That's no longer a problem, the new more compact interface solved most of the problems, IMO. I'm about to jump back into the game and have a test session later today w/the publisher, so I'll get some other opinions about how it plays.
New weapons market/inventory...
Everything from drugs - cars - weapons - items will be allocated through this inventory screen, you just drag + drop into the game world.
There is also text under the mouse cursor that tells you what will happen if you left or right click on an object, if there is an action. For instance if you're dragging a weapon from the inventory over into the game world...and you're hovering the mouse over a member of your gang, the text will read "Give item to gangster". It makes the game easier to play, since you know what will happen at each mouse click.
I still have to finish these command windows.
- Business Manager / Territory Overview
- Drug Market
- Diplomacy
I already did the weapon/vehicle windows.
I've also been working on finishing the conversion from ASM -> HLSL. Just finished that up, converting some effects like reflections and the night shaders.
One other aspect I've been working on is a new territory representation. I decided to go with a convex-hull algorithm using 16 slightly scaled points per piece of territory, I generate a 2D hull encompasing all points which gives a somewhat round look to the territory.
Here is how the territory looks at the start...with just one building.
And once I've intimidated a few buildings...
I'm going to make it look a lot better soon (not just a line list)...there are a lot of different ways to go about rendering a glowing territory system. I'm thinking axial-billboards between points, and a beam of light "sweeping" along the territory every few seconds...sort of like a radar sweep. It'll look cool, I can also make that beam of light functional...it determines when money is collected for instance.
Other than that I'm fixing a lot of stupid things, making tweaks to a lot of aspects of the game.
Screenshot time [grin]...
Here is a random screenshot of night in the city...
I did a little 25 minute warm-up session online today, checking the stability of the game.
Motion blur!
Shooting down the street.
This screenshot is screwed up in a few places, but I still think the skyline looks cool. Taken around 5:30AM in the game.
Traffic jam. The vehicle AI is stupid...It's starting to get annoying having to spend so much time tweaking the AI.
Practicing infantry tactics with my homies. Eh...the bloom effect needs to be tweaked.
Yeaaaa...back to work.
- Dan
You should try cheating, like not spawning any more cars to go to the affected areas (maybe the gangsters/citizens found something better to do). And there must be enough alternate routes in the map, or the AI won't stand a chance.
Anyways, just my (probably grossly uninformed) 2 cents.