[Forum Project #1] Steam Run Design Document

[GEuser]

@ HBlade

Looks good Hblade, although not sure if it's going to be right for this game.

So you used Blender. I used to mess around with particals, briefly, on an older version of blender but stopped using blender than came back to it recently with all the new GUI and all. Never, got to use them in the new one. It's amazing with all those forcefield stuff and everything. Have you seen the flame demo on Blender Guru? WOW! it's amazing, by Andrew Price.

Have you looked at the Compositor Stuff with Nodes on the same site. Take a look at the tuts, you'll be wow struck. Really cool.

There's loads of good tutorials there: http://www.blenderguru.com/

p.s. don't forget to do the steam bursts

[Hblade]

Geeze! Blender is capable of some TRUE state of the art stuff O_O

[Jagmaster]

Andrew Price is always worth reading.

I just watched a relatively short tutorial about fire a couple days ago link. Now I'm going to go track down blenderguru's version xD

[GEuser]

Andrew Price is always worth reading.

I just watched a relatively short tutorial about fire a couple days ago link. Now I'm going to go track down blenderguru's version xD

That was a very informative link. Those flames around a sphere would be great for doing a sun-like anim for spacey games.

[Jagmaster]

Had an idea for an "add-on" the elevators could have. Sort of a battering ram controlled by scissor mechanisms.

The design is still pretty rough, I'll polish it off later if the idea is worth pursuing.

Yes, I'm aware the bottom arms aren't connected to anything. I'll figure this out later.

Taking down one of these would involve hopping onto the platform on the top of the ramming head. Then when the head retracts, you'd have to jump into the cockpit and take out the driver (since the shield would block bullets). After which, you'd be able to take control of said elevator and use the ram to break open certain walls and enter secret areas. The elevator would have it's on track too, so that in itself would open up more options for exploration.

Here's the rendered animations: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/389 ... %20Ram.zip
Le blend file: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/389 ... Test.blend

To make this take up less space, I may need to figure out how to tile the scissor arms. If I do this though, Id have to sacrifice some of the neat motion blur I added.

Oh, since this would all be pretty modular, instead of battering rams, you could attach gun turrets or cranes, or pretty much anything really.

I have another concept for a sort of drilling vehicle, I'll upload that once I get it a little organized.

[happyjustbecause]

That looks awesome jag. I love the old style classic scissor arms. And the retractable spikes are an awesome additional aspect of brutality. Yeah, it would be a shame to lose that motion blur, it looks amazing. And I really like that tiny switch that could be the warning for the player to know it will soon shoot out.

Yeah, that looks dang amazing, I love the slight springy feel to it before it finishes it's whole movement.

I checked out your website too, that looks really cool too man, I love your style of art, it uses lighting really well or something. I'll keep that site bookmarked for sure.

[Jagmaster]

Thank you, that's very encouraging.

I'm still not satisfied with the ram-head. I think I'll give it more of a snowplow kind of look, while keeping the spikes.
And yeah, I was thinking about the motion blur too, if I make the scissor arms tiled, I can probably make some kind of a blurred animation for the ram-head itself, and that might actually work.

Also, it's funny you mentioned the control switch, I was worried that it was too small a detail to be noticed. I imagine whatever enemy is driving it can pull the lever down, so that will make it even more noticeable.
And yes, thank you for complementing my site, that is always nice to hear. I took a peak at your site too, you had a lot of neat stuff there too. There was a gigantic fly that immediately grabbed my interest, I think that was my favorite piece there. =)

I'll see if I can post some more concepts soon.

[happyjustbecause]

Yeah, the control switch is noticeable, but it could be bigger to make it a little more obvious. I like that this isn't meant to be just an obstacle that works on its own. That the player can actually control this and change the environment with it. But yeah, cool concept and nice creation so far.

Thanks for checking out my nonsensical website, not much game related at the moment, as I've never finished a project, but once I start working on the game more, I'll make more game related stuff for the website.

[skydereign]

It's finally summer, so we should really get working on the game. I have an interesting idea about that sniper demo Jagmaster posted. I think with a few additions to the level editor, we could have that view exist throughout the levels. I'll see if I can get a simple demo of it soon. And AliceXIII, are you still planning on working on the level editor?

