something big

[Cyber Burn]

I think that would look awesome.

[ShawDAMAN]

looking more awesome every day :p

[bearded]

i have finally gotten to a point where pictures alone can't show my progress. so, here is a walkabout:
http://brightideagames.com/freedom_test.zip
if you test it, let me know what you like about it. keys are a, s, d, w, q, e, 2, and space bar. i know there is a jump bug, what i'm learning from doesn't show me the fix for that.
this one doesn't look as polished as the first one, but the difference is i hand coded every part of it.
shawdaman, you have to be sure to check out how your skins look. i haven't gotten to them all yet, and haven't gotten to cyber burn's either.
the day night cycle is crazy, i'll fix that.

also, the right mouse button rolls the camera, and the left interacts with things. right now, only one thing. scavenger hunt to find it!

[spydermann93]

Awesome, bearded!

Can't wait to give this a whirl

[Sioux City Dynamo]

This is awesome!  Please let me know what I can do to help!!

[bearded]

stand by, i'm sure there will be a lot of things i need help with. for example, for the character generator, i have permission from grenadier and tommyboy to use their parts hidden on their meshes. i will need base standard skins for all of them.
right now i just perfected the head turn! now your hero will actually look at the cursor when you move it around: (the white ball is the cursor)

[Cyber Burn]

stand by, i'm sure there will be a lot of things i need help with. for example, for the character generator, i have permission from grenadier and tommyboy to use their parts hidden on their meshes. i will need base standard skins for all of them.

Definitely good news.

[lugaru]

Dang, cant wait to get home now. Doing some overtime in the office.

[bearded]

41 downloads. tell me something. anything.
what do you think about the aquatic guy effects? and fire?
don't worry about movement, final version will be more of a strategy type camera and controls. like ff. this was simply a walkaround so you can see the trees and water and special effects.

[GogglesPizanno]

I only had a few minutes due to all manner of RL problems taking all of my time recently, so these comments are based on just that limited amount of time.

As a tech demo of things you can get into the game and working FX etc.. it's a really good start. The water guy looks from a distance like a mesh that was tweaking out, once I got close and saw the effect it was more impressive. Part of that confusion came from the distortions that were going on with the main character's cape. The physics and behavior of that were distracting and making it sometimes hard to see what was going on in the scene. I think it's good that you have started working out ways to get all custom content into the game -- making it all original is long term the best way to go, but I think my original issues with getting the movement and controls tightened up really apply more now. While everything in the scene is there and interacting, it all feels a bit "floaty" and non physical.

[bearded]

the cape, yeah...i need to work on that. thanks for reminding me.
i think i can set up a webplayer so ppl could try it without having to download it. is that something that would be beneficial?

[Cyber Burn]

Downloadedit, but haven't had a chance to play yet. 2 more weeks of classes to go, then I should have more free time. 

[lugaru]

I'll get back to you tonight, the overtime is biting into my chance to do fun stuff.

[bearded]

sorry guys, guess i'm over eager!

i've got an idea for a simple project to make a complete game (not ff, yet), anyone interested in helping? i have the code and mechanics. i need:
1. 3d models. not animations, simple shapes, could be done with blender or any 3d generator. even nifskope, someone to help me extract the parts from tommyboy's versatile.
2. skinner. for the parts. and maybe some walls.
3. story editor. i've got the basic simple story. someone to check it for lameness, and write some dialogue and original characters.
4. music. simple elevator type music i think. o tiobe sb?

pm me for details.

[Figure Fan]

I just finished trying it out. This is really cool. Some thoughts:

- The day and night cycles are a cool addition, even if they are too fast (like you mentioned).
- When I jump, I seem to land and automatically jump a second time. Is this supposed to be some kind of bounce effect?
- The lighting effects emanating from the fire characters are really nice.
- The water character is pretty cool, but he gets kind of glitchy (as do other characters), causing his head and arms to move around rapidly.
- I noticed that none of the characters or objects are casting shadows, which does kind of make the objects seem "floaty".
- Characters walk directly through hills and other terrain features. I'm assuming you're aware of this already, though.

Either way, this is really exciting. I'm looking forward to seeing more :-)

[bearded]

I just finished trying it out. This is really cool. Some thoughts:

- The day and night cycles are a cool addition, even if they are too fast (like you mentioned).

i'm not sure how long to make the day cycle. real time?

- When I jump, I seem to land and automatically jump a second time. Is this supposed to be some kind of bounce effect?

bounce effect! you win the no prize! bug i can't find yet. when you press the button, the jump message is sent twice for some reason.

