Think they look great. As much as I love Wing Commander, the one thing that was most infuriating about it was the asteroid fields. I'd much prefer a bunch of large rocks anchored throughout the field, with smaller numbers of random guys moving about. Kind of like in Empire Strikes Back. Sure there were the small guys, but there were also the big hulking bruisers hangin out. Would (i think anyway) give a better feel for how far you've got to go before your out of the field. Freelancers asteroid and debris fields were similar. Just my thoughts on the mechanics of them...which actually wasn't your question at all...heh
Good idea, Hundred! I was going to do a series of broken ones, for when you shoot these guys. But having a few pre-broken ones floating around would probably be fine too.
BradMick - Absolutely. I plan on having a few really big guys hanging out as background reference points, along with tons and tons of smaller ones.
I also want to have random collisions and the like going on in the background.
And now, a few enhanced explosions.....
And I'm also starting on the Projectile weapons - this is the first pass on the primary player gun...
Any thoughts?
I haven't been through the entire thread, but from what I've seen it looks to be a pretty awesome that you're developing. And if you don't mind, I have a few ideas I'd like to share.
1. If possible, with certain planets and asteroids it wold be nice if you could make gravity fields/wells of varying intensities that pull ships, or certain types of ships towards them. Of course different ship types would be affected in different ways, and to varying degrees. For example, one type ship, a more advanced type, could just have minor sensor, or cloaking problems when near the field(s), instead of being pulled towards the body. Where as another type of ship, a type less advanced, could experience a number of malfunctions at one time.
2. Have different types of asteroids which produce different effects, and some that produce no effects at all.
3. Have asteroids and debris that are attracted or drawn to certain ships/metals. And even some that are highly volatile.
4. The effects don't have to be limited to just ships. Certain projectile weapons, as well as certain types of energy weapons can be affected also.
Gravity wells seem like an interesting idea but IMHO such a thing would be 1) infuriating for the player 2) a pain in the arse to code properly 3) ultimately unrealistic as gravity isn't like switching on a giant magnet that draws things to it. Certainly proximity to certain objects causing interference of some kind is a good game mechanic to exploit, plenty of scope to shoehorn it into both objectives and the background.
On the latest effects, the explosion looks brilliant as always but are those beams supposed to flicker at the speed I'm seeing them at? It seems a little chaotic and, if you forgive the egregious simile, like wiggly little sperm under the microscope. Slower and with less amplitude to the waves would be far better. There isn't any wind in space to cause that sort of turbulence after all!
Hundred - While that is an interesting idea, and I do like it in theory...In actual gameplay I think Armondikov is right - It would be intensely frustrating and difficult for the player to decipher. I do plan on having the radar functions in an asteroid field be severely impaired, all the metal and moving objects very easily confuses the radar/scanner system. Makes it very easy to ambush patrols. That's just about the limit of the special asteroid environmental differences - over having to dodge rocky goodness.
Armondikov: Yep. So the Laser animate as they do for a very good reason - it's hard to see them animating at high speed of flight. By example: << This has no animation at all << Has the extreme animation above, at that same speed
As you can see - it's still barely noticeable.
Hope that explains the rationale behind the animation speeds...
And just for fun... http://www.hedfiles.net/LaserDemo3.png
Comco: Hmm. Well, I'm going for packets of tightly controlled, yet chaotic energy, and I think that looks pretty close to what I'm aiming for. Still not seen it in game, so who knows if it will look right there?
Thanks, Klavs!
So I've been kinda swamped with real life recently, what with a girlfriend, and a french exchange student, I've not had as much lonesome time as I normally do. While I watch he duck football game today, though, I've managed to do some animation on the cockpit startup. I still intend to re-visit the down and lock animation, and all the little blinking lights startups.
Still more to do - like the status display,and the TarCom, but yeah! Looking good so far.
Any thoughts?
Update: Got the center status screen starting up properly. Now I've just got the taccom, reticle, and re-do the rendered canopy lock sequence.
Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.
