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DarkBASIC Discussion / Dark Noob Games HQ

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Fluffy Rabbit
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Posted: 17th Aug 2012 21:43 Edited at: 17th Aug 2012 21:45
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I have some ideas for the collisions.

Quote: " * bullets to environment"

Cast a ray. If the bullet hits the ground/buildings, there could be a function that produces a puff of smoke.
Quote: " * bullets to creatures"

Ray-to-polygon (see below).
Quote: " * creature to tractor"

I would think the best way to do this would be just to push the creature to the side. See below.
Quote: " * creature to environment"

We should use the same collision system as we use for the player. This way, the creatures can navigate around buildings and curve over terrain. The tractor would use polygon collision. The environment already uses polygon collision.
Quote: " * player to tractor"

Same as creature to tractor.
Quote: " * player to creature"

Already would be taken care of (see below).
Quote: " * player to environment"

Already taken care of. We need some level boundaries though.
Quote: " * creature attack player"

Ray-to-sphere or proximity if it's mele attacks.
Quote: " * creature attack tractor"

Standard raycasting (ray-to-polygon). This would lower the tractor's health.
Quote: " * player attack creature (maybe hand to hand if not on trailer)"

I would say use a generic collision shape, such as a DarkBASIC sphere, and just do regular ray-to-polygon collision from the player.
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Latch
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Posted: 18th Aug 2012 04:59
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Sorry people, I'm running a bit behind. I just walked in the door after a long day. However, I'm putting things together right now.

Enjoy your day.
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Libervurto
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Posted: 18th Aug 2012 09:01
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I haven't read everything yet but I want in on this!

Shh... you're pretty.
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MrValentine
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Posted: 18th Aug 2012 11:55
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I was thinking the same thing... Maybe I can contribute some simple 3D objects?

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Fluffy Rabbit
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Posted: 18th Aug 2012 12:35
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I'm so excited I can hardly contain it.
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Latch
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Posted: 19th Aug 2012 04:39 Edited at: 19th Aug 2012 04:41
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This is what I've been working on as time has permitted:

Keeping BN2s original layout and design in mind
* redesigned the farm model
- redesigned the stable and the shed to reduce polygons and make texturing easier
- redesigned the ground to be 1 unbroken mesh instead of a ground and a mountain
- replaced the house, barn, and silo with pre-built low polygon models from the DarbkBASIC CD static model folder. This incldues adding a corral of sorts
- there are haystacks and trees I want to add, but that may have to wait.

* built a tractor and a flatbed - both aren't quite finished but they are easily identifiable for what they are

* Almost have a mounted gun finished for the flatbed. I was thinking of just mounting LBFN's gun on a pivot but the polygon count was pretty high on the model itself (remember the is DBC). It's still on the table as an option. LBFN's model itself with the texturing looks really nice. We'll see what kind of polygon count I can come up with on the flat bed turret.

* I've mapped a series of waypoints for the tractor to move on. I had to get the tractor's and the flatbed's sizes and pivots set up so that I could be sure the turn radius of the tractor would be allowed for any set way points.

Here's some scaling and dimensions that should be useful for any object design or motion:

1 3d unit = 1 foot
1 3d unit = 3 decimeters or .3 meters
3 3d units = 1 yard
3.5 3d units =~ 1 meter

7 3d units =~ 1 meter

The world's size (X Z) is about 400 by 400 units. The reduction from 2000 units to 400 units should help solve some of the Z battles (when two object are very close or overlayed and are a certain distance from the camera, you'll see a series of vertical lines as the computer tries to decide which object to show in front of the other). I don't have the new environment fully textured and up in running in DBC yet, so the rescaling is based on experience with similar environments. We'll see how things fair. It's easy enough to scale up.

Here's a map of the tractors way points. I know I'm behind in what I said I would have available (though I've got a ton of stuff done) I'll post the map so you can get and idea of how the tractor will move for now. I've got to leave again shortly (family duties!) and haven't converted the 3d stuff to DBC yet. I'll have to get to it later tonight.

Each waypoint group is color coded in the map and shows the path around a particular structure.

Red is the barn
Yellow is the stable
Cyan is the shed
Green is the house



You guys can still move forward. The layout of the farm hasn't changed much. If you eyeball the map, you'll see the major change is the removal of the giant silo and maybe a little bit of the positioning of the buildings. You can keep working if you scale down the current map to 402.874 by 400.489 . There's still plenty to do:

* Animation for the monsters
* Sounds
* Music possibly
* The shooting system
* Score keeping
* Health management
* Any splash screens or intros
* Menu system
* Retexturing the spaceship (which LBFN had said he wanted to do)
* Special effects - Sparks, splinters, blood, explosions, fire, rain, snow - whatever

You don't have to wait for me though I'm pretty sure I'll have something done tonight (even though I've said that for three days )

Enjoy your day.

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Latch
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Posted: 19th Aug 2012 04:51
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One thing I could use is a rear tractor wheel with thick treads. Textured. As low poly as possible. I'v already made wheels, but they treadless and I have yet to tackle the texturing of them.

Enjoy your day.
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Libervurto
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Posted: 19th Aug 2012 05:20 Edited at: 19th Aug 2012 05:24
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A minor point regarding global variables, I've discovered you can declare them with a period instead of using zero:

It might help clarify that they're not regular arrays if we write them this way.

