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Let's Make a Game: Platformer Edition [Playable Alpha (Win/Mac)! See page 8]

1356

Posts

  • DratatooDratatoo Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    The original concept is that the arms and legs are some sort of musical energy streaming out. Since the guy's a robot, I figured it would make sense for him to sink. That said, any water in the video is strictly cosmetic and there to show off alpha blending. I'm thinking eventually I'll code in water to the physics and have it modify movement somehow. Maybe increasing friction and allowing "air" jumps to let the player swim.

    It would be nice if the "music/rythm" streaming out of his body would somehow correspond to the music played - like a live visualization (maybe replace it with some sort of pulsing particle effects?) Another side effect of this would be that you wouldn't need to actually draw all parts of the character sprite - just animate it with the particle/sprite system. This could be also used for enemies or other animated objects in game. The best comparison to this idea would be the look of the Vectorman genesis game and maybe this flash animation:

    http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/193426

    Dratatoo on
  • KaseiusKaseius Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Hey Zack, I wouldn't mind trying to help you with music, although I'm not very good yet. I like to tinker with noises on occasion and am always looking for an excuse to get excited and try something new. My most recent one was trying something 8bit-ish. I think. I'm really not sure.

    Not sure of anything easy to upload to, so I just used this website to upload it to

    e: oh yeah, if anyone has any advice for being better at this, let me know. I use FL.

    Kaseius on
    www.youtube.com/user/kaseius -- Let's Plays
  • VistiVisti Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    I'd also like to see if I can make the time for some music for you. What format(s) would you like?

    Visti on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • VoranthVoranth MI NOMBRE, POR CIERTO ES DONTÉ!Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    I've recently been playing around with hooking up my digital drum kit directly into my macbook and recording some beats...I could whip up some simple tunes and see what you guys think.

    Voranth on
    camo_sig2.png
    PS4: Voranth
  • VistiVisti Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Man, that paper marioish rotation thing looks fun. That would be an awesome effect to have some places. Have you tried announcing for artists at dedicated forums like conceptart.org or cgtalk?

    Visti on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • ZackSchillingZackSchilling Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Kaseius wrote: »
    Hey Zack, I wouldn't mind trying to help you with music, although I'm not very good yet. I like to tinker with noises on occasion and am always looking for an excuse to get excited and try something new. My most recent one was trying something 8bit-ish. I think. I'm really not sure.

    Not sure of anything easy to upload to, so I just used this website to upload it to

    e: oh yeah, if anyone has any advice for being better at this, let me know. I use FL.

    That's pretty neat. Both songs are good, but nighttowel is the one I'd probably use, especially for the regular but not-too-frequent high-hat hits. Imagine those bursting out through the arms and legs during combat if you time your hits right.

    Formats are open now. Midi, MOD and OGG are the three preferred for music due to being royalty free and working out of the box with my media APIs. I'm leaning towards OGG for maximum flexibility. There's no reason you couldn't make a MOD song and convert it.

    Here's an informative PM that I exchanged with Vader111. He wants to work on the music as well.
    vader111 wrote:
    ...I use high-quality instruments and am fine exporting to MP3 or OGG. ... Also, it would help if you could be as specific as possible with the styles and concepts for each piece.

    Really, the details can be up to you. The game is going to have a rhythm component to its combat but no overt visualization, so a simple, driving rhythm that doesn't change a lot would help playability there. The whole track doesn't need to be simple, but at least one component that the player could latch on to. I'm not sure how to describe this better.

    I have the opening of the game planned out but that's it. I've been concentration much more on the engine and getting things to run smoothly.

    Here's my description of the first four stages: http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showpost.php?p=9479673

    Stage 1: An intro and one loop, maybe a minute long. Bright synth pop. THe whole game world is coming alive at night. Should be catchy, chaotic and interesting. Not much beyond that. This music will come back for some easier boss battles.

    Stage 2: Another quick intro, loop. Flute and harp arpeggios for discovery of a forest. Dawn is breaking.

    Stage 3: Bright strings, green hills in mid day. Building to something.

