Blog for Kirby Webber at GarageGames.com

Prepping for the grind again.

Kirby Webber — 2006-03-29T01:06:59+00:00

It always seems to come and go in "spurts". For the sophmoric among us, get you heads out of the gutter.

At any rate, I stated in my last .plan that I expected things to lighten up around this time and that's partially true. My wife and I have decided to put our current residence on the market and you'd be amazed how many "little things" tend to pop up when you go about making a household "sale-worthy".

I'd intended to provide a snapshot of the vehicle debuted in my last post, in-game, but that isn't going to happen just yet. Don't get me wrong, it's in there, but why rehash the same thing twice right? I'd rather save image posting for something a little more substantial, but I can be quirky that way.

ON the development front, things are proving a bit difficult as of late, primarily due to the sheer size of the milestone I'm currently attacking and my lack of some fundamental knowledge and/ or experince scripting bots in Torque.

My solution, for the time being is to reorganize my work-flow, placing the bot scripting dead last. There's simply too much still to be done to stop forward momentum and focus on the intricacies associated with scripting A.I. Considering that this milestone is effectively a spring board for everything else that the game requires, I figure a little prioritization is in order.

I figure I can flesh out what needs it using my LAN as a multi-player sand box, and refine it further when it actually comes time to insert a reasonably functional bot. That will entail a project unto itself I'm sure.

The beautiful thing about my development plan is that once I'm through these initial phases, buidling the foundation so-to-speak, everything else is a process of iteration and refinement, which will be considerably less time-consuming (notice I didn't say "easier").

At any rate, I'll wrap it up for this month with a hopeful promise of something to show you (visually) next month. Until then, best regards and thanks for your interest. =)

Production Quality Art... At Last =)

Kirby Webber — 2006-02-12T23:22:53+00:00

February always seems to be a slow time of year for me.

It's not that there's any shortage of tasks crying out for completion, quite the contrary, it's that there always seems to be a glut of year end tasks at work and home that in the end, cause getting anything accomplished to feel like a painful tedious grind.

Suffice it to say that game-development time typically suffers during periods like this, and this particular occasion is no different.

By the end of March though, things will lighten up and further development can begin anew with a a renewed sense of dedication and vigor.

In the meantime, I'm not without progress... they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll let these images fill you in the rest of the way. (C;

It's startign to look like a game...

Kirby Webber — 2006-01-18T00:27:03+00:00

I realized over the holidays that my last few .plans have promised screenshots, but never delivered. That's something I fully intend to rectify this time around.

I am one of a fortunate few who works for a company that actually gives their employees the entire week between Christmas and New Years' off.

Guess what I did...

If you guessed "busted @ss on your game project for approximately 16 hours a day for seven straight days" then you'd be dead on. That's exactly what I did and boy howdy has it paid off... in spades!

I started out, over a month ago, by porting my project over to TGE 1.4. It seemed a perfect opportunity to cleanup a great deal of code and scripts in an effort to really get a solid and stable baseline to build on top of.

To this end, I proceeded step by painstaking step, porting -literally- one script at a time whenever possible. This proved to be both a valuable and educational move on my part.

Turned out, there were numerous errors in those scripts that didn't generate error messages in the console, but did result in certain undesirable behaviors. I'm talking silly oversights like having removed an IF() statement from the ::damage() function that allowed that function to be reentered even moments after the vehicles were declared "destroyed".

I reformatted everything for uniformity. I added path/filename.cs comments in the header of every script to eliminate those "am I in client/game.cs, or server/game.cs?" moments. I could give a list of simple, yet effective changes to my scripts, but suffice it to say - I got anal about my code and scripts and it has paid off. =)

On the coding front, I've added a number of sorely needed resources to my project, some of which felt very much like a plug and play device - drop in, add to project, recompile, done! Others, however, were not so accomodating.

The most significant addition, from a sheer "volume of changes affected" standpoint (as well as an "impact on gameplay" perspective), would be the turret/ aiTurret resource from Paul Dana. While it is an excellent resource that has already benefitted (is that a word?) my project in numerous ways, integration with 1.4 wasn't exactly the easiest of tasks.