- The lighting effects emanating from the fire characters are really nice.

simple engine feature. i'm going to put an activate toggle in it, so they flame on when 'awake'.

- The water character is pretty cool, but he gets kind of glitchy (as do other characters), causing his head and arms to move around rapidly.

i think the glitchy comes from a faulty pathfinding ai. i'll work on it.

- I noticed that none of the characters or objects are casting shadows, which does kind of make the objects seem "floaty".

shadows require the pro license! i want them also...

- Characters walk directly through hills and other terrain features. I'm assuming you're aware of this already, though.

no...they aren't supposed to do that. you should be able to climb trees, and climb the statue. do the bipeds collide properly?

Either way, this is really exciting. I'm looking forward to seeing more :-)

[lugaru]

i'm not sure how long to make the day cycle. real time?

As somebody who did a lot of modding for Fallout 3 and New Vegas I find that for an open world 1 hour = 1 day is great. That way if a mission takes a half hour in game, you might start being all stealthy and have achieved victory by dawn.

Honestly though I would not worry too much about a day/night cycle unless it is open world and ongoing... Still always a nice touch.

[BentonGrey]

Sorry Bearded, I've continued to be crazy busy, and I missed you putting out another test package.  This is all looking incredibly neat and very promising.  I'm particularly excited about the possibilities inherent in built in aquatic and aerial combat.  Hopefully I'll have time to check this test run out this weekend.  I'll try to provide some detailed feedback soonish.  It seems to me that a day/night cycle should be much reduced from reality for it to be noticable.  Perhaps an hour in length?  Two?

As for editor/writer, well, you've got a PM coming your way.

[Figure Fan]

i'm not sure how long to make the day cycle. real time?

As somebody who did a lot of modding for Fallout 3 and New Vegas I find that for an open world 1 hour = 1 day is great. That way if a mission takes a half hour in game, you might start being all stealthy and have achieved victory by dawn.

Honestly though I would not worry too much about a day/night cycle unless it is open world and ongoing... Still always a nice touch.

Yeah, and hour might be good, or even 30 minutes would probably be fine as well. If possible, maybe you could allow the player to set the time of day the mission begins. Obviously I'm not sure how feasible that is.

As for the bipeds colliding..it seems to work fine for the trees, statue, and characters. It's just the hills and terrain that I phase directly through.

How much does it cost for the pro license, and are you going to set up the donation page?

[bearded]

pro license is 1500.
donation page:
http://brightideagames.com/
hills and terrain...i'll look into it. it's odd, if you went thru the terrain, i would think you would fall, as if you went over the edge.

[Cyber Burn]

i think i can set up a webplayer so ppl could try it without having to download it. is that something that would be beneficial?

That would definitely be awesome.

[lugaru]

It is funny that people have used terms like floaty and dreamy, I feel like I'm inside somebodies art school movie project. I know it is just a tech demo but in trying out random things you have created a weird little dream scape.

Right off the bat I'll say the following:

Special effects are great. Did you create the particles or did they come in it? I'm refering to fire, smoke and snow.

Day/Night cycle works great. On a much slower pace it will add a ton of atmosphere and make a "career mode" a really cool thing.
(My fantasy of a career mode is like the FFX patrol missions... go around town, fight random crooks, recruit team mates).

I love the WASD movement. I don't know if anyone else played "dragon age" but the problem with strategy games is that getting from point a to point b can be a pain... WASD and then zoom out for strategic mode would be awesome.

Water man is creepy but I think on a optimized mesh/skin that would look cool.

Cape is really ambitious, most games don't do that stuff. If you can pull it off, more power to you.

[bearded]

It is funny that people have used terms like floaty and dreamy, I feel like I'm inside somebodies art school movie project. I know it is just a tech demo but in trying out random things you have created a weird little dream scape.

Right off the bat I'll say the following:

Special effects are great. Did you create the particles or did they come in it? I'm refering to fire, smoke and snow.

Day/Night cycle works great. On a much slower pace it will add a ton of atmosphere and make a "career mode" a really cool thing.
(My fantasy of a career mode is like the FFX patrol missions... go around town, fight random crooks, recruit team mates).

I love the WASD movement. I don't know if anyone else played "dragon age" but the problem with strategy games is that getting from point a to point b can be a pain... WASD and then zoom out for strategic mode would be awesome.

Water man is creepy but I think on a optimized mesh/skin that would look cool.