    Stage 4: Strings take on a darker tone. The sun is setting, the birds overhead are up to something. Faster. Intro, building loop, bridge, then boss battle loop. I was thinking of the death mountain themes in zelda games.

    I'll also need little stings for things like victory, checkpoints, etc. As soon as the engine is feature complete, I'll start building these four stages and release it all as a demo. So we're looking at a formidable project here but definitely one that's broken up into small pieces.

    Also keep in mind that these first 4 stages each have unique music but that's not the plan at all for the whole game. I'm thinking a different theme for each type of setting: Chaotic technology, Forest, Hills, Mountain, City, Tower, Beach, Space, etc.

    Technical Details:

    MP3 and OGG are fine, but I've been looking at ways to cut down the distribution size of the project (since I have to include about 30MB of libraries to run Python and lots of uncompressed graphics files for the game). MIDI sounds pretty bad if you're using standard/free instrument sets and stuff like horns, but piano is usually alright and more synth-y tracks seem ok. So I don't know. If we go with OGG, are you experienced with making loops in wave formats? The most complex tracks, belonging to levels that will take 10-15 minutes to complete, will have multiple segments corresponding with each checkpoint. Meaning the music will need to be able to loop different sections with transitions each time the player hits that point.

    Sort of like this: http://dl-client.getdropbox.com/u/107712/songchart.png

    If you're still interested, let me know. This is my first big game project and I've been working hard on it. I want to make it great and I really appreciate all the help I can get.

    He said he's going to start working at Stage 4 right away.

    Anything that's good, I'll use in the game. I want an eclectic mixture of songs to go with the fact that my levels can be drawn in any style. If I have the music before I make a level, I'll use it as inspiration. If I have the level first, I'll pick something that fits. I can't imagine a situation in which I have so much material that I stop including it. At "worst", I start randomizing tracks ingame.

    ZackSchilling on
    ghost-robot.jpg
  • ZackSchillingZackSchilling Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Visti wrote: »
    Man, that paper marioish rotation thing looks fun. That would be an awesome effect to have some places. Have you tried announcing for artists at dedicated forums like conceptart.org or cgtalk?

    I have not. Are there generally more programmers looking for artists or is it the other way around?

    ZackSchilling on
    ghost-robot.jpg
  • OcculusOcculus Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    The camera motion was just an exaggerated demo. The only effects that might make it into the game are the zoom (to achieve resolution independence or pan over levels in cutscenes) and maybe a SLIGHT tilt to give an enhanced sense of speed and better view of the level. The janky camera in the demo came from certain rotations getting read directly from the physics rather than being their own buffered and speed limited values.

    First of all, I 100% approve of your efforts, and this thread. Excellent job thus far, sir. I have some baklava with your name on it..

    Questions:

    + Does the toolset allow for blending of detail levels as you scale objects up and down? I'm thinking about the grass and the trees

    + Is it possible to center the camera on an object, including the hero, while scaling larger/smaller?

    + Is a 3D hero model possible with these tools?

    + Can I have a pony? :D

    Occulus on
    camo_sig2.png
  • ZackSchillingZackSchilling Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Occulus wrote: »
    The camera motion was just an exaggerated demo. The only effects that might make it into the game are the zoom (to achieve resolution independence or pan over levels in cutscenes) and maybe a SLIGHT tilt to give an enhanced sense of speed and better view of the level. The janky camera in the demo came from certain rotations getting read directly from the physics rather than being their own buffered and speed limited values.

    First of all, I 100% approve of your efforts, and this thread. Excellent job thus far, sir. I have some baklava with your name on it..

    Questions:

    1.) Does the toolset allow for blending of detail levels as you scale objects up and down? I'm thinking about the grass and the trees

    2.) Is it possible to center the camera on an object, including the hero, while scaling larger/smaller?

    3.) Is a 3D hero model possible with these tools?

    4.) Can I have a pony? :D

    1.) Yes, but I have it turned off. I use a technique called texture atlas on my animated sprites that makes it so you need to be really careful about LOD. I don't plan on zooming enough to need real level of detail support.

    2.) Yes. The camera is always chasing an object (usually the player), even while zooming.

