Blog for BigPapa at GarageGames.com

Concept Art and Dev Website

BigPapa — 2007-05-17T03:30:15+00:00

Concept Art
I have started sketching out some concepts for the robots. I think I have come up with a design that I think is good and simple enough for me to create in Blender.

Website
I have created a project website where anyone can log in to check the progress, post your feedback, report a bug and tell me what would they like to see added, changed or removed. Head on over to combatrobogames.projectpath.com, sing in as user 'public' with password 'public' and click on the 'CRG' project link. I figured I would use one site for everything related to the game instead of using different sites for project tracking and user feedback.

Thx!
- BigPapa

Started work on new game.

BigPapa — 2007-04-03T03:50:09+00:00

Hello Gang,

Don't know if my developer snapshot made it through so I'm just re-posting to my blog.

I've started working on an game called Combat Robotic Games. The name is a temporary working title and it's a learning project with hopes of developing it to a full release game. It's an FPS that is played in stadium style arenas and you play as a robot against other robot players or NPC's.

Some features I plan to implement are different game types (Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Survival, NPC killzone, etc.) and a level editor. I have not decided on the full set of weapons but you can expect to see guns, rifles, shotguns, rockets, etc.

Instead of releasing alphas and betas, I've decided to release prototypes of the work in progress. I feel I'll get better feedback from gamers if I allow them to play the actual game. This is the first prototype, so I know it has problems but don't let that stop you from commenting or criticizing. The whole point of prototyping is to get feedback.

The game has content from other projects or modified from online sources and most likely all of it will be replaced by better content by the time is finished. It's not meant to show the final product.

Here is the obligatory image. :)

Check out the GGE page here. Please post your feedback on this page.

Click here to view some WIP snapshots.

You can download the game from here.

Thx!
- BigPapa

Change in direction

BigPapa — 2007-01-15T21:25:18+00:00

Progress on my racing game has come to a halt. After much research, it looks like vehicle collision and multiplayer support are not up to par on stock TGE. This seems evident by the decision of other games to create their own custom vehicle collision. For now, I'll stop working on it and concentrate on the other projects I have.

I took a break from coding and decided to create a new character. Here is a Blender render shot of the work in progress.

This is the product of a week's worth of work.

I tried replicating the armature structure used by Kork so that I could use the stock DSQ animations but the model is completely destroyed in the game if I use them. I think it has something to do with bone axis rotation. If anyone has been successful in getting a custom character to work with the stock DSQ files, please let me know how. I gave up on it and decided to create my own sequences.

This is the second character that I create in Blender and I know it needs a lot of work. Please be brutally hones with your comments, don't sugarcoat it. It has shown me how hard it is to create quality content and I'm convinced that the character packs are well worth the small price tag.

Thx!
- BigPapa

Progress so far

BigPapa — 2006-06-14T01:56:26+00:00

Progress on my racing game is slow lately. The biggest item holding me back is the stock TGE physics and collision detection. The more I read about it, the more I'm convinced that I'll have to come up with another solution if I want this and other games I have planned to move forward. dRacer and Buggedout Jet Rally both use custom physics and collisions and it looks like I will have to do the same. dRacer seem to be the best one since everything is network aware. I'll have to send an email to the guys to see if they can point me in the right direction.

C:AV, the other game I'm involved with is moving along. I implemented a simplified version of the Realm Wars weapons HUD but we realize this will not be good enough. I started fiddling with the DragDropGui resource and it looks like this will be better suited for our purpose.

Since I don't have any new pics for my racing game, I'll break my own rule to not post renders of weapons and post this auto rifle I created in Blender. Enjoy.

Whats taking up my time

BigPapa — 2006-04-04T04:32:35+00:00

Hello gang,

For the last few months a lot has changed in my life. My family grew by one member in December with the arrival of my son Daniel. I decided it was time to finish the Computer Science degree I starter but never finished so I'm doing the online school thing. I'm still working on my racing game project. And I'm also helping with development of C:AV.

It's all taking a lot of time and effort but I like the fact that I have clear defined goals to reach and I'm in the right track to achieve them.

I'm getting more experience in Torquescript and I feel more comfortable making changes and experimenting with new stuff in scripts. I have ventured into the C++ code but not as much as I would like to. Eventually, I'll get in there and poke around.

