Is there any refinement we can give, or a possible name - to this random space game?
"A post-apocalyptic, resource war amongst the remaining population of a dozen, space-age civilizations."
That pretty much describes the game, but what of a name? We don't exactly need in depth history or anything for this, but a name would help; and an icon to symbolize the game (to place as the executable icon as well as being displaying on the game UI).
In the presentation, not too far away; We plan on having a demonstration (short) after everyone has done their talk. All machines in the room (104 which I hope we can use for it), will have the game build as of the 17th week (if it is functional, if not an earlier version).
This will be running with the ability to join a server - which will be hosted off the main computer used for the presentation. Currently it's planned for around 20 players in a battlefield; but this can easily be increased; perhaps to 30 or 40 (we can have a scale on the 'host game' UI).
Once logged in to the match; player will be able to select a ship using Reuban's workshop UI; which they will use inside the battlefield; the game will only begin when the server player makes the decision (this is so we can start it once all the players are logged in).
Somewhere I suppose the simple controls will be displayed so people can hopefully make a quick adaptation (it is really simple) so they can fly around, fire lasers and blow stuff up! I suppose in addition to controls, the battlefield objectives need to be displayed... perhaps as a tool tip description when the battle type is selected by the server.
For now, it's cram time; some bug fixing, mission designing, variable tweaking, datablock creating, it all needs to be done in a short time.
If artists of ships have time; and their ship does not have a secondary weapon (something kickass and powerful); you can model it; otherwise we'll attach a generic weapon in a suitable (as far as we can see) position on the ship.
If you'd like any animations you can put them on your model and they will play ambient - I don't know if we have the time to adapt more complex animations when ships are not uniform.
If the scene of the of the pirate base is layed out in max; arranged to your liking (I'm sure this wouldnt take long putting all your models on \\earth and then merging them into one scene). Then I will place them into a torque mission file; and position them as you'd like; furthermore I could also give you the option to edit it and add in details; then to fraps it (we can set up a quick pathed camera to chase around the area); you can use that to display your area with things that are real time renders; rather than max-renditions!
I'll keep this short for now, adios.
Showing posts with label Concept. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Concept. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
game concepts
if any people or nick want to look at our game concepts/stories they shall be on earth by end of today wed the 4th of nov
\\Earth\ProjectTemp\Supernova\Art\Game Concepts
:D
\\Earth\ProjectTemp\Supernova\Art\Game Concepts
:D
Monday, October 19, 2009
Project Update: Documentation, Concept & Presentation
Our concept needs refining and our game needs a title. Something around the theme of what we are doing I suppose. It doesn't need a full discussion, just comment here or post if you do have an idea to update or refine.
Policies are already in place to protect the source engine of Torque 3D and Torque Game Engine Advanced, so I do not need to iterate these. You should of course respect the intellectual property of other people involved in our project, and of course third parties.
This just means we need documentation whenever something is used in reference, though a lot of what people have created is completely original. All references pertain to the name, companies, version number etc of a particular material.
Currently we're trying to get a battlefield for play and demonstration along with the concept presentation in the first week of December. For any art you create I would like to form a document to display it (in a particlualr fashion like partial textured mesh and outlines etc).
If anyone does have objections to their art being shown (o.o) just say so.
Policies are already in place to protect the source engine of Torque 3D and Torque Game Engine Advanced, so I do not need to iterate these. You should of course respect the intellectual property of other people involved in our project, and of course third parties.
This just means we need documentation whenever something is used in reference, though a lot of what people have created is completely original. All references pertain to the name, companies, version number etc of a particular material.
Currently we're trying to get a battlefield for play and demonstration along with the concept presentation in the first week of December. For any art you create I would like to form a document to display it (in a particlualr fashion like partial textured mesh and outlines etc).
If anyone does have objections to their art being shown (o.o) just say so.
Monday, October 5, 2009
New Goal
After reassessing the state of the project it's clear that we need to focus on the gameplay demonstration - the space side of things - right now; and work a lot harder towards that. With the release of Torque 3D 1.0 (even though it still has several bugs). We should be able to get things in easier.
