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Work in Progress / [DBP] Maple Spirit

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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 17th Mar 2013 19:21 Edited at: 25th Mar 2013 03:37
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Maple Spirit
This game is heavily based on the Souls Series (Demon's Souls/Dark Souls). The focus will be on trial and error which means a lot of dying but that's OK because the main character is a Dryad (spirit of tree) and can revive herself. At first I had planed to use an undead or skeleton model for the main character but that offered a lack of motivation so I started exploring with a female model and WOW motivation spiked up beyond imagination. This is somewhat a continuation of my InGaCreMo2013 project.

Plot:
Humans (an army of them) came into the old ruins deep in the mystic forest and summoned evil spirits turning themselves into demons and spreading the curse. Our protagonist and other forest spirits (multiplayer maybe) have to get to the root of it and destroy the artifact that is causing this.

GamePlay:
This game will be at most a simple dungeon crawler, explore, encounter, collect and move on. You respawn at the last bound area when you die. Learn from mistakes or figure out ways to beat the area or bosses. This is not a hack & slash as any enemy can kill you with little effort. Sometimes it's better to avoid fights to save resource and energy but may also end up killing you in the process.

Movements are controlled with WASD and camera with the mouse. The mouse-click and some keyboard buttons controls the player actions.
Will have a Lock-On toggle for targeting and a cursor for shooting projectiles.

Models:
All made in Blender.

Shaders:
None right now. Will use one for water later.

Collision:
Sparky's Collison DLL V2.0

Sound:
Last thing on my list to do.

Screenshots


















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Ortu
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Posted: 17th Mar 2013 21:47
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looks like a good start, looking forward to seeing more

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Quel
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Posted: 17th Mar 2013 23:15
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Yumm...
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Nabz_32x
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Posted: 18th Mar 2013 10:53
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anything done on this,
Except character modelling, controls and including sparkys collision dll?

Looks like it is going to be a long way of a journey, but your start on this looks really good.

I just started using blender and it is a really easy to use and gives a lot more opportunities, I am working on a robot modell which should replace my main char, I didn´t try exporting it to .x yet, but good to see it is possible making a nice .x export using blender.
Hope the animation tools are as easy to use as the modelling tools.

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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 18th Mar 2013 17:31 Edited at: 18th Mar 2013 17:32
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Quote: "anything done on this,
Except character modelling, controls and including sparkys collision dll?"

Well as you can see I barely just started. The collision and camera control still needs a lot of work. Has problem viewing through walls and is not moving smooth enough, etc. The focus is on the gameplay so I'm working on controls first.


I'm glad you find Blender easy, I had a really hard time learning blender as it's very noob UNfriendly with a very steep learning curve, there's just way too many options lol, but once you pick it up it's so powerful. Hope your modeling goes well, the animation part is even harder. If you have any questions about it shoot me an email if you want.

Updates:
Gravity
Stairs
Camera Collision


Remodeled the starting point and added stairs for testing out gravity.


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Chris Tate
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Posted: 18th Mar 2013 18:18
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Nice building there

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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 18th Mar 2013 22:11 Edited at: 18th Mar 2013 22:12
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Quote: "Nice building there"

Thanks, it's a product of loads of head aches.


Still having issues with the camera viewing through the wall. The collision works great it's just that at certain angles it will clip through walls. Was going to do another sphere collision onto the camera but not sure how it'll work. Tried moving the camera forward to get out of the wall but that messes up normal collisions. If anyone has a solution to this thanks in advance.

The updated building worked out very well, now for the rest of the terrain.


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wattywatts
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Posted: 19th Mar 2013 01:10
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Automatic camera collision might work for you, not sure about compatibility with external DLL's like Sparky's though. It was working for me till it hits an object with collision set to polys, then it gets stuck. Hope that helps, your game is looking nice.

http://mattsmith.carbonmade.com/
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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 19th Mar 2013 22:45 Edited at: 25th Mar 2013 03:31
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I think I'll just give up on camera for now, will try again later.


Also threw the lighting out the window, I'm just not ready for it. Simplifying things sure takes a load off my shoulders.

Update:
Minor tweaks with collisions on slopes and animation.
No more lightings on model




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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 20th Mar 2013 21:12 Edited at: 25th Mar 2013 03:31
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Didn't think how complicated 3D pathfinding would be, explains why even commercial games have such crappy AI in this subject. Waypoints seems like a good idea for now.


