Vector Locust - TIGsource "cockpit compo" entry

jph_wacheski · Post by **jph_wacheski** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 9:15 pm

Here is what I have so far for my TIGsource Cockpit Compo entry,.

there are currently no sounds,. I just added a basic menu to allow controler setup and settings saving,. and I would like to know if it is working for other ppl / contolers. just the basic game is working so far,. but it is a nice looking retro vector style affair,. well i am happy with the look and play so far,. anyway. I will likely add some sounds next,. later tonight or tomorrow,. and post it to the thread over at TIG,. [ http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=4976.0 ] then if I have time will expand on the game play,. currently there is no way to destroy the attacking drop ship,. but that should change. I also plan to get some building of structures by the player, perhaps that is how the drop ship will be shot at,. ? very much a game in flux in my mind currently,. . but I do have loads of good ideas for it,. just limited by the same issues of 3d maths, time/energy and the nagging beer shortage,.

kattle87 · Post by **kattle87** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 10:20 am

working good here! Nice one JPH!
When will the compo end?

Post by **Kjell** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 2:28 pm

Hey jph,

Neat game

It's a bit tricky to find the right calibration for a joystick though ( the only way to check your settings is to start the game ). Ideally you'd want to be able to assign axes & buttons by detection ( which is pretty much the standard on PC / Mac ). But alternatively you could just show the raw input on screen as a reference ( which is probably a little easier ) .. or you could do both

K

jph_wacheski · Post by **jph_wacheski** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 2:50 pm

Start Date: Sunday, February 22nd
End Date: Sunday, March 29th (Around Midnight)

from here; http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=4823.0

still lots of time to quckly dev something sorta simple,. . or you can help on this if you are interested,. I gota work out a radar (but i think i know how to get that working) and I am interested in doing some interesting AI for this..,

Also, I was looking for an idea of how to get a vector style font working, but I think that should be done at the source level, to get the text from a string into the vetors,. I came across an interesting site about a very steamlined interface library (c++). Some of the great ideas here could be usefull for ZGE development; http://mat.ucsb.edu/glv/
both the vetor text and the access to HSV color (from script) would be very usefull,. but just iceing of course

and if anyone is ever interested in building an application in c++ that does seem to be a very nice library.

<back on topic> jup Kjell, quite right! That is what the lower part of the menu screen is for,. I just don't want to wast a bunch of time doing little nice things when the larger game is nowhere near done and there is a looming deadline,. this is the quick and dirty setup,. I can always add polish when the compo is over,.

Post by **Kjell** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 3:28 pm

Hej jph,

Makes sense .. game first, front-end later

Why would you want to use HSV? In any case, you can easily write a ZLibrary function that converts HSV to RGB ( and then use that value in any components ).

And, even though it's a bit of a hassle .. if you really want vector fonts / text, you can always do-it-yourself of course. Here's a quick example ( I've only "filled in" the A and B letters since that's the most time consuming ).

+Most of the functions from that GUI toolkit I actually created in ZGE for that Tracker project's interface ( which failed since frame based sound synchronization isn't precise enough ).

K

jph_wacheski · Post by **jph_wacheski** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 4:11 pm

I find HVS to be usefull in many ways for many color setups/effects,. as the Hue loopes on itself and the Saturation and Brightness (value) are logicly accessable,. basicly for the same reason most people use that system, it is based on human useable values more than machine based stuff,. .i.e. fading the saturation from a perticular Hue is much simpler than calculating the values in RGB.

As for the font,. yeah, I thought of rendering it like that as well,. it was the geting from text to mesh with no stings,. but I could convert externaly to numbers,. I will have a look and see if I can figure how you have implemented it with the arrays, as that may make it a bit easier to work with. However, perhaps setting this up as a RenderFont type component, or an addition to the current one would be usefull to more people than just me,. . (true of 3d model based text as well!) nothing crucial, just that text is usefull for comunicating stuff,. but of course not entierly necessary. :p

hay kjell, did you get Killzone 2 ? I played the demo,. and it is as eye suspected; the rendering is crazy perdy, however I am just too tired of human killing sims to actually play through such a game,. . Why can't we have more abstract geometric building strategy eco-system balancing type games ? Guess I will have to build them,. lol.

Post by **Kjell** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 4:22 pm

Hey jph,

Haven't bought it yet no ( playing Railfan instead ) .. and I still fail to see the difference between a ( abstract ) Tank shooter like yours and something like KZ2

K

kattle87 · Post by **kattle87** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 4:28 pm

I will have an oral examination (dunno if it's correct to say something like this in english... What matters is that I'll be facing my teacher speaking about maths

) on Monday the 9th. After that, I will be really happy to help you!

Also for the "abstract geometric building strategy eco-system balancing type" game

jph_wacheski · Post by **jph_wacheski** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 9:27 pm

cool kattle, I could use the help for sure,. .
Kj - well the demo is avalible for free. . I suppose it is mostly an issue of tast,. although I will continue to argue the mental damages done by human hunting sims is indeed damaging,. .

what I posted over at TIG;

ok a functioning playable DEMO! Shocked

http://iterationgames.com/vectorLocust_028.zip

a 39kb win. .exe file [ thank you ZGameEditor! ]

extract it with the settings file for the controler setup,. you need a dual analog gamepad! Default is setup for an XBOX 360 controler, with a rudimentary menu at the start where you can try to remap it to what ever you may have,. . I will make that nicer eventually,.