The game play discussion this morning, prompted by Tim; has lead to this new focus. It has also produced a few miscellaneous design ideas for the battle-field. Such as:
One flaw and simple statistic of the space-combat is the speed at which you travel. There's a slim chance you will hit anyone at realistic speeds. For game play we will have the ships quite slow, with thrusters working as an escape / travel mechanic that burns a very high amount of energy - making it very unappealing unless absolutely necessary.
Another game play issue is controls and physics calibration of the ships. This requires a LOT of tweaking, id prefer that once the game has a more stable speed / a few more things to do, we have everyone test and calibrate ships / controls - I'll update once I think this is necessary.
Last, for now. The amount of things you can actually do. You want to be able to use lots of tools, but not too many of course. We need to start coding the more simple changes (things we've avoided doing ... I suppose for the sake that they ARE easy, thus we (programmers)...avoid them.. makes sense huh). These changes (to name a few)...
Shields - This one requires a little explaining. From my view there are few ways we can go about this. Now, idealy id like a scenario where... a player hits a shield and that area lights up for x duration with some kinda 'shield decal' then fades away; having the shield as a relatively 'light' transparent bubble around the player's ship.
This would involve having every ship with a custom collision mesh object in a bubble shape around their ship, having it under a new class that collides with projectiles; and then using it's onCollision() call to drain energy for x damage from the player it is mounted to - and rendering then setting a boolean to false so the shield is no longer used, when the player has less than the required energy to sustain it - all this variable information can be set in the datablock.
This has its complicated areas on how to set up, but ultimately it is not that great a challenge. A ripple decal can be made for lasers hitting shields, im sure you'd get a nice effect off it.
Secondary Weapons - A simple change really, its just another trigger call, another trigger bind and another mount for the ship. We dont have that many weapon models, we can use placeholders it's fine. We need to call back on the original weapon ideas for this (this is all script).
Battlefield Setup - The actual scripting for the battlefield. This is a tedious piece of simple work. It's just lots of tweaking to get things working smoothly. We can leave room for where AI would be. But for now we just need a new type of game that can be created, a battle; we'll have things such as a start up time perhaps. Or we could have it so players join, do not enter the game immediately; but are first put to the queue - waiting for the server to start (this is how it is usually done).
We will probably have the team chosen before entering, in the initial GUI after connecting to a server. Once in the game, a new GUI dialog will be placed after the player is put as a orbitting camera around the first spawn sphere. This dialog would give the option to select a class/job/role for the player to carry out. Each time the player respawns (if they are able to) - they would be able to change this. Additionally spawning would be done via a 'map' with spawn points available as buttons. A five to fifteen second wait time should be put on respawning; and possibly a few seconds of immunity after respawning to avoid abuse of spawn locations.
To avoid any 'what the hell do I do?...'. The objectives should be clearly visible, the player should be able to guess whats going on. The current target GUI can be changed to only pick up 'objective points' (major things), rather than players. As we would most likely use a different targetting GUI for player enemies etc (Enhanced Weapon Resource by Ron).
Players will at this point be going somewhere, and will be able to notice coloured ship icons on their radar - identifying enemy or allied ships (It would be a cool change to make enemies always the same colour; like red). Control points and player combat are next.
Control points would have an icon identifying them at a distance - something unique of course. Upon entering the field surrounding one, the player would gain a new GUI dialog. This dialog would display who currently owns the control point, as well as how much control they had over it (100%, 75% etc). Only when a team had 100% would they gain resources.
General Debris Physics - I'm not sure on this one; I'll look it up tonight. Debris was broken in the beta, its quite a vital visual for this game. If a ship explodes... it kind of needs to actually explode. Otherwise we're left with the impression that our lasers are just flashy lights, without any real punch.
The Battle Areas - These areas need to be put together, simple art can be made to fill in the blank spaces. Simple mechanics can be used to make things that little bit more interesting as well! We have acquired a visually awesome setting (Atleast the idea of it) and hopefully it can come to light.
Battle Types - We don't have to keep to one standard. We can make a few other types of games. Relatively simple ones like 'Juggernaught' (where one player has all the power and survivability, but in turn is the enemy of all). 'King of the Hill' (one location that is dominated by a team - after a given time something happens such as points or an immediate win).
