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BRAVE Beta Released

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The Beta 1.0 Is Released.

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1) Go here to download it.
Register as BRAVE Beta Tester


2) Play it.

3) Please click on the link below here to send me Feedback and Bugs by clicking on this link for the Beta release of B.R.A.V.E.

[ Feedback Form ]

4) Click me to Sign up for future updates!

2 days to Launch!

Well it's coming down to the wire now and things are taking shape. I had real problems with L3DT trying to generate a decent terrain so for the launch I've resorted to using the legacy terrain for now. My sister's got the landmarks well underway and should look really good when they are done. Here's some screenshots. I've got the saucers to work, the landers, trucks and humans are ready and all the weapons systems are up and running. Tomorrow I'm going to get the mission working and Wednesday will be polish on the game design doc, website and game - then it's upload time!!!!

Very, very, VERY happy now. I started spending some money and time on content and started getting some VERY pleasing results. This is an update of my world building of London for BRAVE - due in 2 weeks EEK!!!

So kudos to RRGT (Really Really Good Things Studio) for the amount of effort Alan and Kyle put into helping me. I was uncertain of the speed and performance of their District Pack so Alan sent me a sample city block "on loan" to trial it. He even went ahead and added another LOD so that buildings go to simple blocks at a distance, which was really important for me to make sure I could cram heaps of buildings into the scene.

I generated these pics below and on my crappy lappy the frame rate rarely dips below 60 fps.

The guys also stayed up til 3:45am to deliver files for me even though they were restructuring their website - how cool are they? Kyle painstakingly typed the same info over and over again in email after email of me asking "so do I get the source files too?" and he's like "well, yes, yes you do" - he didn't flinch and go "jesus Hawkins, read your frickin emails properly the first time", even though I asked the same question twice - so these guys deserve lots of praise.

Finally they saved me heaps of time. Considering how long it would take for me to model all these objects, not to mention downtime tracking bugs and problems, these packs have saved me heaps of time - thanks guys!!! Content packs save you time - remember that!

So finally I'm adding several ship classes, there are ally planes, landers, mutants, harvesters and motherships. Once I get the code from the previous alpha in to TGEA I will start creating missions, adding content and polish and polish and polish.

These screens are my shape replicators, London aerial map, RRGT sample city block, and my new British Aerospace Harrier AV-8B, leveraging FGE - Decane's Flight Game Engine all running in TGEA 1.0.3

Shaders and Terrain

As promised here the video showing the terrain and shaders I got in place. The footpath is a DIF with a cobblestone texture bought from DexSoft added to it. I created the normal map using CrazyBump. The enviroment comprises a blended terrain created with L3DT and imported into TGEA using Atlas script. The trees are placed using fxFoliageReplicator from TorqueScript.

Harrier Pics Up

Here's my efforts after 1 hour of modelling. I set the view inside an inverted cube and started sculpting out the basic shape. Then I mapped the blueprint (found here) to the model along the planar axes to get a feel for how the textures are going to be layed out.

Next pass I'll be adding more polys to join everything up and add the missiles, aerials, wheels etc.

Environment Style - Nailed!

While I was driving through Kwinana the other day (industrial area) I started taking snaps with the phone camera of the refineries and buildings. This lead me to come up with the environment style I want to put in the game.

I'm going to have evidence of a suburb that was hastily bulldozed to set up an ad-hoc launch base with modular sheds, plants and equipment. I want to convey the sense that it was setup very quickly and houses weren't important anymore. It was time to blast the alien menace.

Here's a photo collage of the refinery and areas I shot while passing through Kwinana plus some inspirational art I've grabbed from the 'net (copyright to the various artists remains) - I'm just using it as art style to help me focus on the look and feel of the environment and buildings.

Terrains hurt my brains

I've been playing around with the terrain for the first level and it's completely out of control!!!

I wanted a large playing area because the user can fly anywhere quickly and so I generated some huge terrains in TGEA as seens below. They are around 10k x 10k. I flattened an area to put buildings in it.

Only problem is, the flattened area is miniscule and I couldn't find it! Also trying to world build something this size would be a nightmare but it has given me an idea.

I will use the one large terrain (well I'm scaling it down now) and set up 10 areas of operation. From there I will world build per mission. All missions of the final game will be on the same terrain so I can make a compelling game with less assets.