I have a few questions.
* Why are the aliens attacking the buildings?
* Will the aliens also attack the tractor?
* Can the person driving the tractor be killed?
* Does the player ever leave the tractor?
* Are there points on the map that hold resources, such as an ammo dump, health packs or a place to refuel the tractor?
* What are the conditions for failure and success?

The way I see it the aliens have to attack the tractor, it seems like the whole point of using a tractor and not staying inside would be to lure the aliens away from the buildings. So there must be something important inside the buildings, either an alien artefact or the farmer's family. In either case I think it makes sense to have at least one other person inside the house with a gun. They are providing the last stand while we are trying to distract the aliens and take out as many as we can. Maybe if this person got killed you would return to the house and take up the last stand.

It would be nice to have things that happen when each building is breached, for example: when the barn is breached some animals could run out and be slaughtered by the aliens.

I realise this is all far-fetched and it doesn't really matter why this invasion is happening, but I like to think about it.

I will work on some music but I'm happy to take on a coding job if you need something done.

PS I found this video of machine guns firing, it might be a useful reference:


Shh... you're pretty.
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LBFN
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Posted: 19th Aug 2012 06:14 Edited at: 20th Aug 2012 08:19
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Latch,

I have been working on re-animating the monster character with no success at all. APPEND OBJECT seems to be extremely picky indeed. I have tried re-posing the monster in Milkshape and then saving the .x file, only to find that no matter what I try I always get an error. Using the Direct X 8.0 export seems to get the closest to what DBC will accept (I compared the files in Notepad), but I am at the point of frustration with it all. Can you tell me how I can animate this mesh using APPEND OBJECT? It seems like you had some experience with this issue in the past.

EDIT: The Scar is like 1630 polies as is. I can reduce the polies on it, but it won't look as cool in-game. The AKS-74u is about the same as the Scar, so no help there.

So many games to code.......so little time.

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Libervurto
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Posted: 19th Aug 2012 06:55 Edited at: 19th Aug 2012 07:00
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I've whipped up a bit of music, it's a bit rough round the edges but you get the idea.
Maybe it would be a good idea to start a new thread for this project?

LBFN, I agree that we should use the higher poly gun, it's going to be right in front of the camera the whole game so it has to be the most detailed object.

Shh... you're pretty.

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LBFN
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Posted: 19th Aug 2012 07:04 Edited at: 19th Aug 2012 07:05
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Quote: "LBFN, I agree that we should use the higher poly gun, it's going to be right in front of the camera the whole game so it has to be the most detailed object."


Take a look at this and see what you think:



Polies on this version are under 1000. It does not have the depth that it had before, but it looks decent to me.

So many games to code.......so little time.

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Fluffy Rabbit
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Posted: 19th Aug 2012 09:10 Edited at: 19th Aug 2012 09:14
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@Latch-

That's a nice schematic! I'm looking forward to your build.

@LBFN-

I faintly remember a program that was specifically designed to animate DarkBASIC 3D objects. Oh, if only I could remember what it was. Also, why do you want to use a modern-looking gun in a game like this? Some farmer wouldn't be able to afford a SCAR or other similar weapon.

@OBese-

I like the melody, but there is way too much drum. Also, I kind of agree with Latch on the use of high-poly models in this game. What with all of the aliens on screen at once, another 1630 polygons with a high-res texture might push it into lag land. However, 1000 polygons doesn't sound too bad.
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Latch
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Posted: 19th Aug 2012 14:51 Edited at: 19th Aug 2012 15:09
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@LBFN
Quote: "EDIT: The Scar is like 1630 polies as is. "

I'm sorry, I was getting your model mixed up with another one I was messing around with. We can try anything. We won't know until we know! The aliens are about 850 polygons. With 15 on the screen at once, that's 12,750 animated poly's. The tractor, bed and mounted gun will add another 4000 likely. The player character and the driver will add another 2000 or more. The landscape and buildings without trees, hay or any other decorations is about 1800 poly's right now. With spaceships, beam points, special effects 25,000 to 30,000 polygons isn't unlikely. We'll see what happens. We can trim resources - the biggest one being the number of aliens on screen at once. 5 to 10 aliens at once coming from different locations would probably be enough to handle. The ships can move and beam as fast as we want so a respawning stream of monsters is completely possible.

Quote: "Can you tell me how I can animate this mesh using APPEND OBJECT? It seems like you had some experience with this issue in the past.
"


The following should do the trick assuming your using the models from the link BN2 provided. Just change the object numbers as necessary.



@all
My hope was that this would be from a third person perspective and not a first person. To make it just a little more visually interesting. I was actually thinking of using the goblin character for the driver and the gunner.

@Obese
Quote: "I have a few questions.
* Why are the aliens attacking the buildings? "

They are not attacking the buildings from what I understand the original demo to be, but are trying to get to the house. No real reason - except maybe there's an enemy of the aliens in the house that they will stop at nothing to get to. The other buildings are really cover for the aliens - obstacles to make things more difficult for the player.

* Will the aliens also attack the tractor?
No. I think they should just try and get to the house

* Can the person driving the tractor be killed?
No. but maybe yes if you guys want to.