Armondikov: Thanks, dude. I thought it was pretty awesome, but there's always room for improvement. As shown in the next image...
japetus: Yup, yes I dd. I loved MW2, and just about everything about it. The intro movie is still one of the best things I've everseen, and sort of inspired me to do (warning, ancient callback) this: http://oz.irtc.org/ftp/pub/anims/1998-10-15/canyon.mpg < 4mb from 1998. Feel free to laugh at it. long and hard. Here's the description: http://oz.irtc.org/ftp/pub/anims/1998-10-15/canyon.txt
Anyhow. Yeah. Always room for improvement. massive improvement, in some cases. D
So, I've altered the lighting and texturing in the cockpit. I felt that it was getting far too distractingly colorful and flat lit - like there was very little sense of form left. I lowered the bounce lighting intensity, remove the green lights and replaced them with dim red LEDs, and muted much of the prevailing orange and green striping. I think this is much easier on the eyes, and helps the displays really pop from the surface.
So on the TARCom (Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance, Communications capable) AKA the screen to the left, I think I'm going to probably have a sequence where it loads up ad displays all the know fighter craft you might run into, but they flash by extremely quickly. I also want there to be a null target idle screen... like a spinning globe or something. Still not done with that.
If I might make a suggestion for a game mechanic, heres something Ive always thought would be cool to include in a space sim: an Electronic Gravity System. Basically the mechanics behind the system would be like this; say your starfighter has to disable or destroy certain components on a ground base or a large capital ship, or is under heavy attack from a swarm of enemy fighters. With this in mind, a good tactic would be to skim the surface of the ground/ship (of course without actually touching it, just sort of hugging the surface like a repulsorlift vehicle). The EGS would be designed to do just that, always making your starfighter's bottom face the surface of the ground/target. An advantage of it would be if you had something like a motion lock (where your starfighter's guns would always attempt to face a target enemy), you could take out enemy gun positions pretty easily, and if youre fighting in something like an asteroid field, your ship can hug the surface of larger asteroids, and you can dodge enemy fire pretty easily. Without a target lock, your ship would always be going straight ahead, meaning you can only strafe left or right, unless you decide to pull up, in which case your ship will no longer hug the surface of the surface/object. If you approach a ridge, your starfighter will align itself with the ridge accordingly. Sort of like a toggle on/toggle off vehicular combat for the game.
A sort of additional advantage would be that your ship will be about 5-10% harder to lock onto due to the minerals used in the ground, or the energy signatures produced by the larger ship. A sort of disadvantage is your overall ship speed would be reduced by about 20% (even on afterburners). And once you toggle the EGS on/off, youll have to wait at least 5 seconds until you toggle it again.
As for your HUD, have you thought about adding additional meters on the side windows (such as altimeters, afterburner fuel, etc.) similar to the one on the front window?
Tao_Kaita: While that's a really neat idea... I'm pretty certain that it would be impossible to do as you envision in the engine we're making. It's almost completely sprite based, which means if we want to show you something in game, we have to first render it out, and then store it in memory. This means, that if we want you to be able to fly close to these things... then we have to render that, in sufficient detail to hold up, which would be prohibitive. There are going to be sections of ground/asteroid-based areas, but they're going to be that *only*, not switchable at will.
It's a really good idea, but probably not for this game. Thanks for sharing, though... I wish we could do it.
Crix Dorious: Thanks! So, do you mean the lightsources on the individual fighters? Not so much - we're not doing much dynamic lighting on those. If we're lucky, it will be things like the gun flashes and afterburner bursts, like in the plasma bolt example above. If you're asking about the cockpit lighting... then yeah. Kinda. The idea is to pre-render 6-8 different versions of the cockpit in different lighting conditions (from above, left, right, front, back, and in shadow) and then blend between those in engine as you fly around. The hope is that this would be pretty convincing and awesome.
Okay, I've tweaked the targeting displays to be more color-in line with the rest of the HUD.
Also adjusted the timing of the rotation to be more consistent.
Thoughts?
