Blog for Matt Huston at GarageGames.com

Back to the future

Matt Huston — 2008-04-19T20:56:58+00:00

Where does the time go? My last blog was in July of 2007. I've been so incredibly busy and wanted to write a blog post for months now. I seem to wait until I have something 'cool' to show but then even if I do, I seem to sit on it. I guess I am trying to make the mother of all blog posts. Well, I've been working on lots of things, somethings I can show and somethings I cannot, however this post is not the mother of all blog posts.

Aside from that, I got married on November 11th, 2007 to my lovely wife, Alize Huston and I now live in London, England with her.

Since graduating from Purdue University in 2006, I've been working as a full-time contractor both inside and outside of the Torque community. Why have I been contracting? Well my living situation wasn't an ideal one for working in an office, I live in Indianapolis and my wife lived in London, England and I've called both cities home for about the last 2 years. It feels great to finally be settled down in London, though I miss Indianapolis and the USA!

I've been happy to work on some very exciting projects. During the summer of 2007 I worked with the great guys at Game Refuge, Inc of Arctic Stud fame on a TGEA related project. Also, just recently published is Tae Kwon Do Championship which I worked as a GUI programmer for IMC Digital Universe, Inc, which was a non-Torque project.

Well I hope this post fills everyone in on my apparent 'inactivity' over the past few months will be a transition to a new era of apparent 'activity'. Aside from professional work, I've got a pretty exciting project up my sleeves that I've been working on for over a year now. The project was originally started as a Torque Game Builder project but has transitioned into using the now available TGEA 1.7. Please stay tuned as I will be posting up blogs related to this project in the coming days and weeks.

Resource Dump - GuiAnimatedCrosshairHud, guiObjectSelectionHud

Matt Huston — 2007-07-06T17:59:00+00:00

Last week I had some time to work on a couple of gui controls I had wanted to develop for one of my own personal projects.

The first was a new Object Selection control, though there are a couple around, including Gareth Fouche's Context sensitive crosshair/object interaction code which I coincidentally had ported over to TGEA last week as well (check the bottom comment on his resource), none of them were exactly what I had wanted: which is something more along the lines of Deus Ex or System Shock.

The second was a new crosshair that would be able to be animated based on the players movement. If the player moved, whether just his head or actual body movement, I wanted the crosshair to scale outwards. Also, I wanted the crosshair to scale inwards if the player was standing still or if he was moving, scale inwards only if he had a target.

The scale is currently not tied to the players cone of fire, though this should be relatively easy to add and is my next step for my own project.

Also, here is a video of the two resources in action.

Finally, did I release these? Yes I did and you can get them at their respective pages: GuiObjectSelectionHud and GuiAnimatedCrosshairHud.

Note: This resources are TGEA only, sorry to those stuck back in TGE land :)

ModMaker, TGB, TorqueX and More

Matt Huston — 2007-04-30T09:20:50+00:00

Wow, it has been over 6 months since my most recent blog entry. I have been meaning to write this entry for about the past 3 months but with constant projects, I was always putting it off until I had finished up my most recent. So I am finally coming to some conclusion on my recent projects so I thought I could finally write about them all. So this blog covers my Torque endeavors for about the past 6 months!

ModMaker Weapons, NetGeos LLC

Mike Pearson contacted me explaining how his company was creating a high quality weapons pack with the Torque engine in mind. He was also interested in creating a tool that users could use to easily import new weapons into the Torque. The trick was that this was supposed to work with the stock torqueDemo so only script modifications could be made.

Because of the weapons that Mike had in mind, we needed the editor to be capable of varying types of weapon. This included everything from a sniper rifle to a rocket launcher and everything in between. One of the more humorous moments of development was when testing the capabilities of the editor and easily creating a multi-projectile (shotgun-style) rocket launcher with a scope. Ridiculous yes, but it had proven our design.

All of the ModMaker Weapon packs come with the ModMaker Weapons Editor as an added bonus and is now available in the content pack store.

Pirate Island and River Racer, Giant Campus

I got in touch with Giant Campus, who provide technology training, back in January. They were interested in developing a variety tutorial series based around Torque Game Builder, TorqueX and Game Engine. The target audience was to be summer camp students ages 11-14.