* Does the player ever leave the tractor?
Yes. They can run around if they need to. The point of the tractor is to increase the firepower and help protect the player but limit the players mobility even though they can shot 360. I envision the tractor moving along on what ever path the player selects or stopping or heading for the center of the buildings. I'm really not sure how it would all work out playability wise until it's running. In my head it seems interesting.

* Are there points on the map that hold resources, such as an ammo dump, health packs or a place to refuel the tractor?
No. Unnecessary complications.

* What are the conditions for failure and success?
Only one condition. Last as long as possible. Get the highest score.

Quote: "Maybe it would be a good idea to start a new thread for this project?"

No. Not necessary in my opinion.

@Fluffy
Quote: "That's a nice schematic! I'm looking forward to your build."

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it too!

Enjoy your day.
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LBFN
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Posted: 19th Aug 2012 16:36
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Quote: "Also, why do you want to use a modern-looking gun in a game like this? Some farmer wouldn't be able to afford a SCAR or other similar weapon."

It is on a farm, but that does not necessarily mean that it is a farmer defending it. It could be an army guy that has been stationed there and is the last one left of his unit.

Quote: "I faintly remember a program that was specifically designed to animate DarkBASIC 3D objects."

There was 'lightning limbs' by Robert the Robot; I tried it but no joy.

Quote: "The following should do the trick assuming your using the models from the link BN2 provided. Just change the object numbers as necessary."

That works great, thank you. However, I was trying to do my own animations and use them.

Quote: "* Will the aliens also attack the tractor?
No. I think they should just try and get to the house"


Maybe the monsters could get in the way of the tractor, slowing it down and deterring it from getting to the next waypoint. It would be comical if you could actually run over the monsters, having the tractor move up and down as it goes over them, with a subsequent crunching sound.

Quote: "* Are there points on the map that hold resources, such as an ammo dump, health packs or a place to refuel the tractor?
No. Unnecessary complications."


I think it would add more to the game if these things were added. My $.02

Quote: "* Can the person driving the tractor be killed?
No. but maybe yes if you guys want to."

It would give you someone else to protect.

(Re: music)
Quote: "I like the melody, but there is way too much drum."

I agree.

So many games to code.......so little time.

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BN2 Productions
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Posted: 19th Aug 2012 19:54
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Quote: " "* Are there points on the map that hold resources, such as an ammo dump, health packs or a place to refuel the tractor?
No. Unnecessary complications.""


I think an ammo dump would be important and MAYBE a health spot (then again, the aliens aren't really attacking the player, so are they even necessary?). Originally there was the grey box by the house which I had intended to texture better and use as an ammo cabinet (go close and press enter to re-arm). Otherwise, what would happen when the player ran out of ammo?

Great Quote:
"Time...LINE??? Time isn't made out of lines...it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!" -Caboose
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Libervurto
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Posted: 19th Aug 2012 21:06
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@Past Self
Quote: "Why are the aliens attacking the buildings?"

They are aliens, who knows what their motives are!? There is obviously something important on this farm but they would hardly give an introductory speech explaining their invasion! The protagonist has no idea why this is happening so neither should the player.

@Latch
If the aliens just attack the house and are not interested in the player then there really is no reason to be riding around on a tractor. We can stick with them just running to the house as that is a good place to start anyway but I guarantee the game will be boring until we add some player-chasing AI.

I think having distinct locations on the farm would give the game an aspect of strategy, like those zombie house defence games: you have to manage your time and cover all windows. This could be an external version of those with the addition of the tractor. Whether these are places to defend or ammo crates it doesn't matter, there just has to be a reason to move around.

I have a neat idea but it's something WAY off in the distance that I'm not suggesting we include but who knows if we get this up and running it might be a cool thing to add in the future. The trailer makes me think of transportation, so what if we had an entire small town to roam around in, find people in danger and escort them to somewhere safe, deliver ammo or first aid to someone, that kind of thing, but all happening while wave after wave of aliens are attacking.

Shh... you're pretty.
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Latch
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Posted: 19th Aug 2012 21:52
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Whatever you guys decide is fine. Let's finish a working set of mechanics then add bells and whistles. I'm going to finish the tractor waypoint thing and the basic farm buildings (hopefully very soon) and you guys can go nuts with whatever you want to add.

@LBFN
You load a static alien into DBC, use the rotate limb commands, use the set object keyframe command, then same the animation file in the manner demonstrated in my example (I think). If you take a look at my coldet examples, I demonstrate a simple object picker. If you were up to the task, you could, use that base code, load an alien, set spheres at the limb pivots (positions) use the object picker to select the joint, rotate with keyboard or mouse commands, then save the animation as in the example I posted above.

A bit of work, but you could feasibly have a working DBC animator.

Enjoy your day.
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Latch
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Posted: 19th Aug 2012 22:18
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here's a quick draft of the environment to give you something to work with. No details yet. Is there enough ground space beyond the farm for creatures to land? The people are just there to help me understand the relative size/scale of everything.

Enjoy your day.

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LBFN
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Posted: 19th Aug 2012 22:42 Edited at: 20th Aug 2012 08:19
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It seems that the buildings are a little too close together. I think the area beyond the farm is adequate, but scaling up everything somewhat would give you more room to increase the distance between the buildings.

EDIT: Thanks for the animation info - will see what I can do on this.

So many games to code.......so little time.

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Libervurto
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Posted: 20th Aug 2012 17:14
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I was thinking about the tractor, wouldn't it make sense to have something more like this ol' beaut?