[Jagmaster]

Ah yes! I'm pumped to get back into it.

I'm really excited to see those additions you have planed for the sniping mechanic Skydereign. If we could get it to be more fluid with the game world that would be fantastic.

Now to figure where we left off.

We had been adding bits to the story, we should figure out a format to flesh it out. I had started a mindmap, and didn't really get too far yet, but I do think the mindmap format would work well (considering our branching storyline).

At about the same time the scissor battering ram idea was realized, I had a rather small idea for a sort of enemy spawn points, It was a little odd, but it shouldn't break the believability threshold. It was sort of a capsule with a retractable drill head on the top. They would be stored underground in a dormant state and when triggered, they'd bust violently through the surface and unleash an array of minions while inconveniently blocking your path. I'll see if I can find my sketches here so I can upload them.

At what stage to we start prototyping the actual game?

Edit: come to think of it, we should make a chronological list of "things to be done". Just sort of a generalized timeline so things don't get confusing, and so we have a little sense of progress as we complete things.

[skydereign]

We had been adding bits to the story, we should figure out a format to flesh it out. I had started a mindmap, and didn't really get too far yet, but I do think the mindmap format would work well (considering our branching storyline).

Yeah, it'd be nice if we had some better collaboration tools for this. Due to the large pause in between work, we should probably reiterate the goals of the story before continuing. But we should continue this on the story thread.

At about the same time the scissor battering ram idea was realized, I had a rather small idea for a sort of enemy spawn points, It was a little odd, but it shouldn't break the believability threshold. It was sort of a capsule with a retractable drill head on the top. They would be stored underground in a dormant state and when triggered, they'd bust violently through the surface and unleash an array of minions while inconveniently blocking your path. I'll see if I can find my sketches here so I can upload them.

Sounds perfectly fine. It would definitely look nice in game.

At what stage to we start prototyping the actual game?

Well, I'm hoping we'll have the level editor set up enough to display the world before we start really prototyping the gameplay. If AliceXIII is no longer working on the level editor, I'll take that part of the project. I've been working on a level editor for a different project, and can mod it a bit to work for this game. And with any luck, it'll work nicely with the fps view. Though, the sooner we get some player animations, the better off we'll be.

Edit: come to think of it, we should make a chronological list of "things to be done". Just sort of a generalized timeline so things don't get confusing, and so we have a little sense of progress as we complete things.

Indeed. We'll need to retake names for people who are still working on the game. It'd be nice to know who can actually do what work, and hopefully have enough to appoint some form of leads for each aspect of the game.

[skydereign]

I'm really excited to see those additions you have planed for the sniping mechanic Skydereign. If we could get it to be more fluid with the game world that would be fantastic.

The effect isn't currently as nice as I hoped, though the general idea did work. I'll try a few things to see if I can improve it, but it uses a lot of actors to sell the effect.

AliceXIII (programmer [map editor])
skydereign (design document, programmer, concept/promo art)
master0500 (game/concept art)
Jagmaster (environment art, animation, story)
osopeligroso (art/animation, story)
happyjustbecause (story)
NightOfHorror (to be decided)
lcl (programmer [dialog])
GEuser (concept art, sound)
sonicforevergame (concept art)
moonforge (concept, programmer)
kickstart (concept, programmer)
schnellboot (tester)

How many of you guys are still interested in working on the project? I'll be removing names of people no longer interested in working on it pretty soon.

[lcl]

I will do the dialog engine, as I promised.

[Jagmaster]

Jagmaster wrote:I'm really excited to see those additions you have planed for the sniping mechanic Skydereign. If we could get it to be more fluid with the game world that would be fantastic.


The effect isn't currently as nice as I hoped, though the general idea did work. I'll try a few things to see if I can improve it, but it uses a lot of actors to sell the effect.

I'd still like to see it at some point, even if it doesn't turn out as well as you would've hoped.

Anyways, I'm still in.
Sorry I haven't been active in the past 2 weeks. I came home after being away for 4 days, and my computer wouldn't boot. And after I got that all fixed, I came down with a cold. tbh, I'm still a little foggy headed.

[sonicforvergame]

So sorry dudes And everybody i have been absent for the past 5 month maybe I don't really remember But i passed my final exam and got my brevet
I hope that i will be able to help more since i am Back