I have jury duty, which is why I haven't been at TAFE all week. The trial is expected to go until Tuesday next week.
So let me know if you have anything that you want me to do between now and then.
I'll see you next week.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
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.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Turrets!
Well should be able to port the 1.8.1 turret resource into 3d; once that's in its relatively simple. Turrets can be controlled by players or AI. They will fire with x amount of accuracy and x rate, will take x amount of time to start up after acquiring a target.
The animations for the turrets will be handled by the engine for the most part, with the use of nodes; codeTurret and codeWeapon. The first node codeTurret handles the z rotation (yaw) and codeWeapon the up and down rotation (pitch). This means the weapon attached to the turret can be changed (keep the top of the turret seperate from both the weapon and the base, as far as mesh goes).
The turret will play an animation called 'activate' when it acquires a target; and when it deactivates it will play this animation in reverse. This can be used to have the turret expand and contract or whatever you like; but keep it relatively simple.
It would be best not to make things til i update this with an all okay; and a small demo on the creation of turrets. I will supply a max file of a turret before I give an okay.
Edit : 12:23 PM, 08/09/09
That doesn't mean everyone should go put turrets on their ship.
-.-;
If you do, so help me... I will put 'fail' decals on your ship >:(
Edit : 1:23 PM, 08/09/09
Well turrets are working, they're quite powerful as they have a better way of aiming than players (as stationary turrets anyhow). So some adjusting may have to be done. The only issue is that killing a turret results in GAME DEATH! >.<
Also, currently targetting is hardcoded ^^* ... so your own turret shoots you and you cannot escape it. :X Turrets will need some modification before they're fully functional.
The animations for the turrets will be handled by the engine for the most part, with the use of nodes; codeTurret and codeWeapon. The first node codeTurret handles the z rotation (yaw) and codeWeapon the up and down rotation (pitch). This means the weapon attached to the turret can be changed (keep the top of the turret seperate from both the weapon and the base, as far as mesh goes).
The turret will play an animation called 'activate' when it acquires a target; and when it deactivates it will play this animation in reverse. This can be used to have the turret expand and contract or whatever you like; but keep it relatively simple.
It would be best not to make things til i update this with an all okay; and a small demo on the creation of turrets. I will supply a max file of a turret before I give an okay.
Edit : 12:23 PM, 08/09/09
That doesn't mean everyone should go put turrets on their ship.
-.-;
If you do, so help me... I will put 'fail' decals on your ship >:(
Edit : 1:23 PM, 08/09/09
Well turrets are working, they're quite powerful as they have a better way of aiming than players (as stationary turrets anyhow). So some adjusting may have to be done. The only issue is that killing a turret results in GAME DEATH! >.<
Also, currently targetting is hardcoded ^^* ... so your own turret shoots you and you cannot escape it. :X Turrets will need some modification before they're fully functional.
Monday, September 7, 2009
much much better progress
the look for the radar at the moment :
green for vehicles (note yes it is a bouncing boulder it actually somehow qualifies as a vehicle...) and red for people, that go darker/lighter smaller/larger less/more opaque depending on the range form the player
its taken more than 16 hours, but that was more to do with my unwillingness to admit defeat and start again, than the actual coding, which i could probably do now in under 1 hour...
its taken more than 16 hours, but that was more to do with my unwillingness to admit defeat and start again, than the actual coding, which i could probably do now in under 1 hour...
[edit] : 9/9/2009 4:00pm :
spent another 2-4 hours on this, got it working much better, and moved some more of the controls, to torque script (why was i using hardcoded values anyway ARG!)
so if anyone wants to see it, or test it, at all ::
let me know if you guys want anything else put in, or taken out or anything
[/edit]
Animation, notes
Motion Capture has been discussed so i thought id quickly brief some things.
Animation Notes:
Before any animatiosn can be done, particularly with bipeds;
Animation Notes:
Before any animatiosn can be done, particularly with bipeds;
- Scale of the model has to be set to match the engine.
- All nodes have to be created and hierarchy setup.
- Player Character animatiosn need to be all-inclusive (each player model must have the same array of animations for actions, as all the others).
- The engine will make better use of low-key animations.
Character Animations:
- Root Pose
- Forward Walk and Run
- Side Step Left (can be inverted)
- Backward Walk
- Jump (up)
- Sit (floor and chair poses)
- Swim Root Pose (wading water)
- Swim Left (can be inverted)
- Forward Swim
- Backward Swim
- Combat Animations* (regards v)
These will be heavily dependnat on the complexity of the game character combat. If we are to only have gun (fps) combat then the animations will be extremly simple. When we get to melee animations things are more complicated, especially if the system requires exact collisions. The melee system that is in the design stage, *does* use collisions; therefore we need long-reaching animations, that are low key and fast.
The Workshop
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