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.