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Indie Game Development Discussion Thread | Of Being Professionally Poor
- Thread starter chubigans
- Start date
- Status
ZehDon
Member
That radial menu is very nice. Looks very polished, imo.
Wow, that looks amazing! What kind of game is this?
An interesting picture I got while simulating a composite PAL signal for my 3d
retro engine's CRT TV.
It's sort of a bug, i.e. a phase-shift error. But it look cool somehow. The
full PAL en/decoder isn't ready yet, yet some cool features are already
included like limiting the luminance and chroma bandwidth. Am currently
working on the ringing effects (signal response of the system) on hard
color/contrast boundaries.
Edit: Here is the original RGB image.
retro engine's CRT TV.
It's sort of a bug, i.e. a phase-shift error. But it look cool somehow. The
full PAL en/decoder isn't ready yet, yet some cool features are already
included like limiting the luminance and chroma bandwidth. Am currently
working on the ringing effects (signal response of the system) on hard
color/contrast boundaries.
Edit: Here is the original RGB image.
HellBlazer
Member
Not my game but... it's Assault Android Cactus, a very good twin-stick shooter: http://store.steampowered.com/app/250110/
bumpkin
Member
BOOYAKASHA!
Made a bunch of changes to my input detection code last night and a few new tweaks this morning (SDL 2.0), and now I'm officially getting the right events for button presses on a wired Xbox 360 Controller. I still haven't quite nailed down the analog stick part, but the d-pad and all of the buttons are working. Progress is progress.
EDIT: Just got the analog sticks working, too. Awwww yeah.
Made a bunch of changes to my input detection code last night and a few new tweaks this morning (SDL 2.0), and now I'm officially getting the right events for button presses on a wired Xbox 360 Controller. I still haven't quite nailed down the analog stick part, but the d-pad and all of the buttons are working. Progress is progress.
EDIT: Just got the analog sticks working, too. Awwww yeah.
Wow. What do you use to make high framerate GIFs?!
Thomasorus
Member
Hey gaf creators, I have a question for you.
I am much more from the art side than coding side (made art school) but after a few years managing websites, I started getting interested in coding after I managed my own PHP/CSS properties. I know it's not the same at all for coding games, but you could say I am interested to learn code, and this is cool I suppose.
I am also a big fan of fighting games, and I would like to start understanding them better by recreating one (let's say street fighter 2). I will not create a game for selling or anything like this, I'm just curious. I started by installing Game Maker Studio, ripping some sprites, doing some tutorials. Managed to have gravity, moving right and left, jumping, a having animations for each actions. It's not incredible but meh, not bad for a start.
Now I ask myself questions, because I never done this before. Should I create an "engine" containing the basic rules for the characters, or do I handle everything inside each character, and duplicate them, tweak them after? Basically, I don't know how to organize myself, organize the game. I also don't know if Game Maker Studio is the right engine to do so. If you have a bit of documentation or advices to share, it would be super awesome.
Thanks !
I am much more from the art side than coding side (made art school) but after a few years managing websites, I started getting interested in coding after I managed my own PHP/CSS properties. I know it's not the same at all for coding games, but you could say I am interested to learn code, and this is cool I suppose.
I am also a big fan of fighting games, and I would like to start understanding them better by recreating one (let's say street fighter 2). I will not create a game for selling or anything like this, I'm just curious. I started by installing Game Maker Studio, ripping some sprites, doing some tutorials. Managed to have gravity, moving right and left, jumping, a having animations for each actions. It's not incredible but meh, not bad for a start.
Now I ask myself questions, because I never done this before. Should I create an "engine" containing the basic rules for the characters, or do I handle everything inside each character, and duplicate them, tweak them after? Basically, I don't know how to organize myself, organize the game. I also don't know if Game Maker Studio is the right engine to do so. If you have a bit of documentation or advices to share, it would be super awesome.
Thanks !
Even being a native English speaker doesn't help too much with legalese, but it does sound like they can do whatever they want with your game. Even if they're legally protected in doing so, it's worth considering if that's a reasonable fear to have. I'm unfamiliar with cocoonjs, but have they done anything in the past to make them untrustworthy? Have they addressed this concern before?
Two answers.
1) Probably the more proper way to do it would be to handle all the generic game rules outside of the characters themselves.
2) This is your first game, so stop worrying about that stuff, and focus on trying to finish something.
Thomasorus
Member
Well ok, I'll start by trying to create a perfect copy of Street Fighter 2' Ryu then. ^^
I'm starting to sound like a fanboy, but I'd use Unity for this. They have nice colliders for you to use as hitboxes and its easy to move them where you want them to go. They have a nice system for managing animations, and the built in physics helps too.