There are many areas this resource affects that have seen significant changes to the source code since its' original release, and other areas are wholly absent at this time. Not being native to C++, it was truly a mental excercise in logic for me, an excercise I did eventually come out on top of. Thank God for those Object Oriented primer classes in college. =)

Now, for anyone familiar with my project and it's general premise, turrets might sound like an odd resource to include - after all we're talkin "jet cycles -n- guns" right? Not "tanks -r- us!"... Humor me for a moment, it will all become clear. =)

I had talked, in a couple of previous .plans about the overall difficulty of targetting enemies at high speeds and the subsequent need for some form of targetting assistance.

To this end, I had devised, (in my head at least), a system wherein the player would be provided with a large, circular targeting reticle. Whenever an enemy, or group of enemies was found to be within the reticle, and within range of the currently selected weapon system, the closest target would be selected and the vector(s) of the weapon(s) altered to match that of the target.

Clear as mud?

I did manage, quite some time back, to kludge together a working prototype in script only, with somewhat dubious results. In the end, the fact was that it was far less stellar than I had originally envisioned.

Enter Paul's turret resource.

Turrets have provided nearly all of the functionality I ever wanted from my targetting schema and then some. Currently, I am mounting two aiTurrets to the vehicles when they are added to the simulation, with heavily modified script functions. I basically stripped them (the aiTurrets) entirely of their ability to fire autonomously on their selected targets, and am providing the player with direct control over the weaponImage trigger(s).

What this means is that, as one races about the arena, the turrets select their own targets, allowing you, the player, to focus on when to fire and how to manuever.

Now, obviously this is still in need of refinement, but as a rough prototype it has gone a long way towards illustrating the overall feel of the gameplay and is looking extremely promising.

Currently, the turrets are bound only by minimum/ maximum yaw/ pitch values and are using separate triggers (referring to a trigger entity, not weapon triggers) to select targets and so forth. When I'm done, I'd like to have them share the same trigger, which should mean that both turrets will always select the same target, as well as add the criteria of the screen radius.

When it comes to the screen radius, I'll have to differentiate between players and bots (as bots obviously won't have the luxury of even having a screen, let alone a radius ON a screen) for target selection. I have a feeling that during this period, I'll be getting very cozy with dglPointToScreen(). =)

On another front, I've had quite a bit of fun with the playGui lately.

Obviously, there's now a digital speedometer, working radar and a horizontal compass. For those of you who are wondering, the numbered circular image to the left is a placeholder, but will be part of a weapon/ ammunition indicator schema I have worked out.

In the center of the screen, you'll notice a very "busy", if not a bit strange, gui apparatus. This is my all-in-wonderful dojumawhatsisthingamajig!

The inner radius of the outer ring (did that make sense?) will hopefully mark the range of valid target selection when the targeting routine is finished, while the outside edges of this area mark the health meter (right) and energy meter (left) respectively. Those are courtesy of the health bitmap resource here on the garage games site - though I had to add support for energy myself - not that that was difficult or anything.

In the center I've added a customized artificail horizon/ attitude control.

I decided to add this to the player HUD because people (okay, mainly my father) had a tendancy to nose their vehicles into the ground with surprising frequency. It seems that attitude and pitch are difficult to gage from third person perspective, well at least it is when you're not operating these things every single day for hours on end while modifying behaviors and testing them in-game.

Some preliminary testing has yeilded an overall positive response from those who've tried it out (which includes a few more people than just my Dad). Nothing is really final of course, but so far this handy little gem seems to help people keep their noses out of the dirt. Literally. =)

On my final front - well, there's a great deal more I could get into to, but this is as far as I'm going with this .plan - you might have noticed that there is another player in one of those previous screen shots...

Meet Road Rash, my testing buddy.

Road Rash is... well... Road Rash is dumb as a freakin' brick! He doesn't drive worth a d@mn, has no idea where he's going half the time, and has yet to fire a single d@mn shot at me. I'm telling you, he's just plain stoooopid!~

Of course, I can say all of this without fear of reprisal because Road Rash is my first 'bot'... well, my first vehicle bot anyway.

