Hello everyone.
The Mixed Reality Forums here are no longer being used or maintained.
There are a few other places we would like to direct you to for support, both from Microsoft and from the community.
The first way we want to connect with you is our mixed reality developer program, which you can sign up for at https://aka.ms/IWantMR.
For technical questions, please use Stack Overflow, and tag your questions using either hololens or windows-mixed-reality.
If you want to join in discussions, please do so in the HoloDevelopers Slack, which you can join by going to https://aka.ms/holodevelopers, or in our Microsoft Tech Communities forums at https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/mixed-reality/ct-p/MicrosoftMixedReality.
And always feel free to hit us up on Twitter @MxdRealityDev.
The Mixed Reality Forums here are no longer being used or maintained.
There are a few other places we would like to direct you to for support, both from Microsoft and from the community.
The first way we want to connect with you is our mixed reality developer program, which you can sign up for at https://aka.ms/IWantMR.
For technical questions, please use Stack Overflow, and tag your questions using either hololens or windows-mixed-reality.
If you want to join in discussions, please do so in the HoloDevelopers Slack, which you can join by going to https://aka.ms/holodevelopers, or in our Microsoft Tech Communities forums at https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/mixed-reality/ct-p/MicrosoftMixedReality.
And always feel free to hit us up on Twitter @MxdRealityDev.
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@Jarrod1937 I will try to get an image up soon on the device! It all works very well and makes for a very cool experience in the 3D world. I am trying to look into alternative capture modes right now as the default one doesn't give the best possible image of the experience. In case you did not know the black background means transparent (you see the real world) on the HoloLens.
@Jesse_McCulloch I do indeed have a HoloLens when I am not traveling. However, there may be a package in the near future for people with HoloLenses to check out the experience so far
Slow Tower Level 1
Keeping with completing level 1 for each tower. I have completed the Slow/Freeze tower using the same shader and style that I went into more depth about earlier:
Poison Tower Level 1
Continuing on the tower trend. This will be the poison level one tower
AOE Level 1 Tower
The last, but not the least of the level 1 towers is the area of effect tower type. This catapult is also fully rigged with a pull back and fire animation to help bring it to life!
Lets Get Building:
Now that the towers are completed it is time to put in a menu so that we can build the towers! Each tower has separate build times and as you upgrade the towers build times will increase. Because of the build times, I wanted to provide the user with some visual feedback mimicking a progress bar. I did this in the form of scaffolding around the towers and I eventually plan to add some "fun" dust clouds. There are 5 levels of scaffolding for each 20% of the total time.
Below is a video showing off the menu and build progress feedback:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UEN-wycLTI&feature=youtu.be
Calling In All Enemies!
With level one tower building out of the way. I spent some time setting up art and a way to call in enemies. This required making art for the drop ship with some animation and also creating a tap point to start calling in the enemies. I also did some code refactoring of how the enemies are spawned to wait until the drop ship lands.
Video of all the work completed to date.. It is making progress!
Out with the Capsules!
The next art polish I wanted to tackle was getting the first enemy type into the game. I wanted something that was cute, but had some "evil" features and also would work well with the art style and universal shader I set up. After much trial and error I finally landed on a base biped minion I was happy with and could edit to look meaner for versions later in the game.
The Base Minion
Nothing special was done for this character it is just using two materials and I also made all the joints segmented for cheaper animating instead of using skinned bones, which can become quite performant heavy with lots of miniions on the planet at once:
Walking
The other element I managed to get in for the minion was his walk cycle. I based it on the basic 25 frame walk cycle you can find on most animation tutorials and then just extended joints and timing to give him a bit more character. In the Youtube video below you can see the ship landing in and the minion walking out of it and around the planet!
Sweet, this is looking pretty cool. Keep up the progress!
Incredible! It's looking so good.
Monday, any new updates to share?!
@Jarrod1937 @BluePotato @Jesse_McCulloch @HoloSheep Thank you as always for the kind words!
Holofriends,
Sorry for the lack of announcements! Life has been hectic to say the least. I am busy wrapping up a few work projects and also in the process of moving to a different state... as mentioned at the start, progress will be extremely slow and the reasons mentioned above are due to this.
So THE GOOD NEWS I have decided to post current progress in beta form for the community to check out, with a few new ending surprises added. As mentioned this is BETA so it is very rough. I have posted an updated description on how to best play the game but the store needs to update the description, so here it is:
The Beta should now be live for HoloLens owners on the HoloLens store under "Galaxy Shield -BETA"
you can also view the link here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/games/galaxy-shield-beta/9nblggh4vqrb
As always, I look forward to your comments and cant wait to dive back in once things calm down.
Cheers,
Monday
Congratulations on getting your beta out! I'll definitely be trying it when my device comes (Wave 2, but no purchase link yet).
Great, a beta release sounds like a good way to get early feedback. I'll check out the beta as well once I get a device (wave 2 as well). And trust me, I understand life taking attention away from the project.
@Monday funny that it does not show up under the "Made for HoloLens" category of the store. Was there a "beta" property of something that you set that would keep it out of that section? Perhaps it does not show because it has not fully propagated through the system, or maybe that section is curated.
Regardless, your beta is awesome and really well done! Very nice stuff.
Looking forward to hearing some 3D sound in there eventually and all the other great stuff I am sure you have in the works.
TWO BIG THUMBS UP!
Windows Holographic User Group Redmond
WinHUGR.org - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - @WinHUGR
WinHUGR YouTube Channel -- live streamed meetings
@BluePotato @Jarrod1937 I can not wait to here your comments when you get your devices... I will be sending out good vibes you get them soon!
@HoloSheep I am so glad you enjoyed it and more importantly the portion you tried was working and playable. The addition list is a mile long, but one baby step at a time right?!?!? For the listing I am honestly not sure how it is done, but for now since my app is beta I am ok with people being able to find it via search only
@Monday.
Love the app! Cannot wait to see how it evolves
Thanks!
David
@HoloSheep: currently the "Made for HoloLens" section of the store is hand curated. Which kind of sucks, there is literally no easy way to discover HoloLens specific apps. I tweeted Alex Kipman about this, they know it's an issue that is being worked on, however, I don't think its super high priority as there is such a relatively small HoloLens user population currently.
@Monday: The game is great so far. Thank you for posting it to the store, I look forward to the updates as you publish them, after the rest of your world slows down anyways. Keep up the good work!
Just a quick FYI for anyone who will be near Redmond, WA on Wednesday July 13th.
@Monday has graciously agreed to be the guest speaker at our July WinHUGR monthly meeting and will share some of what he learned while making the Galaxy Shield Beta that he has described in this thread.
So if you are interested and able, you should RSVP asap and then join us at Orange Studios to hear what is bound to be a really enjoyable and informative presentation.
There will be pizza, door prizes and great conversation to go along with this up close and personal glimpse into one man's journey and process of publishing his first beta version of his new HoloLens application.
Hope to see some of you there.
Windows Holographic User Group Redmond
WinHUGR.org - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - @WinHUGR
WinHUGR YouTube Channel -- live streamed meetings
Hey All,
Sorry for the radio silence here... as @HoloSheep mentioned I will be giving a talk tomorrow! As we speak I am frantically trying to piece together a smorgasbord of slides together to present tomorrow. Hopefully it will be informative, but I promise it will be a fun event of like minded individuals
As to the project.. progress has been slow
However I am now an official Washingtonian and the ManikGames north office is up and running with functional internet 
Cheers,
Ryan
Great talk, Ryan!