Also, it'd be good to make the way characters work as general as possible, that way adding new characters doesn't require lots of extra code.
Speaking of which, I've got a new video.
Here are a few gifs.
Wyndstryker
Member
Don't worry about the "engine" and whatnot till you know exactly what you want. Have fun with gamemaker and experiment. If you find out its not working out try something else like unity.
I'm working on a website to strut my stuff off. Should I separate sound design and music composition into separate categories? It's kind of tricky because the few projects I've done sound for, I typically did the music as well.
A fun way to work towards this might be creating bare-bones 'fighting' games that you'll be able to get up and running, while plugging away at Street Fighter stuff as a side-project. Think along the lines of Niddhogg, Divekick, or Samurai Gunn. Those kinds of games are competitive, fun, and best of all achievable. A SF clone will always have room to become more like SF, whereas a small original idea will always have room to become better. If you know what I'm saying? It's just a mental thing, but I know it affects me a lot. Good luck with whatever you work on next!
Thaumaturgic Tomato
Member
I agree with the other poster. Go with Unity. They've grown very well and getting better each release. I use to dismiss Unity games because they all "looked" like Unity games. But that was the fault of everybody copying each others' crappy mobile games for quick profits. Truly unique experiences can be made if the creator uses their own imaginations and style. It's not limited by Unity. So many user made resources for Unity too. Easy, relatively, to hit the ground running for beginners. Game making will never be easy easy.
As for fighters, I don't have personal experience with it, but there's this asset:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/218123-RELEASED-Universal-Fighting-Engine-(UFE)
Thomasorus
Member
Thanks! I actually think learning unity could be great. Many people told me that, for a newcomer in coding, working on Unity with C# could be great as I can put what I learned into other windows based projects.
I launched unity two times to look at it, it's a bit intimidating but the interface looks nice. I'll take a better look next time.
Yup I enjoy this kind of games too. For a more traditionnal fighting game approach, we have Divekick or Senor Footsies. To be honest I don't have the "game i would like to do", I never thought of it. I have been a FG enthusiast for more than 10 years now, and freelance journalist on the subject for 3 years now. I have the feeling I keep learning more and more each time I play a new game. I am much more into didactical work, especially in my reviews since I think many reviews are detailling the mechanics and the end result, but not the middle. It's as if you had a food recipe, the final preparation, and no explanation at all. That's the kind of things I like, so maybe I'll do... My own fighting game tutorial?
Thanks a lot for all this, it's very interesting.
Well seems like I'll have to study all this !
AirConditioner
Neo Member
Hey indieGAF, Im looking for someone who can help me out with a project.
Im a senior in high school, and in order to graduate, my school requires everyone to do a big senior project. Everyone picks a topic, researches it, finds someone whos knowledgeable about the topic to interview, and then creates a product based on what they've learned. The topic I've chosen is game development (which you were probably able to assume based on the website I'm on/thread I'm posting in.) Ive done the research, and am currently working on the product. Heres a look at what I have so far:
Its a simple 2D side scrolling platformer that Ive been working on in Game Maker. Ive been attempting to teach myself many of the aspects of game development/design, like the sprites and animation, as well as the programming (though thats a bit easier than it normally would be thanks to the lifesaver that is Game Maker). I have a level that's playable, and has been described by friends as actually pretty good!, and Ive learned a lot while working on it. 

The last piece of the puzzle I need to complete this learning stretch (as the people in charge of senior project at my school would call it), is someone with any degree of experience on this topic to interview over email/something similar. All the interviewee has to do is answer five questions about game development and whatnot; its pretty simple stuff. Im looking for anyone with experience working on some type of platformer game, or anything similar really. Im not too picky.
I know I havent posted here much at all, but Ive had an account for a while, and have been lurking for much longer. Its probably this website that got me most interested in game development, so Id be extremely happy if someone from this community could do me this huge favor. PM me if youre interested, and if not, thanks for reading this anyway!
Im a senior in high school, and in order to graduate, my school requires everyone to do a big senior project. Everyone picks a topic, researches it, finds someone whos knowledgeable about the topic to interview, and then creates a product based on what they've learned. The topic I've chosen is game development (which you were probably able to assume based on the website I'm on/thread I'm posting in.) Ive done the research, and am currently working on the product. Heres a look at what I have so far:
Its a simple 2D side scrolling platformer that Ive been working on in Game Maker. Ive been attempting to teach myself many of the aspects of game development/design, like the sprites and animation, as well as the programming (though thats a bit easier than it normally would be thanks to the lifesaver that is Game Maker). I have a level that's playable, and has been described by friends as actually pretty good!, and Ive learned a lot while working on it. 