Cape is really ambitious, most games don't do that stuff. If you can pull it off, more power to you.

most of the fx like fire and snow are part of the engine, it's simply a matter of placing and tweaking the numbers. the ground stomping by earth thug was a bit of coding and sphere placement. but now it's done, each terrain piece can have different sound effects. dirt, grass, stone, water, etc. just a duplication of the ff engine, that. i'm not sure how they did it, but my code actually registers when each foot hits the ground. feet multitapping the ground for some animations is really neat.
the day night cycle was meticulously coded by hand. blending the sky boxes was from a tutorial, and the sun is actually a directional light with a lens flare. i need a better skybox, and the night sky, i plan on having a moon. the problem is half moon, crescent, and the like.
career mode, yes, i plan on having something very like that. i don't want to get too ambitious, but i'm thinking of terrain that can be permenantly affected by the player.
i have am on the same thoughts on movement. i want the rts mouse click movement for groups or individual controllables, but with the option of being able to take fps control of a character. this is a lot easier to do than it sounds. there are 2 code sets, camera control, and character control. switching back and forth would simply be a toggle. click on a character and press "t" or something, and you take that character. no effect if no character selected.
what does aqua thug need? less jelly in his roll? or splash fx?

[Epimethee]

Things are really progressing, Bearded. Wish I had time to play with this more. With that said, the web player would be extra nice for those of us on Macs – no need to launch a virtual copy of Windows beforehand. Be extra careful of copyrighted asset if you go this way, though.

As for the shadows, maybe blob shadows could work short term? Of course if you need to code them in manually, they'd have to be disabled when not on even terrain.

[Figure Fan]

I actually wanted to point out how awesome the gradual blend from day to night looks. It's even better now that I know you did the work manually.

[bearded]

goggles should like where this is going.
both of these downloads are the same thing, just different ways to access them.
the first one is a regular zip file:
http://brightideagames.com/rts.zip
and the second is an html document. i know i'm not doing it right yet, i'll make it a real webplayer asap. meanwhile, if it works right, you should be able to download this and launch it from your pc, regardless of system, using whatever you use for html; firefox or ie.
http://brightideagames.com/webtest.zip
the basic mechanics are there, no animations yet, but they twitch a lot instead, so that's ok i suppose. i'll fix the animations next thing.
use your mouse to drag a box around them, or left click on them individually. do not right click, it makes them do strange things sometimes. unless that's what you want to see?
the camera moves with wasd, and the mouse wheel can scroll in and out.
to make it smaller and more coherent, i left out everything but the 2, and some neat windzone grass.
anyone that wants to test it out, let me know if it works please.

[lugaru]

Very cool, basically the bones of an RTS are there.

[bearded]

i reverse engineered an rts engine and converted the code for the camera control and unit selection/movement. i'm going to have to recode the collision a bit, sometimes they bounce and roll when they shouldn't, and i'll have to figure out how to animate each unit individually. i think if i do a static "walk" or "run" and make sure each mesh has that animation named properly i can do a 'send message "walk" to each one at the same time the transform location is sent. i like the way they rotate, but maybe a little faster? the twitching comes from having a character collider and a box collider at the same time. i'm going to recode the selection to use the character collider and get rid of the box collider, that should work. switching to fps nearly works out of the box, already if i activate the fps script at the same time, when you move the camera left, the character animates and moves left. i just need to set a toggle.
how large should i make controllable teams?

[Cyber Burn]

I actually got about 2-3 minutes to play this last night. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember all the buttons used and didn't have a chance to go back and find out.

The cape tweaks out a bit on different animations, and there is a double jump, I believe both have already been addressed.

That said, I loved the Elemental thugs. Shaw, the skins look good in game, Bearded, I really enjoyed the fluidity of the water based thug. I can't wait to see what's next.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

As for team size, I would say no more than 5 normally.  It becomes impossible to really control anything much beyond that.  There's a reason the FF games used 4.

EDIT
If you do still want to do a close approximation of FF itself, I would like to propose the following alterations to the FF power system.

FF had a set up where you picked the damage type, then chance to stun and could tweak other magnitude levels and power costs and such.  This is so limiting that FFX found a way around it.

So instead you first choose the damage category. (physical, energy, mental, and so forth)  Ideally the list of types should come from a scripting function so modders and change them however they like.  The actual category has no effect by itself other than to determine resistances and such.

After that, you would pick a primary and secondary effect and their respective magnitutes.  So, for example, you can make Mental the category, Damage the primary effect, and Hold the secondary effect, making it a mental attack that causes damage and also has a change of holding the enemy, both depending on its resistance to mental damage.

Note that this system can still exactly duplicate any power made in FF.  A Fire primary Damage secondary Stun would be exactly the same as a regular FF Fire attack, for example; it just adds a ton of new possibilities in a easy to use package.