If someone's already started work on a tractor then that's okay.

We could do with a thick cloud layer to occlude the ships where they appear/disappear.

I don't know what task to take so if someone's working on a big task just throw me part of the work and I'll help out.

Shh... you're pretty.
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BN2 Productions
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Posted: 20th Aug 2012 20:13
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Questions for the shooting system:

1. What object numbers am I authorized to use for the bullets/projectiles?

2. What weapons do I need to design for? If it is just bullets, I don't think motion is really necessary (rather than just a ray). I imagine the need to see the bullet would be in the case of a rocket launcher or energy type weapon (if the aliens are shooting).

Great Quote:
"Time...LINE??? Time isn't made out of lines...it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!" -Caboose
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Latch
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Posted: 20th Aug 2012 23:08
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Quote: "If someone's already started work on a tractor then that's okay."

Tractor and flatbed are almost done.

BN2

Quote: "1. What object numbers am I authorized to use for the bullets/projectiles?"


We have 65,000+ to choose from. How about numbers 1000 to 2000?

Quote: "2. What weapons do I need to design for? If it is just bullets, I don't think motion is really necessary (rather than just a ray). I imagine the need to see the bullet would be in the case of a rocket launcher or energy type weapon (if the aliens are shooting). "


Really, maybe two. A large gun for the flatbed and maybe a small hand gun. The system should be generic. I think seeing the bullets for the large gun just makes it more interesting to look at. Plus with a moving projectile, there is a higher possibility of missing the target should it move out of the line of fire.

@BN2 and Fluffy
I don't know what collision system you guys are going to implement, but you should probably be on the same page. I'm also assuming since Fluffy posted a collision routine that he has opted to take that aspect on. So you two probably should hash out how things are going to get hit.

@Obese
Quote: "I don't know what task to take so if someone's working on a big task just throw me part of the work and I'll help out."

What do you think you could/would finish?

@LBFN
I have an old version of Lightning Limbs on my computer. This version actually works pretty well at least in my tests for outputting the animation data you create which can be appended in the manner I posted a feww messages above. Robert the Robot and I were discussing quaternions a lot at the time and I'm not sure if the version I have is from our correspondence or from the forum. However, looking at the dates, I think the version I have is in this thread, on the second page (depending on your forum settings) with the date of the specific message in the thread being August 8,2008 from Robert the Robot.

Lightning Limbs

It takes a little getting used to. You'll have to switch between the camera controls and the animation controls to move the camera or the object limbs respectively. It's very useful to only allow a single axis rotation when animating.

The steps that I've tested that work are basically this:
1. Click the camera icon and adjust the camera position/rotation
2. Click the animation icon, click the rotate limbs icon, click the node (the white sphere) of the limb you wish to animate. Limit the rotation axis if you are using the mouse to rotate or just type the numbers of the angles in the boxes.
3. When done, click on the set keyframe icon and type in a number for this key frame. Your first key should be your initial pose. Set this key to 1.
4. When you have added some keys and poses, click on the camera control icon, find the playback controls, and play your animation.
5. When satisfied, click on the computer icon, save the animation data as .dat . You can save the project if you like so you can work on it later. Once the .dat is saved, you can append that animation to your original x file.

Robert the Robot cleverly programmed in a bit of reverse kinematics of a sort. There should be a PDF file included in the download that has all of the operating instructions. Ultimately, you could lift, say, a foot and have the leg bend according to where you place the foot so you aren't having to rotate every joint independently.

Enjoy your day.
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BN2 Productions
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Posted: 20th Aug 2012 23:45
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Quote: "
Really, maybe two. A large gun for the flatbed and maybe a small hand gun. The system should be generic. I think seeing the bullets for the large gun just makes it more interesting to look at. Plus with a moving projectile, there is a higher possibility of missing the target should it move out of the line of fire."


My point was that a bullet will be traveling so fast that 1) seeing the bullet is unrealistic anyway and 2) The target's motion is negligible unless moving at a decent fraction of the bullet's speed. Though the bullet could be traveling unusually slowly so that it could be seen.

As far as collision goes, I will learn/use ColDet and have the program return the object number the bullet/projectile collides with and store the hit location in some global variables.

Great Quote:
"Time...LINE??? Time isn't made out of lines...it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!" -Caboose
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Fluffy Rabbit
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Posted: 21st Aug 2012 00:56
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The package I posted is quite possibly the furthest I will work on this project from the technical angle. I agree with BN2 on the bullets. It's pointless to try to have visible bullets coming out of the gun and flying through the air. As far as being visually interesting is concerned, the mounted gun could produce yellow lines from the gun to the target, lasting a certain period of time rather than one frame. In fact, a little recoil and a sound effect would be plenty, and would produce a more realistic effect than any visible bullets in my opinion.
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Latch
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Posted: 21st Aug 2012 01:13
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@BN2 and Fluffy
Do whatever you think is best.

Enjoy your day.
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BN2 Productions
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Posted: 21st Aug 2012 01:15
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An animation that could be pulled off is to place a plain (thin and long) from the gun to the end of its range and paste a red/orange/yellow stripe on it (the bullet trail) then for every frame that the bullets are still being fired, scroll the texture along the line of fire. This would be purely cosmetic, of course, as a ray would be used for collision detection.

