My brain makes things explode.
Lights, Camera, Action/RPG!
Work, Stress, and LCAR
Aug 27th
Aaaand, not surprisingly, here I am again, after paid little to no attention to my blog in gods know how long. Work’s been long and tiring recently, and it’s showing no signs of letting up any time soon – I suspect it’ll be a good while before I’m able to get a good amount of work on games done. It’s rather stressful, but at the same time, calming. Maybe it’s because I don’t have time to over-think life at the moment, but who knows.
Alright, so some nice things (and some not-so-nice things) have happened recently. Firstly, I’ve left KBFail for the umpteenth time, and I have no intention of going back. I’ve also switched (again) to using my iMac, and I’m hoping to stick with it this time around – it runs WoW decently enough, and I’ve found myself playing few games recently (Before it hits your mind, though I’m likely too late as it is, it is not because of WoW. I haven’t been playing that much, either), instead opting to do research, mentally prepare for my transition, trying to be a slightly more cheerful person, and working on development.
On the note of development, I’m still in a rut. I’ve come to the conclusion that I have to firmly put my mind to some tasks and force myself to push through and to apply myself to my goals – which is definitely an improvement. I’m starting to work out again, trying to get my body into better shape (again in preparation for my transition), eating healthier, and drinking less soda on the health side of things, while I’m trying to push through my distaste for my awful programmer art and trying to at least create semi-decent placeholders to allow myself to work on projects that I’ve been wanting to work on, such as LCAR.
And that brings me to the next topic: LCAR. The project is still very much in planning, and I’m considering taking it to another level. I’m currently considering the implications of investing in an iPad for development purposes – not only would it give me a better platform on which I could create programmer art (I may suck with a pen/paper, but I’m still better with it than with a mouse), but I have a new platform to target. I’m still working it out to try to determine whether or not I think it would be a worthwhile investment, and I’ll keep you posted on that. If I do get it, I intend to get the Torque engines targetting iOS (currently only iTGB, though iTGE is being worked on), and I intend to distribute LCAR on the iPad as well as my already-determined Mac and Windows releases. I think it’ll be pretty interesting, and we’ll have to see where it goes.
And for my last topic, I am going to be attending Casual Connect in Seattle, WA next year, mostly because I really want to meet the TorquePowered team. This is gonig to be my first time going out in public as.. well, me. I got some great encouragement from Mich Perry on the Torque team, and I’m confident that I, at the very least, am not going to have rotten fruit thrown at me for being what I am. At least, not from the Torque team – I can’t vouch for the rest of Seattle (:P). If anybody else is coming, or has suggestions for places to stay, I’m all ears. Looks like, on top of my development goals, I have a lot of work to do if I’m to be comfortable going out in public, and if I want to pass.
Wish me luck!
Finish Up Friday : LCAR Torque 3D
Aug 6th
I think I’m going to start participating in Finish-up Fridays, partly because I think it’ll be fun, and partly because I think having weekly goals will help make me a lot more productive when it comes to my development projects. And so with this first FuF, I’m going to work like hell to get some things accomplished with the Torque3D version of my Lights, Camera, Action/RPG! project.
My goals for tonight:
1. Get T3D to build with PhysX in MSVC 2010
2. Implement an SQLite3 Database system (based on the resources available on the TorquePowered website)
3. Re-implement onMouseMove, onMouseDragged, and onRightMouseDragged within the second beta of Torque 3D 1.1
4. Re-implement the isometric camera system for Torque 3D 1.1 Beta 2 (If you can’t tell, I haven’t moved anything between betas, and I plan on completely re-starting the project, as far as the Torque engine is concerned, because I was.. messy with B1)
5. Begin implementing a basic Ranged combat system (in other words, I want to shoot things. n.n)
And I hope to do a lot of work with the following over the weekend and next week:
1. Try to get, at the very least, the beginning pieces of a toon shader implemented
2. Start learning to do basic 3D modelling/animaiton with 3D Studio Max and SoftImage, both with relation to the Torque engines and OGRE 3D.
Bye-ni~
Lights, Camera, Action/RPG! Initial Design Plans
Jul 29th
This is going to be the first of several “Thinking Out Loud” entries. In these, I’m mostly going to just put my thoughts down in a retrievable area, in a place where people can read them.
This first piece will be my initial design plans for my Lights, Camera, Action/RPG project (or rather, projects) – discussing some thoughts, some initial ideas on gameplay and development, etc. Readers will notice that my development style is very iterative – I don’t like to plan things out too detailed ahead of time, because it screws me up in the end, when I find a more efficient way of implementing a system. I prefer to focus on certain portions at a time, building on and optimizing what was present before.
Here is the first part of my build process – determining my initial plans.
As far as the design of the game goes, I intend to make the prototype an isometric, third-person 3D Action/RPG, much in the style of Titan Quest, Diablo, Torchlight, and similar games. I plan to use a cel-shaded graphics style, and will be using bright, stylish colors for characters, items, monsters, and spells along with dark, murky environments and static geometry to give a slightly contrasted mood in the game.
Character Classes
I’m planning on implementing three classes, each with a specific role in the game. These are Wizard, a ranged caster class that focuses on controlling/restricting enemy movement and area-of-effect damage spells, Warrior, a melee fighter that brings large blades to bear against hordes of enemies, and the Scout, whose focus on stealth and fast attacks allows him to quickly eliminate targets.
Multiplayer
I am planning on implementing a cooperative, multiplayer game mode. It will be a party-based gameplay system, played with two to four players over either remote internet connections or a local LAN. The Torque 3D version of the prototype will utilise the internal networking library, while the in-house engine will likely use the RakNet Multiplayer Game Network Engine.
Lights, Camera, Action/RPG!
Jul 28th
Well, I’m back. With the return of the Internet to my computer, it is time for me to return to my development. Unfortunately, I’ve been away from writing my tutorial series for too long, and I’m not going to be continuing it. I intend to release some one-shot tutorials for a while, and I’m working on developing two 3D Point-and-Click Action/RPG prototypes – one with a custom C++ engine using OGRE 3D for rendering, the other using Torque 3D. Both prototypes are pretty much going to be the same thing – but each of them is intended for me learning/touching up on different systems.