    3.) Yes. I'm using the real, full OpenGL API. I have full 3D display capability matched with zero 3D modeling or texture mapping skill. Plus, even if someone else made me a model, it would look out of place, wouldn't it?

    4.) g3_sdcc_07_pony_large.jpg

    ZackSchilling on
    ghost-robot.jpg
  • VistiVisti Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Visti wrote: »
    Man, that paper marioish rotation thing looks fun. That would be an awesome effect to have some places. Have you tried announcing for artists at dedicated forums like conceptart.org or cgtalk?

    I have not. Are there generally more programmers looking for artists or is it the other way around?

    Other way around. Especially at CA.

    Visti on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • VistiVisti Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    I'm gonna look into some music for the specific parts later tonight, but here's some stuff that you're free to use if you should want to. I'm not sure it's right for your project, but hey.. it's free!

    Fast-paced electronica

    A chill little tune

    Aaaaand another one

    Edit: whoops, sorry for the doublepost.

    2nd edit: Gah, just noticed that the last one was an early version and has some placeholder vocals and no ending or loop, I'll see if I can find the project files if you want it. Also forgot to convert to ogg, I just realized.

    Visti on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • ZackSchillingZackSchilling Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Dratatoo wrote: »
    The original concept is that the arms and legs are some sort of musical energy streaming out. Since the guy's a robot, I figured it would make sense for him to sink. That said, any water in the video is strictly cosmetic and there to show off alpha blending. I'm thinking eventually I'll code in water to the physics and have it modify movement somehow. Maybe increasing friction and allowing "air" jumps to let the player swim.

    It would be nice if the "music/rythm" streaming out of his body would somehow correspond to the music played - like a live visualization (maybe replace it with some sort of pulsing particle effects?) Another side effect of this would be that you wouldn't need to actually draw all parts of the character sprite - just animate it with the particle/sprite system. This could be also used for enemies or other animated objects in game. The best comparison to this idea would be the look of the Vectorman genesis game and maybe this flash animation:

    http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/193426

    I'm not sure how that flash relates, but once I finish re-implementing the HUD, this is next on my list. I had always planned to animate the character in this way but I never went through with it because I was using software rendering at first.

    Can anyone point me in the direction of a GLSL particle system or something I can use for this purpose without putting more stress on my code?

    ZackSchilling on
    ghost-robot.jpg
  • darleysamdarleysam On my way to UKRegistered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Ooh music needed? I'll have a word with my brother (pretty good musician) and see if we can maybe run something up for you. The only problem might be that our recording and mixing setup is hardly the best, so that could be an issue.

    darleysam on
    forumsig.png
  • FawstFawst The road to awe.Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Yeaaaaaah, I dropped the ball. Been meaning to jump back into using my copy of Reason to make some music for this. Hopefully I'll get to that soon. Your descriptions of the first level's stages make it easier. Better to go off something rather than nothing!

    Fawst on
  • darleysamdarleysam On my way to UKRegistered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Looking at the descriptions, I might be able to coax said sibling into working with me on something for stage 2? Maybe some acoustic guitar, bass and my cajon for percussion?

    darleysam on
    forumsig.png
  • RikushixRikushix VancouverRegistered User regular
    edited April 2009
    I can offer no help whatsoever to this project - I wish, but I'm just not that good at programming yet - but I approve nonetheless. Good luck.

    Rikushix on
    StKbT.jpg
  • MikeManMikeMan Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Hey, I'm very interested in contributing some music for this. I'll upload some files so you can see the sort of stuff I write.

    MikeMan on
  • ZackSchillingZackSchilling Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Wow, guys. Thanks for all the volenteering. I've downloaded all Vidi's stuff and I'm compiling a list. I'll post thoughts in a moment.

    ZackSchilling on
    ghost-robot.jpg
  • darleysamdarleysam On my way to UKRegistered User regular
    edited April 2009
    My brother sounds interested in doing something for this if you'd like. You can hear our kind of stuff in my sig.

    darleysam on
    forumsig.png
  • ZackSchillingZackSchilling Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    darleysam wrote: »
    My brother sounds interested in doing something for this if you'd like. You can hear our kind of stuff in my sig.