We need to focus on the simple things first; namely the player's ship combat. I'll update this post tomorrow.
Oh and nice character modelling everyone :O
Edit: 6:39 PM, 05/10/09
Has anyone seen Aaron? No post was made on the forums for absence. I havent tried using his gmail; was wondering how things were going with him.
The game play discussion this morning, prompted by Tim; has lead to this new focus. It has also produced a few miscellaneous design ideas for the battle-field. Such as:
- Mine fields / Radiation fields
- 3rd Party Turrets / Other
- High Debris / Misc. Clutter Objects
- Sudden Death Timer
- Elimmination Games
One flaw and simple statistic of the space-combat is the speed at which you travel. There's a slim chance you will hit anyone at realistic speeds. For game play we will have the ships quite slow, with thrusters working as an escape / travel mechanic that burns a very high amount of energy - making it very unappealing unless absolutely necessary.
Another game play issue is controls and physics calibration of the ships. This requires a LOT of tweaking, id prefer that once the game has a more stable speed / a few more things to do, we have everyone test and calibrate ships / controls - I'll update once I think this is necessary.
Last, for now. The amount of things you can actually do. You want to be able to use lots of tools, but not too many of course. We need to start coding the more simple changes (things we've avoided doing ... I suppose for the sake that they ARE easy, thus we (programmers)...avoid them.. makes sense huh). These changes (to name a few)...
Shields - This one requires a little explaining. From my view there are few ways we can go about this. Now, idealy id like a scenario where... a player hits a shield and that area lights up for x duration with some kinda 'shield decal' then fades away; having the shield as a relatively 'light' transparent bubble around the player's ship.
This would involve having every ship with a custom collision mesh object in a bubble shape around their ship, having it under a new class that collides with projectiles; and then using it's onCollision() call to drain energy for x damage from the player it is mounted to - and rendering then setting a boolean to false so the shield is no longer used, when the player has less than the required energy to sustain it - all this variable information can be set in the datablock.
This has its complicated areas on how to set up, but ultimately it is not that great a challenge. A ripple decal can be made for lasers hitting shields, im sure you'd get a nice effect off it.
Secondary Weapons - A simple change really, its just another trigger call, another trigger bind and another mount for the ship. We dont have that many weapon models, we can use placeholders it's fine. We need to call back on the original weapon ideas for this (this is all script).
Battlefield Setup - The actual scripting for the battlefield. This is a tedious piece of simple work. It's just lots of tweaking to get things working smoothly. We can leave room for where AI would be. But for now we just need a new type of game that can be created, a battle; we'll have things such as a start up time perhaps. Or we could have it so players join, do not enter the game immediately; but are first put to the queue - waiting for the server to start (this is how it is usually done).
We will probably have the team chosen before entering, in the initial GUI after connecting to a server. Once in the game, a new GUI dialog will be placed after the player is put as a orbitting camera around the first spawn sphere. This dialog would give the option to select a class/job/role for the player to carry out. Each time the player respawns (if they are able to) - they would be able to change this. Additionally spawning would be done via a 'map' with spawn points available as buttons. A five to fifteen second wait time should be put on respawning; and possibly a few seconds of immunity after respawning to avoid abuse of spawn locations.
To avoid any 'what the hell do I do?...'. The objectives should be clearly visible, the player should be able to guess whats going on. The current target GUI can be changed to only pick up 'objective points' (major things), rather than players. As we would most likely use a different targetting GUI for player enemies etc (Enhanced Weapon Resource by Ron).
Players will at this point be going somewhere, and will be able to notice coloured ship icons on their radar - identifying enemy or allied ships (It would be a cool change to make enemies always the same colour; like red). Control points and player combat are next.
Control points would have an icon identifying them at a distance - something unique of course. Upon entering the field surrounding one, the player would gain a new GUI dialog. This dialog would display who currently owns the control point, as well as how much control they had over it (100%, 75% etc). Only when a team had 100% would they gain resources.
General Debris Physics - I'm not sure on this one; I'll look it up tonight. Debris was broken in the beta, its quite a vital visual for this game. If a ship explodes... it kind of needs to actually explode. Otherwise we're left with the impression that our lasers are just flashy lights, without any real punch.