The displays are blinking too much and for too long. The target shown on the left should only rotate or move depending on what part of the target the player is targeting like engines or shields or weapons etc. This is a lot like wing commander which is a good thing of course:-)
Crix Dorious: Thanks! So, do you mean the lightsources on the individual fighters? Not so much - we're not doing much dynamic lighting on those. If we're lucky, it will be things like the gun flashes and afterburner bursts, like in the plasma bolt example above. If you're asking about the cockpit lighting... then yeah. Kinda. The idea is to pre-render 6-8 different versions of the cockpit in different lighting conditions (from above, left, right, front, back, and in shadow) and then blend between those in engine as you fly around. The hope is that this would be pretty convincing and awesome.
I'm mean the cockpit lighting.
I'm very curious on the final product.
reminds me that x-wing vs tie fighter used to have a display in the centre of the cockpit that showed the ship you were targeting, then you could target different systems on the ship, like shield generators and stuff, it was pretty cool
Wow. That IS a cool idea, Toa Kaita! You should pass that one on to Chris Roberts so he can work it into the new Wing Commander game he's working on!
Howard - I'm thinking that a 4-turn animation would look better for the TARCom. It's just MHO, but I think a view starting at the front, turning to the side, then to the rear and then to the top would transition better. At the moment, it's all over and repeating very rapidly.
BTW - I LOVE the center display power-up sequence - seeing all the ship components flash up and then the shield come online etc. Why are more studio's using your talents?
BTW - I LOVE the center display power-up sequence - seeing all the ship components flash up and then the shield come online etc.
That's my favourite too.
I have to admit that I'm out of ideas and criticism - well, perhaps make the rotations of the targets slower and not as busy so they wouldn't become too much of a distraction. They're pretty, but if that's going off every other second in the corner of your eye it's going to be annoying. Apart from I'll just say that I'd like to see more of the interior point-and-click style stuff, they're really nicely done.
The rotation of the target displays is WAY TOO FAST. Sorry had to do that in caps. At that speed they become a distraction and that is not something you want when controlling an aircraft/spacecraft/whatever. I would suggest something that if it does rotate only does so to represent the side of the craft you are facing, i.e. if you are diving onto it's back show the top profile, coming in on the tail the rear view, etc... Also in that way if it can highlight subusystems it will give the pilot/player a clearer mental picture as to whether or not a subsystem they are targetting can even be hit.
Tao Kaita- I hate to be the downer on your idea but I really don't care for it. The general idea really would prove more limiting to the pilot and would make things more difficult, especially in situations where top cover for the enemy is available and you are locked to the hull/ground you are attacking. Instead something more akin to an attitude sensor that locks onto the nearest large mass, planet, ship, asteroid, etc... would work better, giving the pilot an idea of their orientation relative to the massive object yet giving them the control to do with that information as they please.
I'm glad that I decided to log back on SFM today. This thread is full of awesome I really like the explosions BTW. Going to open that file when I get home
I was discussing the relative merits of cutting-edge 3D and sprites (playing Final Fantasy 6 vs the newer ones, mostly) and brought this thread up and sent it around to a few people. Even non-graphics-nerds are damn impressed by this stuff, Howard!
Okay, I agree that the target displays are way too distracting as they are now - I plan to make them way more static, most of the time. They'd only rotate to show you the damaged areas of the targeted ship.
broadwing: Yeah, we're not ready to go really, really public with this yet, we've still got lots of work to do.
Tovette: Thanks!
Viper: Thanks, man! Any luck with that explosion? I'd love to see whatever you use it for.
Armondikov: Dawww, thanks dude. I'm glad your friends like it.
Ooookay! Here's the cockpit close, lock, startup, and launch as is now... Still got to figure out the reticule system.
Any thoughts?
Posts
BradMick - Absolutely. I plan on having a few really big guys hanging out as background reference points, along with tons and tons of smaller ones.
I also want to have random collisions and the like going on in the background.
And now, a few enhanced explosions.....
And I'm also starting on the Projectile weapons - this is the first pass on the primary player gun...
Any thoughts?