Updates:
NPC collision
Simple Follow



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Chris Tate
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Posted: 20th Mar 2013 23:11 Edited at: 20th Mar 2013 23:13
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You will probably get path finding sorted when the time arises to focus on it.

I've not played the souls games, what will this be like? How will the character system be?

Are the textures over scaled on purpose or are they just placeholders?

Would applying the character collision to the camera not be viable for you? If an object is blocked from going through a wall, a camera within one would be blocked also; and an the object's size can be the buffer.

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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 21st Mar 2013 10:29 Edited at: 21st Mar 2013 10:31
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Quote: " what will this be like? How will the character system be?"

This game will be at most a simple dungeon crawler, explore, encounter, collect and move on. You respawn at the last bound area when you die. Learn from mistakes or figure out ways to beat the area or bosses. This is not a hack&slash as any enemy can kill you with little effort.

This model will be the only player character but has options to different equipments, Sword/Dagger/Spear/Shield with variation of 2Handed/Duelwield/Single. The body will have equipable clothes and armors.
This is an example from my InGaCreMo2013. It's pretty much going to be the same method with better animation.


Quote: "
Are the textures over scaled on purpose or are they just placeholders?"

It's on purpose, I plan to keep this part cheap and simple because of my lack of experience on this matter.


Quote: "applying the character collision to the camera"

Hmm I don't know what I was thinking but this makes more sense now that you point it out. It was because of how I kept track of the camera position previously that it wouldn't work, but that function changed so I'll give this another go.

Thanks for your comments.

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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 21st Mar 2013 21:47 Edited at: 21st Mar 2013 21:48
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Update:
Pathfinding
Using a very cheap method, PC creates a path, NPC uses the path if there are any sort of collision between the two. The path is an array of 10 nodes eventually recycling it's self for new positions. Path will only record a new position after a set distance and only if there are some sort of collision between each node or if the y axis is different.

Probably not the best solution but this works for what I'm going for at the moment, if anyone has a better solution please feel free to let me know.



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Chris Tate
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Posted: 21st Mar 2013 22:30
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It works, that's the main thing.

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Nabz_32x
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Posted: 22nd Mar 2013 18:57
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Quote: "I'm glad you find Blender easy, I had a really hard time learning blender as it's very noob UNfriendly with a very steep learning curve, there's just way too many options lol, but once you pick it up it's so powerful. Hope your modeling goes well, the animation part is even harder. If you have any questions about it shoot me an email if you want."
.

I used Milkshape3d before which may be nice for beginners, but for complex modelling it is a pain in the ass, whereas blender has a very fluid and fast workflow if you learn all the important shortcuts as far as modelling goes. I was a bit overwhelming when calling the whole programm easy as that only counts for the modelling part for me.

Glad you updated physics and camera collision and also got a suitable path finding solution for NPCs. The fighting system looks like it is going to be all action based, which I like very much.

Reading your posts and looking at the games progress I am sure you know what you do and I am looking forward to seeing more of this.

Keep us updated.

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Jeff032
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Posted: 24th Mar 2013 14:38
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This looks interesting; I'll have to keep an eye on it. I'm actually working on a somewhat similar game right now, but I've been stuck on player collision for FOREVER . Do you get any jittering when walking into obtuse corners with Sparky's?
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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 25th Mar 2013 03:22 Edited at: 25th Mar 2013 03:23
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Quote: "The fighting system looks like it is going to be all action based"

Yes that's how it'll be, will also have a Lock-On toggle and I have plans of a free cursor for shooting magic.


Quote: " Do you get any jittering when walking into obtuse corners with Sparky's? "

I did, my problem was because of my gravity collision being a smaller radius than my slide collision. I fixed it by offsetting the start y# axis and adjust my slope value.
I don't know how your issue looks like exactly but shoot me an email or post it on the forum, I'm sure it can be solved.


Updates:
Wall Pathfinding
- This was a pain! But got it to work along with my Stairs Pathfinding. Things got way messy at one point but did my best the simplify the codes.

Falling Animation
- Was so easy, took only 20min of animation and another 20min to work into codes.



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mr_d
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Posted: 25th Mar 2013 09:31
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keeping an eye on this project to see how far it goes

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Chris Tate
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Posted: 25th Mar 2013 12:03
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Yeah, keep up the good work

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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 25th Mar 2013 19:56 Edited at: 25th Mar 2013 19:57
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Thanks everyone! Your words of encouragement help drives this on.