I will build in support in the function for slower moving objects (energy blasts and/or rockets and such).

Great Quote:
"Time...LINE??? Time isn't made out of lines...it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!" -Caboose
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Latch
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Posted: 21st Aug 2012 01:37
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@BN2
Whatever you envision as working well, do that. Having the built in capability gives options. Good idea.

Enjoy your day.
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Fluffy Rabbit
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Posted: 21st Aug 2012 01:47 Edited at: 21st Aug 2012 01:48
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@BN2-

Gah! It's not a laser! Sure, it would like nice, but what happens when the player moves the camera? All of the bullets that were a distance away would magically track with the camera.
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Latch
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Posted: 21st Aug 2012 01:57
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each bullet has it's own plane

Enjoy your day.
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Fluffy Rabbit
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Posted: 21st Aug 2012 02:11
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Quote: "each bullet has its own plane"


If visible bullet trails were to be used at all, and they don't have to be, I would suggest only using one plane, not animating it, and repositioning it with each shot. Of course, it would disappear after a set amount of time (slightly shorter than the time it takes to fire).
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BN2 Productions
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Posted: 21st Aug 2012 02:23
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Quote: "Gah! It's not a laser!"


Not quite a laser, but similar effect. I've seen it used in war type games and it works. It wouldn't be used for all guns, only heavy machine guns during longer firing periods. A quick burst wouldn't see it.

Great Quote:
"Time...LINE??? Time isn't made out of lines...it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!" -Caboose
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Fluffy Rabbit
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Posted: 21st Aug 2012 02:32
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@BN2-

How about the animated plain repositions itself only at every shot, then? (assuming that it'll use shots and not a floating point timer-based system)
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Libervurto
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Posted: 21st Aug 2012 02:41 Edited at: 21st Aug 2012 02:42
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@Latch
Thanks for the link, I remember Robert the Robot from the old DBC challenges.
Here's a direct link for anyone who wants Robert's Lighting Limbs:
And an update of his .dbo converter if you want it:

Shh... you're pretty.
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LBFN
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Posted: 21st Aug 2012 06:07
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Quote: "Quote: "1. What object numbers am I authorized to use for the bullets/projectiles?"

We have 65,000+ to choose from. How about numbers 1000 to 2000?"

Of course this will work fine, but personally, I always like to either use a variable to increment object numbers (as objects are loaded / created) or use a function to obtain the next one. To me it makes sense to do it that way, especially when you have multiple coders working on the same project. Just a suggestion.

Latch and Obese87: Thank you for the links and info on Lightning Limbs. I had tried using this, but never saw the .pdf until now. I had no idea how to work it and it was not clear what each of the icons actually represented. Anyway, I have tried on my own for two days to get it to save an animation with no success. I can play the animation within the program I wrote, but I cannot get it to load the saved animation data and actually append it to the object. I'll try Lightning Limbs again and see if I can get it.

My vacation is almost over, so I won't have as much time to help with this, but I will do the best I can.

So many games to code.......so little time.

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Latch
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Posted: 21st Aug 2012 13:43
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Quote: "Of course this will work fine, but personally, I always like to either use a variable to increment object numbers (as objects are loaded / created) or use a function to obtain the next one. To me it makes sense to do it that way, especially when you have multiple coders working on the same project. Just a suggestion."

To be sure particular object/image numbers etc. aren't accidentally shared by two or more programmers, I would suggest maintaining ranges of numbers for particular purposes. Within these ranges, automatic assignment can be used. The ranges also help identify the type of entity.

Enjoy your day.
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Libervurto
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2012 01:45
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I've re-done the drums on the music. Thanks for the critiques. It's pretty shabby quality but I'll redo the whole thing when we're polishing up the game.

Shh... you're pretty.

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Latch
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2012 04:08
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I finally finished the farm. I've increased the size of the land itself to 600 units from 400. I've moved the buildings a little further apart as was suggested. Overall, I'm satisfied with it. A couple of lighting issues remain, but nothing major. I discovered that using SET OBJECT with different settings for the main farm and the lightmapped farm was causing all sorts of strange artifacts. What that means is when using set object to control any lighting aspects including fog, the settings must be identical between the two objects. It wasn't I think in one of the examples I posted so I'm not sure what anybody was seeing. It's corrected in this version.

I haven't added any other objects except for the main farm as setting it up, redesigning it, texturing it and ultimately lightmapping it was more difficult than I expected. Anyway, here's the new models. I've only included new textures to keep the zip file small and any other textures needed were contained in the first lightmapped demo. I've got the waypoints mapped out for the tractor, now I've got to write the code to make it move along them. The test code I've included shows my recommended lighting and object settings and also has the basic shell for my testing of the way points. The rest of the code doesn't really add anything to the project it's useful for quickly running around the environment and taking a look at stuff.

Enjoy your day.

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Latch
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2012 04:30 Edited at: 22nd Aug 2012 23:52
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The music sounds interesting OBese87. I like it's implied urgency.

@All
I really hate to stir the pot, but I've been rereading a few comments posted previously and it got me to thinking...

OBese had said something about the aliens attacking the individual buildings. At the time I was focusing on BN2s original idea/demo that had the aliens simply charging at the house. I thought an interesting element to add would be a tractor that wasn't completely under the players control to make things a little more difficult.