This DEMO is just a shooting game for now,. you glide around and shoot the Orange Guys, they will try to destroy all the Blue Energy Stores,. you can recharge your Sheild by bumping these,. I'll have to make that a bit nicer too,. . currently you don't have a weapon to stop the Drop Ship, however that is being worked on by our scientist,. . soon come.

If you hapen to drive over the Debri you will see an Orange and Red Meter appear in the Cockpit HUD these will be useable materials in future,. the 'main point' of the game isn't really built in here just yet,. but you will be building Structures to defend against this Invsion,. (if I have time to build it all that is., Droop ) I just started adding the sounds this morning,. so it is a bit overwellmingly noisy,. I intend to have them fade in volume by distance, if all that measument don't kill my performance,. perhaps it will just be a very noisey game Tongue

well anywho,. have fun!

for the next iteration; I would like to get a Radar working in that box lower middle,. currently is just shows your vector relative to the view,. you may see some other PodRunners like you on the battle field,. but they are not accessable yet,. hopfully you will be able to jump from one to the next and coordinate a defence,. . giveing them basic turret like AI to defend themselves,. . I have loads of ideas, just have to find the will to finnish it.

Post by **Kjell** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 1:05 am

Wow,

Can't believe people are actually complaining about the absence of keyboard support for a game like this

Because ...

Post by **VilleK** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 1:41 pm

Hi guys,

Just tried the demo. Yes the gamepad setup confused me too at first, I have a ps2-controller and wasn't sure how to configure it. But I got it working after a few tries. I can agree that keyboard support would give it a larger audience, since even though I am a gamer I have never previously owned a gamepad for the pc until a month a ago when I was going to implement it in zge. And it would have been frustrating not to be able to try this game that looks so cool in the youtube-video

The vector enemies, explosions and animations looks great. I also like the cockpit graphics. And your sound design is excellent as usual.

Gameplay-wise it currently feels like a first-person version of Gyro-phyter Neo where you are constantly strafing and rotating around a bunch of enemies and try to take them out. I like that, but it could use some more gameplay mechanic to make it even more interesting. It sounds like you have some more ideas planned in this area.

I think it would look cool if sometimes the clean vector graphics would be disturbed a little, perhaps with something like a fullscreen blur/camera shake effect. As an indication to the player that he is in trouble.

Another very interesting release from you jph! And I like the title too.

jph_wacheski · Post by **jph_wacheski** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 5:20 pm

here you go you winging babies,.

Well it didn't really take all that much effort to do, it's not 'perfect',. (yet!), but I will work some more on it as I build the rest,. and in the end I quite like it!

http://iterationgames.com/vectorLocust_029.zip
!NOW with typing device input support!

Actually took longer to move all the menus around and add a little title screen,. . but that will all change anyway,. I am thinking of implementing a vector font, as that is what should be used here, but it is a bunch of work, and only changes the look of the text,. but there is still a bit of time left or I can do that after,. Now perhaps I can hear some ideas on gameplay stuff and not input devices,.

thanks guys,. any idea how to do a quick and dirty GLfog type effect,. I remember Kj had a shader but I never got that to work,. I would just like the far distance stuff to fade out,. perhaps I can just use alpha and distance?? will a load of these kill my speed;

distance=sqrt(pow(o_player.position.x-currentModel.position.x,2)+pow(o_player.position.y-currentModel.position.x,2));

I was thinking of using those to attenuate the sound effect volumes as well,. any thoughts ideas for those issues ? anyway gota run out,. I'll check back in a bit. peace

kattle87 · Post by **kattle87** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 9:51 pm

You might want to use the "Taxicab metric" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicab_geometry

To keep it simple:
distance = multiplier*(abs(o_player.position.x-currentModel.position.x) + abs(o_player.position.y-currentModel.position.y));

You are getting a "squared" distance instead of a "circular" one but for the audio would be pretty the same. (the multiplier is not really needed, you can use 1 in this case).

For what concerns the fog/fade with distance... I should spend more than 10 minutes on it

jph_wacheski · Post by **jph_wacheski** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 2:28 pm

yes that is an interesing approach,. would be faster and give reasonable results for my needs,. good for my AI needs too,. where I am wanting things to react when at a relative closeness,. 'hearing' distance say.

another thing that I am interested in for AI is sight lines,. so any similarly optomised maths for finding if an object in range is facing (with in 90 degrees say) towards the other object?? raycasting would be usefull for AI stuff,. perhaps OBB rectangles elongated like rays would be usefull,. but they don't register with 3d collisions,. so would need a 3D OBB box ?!?

anyhow I've gota go fix some 'reset' bug reported at TIG that I think is likely a stray USB input,. . just going to try turning off the controler reset when in keyboard mode,. which is now the default setting.

Post by **VilleK** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 8:43 am

Just tried version 30, great stuff! This is what the old arcade game 3d-Battlezone should have been like

Minor issue: It is possible to select negative values for buttons in controller setup. I did that by accident. And then you can't make them positive again, both left and right keep decreasing the value.