I'm having a little difficulty figuring out the weapon collision, because I Glue Object the weapon model to the body sparky's cannot track it's location very well because it never moves from 0,0,0. Anyone have any ideas? Anyways I'll be doing some experiments.

Once this portion is done I'll be moving into the user interface.

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Hiromu656
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Posted: 25th Mar 2013 23:10
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This looks really cool! Dark Souls is one of my all time favorite games so I'll be keeping an eye on this for sure!
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Nabz_32x
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Posted: 26th Mar 2013 00:31
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you can always get the limb position you glued the object on and add the proper offset distances (distance between actual object and the limb which it is glued to).
Apply this offset to the limb coordinates using newxvalue & newzvalue with the current object angles and pass them on to sparkys functions.
Have not tried this out, but it should work, also I didn´t try sparkys collision dll yet.

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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 26th Mar 2013 06:58 Edited at: 26th Mar 2013 07:00
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@Nabz_32x
Ahh! after messing around I've also ended up with a similar solution. The only problem is, the Limb Angle() expression don't work because it's values return 0,0,0 BUT If I make another bone at the tip of the weapon bone, I can point the weapon towards that instead and it all works out!

Just a bit more and this could be solved. Going to need a "Hurt" animation real soon.

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Chris Tate
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Posted: 26th Mar 2013 12:00
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Quote: " The only problem is, the Limb Angle() expression don't work because it's values return 0,0,0"


You didn't state the other angle expression so I'm guessing you've not tried the Limb Direction X()..Y,Z functions; these return the global angle the limbs are facing regardless of their local angles.

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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 26th Mar 2013 21:57
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@Chris Tate
I gave that a try, but it's returning some odd values. Maybe with some tweaking it might work but if I can save myself some headache just by adding 2 more bones then I'd do that


Update:
Weapon Collision
Made it so it's adjustable to be able to fit well with short, long or even large weapons.



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wattywatts
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Posted: 27th Mar 2013 12:17
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Quote: "I'm having a little difficulty figuring out the weapon collision, because I Glue Object the weapon model to the body sparky's cannot track it's location very well because it never moves from 0,0,0. Anyone have any ideas? Anyways I'll be doing some experiments."

I actually do have a solution to this, but keep in mind it's an extra pain in the arse. This is a system for using multiple sets of animated weapons and armor I recently worked out - in your animation program, merge the weapon/armor set with your character, set up the weapon/armor with the desired frames using a separate set of bones, then delete the character model and export only the weapons/armor. If it works out you should have your longsword.x, etc files that will animate correctly alongside your character model that you can switch to a different set on the fly. Hope that made sense, I just woke up for school and I'm tired.

http://mattsmith.carbonmade.com/
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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 27th Mar 2013 19:39
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@wattywatts
That is a great method for attaching/layering different weapon/armor but yes I foresee it to be a great pain every time I make changes to the animation because then I'll have to export ALL the weapons again LOL. Thanks, this might come in handy for something else later

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Chris Tate
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Posted: 27th Mar 2013 20:10
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What's the plan; why do you need weapon collision? What's the idea behind it?

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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 27th Mar 2013 20:54
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Well how else am I suppose to know that I'm hitting something?

Need the collision because there are different types of weapons, Sword, Dagger, Spear, Axe, Halberd, Greatsword, Shield, Bow, Crossbow. The choice of equipment plays a big role in the gameplay. They all have different attack animations and styles.

The game has little story and there will almost be no dialogs. The action part of the gameplay is where most the attention will be focused on.

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Chris Tate
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Posted: 27th Mar 2013 21:15 Edited at: 27th Mar 2013 21:39
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Well there are other ways; but I just wanted to see the big picture. So basically the method of directing attacks is 100% manual, and you intend to detect attacks via weapon state; the state of being swiped/shot by who is using the weapon; finally this is confirmed by checking collision between the weapon and all solid geometry and characters.

If it still isn't working out well; here are some ways to experiment with. Collision based weapons: Limb position distance check; use the distance between the weapon itself and/or limb being glued to, the range of the weapon and all possible targets.

Hit box queue; queue up a hidden object used for collision check instead of the weapon which is glued. Put it in place, assign it its user so the weapon can't attack its user; add damage to things colliding with the hitbox then remove the object from the queue and sparky's collision.

I prefer to use both methods because they have advantages for certain weapons. Overall, the distance check is way faster than any other possible alternative; the hitbox is effective for DOT weapons and special shaped AoE detection. This hitbox could also store particle effects and collision sounds, and can move as a projectile and have a lifespan; obviously nice for advanced weapons. There's no reason why hitboxes could implement distance check mode for simple weapons and projectiles.