Originally, I added him in to test out my targetting solutions, so his haphazard piloting didn't matter much. Once I had the turrets in and the targeting roughed out, I decided to give him a solid path, after all everyone needs some direction in their life, even if that lifle consists of 2- 5 minute testing intervals!

All in all, he's currently pretty basic, but it's a start. He doesn't know how to die (yet), how to attack, or any of the other spiffy things he'll eventually be able to do, but he'll get there and when he does, he'll provide the foundation for the entirety of the single player game. Maybe I'll get more into that statement next time around.

One last thing... really: I've finally started down the road towards porting some decent artwork intom my game. Josh has not only finished the concpet, but the model as well:

Obviously, it's not skinned yet, but once it is, I plan to get some animation & LOD magic going on and getting that baby in game! I'll be sure to post a screen or two when I do...

In the meantime, thanks for reading all of this. I hope the holidays were kind and that the new year is looking bright for everyone... it is for Afterburn! (C:

~ Cheers

Plugging away

Kirby Webber — 2005-12-14T18:08:33+00:00

I had intended to fill this month's .plan with lots of snazzy screenshots, but thought better of it at the last minute.

It's not that I don't have anything to "show off", rather that I know within the next two weeks, what I do have to show will be that much better.

As I had hoped, production ramped up this month and, now that Josh has been settled in his new home a bit and gotten on track with Iron Lore, we're resuming progress.

I *just this week* finalized the first vehicle concept and Josh should begin translating it into 3D shortly. By his own estimates, I should have a production ready model by the time I post my new .plan in January.

In the meantime, I have been wearing many, many different hats and pushing myself toward the goal of passing from my first major milestone into the second.

As a footnote here, I'd like to say a few things about planning, milestones and development in general.

First, as I've said previously, failing to plan is planning to fail.

If you truly believe you have a good game idea, it warrants the time and attention to propely plan your course of action.

I'm not talking about drawing concept art and the like. While that IS useful as things move along, I'm really referring to a plan of action.

Sit down and draft out - in whatever way suits your organizational style - what you want the game to be, what features you desire and provide at least a rough draft of what the desired game-play should be like.

From there, simply start thinking incrementally. What would need to be your first step in building that game, your second step, etc.

Also, and I'm finding this to be important, always remember that your design document should be a living document. It is and always should be subject to a certain amount of change.

Why? Because what you see in your mind's eye and what winds up on the screen are seldom identical. As you move forward you'll find that certain compromises must be made, or that certain features you thought would be definitive to your game just aren't working the way you envisioned they would. Sometimes you'll find your project screaming for a feature you'd not even though of previously.

Don't be afraid to cut, splice, and edit as you go - how do you think *blockbuster* films get made? If you knew how much film hit the cutting room floor for the average movie, you might be surprised.

I say this because it's somethig I'm currently experiencing in my own design.

Originally, I had planned to support both first and third person perspectives in my game-play. Recently however, it began to become clear that the play styles of first and third person perspectives differed to a degree that became, well... annoying.

After much testing and deliberating, I ultimately decided to drop first person perspective alltogether. The fact was that the third person play-style was (and is) much stronger and ultimately more in keeping with the overall vision for the game.

This of course relieved the need for many art assets that the first person view required, as well as improving the game's overall appearance on-screen. Let's face it, those terrain textures look a helluva lot better a meter or so above the terrain than they do when you're right down on top of them. Well... mine do anyway. (C;

Now, I don't want to give the wrong impression here, the aesthetic issue was FAR from the only reason I made this decision, but in truth, the moment I let go of my stranglehold over my design, a great many issue seemed to almost resolve themselves.

The point? BE FLEXIBLE. Especially when dealing with an engine like Torque. Sometimes the answer might not be what you want to hear, but when you work WITH the software instead of "against" it, amazing things start to happen.

That might not sound like much in the way of advice, but if you've ever tried to "arm wrestle" with Torque, you know what I'm talking about. (C;

Additionally, I was forced to revisit what I call my "Development Timeline". It's really just a road map for what gets developed, how, and in what order.

As I move forward, I'm finding the need to reorganize my approach.