The Battle Areas - These areas need to be put together, simple art can be made to fill in the blank spaces. Simple mechanics can be used to make things that little bit more interesting as well! We have acquired a visually awesome setting (Atleast the idea of it) and hopefully it can come to light.
Battle Types - We don't have to keep to one standard. We can make a few other types of games. Relatively simple ones like 'Juggernaught' (where one player has all the power and survivability, but in turn is the enemy of all). 'King of the Hill' (one location that is dominated by a team - after a given time something happens such as points or an immediate win).
We need to focus on the simple things first; namely the player's ship combat. I'll update this post tomorrow.
Oh and nice character modelling everyone :O
Edit: 6:39 PM, 05/10/09
Has anyone seen Aaron? No post was made on the forums for absence. I havent tried using his gmail; was wondering how things were going with him.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Level_Map
Vincent's idea for level 1
the mulitmedia team are now currently working on creating this area
docks - scott
pirate base - andrew
control tower - stuart
power plant - vincent
storage yard - Aaron
markets - mitch
ghetto - josh
the mulitmedia team are now currently working on creating this area
docks - scott
pirate base - andrew
control tower - stuart
power plant - vincent
storage yard - Aaron
markets - mitch
ghetto - josh
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
The start of the game.
This is what the multimedia crew suggested.
Cut scene of pictures of the war. (Slideshow)
Along the way you encounter pirates and you eventually find some more pirates scavaging a destroyed ship, you kill the pirates and take the part.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Opening sequence - concept storyboards 001
I came up with a very quick concept of what might pass for an opening sequence to the single player aspect of the game, it would require extra modeling and such but cant expect such a thing to NOT require some extra work. Only problems I can think of so far are: the hologram projectors wont be in the same place each ship, so programming will be required by you guys, should be as simple as "move origin to here" I'm guessing?
The other problem... Fire, realistic or semi-realistic, how could we achieve this to act in the way I've drawn it out?
I think I managed to get in the majority of the story ideas we came up with today (as well as the old Supernova name idea).
Anyway, cockpit, this would obviously need to change depending on the players ship selection, assuming we get that far, I mean, I suppose a fairly good 2d image would even pass as a cockpit.
That is all I can think of that may or may not be a challenge to the team.
Anyway, comment with your thoughts.
The other problem... Fire, realistic or semi-realistic, how could we achieve this to act in the way I've drawn it out?
I think I managed to get in the majority of the story ideas we came up with today (as well as the old Supernova name idea).
Anyway, cockpit, this would obviously need to change depending on the players ship selection, assuming we get that far, I mean, I suppose a fairly good 2d image would even pass as a cockpit.
That is all I can think of that may or may not be a challenge to the team.
Anyway, comment with your thoughts.
Game Concept
Here is some details for the game concept, as discussed 14/09/09
- Major War destroyed 80% population of both factions long ago
- Still fighting generations later
- Material/Human/Entity resources depleted
- Reason for war now unknown
- Major Tech lost( communications)
- Both factions have no allies
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
The Battlefield or..Battlespace?
NEIN NEIN NEIN!
09/09/09 it's the date. :P
We needed something demonstrate a portion of the over all game. That was what we decided before the semester even started. If we tried to get a little bit of everything and present it... we simply wouldn't have anything to present. The amount of art, programming and design is monstrous (especially with the ambitious planning).
For this reason, we are making an instance where we can demonstrate something we would have in the final product. It too would not be complete, but a quick round up of what will be. This demonstration is the battlefield. I will go into detail on it:
This will be much like capture the flag, king of the hill etc; for other games. Idealy, each battlefield would have an objective (which results in a win), and sub-objectives (these will be things like collection, repair). Almost always they would be between factions (The player factions or the NPC factions). In each battlefield there would be a side in control.
Control over a battlefield is given after a winner is declared; after a faction or team wins a battle a standstill is called for a brief period of time, and all NPCs, objects etc will be reset; any damage to player's ships and ammunition lost may also be replenished (to avoid having players save their powerful attacks due to cost).
In a full version; with players, jobs etc. things would be more involved. Allowing players to use their professions and skills in battlefields as well. However currently that is far from implementation so we will only have ship-combat.