    I'm very interested. First of all, your band is really great. All four songs up on the page are superb. If you were to make something for this project on that level, I'd have to work really hard getting the artwork and everything else up to the standards you'd set. That is a good thing. It's exciting and I'm willing to go for it.

    Your style fits really well with the initial levels, especially the second and third. Up-beat acoustic guitar and cajon for the grassy, outdoor levels and something with a spindly, mysterious, exploratory for the forest levels.

    ZackSchilling on
    ghost-robot.jpg
  • ZackSchillingZackSchilling Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Visti:
    Tema_#1 - I like it, especially the fast break beat. Think you could work it into 3 parts: intro, main loop, outro?
    Sometimes - Like you said, it's rough. If you find the finished version, let me know. The minimal sort of vocals should loop well. Doesn't fit anywhere yet but I'm keeping it on file.
    Portis - Made me rethink my description for the opener and first stage. The game has a minimal story, so the tone on the music is going to drastically alter the tone of the level. I like this as a direction for the first level rather than popish stuff. It's relaxing, doesn't make the player want to dismiss the tutorial boxes before reading them. I ran a quick test to see how it worked in the game as a second soundtrack with my stand-in ambiance. There was a little clipping (on my stuff) as a result but it worked well. I really like it. Read the first level description and have a listen:
    http://dl-client.getdropbox.com/u/107712/Level%201%20Music%20Layer%20Test.mp4

    ZackSchilling on
    ghost-robot.jpg
  • darleysamdarleysam On my way to UKRegistered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Cheers man! The songs on myspace were recorded in a studio and so anything new would have to be on our own equipment, but we can absolutely try and do something good for you.

    darleysam on
    forumsig.png
  • VistiVisti Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Visti:
    Tema_#1 - I like it, especially the fast break beat. Think you could work it into 3 parts: intro, main loop, outro?
    http://dl-client.getdropbox.com/u/107712/Level%201%20Music%20Layer%20Test.mp4

    I'll try! I'm not sure I have the original files for that one anymore, but I should be able to at least remake it.

    I got tangled up in some other projects, so I didn't get around to making something for the middle levels, as I had planned, but I'm gonna get there! :D

    Visti on
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • ZackSchillingZackSchilling Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    I just found the project file I was working on with stage 3's music. It's only about a minute long and there's not much to it, but I figured I'd post it anyway since there are musicians who might be able to turn it into something less boring. Or toss it and give me something better. Anyway:

    http://dl-client.getdropbox.com/u/107712/Bright%20New%20World.mp3
    http://dl-client.getdropbox.com/u/107712/Bright%20New%20World2.mp3
    Progression: F -> Am -> G -> F -> Repeat

    ZackSchilling on
    ghost-robot.jpg
  • MikeManMikeMan Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Hey Zack.

    I figured I'd upload some of my stuff to see if you like it. I picked some of the faster, happy techno-ey stuff as well as some moodier, slower stuff.

    This track is called "Europop" and it's upbeat and happy, with a piano outro.

    This track is just a little techno ditty that I wrote. Kind of cheesy but if you like the melody I could expand upon it.

    This song is a little classical ditty with just orchestra instruments (well, not real ones, sampled ones, but you get the idea.) This might not be your style for the game but I figure I'll give you a range of styles and you can tell me which you like and which you don't.

    Here's a moody piece I'm tentatively calling Cavernous. Starts off slow and slightly creepy, then the drums come in to back it up.

    Let me know which songs you like best, and I can write more in that particular style as needed. I try to write in a variety of styles so I don't get stale or musician's writer's block. Also, any of these songs can be extended/shortened as needed.

    Let me know what you think. Thanks!

    edit: Sorry for putting them on zshare. I don't have a myspace (though I should get on that) and I couldn't find a better site.

