Long time no post (Warning, lotsa images)

My word, has it been 4 months since I posted? Wow. Thats kind of depressing.


Well, I might have been silent, but not absent. Work progresses. I'll talk about it a bit, forgive me if I've said some of this before, I don't feel like reading through all my other posts to see. ;)

First off, although its not really my work, I added Faust Logics Spell system to my project. A fantastic system, it really brings magic spells to life, and can be used for anything recquiring synchronization of effects and animations etc.

Twister spell :


Fire centipede spell :


Firing off a fireball at an orc :




I plan to use it for a melee system, with different moves and fx, later. For now I have a slightly clunkier version of melee going, based on the stuff in Dreamers tutorials. Clunky, but its still working fine.

I have added in the Equipment resource as a somewhat more lightweight replacement to shapeImage. While shapeImage's state machine is nice, I want the actions built into the player, not the weapon. The equipment resource fits the bill, although I had to fiddle with the shadow code to make it work with TLK. Got it working in the end though, not difficult, and learnt a bit about that side of things. :)

This was the problem :




About the funnest thing I have added has been some AI. Based heavily off the concepts I read on the Unearthed Games dev diary, it works like a dream. Basically, I can define AIActions, and then mix and match actions in the various AI state machines. For the moment, all the AI does is chase the player around and attack them, but that adds a bit of life to things. I have this screen (somewhere) of a gang of orcs surrounding my corpse, having just beat me to death with their fists, you wouldn't think I'd have enjoyed that so much. ;) Another amusing thing is watching them smack each other in their efforts to get to me in a crowd. Not really a desirable feature, but its funny watching an axe wielding ogre (orc++) cut through his mates to get to me.

Zounds, orks!


Got my ass handed to me :


Ganging up, the bastards :


Speaking of the AI, I have had to rework my code. Basically, things like the inventory code were based around the players database, so when the AI used it they would manipulate his stuff! Oh dear. I changed it all to go through the objects datablock, then used the namespaces so that AI calls work differently. Ie, more OOP like.

In fact, I've been going back and doing that all over the place, its really useful, makes things a lot cleaner. I've finally got skills, stats and equipment interacting properly this way. So now when you equip a sword, it bases your attack rating on your skill with that weapon and your agility, adds damage based on your strength, etc. I had this mostly working for the player, but now the AI finally has it too.

Prototype skills UI :



Notice the *cough* IGN logo there. Yeah, thats a test image for the background, just something that looks nice.

The DB stuff continues to be incredibly useful. I have a "Gamesettings" table, I'm trying to ensure that all game rules are in there, things like how many skill points you get per level, how much bonus damage X strength gives you, etc, it makes modding and tweaking really easy. Script is also great in this respect, none of this stuff touches engine code.


I've been playing with the art side as well. There is a tut on TDN about modelling a radar, except there doesn't seem to be a corresponding video. So I just made up my own :P. Funny though it looks, I'm actually quite proud of my radar, since I created everything, from the model to the textures. Even though I'm more of a coder, there is just something so satisfying about creating a piece of art and seeing it "live" in your game. Of course, a radar ain't that useful for a fantasy RPG, but hey, lets call it practice for windmill creation. Unfortunately I don't have the screen with me, but will post it up in time.

I also messed around with Quark a bit. I wanted to see if I could come up with something decent. Note, these are just very rough prototypes, with completely shoddy texturing, but it certainly makes my desert wasteland a bit more interesting.

Livin in the Bayooooou! (I want to make some buildings to go with the awesome RTS Environment kit landscape)


Blocky castle :




Even though I'm not as against Quark as others, I'm still slavering for Constructor. Curved surface normal blending, YUM! GG, hear my fervant prayers, release this beauty soon please!


Anyone, besides this castle-shell (took about half an hour), I have kept myself from doing more art. I have code that must take priority, and I will come back to the art side later when constructor comes out.


So what next? Well, I am going to implement a factions system. Later on in the game, I want a matrix of faction relationships, with you being able to affect them through your actions. For now, I'm just going to make it so the AI only attacks if you aren't in their faction. A minor change. Then comes looting monster corpses, I've got that planned out, loot tables etc. After that, the reason I need the factions change is to have friendly NPCs, shopkeepers and dialogue based on the DB. You need shops to sell all the stuff you loot off monsters, after all ;). Then comes quests.