Our first project was creating Pirate Island, a Mario-style platformer tutorial series using TGB. The first step was creating the actual game, then going through the game, breaking it down for a step by step tutorial for Giant Campus's web-based learning tool. Topics covered included building levels, user interfaces and TorqueScript.

Once completing the above project, we created the River Racer tutorial series, basically TGB's ScrollerDemo, however this time using TorqueX. This was actually my first real taste of C# and TorqueX but having my experience of Torque Game Builder it was easy to work in to. The most difficult part of getting into TorqueX was changing to the component programming style but after going through other TorqueX game code, it was just about changing some of your thought process.

Lastly, we created a set of tutorials based on making modifications to the Torque Game Engine. Topics covered in this tutorial included using the World Editor, Particles and TorqueScript.

Myrmidon (Personal Project)

Myrmidon is a sci-fi top-down shooter similar to Gauntlet. Ever since I purchased Torque Game Builder, I have had this game in the back of my mind. It is actually a remake/port of a DOS game developed by William Lachance between 1996-1998 in DJGPP with the Allegro game programming library.

As the original game was open source. I will be releasing all original TorqueScript files to the community upon release, which should be sometime in the next week or two. I also want to thank Phil Shenk for his A* (A-star) pathfinding code and also David Higgins for his modifications and also helping with some performance issues I had.

Dev-Diary #4 - Action RPG :: Talking Heads

Matt Huston — 2006-11-19T00:09:45+00:00

I have refined the interface of my Dialog Editor and also refined the code since I have learned a great deal about SQLite in the last month. The original version was occasionally crashing during saving/loading/updating so I have squashed all of those bugs, refined the editor, added some cool new features and best of all, given support for talking heads ie: lip syncing (talking heads would be a Fallout reference for those that get it).

So first, about the refined Dialog Editor. I have refined the management of the dialog database files so that it is more modular. Each character has their own dialog file which means you don't need the entire games database to begin creating new dialogs. Passing around the core database file with tons of information would have caused lots of problems in the end. I have also added a search feature so you can search the dialog tree for keywords, especially important when you begin to write loads of dialog and need to make a minor change. Also added is a drop down/up list of script commands for Actions and Conditionals for insertion and reference, making the tool incredibly easy to use so designers won't need to use TorqueScript at all for the most part.

The biggest feature I have added is a lip syncing mode. Although not up to snuff with the Source engines lipsync application, I have written a system capable of creating wideshot and medium closeup dialog and cutscenes with potential voice over work. A very cool and powerful feature indeed. Basically, when you press the LipSync Mode in the dialog editor, it chops up your dialog line word by word, for each word you then can choose an morph animation to play and lastly you can choose a delay between words (as the delay begins at the start of the animation, you must make sure the delay is long enough for the animation to stop playing or it will skip the following animation). This gives the user power to have pauses in dialog if the voiceover deems necessary. No screenshot yet, the interface seems a bit clunky at this point so I will be attempting to integrate it and make it just as easy and powerful to use as the Dialog Editor. I have included a video however (what lipsync blog would be complete without one?) You can see the video here (Windows Media Video) Note: I am not an animator so the animation probably looks a bit cheesy!

Persistent Items and Mission Objects

Matt Huston — 2006-10-31T12:50:33+00:00

Having some more fun using the SQLite resource. After my last blog, I had a few people asking questions about using the SQLite resource and I thought I'd write up some code where I spawn items (Crossbow, CrossbowAmmo, HealthPacks, etc) from my SQLite database.

I created two tables in my database, "Items" which holds ItemId and ItemDatablock. ItemId being the unique number of the Item, and ItemDatablock being the text datablock name, for instance "Crossbow". The second table is my "WorldItems" table. This holds "WorldItemId", "ItemId", "Area", "SpawnPoint", and "Rotation" WorldItemId is a unique number identifying each item in the map, ItemId links us with the Items table, Area is the map the item is currently in, SpawnPoint is where the item should be spawned at, and Rotation is the items orientation.

I have two function, one to spawn the items once the mission has been started, and one to save them once the mission is exited or the game is closed. This allows for the player to be able to pickup items and then leave the game, and come back and the items won't be on the map anymore. However they won't be on the player either. :) But the basis of the idea is there and then be created for the player as well.

