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.

Constructions

This month was mostly about design and construction. I first designed the mission I wanted as below. It involves having humans ferry supplies to a rocket from the store house, and troops resupply to control points, to protect the humans, while the aliens attack.

In the screen about mid-way down this sketch you can see shields, humans etc. You need the humans to resupply your ammo and shielf depots, and also you need to stop aliens from grabbing your humans, otherwise the rocket never gets launched. I'll be interested to see how this plays out, as it will require some careful balancing. [MORE BELOW THIS PIC]

Next I sketched up a control tower and then proceeded to build it in Constructor. It's only just started and so I've placed a copy in the game for reference. There will be several styles of buildings and you will be able to enter them on foot (presumably so can the aliens). I'm going to use textures and objects from Dexsoft.

I've also been working on vehicles. I needed a space truck to ferry parts and troops so I sketched a few designs and iterated upon it until I had something I liked. I've only done the front, but the plan is to make it like a truck rig that can pull a bunch of different trailers, ranging from cargo to missile launchers.

Finally I had a paradigm shift in game design. When I saw the IAV pack coming out, I knew I should probably shift directions. I like conventional vehicles and weapons, so I want to model those now. So instead of space ships for the humans I'm going to make modern day stuff. Should be an interesting mix and pays hommage to Independence Day.

Here's the CV63 Kitty Hawk boxed modelled 1 hour in. I will post more progress over the next month as I have more time during the holidays to work on the game. It looks butt ugly I know, but what I've done is got the dimension accurate, and have started with boxes. I will iterate on them and add more and more details as the modelling progresses. I am going for a balance between realism, texturing to cover fine details and enough detail to satisfy a shooter, but also allow the player to land on it. More soon.