What are you making?

[sNeaksieGarrett]

@Icemann: I wasn't referring to the space invaders... I 'finished' that a while ago. My last post was referencing my final project, Shinobi.

Regarding space invaders, I was able to get it to where they would move down closer and closer until they hit the player and then it'd kill you. I also got random ships to shoot at me, but I didn't make only the bottom most row do that, it came out from all of them at random.

[icemann]

Ah ok wouldn't mind seeing that either .

On Space Invaders here's how I did the bottom enemy shooting. Put it within spoilers in case you'd rather work it out yourself:

You just do a for loop going column by column starting with the bottom most invaders (whether their alive or dead) and have it subtract the amount of columns which gets you the invader directly above it (so if we were on enemy 51 lets say, and columns were 11 the next above would be enemy 40). If its alive, add that to a list of alive invaders and move on to the next column. Once you've looped through all of the invader columns pick one from that list randomly to shoot. And hey presto.

There's probably an easier way, but it works 100% of the time with only a few lines of code.

[Eldron]

http://www.eldpack.com/files/eldgame_skills.png

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_uGNpIxddA

[Renzatic]

Eldron...holy crap. That's all I can say. Your game looks awesome.

[zombe]

Nice to finally see it in motion

(you seem to need some sound effects)

[sNeaksieGarrett]

Cool!

[demagogue]

That kicks ass!

[Eldron]

Thanks guys! It's nice to hear people thinking it looks good, now I just need to put all the gameplay in place

I have this building-system planned where you'll craft an architects tool, which you'll use to place building-markers, meaning, you can go to that marker and build the tile yourself by banging on it with a builders tool, or you'll have minions or hired people who will start building what you just planned out with the architects tool.

It, much like the crafting-recipe library will also work by gathering blueprints for different blocks, so you can't build every kind of unique tile from start.

I do have another element in place, where you can make your own recipes and blueprints by finding that item or block you couldn't craft in the first place, and simply inspect and write it down in the form of a blueprint or recipe.

[Renzatic]

One thing I realized is that I've ignored the usual checkpoints usually crossed by people learning to model. See, I have yet to even attempt a car or a gun. I mean most everyone tries a gun at some point, but not me. Oh no. I gotta do lamps, skulls and other crap.

I've decided to remedy that. Over the last week, I've been trying to model a Sauber Mercedes C9. For references, this is what one should look like...



And my current work in progress, rendered in a nice, AO pass (cuz I'm not very good at setting up lighting yet)...



Yeah, I've screwed up a bit. I mean hell, how are the pitstop guys supposed to get the front wheels out with that piece of paneling in the way. But still, it isn't too bad for a first attempt.

[demagogue]

That was really kick ass when I was thinking that top picture was going to be your modeling lol, before I finished reading the post. But what you've done is cool. The tires look great. I've only ever made a lute and similar medieval knickknacks myself as well.

[Renzatic]

Geez, Dema. Way to wound me. "First, I was all like HOLY FUCKING SHIT, then I was all like :slow clap: good for you". :P

But seriously, it's coming along alright. The front end isn't nearly as correct as it should be, but it's close enough for government work. I'm thinking of leaving it as is for now, and getting down to the spoiler. Which is rad.

edit: A little more finished.

[icemann]

Progress report complete with screenshot:



Basic first level layout & tile textures done, basic player movement currently in progress. Player can move about + jump with the sprites/animations in. Just needs crouching/crouch movement + shooting and some slight fixes to some of the movement sprites and then basic player movement will be done.

Then it will be onto moving obstacles.

[DynamicRanger]

It's a very modest project compared to the stuff other people are working on, but I'm working on a mod for System Shock 2 that deepens the security camera mechanic. Basically, I'm trying to make the difficulty of a level (the number of roaming monsters) increase if a player destroys cameras and decrease if they hack them.

I'm totally inexperienced... this is the first time I've ever tried making a mod or level for any game, so it's been pretty slow-going. I'm looking forward to having a working mod soon, though. I'm definitely looking forward to play-testing and tweaking it. SS2 is my favorite game and I could play it over and over again indefinitely.

[Renzatic]

Stuff

I heartily endorse this. The world needs more NES style tile games.

And I'm not talking about those kitschy indie games that look 8-bit, but are more modern at their core. I mean real and proper Nintendo style games. I'm talking about the atmosphere, the evil difficulty (though admittedly more fair than what we got back then), and the sound that seems to be inherent with all the best games from that era.

[Matthew]

Man, sod hard games. If I wanted that I'd have stuck to my damn C64.

[Renzatic]

Bahhh! Wimp!

Gimme Contra, or give me death! No. Not literal death. It's just a turn of phrase. But, you know...I want difficult oldschool action games.

[Renzatic]

And the updates continue. It's starting to look like an actual car now. Still haven't gotten to the spoiler, though.



This whole experience has taught me one thing: always go into a these damn things with a plan. That front end is mostly me goofing around to see how cool and complicated I could make it while still keeping it looking similar. The end result is that I've messed up my mesh so much, any additions I make end up taking me 5 times as long to do, and end up not being very neat and tidy. Adding in those grills, doing the light cavities, and combining them with the main mesh ended up taking me as long as the entire back end of the vehicle.

