Game Development Community

More Illumina Progress - Feedback wanted

by Ian Roach · 11/12/2006 (3:39 am) · 7 comments

Well i spent some more time this weekend updating illumina.

- Integrated Jetpacks and tied it to player stamina. Players will now fall once there stamina has been used up
- Added animations to existing jeeps, vehicles now have door open/door closed animations whenever you mount/dismount
- Imported some older maps, redone with the new winterland assets.
- Added third person camera (Fluid Camera)

You can see a movie of it all in action

www.singlecellgames.com/progress.avi <-- xvid version

www.singlecellgames.com/thirdperson.avi <-- divx version

Im looking for some feedback on how i can improve the thirdperson camera, some ideas i have in mind is to have multiple camera locations which you switch to as you change positions, for example going low to the ground when the player crouches e.t.c

My next step is to integrate the flying vehicles, i will probably use the heliresource as a guideline to get my flyers controlling well.

More progress next week :)

#1
11/12/2006 (5:16 am)
would love to give feedback but can't get the formats to work, thought of just using mpeg or standard avi?
#2
11/12/2006 (7:39 am)
www.singlecellgames.com/antigrav.avi <- MPEG

Try this J Sears.
#3
11/12/2006 (4:05 pm)
The only thing that seemed really odd to me is that the reticule stayed up when in third person, even when the camera wasn't directly behind the player. Maybe the reticule should disappear in this mode? Can't remember how other games deal with this.
#4
11/12/2006 (5:32 pm)
One thing you could do so as to alleviate the issue of the player himself blocking the view is to have an over-the shoulder camera similar to Resident Evil 4, or more recently Gears of War.
This would bring the camera in closer to the action, while keeping the distinction of being a third person camera(and you could add in snazzy effects for specific things like in GoW, how you get a shakey cam when you sprint for example)
The primary issue i've experienced with 3rd person cams is the player blocks the view, often right about where you're aiming, and over the shoulder would for the most part fix it.

As for the reticule, maybe have it invisible when you're hip shooting, and when you aim(iron sight) it has the reticule(and the over-the-shoulder cam could zoom in slightly like how the IS has a slight zoom)

Few ideas.
#5
11/12/2006 (5:45 pm)
Whats with the insane bunny hopping?
#6
11/13/2006 (12:24 am)
What bunny hopping ? Its probably just me jetting at the last minute to protect my fall.

Thanks for the tips regarding the camera, Im not sure if i want to lock the camera behind the player or let it "lag" alittle as it does right now. I am planning on tightening to over the shoulder when using iron sights. The no crosshair unless iron sighting is an interesting idea i might explore.
#7
11/14/2006 (8:34 pm)
that new link worked. Bunny hopping is a term used for constant crouch jumping, it hit it's peak during HL everyone used it in deathmatch play and if you did it right you were near impossible to hit. A lot of games put effort in to prevent bunny hopping in game, CS for example finally made it so you slow down for a second when you land from a jump.

game seems to be coming along nicely, might want to limit how long someone can jetpack for though, unless you intention is to keep people in the air most of the battle. That was one thing I didn't like about starsiege tribes to be honest was the constant war of jump jetting up and shooting discs down back and forth. But that game had a big following so obviously a lot of people enjoy that