I’d prefer to avoid the “yellow paint” when possible but for the tutorial I think it may be necessary ? 🤔

couldnt you just not have the yellow and use a natural color but do some sort of highlight/glow when the user gets close, so it encourages exploration but stops them getting entirely lost too

Neat idea I'll give that a go 🙏

Nice, can't wait to try it out game looks sick

I think it's better to not teach the player something that won't appear after the tutorial.

Fair point

Why don't you use a rocky texture instead of yellow paint? I'm sure noone looks at this and says "maybe I can go around". They will just follow the path with the ledges. Just make them beautiful and grabbable-looking.

With my limit test of 1 player (a casual gamer) she got confused as to what she was supposed to grab onto 😅

@punctuator_ with the ledge being @ that specific point with all the shade behind the mountain maybe it's just not that obvious its a ledge, a bit further up there are boulders where the light can hit the top and means theres a clear shadow on the sides which makes the ledge more pronounced

@_saminton The problem the yellow paint solve, is the ledge is too dark. Not like the yellow paint is solving the problem, it’s just naturally brighter than the texture of the ground. A point light on the SPECIFIC ledge would solve it, but you want something that tutorialises the mechanic

The landscape geometry naturally communicates what the yellow paint is communicating, so the yellow paint or any other kind of highlight just feels condescending.

How difficult would it be to have the ledge just highlighted for the tutorial sections? This way you would avoid adding permanent color to the model itself?

It's a decal 😉 applied only in this specific tutorial scene

Ah okay. Understood. I had figured it was not permanent as you had alluded to previously in a different comment. But wasn’t 100% sure. I still believe a highlight/strobe effect to indicate ledges in this section would keep visuals coherent. Loving the visuals so far though!

I had an idea to make it more natural, this place has birds right? what if they poop accidentally exactly where the player should go?🤔

Aha white (poop) paint, love it

yeah, pay attention to not make it look like other liquid, which is not poop but its white💀

Yellow paint has it places. Are you using Terrain3D for the environments? The game looks beautiful.

I'm using the HTerrain plugin. When I started the project it offered more features but I've run into a few bugs and it's not frequently updated. If I had to start anew I'd definitely go with Terrain3D

@Re_Lo__ Heightmaps can be imported. Splatmap textures can be converted with a simple script. Instances can convert with a little more effort. Could be converted in a day. Benefits are more performance, more features, it's maintained, and there's a community.

@Re_Lo__ For me it'd be a lot more work than just that unfortunately. I have a few systems that communicate directly with the plugin as well as a custom terrain shader. I had already looked into doing the switch but concluded the time it would take outweighed the benefits

Why exactly is “grab the ledges” not enough of a cue? That paint does nothing in this context. Like.. oh you mean the ledges right in front of me on this very clear path?

Instead of using yellow paint maybe you could use something similar to road signs that are in the level from start of the video?

Yellow paint in the wilderness? No, just use natural formations. Put the player on a narrow path that has no path forward but up and use a more natural looking marker.

The problem with doing it in the tutorial is that your teaching the player to expect it, and the moment you don't include it, players will be confused by it being absent. I think a better answer is some more natural indication, other than yellow paint, that can reliably exist in and out of your tutorial

Have you tried just adding some special foliage to it? Like some red mushrooms or blue flowers that stand out just as much as the yellow paint?

have a bunch of rain that washes the paint away

Instead of paint, why not make little yellow flowers or a plant of some kind that stands out? That way it meets the aesthetic and feels like part of the terrain, but still gives the little push needed for the tutorial to help players recognize ledges. Beautiful work :)

use it.

Please don’t use yellow point, lol. Making it a slightly lighter color could be a good alternative. Nothing TOO obvious but enough to notice that isn’t an eyesore

Looks great! Could also use white "chalk" from climbers and boulder people

I'd make it a bit more subtle. Maybe just make some light (white?) accents appear on the ledge alongside the prompt? That will catch players' attention but won't make them expect that every ledge in the game will look this way.

maybe a dark moss instead of bright yellow?

I think it's good in a tutorial, that would be cool if there was a way to let the player choose wether or not they want the paint after the tutorial (making it something you could activate if really you're struggling and deactivate right after)

Great idea, having an accessibility option to turn it on / off is always good. Even if I go with some other kind of hint system other than the yellow paint

I'd personally rather have a blatant marker than the "yellow paint". Ideally you could just incorporate it into the environment naturally, maybe bright flowers or a piece of caution tape that was blow that way, etc. Then there's also the option of using light to lead the way.

Tutorial is exactly the place NOT to use it. The problem with yellow paint isn't that it highlights important stuff, it's that it ends up feeling artificial because everything uses it, which defeats the whole point of being diegetic in the first place.

Yeah, like roots on a ledge instead of paint. Take a nature walk, and you can easily see natural markers. I think game developers have missed this or gone the easy route, which breaks the atmosphere. Beautiful game still.

I think it can mislead players, because you're teaching them that yellow = climbable, if you remove them after the tutorial players might be looking for yellow paint to climb

if you haven't already, discussing something like this with people who work within games accessibility would be great!

Why not try some white/gray instead. Might be enough to guide the player towards grabbing the ledge without it feeling out of place.

put a bunch of yellow birds there

If you use it in the tutorial, then most players would expect it to be everywhere else in the game, so if you want to avoid using it everywhere, the you shouldn't use it in the tutorial either

have an absolutely comically large sign pointing at the ledge

It's not a terrible thing to want a system in place to guide, but i think its best if its done in an immersive way, changing the paint for yellow moss or flowers for example would blend in better with the environment

Best not to. They can even think only yellow paint in climbable. Just the on-screen tutorial when they get near the ledge is enough in my opinion

I know it might be similar to yellow paint I feel like using some sort of vine on the ledge would be more elegant

could swap it out for a more natural looking color, like a lighter grey so it still stands out. or swap it for something like a brightly colored moss.

Use ropes, or cloth rather than yellow paint Or maybe yellow flowers? Make it a visual que people would recognise (being yellow) while blending it into the game

If you wanted to add it to more sections of the game, you can make it an accessibility feature that we can toggle on or off.