Combining the tractor idea with the aliens attacking EVERY building adds an interesting dynamic. Programming tractor paths under that premise makes more sense as you can dispatch the tractor to specific buildings to try and protect them.

I know we have a rough sketch so far so maybe changing anything isn't a good idea but this shouldn't be too hard to implement.

@LBFN
If we move forward with that idea, you would need a method of determining which building an alien would run to attack. That could be determined randomly or by drop off point or something.

@Fluffy or BN2
In terms of collision, if we are using Coldet, since the main map is 1 object, we would need a method to determine individual attacks on buildings. Since the buildings are generally boxed shaped except for the 'L' shape of the stable, DBC box objects could be created, sized, and rotated to match the buildings. These objects can be added as collision objects to ColDet, and then the original DBC box objects could be deleted to reduce overhead. Then collision object numbers as well as 3d hit points could be returned for detecting individual building attacks.

@All
Whatever direction we go in, we still could use some special effects - fire, smoke, some kind of damage indication for aliens and/or buildings.

Any thoughts on all of this?

Enjoy your day.
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Darkzombies
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Posted: 22nd Aug 2012 23:44 Edited at: 23rd Aug 2012 00:00
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Hello guys, how long has it been? I can't even find my last post -.-

But anyways, today I had the wonderful idea of returning in style.

(´･ω･`)

P.S. Please consider my absence a trip to hone my abilities and find my inner self.

-------------------------------------------------------------
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TheComet
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2012 17:24 Edited at: 23rd Aug 2012 17:26
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I've been following this for a while now and I like where it's going! Keep up the good work everyone.

@ LBFN - Completely off-topic, but do you still have the forum data for that phpBB forum when you were making TGC Heroes? I wanted to go and look back at some posts that were made but it doesn't exist anymore, which is a shame.

TheComet

"if you don't understand recursion than you probably don't understand recursion." ~Jerico2day
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LBFN
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2012 18:54 Edited at: 23rd Aug 2012 20:14
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Quote: "Combining the tractor idea with the aliens attacking EVERY building adds an interesting dynamic."

Agreed. Couldn't we put something in the buildings that the aliens would be after? I think it would be funner if you had to protect something or someone. When everything / everyone has been captured, you lose.

Quote: "@ LBFN - Completely off-topic, but do you still have the forum data for that phpBB forum when you were making TGC Heroes? I wanted to go and look back at some posts that were made but it doesn't exist anymore, which is a shame."

No, sorry, I don't have that anymore.

Quote: "@LBFN
If we move forward with that idea, you would need a method of determining which building an alien would run to attack. That could be determined randomly or by drop off point or something."


Using the idea above about placing stuff / people in the buildings, it should be doable to have the monsters move to waypoints accordingly.

Regarding Lightning Limbs, I can make new animations for the monster / alien, but adding another character is not working at all. I'm thinking they made these .x files using 3D Canvas. I tried downloading a trial version to try it, but it won't work with Windows 7 apparently.

EDIT: Latch, I really like the new farm. The building positions are much better and it shows up without any glitches. Nice work.

So many games to code.......so little time.

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Latch
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2012 21:47
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Quote: "Latch, I really like the new farm. The building positions are much better and it shows up without any glitches. Nice work.
"

Thank you.

Quote: "Regarding Lightning Limbs, I can make new animations for the monster / alien, but adding another character is not working at all. I'm thinking they made these .x files using 3D Canvas. I tried downloading a trial version to try it, but it won't work with Windows 7 apparently.
"

You're using Milkshape, right? I wonder if it has an animatable scene exporter. The DBC method of animation is really an animated scene. Each mesh in an X file is an object in a scene. The objects are related to each other in an articulated hierarchy - i.e. individual parent child relationships. I built a converter for Anim8or that changed an exported scene to a DirectX file. Last I remember, it worked, but there were a couple of glitches I think with the texturing and maybe axis directions - I haven't looked at it in years but the theory was sound. If milkshape can export an animated scene, you'll be good to go. It may mean loading in an object and pulling the limbs apart as different objects. The other thing is the keys.

For some reason, Microsoft added a Matrix Key to their animation controls with Direct X 8.1 . The Matrix key combines translation, scaling, and rotation into 1 matrix. The problem is, if even there is no scaling in the matrix, if an animation program is looking for scaling, then it can interpret some of the rotation values as scaling and totally mess up the animation. In short, make sure there is no key 4 in the animation and only keys 0, 1, and 2. This might not make sense if you don't know the layout of a direct x file. The other problem is DBC doesn't read key type 4.

I believe the original darkmatter models were done in 3D Studio and converted to X using conv3ds.exe . DBC has conv3ds.exe built in. If you export your milkshape character in 3DS format, you may be able to convert it using DBC. Use the command:



The reason this message is so long is because new ideas keep popping in my head as I type.


Well, Truspace outputs animated direct X files in articulated hierarchical format but you'd have to learn that. If you learned Blender 2.45 ( I think 2.49 also) and passed me the .blend file, I have a method of exporting animated objects for DBC.

You could also try the latest Blender and Kira Vakaan's direct x exporter. I had some trouble with non-skeletal animations with the 2.49 exporter but never tried the latest.

Enjoy your day.
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Latch
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2012 22:29
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Quote: "Agreed. Couldn't we put something in the buildings that the aliens would be after? I think it would be funner if you had to protect something or someone. When everything / everyone has been captured, you lose."