    MikeMan on
  • ZackSchillingZackSchilling Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    I can't seem to get the player sprite to appear over the particles, but I haven't been trying very hard. Writing a high-performance OpenGL particle engine in Python is really hard. It's easy with a fixed number of particles all sharing the same attributes, because then you can push all the data into arrays, manipulate it in bulk, and push it out to the GPU, all without having to sort or copy. But once you're adding new particles continuously and throw in randomness and individual life spans, forget it. I figured out a few ways to cheat a little and now I'm in business with just a minor performance hit.

    particle-limbs.png

    It looks neat in motion, but a little limp and strange. I'll have to keep tweaking the parameters to get it right. I think in the end I'll have to either do some more extensive control of the particle flow go for a hybrid look.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2RElPDPwjs

    ZackSchilling on
    ghost-robot.jpg
  • MikeManMikeMan Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    I really, really like the particle look.

    MikeMan on
  • ZackSchillingZackSchilling Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Hey, I didn't see this post until just now...
    MikeMan wrote: »
    This track is called "Europop" and it's upbeat and happy, with a piano outro.

    This doesn't fit anywhere now, but it very well may work later in the city levels. The best of the bunch.
    MikeMan wrote: »
    This track is just a little techno ditty that I wrote. Kind of cheesy but if you like the melody I could expand upon it.

    A lot like the Europop track, but grittier. It'll probably be one or the other. Far, far too early to plan the stages that come far after those that I've already laid out. The pitchbending midi makes me think of F-Zero.
    MikeMan wrote: »
    This song is a little classical ditty with just orchestra instruments (well, not real ones, sampled ones, but you get the idea.) This might not be your style for the game but I figure I'll give you a range of styles and you can tell me which you like and which you don't.

    This makes me think of towns in JRPGs. I don't think it'll fit in an action game, but it's not bad.
    MikeMan wrote: »
    Here's a moody piece I'm tentatively calling Cavernous. Starts off slow and slightly creepy, then the drums come in to back it up.

    The ambiance is good, but it's slow paced. The strings playing a scale that kick in sometime in the middle get old. Fast.

    ZackSchilling on
    ghost-robot.jpg
  • MikeManMikeMan Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Hey, I didn't see this post until just now...
    MikeMan wrote: »
    This track is called "Europop" and it's upbeat and happy, with a piano outro.

    This doesn't fit anywhere now, but it very well may work later in the city levels. The best of the bunch.
    MikeMan wrote: »
    This track is just a little techno ditty that I wrote. Kind of cheesy but if you like the melody I could expand upon it.

    A lot like the Europop track, but grittier. It'll probably be one or the other. Far, far too early to plan the stages that come far after those that I've already laid out. The pitchbending midi makes me think of F-Zero.
    MikeMan wrote: »
    This song is a little classical ditty with just orchestra instruments (well, not real ones, sampled ones, but you get the idea.) This might not be your style for the game but I figure I'll give you a range of styles and you can tell me which you like and which you don't.

    This makes me think of towns in JRPGs. I don't think it'll fit in an action game, but it's not bad.
    MikeMan wrote: »
    Here's a moody piece I'm tentatively calling Cavernous. Starts off slow and slightly creepy, then the drums come in to back it up.

    The ambiance is good, but it's slow paced. The strings playing a scale that kick in sometime in the middle get old. Fast.
    Yeah I just sort of looped the strings because I didn't know what to do with them. Honestly I'm not sure where to go with that last one.

    Anyway if you like the first techno one let me know if you want me to modify it.

    And thanks for the comments.

    MikeMan on
  • DratatooDratatoo Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Dratatoo wrote: »
    The original concept is that the arms and legs are some sort of musical energy streaming out. Since the guy's a robot, I figured it would make sense for him to sink. That said, any water in the video is strictly cosmetic and there to show off alpha blending. I'm thinking eventually I'll code in water to the physics and have it modify movement somehow. Maybe increasing friction and allowing "air" jumps to let the player swim.