The last piece of the puzzle I need to complete this learning stretch (as the people in charge of senior project at my school would call it), is someone with any degree of experience on this topic to interview over email/something similar. All the interviewee has to do is answer five questions about game development and whatnot; its pretty simple stuff. Im looking for anyone with experience working on some type of platformer game, or anything similar really. Im not too picky.
I know I havent posted here much at all, but Ive had an account for a while, and have been lurking for much longer. Its probably this website that got me most interested in game development, so Id be extremely happy if someone from this community could do me this huge favor. PM me if youre interested, and if not, thanks for reading this anyway!
I love snow days. Today's changelog is HUUUUGE - got so much done today its not even funny. Completely revamped several systems today and streamlined the shit out of them. Brought about 7 classes down to 2 and rewrote about 600 lines of code. Squashed a few big bugs and sprited and rigged 2 new enemy types. Tomorrow I add their main, physics and AI controllers. I feel all good n stuff. Tired, but good. I need a 3rd monitor to throw in portrait mode for coding. Flipping my 2nd monitor on its side for coding and leaning it against my tower isnt exactly aesthetic. Need me one of them dual monitor racks.
That looks awesome and smooth; I get a Titanfall vibe just from watching it.Might as well show what I've been up to lately:
Got the wallrun jump working.
Totally placeholder, totally test level
AirConditioner
Neo Member
I knew this was a great community; thanks again for your help and the quick reply abe_bly! The internet needs more friendly places like gaf...
Feels good, man. There's nothing like getting a lot of stuff done.
Though, I often feel like I'm doing something wrong when I see other programmers prefer a portrait profile monitor. I usually code in long lines, and I'd rather not have to scroll in two directions if I can avoid it. I think the main reason I have a wider profile is because I'm typically calculating values and expressions inline within function parameters instead of on separate lines stored in vars.
Certainly.
thanks for the answer.
according to a user from the c2 forum:
"The foregoing provision does not apply to any User Content you upload, or any part thereof, that constitutes Ludei Marketing Materials as defined below."
An interesting picture I got while simulating a composite PAL signal for my 3d
retro engine's CRT TV.
It's sort of a bug, i.e. a phase-shift error. But it look cool somehow. The
full PAL en/decoder isn't ready yet, yet some cool features are already
included like limiting the luminance and chroma bandwidth. Am currently
working on the ringing effects (signal response of the system) on hard
color/contrast boundaries.
Edit: Here is the original RGB image.
That's super nice! What ever happened to the rockets and stuff though...?
This morning I woke up and had ideas! They may be crazy or terrible, but the last few days I've actually had days where I had an idea and wrote it down in the morning, so in the evening I can make a more permanent note about it, or start implementing it.
It's so weird to have new ideas about things! I'm never creative so it is kind of cool.
It's so weird to have new ideas about things! I'm never creative so it is kind of cool.
I'm always emailing myself notes and even straight-up code for quick copy/pasta when I get home, lol. Just did that about 5 minutes ago ha!
Pasta_Soup
Member
Things are progressing nicely with Olympia Rising dev! Here's a little peak of our newest area - Cocytus, the Twisted Garden. Once I get some actual levels built, I'll make sure to record some gifs of the newer areas. I personally think they're a lot more impressive in motion with parallax going on.
Tweaked a bunch of the main characters animations as well. She was the first sprite I made for the game and I've improved a lot over these past several months, so I figured she deserved a little update.
We also finished up our official poster for the game. We have two color variants - which do you guys prefer?
Tweaked a bunch of the main characters animations as well. She was the first sprite I made for the game and I've improved a lot over these past several months, so I figured she deserved a little update.
We also finished up our official poster for the game. We have two color variants - which do you guys prefer?
Mental Atrophy
Banned
Every time I add something new but don't have a clear plan I end up making these sprawling 200+ line functions and having to do a lot of refactoring afterwards.
Your rule of thumb can be, "If this looks like a post from missile, either the method is too long or the lines are too short."
Your rule of thumb can be, "If this looks like a post from missile, either the method is too long or the lines are too short."
I'm in kind of the opposite, and sillier, ship. My LOC has been on the decline forever and it kinda bums me out whenever I calculate it (I foolishly associate LOC with progress). I know indie games like Braid and Terraria are close to 100,000 lines, but I haven't even hit 3,000 yet. In my "defense," those games use their own engines. I'm using Unity so I made a goal of 10,000 lines, but I don't think I'll ever hit it. I do routine refactoring whenever I change the spec and it tends to result in less verbose code. Maybe I'll be down to 50 lines by release. :,(
Kodama's now on Kickstarter.