If there is something/someone inside buildings then there has to be entry/exit code and also some means of entry. What are your suggestions because I may have to redesign the buildings/farm so it isn't 1 solid object so collision can be detected independently for each building exterior and interior, the individual buildings can be attacked, and there is a physical entrance - not to mention relighting the scene?

Based on how long it took me to redesign the farm, I would say the above changes would take about a week or more. I would like to avoid major redesign, if possible.

Enjoy your day.
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BN2 Productions
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Posted: 23rd Aug 2012 23:45
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We could have the aliens attack the buildings based on their spawn point until they are all attacking the house. Destruction could be done through hiding the building limb.

As far as controlling their motion, have the waypoints branch where there is a path from the spawn point to each building on the way to the house (so if they start from the left, it would split two ways, going to the barn and the house). When they hit the transition node, if the building is alive, take the branch to go towards it and start attacking it. Otherwise, stay on the main track that heads towards the house. When the building is destroyed, any aliens on that branch of the way point system is assigned to go to the next waypoint on the main track (Perhaps have the node id number stored somewhere and it can just reference it).

Just an idea, though it does seem like it could be added later without requiring massive re-working.

Great Quote:
"Time...LINE??? Time isn't made out of lines...it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!" -Caboose
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Libervurto
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Posted: 24th Aug 2012 02:28 Edited at: 24th Aug 2012 02:49
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I'm thinking about context again.
These aliens don't look like the sort that would ever discover inter-stellar travel, so I'd say they are slaves. The mother-ship ran out of food for the slaves and so searched for a planet with carbon-based life for them to snack on; they found Earth! The over-race don't care about our lives and we look incredibly primitive to them, so primitive they don't even bother trying to communicate with us. They send down their slaves in waves of drop-ships and the feast begins! Cows, sheep, pigs and humans are all on the menu!

So they're just very hungry aliens (Hungry Hungry Aliens? lol). You must defend yourself, your family and your livestock as long as possible. They'll tear down every building looking for meat!

I toyed with the idea of some alien relic on the farm or the son of the farmer being contaminated by a meteorite from their planet, but none of that fits with the senseless chaos of the game. This isn't a noble mission to reclaim something: they aren't searching, they are destroying! So they can't be here because there's anything special about the farm (apart from a large amount of food), the exact opposite must be true, they simply don't care about the farmer's life or his family.

Now, I think we will need livestock but we have a choice: do we start with them already dead or do we include them in the game as animated entities? It could even be part of the survival strategy to release the livestock in order to distract the aliens and lead them away from the house. Understand that when I make these suggestions I'm not trying to throw a spanner in the works, I don't expect 10% of what I say to make it into the game, it's just interesting to think about different mechanics.

Shh... you're pretty.
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Latch
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Posted: 24th Aug 2012 03:50
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I like the "eat everything" idea. It would be cool to have wandering animals.

Here's a few things to think about in terms of execution/performance speed wth DBC when considering design. Also consider build and programming time:

* The layering used on the farm to pull off light-mapping doubles the polygon count for whatever is light-mapped. Also, ghosting objects causes a hit on performance. Removing the light-mapping as it stands will speed things up, but at the cost of the visuals.

Each object could be broken down into smaller parts and the light-mapping could be baked into individual material textures. This would increase the number of textures and materials applied to objects and faces but may improve performace. The cost would be the time to create and retexture the objects using many more materials per object. Depending on the management of the textures, a high number of textures could result in a worse performance hit than the original layered light-mapping.

* The farm is a single object with no limbs. Single objects yield better performance than multiple objects or limbs totaling the same polygon count. If the farm were to be split into individual objects we may lose some performance. The advantage would be manipulating, tracking, detecting collision on, and any other individual object related stuff you can do - like hiding the object when it's not in view.

* Animated objects take more processing power than non-animated objects. The more limbs, the more of a performance hit.

* Static objects ,not just stationary but actual objects that are made using MAKE STATIC OBJECT ( I think thats the command), will increase performance when their polygon count is generally low. However, using these types of objects eliminates their responses to the material light settings (SET OBJECT DIFFUSE, EMMISIVE, SPECULAR, AMBIENT) and they cannot be ghosted. They will respond to the global Ambient light settings and fog.

* With the use of fog, it's possible do some Level Of Detail control without too much trouble. The aliens have a low definition model and a high definition model. The buildings could be made similarly though they are all generally pretty low in the poly department except for the house with all of it's windows. Fog in and of itself is a bit of a performance hitter.

* If we decide to add detail to the scene in terms of animals, trees, cans, bushes, etc., keep in mind the time it would take to: add all of this stuff, animate anything that would need animating, handle collision and movement, etc. . Depending on the amount of detail in the whole scene, it might not be unreasonable to target a 640x480 screen size.


That list doesn't mean we won't or will do any of what was mentioned. It's just there to maybe give a little perspective on the work and amount of design thought that has to be put in. The longer these community projects take, the less likely they are to be finished.

Enjoy your day.
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BN2 Productions
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Posted: 24th Aug 2012 04:39 Edited at: 24th Aug 2012 07:07
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What kind of text convention should we use?

I usually do:

CAPS - Command names
NotQuiteCamelCase - Function names (technically camelcase is thisIsCamelCase with the first letter being lowercase)
lowercase - variables

Thoughts?