So here is the code. Enjoy :D

Spawn Code

function spawnItems()
{ 
   %query = "SELECT * FROM WorldItems INNER JOIN Items ON WorldItems.ItemId = Items.ItemId";
   
   %result = sqlite.query(%query, 0);
   
   echo(%result);

   %rowCounter = 0;
   %rowCount = sqlite.numRows(%result);

   echo(%rowCount);

   while (%rowCounter < %rowCount)
   {
      %itemId     = sqlite.getColumn(%result, "ItemId");
      %spawnPoint = sqlite.getColumn(%result, "SpawnPoint");
      %rotation   = sqlite.getColumn(%result, "rotation");
      %datablock  = sqlite.getColumn(%result, "itemDatablock");
      
      echo(%wItemId SPC %itemId SPC %spawnPoint SPC %rotation);
      
      echo("Datablock :: " @ %datablock);
      
      new Item() 
      {
         position = %spawnPoint;
         rotation = %rotation;
         dataBlock = %datablock;
      };
      
      %rowCounter++;
      sqlite.nextRow(%result);
   }
   
   if (%result)
   {
      sqlite.clear(%result);
   }
}

Save Code

function saveItems()
{
   %query = "DELETE FROM WorldItems WHERE Area ='" @ MissionInfo.name @ "'";
   %result = sqlite.query(%query);
   
   %objectCount = ServerConnection.getCount();
   
   %foundCount = 1;
   
   for(%i = 1 ; %i < %objectCount ; %i++)
   {
      %obj = ServerConnection.getObject(%i);
      
      echo(%obj);
      
      %className = %obj.getClassName();
      
      if(%className $= "Item")
      {
         %dataBlock = %obj.getDatablock();
         %dataBlockName = %dataBlock.getName();
         
         %query = "SELECT ItemId FROM Items WHERE ItemDatablock='" @ %dataBlockName @ "'";
         %result = sqlite.query(%query, 0);
         
         %itemId = sqlite.getColumn(%result, "ItemId");
         
         %spawnPoint = %obj.getPosition();
         %rotation   = %obj.rotation;

         echo(%i SPC %itemId SPC MissionInfo.name SPC %spawnPoint SPC %rotation);

         %query = "INSERT INTO WorldItems ("
                @ "WorldItemId, ItemId, Area, SpawnPoint, Rotation) "
                @ "VALUES ("
                @ "'" @ %foundCount @ "',"
                @ "'" @ %itemId @ "',"
                @ "'" @ MissionInfo.name @ "',"
                @ "'" @ %spawnPoint      @ "',"
                @ "'" @ %rotation @ "')";
         %result = sqlite.query(%query, 0);
         
         %foundCount++;   
      }      
   }
}

Table Creation and Data Insert Code (for Reference)

function createItems()
{
   %query = "CREATE TABLE WorldItems ("
          @ "WorldItemId INTEGER,"
          @ "ItemId INTEGER,"
          @ "Area TEXT,"
          @ "SpawnPoint TEXT,"
          @ "Rotation TEXT);";
          
   %result = sqlite.query(%query, 0);

   %query = "INSERT INTO WorldItems ("
          @ "WorldItemId, ItemId, Area, SpawnPoint, Rotation) "
          @ "VALUES ("
          @ "'" @ 1 @ "',"
          @ "'" @ 1 @ "',"
          @ "'" @ "Stronghold" @ "',"
          @ "'" @ "28.1121 1.70186 0.0957217" @ "',"
          @ "'" @ "1 0 0 0" @ "')";
          
   %result = sqlite.query(%query, 0);
}

Dev-Diary #3 - A single player action-RPG

Matt Huston — 2006-10-28T17:46:03+00:00

It has been a really long time since my last post. I have been quite busy with different projects and I also moved a few weeks ago as well. I was recently working more on my action-RPG bits and just now was finishing up converting everything over to 1.5. Just want to say congrats to GarageGames on the release, from a presentation standpoint, the engine really comes off with a very polished look with the new artwork and particles in the starter.fps, racing, and demos.