Unity game based on mythological japanese creatures. Platforming and physics puzzles. Being made by a guy I chat with on Skype.
Unity game based on mythological japanese creatures. Platforming and physics puzzles. Being made by a guy I chat with on Skype.
fengshuifever
Member
Your rule of thumb can be, "If this looks like a post from missile, either the method is too long or the lines are too short."
God DAMN.
I love this thread so much, you guys are coming up with truly amazing stuff.
It's a little intimidating sometimes, especially when I'm only at the stage of wrestling with making the rhythm component of my game ACTUALLY work
Feels like I'm so so so behind where I need to be
The rockets are well locked in a hunger waiting to get ignited again!
Well, after having implemented the 6-DOF equation of motion I did some more
experiments with the physics esp. with angular momentum and have build a
simple wing while implementing the standard lift an drag equations utilizing
lift and drag coefficients. I found that such a model will be insufficient for
Superstall's stalling characteristics (too stiff). And as such I didn't
composted a prototype aircraft together. It wouldn't be too difficult to make
one, but I was already gone further in investigating into the lift and drag
issue which brought me to the roots of it all, i.e. in understanding the
pressure distribution around a moving obstacle. So I tried to build a very
simple pressure model by simplifying the fluid and its dynamics and tried to
derive how the pressure would build up on a simple obstacle under different
inclination within my fluid. Surprisingly, I could derive a simple formula of
how the pressure changes on said simple obstacle from which I can compute lift
and drag, and (best of all) the center of pressure -- depending on the
obstacles' orientation. I now have an idea how it all works and how I can use
it for the aircraft's of Superstall. This is all very basic research so to
speak. Roughly speaking, instead if using coefficients with a simple model for
lift and drag, I instead simplified the fluid and come up with a formula. The
formula isn't necessarily more realistic or anything, but it allows for a
greater variety. For example, the lift/drag and momentum coefficients for some
known wings are almost always given just for 0 to about 18 or 20 degrees. Now
one can start to get more data from somewhere or may even try to extrapolate
(which won't work). However, my formula gives values from 0 to 180 degrees
with respect to the geometric configuration of the wing, i.e. plan-form which
can be dynamic as well. While in the stalling regime, the lift and drag forces
and the dynamics of the center of pressure do really dictate the dynamics of
the aircraft to a large degree. During this time the aircraft is very prone to
angular acceleration. Some little forces applied and it goes the other way
around.
This is one of the core elements of Superstall so to speak, so it needs some
little more considerations. And it isn't finished yet. Anyhow, I hope it makes
a difference in the end. At least I want to give people something to master,
something which isn't too simple, too stiff, or can be understood right away,
something you can experiment with. Inclusive gameplay! :+
For the time being I've postponed any further development on the physics and
stuff to not get too far ahead with just one component. Current component
under consideration is graphics. I have some deep ties into Computer Graphics
and really love to do research and implementing stuff. A couple of month ago I
thought Superstall would need a distinctive look to separate it from the pack,
so I looked around and came to realize that there isn't much old-school retro
3d graphics. And since I like low-poly, low-res, low-color graphics/shading
etc. as well as building things from scratch, it became a perfect match for
me. Btw; I'm done with all the graphics APIs, anyways!
Currently I'm tinkering around with the antics of old-school CRT TVs and stuff. The idea
behind is that low-res graphics has a very distinctive look while sending it
through a CRT TV. I mean, all the irregularities coming along with a CRT and
sh!t do have some interesting influence on the picture. Tomorrow I may show a
rather simple graphics which looks very crappy on an RGB LCD, yet I will also
show it on my basic PAL CRT TV (yet-not-working). And I hope we will see the
difference.
That's it. What I am doing exactly at this moment, next to writing this post
and drinking coffee, is applying signal theory, filtering etc. to my CRT TV's
input signal. When I'm satisfied with the CRT to some degree I will spend some
time on color reproduction techniques. After this am going to build a simple
rendering engine, i.e. a raterizer utilizing said color reproduction
techniques. What I'm after is the following; due to the ringing effects and
bandwidth limitation of old CRTs, color dithering produces some very
interesting effects. For one, the ringing effects will be seen on the isolated
dither dots, and second, due to the bandwidth limitation of the CRT and the
color reconstruction from the signal (demodulation), the dots smear a bit and
will shift their color slightly changing the color impression of a surface to
some extend. Cool stuff! When this is done, am going to work on the 3d part of
the retro engine. Then physics again, collision detection and response. After
this I guess its time for a prototype. Oh yeah...!
lol
That's bad.
