Plan for Jay Barnson
by Jay Barnson · 06/09/2005 (6:55 pm) · 7 comments
The day job is killing me right now. So game-dev time has been at a premium. Two-and-a-half weeks into development on a new game, and I don't have much to show for it yet. I've managed to create a very small, tight, from-scratch set of scripts for the game (with help from Ken Finney's book), and bring in the absolutely MAHVALOUS Synapse Lighting Pack.
I re-wrote some code dealing with fxLight's AttachToObject so that attached lights will properly revolve around their objects. This isn't applying to volume lights yet, so their cast angle is still the same as the original. I haven't had a huge need of it yet, so I haven't mucked with it. By adding an additional point-light source near the point where the volume lights intersect the ground, I've been able to simulate headlights on a moving car. It's not as good as having truly dynamic spotlights, but the results have been kinda cool:
Right now I'm doing a little bit of dinking around with the latest release of Blender, and getting a little more advanced with MilkShape and doing actual character models (I got pretty good at modeling cubes and cylinders and spheres, so this seemed like the next logical step... *grin*). Besides this, last night I started working on boning and animating MilkShape models in CharacterFX (because Milkshape's bone / animation capabilities - well, they suck. But at least they are there). I'm hoping to be able to export the animation data back to MilkShape from CharacterFX, and then use the MilkShape to export the whole thing into Torque. Someone suggested in the GarageGames forums that this was possible, but I don't know if anyone is actually doing it.
I also don't know enough about Blender's animation capabilities to know if I should bypass that stuff altogether and just start doing everything in Blender.
Jay Barnson
Rampant Games
I re-wrote some code dealing with fxLight's AttachToObject so that attached lights will properly revolve around their objects. This isn't applying to volume lights yet, so their cast angle is still the same as the original. I haven't had a huge need of it yet, so I haven't mucked with it. By adding an additional point-light source near the point where the volume lights intersect the ground, I've been able to simulate headlights on a moving car. It's not as good as having truly dynamic spotlights, but the results have been kinda cool:
Right now I'm doing a little bit of dinking around with the latest release of Blender, and getting a little more advanced with MilkShape and doing actual character models (I got pretty good at modeling cubes and cylinders and spheres, so this seemed like the next logical step... *grin*). Besides this, last night I started working on boning and animating MilkShape models in CharacterFX (because Milkshape's bone / animation capabilities - well, they suck. But at least they are there). I'm hoping to be able to export the animation data back to MilkShape from CharacterFX, and then use the MilkShape to export the whole thing into Torque. Someone suggested in the GarageGames forums that this was possible, but I don't know if anyone is actually doing it.
I also don't know enough about Blender's animation capabilities to know if I should bypass that stuff altogether and just start doing everything in Blender.
Jay Barnson
Rampant Games
About the author
Jay has been a mainstream and indie game developer for a... uh, long time. His professional start came in 1994 developing titles for the then-unknown and upcoming Sony Playstation. He runs Rampant Games and blogs at Tales of the Rampant Coyote.
#2
06/09/2005 (11:45 pm)
Boy, I feel the same way about art. I have this beautiful picture in my head - and when it ends up on paper or on the screen it is barely recognizeable. 
#3
06/10/2005 (4:09 am)
I hear that... I just had an encounter with modelling a rubber ducky in milkshape. It came out as a duckish looking, brownish coloured blob. 
#4
I have a great "eye" for art, but my "hand" at it leaves A LOT to be desired... LOL
Tim
06/10/2005 (6:21 am)
I too am trying to do "everything" for my Arena Dodgeball game. The art part is KILLING me.... but that is mainly due to the fact that I am impatient. I'm one of those, "Wants results now" kind of guys. That's why I'm always better in code.I have a great "eye" for art, but my "hand" at it leaves A LOT to be desired... LOL
Tim
#5
06/10/2005 (6:52 am)
Wow, those headlights look great. Mind if you shared that piece of code? :P
#6
06/10/2005 (7:25 am)
@Tim - I am not doing everything myself. I have a professional artist doing my content... But I took the opportunity to try and contribute, knowing that anything that is crap will get redone anyways... One of the benefits was that he fixed my ducky and sent me a 3ds file containing my ducky next to his. His was 50 times better, and half the polys... I learned a tonne just by seeing where I went wrong. Even taught myself a couple techniques by looking at how he formed his polys in certan places.
#7
Once I get the code to orient the beam based upon their parent object's dynamic movement, I'll post the resource. But the volume light is a standard resource available here (modified by the Synapse Lighting Pack), so I can't lay claim to how cool they look :)
@ Chris Lombard -
There are a ton of free content pieces and tutorials up on the web. I've been mucking about with some of these to learn how they are put together by people who know more about it than I do. So the good news is that there are plenty of resources out there to learn by. The bad news is that it's not all real quality stuff, so you can learn some bad habits I guess. And there's still no substitute for TIME.
When I was working on Hackenslash (the "Game in a Week"), I discovered just how time-consuming the 2D art was for me. But I also found that while I'm still not "good" by any stretch, the quality of my work improved a lot doing that. Just learning tricks to make things work & look better. But just as I feel most artists could at least become competent programmers with practice, I'm hoping that a programmer can become at least moderately competent with art with enough practice.
06/10/2005 (7:38 am)
@Chris Byars - Once I get the code to orient the beam based upon their parent object's dynamic movement, I'll post the resource. But the volume light is a standard resource available here (modified by the Synapse Lighting Pack), so I can't lay claim to how cool they look :)
@ Chris Lombard -
There are a ton of free content pieces and tutorials up on the web. I've been mucking about with some of these to learn how they are put together by people who know more about it than I do. So the good news is that there are plenty of resources out there to learn by. The bad news is that it's not all real quality stuff, so you can learn some bad habits I guess. And there's still no substitute for TIME.
When I was working on Hackenslash (the "Game in a Week"), I discovered just how time-consuming the 2D art was for me. But I also found that while I'm still not "good" by any stretch, the quality of my work improved a lot doing that. Just learning tricks to make things work & look better. But just as I feel most artists could at least become competent programmers with practice, I'm hoping that a programmer can become at least moderately competent with art with enough practice.
Torque 3D Owner Adam
Adam deGrandis
"But the thing about being an indie is that you really cant afford to be too much of a specialist." I couldnt agree more. Ive been trying to wrap my head around torquescript. All I can say about it right now is that its teaching me humility. :)