I have been doing a lot of work in TGB over the last couple months but was feeling I wanted to do some personal stuff in TGE again as well so went back to my action-RPG code and decided I wanted to implement SQLite code instead of using XML or my own text-based format. I have really found the power in doing so. I have rewritten my conversation/dialog code from scratch, now implementing a GUI editor. I had seen Gareth Fouche's about a month ago, we both have taken some queues from the Neverwinter Nights Toolset, which is probably the best RPG dialog editor out there, so the best one to duplicate.

So I implemented my own GUI editor and I like the power and ease it has created for me. Another key thing is a application that can view a SQLite database outside Torque. Thanks to the people over at MyDreamRpg.com, they mentioned SQLite Browser for this. It works as much as you'd need it for a game and is free.

So what would a blog be without some screenshots.

TGB RPGness Part 1 (Inventory)

Matt Huston — 2006-07-31T18:54:36+00:00

A few months ago I was working on implementing some RPG features to TGE. I implemented a character generator, character sheets, and a new branching dialog system (the resources out there just weren't working for me).

So now that I am spending most of my programming time over in the realm of 2D. Being an RPG lover, I decided I'd implement some RPG features in my free time. Fallout is by far my favorite game and favorite RPG of all time obviously. I enjoyed Knights of the Old Republic, Baldur's Gate, Arcanum, and Temple of Elemental Evil, but I've always had a interest in post-apocalyptic settings. The first game I ever bought with my own money (that being - I had other games but parental units had purchased them) was a post-apocalyptic RPG, back in 1991 called Twilight 2000. It was suprisingly an isometric RPG, way ahead of its time, and supposedly the last game by Paragon Software. I was young but I played the heck out of that game. It was definately aimed at adults in terms of difficulty but I always enjoyed games that were like that way more.

So I wanted to duplicate what I liked about those types of games and I decided I'd start with an inventory. Although I liked Fallout, I never liked its inventory system so I took some liberties and designed my own. I wanted to seperated the weapons, armor, and items into seperate tabs for easier selection. I did also want to have some of the character's stats displayed on the inventory so I did create the character stats system with a predefined character (more on that in a moment).

So here is what I have come up with. Note: I designed the GUI, the items are from Fallout, and the portrait is obviously of Mad Max :)

You can also see a video of the inventory in action @ www.matt3d.com/example/rpgSystem_Inventory1.wmv

As I stated above, I had a predefined character, with main attributes (Strength, Agility, etc) but I also created all the derived statistics (Armor Class, Carry Weight etc) from his main attributes. He has inventory slots that mirror the objects in the GUI and are saved. I have four slot groups: weapon, armor, item, and equip. The items can't be moved into each others group, other than the equip group. Each item has weight as the character has a maximum carry ewight.

Ammunition is stackable, I will probably go ahead and make items stackable as well, but not all items, I'll create some sort of isStackable variable for all the items and also a maxStack.

So where am I going, I'd like to probably create a character creation system instead of always using the pre-defined character always. As I said above, I've already created one in TGE so should just require some minor changes for the system to bring it on over. I still haven't added skills so I'll have to define what skills I want the player to have when making the creation system.

TGB Gaming Goodness

Matt Huston — 2006-07-06T21:27:07+00:00

Purchased TGB before it went release about a month ago. Been touching it on and off and doing the tutorials which were included. Capabilities are very cool and love how well documented the engine is.

Recently, I wanted to delve into a project that wasn't straight from the tutorials. I decided to create a platformer where the goal is to collect coins. I learned a lot while completing it, since most everything was from scratch. There is a platformer tutorial but I had a hard time trying to follow it so I basically wrote it myself with some help as well from the TGB message boards. So the character can run, jump, and collect coins. The problems I did have were when the player jumped and landed back on the ground, he would move slower than he had previously. I had tried to change his gravity to nothing when he landed but then he would walk straight off the platforms without falling. The one-way collision code helped me cure this problem. The result is 3 levels, 90 seconds each, where you have to collect 50 coins each. I've had a couple friends demo it and they found it really addictive. I have had a couple problems with collisions on other peoples machines. I am not sure if this is my code or TGB's physics system wacking out because of low frame rates (which I have heard and saw when I tried to record my game with Fraps).