I'm more experienced on Blender and like it every day even more. It was a tough learning curve to pass but I stuck to it and I'm glad I did.

Here is an untextured snapshot of the gun I developed for C:AV

Here is the same gun textured. However, I can't take credit for the texture.

Here is a screenshot of the concept car I'm working on for my racing game.

One thing that I really need to work on is sharing with the community what I'm working on and how it's going. I tend to shy away from sharing fearing that what I'm doing is not of interest to anyone else. So I will commit on posting at least once a month so that I don't feel like I'm the only one reaching for my dream of developing games for a living.

Thanks for sticking with me and reading through.

Saturday Dec 3 6:18

BigPapa — 2005-12-03T06:18:42+00:00

An evening with GG and Valador... AWESOME!

This past Wednesday night I had the privilege of meeting Jay, Stephen, Davey and Josh from Garage Games and Mario, Eric and a few more from Valador at the hospitality suite at the I/ITSEC. They are all great people with a great passion for what they do and all around a fun bunch!

I also had the opportunity to mingle among representatives from military, university and other serious type developers that use Torque in their projects for visualizing and analyzing data. From what I could tell, I was the only independent game developer but didn't let that intimidate me.

The GG bunch

Folks, these guys make you feel welcome and really want all of us to dream big and achieve our game developer dreams. They have that fire in the belly that pushes them to reach out to the community to make us succeed. They truly believe in the GG products and want to see all sorts of new games and tools made with them.

I even had the chance to show my racing prototype to them and get feedback and more ideas on how to increase the fun-o-meter quotient.

Valador

You've seen the screenshots for the projects they are making for NASA but its way cooler to see it live. They had a demo of the a rocket being put together in the Vehicle Assembly Building and a space capsule docking with the International Space Station. They also had the Mars rover running around in actual Martian terrain generated from real topographical data. It really makes you see how good TGE and TSE are and that they are not just for games.

Now, if they use T2D to make a Moon Patrol game but with the Mars Rover instead, I say they got the next blockbuster hit! :)

Thx guys!

I really had a great time. So good that I forgot to check my cell phone to make sure my wife had not gone into labor! She is due in a month and has been having braxton hicks. Somehow, I avoided sleeping with the dogs. Phew!

Monday Nov 21 6:49

BigPapa — 2005-11-21T06:49:27+00:00

I finally decided it was time post a .plane to share with the comunity what I've been working on.

Back in March of 2005, I purchased TGE 1.3 and like many new Torque owners, I decided that the best way to get my development skills up to snuff was by making a game. I wanted to start small so decided to use the Racing starter kit as a starting point and develop a new game around it.

The working title is Ambush Racing. It's a small scale car racing game like many but with the distinction that you don't use weapons to thwart your opponent. Instead, you use the track as your weapon.

Part of the game design process is the design document. I've looked at some templates but decided to just ad-lib it and modify as needed but keeping an eye out for the evil "feature creep". Here is what I have so far:

Working title: Ambush Racing
Concept: Small scale car racing on interactive tracks rigged with traps used for blocking, tricking and frustrating your opponents.
Similar games: dRacer, Nitro, Bugged Out Rally
What makes this game different? No weapon on your car. The track is your weapon.

Features:
- Pop-up walls triggered by cars.
- Game contains ready-made interactive tracks rigged with traps.
- Local multiplayer races.
- Internet multiplayer races. (Not working yet)
- OS X, Linux, Windows versions can play together.
- Track editor used to make your own tracks out of "snap-on" track sections.(planned)

Technology Needs:
- Game engine - TGE 1.3
- 3D modelers - Blender and Hammer (Later switch to *sigh* Constructor)
- Audio editor Audacity
- Compilers/IDE Eclipse(Win), Xcode(OS X), GCC(Linux)

Engine modifications:
- Better vehicle tracking and re-spawning methods: Self created (Torquescript).
- Better vehicle steering: Vehicle Steering Upgrade resource
- Car 3D preview: GuiObjectView resource

Enough jabbering! Download it for either OS X Panther, Linux or Windows. That's right! multi-platform! Please give me all the feedback you can think of. The more I have, the more I learn.

I will be posting more images on Flickr later.