Plan for Jeff Faust

Arcane-FX: a special effects system for the Torque Game Engine (Update)

First, to all of you have been waiting to hear more about Arcane-FX, I apologize for dropping off the radar for a while. I had another work-for-hire project that needed my full attention for a couple of months, and that pushed AFX to the back seat in my priorities. That project is Gold now, so I'm back on Arcane-FX fulltime for a stretch... and things are quickly moving forward.



Progress Report

Actually, the AFX project wasn't totally stalled. While I was otherwise occupied, Matthew Durante continued work on some great new magic spells and I've linked to some screenshots of these in this plan. His new spells feature such wonders as: a raging leaf tornado projectile, gushing streams of blood, a giant caterpillar crawling up the orc mage, an exploding cocoon, swarming moths, and a gigantic hammer.

I've been making targeted improvements to the system, consolidating code changes, and fixing errors and strange behaviors. We recently made a small but powerful change to how procedural effect animation works and this has opened up many new possibilities. One of which is the ability for effects to conform to the ground shape. For example, the ring-of-fire effect seen in earlier postings will now take on the shape of uneven terrain.

Also, having been away from the code for a bit, I've been able to take a fresh look at the whole system which has been most helpful for getting the documentation started. I'm also reframing the system more broadly as a special effects system, instead of merely a spellcasting system. Magic spells will remain its strong suit at first, but a fairly small portion of the code is specific to magic casting, so it will soon begin evolving into other effects areas.



Moving Forward

In the short term, I need to evaluate the ramifications of Torque 1.4 and get AFX upgraded to that version as soon as it's available. Then it's a matter of getting ready to take on some outside testers. This is something I'll want to ramp up gradually, starting out with just one or two testers. If everything goes well, I may be ready for the first testers in a matter of weeks and once some of the logistics are in place, the number of testers can probably grow.

Finally, just today, I've started the launch of a new Arcane-FX website. It'll be at least a week before there's anything to see, so I won't post a URL yet, but this will be a nice central location to keep up-to-date with the progress. It will also have a much bigger bandwidth capacity so I'll no longer burn up my quota every time I post a new movie.

When can I get it? How much will it cost?

I get these questions a lot. My hope is to have AFX published as a Dev Tool in the GarageGame's Torque Store. I've had some discussions with the folks at GarageGames and the outlook for this is quite positive, but they've been very busy with their current projects, and as yet, we have not completed a productization plan. I don't want to make false promises, so these questions will have to remain unanswered for a little while longer.

Once AFX is available, I'd like to also offer a series of special effects packs. Initially these would take the form of magic spell collections, but would eventually move into other special effects areas.

Well, that's all for this plan... I'll post an update when the new website is ready for visitors.



View all screenshots and movies here.