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New updates for Ardra (the RTS mini-game on Unity)

Hello everyone. It's me Antony, back with a new blog in 2026.

I know. I've been absent without writing anything new here. A while ago, Julie (our family's dog) passed away on February 18. And, during those days I fell into depression. Some things related to my personal life haven't been going well and sometimes it has affected my work a little - making me think about finding something else to do in life and giving up my current position.

But now I'm doing alright. Probably in this week I'll resume my studies for upcoming civil service exams. There are some that are promising in case I plan to move on for another job - even if I'm going to gain more or less from what I'm used to.

I may resume to send my professional resume for any job applications in case the public notice of competition take time to be released.

I wrote a Blog for TonyAnima Projects - telling the reason for my absence (Long absence, new updates for: J2M3 Raiden and M13/40 (new project) - April 25, 2026). In case you aren't aware, my brother and I had to attend the HDD from the computer I use the most. Since we installed Fedora Linux as an alternative to Microsoft Windows after the controversy surrounding Windows 11, we had to format the HDDs to be compactible with Fedora. Unfortunately, some issues appeared while I was working on my Unity3D RTS project, which we figured out to insert the HDD to the computer my brother use in order to save the majority of my personal things (photos, music, videos, docs and more), as well his personal things and our mother's. Since there are tons and some are updated compared to our personal things on the other computer, we're working on updating all the things and save anything that is new before formating the HDD to EXT4 instead of NTFS. Most of the files are safe and sound, but the hardware was taking a bit more time to run the files. Then, more issues appeared and I almost got the feeling I lost my HDD and our stuff.

I ran a diagnostic test on the drive using the computer my mother uses and I discovered that it is still in good condition. While trying to solve what was going on, I learned that the issue was the motherboard SATA port the hardware was connected started to fail. Then I changed to another port. Now it's running under good conditions and I could resume my Blender and Unity projects.

Speaking on Unity, some things were lost because of these problems that corrupted the mini-game I was working. Fortunately I had a back-up from the last update - before the one with the HUD and icons. That means I could resume the mini-game from where I stopped, even if I have to remake some things from scratch.
Well, I'm going to miss those improvements.

Worry not, my friends. I plan to bring them back. But for now, I'm going to show you what I did in recently.


While I was attending to the HDD, I made some progress in Blender, by making the animations for the human units - mainly the Villager, Soldier, Pikeman, Crossbowman, Sister and Chaplain. Some of the units from the other factions also received animations, although with fewer actions.

One thing that I found out that didn't please me a little bit is this: After exporting the 3D model from Blender as an FBX file, not all actions are fully exported. One of the options is to join all separate animations into a single one - named as All. I know it would be a bit painful to separate them in Unity, but it is one of the options that I can do.

After separating the animations, I added the Animator Controller to the human units.

In case you ask, Animator Controllers are Unity's biggest tool that controls the animations for any 3D model — whether it is a human character, an animal, an object, a vehicle, a monster or anything else. It is what allows you to assign animations and conditions to each action node as a Float, Int or Bool.

Another important tool is the Animator Controller Override where it allows you to retain the actions nodes from the main Controller but replacing the animations for the corresponding node without the need to create several Animator Controllers for every unit, so long as the models and Armatures are compatible to each other.

For example: You cannot use the Animator Controller Override on a quadrupled creature and derives from an Animator Controller dedicated to humanoids. Otherwise it might not work and the model would remain stuck or would 'break'.

Initially I was attaching the Pikeman's animations to the Animator Controller. But I figured out it might be more suitable to use the Villager's as the base while the others would inherit its Controller nodes via Override.



The previous models had to be replaced by the new ones. Fortunately Unity has its tools to update the units. I was able to select the others and change them from *MissingPrefab* to the new Villager Prefab after updating one of them to the Units' folder in the Assets. Same thing for the human military units.

After some minor setbacks and testing, I finally made the units to run its animations. Now they can:

Walk

Harvest resources and return them to the drop-zones


Build


And "doing nothing while idle" (chuckles).