The battlefield we will create will be a simple 'kill the captain' or 'deplete their resources' kind of scenario. Each team will be given an amount of resources which will be consumed by player deaths and various other things; if these resources reach 0, that side will lose.
Resourcs can be obtained through destroying other ships, or by capturing objective points in the battlefield (this involves being the more dominant force in an area around a mark for a period of time - once it is captured you must be that dominant force continuously).
Other resource types such as energy can be obtained through the same methods as above. Energy will allow you to use strategic options within the battle (higher ranking players will be able to use these - until we have a ranking system everyone will have the option).
It may be that players will get to control larger ships, based on the same rank system. These will not yet be obtainable for players to keep; only to control within a battlefield.
I have started to create a ship (as the idea above) that players would be able to control (given they posses adequate rank).If anyone would like to suggest ideas or change the ideas I have put forth please comment in this post.
Destroying the other faction's main base/ship/captain will result in a win. It was discussed that if we did have player combat etc; we would be able to board the opposing team's base/ship and fight inside it. This would make things a lot more interesting ;)
I'll continue to work on the actual area, and ugh.. script. A lot of datablocks and general set up needs to be created; and when we get to it, I suppose i'll be working on AI (I LIKE working with AI though).
Note: Record all references (sites, books, names), start/end dates, and time spent on all work you do.
09/09/09 it's the date. :P
We needed something demonstrate a portion of the over all game. That was what we decided before the semester even started. If we tried to get a little bit of everything and present it... we simply wouldn't have anything to present. The amount of art, programming and design is monstrous (especially with the ambitious planning).
For this reason, we are making an instance where we can demonstrate something we would have in the final product. It too would not be complete, but a quick round up of what will be. This demonstration is the battlefield. I will go into detail on it:
This will be much like capture the flag, king of the hill etc; for other games. Idealy, each battlefield would have an objective (which results in a win), and sub-objectives (these will be things like collection, repair). Almost always they would be between factions (The player factions or the NPC factions). In each battlefield there would be a side in control.
Control over a battlefield is given after a winner is declared; after a faction or team wins a battle a standstill is called for a brief period of time, and all NPCs, objects etc will be reset; any damage to player's ships and ammunition lost may also be replenished (to avoid having players save their powerful attacks due to cost).
In a full version; with players, jobs etc. things would be more involved. Allowing players to use their professions and skills in battlefields as well. However currently that is far from implementation so we will only have ship-combat.
The battlefield we will create will be a simple 'kill the captain' or 'deplete their resources' kind of scenario. Each team will be given an amount of resources which will be consumed by player deaths and various other things; if these resources reach 0, that side will lose.
Resourcs can be obtained through destroying other ships, or by capturing objective points in the battlefield (this involves being the more dominant force in an area around a mark for a period of time - once it is captured you must be that dominant force continuously).
Other resource types such as energy can be obtained through the same methods as above. Energy will allow you to use strategic options within the battle (higher ranking players will be able to use these - until we have a ranking system everyone will have the option).
It may be that players will get to control larger ships, based on the same rank system. These will not yet be obtainable for players to keep; only to control within a battlefield.
I have started to create a ship (as the idea above) that players would be able to control (given they posses adequate rank).If anyone would like to suggest ideas or change the ideas I have put forth please comment in this post.
Destroying the other faction's main base/ship/captain will result in a win. It was discussed that if we did have player combat etc; we would be able to board the opposing team's base/ship and fight inside it. This would make things a lot more interesting ;)
I'll continue to work on the actual area, and ugh.. script. A lot of datablocks and general set up needs to be created; and when we get to it, I suppose i'll be working on AI (I LIKE working with AI though).
Note: Record all references (sites, books, names), start/end dates, and time spent on all work you do.
Ships: Capital and Fighter
Heres most of the concept sketching and 3d modelling for ships i have done, but not posted.
Some influences were from other students ships, zeppelins, other space combat game screenshots, company logos, and the extrusion + symmetry tool and modifier in 3ds max.
The sketches are on strange angles and all over the place because i drew a thumbnail of one ship, and then moved on to another straight away without refining, to get all the ideas out.