    It would be nice if the "music/rythm" streaming out of his body would somehow correspond to the music played - like a live visualization (maybe replace it with some sort of pulsing particle effects?) Another side effect of this would be that you wouldn't need to actually draw all parts of the character sprite - just animate it with the particle/sprite system. This could be also used for enemies or other animated objects in game. The best comparison to this idea would be the look of the Vectorman genesis game and maybe this flash animation:

    http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/193426

    I'm not sure how that flash relates, but once I finish re-implementing the HUD, this is next on my list. I had always planned to animate the character in this way but I never went through with it because I was using software rendering at first.

    Can anyone point me in the direction of a GLSL particle system or something I can use for this purpose without putting more stress on my code?

    The most basic animation technique in Flash is, to but you desired object into pieces and animate every piece individually by rotating it / changing its position / changing the size - this way you don't have to actually draw anything new. This works very well for mechanical objects and if skillful used can still be impressive. (The flash animation presented uses only this technique )

    Dratatoo on
  • ZackSchillingZackSchilling Registered User regular
    edited April 2009
    Dratatoo wrote: »
    Dratatoo wrote: »
    The original concept is that the arms and legs are some sort of musical energy streaming out. Since the guy's a robot, I figured it would make sense for him to sink. That said, any water in the video is strictly cosmetic and there to show off alpha blending. I'm thinking eventually I'll code in water to the physics and have it modify movement somehow. Maybe increasing friction and allowing "air" jumps to let the player swim.

    It would be nice if the "music/rythm" streaming out of his body would somehow correspond to the music played - like a live visualization (maybe replace it with some sort of pulsing particle effects?) Another side effect of this would be that you wouldn't need to actually draw all parts of the character sprite - just animate it with the particle/sprite system. This could be also used for enemies or other animated objects in game. The best comparison to this idea would be the look of the Vectorman genesis game and maybe this flash animation:

    http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/193426

    I'm not sure how that flash relates, but once I finish re-implementing the HUD, this is next on my list. I had always planned to animate the character in this way but I never went through with it because I was using software rendering at first.

    Can anyone point me in the direction of a GLSL particle system or something I can use for this purpose without putting more stress on my code?

    The most basic animation technique in Flash is, to but you desired object into pieces and animate every piece individually by rotating it / changing its position / changing the size - this way you don't have to actually draw anything new. This works very well for mechanical objects and if skillful used can still be impressive. (The flash animation presented uses only this technique )

    Ok, I thought you meant for me to glean something more complex from the video. I already use that technique for scaling and rotation.

    Now that I've implemented the particle limbs, I've reduced my frame count for the player from 22 to 6. Half of those are not-quite-mirror images of each other, generated in Photoshop. I think I've got the particle limbs looking how I want now. Check out these experiments:

    Rendering the particles as a triangle strip instead of points gives some very interesting effects. In motion it looks like your typical RPG Cold Fire. I abandoned this idea because even though it looks cool, it's distracting. The movement of the particles is semi-random. When you render it in points, one stray looks like nothing. It actually looks cool. Rendering in triangles, that one stray point turns into this massive shape larger than the player.

    particle-limbs3.png

    Further tweaking of the particle generation renders this effect: distinct limbs while still (with rumbling outlines). Neat sloping curvature on the jets while moving, and a neat cloud that all the limbs morph into while falling at an angle.

    particle-limbs4.png


    Lastly, I altered the particle generation to produce 12 times more particles for a while when starting to jump. I shot these particles downward with much more force (so they wouldn't crowd around the player) and gave them a longer lifespan, so they could leave a trail. Because pushing out so many particles at once fills the buffers for the limbs, the game needs to wait for the trail to clear before drawing the legs again. They always reform before landing. This gives the appearance that the legs have stalled out due to the blastoff. In fluid motion, it's downright impressive.

    particle-limbs2.png

    ZackSchilling on
    ghost-robot.jpg
  • ZackSchillingZackSchilling Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    I can't believe it has been over a month. That's crazy. Anyway, quick update. The engine has been rewritten again. I grossly over-engineered the graphics rendering so I had to rewrite that. Then I realized that I'd been entirely ignoring the fact that I had to manage texture memory on the GPU, so I went back and rewrote every single drawing object to track the textures it loads and delete them when it is garbage collected.