At the time, I didn't include the combat system in order to attach the Attack_1, Attack_2, Attack_3, Spell and Death animations. That will be for another time when all units are fully animated.

Another thing that was a bit of pain is adjusting the Idle_1 and Idle_2 animations and the transition to the other actions. Initially, when the unit ran the Idle_1, it would later run the Idle_2 and so go on. In games like WarCraft 3, they would play idle animations at random and mostly are 3 different animations for when they're waiting. I think I'll the Idle_3 for another time. But it's working now.

Also, I managed to add the Villagers' tools (hammer, axe and pickaxe) to the respective owner and animating these brave workers to grab their tools out of nowhere (or as I'd call 'Void') for their respective duties like mining gold / stone / crystal, chopping wood and constructing.

After this, I made some adjustments on the terrain.




I tried to make cliffs before with the terrain's sculpting tools. But the results weren't what I expected. Instead of carving, I was raising portions of the terrain to create mountains or hills. Then I found I could raise all the terrain to 20 and sculpt the area to 'normalize it' - creating the cliffs I desired. For fun, I added some spikes. It looks good.

However, most of the elements in scene were under the terrain. For that, I lowered it according to the height I used to raise it (in this case, I lowered the terrain by -20).

And now, time to show you the water.





Most people would create water via Effects. I tried after installing the URP (Universal Render Pipeline) package, but I have no proper ideas in how to use it. So I went for the old trusty plane with a simple water material. The sun being reflected upon the river looks good.

Just to conclude this Blog, I added more functions to the camera, like the option to scroll with Mouse 3. Now I can zoom-in and zoom-out like in WarCraft 3, StarCraft 2 and other modern RTS games.

Another thing that I added to the game are the resources after being harvested. I used the newer version for Blender: the 5.2. I'm moving most of the models from the previous versions to the new one in order to continue working from Blender to Unity.





Now it's looking more like an RTS game, made by professionals. For the harvested resources, I didn't use the Armature. Instead, I exported the models itself to Unity with no Armature and attached via EmptyObject. The idea is to attach them to any worker without the need of creating every Bone and rig it, otherwise I'd consume more memory and space in my HDD and SSD.

Villagers would carry resources with both hands forward, while Orc Laborers would carry it on their backs, the Carrion Beetles by its claws and Chaos Cultists (for the time being, because I'll replace them by Minions as resource collectors while they would retain the builder functions) would levitate it.

Corrections and new additions are giving some interesting things to the mini-game. I know there's more to be done. What I need to do is:

* Remaking the HUD and adding the options of showing the unit's name, icon and later the information like HP and MP (Magic Point), attack, defense and speed while being selected by the player.
* Adding the selection by Mouse 1 click and Shift / Ctrl + Mouse 1 for adding the units to the selection group or selecting by its type.
* Animating the buildings in order to make the building sequence, destruction and training.
* Adding the icons for commanding actions (Stop, Move, Attack, Hold Position, Patrol, Cancel Order, Harvest, Deliver Resource, Repair, Build Construction and the skills).
* Creating a script dedicated to the buildings that train units. Similar to the StorageBuilding, this script would inherit the characteristics from the StaticUnit - which inherits the BaseUnit.
* Creating a script dedicated to the Town Hall, Necropolis, Desecrated Citadel and other main buildings. Similar to the StorageBuilding, this script would inherit the characteristics from the StorageBuilding and the Training Unit Building script - which inherits from the StaticUnit and then the BaseUnit.
* Adding the combat system, HP (hit point or simply health point), MP (magic point = Mana point), attack and its types (melee, ranged, siege, magical and heroic), defense and its types (unarmored, light, medium, heavy, heroic and fortified) and magical elements (fire, water, earth, wind, light and dark).
* Adding the Multiplayer option for other players to join the match.

Well, that's it for today. I hope you enjoy it. I'll be back with more Blogs in this year - if nothing change in order to make me occupied like job, studies and civil service exams. I plan to share more artworks and other things I did in my time. Until the time comes, you will be surprised to see it. See you next time.


Note: Don't you dare to download these images and re-share it without my permission. If you do, please, leave the original author name.
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