1. If possible, with certain planets and asteroids it wold be nice if you could make gravity fields/wells of varying intensities that pull ships, or certain types of ships towards them. Of course different ship types would be affected in different ways, and to varying degrees. For example, one type ship, a more advanced type, could just have minor sensor, or cloaking problems when near the field(s), instead of being pulled towards the body. Where as another type of ship, a type less advanced, could experience a number of malfunctions at one time.
2. Have different types of asteroids which produce different effects, and some that produce no effects at all.
3. Have asteroids and debris that are attracted or drawn to certain ships/metals. And even some that are highly volatile.
4. The effects don't have to be limited to just ships. Certain projectile weapons, as well as certain types of energy weapons can be affected also.
Just a few minor ideas I had. Great work. :thumb:
On the latest effects, the explosion looks brilliant as always but are those beams supposed to flicker at the speed I'm seeing them at? It seems a little chaotic and, if you forgive the egregious simile, like wiggly little sperm under the microscope. Slower and with less amplitude to the waves would be far better. There isn't any wind in space to cause that sort of turbulence after all!
Also, if you're interested in energy effects take a look at this one from Video Copilot, it's a pretty effect overall: http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/3d_light_casting/
Armondikov: Yep. So the Laser animate as they do for a very good reason - it's hard to see them animating at high speed of flight. By example:
As you can see - it's still barely noticeable.
Hope that explains the rationale behind the animation speeds...
And just for fun... http://www.hedfiles.net/LaserDemo3.png
Thanks, Klavs!
So I've been kinda swamped with real life recently, what with a girlfriend, and a french exchange student, I've not had as much lonesome time as I normally do. While I watch he duck football game today, though, I've managed to do some animation on the cockpit startup. I still intend to re-visit the down and lock animation, and all the little blinking lights startups.
Still more to do - like the status display,and the TarCom, but yeah! Looking good so far.
Any thoughts?
Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hB0cBKi56U
japetus: Yup, yes I dd. I loved MW2, and just about everything about it. The intro movie is still one of the best things I've everseen, and sort of inspired me to do (warning, ancient callback) this: http://oz.irtc.org/ftp/pub/anims/1998-10-15/canyon.mpg < 4mb from 1998. Feel free to laugh at it. long and hard. Here's the description: http://oz.irtc.org/ftp/pub/anims/1998-10-15/canyon.txt
Anyhow. Yeah. Always room for improvement. massive improvement, in some cases. D
So, I've altered the lighting and texturing in the cockpit. I felt that it was getting far too distractingly colorful and flat lit - like there was very little sense of form left. I lowered the bounce lighting intensity, remove the green lights and replaced them with dim red LEDs, and muted much of the prevailing orange and green striping. I think this is much easier on the eyes, and helps the displays really pop from the surface.
So on the TARCom (Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance, Communications capable) AKA the screen to the left, I think I'm going to probably have a sequence where it loads up ad displays all the know fighter craft you might run into, but they flash by extremely quickly. I also want there to be a null target idle screen... like a spinning globe or something. Still not done with that.
Ideas for improvements?
If I might make a suggestion for a game mechanic, heres something Ive always thought would be cool to include in a space sim: an Electronic Gravity System. Basically the mechanics behind the system would be like this; say your starfighter has to disable or destroy certain components on a ground base or a large capital ship, or is under heavy attack from a swarm of enemy fighters. With this in mind, a good tactic would be to skim the surface of the ground/ship (of course without actually touching it, just sort of hugging the surface like a repulsorlift vehicle). The EGS would be designed to do just that, always making your starfighter's bottom face the surface of the ground/target. An advantage of it would be if you had something like a motion lock (where your starfighter's guns would always attempt to face a target enemy), you could take out enemy gun positions pretty easily, and if youre fighting in something like an asteroid field, your ship can hug the surface of larger asteroids, and you can dodge enemy fire pretty easily. Without a target lock, your ship would always be going straight ahead, meaning you can only strafe left or right, unless you decide to pull up, in which case your ship will no longer hug the surface of the surface/object. If you approach a ridge, your starfighter will align itself with the ridge accordingly. Sort of like a toggle on/toggle off vehicular combat for the game.
