotten away from all public Internet cloud services and most open file-sharing systems. Since I work alone from a fixed location those solutions were only complicating my process. It’s also worthwhile noting that I’m no longer pursuing videogame development as a livelihood. The market has saturated to the point where the odds of making enough money to survive are so bad that they’re laughable. I would urge anyone considering the life of a creative independent to focus instead on delivering other types of content, or working for larger organizations.
A FAREWELL TO NOTIFICATIONS
As of this post it’s been 37 days since I last logged in to any major social network. Since then I’ve been handling all personal communication via e-mail and Skype, and regaining an appreciation for long-form private communication. This decision was born from several years of focused engagement on all the big platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, Instagram). Early last month I woke up one morning and decided to see what would happen if I just stopped reading and posting updates.
I’ve argued in the past for strict curation of social network feeds, through careful adding and subtracting of “content providers”, be they professional researchers and journalists or trusted friends. I’ve also discussed going the other way, and allowing any and all information in. In the end, though, either practice costs time and energy that ends up producing little more than an avenue for distraction. Now, I’m recovering the time I’d once spent on networking, and returning to forms of personal communication that allow for the building of closer relationships within smaller circles of people. I can’t and won’t say that my current Luddite approach is the “best”, and for all I know the systems of status updates, Friend-ing and Following, and red-numbered notifications is the future of human communication, and I’m going backward by rejecting it. Time will tell. (And it has: the best move I made for my mental health, and I’ve missed nothing since. –Ed.)
WHAT ABOUT THE WORK?
Production is still happening, it’s just that the overall rate is nowhere near what it was in late ‘12. Soul-searching over the past year has made two things crystal-clear:
I love playing well-made videogames.
I have no love for the production of videogames.
I think it takes a certain amount of masochism to enjoy making games. To me, no matter how good I’ve gotten at it, the actual labor has always been hell on Earth; a forced march in a war of attrition. People will say “do what you love”, and yet I think it’s important to make a clear distinction between the enjoyment of creating of things and consuming them.
The writing, on the other hand, remains a real passion. It’s taken many years and hundreds of thousands of words to get to a place where I’m comfortable with “writing as work”, and it’s only been in the past year that I’ve enjoyed that level of satisfaction. Yet, as with videogame production, writing a good book takes an eternity. It’s fortunate that while you wait for my work, there’s an infinity of other books and videogames you can enjoy.
ONE SITE TO RULE THEM ALL
As part of the slimming down and simplification of the networking it’s a dream of mine to be able to serve all Dark Acre related content (including personal musings) via this site. To that end, the other network nodes will remain active but only serve as pointers. It’s my sincere hope that you subscribe to updates either in e-mail form via the front page signup form, or the Dark Acre RSS feed (I recommend using Feedly). Feel free to get in touch any time with Skype, and let’s see what comes next. (_Mailing list and RSS work, though Skype is dead. –Ed.)
DAJ
Indie videogame development is a pay-to-win survival horror adventure.
Woke up this morning determined to establish a data pipeline from Excel to Unreal Engine. The process I wanted was scattered across multiple forum answers and official documents, so I’ve compiled them here for easy access.
Caveat: I make no claims to the robustness of this process, and it is subject to change with further experimentation and development.
OBJECTIVE
Use data created in Excel spreadsheets as variables in Unreal Engine Blueprints.
PROCESS
CREATE DATA AND IMPORT
Decide on data types and organization. To help with this, create a Blueprint Structure in Unreal and review the available types:
Right-Click (RC) in Content Browser > Create Advanced Asset > Blueprints > Structure.
Name the Structure.
Double-Left-Click (DC) the new Structure. You’ll end up replacing MemberVar_x with your column names from the Excel spreadsheet. Consider the data types from the drop-down list.
Create the spreadsheet in Excel, assigning column names as above. Important: in order for the import/export step to work, a blank-named column of row names must precede your data.
Here’s where things get a little messy, and this is due to Excel’s default .CSV save function: it does not add quotation marks around the data values, which are required by Unreal. To remedy this, follow these steps to install an appropriate macro. Yes, it’s a bit of a pain, but it’s necessary to make this process work.
Select the data to export, including the first blank-named column, and run the macro. Save the file with the .CSV extension somewhere you can find it from the Content Browser.
Edit the Structure you created in step 1, or create a new one, assigning the names with exact matches to your column names in the Excel spreadsheet, and matching the data types to the column data types.
Save the Structure.
RC in Content Browser > Import Asset > Import to… > Navigate and Open your exported .CSV file.
Import As: DataTable > Choose DataTableRow Type: Your Structure > OK. If there are no errors this will create a Data Table asset in the Content Browser with the name of your .CSV file. Note that there’s no hotlinking happening here, and you must repeat the save/import process to update the values.
Double-check the imported data by DC the Data Table asset. Here you can also make manual edits if you decide to abandon the original spreadsheet, just note that re-importing will overwrite any changes made.
USING THE DATA
Create a new Blueprint or navigate to one you want to access the data from.
In the Blueprint’s Construction Script or Event Graph, RC > Search > Utilities: Get Data Table Row.
Select the source Data Table from the drop-down menu on the Node, or select it from the Content Browser and use the arrow-insert.
Pull a wire from the Out Row pin > Utilities > Break .
You now have access to the data.
As you can see, the Row Name is using the names assigned to the first blank column from the Excel spreadsheet. You can use something more descriptive, and it’s a good idea to establish a clear data management naming convention here, such as “Weapon — Handguns — Glock 19” or “Damage — Fire Skills — Fireball”, or whatever makes the most sense to you. It might also be advisable to use many different data tables rather than one gigantic one, but again that comes down to personal preference.
I hope this helps out, and happy Blueprinting!
REFERENCES
Unreal Engine Documentation — Data Driven Gameplay Elements
Michael Shnitzer — …force excel to quote all columns of a CSV file?
Working in a vacuum sucks.
2015.06.01 – 2015.06.30