Not much got done today I'm afraid. I'm moving to a new house that my parents built, and the house is almost done, so my family has been packing like crazy to get ready to move. Unfortunately, the new house is only 20 minutes from my current home, so the Air Force wont pay to help us move (greedy bastards[grin]). Anyways, I haven't been able to put together the video like I promised, but Mark has some cool ships he finished, so maybe that can hold you guys over until I get my act together.
Thing #1 : Menus
This has been my focus lately, because currently you just start the game up, and it automatically loads a map and creates a local server, anything past then(connecting to another server, loading a new map, etc) must be done via console commands, which isn't the most efficient thing in the world. Unfortunately, I started coding away at the menus today, without really thinking my way through it all. I pretty much wrote a couple GUI classes before I realized that I hadn't coded any way for the GUI elements to communicate with anything, they just looked pretty, with rollovers, scrollbars, and whatnot. So yeah, that pretty much wasted 2 hours, but I can still use most of the GUI stuff I wrote, just with a few modifications, once I actually think this through anc get coding again.
Thing #2 : Wierd Crash
I've been noticing a somewhat random crash bug as of late that just started happening. Every once in a while, a ship will get killed, and as soon as it begins to explode, the game crashes. I can't reproduce it consistently, so I have no idea where it is occuring other than when a ship dies (which involves about 5 function calls). Anyways, I should get that all sorted out sooner or later.
Mark's Progress
Mark's been working on some realatively cool stuff lately, but his newest "masterpiece" is the new Cruiser for the "Good Guys". A novel thing about this Cruiser is that Mark drew up the 'elite' version of the ship. We're hoping to have elite versions of every ship in the game. The elite units are essentially the same ship as the normal ones, just with boosted stats and a kickass new paintscheme. We're hoping to have a specific 'squadron' of enemy elite units be a recurring adversary throughout the campaign. Anyways, here's the image I promised you guys, let us know what you think of the new scheme!
Well, thats all I've got for now, sorry in advance if my entries are sporadic over the next week or two, moving is a bitch! Peace Out!
Just thought I'd check on y'all's progress. Looks like things are still going well. [smile]
I'd like to make a couple of comments on menus and GUIs. First off, assuming that y'all are using C++, I strongly suggest using signals and slots in your GUI (if not also in other parts of the game). If you're not quite sure what signals and slots are or how they work, the "Signals and Slots" thread in the Game Programming forum should help you out.
Second, regarding the menus, what you need is some way to transition from the "menu state" to the "in-game state". So I would suggest that creating the following: a class (or better yet, an interface) for game states and a class that manages the different states. It doesn't have to be very complicated, but it will help you immensely -- it has for me!
Hope this helps. [smile]
- Rob