∞ 10000 UPDATE() CALLS
Instead, the first time a MonoBehaviour of a given type is accessed the underlying script is inspected through scripting runtime (either Mono or IL2CPP) whether it has any magic methods defined and this information is cached. If a MonoBehaviour has a specific method it is added to a proper list, for example if a script has Update method defined it is added to a list of scripts which need to be updated every frame.
During the game Unity just iterates through these lists and executes methods from it — that simple. Also, this is why it doesn’t matter if your Update method is public or private.
Great in-depth technical post about how Unity's messaging system works.
Take on projects to improve skills
I have been wanting to improve my photography skills for a while. I'm not becoming a professional photographer. I just want to take better photos.
A few weeks back, I created a Photography project under DoleeArts. I hope to learn more about photography through the life time of this project. However, I did not take any photos under that project at all. I actually don't know what kind of photos I should take. I simply don't know where to start.
The more I think about this, the less sense the Photography project makes. Photography is not a project. It is a skill. Just like, programming is not a project, programming is a skill. I will never declare a project called Programming to become a better programmer. Instead, I have many projects that involve programming. Through those projects, I am becoming a better programmer.
That leads me to think, to take better photos, I should take on projects like 128 portraits of programmers. I should take photos to document my Yard project. I should take reference pictures of interesting objects and add them to my next game.
Similar to the deleted project Photography, I have the Paper project dedicated to improve my writing skills, Pencil project dedicated to improve my drawing and painting skills, and Polygon project dedicated to improve my CG skills. They all make less sense to me now. They should be all embedded in my other projects. I should write journal for Yard, sketch characters and develop 3D worlds for Steady Drop. I should have a GameReviews project and move my game reviews there.
So to conclude for DoleeArts: Paper, Pencil, and Polygon are going away. The journal entries will be moved to other existing or newly created projects. Also, I’m glad that the project names are not included in the permalinks of Journal entries from the beginning.
$200 of Quarters
Me went to the bank.
Me: “Hi, I need quarters :)”
Bank Representative: “How much?”
Me: “Two hundred dollars. O.O”
BR: “Not, like, twenty?”
Me: “No. :)”
BR: “Two hundred coins of quarters?”
Me: “No. Two hundred dollars :)”
BR: “Okay. Do you bring a bag with you? I think it’s gonna be heavy.”
Me: “Yes :)”
After everything is done:
BR: “Well, have a nice work out!”
Me: “Thanks, that’s an expensive work out :)”
"Not closing your apps will kill your iPhone”
Today, I was told by an Apple Store representative that, I have to close my apps in the background time to time otherwise it will run out of memory and die. I was like:
Here is the story. My iPhone 6s was suddenly “dead” this morning. I couldn’t turn it on. If I put my finger on the home button, it gets really really hot really quickly. The exactly same thing happened a few weeks ago, although it magically healed itself a few days later when I recharged the empty battery.
I went to the Apple Store, told them I couldn’t turn my phone on. The first thing they did after taking my phone is, holding both the power and home button for a few seconds. And... they turned it on again. Immediately after that, they doubled pressed the home button, and started closing my background apps. While they were doing this, they told me I had too many apps in the background so my phone would run out of memory, and, I should close the apps next time.
Yeah. All those time that we are telling everybody closing your apps in iOS would worsen your battery life, NOT doing that would actually kill your phone.
I was mad. I was actually planning to buy an iPad Pro on the way to the store. But I was so maaaaad that I completely forgot this thing.
I simply don’t accept this answer. Why that never happened to me before on any other iPhone? What's happening to the burning home button? Come on Apple, this should be a serious bug in your damn operating system.
Introducing Umbrella
Today, I'm introducing Umbrella. It is the recursive system that powers the DoleeArts umbrella. It is written from scratch using Go, and hosted on App Engine.
The goal of Umbrella is to keep an individual motivated to ship products. Or, like what Justin Jackson said, Just Fucking Do It.
The solution here is to have the Umbrella system as the partner. It is inspired by Devine Lu Linvega's amazing work on XXIIVV.
The system consists of Projects. There are currently threes types of projects:
- Diaries
- Games
- Systems
Each project contains zero or more of the following axises:
- Issues, tasks of the project.
- Journal, timed pieces of the project's information.
- Logs, time logs spent on the project.
All the projects are public, and its axises will be slowly made available for public consumption.
Under the Radar
From development and design to marketing and support, Under the Radar is all about independent app development. Its never longer than 30 minutes.
A new podcast for indie app developers, hosted by Marco and _DavidSmith. Need I say more?
Game: Downwell Review
tl;dr: $2.99 feels stealing, just buy it on iOS or Steam (PC only).
To be honest, I was not attracted to Downwell’s screenshots when I first saw this game on App Store. It was until I watched some reviews then decided to purchase the game. Once I started playing, I just can’t simply stop.
# Best D-pad-ish touch control.
Physical controls are always better. But Downwell for iOS has the best D-pad-ish touch control. Its simple game control mechanism — left / right move, another single button for jumping and shooting — is well designed for touch. So don’t worry if you don’t have a PC, the iOS version is great too. (P.S. iPad is better than iPhone.)
# Learning curve.
Downwell is a badly hard core game. To this date there is only 1.2% of players who have beaten this game in the normal mode on iOS.
But don’t panic, it has a great learning curve. It is designed so well that you can slowly become a better player. From practicing each types of guns, to learning the benefits of each power ups. From finding out wall jump, to realizing the reward of the combo system. Each moment gets you better.
# Very detailed retro graphics done right.
Even though it uses 1.5-bit colors, it has very well crafted pixel details, animations and character design. Not to mention that it has crazy amount of color palettes you can unlock.
# SFX and musics.
The SFX of different guns and the soundtracks are pieces of art on their own. Just listen them and you will know.
# Conclusion
BRB, let me beat the final boss first.
A Tumblr’s Little Design Detail
When a tumblr url is taken, it says, "That's a good one, but it's taken":
It just adds so much joy when you are using the product.
The biggest difference between iPhone 6P and 6s
Two weeks ago, it’s their sizes:
One week later with 6s, the 6Plus feels like a tablet now…
— Yilei Yang (@Yilei_Yang) October 2, 2015Five days ago my 6s cannot turn on, I was forced to my 6P again. Since today it magically healed it self:
WTF my 6s became a brick, and home button is burning…..
— Yilei Yang (@Yilei_Yang) October 14, 2015I can use 6s again. I would think the biggest thing I notice was the size. But instead, it’s the speed. It’s so damn fast and smooth. <3!
VR Planet Defense Numbers
It has been one week since I released VR Planet Defense today. I took a look at the stats, and I’m a little bit surprised by it. So it might be interesting to share it too.
Number of downloads
App Store: 1.12K
Play Store: 52
While ~1K in the first week matches my expectation, I thought most of the downloads would come from Play Store. Since Cardboard should be more popular in the Android community. There two reasons I can think of, and likely both of them are true at some level.
There are so many Cardboard games on Play Store. The discoverability is much poorer than App Store. Cardboard is actually equally or more popular among the iOS users.
Number of players
Since the game requires Cardboard, the number of actual players should be less than downloads. I was expecting something like less than 20%. But it’s actually around 50%. I got this number from Game Center. It has around 550 meaningful game scores. So half of the downloaders have played the game.
If we assume the number of players who do not login to Game Center and the number of players who play without a Cardboard are the same, there should be half of the downloaders have a Cardboard.