I've spent the last two days working on those, cutting, looping, welding, and reshaping everything to get it as close to what I originally had as possible. I should've been able to finish them quick and start on my spoiler.

But oh well. I'm larnin.

edit: and if you all want to see what I'm basing this off of...here. I want to add in all the details you see here, sans engine, of course.

[Sulphur]

Renzo, you following the dimensions for it? I think you may need to elevate the driver/windshield area a teensy bit. The additions to the front are cool and all, but now it looks a bit... knobbly. Which isn't the right word, but it's lost the sleekly aerodynamic look of a race car now, IMO.

[Renzatic]

Uh...sorta. I'm not trying to replicate it inch by inch, but I found a nice set of schematics that's helped me keep it roughly to scale. At least until I got to the hood. It was too hard to follow all those curves, bumps, and planes from a 2D perspective, so I started winging it from there.

Which is one of the reasons why I'm having so much trouble now. I spent so much time knocking out the shape based on guesses, eyeballing pictures, then changing it when I figured out I did something wrong, that it's hard to add in more detail now. And it still ain't totally right.

The sleekness isn't a problem. I've managed to keep the overall shape going pretty well. The knobby bits are the headlight cavities, when you've got the glass covers in, it maintains the curvature.

Check it out here.

Yeah, some of it does need changing. Right now, though, I'm saying screw it, working my way back to the spoiler, then do some more with that skeleton I left hanging about 6 months ago. I can go back and redo the hood later. It's good enough for the time being.

Yeah, I'm a lazy procrastinator. :P

[icemann]

I heartily endorse this. The world needs more NES style tile games.

And I'm not talking about those kitschy indie games that look 8-bit, but are more modern at their core. I mean real and proper Nintendo style games. I'm talking about the atmosphere, the evil difficulty (though admittedly more fair than what we got back then), and the sound that seems to be inherent with all the best games from that era.

Damn straight. Though remember that I'm going for making this particular game easier than its original version (which is known as one of the hardest games of all time, and ridiculously so at times). Plus I might add in some additional areas/levels/sections. I've watched some videos of what the game becomes like in the later levels and its just insane.

Been a fun experience making this as I complete each bit. Man converting over the 8 bit textures/sprites takes ages though. I've spent more time in photoshop than on actual programming.

[Renzatic]

No. Dragons Lair NES wasn't difficult. It was flat out broken. Which was a shame, because it looked like such a cool game.

Hence one of the reasons why I'm rooting for your remake here.

Been a fun experience making this as I complete each bit. Man converting over the 8 bit textures/sprites takes ages though. I've spent more time in photoshop than on actual programming.

Actually, ripping 8-bit sprites and tiles isn't too difficult as long as you're not using any sort of filtering in your emulator, and save all your screenshots at native NES resolution. Basically all you do is use the magic wand, marquee, and the pencil tool, and you should be grabbing about 5 a minute.

Sprites were a little more difficult, but I remember using some program back in the day that'd save 15 pictures a second, and made grabbing frames easy as cake. If I can remember the name of it, I'll send you a link, cuz it was pretty damn handy.

[icemann]

That would be very handy

[Renzatic]

Unfortunately, I can't remember the name of that old program I used. It was some freeware fan project type thing I used back in '99 or so, so I doubt I'll be able to dig it up again easily.

On the plus side, I did find this: [url=http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Graphic/Graphic-Capture/Bulents-Screen-Recorder.shtml]Bulents Screen Recorder]. It looks like it might do what you need.

Alternately, you could try to find an NES emulator that lets you save screenshots frame by frame. I'm sure there are probably a couple out there with the feature specifically for sprite ripping purposes.

[Renzatic]

So there's this guy, Nosslak, over at the TDM forums that's a pretty damn good modeler. This one model he did, a lamp post, struck me as pretty cool, so I figured I'd try copying it and see how it turned out.

This is his original. Pretty damn slick looking.

And my attempt at it.

I went with different lamps, cuz I didn't want to copy him 100% on everything. Not half bad for just 3 hours worth of work.

[demagogue]

I'm making a module for the open Axis & Allies engine (Triple-A) to cover the "Cold War in Asia", cir. 1947-1954. Rules are essentially Axis & Allies. There's a historical version -- Chinese Revolution, Korean War, & First Indochina war through SVA creation, forced French pullout, & probable US entry into Vietnam (otherwise the SVA will definitely lose) -- but more interesting (for me) is the Japanese civil war variation, which has those three and adds Japan, where Japan doesn't surrender WWII until a full US-Soviet invasion & partition of the country into North & South, then a civil war.

I made the map so China is morphed to be relatively smaller, making Korea, Japan, & Vietnam both bigger & closer without using annoying insets. Here's what my planning map looks like (game map with photoshopped plans), with the countries color coded & my first-draft placement of forces (8 "players" (France & SVA should be the same player), so like 4 players with 2 each, or 2 players w/4).



Anybody every played A&A? Anybody have an ideas or thoughts to add?