Still; I would have thought your original idea would have worked; did you try the other glue modes? To be honest, I had some issues with glue object with my character hair; its a nice function but I don't fully trust it.. yet... will definitely experiment with it some more.

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TheComet
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Posted: 28th Mar 2013 00:06 Edited at: 28th Mar 2013 00:07
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Hi Ashingda,

I've been following this but haven't said anything yet. Just wanted to say you're making great progress! This project reminds me of the days I tried making RPGs in DBC, where SoulHunter was my source of inspiration. Good times, you managed to give me some nostalgia just by making me look at this.

It's times like these where I wish someone had written a navigation mesh plugin. I could probably get my hands dirty and port one of the C++ libs to a DLL for DarkBASIC, but I don't have the time for it.

TheComet

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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 28th Mar 2013 06:17 Edited at: 28th Mar 2013 06:19
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@Chris Tate
Yes that is correct about detecting weapon collision The distance check you mention might also come in handy with some spells if I even get to that hehe.

I ended up leaving the glued weapon as it is, only thing changed was positioning the weapon collision box. Position at same as glued weapon, pointed towards the extra bone that was added at the tip of the weapon bone and moved forward to adjust to the blade. It's still a fairly simple method, I am a practitioner of the KISS principle!


@TheComet
That's good to hear and thanks. At around that time you mentioned I was still focusing strictly on 2D programming and didn't play much attention to SoulHunter, I should probably revisit it and might learn a thing or two.



Updates:
Attack collision
At long last it works, still at the alpha stage, after a few tweaking should be good to go. Going to need a few more animation of getting hurt.


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Nabz_32x
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Posted: 30th Mar 2013 17:53
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Hurt animation looks really nice, I would say three more animation sets made by varying this animation a bit should be sufficient for a nice gameplay feeling.

Are you planning to include conversations with npcs using text boxes / speech bubbles, having multiple answer options?
I did something similar using bitmap fonts and text boxes. If you want to try out the code just e-mail me, you would only need to pause your characters movement while talking and adjust the text controls.

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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 30th Mar 2013 23:40
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Yes, I agree 2-3 more hurt will work great but I'll put it on hold for now.

There will be no conversations and no chat.

Update:
Changed Attack Animation
Character will be stationary when attacking now, makes for much simpler collision checks and easier to animate.

Hurt Animation Tweaked
Character getting hurt will point towards the attack then step backwards reducing the amount of animations needed. Have plans for a stationary and falling Hurt Animation.



The upcoming week will be very busy with work, I will not have any free time for a while.

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Zotoaster
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Posted: 31st Mar 2013 07:43
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This looks really nice. It's got a nice fantasy/magical style to it, and that combined with a good fighting system has a lot of potential. I'm also going to keep an eye on this project.

I haven't read all the thread yet, and obviously this is still early stages of WIP, but I think if you invest in some shading for the scene if would draw even more eyes than it already does. This is a beautiful game as it is, I believe that's it's strong point, so I would like to see a lot of work put into that. Of course, there's no rush. The progress is really good so far.

"everyone forgets a semi-colon sometimes." - Phaelax
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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 1st Apr 2013 04:17 Edited at: 1st Apr 2013 04:19
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@Zotoaster
Thanks, I spent countless hours trying to learning how to 3D model still have a long ways to go but glad others like it . I do plan on using shaders at some point, truth is I just find it a bit harder to learn and understand.

Update:
Rolling!
Last bit of updates before my week of torture. This and the falling animation was surprisingly easy! Any animation that does not require stationary footing are a piece of cake.
- Roll in any direction.
- Roll speed is x2 the run speed.
- Full collision while rolling so you can still get hit!
- Eventually rolling will consume a stamina bar so you cannot roll forever.



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TheComet
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Posted: 1st Apr 2013 05:00
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Very nice!

TheComet


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Nabz_32x
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Posted: 1st Apr 2013 16:09
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I think with full collision while rolling, a stamina bar for rolling is not neccessary,
if you are surrounded by enemys you will need good skills,
rolling in the right directions, I think a very short cool down time after rolling would be enough, so that you can not roll forever.

Just my two cents.

Rolling animation looks really good, any puzzles planned, or will it be just action fighting?

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Chris Tate
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Posted: 1st Apr 2013 17:55
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Any plans for new characters? Will you modify the existing one; or create new meshes for male characters? Or is she the only protagonist?

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