DungeonBot3000: Friggin Laser Beams

Published January 30, 2019
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Implemented the second player skill: Laser Beam. It's a channeled skill that targets the cursor, with a build-up that increases damage dealt the longer you channel. Stop-casting and casting again resets the build-up, and the beam has a tracking speed that can be increased with mods that increase attack speed, so it doesn't exactly follow the mouse cursor's speed. This video also showcases Moderators and Staff (scaled-up versions of the User, with red and green shirts), as well as the newly-implemented Reflect Damage monster mod. (Green-shirted staff in this video rolled the reflect mod at 100%, which is why my life drops when I laser them.) Working on more mods and triggers. I'll probably do 1 more player skill, then I want to implement a few more enemy skills and the boss skills for KHawk and jbadams in the final boss fight. After that, I'll throw some sound effects on the attack triggers and some music in the background, plus work some more on items and make items actually drop as loot. Feeling the pinch of time, though, since I will be working 12-hour shifts for 8 of the remaining 17 days. The final product is certainly going to be an unbalanced mess, since right now I'm focused on mechanics and not numerical balance.

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Comments

cpfr

Sweat beam effect, I like it! Is it a particle effect or is the beam itself a mesh (if I may ask)?

January 30, 2019 06:26 PM
JTippetts

The fire burst at the end is a particle effect, but the beam itself is just a single quad, scaled on Z and oriented to span the distance from the Turret bone to target location, then with a scrolling additive texture applied. The constrained top-down perspective makes doing it this way a lot easier, since I don't have to worry about adding any kind of flange or skirt to the ends for viewing the beam on-end.

January 30, 2019 11:40 PM
cpfr

Ah cool! That's awesome! Didn't think that a single quad would be enough, but after you said this, it seems obvious that it is okay as long as it is aligned to the camera ? ?

January 31, 2019 06:09 PM
Rutin
19 hours ago, JTippetts said:

The fire burst at the end is a particle effect, but the beam itself is just a single quad, scaled on Z and oriented to span the distance from the Turret bone to target location, then with a scrolling additive texture applied. The constrained top-down perspective makes doing it this way a lot easier, since I don't have to worry about adding any kind of flange or skirt to the ends for viewing the beam on-end.

Very cool! :) I like your approach. 

January 31, 2019 07:30 PM
JTippetts
1 hour ago, cpfr said:

Ah cool! That's awesome! Didn't think that a single quad would be enough, but after you said this, it seems obvious that it is okay as long as it is aligned to the camera ? ?

To orient the quad, I calculate the vector from start to end and normalize it for the z axis of the beam transmission as nsform. I take the cross product with the vertical world axis to calculate the x axis, then do another cross product between x and z to calculate the actual y axis, which will differ by a small amount of tilt from the global y axis. The viewing angle is steep enough that the beam isnt ever viewed on edge or on end, so it works okay.

January 31, 2019 08:02 PM
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