Have some other TGB game projects in my head. If I have time I'll continue on to those while I finish getting all the tweaks into this.

Dev-Diary #2 - A single player action-RPG

Matt Huston — 2006-03-26T02:58:13+00:00

So as I posted for the first time last weekend, I am working on a single player action-RPG. I have completed the Character Generation & Sheet systems. Those all work excellently. This week I turned my task over to creating dialog. There is Nelson Gonsalves RPG Dialog editor which I considered using, however upon further inspection of it, it wasn't exactly what I wanted and dialog being an important aspect of my game, I wanted my dialog to be exactly how I wanted. So I went to coding in my own dialog system. I preplanned and checked the logic over and over.

My goals for my own dialog system was this. Branching dialog in easier to use text files that are easily editable in a text editor, Nelson's RPG Dialog editor had a GUI editor that was buggy, and text files that were hard to read for editing. Conditionals, my role-playing system has character Charisma and a Persuasion skill, both of these will be used for Persuading, Intimidating, and Seducing NPCs, so I needed a conditional to check whether these would work or not. Lastly, I wanted scripts to be able to be triggered via these dialog options, for instance the player might recieve, update, or complete a quest through dialog, the player might also set the NPC hostile depending on their actions (attempting to intimidate and failing may lead to this). So with all of that I planned out and created my own text file format for the dialog and implemented it. The results are exactly what I was going for.

I am not 100% done with this as I am going through minor tweaks and also would like to create some default camera angles that will be forced when in dialog, ie: make sure the player's screen has the NPCs face in center view for dialog.

So after this, I will be working on the Quest system. The quest system I planned out while doing the dialog system but I have not implemented. It works like this, each has different states. If the state is at 0, the player does not have the quest yet. The initial state is 1 and there can be any number of states of the quest before the final state. So a quest can have 3 states (0, 1, 2) or 100 (0-99) or even more. Obviously that probably won't happen but the support is there to have quests that have as many steps and Journal updates along the way. This also allows the player to approach quests different ways and have the journal correspond to these different ways.

What is done ::
Character Generation - Attributes, Skills, Model Choice System
Character Sheet - In game character screen, used for viewing character stats and leveling.

In progress ::
Dialog - Branching (75%)
Journal/Quest Log (15%)

Not Done ::
Persistence - Saving/Loading
Object Interaction
Inventory
Mission portals
Unarmed, Melee, Firearm Combat - Based on attributes and skills
AI

Dev-Diary #1 - A single player action-RPG

Matt Huston — 2006-03-19T17:46:30+00:00

So as I mentioned in some blog responses, I am working on new project. For the last month I have been working on designing an RPG. As the title says it is single player not an MMORPG! it is based on an 8-year old idea that a friend whom I haven't seen in many years originally created and passed to me where I took it to the Deus Ex engine. So it has layed dormant for a couple years and now a month ago I have completely redesigned the world, the title, which I won't say today as I will announce the project with screenshots and the sort of thing in the coming weeks, remains the same as it still is part of the world. In short, I can describe the world in terms of Frank Miller's Sin City, James O'barr's The Crow, and John Woo's Hard Boiled. Gameplay would be described as similar to System Shock 2 and Deus Ex, with more of a emphasis on character development and dialog thru branching dialog which depends on a characters Charisma and Persuasion abilities and skills.

So the core rules design document was done and this past week I have had off so coding went into full swing. I have found I have learned so much in the last year of using Torque. I guess having over ambitious projects and that giving you headaches helps you learn things via failing :) There are a ton of resources I have found that at least set you in a direction you want to go with things.

What is done ::
Character Generation - Attributes, Skills, Model Choice System
Character Sheet - In game character screen, used for viewing character stats and leveling.

In progress ::
Dialog - Branching
Persistence - Saving/Loading
Object Interaction

Not Done ::
Inventory
Mission portals
Journal/Quest Log
Unarmed, Melee, Firearm Combat - Based on attributes and skills
AI

I had contacted Nick Zafiris as I had seen his game Nuclear Nightmare and been following his dev diary since his projects original conception. He has helped answer questions and we will be sharing some of our skills for each others projects. I have also finished work on male and female base models and finally learned how to rig up a character and put it into the engine.