Some influences were from other students ships, zeppelins, other space combat game screenshots, company logos, and the extrusion + symmetry tool and modifier in 3ds max.
The sketches are on strange angles and all over the place because i drew a thumbnail of one ship, and then moved on to another straight away without refining, to get all the ideas out.
Monday, August 24, 2009
The Final on Features
From discussion today we've picked up that people would like..
- Directional Shielding
- Power Diversion (being able to distribute a % of overall power to a ship component)
- Energy weapons
- Deflection of Projectiles
These are in addition to the planned..
- Seeking missiles
- Mines
- Targetting system
We will limit the amount of features to implement for now; if there are any suggestions however, they are of course welcome. We simply need to rationalize.
We will be able to release a battlefield mini-game (the flight-combat arc of the game). Then we can get down to the character side of things and make some fast progress :)
2 weeks prior to the presentation we will finish documentation and 1 week prior, we will get everything in order. We are currently 6 weeks from the flight combat deadline; and 13 from the presentation.
Today I had a fun time messing with vertical lasers! .. and then blowing myself up with them.. calibrating data in script, however menial a task; can be time consuming; this will be included when filling out the documentation and tracking.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Finalized ship and re-designed Garlack
This week I've been working on my ship design mostly. I've made it all nice and shiny and added a big cannon on the top so it can shoot stuff up.
I've also done a little work on my race idea to
see what people think and what idea they prefer.
Models and art
Hooray i managed to get my space ship into max 2009 without it comming in pieces this week i edited my fighter ( which i have dubbed "The Stinger") giving it some texture look and i seperated the engines from the hull of my ship. i hav also done anothe desgin for my alien.
Ive had a little think for some names to call our two sides
Humanoid side:
Allied Systems Republic - ASR
Free Systems Alliance
Milky WayAlliance
Warmongers:
Milky Way Federation
Star Empire
thats all i have at the moment.
Ive had a little think for some names to call our two sides
Humanoid side:
Allied Systems Republic - ASR
Free Systems Alliance
Milky WayAlliance
Warmongers:
Milky Way Federation
Star Empire
thats all i have at the moment.
"The Stinger"
My alien "The Slacran"
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
More Concepts
Been working on a few more space ship concepts, Also fleshed out an idea for an alien head so just got a couple of pics to show the process I went through to get what I liked and I have color on the humanoid body not finished with the skin
Monday, August 10, 2009
Ships and 2 alien bodies 10-08-09 - Andrew Mabey
Here are my latest ship designs from today's class, and two quick sketches of alien bodies to go with the heads I drew earlier.
The ships arent based off of anything in particular, except for the "cockroach", and the coloured versions of the "WW2/scorpion" ships from last week (with slight changes).
The ships arent based off of anything in particular, except for the "cockroach", and the coloured versions of the "WW2/scorpion" ships from last week (with slight changes).
Character and Ship Concepts
Hey all,
Here's most of the character and ship concept ideas i've come up with in the last week/fortnight.
Some already have names, some don't because i just drew them and moved on to another idea.
The main ideas that got me inspired were playing card logos (spades/clubs in particular), letters of the alphabet(Z,M,A,U,D) because they are solid and things can be made out of them, while still resembling the original shape. Vegetables strangely enough had me come up with "Bean" an alien character. He has spikes on his back, eyes hanging above his head, and isn't very tall. His character and the letter Z sparked the idea of Stego,
who is thinner than Bean but taller.Next Character/Race, following the Spade card logo, is Spaydi. Obviously is an upright spade with legs. If he goes through to be modelled, i may either leave him square at the front, or round him off. His ship, the Spaydi 2k, is a horizontal ship with guns mounted on top(and possibly bottom) of the main part of the ship, with a cockpit at the front. Not really original hence the shape is copyrighted, but its an idea regardless.
Next are a few random ship designs, one coming straight from a computer mouse. The ideas came from from letters and merging of letters, and some were just drawn out of thin air without thinking. Last are a small collection of guns that could be put on a ship or two. I liked the idea of circular ammo chambers, which came from the game Team Fortress 2, in which you can build sentry guns.None of these concepts are coloured, basically because they are just concepts, ideas that could be chopped and changed at any time.
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