I needed to scope it down to make the deadline and I think people will like the game this way anyway. Here's the pics.

Alpha Feedback and Bugs

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The Alpha Is Released.

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1) Go here to download it.
[Mirror #1 -Divshare]
[Mirror #2 -MediaFire]
[Mirror #3 - Thanks Patrick]

2) Play it.

3) Please click on the link below here to send me Feedback and Bugs by clicking on this link for the alpha release of B.R.A.V.E.

[ Feedback Form ]

Emergent Behaviour

So I've implemented half of the system to allow my humans to load and unload trucks. I am fighting the AIWheeledVehicle2 resource at the moment, because it didn't expose much to TorqueScript and I need control of the pathing system. The AIWheeledVehicle2 resource reads in any path you assign to the vehicle and then uses C++ and physics to control it.

I guess I still want it to do this but I need access to where it is along the path so I can program the nodes with instructions. I've managed to get the trucks to roll to a stop on every node, so now I am going to extend a method to TorqueScript so I can get the current node and check the correlating nodes in the mission to determine if they need to stop or not. In most cases they only stop at depots such as the rocket they are refueling or the hanger they are ferrying parts from.

I also want to work on what happens to men and trucks when aliens start flying around. If humans are picked up and you shoot the attacking alien, the human will drop to the floor and then run back to it's path - emergent behaviour very cool! But I want the humans to cower in fear as well, so the alien presence will inhibit their own objectives. This means the player need to keep aliens away from humans and truck if the mission is to progress.

More soon.

The Path to Success

(or the 'Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions')
I didn't get much done this month. However I have ALOT!!! to do for the alpha in March. So that's why I've named the blog as such. I have so many ideas, so many things to add, and so little time.

This month I started my marketing research and found that Valve are in the process of launching 'Steamworks'
which you all should get very excited about. It's a way to launch, market and live patch your game quickly and easily. It leverages Steam's community and tools, and best of all it's free. So I'm trying to sign up - emailed Jason twice but still no response :(

I also added a simple teaser to my web site DrewFX

Anyway, so I got the human pathing system to work in TGE this time. Here's a youtube video to watch. It allows me to set spawn points which link to paths. Every human spawned from that point with follow the spawn points designated path. The path nodes then have instructions like wait5, load10 etc to give the impression the humans are doing something. Anyway here's the vid and I'll blog each week up to release of the alpha.

Truckin' along

Intro:

For the month of December 2007, I focused on getting pathing to work. I have already proven the humans can follow paths and wait, and appear to do jobs. So now I have done a proof of concept for the vehicles.

Paths:
Based on my previous blog I want to have trucks leave from a depot and resupply a weapons bay or ferry crew to the rocket. What they do is follow a path and on certain nodes a special instruction is place to make them wait. They receive crew or get fueled up by crew at the depot and generate crew at the drop-off points.

I implemented the two main AIWheeledVehicle resources and found that the second one was much better because I could set speeds for the vehicles, making it easier for them to turn corners, slow to drop-off etc.

Simple AI Vehicle AIWheeledVehicle

AIWheeledVehicle2

I had issues with the turning. It seems there is a limit on the steering for any vehicle and so to get the trucks to turn sharp corners they had to slide out to do it. I will post on the forums later to see if anyone know why this occurs.

Here's a video of what I have so far with regard to truck paths...

Truck Paths in BRAVE on YouTube


Aircraft Carrier:

I've done a bit more modelling of the USS KittyHawk as a part of modernising (or contemporising) the human arsenal. Here's a couple of snap shots. I've also designed what will happen aboard ship but I'll post that when the sketch is easier to understand.

Joystick:

I fixed up this resource for people when Ed Johnson who runs TorqueSchool discovered it didn't compile. I found the same thing, so I WinMerged the code to get it to work, rather than blindly copy it, and uploaded it back to the resource for people to use in TGE 1.5.2

Racing Wheel, Flight Stick and Gamepad Support for Torque (Windows)

I'm having a go with this code to see if I can fly the plane with a gamepad which is what I want the main control to be in the future. It's only because Ed contacted me that this came about.

Sign Off:

I'll be finalising the truck paths next and then getting the humans and trucks to work together. I will continue working on the aircraft carrier and progress toward completing the first level so I can release an alpha for people to try.