One of the new features coming in Daggerfall Tools for Unity Release 2 is support for standalone builds where the Arena2 folder is not generally available. For example, the web builds I showed earlier would be considered standalone.

The toolset makes this possible using two complementary approaches. The first is just normal serialization of scene data. This is automatic and doesn’t require any work on your part. All of the materials and 3D models in your scene are just saved as you would expect, along with additional metadata about those resources. For example, every 3D mesh saves a list of default texture keys used to rebuild textures for climate swaps. You generally don’t need to think about this, it just works.

The second method is new to Release 2. When loading a file from Arena2 with FileUsage.UseMemory enabled (now the default), DaggerfallUnity will first try to use Resources.Load() to find that file from your Resources folder. This means you can add, for example, ARCH3D.BSA, BLOCKS.BSA, MAPS.BSA, and TEXTURE files to your Resources folder and load content in at runtime without the end user requiring a Daggerfall installation for your build. All you need to do is append “.bytes” to the end of any Arena2 files added to your Resources folder so Unity can load them as proper binary files. This works for every Arena2 file loaded through the API with FileUsage.UseMemory specified.

As an example of this, check out the new web player demo below. This loads a Wayrest city scene using normal serialized data for all of the models and materials. The sky however is created at runtime from SKY13.DAT in Resources. The entire build is 3.7MB (not counting the web player itself).

Wayrest Snow Scene (Point Filtering)
Controls: WSAD to move, SPACE to jump, SHIFT to toggle run, and ESC to uncapture mouse.
www.dfworkshop.net/web_demos/wayrest-snow-test1/wayrest-snow-test1.html

This freedom creates exciting opportunities for building Daggerfall projects directly for web or mobile platforms. You’re no longer limited by where Daggerfall can be installed. It’s all just binary data that Unity can use anywhere. I hope this freedom will inspire others to create amazing Daggerfall projects in the future.

I’ve uploaded a few simple Unity Web Player demos for my own test purposes. If anyone is interested, you can access them from the URLs below.

Controls are WSAD to move, mouse to look, Shift to toggle run, Space to jump, ESC to uncapture mouse.

If you have trouble launching the web player in Internet Explorer, try Chrome and see if that works.

Exterior (Daggerfall City)
http://www.dfworkshop.net/web_demos/daggerfallcity-test1/daggerfallcity-test1.html

Exterior (Daggerfall City, point filtering)
http://www.dfworkshop.net/web_demos/daggerfallcity-test2/daggerfallcity-test2.html

Dungeon (Privateer’s Hold)
http://www.dfworkshop.net/web_demos/privateers-test1/privateers-test1.html

This is a work-in-progress build, so don’t expect too much awesome just yet. These demos are mainly interesting in that I put them both together from an empty scene and uploaded in less than 10 minutes.

One more thing. I’ve disabled doors in the Privateer’s Hold test, as interacting with moving objects is still being written. You can get to the exit room without riding the throne up. See if you can remember how. 😉

I’ve been thinking about the release structure leading up to v1.0 of Daggerfall Tools for Unity. Up until now, I’ve been building new features right across the spectrum. I’ll be working on monsters one day, then lighting the next, then improving the editor, then working on action scripts in dungeons, and so on. Each of these pieces must be worked over a few times before I’m happy. However, I’d like to keep the releases coming and can’t let myself become too distracted. I need to step up a little.

I’ve decided there are certain groups of features that work well together, and I’d like to zoom in on these features based on where they fit. There will be a little crossover, as some features like basic monsters are already in.

Here is the release schedule for the next few weeks.

Release1 – This is already out. Has all the fundamentals of importing Daggerfall content into Unity.

Release2 – Includes lighting update, a player controller, enemies import, building interiors, dungeon texture swaps, new editor stuff, and a bunch of small bug fixes and other improvements. Basically everything I’ve been working on up until now. Release2 will be ready in about a week. I’m also working on a Unity Web Player demo to go along with it.

Release3 – Targets dungeons. I will build out action records (e.g. opening doors, clicking levers, moving platforms, etc.), another pass at enemies, improving navmesh support, etc. The goal is to make it possible to fully explore a dungeon. This release will be up in about 2-3 weeks, and will include another Unity Web Player demo.

Release4 – This will be version 1.0. I will concentrate on improving content browsing, fixing bugs, and tightening up code. The only new features will in the editor, everything else is just polish. This will be ready in approximately 4 weeks. No further demos are planned at this stage.

Release5 and Beyond – We now enter post-1.0 updates. What happens here will be determined by my available time and interest shown in the tools. These will typically be small maintenance releases to fix bugs and the like. I will also be chipping away on some more demos and extensions to show off what is possible with Daggerfall Tools for Unity. This will be stuff like simple AI behaviours, adding weapons, adding spells, and using the API. I am also hoping to create a few tutorials to help you get started.

I have nearly completed light import options for cities and dungeons. The Inspector panel for lights is below. Here you can choose to animate lights (a basic range flicker like Daggerfall), set a custom tag, and attach a custom script.

Part of getting lights working is setting the correct window texture in outdoor locations. The glass area of windows has a reserved index of 255 which needs to be substituted with appropriate daytime or nighttime colours. This is set using the climate panel of the location Inspector. This will also apply a self-illuminated shader to the windows so the right areas glow at night and appear slightly brighter by day. The window options are Day, Night, or Disabled.

Just like climate texture swaps and dungeon texture swaps, your window swaps can be set at any time in the editor or by script. You can easily change this while the game is running to simulate the change from night to day. Below is the same scene with day windows (single directional light) and night windows (full point lights).