This is where discipline kicks in... it's very easy, particularly when you're working alone, to just reorganize it all in your head and call it good. I strongly advise against this.

What happens if life takes a left turn and you wind up shelving your project for three or four months? Hey - it happens. Do you really expect to come back with a sense of every minute detail you have in your head at this moment? Not likely.

WRITE IT DOWN. Give yourself a tool to go back to when you return, a tool to know what direction you're going, or just something to remind you what the point is.

Well that's enough preaching about documentation. I said I'd been wearing many hats and "Design Document Guru" is only one of them.

In the meantime I have begun emassing a decent texture library, creating and editing textures to tile nicely and look sharp in the engine. So far, I don't have many textures, but I'm very pleased with the quality of what I do have so far.

I have also finally, at long last, made a sort of peace with Quark to the ends of getting some d@mn scenery into my prototype... looking at endless expanses of terrain gets old - and fast.

Sure, Quark is quirky and I could imagine about a million better ways of working when it comes to interiors, but that's really just the modeller in me longing for the freedom of editing afforded in a modelling app.

When you get right down to it, Quark CAN do the job, it just takes a little more elbow grease - but it's proven to be worth the time in the end.

Don't get me wrong, when constructor ships, I'll be the first in line, but for now, Quark will do the trick.

I have the week off between Christmas and New Years and I plan to devote the bulk of that time to getting past this milestone and on to the next. You can bet tha when I do, I'll post my progress.

... Oh, one more thing. I promise my next .plan will have pics. =)

~ Thanks for reading!

Holding pattern

Kirby Webber — 2005-11-08T15:52:24+00:00

Well, another boring blog with nothing much to report - though I am trying my best to stay on a steady diet of once a month posting.

As a quick aside, for those of you who are more visually inclined and may have missed it, there is a screenshot of the current prototype (albeit everything looks pretty basic) in my October .plan.

Josh (who has contracted to do my art - for those who've not read any previous .plans by me) is still in limbo when it comes to Internet connectivity as I understand, which has pretty much put the kibosh on any artistic collaboration for the time being.

In the meantime, as stated previously, I'm also unable to make any *truly* meaningful strides beyond the core prototype that I've currently got running because of the lack of a working second PC.

The area in which my desktop resides was struck by lightening (nearly a year ago) and, having a beefy laptop worthy of graphics development has afforded me the luxury of being lazy and not rushing to get my PC repaired - I believe that only the power supply was damaged, or so my initial diagnostics have led me to believe.

This has changed of course, particularly with the addition of Josh and my anticipation of the glorious aesthetic level I expect his work to bring this project to. As soon as I can spare the cash for a decent power supply (which is easier said than done considering the thousands I've spent on unexpected vehicle maintenance in the last two months) I plan to get that desktop up and running again so I can start developing in earnest, after all, it's a multiplayer-centric design, although there will be a single player mode. (C;

At any rate, I've recently begun earnest forays into new artistic territory myself - specifically, learning the workflow and specific toolsets of ZBrush 2. I've been a proponent of ZBrush since I discovered the demo version of 1.5 and I have to say that, although I've not been able to afford the retail version yet, it is at the top of my artistic "must have" list.

For any practicing or aspiring modelers or game artists out there who've not yet tried, or are unaware of this product, you must immediately and without delay go to the ZBrush Website and download the demo - it will change your outlook on modeling in ways you can't begin to imagine!

UV mapping, normal mapping, multi-res and LoD's... it's all there, although if my suspicions are correct, you'll have to a bit creative in creating a pipeline into Torque... though Max, Milkshape or Blender should be a sufficient avenue, though I expect a quick run through progmesh or a similar application certainly wouldn't hurt.

In the meantime, I hope next month sees a renewal in activity with Afterburn as I'm just dying to get some concepts finalized and translated into 3D. I still regularly go to Josh's site to drool over his work and imagine what his stuff will look like in-game. I'll post screens when that day finally arrives, 'till then, thanks for reading. =)

P.S.

I'll be sure and post a screenshot of my current ZBrush WIP when I get home this evening... should be around 7:00PM CST.

If it's of interest to you, be sure to check back to see what a moderately talented individual can do with this incredible tool - check the galleries at Zbrush Central to see some top notch professional work.