EDIT

Also, I remember seeing somewhere that this might be in 3rd person. If this is the case, what should I use for setting the bullet trajectory? SET OBJECT TO OBJECT ORIENTATION won't work because the player object orientation won't necessarily be down the barrel (if aiming down, for instance, the player will still be upright). I could use the camera' orientation I suppose, if that would work with the design methodology.

Great Quote:
"Time...LINE??? Time isn't made out of lines...it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!" -Caboose
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LBFN
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Posted: 24th Aug 2012 08:39 Edited at: 24th Aug 2012 17:48
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Quote: "If milkshape can export an animated scene, you'll be good to go."

No, it can't do that.
Quote: "
I believe the original darkmatter models were done in 3D Studio and converted to X using conv3ds.exe . DBC has conv3ds.exe built in. If you export your milkshape character in 3DS format, you may be able to convert it using DBC. Use the command:

+ Code Snippet

3ds2x "infilename.3ds","outfilename.x""

Okay, I will give that a try.
Quote: "
Well, Truspace outputs animated direct X files in articulated hierarchical format but you'd have to learn that. "

I have TrueSpace7, but am unfamiliar with it and have not really used it.

Quote: "You could also try the latest Blender"

Not a fan of Blender at all, though it has tons of features. I simply don't have the time to learn it, so I gave up trying.
Quote: "
I like the "eat everything" idea. It would be cool to have wandering animals"

I would think that they would be difficult to model / texture and make them look decent, plus our frame rate is going to take a hit if we add them. I really think it would be asking too much of DBC to have hordes of monsters (with a limited AI), Alien ships dropping them off, a farm (preferably a light-mapped one), an animated tractor, an animated player, laser beams, etc. in addition to farm animals.

Quote: "Destruction could be done through hiding the building limb."

I thought Latch said there were no limbs on the farm and it was all one model? I don't know how you would have a destructible environment in this case. That is why I suggested we have the monsters go after something in the buildings, but not the buildings themselves. The way Fluffy has the Coldet working, the collision works inside the buildings very well. It seems doable to me. We could model the buildings without doors and place the doors in as separate objects and when the aliens get close to them, they fall in and fade away or lay on the ground.

Quote: "Also, I remember seeing somewhere that this might be in 3rd person. If this is the case, what should I use for setting the bullet trajectory? SET OBJECT TO OBJECT ORIENTATION won't work because the player object orientation won't necessarily be down the barrel (if aiming down, for instance, the player will still be upright). I could use the camera' orientation I suppose, if that would work with the design methodology."


In DBP, I would simply add two limbs to the gun, one at the butt and one on the tip of the barrel, and point from one limb to the other one. It seems like we could do that with DBC too.

Quote: "The longer these community projects take, the less likely they are to be finished."

I agree; we should make it cool and fun, but not throw in the kitchen sink.

UPDATE: I tried the 3ds2x conversion in DBC and it did indeed save the model in .x format. However, the limbs are identified by DBC as being there, but when moving through them checking the locations it always shows 0.0 for the x, y and z coordinates. Lightning Limbs does the same thing. I do not see Lightning Limbs as usable, as the parent / child limb assignments simply do not work correctly.

So many games to code.......so little time.

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BN2 Productions
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Posted: 24th Aug 2012 08:49
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Quote: "
In DBP, I would simply add two limbs to the gun, one at the butt and one on the tip of the barrel, and point from one limb to the other one. It seems like we could do that with DBC too."


That's fine with me. Whoever is in charge of making/tweeking the gun for our purposes, could you add those limbs and then get back to me with the limb numbers?

Quote: "I thought Latch said there were no limbs on the farm and it was all one model? I don't know how you would have a destructible environment in this case. "


I guess I missed that the first time around. It could be done, I suppose by switching the texture of the limb to all black and allow the TRANSPARENCY flag in the SET OBJECT command take care of hiding it. Not that I don't like your idea of the object being inside, just that this has become an interesting challenge for be.

Also:

Report on the shooting system:

Almost done. I just need to work out the collision system (I'm unfamiliar with ColDet), do final checks, and then it should be good to go. It should be able to just be included via #include. There is 1 subroutine that needs to be dropped in (and have the settings tuned to what the project needs) and then all that is necessary is placing one function call in the main loop and another in the code that get's executed when the trigger is pulled (for creating the bullet).

Great Quote:
"Time...LINE??? Time isn't made out of lines...it is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!" -Caboose
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Libervurto
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Posted: 25th Aug 2012 00:11
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Quote: "We could model the buildings without doors and place the doors in as separate objects and when the aliens get close to them, they fall in and fade away or lay on the ground."

I like this idea, but rather than just doors, would it be possible to make holes in the walls and plug the holes? I don't think it would matter if there's a visible seam/gap. It would make the breach more visible and "destructive".

Quote: "I would think that [livestock] would be difficult to model / texture and make them look decent, plus our frame rate is going to take a hit if we add them."

I'm sure we could find some royalty-free animals if we don't have the time/skill to model and animate them ourselves. If the extra entities would kill the FPS then we could just have a bunch of dead, half-eaten animals inside the barn when the aliens breach it.

So where is everyone at now? I'm a bit confused about what version of the code is being used.

Shh... you're pretty.
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