A sort of additional advantage would be that your ship will be about 5-10% harder to lock onto due to the minerals used in the ground, or the energy signatures produced by the larger ship. A sort of disadvantage is your overall ship speed would be reduced by about 20% (even on afterburners). And once you toggle the EGS on/off, youll have to wait at least 5 seconds until you toggle it again.
As for your HUD, have you thought about adding additional meters on the side windows (such as altimeters, afterburner fuel, etc.) similar to the one on the front window?
Thoughts?
Very nice work. Love it!!!
Will the lighting be interactive and follows the lightsource?
If yes it would be epic.
It's a really good idea, but probably not for this game. Thanks for sharing, though... I wish we could do it.
Crix Dorious: Thanks! So, do you mean the lightsources on the individual fighters? Not so much - we're not doing much dynamic lighting on those. If we're lucky, it will be things like the gun flashes and afterburner bursts, like in the plasma bolt example above. If you're asking about the cockpit lighting... then yeah. Kinda. The idea is to pre-render 6-8 different versions of the cockpit in different lighting conditions (from above, left, right, front, back, and in shadow) and then blend between those in engine as you fly around. The hope is that this would be pretty convincing and awesome.
Okay, I've tweaked the targeting displays to be more color-in line with the rest of the HUD.
Also adjusted the timing of the rotation to be more consistent.
Thoughts?
I'm mean the cockpit lighting.
I'm very curious on the final product.
reminds me that x-wing vs tie fighter used to have a display in the centre of the cockpit that showed the ship you were targeting, then you could target different systems on the ship, like shield generators and stuff, it was pretty cool
Howard - I'm thinking that a 4-turn animation would look better for the TARCom. It's just MHO, but I think a view starting at the front, turning to the side, then to the rear and then to the top would transition better. At the moment, it's all over and repeating very rapidly.
BTW - I LOVE the center display power-up sequence - seeing all the ship components flash up and then the shield come online etc. Why are more studio's using your talents?
That's my favourite too.
I have to admit that I'm out of ideas and criticism - well, perhaps make the rotations of the targets slower and not as busy so they wouldn't become too much of a distraction. They're pretty, but if that's going off every other second in the corner of your eye it's going to be annoying. Apart from I'll just say that I'd like to see more of the interior point-and-click style stuff, they're really nicely done.
The rotation of the target displays is WAY TOO FAST. Sorry had to do that in caps. At that speed they become a distraction and that is not something you want when controlling an aircraft/spacecraft/whatever. I would suggest something that if it does rotate only does so to represent the side of the craft you are facing, i.e. if you are diving onto it's back show the top profile, coming in on the tail the rear view, etc... Also in that way if it can highlight subusystems it will give the pilot/player a clearer mental picture as to whether or not a subsystem they are targetting can even be hit.
Tao Kaita- I hate to be the downer on your idea but I really don't care for it. The general idea really would prove more limiting to the pilot and would make things more difficult, especially in situations where top cover for the enemy is available and you are locked to the hull/ground you are attacking. Instead something more akin to an attitude sensor that locks onto the nearest large mass, planet, ship, asteroid, etc... would work better, giving the pilot an idea of their orientation relative to the massive object yet giving them the control to do with that information as they please.
poor ity-bity turtle --- does it "squeak" when you do that to it? or is more like "argh" I'm gonna puke!
the world is a better place already! Many thanks for the effort you are putting into this!
I should inform spacesimcentral about this! Do you have a link for your project?
Frequent updates at our Discord channel!
broadwing: Yeah, we're not ready to go really, really public with this yet, we've still got lots of work to do.
Tovette: Thanks!
Viper: Thanks, man! Any luck with that explosion? I'd love to see whatever you use it for.
Armondikov: Dawww, thanks dude. I'm glad your friends like it.
Ooookay! Here's the cockpit close, lock, startup, and launch as is now... Still got to figure out the reticule system.
Any thoughts?
As for the explosions, I haven't looked at the file yet. I'll be sure to let you know what I come up with though
Frequent updates at our Discord channel!