~Cheers

P.S.S.

I just realized, while perusing one of my previous plans, that I have sold myself a bit short in the last two months.

For anyone keeping score, the targeting routine I described in my July .plan is not only prototyped, but about 45% done!

I won't go into the specifics just yet, the what, who how or why... well, the why was explained in the July post, but when it's fully fleshed out, I may release it as a resource if there seems to be enough interest in it.

Okay... seriously... I'm done this time. Really.

[EDIT]

I promised that WIP - here it is:

Still here...

Kirby Webber — 2005-10-21T00:41:29+00:00

Things have been in a sort of static state as of late, though it's been relatively inevitable.

Josh moved across country and started a new job with Iron Lore working on Titan Quest and has yet to get back online in a capacity that's conducive to online collaboration, but it shouldn't be too much longer.

I'm pretty antsy because, when we left off, we were nearing the final stages of our first vehicle concept that looks very promising.

Actually, that's an understatement - it's going to be friggin awesome! (C;

As an aside: if you get a chance, you might check out the Iron Lore site and look at the info on Titan Quest... looks to be a pretty cool game.

Once we get moving again I can start prepping to port in some of the new artwork and adding some polish to the current prototype.

The prototype is there - I mean, the absolute basics of the gameplay are present, but it's rather slow going currently as my second PC is down at the moment and much of what needs doing would require a second client to propely test and tweak.

At any rate, I'm still here and still pluggin away.

After all these years, I'm still here, still married to this same idea and still determined that this will *eventually* see the light of day as a completed indy game.

If you made it this far - thanks for reading. =)

[EDIT]

After seeing Matt's comment, I thought I could at least share a screen shot.

Let me qualify this by saying that this is a shot using all place holder assets. The level is pretty bare currently, so it's not much to look at, but it is pretty fun to rocket around in. =)

Progress as promised.

Kirby Webber — 2005-08-15T21:22:56+00:00

I'd hoped to have some kind of flashy new imagery to put in my post, but the concept that's currently underway is still under revision at the moment. =\

Despite the lack of aesthetics in this post, there has been a great deal of progress on Afterburn.

In my last post, I discussed the issue of players being able to drive through the terrain at high velocity and the proposed solution of simply slowing the vehicles down. I'm happy to report that this has indeed curbed (although not eliminated) the undesirable behavior.

It seems that, if one is willing to expend nearly every ounce of available energy in jetting the vehicle forward, you can, occasionally, power your way through. More often than not however, you'll wind up taking damage from a nasty collision that throws you around like a bit of a rag doll. Occasionally you'll find yourself upside down and stuck midway in the terrain - and that's no good either, although I do consider it a step in the right direction.

Obviously, not having played any of my previous prototypes, you'll not be capable of fully appreciating that changes that have been made to the vehicle behaviors but, suffice it to say that they have been improved dramatically.

I've played with the physics variables, reference in hand, until the mere mention of stabSpringConstant is enough to send me on an hour long tirade. Let's not go there. (C;

I've also been doing some extensive work with the playGui in preparation for the move from "prototype" to milestone one... namely getting ready to attack the targeting routine.

This has been something of a headache as I am constantly plagued by a duplicate playGui file that, while it's outdated and was *technically* deleted, insists that it's the current version. It's frustrating though hardly a show stopper.

Until such time as I work out what's happening there, I simply turn off Cybil (my "affectionate" name for the offending gui) and select the correct version by hand.

truth be told, I've kind of been dragging my feet on this though, hoping that 1.4 RC 2 will be released with all it's wonderful bug fixes... unless I've missed a press release and Ben has snuck it in on me already. <_< ... >_>

~ Oh well, a guy can dream.

Currently the actual project is a little bit off the map as far as my design timeline goes. What I mean is, I've really already exceeded the criteria I laid out for the prototype, but it just doesn't feel ready for the next phase yet. RC2 will go a long way to allowing me to unleash some visual whoopass and that should help a great deal.

In the meantime, I've begun the process of researching my desired targeting system.

