Blog for Jacob Dankovchik at GarageGames.com

My first real work in over a year...

Jacob Dankovchik — 2007-10-05T18:49:34+00:00

Wow, been quite a while since I've really been around here and done some real stuff. I've only tinkered in tiny bits of projects past since I joined the Navy. However recently I had to get shoulder surgery. It seems that when I injured my shoulder years back throwing a shot put, I had managed to tear a few ligaments off my shoulder bone. Now, much later on, the injury worsened and came back to haunt me. So now, I'm on leave for 30 days to recover and I'm finding I have much more time than usual.

With all this time to sit around and think, I decided I wanted to start working on an old idea of mine, procedural animation. I found some work done in the forums a while back to allow you to turn off player animations and manually move individual nodes. This was all I needed to get started.

My idea for the animation is that the "artist", who will actually just be a programmer at this point, will be able to write a script file defining the animations he wishes to use. In this file he will also assign weights to each node. For the animation, it will use a vector of the direction you wish to shift the node, with a magnitude that will be the force you wish to apply. I'm modeling this idea conceptually use Newtons as the force unit. You will also designate how long this force is to be applied.

After you put all that in for the animation, when it's called everything will be calculated out. Take the force, divide it by the weight of the node supplied, which will conceptually be kilograms, and you'll have the acceleration that your node will undergo. So, you apply that acceleration to the requested node for the duration of the animation, as input by the programmer.

I've not even really begun to scratch the surface on this, of course.. So far I've just worked it out on how you go about accelerating a node. With that very very basic starting point established, I plan to move forward soon and begin writing out the code to perform all the calculations required. After that comes planning my architecture for my script files and how to handle the animations. Then, bring it all together.

There are many possibilites for this and I'm very exciting to get started. More to come, if this should go as I hope.

Gone for 8 weeks, but seems like forever.

Jacob Dankovchik — 2006-09-18T05:32:37+00:00

Well, tomarrow is the day for me. I ship off into the United States Navy, diving headfirst into my 8 weeks of Basic Training. I'm feeling somewhat tense, but it's beginning to fade into eagerness. It's a new big step for me in shaping my life into what I want and I can't wait to get started.

So yes, this is a major step for me as far as everything goes. I'll unfortunately be away from the GG community for a few months at least. Afterwards as I go through my training to work in the Navy's Nuclear Power Field, I'm sure I'll be able to stop in every so often and see whats going down. But yes, for now, I must depart. You've all been pretty cool around here and I can't wait to return and see what goodies wait for me!

Bye for now!

Interactive Atlas Demo

Jacob Dankovchik — 2006-01-08T21:01:22+00:00

As some may have seen in the TSE forums, I've been very very active with Atlas, as far as experimenting and creation goes. I've now made FAR more terrains then I could even count or remember. I've posted countless images of the terrains too.

However the pictures always seemed so.. shallow to me almost. And I recently made a terrain that is probably the most pleasing I've made yet, the Mountain Lake. And I feel pictures just don't do it true justice. So, I'm deciding to take some terrains and peice them together to make them explorable. Or at least, as explorable as mountain ridges and cliffs are. ;)

I'm starting to peice things together today and may have results quite soon. This would be a great way to show a good Atlas demo to everyone as well and show whats on the horizon for terrain!

Here are a few sample terrains I may throw in. Although a couple of these images may not truly represent what you'll play because I accidently deleted the files for one and I'm not sure if I have the files for another. Meh, it happens. ;) The descriptions will be accurate though and the pictures will give you an idea of what to expect.

The Cliff Range
A challenge to any explorer, the Cliff Range is a very rough and hostile environment. Hiking to the top is hard enough with the many impossibly steep slopes. And the difficulty is strongly accented by the danger of one slip of the foot and falling down the mountain side to your death.

The Massive
A true behemoth of a terrain, the Massive measures in at 40960 meters on each side! The mountains are massive and terrifying. Climbing such rock formations will rely on speed, caution, and a sharp mind to find the right path. And a good head to keep from getting lost.

Arctic Mountain Lake
A beautifully clear, cool, deep lake surrounded by snowy mountains on a clear sunny day. The Arctic Mountain Lake is truly a wonderful and pleasing site. The mountains are not too difficult to climb, but the pleasent calm waters below are a good reward to the struggle.

So, this should give you an idea of what I got cookin up. Only issue I can see forming is not being able to host the files. But I'll work around it somehow, don't worry. So, what do you all think? Like the idea and look forward to walking through various terrains to see them upclose? Or not concerned?

