Plan for Anthony
by Anthony · 10/03/2005 (10:24 pm) · 6 comments
This is my very first .plan here at GarageGames. First I should introduce myself, and what I have been doing as of late.
My name is Anthony Bertolo and I am the founder of BBiGames (http://bbi.winding-road.net/bbi). I have been working in the game industry independently in my free time for 3-4 years now, and have just recently went full board. I also currently run a team here of 6-7 members, who have been working on a demo for our upcoming game, Ardonia, which in the end will use the Torque Shader Engine.
I am sure you will get to know more about me as I post more plan's, but now lets get to the stuff that involves you (or that you can benefit from). Our team had cought a lucky break and has been hooked up with a sponsor (we are not releasing the name of the company as of yet). They have many investors interested in the game industry, and our sponsor is setting us up with them (to say it short). Since we are becoming semi succesfull on the business front, I had to look into what I want to do as a hobby (seeing as how my old hobby of game programming is now my job). And I decided to stay close to the game industry, and start writting some tutorials (as I did with Genesis3D a while back) for Torque. While we have been developing the Ardonia demo, I have learned many things about TGE, TSE and TorqueScript in general. I plan to share my knowledge with the GG community just as it has so freely given to me.
Here is a quick summary of what I plan to do in the near future:
- Write AI resource (including many techniques we used in Ardonia)
- Write a Campaign Mode Tutorial
- Write an article on "Getting Funded" including resources and a "What NOT to do"
(note about the above, I do understand that GG is an indie focused development site, but in my opinion many of us, not all, have the inner hope of growing their company into something big, and the article would include some ways to make steps toward that goal)
I can go into more detail once the free time comes closer, I look forward to investing it to a good cause.
My name is Anthony Bertolo and I am the founder of BBiGames (http://bbi.winding-road.net/bbi). I have been working in the game industry independently in my free time for 3-4 years now, and have just recently went full board. I also currently run a team here of 6-7 members, who have been working on a demo for our upcoming game, Ardonia, which in the end will use the Torque Shader Engine.
I am sure you will get to know more about me as I post more plan's, but now lets get to the stuff that involves you (or that you can benefit from). Our team had cought a lucky break and has been hooked up with a sponsor (we are not releasing the name of the company as of yet). They have many investors interested in the game industry, and our sponsor is setting us up with them (to say it short). Since we are becoming semi succesfull on the business front, I had to look into what I want to do as a hobby (seeing as how my old hobby of game programming is now my job). And I decided to stay close to the game industry, and start writting some tutorials (as I did with Genesis3D a while back) for Torque. While we have been developing the Ardonia demo, I have learned many things about TGE, TSE and TorqueScript in general. I plan to share my knowledge with the GG community just as it has so freely given to me.
Here is a quick summary of what I plan to do in the near future:
- Write AI resource (including many techniques we used in Ardonia)
- Write a Campaign Mode Tutorial
- Write an article on "Getting Funded" including resources and a "What NOT to do"
(note about the above, I do understand that GG is an indie focused development site, but in my opinion many of us, not all, have the inner hope of growing their company into something big, and the article would include some ways to make steps toward that goal)
I can go into more detail once the free time comes closer, I look forward to investing it to a good cause.
About the author
#3
It's base is Mark Holcomb's CTFBot code, but has changed a great deal. Here are the current features of the AI, all will be covered in the AI resource:
- AI can fallow other players (including other AI). They will fallow based on a given distance that can be set via dynamic variable.
- Implemented is the fastAstar resource.
- Optimized AI Think capabilities. The AI only run calculations when relevant... A NPC will not run calculations if the player is too far away for it to matter. It also takes into account enemy units, if there are no enemies in sight and range, the NPC will not think, it will only run a quick scan to test for visibil targets of the opposing force.
- Teams. There are two teams in the underlying code, just as in Mark's code. Red and Blue.
- NPC's can use two new kinds of nodes, objectiveNode (used for Campaign mode's) or HideNode's (Very cool). What a hideNode does is tell the NPC where it can go to hide from a player if it's damage is at a dangerous level, if it's bot type is set to Hider(a bot that will hide behind an object, and only come into view when trying to shoot an enemy) or if the bot type is tactical (a bot that will move from hideNode to hideNode while trying to reach a target, which could be another hideNode, and ObjectiveNode, or even a player).
- NPC's have accuracy, no more hitting you 100% of the time. Just like most of the settings of the bot, it can be set via dynamic variable.
- Just as in Mark's code, the AI will be able to path-find via navNodes that are placed.
I will elaborate more when it is closer to time for my next plan.
10/04/2005 (12:50 am)
Let me get more in-depth on what the AI resource would include:It's base is Mark Holcomb's CTFBot code, but has changed a great deal. Here are the current features of the AI, all will be covered in the AI resource:
- AI can fallow other players (including other AI). They will fallow based on a given distance that can be set via dynamic variable.
- Implemented is the fastAstar resource.
- Optimized AI Think capabilities. The AI only run calculations when relevant... A NPC will not run calculations if the player is too far away for it to matter. It also takes into account enemy units, if there are no enemies in sight and range, the NPC will not think, it will only run a quick scan to test for visibil targets of the opposing force.
- Teams. There are two teams in the underlying code, just as in Mark's code. Red and Blue.
- NPC's can use two new kinds of nodes, objectiveNode (used for Campaign mode's) or HideNode's (Very cool). What a hideNode does is tell the NPC where it can go to hide from a player if it's damage is at a dangerous level, if it's bot type is set to Hider(a bot that will hide behind an object, and only come into view when trying to shoot an enemy) or if the bot type is tactical (a bot that will move from hideNode to hideNode while trying to reach a target, which could be another hideNode, and ObjectiveNode, or even a player).
- NPC's have accuracy, no more hitting you 100% of the time. Just like most of the settings of the bot, it can be set via dynamic variable.
- Just as in Mark's code, the AI will be able to path-find via navNodes that are placed.
I will elaborate more when it is closer to time for my next plan.
#4
10/04/2005 (2:12 am)
Sounds extremely useful. I think writing tutorials are a great way to learn Torque as well.
#5
10/04/2005 (2:54 am)
Cool, looking forward to your tutorials and "Getting Funded" article. 
#6
Thanks for offering to share what you've learned along the way.
10/04/2005 (5:31 am)
Congrats on your first .plan Anthony :]Thanks for offering to share what you've learned along the way.
Torque Owner Jason Swearingen