What I intend to do is define a radius on screen, say 256 pixels from the center for a total circumference of 512 (for example sake). Whenever an enemy is in line of sight, within a specified range, and is inside the predefined radius, I want to change the vector of the mounted weapon(s) to target him or her. My thinking is that should change the muzzle vector (since the mesh itself is being rotated) such that the projectiles will intersect the enemy's location.

In the event that more than one enemy fulfills all the above criteria, I plan to just select the closest one and be done with it.

The problem with all of this is that I'm still not 100% sure how to go about it, though I've got some rough ideas.

If anyone wants to drop a few suggestions - or some code - feel free. =P

So, having said all of that, I'll leave you with this aesthetically bland blog for the month on the promise that next time I'll have some cool art to post along with. Of course, I could've thrown a screenshot up here for the time being, but that just wouldn't be visually impressive... yet. (C;

Don

Kirby Webber — 2005-07-13T15:50:56+00:00

In February of 2003, I posted a development snapshot of the day that introduced my now aging flagship game concept to the Garage Games community.

I must admit, the realization that it has been over two years since that fledgling snapshot was posted infuriates me.

It infuriates me because really, with the exception of a few minor advancements here and there, nothing has been done with it to-date. Of course, I have no one other than myself to blame for this - which makes it all the more frustrating.

In my own defense (of myself, to myself), there have been a number of things during this interim period which have *by necessity* taken precedence over game-development. Not the least of which was graduating college with a Bachelors of Science in Computer Information Systems.

Suffice it to say that I'm behind the curve as it were, and not nearly as close to the goal of releasing a game as I'd like to be. Nowhere near it, truth be told.

It is this perceived lacking that has spurred me forward in the endeavor of completing this game - as Phil Carlisle so eloquently stated:

Quote:

Shipping shalt be the whole of the law.

... And I so desperately want to see this game shipped.

For those who either don't remember (2 years is an eternity on the Internet) or had never heard about it, the project in question was tentatively titled "Terminal Velocity".

Yes, it was "spoken-for" although I hadn't been able to locate any specific copyright information with regards to that title prior to posting that image.

Since that time, Terminal Velocity has indeed proved to be off-limits from a legal standpoint, and thusly, the game has been re-dubbed "Afterburn". Consider it a working title for the time being, though based upon some limited research into the legalities of that name, it promises to stick.

To provide you with a (very) brief summary of the concept:

Twisted Metal + Jet Moto = Afterburn

At this point, I'm hoping that I've managed to hold your interest thus far. If not, you're probably wondering what the point is and why you should care that someone you know next to nothing about is rambling endlessly about a 2+ year old game idea that never saw the light of day?

Well if you are wondering this, I apologize for not being more entertaining up to this point - but here's your answer...

Things are different this time around.

Aside from the obvious (like not having full-time classes on top of a full-time job sucking my life away), there's the wisdom gleaned from previous forays into game development.

We (my partner and I) have returned to this project with both a renewed sense of enthusiasm, as well as a clearer understanding of what needs to take place at a fundamental level to take this from a cool idea in our heads to a playable game on your computer screen.

We have scrapped virtually everything we had previously done (just the art and code - not the knowledge mind you) in order to better leverage both our own improved understandings of the engine, as well as to take full advantage of the many great advancements which have come along since then.

The first thing we had to do was simply map out a development plan that would logically take us from a raw prototype to a finished product. The result of this endeavor is a 12 milestone project plan which I affectionately refer to as our "12 steps".

For those who have not yet taken the time to map out a development plan, I encourage you to do so. Promptly.

It's been said a thousand times before, but I'll say it again for good measure: "Failing to plan is planning to fail."

Having a clear roadmap of what needs to be done and how we're going to do it has already proven to be invaluable and immediately led to one of the smartest decisions I've ever made as an aspiring independent developer to date. (Aside from moving the project to Torque.)

While perusing our development timeline, it became immediately apparent to me that, despite the relatively narrow focus of our project, the amount of art assets, coupled with the code and scripts required was simply more than a two man team could hope to accomplish in anything resembling a timely fashion.

It was because of this revelation that we began to search for an art contractor.

After a week of searching (a quick kudos to the Garage Games staff on the new[er] search features), I had a laundry list of artists whose portfolios captured my interests.