Oh, and on a totally different note, to just mention what my other .plans have been on, the Particle Pack is kinda goin sluggish. I've hit a few bumps, been getting some awfully strange bugs and issues, I need to find whats wrong there. Time as been messin with me and I can't seem to get ahold of any good artwork to build display scenes with. If anyone would like to help with that, please feel free to speak up! :D

Tuesday Oct 25 0:47

Jacob Dankovchik — 2005-10-25T00:47:13+00:00

Fair design of the first particle display field is complete! The Barren Wasteland!

56K Warning, large images ahead!

Introducing the first of the particle display fields, the Barren Wasteland. This field is a dark, empty, rocky lavafield. Geysers of flame shoot up from the hot volcanic ground and a large lake of lava is fed from the ever-erupting volcano as a wind of pure fire floats along the surface of the lake.

This isn't all completely done yet, but this gives a good idea. I know I just made a .plan very recently, but I was so excited about these results I wanted to share! And if you got any feedback, please feel free to share! I was thinking of maybe adding in raining fireballs! :)

Remember, the point of this is to show how my particles and effects can add to a scene. Obviously the terrain sculpting is very basic and I used that skybox from www.gamesextract.com. Many thanks btw! But these scene would be very very dull indeed without the particles to add to the flow and color.

Anyhow, onto the good stuff!

Next on the list is the Sunny Meadow! Keep your eyes peeled!

Sunday Oct 23 17:44

Jacob Dankovchik — 2005-10-23T17:44:46+00:00

Well, I'm finally getting back with this damn particle conent pack. I keep gteting people interested in it even though I haven't mentioned it in some time and so I guess its encouraged me to just forget my other stuff and get this done already.

The next step for now in the pack is to setup display environments. This will not only make things look better, but show uses to the particles as well as provide me with ideas to make more. As I design environemnts, I'll need things to fill it. I can then make new effects to throw in.

This morning I began a meadow scene with danelion seed emitters for a field which will later also have the waterfall effect along with a couple others. At the moment I am building a wasteland environment which will have the Hell aura placed in it (seen from older .plan), as well as a new volcano effect I'll make with perhaps a couple others here and there. There are also several other environments to come.

Not shots of anything at the moment as its all still really basic. But for all who were interested in this, the idea is indeed still going.

Sunday Jul 10 18:29

Jacob Dankovchik — 2005-07-10T18:29:25+00:00

Getting back on track finally.

Some of you may remember me from the inventory I was working on a while ago, and also for the particle pack. Unfortunatly there hasn't been any advancement in either of these.

I put the inventory to the side for a moment to persue some work in particles, which I did. I then took a break from particles to work on my own game for a while, which I also did. I then meant to go back and get some more done with particles, but unfortunatly, this never hapened. Certain problems came up and I found myself unable to continue any work at all. However I am now back on task.

I've decided that before I get back with the particles just yet, I'm going to finish up my inventory system I was working on. I just took a look at it and I see that it was almost completed. I now regret leaving it dead for so long because I now am staring at my code, not understanding how I managed to think all this up and need to relearn my own system.

I should be able to finish up this inventory very soon, perhaps tonight if everything goes very smoothly. After this comes my particle pack again, but not full focus because I need to play catch-up with my own game. I've lost alot of time with my down-time.

It's been a while since I've made a plan and such I figured I'd post this for those who were interested in what I was doing, just so you know whats up.

Friday May 27 21:40

Jacob Dankovchik — 2005-05-27T21:40:28+00:00

Starting back up with the particles.

Well, I've had a bit of a dry spell going latley with the particle pack I've previously mentioned. I had alot of big work suddenly flare up with my own game and was on a rush to get alot out by a certain deadline. I recently met that deadline and will be starting back up with the particles.
However to do this I need your help. Since the pack is for the publilc, I need your input. Espicially since im at a bit of artist's block right now. If anyone would like to see certain effects, tell me what they are in here. I would be very glad to hear them so i can try it out. And its perfered if ya post something big and flashy. The small stuff can wait, I wanna hit some really big effects like i've been doing so far.

And in a pervious plan I mentioned the inventory system i was working on. Thats still at a halt for now to make way for things higher on my priority list. School is comming to an end and I really need to pull my grades up for a good finish and thats really sucking up my energy. And I really want to get this particle pack out as many people could probably use it. And I still got my own game to work on and seeing how I don't need an inventory for it just yet, the inventory system can wait.

But anyhow, Lemme know if you got any good ideas for some particle effects! But since this is on the basic stock particle code, can't have special effects like swirls. Any imput is appreciated though! :D And i'll be sure to try to get to work really soon.

Wednesday May 4 1:14

Jacob Dankovchik — 2005-05-04T01:14:09+00:00

Working on a particle pack now. So far, so good.

