Various Tools and Projects (Screenshot Heavy)

I figured it was time for another blog post. Basically I'm creating a first person RPG of sorts using TSE (and possibly something using TorqueX if I'm added to the next beta). I'm still thinking of ideas on how to organize a persistent world. If anyone would like some of the code for this just email me and we'll work something out.

Currently what I have gameplay wise includes:

Wanted System - If you slaughter a NPC then his friends or the local guards will come after you

Basic Melee - I chose the "Dark Messiah" style combat of holding your mouse down and releasing to attack.

Saving/Loading System - This saves your position, health, stats, weapons, the mission you're on, and various other details

Cinematic Mode - A special in game cutscene setup to give a cinematic feel. Along with this you can edit text on the fly so things like subtitles can be done with ease.

RPG Stats - These include level ups, strength, speed, defense, etc.

Fame/Infamy - Have you chosen a life of good or horrible evil? This affects how every NPC in the game reacts to you.

Falling - Say you miss a jump or are pushed off the edge of a building. You are given 1 second to grab onto the ledge and pull yourself back up.


Along with this I've done/ am working on various rendering techniques, both onscreen and off. Some of which include:

Cloud Rendering - This is split up into a few categories. Basically I have the skybox cloud system to act as persistent clouds, but along with this I have a series of planes, each mapped with their own different material thus giving the developer a fair amount of control. In the future I may add a billboarded system with particle effects. Hopefully I'll come up with something similar to Air Ace's clouds.



BSP Terrain - This is by no means what I'll be using for a final terrain system, but I thought it was a neat experiment. What you're seeing here was created in Constructor and contains over 7800 brushes! As you can see it is very tile-y but was a neat experiment nonetheless. Constructor is by far the best BSP tool I've used.



Water Rendering - I've added relief-mapped water to TSE. For those who are not familiar with relief mapping, it uses a linear search for depth. This proved to be surprisingly inexpensive, but ultimately I'll replace this with actual vertex waves further down the road.

Video









Day and Night System - See for yourself!

To aid members of my team that are unfamiliar with Torque Script I am making a series of tools to help ease the process.

NPC Creator: As it currently stands, the NPC editor creates a new PlayerData datablock and allows the user to modify all of the "important" parameters. I may release this in time, but overall it's fairly basic. In the future I will tune it to allow a facial editor similar to The Sims or Oblivion.



Quest Editor: This is a tool I hope to create in time. Basically it gives a few generic quest starting functions, what happens in the quest, and what is required to finish the quest.

Future Ideas: I'd really like to purchase FaceGen without being too much like Oblivion. It seems like an obvious choice, as I don't have the budget to contract artists and have them create hundreds of heads. The below is a free mesh on their site and I would like to state that I have not bought this product yet.




Along with this I am working on a TGB project. It incorporates PGC, or procedurally generated content. In this case NPCs, the world, and quests are all generated randomly using logic puzzles. I'm afraid I can't talk much about it but I am working with Brian Ross. The goal is to basically be able to generate an endless Zelda-like game with the click of a button.

With the PGC content I hope to apply this to FaceGen (when and if I integrate something like it in Torque) Think how great it would be to start a game and have all of the characters looking new. I really think PGC could be the future for some games. It allows virtually endless possibilities.

Once again, if anyone wants to see any of my code, shaders, or just wants to chat feel free to contact me.

Thank you,

Matt Vitelli