Tiny update, but I managed to make it so you can now delete rooms properly in the Afterglow level editor.
Basically, the problem was that I had a very inflexible "index" system internally, where a wall would store an index to a "room" that it belongs to and the specific vertices, and the room would store indices to the vertices it belongs to. This is because it's really easy for serialization, and everything worked great for my map.
The problem is, what happens when you delete a room in the middle of the map? Everything has a reference to it, and suddenly their references are invalid (since every index after it has shifted "down" thanks to the new void).
Now they use pointers internally (while running) but convert back to indices properly for the final serialization. It's kind of embarrassing it took me this long to actually get around to do, but now the editor is really awesome and it should be much easier to make levels.
I did a bit of work on physical particles in Afterglow today. Unlike Glow, particles will rebound off of walls (for performance reasons, the wall's normal is not really involved; this shouldn't be a big problem but I'll fix it if it is ugly).
I'll get this working so that firing your gun generates physical particles for spent shell casings and I can have one-shot physical particles that leave decals behind (like HopeDagger's blood particles in Skirmish Online). I'll also see if it can't be made better, since there's a lot of cycles spent doing physics for stuff that might actually not need physics.
Maybe this week I'll make the actual game better instead of just the trappings. The AI needs to become a lot dumber in order to stop interfering with my tests, and it doesn't do to have the game blow up on a not-implemented exception every time the player dies.
It's the fourth anniversary of this journal, so I had to make an obligatory journal entry. I haven't made much progress at all this week outside of the games course, though.
So, happy anniversary to this journal.
If I weren't making two games at once I'd be entered in the TIGSource cockpit compo. If you're looking for a small game to cut your teeth on...
Edit: Bonus screenshot of the racing game. I got shadow blending working properly so things are less ugly.
For some reason, the next milestone of the game is due on a federal holiday, so I've been working hard to tie up loose ends:
You can see stuff like the attached wheels rendering, stencil shadows (still pretty broken) and the currently featureless polygonal ground.
I also tore up a bunch of the internal game code to make it more like something I would actually be proud of instead of a giant lumpy int main that I was using for the prototype (which, contrary to any kind of common sense, got reused).
More Afterglow updates possibly tonight; I have the week off for Reading Week so we'll see how that goes. I want to make the AI a lot better and then go on a rampage making a testbed level.
In Afterglow, the character statistics tab now blinks when there are unspent skill points. This is slightly more subtle than the way that Glow did it, so hopefully people don't "miss" this and go through the entire game without spending any skill points.
The other thing there now is that guns in your inventory display their ammunition quantity in the inventory panel. Which is great.
You can also use the character statistics panel to power your character up, but as of right now I think the buffs per level are way too low. Your character should be moving way faster than he is at level 60 of Speed, for instance.
I'm still working on my assignments; the Gooch shading one needed a bit of work on the user interface, so I took the IMGUI sliders out of my (really old) base code.
While I was looking at that base code, it's amazing how far I've come as a programmer since the first time I wrote that; the code for the sliders is spotty, doesn't make any sense, is uncommented and doesn't follow any kind of indication of a coding standard. I suspect when (and if) I ever get free time, I should go through the Propane Injector repository and clean out all of that old junk I don't use enough to be irritated by its crapness.
I just have to avoid the second system effect.
Afterglow
Working on getting blood and particles running. More on this later, when I have pretty screenshots.
Enemies are also too good at aiming; I should figure out some way to make them much less accurate and possibly vary up their firing rates so it's not a constant Bullet Hell barrage like it was in Glow. If you've written a similar game and have advice on how to make zombies worse at fighting, let me know. AI is one of my big blind spots in general, as if you couldn't tell from my previous games.
I'm also looking into distracting myself from gameplay and graphics architecture, and doing stuff like implementing game save and the "conversation" UI. UI is important, kids: most of the time I spent tweaking the original Glow was busying myself lining up boxes. My new UI system takes care of a lot of UI fiddliness, but it still takes a lot of effort to make a dynamic UI that looks and performs well. If you work at a games company, go hug your UI person. They need it. They need it so bad.
Sound guys, I know you think your job is hard, but if you watch a Hollywood movie the only sounds that come out of videogames are Yar's Revenge samples. So take the day off, rip some Atari samples, and then drink yourself into a stupor. When your boss asks, tell him that Dr. Ravuya gave you a prescription for boozin'.
Top Secret Afterglow Knowledge
HopeDagger showed up in an older journal entry and made a comment which I completely missed. Afterglow (unlike Glow) now has explosive weapons, and almost any weapon can be made explosive through modification between levels (including the Bonesaw). You can also buy implants/upgrades for your player character between levels.
There will also be a handful of completely new weapons, and I've tweaked almost all of the existing ones to handle differently but still retain the spirit of the originals. Right now, the explosive-tipped HK64 SMG is my favourite weapon, supplanting even an explosive-tipped shotgun.
After release, I'd like to add a "Custom Game" feature which lets you load a unique weapon that you define yourself using the XML format as well as custom maps. But that's a very long way off, so I won't be wasting time now thinking about it.
Racing game
The car goes forwards and backwards now. Before, it kicked up sick wheelies, but now that I turned on rotational damping it's become a very polite and reasonable car. I hope the rotational damping doesn't later interfere with my ability to steer the car, but that's for later.
The next milestone deadline is, I believe, Feb 16, so hopefully by then you'll see a complete driving model and maybe even a movie of my little wobbly car going around a sample road.
For my rendering class, I was told to implement a Gooch shader. Here's a fairly old screenshot from it:
The racing game is coming along fairly well; the car model is mature enough now that I was able to add turning wheels to it. It's pretty cool to make something that looks kind of like a car, even if I am in the physics debugging mode to see it:
I plan to get back to Afterglow real soon now.
PSA
In the meantime, I understand lots of Americans are having snow that they're not prepared for. My suggestion is to read up on winter driving, and also to remember that not every situation calls for excessive braking. In many cases, look where you want to go and steer the car calmly in that direction and you should be fine.
Also, check your tire pressure. Despite what many people think, dropping your tire pressure does not increase the contact patch on ice; at best you'll get better snow performance. What you really want in winter is thinner contact patches; if you put more weight in a smaller surface area, you're more likely to "punch through" the snow and get grip onto delicious tarmac.
If you're still having trouble with snow, switch to a Subaru Impreza WRX and replace the stock tires with Bridgestone Blizzaks or Goodyear Nordic tires. The tire is often the most important performance upgrade you can make.
If you've done all this and you're still sliding sideways into a curb, make sure to align your front wheels to face the direction of the car. If there's no way you're not going to hit it, striking the curb parallel to your wheels (as opposed to hitting the steering rack while under load) will minimize the damage to heinously expensive suspension and steering components.
Posted - 2/26/2009 10:44:56 PM
Posted - 2/26/2009 2:22:23 AM
Posted - 2/23/2009 2:20:32 AM
I did a bit of work on physical particles in Afterglow today. Unlike Glow, particles will rebound off of walls (for performance reasons, the wall's normal is not really involved; this shouldn't be a big problem but I'll fix it if it is ugly).
Posted - 2/21/2009 9:30:18 PM
Posted - 2/16/2009 3:47:50 PM
Posted - 2/8/2009 10:26:08 PM