*A quick note to any aspiring artists out there: if you're looking to secure contract work, it is without a doubt in your best interest to provide potential employers with an online portfolio - if we can't see your work, we most likely won't call.

At the very, very top of this list was an accomplished artist by the name of Joshua Singh.

Not only was the work in his portfolio absolutely top-notch (there are some renders of an Iron Man model he did that are simply inspiring), but it was also obviously poly-count conscientious.

Of course, it helped that his style is so appealing and, ironically, in keeping with my over-all vision for the games' aesthetic.

I was sold.

I knew that, not only were we going to have to hire help, but I knew that Josh was the right man for the job.

I am happy to say that we have indeed secured a contract with Josh, and he'll be conceptualizing our characters and vehicles as well as translating them into 3D.

As a teaser, here's a recently completed concept for one of our pilots:

Obviously, we couldn't be happier.

Our intention for this project is to adhere to the highest possible production standard we can achieve and, if this is any indication of what's to come, I think we're off to a good start. Don't you?

While Josh is busy working on new art for the game, we have begun the process of re-prototyping using older art assets.

Basically, there were a few areas we weren't really happy with from the get-go last time around, and we've decided that we couldn't really call it a complete prototype without addressing those issues.

Aside from a few quirks regarding the behaviors of the hover vehicle class - issues that should be overcome by simply tweaking the data block to eliminate or minimize the undesirable behaviors - there's the issue of collision.

You see, last time around one of the issues that plagued us throughout the entire process was the fact that the vehicles would frequently bypass ground collision and literally "pop" right through the terrain when moving at extremely high speeds.

My belief was, and still is, that the vehicles were moving so rapidly that they were overextending the time-step routine.

What I mean is, by the time the engine could predict the imminent collision, the vehicle had already stepped beyond that point - resulting in the vehicle traveling right through the terrain into the never ending limbo below without so much as a ding in the fender.

Make sense?

Obviously, we have two primary means of dealing with this issue, one being to increase the rate at which the engine tests for collisions (and no, simply upping the integration rate doesn't cut it. I've tried.) - a solution that would seem to have potentially undesirable ramifications on performance - the other being to quite simply slow the vehicles down.

Believe it or not, we're opting for the latter.

We believe that through creative use of certain screen effects (like motion blur), we can reproduce the illusion of extreme speed while actually keeping the vehicle within the expected parameters of the collision forecast and maintain an acceptable integration rate.

It may sound like a strange decision, given the nature of the game and vehicles in question, but the truth is that they are currently just that fast. We feel we have room to slow them down and still maintain significant speed. That coupled with a few optical illusions (for lack of a better term) should provide us exactly the "feel" we're looking for.

The other primary issue we had previously was with targeting.

In our previous prototype, finding your enemy was no problem. In fact, you could not only find them, but reach them within a few seconds through the liberal use of the jetting function. Shooting them, however, was a different issue entirely.

The control structure of the vehicles accounts for forward, backward and lateral movements, as well as jetting and the like. By combining these available movements, one could avoid the bulk of enemy fire with surprising ease.

This made for extremely long lived death matches and, ultimately, proved to be more of a bane than a boon in the end. Essentially, it was downright frustrating to actually apply any damage to your opposition.

What we've come up with to alleviate this is a sort of "auto-targeting" system that will allow the weapons, and in turn their projectiles, to alter their vectors to match that of the selected target.

For those of you old enough to remember, think "Blue Thunder".

Our feeling is that because we simply change the vector prior to firing the projectile, it should make combat a bit more frantic without necessarily "handing" kills to you "on a silver platter". After all, the target is in motion (if he's smart) and the standard projectiles will still follow a straight path, therefore, making contact would not be guaranteed.

Of course, getting a simplified prototype up and running will tell us much more about how the game-play would evolve. Everything prior to that is merely speculation on my own behalf, but I have faith that this will make the game-play much more solid.

I am now realizing that I've written far more than I originally intended to, so I'll wrap this up for now with a quick summary for the attention deficient:

This project is seeing new life as we resume development with a renewed enthusiasm...

... But don't call it a comeback.