    I finished the particle limbs, rewrote the physics again (moving platforms are now working), rewrote the level loading code to use python instead of text files, made the level objects thread safe (so they can be dynamically loaded in the background to move from one level to the next without any lag.

    Basically, I've done a lot. This video doesn't show off the half of it.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJgNgGYPC5Y

    ZackSchilling on
    ghost-robot.jpg
  • darleysamdarleysam On my way to UKRegistered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Will watch that this evening when I get home. Just wanted to say that I'm still pestering my brother about getting some music together for you.

    darleysam on
    forumsig.png
  • TcheldorTcheldor Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Looks very nice. I'm eager to see what comes next, and I'll help in anyway I can, though I can't code heh.

    Tcheldor on
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  • DelzhandDelzhand Hard to miss. Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    You mentioned having some problems with generating new particles, and we were talking about this in the XNA thread recently - are you using a pool at all? Basically, instead of garbage collecting an expired particle, you have a "reset" method that randomly generates the variables needed for a "new" particle.

    Delzhand on
  • ZackSchillingZackSchilling Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Delzhand wrote: »
    You mentioned having some problems with generating new particles, and we were talking about this in the XNA thread recently - are you using a pool at all? Basically, instead of garbage collecting an expired particle, you have a "reset" method that randomly generates the variables needed for a "new" particle.

    Yeah, pooled and sorted by lifespan, so the ones that expire always expire at the end of the pool. I don't know if its the fastest possible way, but it works well enough. It helps a lot that they're stored in a numpy array and pushed to the GPU in a VBO, all without touching python and incurring its massive array and iteration overhead.

    All four limbs use about 2048 particles at any given moment but the game stays under 40% CPU even at pretty busy times.

    ZackSchilling on
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  • ZackSchillingZackSchilling Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    My last video demo for a while. Engine is feature complete! Most major bugs have been squashed. Moving platforms! Moving ground! Look at them gears (lord did youtube do a number on the video quality!).

    Now it's back to designing graphics and levels. With the engine basically complete, it's time to make the game part. If anyone has cool level ideas and is a huge fan of platformers, let me know. I'd love to have some test levels that aren't my own. Ch-ch-check it out.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBnCOzmzOuU&fmt=18

    ZackSchilling on
    ghost-robot.jpg
  • .Tripwire..Tripwire. Firman Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Zack, this thread is great! I really admire the way you're plugging through this, keep it up.

    I was also really glad to hear about your idea to incorporate rhythmic rewards into the combat and movement, that's been something I've always imagined would work great in a game with a strong beat (I'm a rap fiend, personally). I always thought that a visual cue would be unecessary in this context, like the audio of the beat should be enough for the player. But then again the way I considered it was just that the closer you were to "on beat" a different attack animation would play out and with stronger effects. This charging meter idea sounds more complex and requiring more continual, observable input.

    Now don't ask me why, but as I watched the videos of your robot character I got a picture in my head of an adorable kid in a giant tomato sauce can who has rigged it with the rhythm boosters you've been experimenting with...

    kidmusic_zach.jpg

    Tomato can!

    .Tripwire. on
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  • ZackSchillingZackSchilling Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    Hey, Tripwire, that's awesome. I really do need to revise the character sprite eventually. I don't know if I'd quite go in the direction of a short little guy with a soup can for a body but I really like your style.

    Tonight's development: repeating backgrounds.

    I've got to do what I can to speed up graphics design. The fact that I didn't have a repeating background object until now is pretty funny for a platformer, but hey, I've had other things to do. To christen the new object type, I replaced the hideous low-res orange blob background on the "giant" test level, the one with all the spiky guys on the bridge. I'm no artist, but it looks good technically.

    repeating_tiles.png

    ZackSchilling on
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  • DelzhandDelzhand Hard to miss. Registered User regular
    edited May 2009
    I think it's a kid in a giant soup can, and I think it looks amazing - sort of like a mech without anime-baggage.

    Also, how do you handle moving platforms? Do they exert a force on the player object, or is the player somehow rooted to the while stationary? In my platformer the player is moved the distance between the platform's last and current position, but that would never work for rotating platforms.

    Delzhand on
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