As some ma have heard me discussing in the IRC channel, I am working on a particle content pack. This pack will consist of several particles and sample effects, using each one in some form of useful effect. Each particle will come in (if used in a sample effect) a colored version and a non-colored one. The pack is still much in work however.
The pack won't use any sort of modified engine code. While the effects will be a bit weaker then possible because of this, I want the particles and their effects to be usable by everyone. Perhaps later down the line i'll create an Advanced Pack with modified code and more complex effects. But i'll worry about this one for now. ;)
Its still very early in production and there is a long ways to go, but here are a few sample shots.

This is the Electrical Web. It forms a pretty smooth sphere with the particles.

This is the Fire Cloud. Its a very soft, smooth rolling fire effect.

This is the Electrical Storm effect. It has the blue bolts with larger bolts shooting outward and emits sparks.

This is the Fire Spell effect. I made this as something that may look nice as a spell effect of some sort perhpaps.

This is the Ice Spell effect. Made this for an ice spell of some sort.

This is the Falling Leaf effect. I made this for nature scenes, leaves slowly falling from trees.

This is one of my favorite effects, the Hell Aura. I think the picture speaks for itself. ;) Looks awesome in motion though.

This is the Blood Effect. A simple little blood cloud effect. Going to be tweaked though.

And here is one big pic of the whole scene.

Theres still much to come of cource. This is just a small peice of it. I already made an explosion, probably going to tweak it up. Then I'm going to do things like dirt puffs and simple effects too. The biggest effect that'll be in this pack is the waterfall. It'll be massive! I'll be sure to keep updated. :)

Sunday Apr 10 2:08

Jacob Dankovchik — 2005-04-10T02:08:12+00:00

I'm sunburnt and hurting.. But thats not the point of this! The point is, Mr Inventory-Man now can wear clothing, as promised! :)

My inventory system is moving right along still! I got word today of an RPG starter kit in the works, and this really discouraged me however.. But all the same, I'm going to follow through on this inventory, no matter how hard and buggy it comes out!
The context menu idea didn't work as well as I'd hoped, so instead I used a full screen GUI that opens when you right click an item. That'll display info in the center and the bottom will have the function buttons.
There are a few issues with this however. For example, in order to keep the player from being able to drag items outside of his bag, I made the max and min Position varaibles, as discussed in my previous .plan. The thing is though, these don't do relative sizing with the GUI window, so you'll have to install if statements for each resolution setting and set the max and min Positions accordingly through script.
Also, when items are equiped, you will also have to do this with their position and extents.
Player stats are not updated yet from equipped items, thats comming up. First im going to make the toss function, then im going to do a full code cleanup up to this point, then continue forward.

All items on my player were picked up by the player, appeard in the bag, right clicked to open the option menu, and equiped via that menu.

As before, this art was used from Ultima Online and is not my own.

Also, let me know if you think this would be worth me stickin too. Like I said, the mention of an RPG starter kit being made is rather discouraging, knowing that my inventory system is desitined to get out-done pretty brutally. But if you have interest in this one, seeing as it's already nearing a release point, let me know. Thanks!

Sunday Apr 3 23:41

Jacob Dankovchik — 2005-04-03T23:41:26+00:00

Progress with my inventory has been like a diesel: Slow, but steady and unrelenting.

Unfortunatly due to complications, I've been forced to slightly change my design. You will no longer drag objects over your player to equip them, nor will you drag em into a "Trash" slot to dump them. These will now be handled through context menu's. The items can move around in the bag, but will never be able to be dragged outside of it.

Objects can now be infinitely stacked. Before, I was going to make a limit to the number of objects in a stack until it would be forced to create another seperate object, but I decided to go with infinite single-object stacks instead.

I just finished the problem thats been haunting me since yesterday morning: keeping the items from comming outside the bag. I created a new variable to the gui objects, maxPos and minPos. If the object is moved outside of its max or min Pos, it will snap back to where it previously was. This keeps objects from moving all over the place and making a mess on your screen.

The next stage is going to be the longest and hardest: the context menu's. After thought of it, I figured this would result in a cleaner look anyhow, all the item functions available by simply clicking the button, instead of dragging things all over the place. Hopefully this goes as smooth as the rest.

Finally, heres a picture. I can't claim rights of that artwork, I simply took it out of Ultima Online and peiced it together to make a prototype design. Those items shown are represented by my player's inventory. At the time of this picture i was holding 4 crossbows (1 isn't shown because I haven't set GUI updates for starting inventory), and a stack of bolts. Those objects are stuck in that bag object by the maxPos and minPos variables too. So far, so good. :D

Oh, and I know those item sprites are way too big. I just haven't gotten around to setting proper scaling yet.