Guys, 80 characters ftw!
Edit:
Left. Game looks cool. :+...
Me again! More 80 characters per-line lines incoming.
Perhaps he hasn't seen people asking. Anyhow, I make a guess; they write
(or grab) out the pictures on their own straight from the game and later use a
tool to build a proper 60fps animated-gif out of it. Anyone?
Despite the animation is smooth, it sucks a bit nevertheless. They may
perhaps better use a fixed (well designed) RGB color table for all the gifs
and use ordered dithering instead of error diffusion, which would eliminate
the color banding as well as the ringing effects while giving a stable
animation. GifCam can't do it and Jasc Animation Shop 3 allows for ordered
dithering only with a standard (internal) color palette and not with a custom
one. Odd! Perhaps some of the animated-gif makers for Apple can do it.
Despite the advantages of ordered dithering as described above, there is also
a drawback of the method (better; considered to be a drawback in general),
i.e. the formation of patterns. Bad organized dither matrices or basis
patterns (like I call them), used for simulating intensity levels by spreading
dots around, can produce recognizable patterns when applied to a picture.
Usually you can't choose the patterns used in many of the programs for ordered
dithering. The default patterns used are the so-called Bayer dither patterns/
matrices, which are quite good nevertheless.
However, even the patterns produced by Bayer can be diminished by taking
advantage of the human visual system, which has a bad resolution diagonally,
which is the reason to put the strongest color of a CMYK system at 45 degrees
while printing, i.e. the color black. The same technique can be used with
dither patterns, i.e. rotating them by 45 degrees and apply them. This would
diminish the patterns on a subjective level and as such would improve
perceived visual quality of an ordered dithered animated-gif further.
I never saw the approach mentioned above in any animated-gif program. If such
program doesn't exist, and no one is going to write one, then I will do it in
the course of my color reproduction phase.
Speaking about ordered dithering, it is clear that such patterns are pretty
much retro. :+ Other techniques like random dither are also quite cool and
were used in the past. Only dithering due to error diffusion isn't as cool
for animation and wasn't used much in the past anyways, because it also
required much more computing power -- whereas stills are done fine using
dithering based on error diffusion (Floyd-Steinberger and friends).
Now whats really interesting is that back in the days some graphics
programmers build their own patterns that do violate good modern pattern
construction as those given of Bayer for example. Why? Either they didn't new
about proper construction (some didn't as can be seen on modern systems) or,
what's more likely, they were designed in accord with the antics of the system
-- the CRT -- to use the ringing effects to produce colors the system
couldn't generate.
I was able to reverse such a pattern sequence from a Commodore C64. Patterns,
no one would use today! Yet they play a fundamental part in being retro. :+
I want to use these patterns in my engine, next to many others. These specific
patterns may produce a more interesting retro look than some modern ones would
do and as such may produce a more faithful reconstruction of old-school
graphics while sending them through a software simulated CRT. Crazy, isn't it?
Mind you!
I think you won't get an answer from Sycle. It was asked in here before, iirc.
Perhaps he hasn't seen people asking.
Anyhow, I make a guess; they write(or grab) out the pictures on their own straight from the game and later use a
tool to build a proper 60fps animated-gif out of it. Anyone?
Despite the animation is smooth, it sucks a bit nevertheless. They may
perhaps better use a fixed (well designed) RGB color table for all the gifs
and use ordered dithering instead of error diffusion, which would eliminate
the color banding as well as the ringing effects while giving a stable
animation. GifCam can't do it and Jasc Animation Shop 3 allows for ordered
dithering only with a standard (internal) color palette and not with a custom
one. Odd! Perhaps some of the animated-gif makers for Apple can do it.
Despite the advantages of ordered dithering as described above, there is also
a drawback of the method (better; considered to be a drawback in general),
i.e. the formation of patterns. Bad organized dither matrices or basis
patterns (like I call them), used for simulating intensity levels by spreading
dots around, can produce recognizable patterns when applied to a picture.
Usually you can't choose the patterns used in many of the programs for ordered
dithering. The default patterns used are the so-called Bayer dither patterns/
matrices, which are quite good nevertheless.
However, even the patterns produced by Bayer can be diminished by taking
advantage of the human visual system, which has a bad resolution diagonally,
which is the reason to put the strongest color of a CMYK system at 45 degrees
while printing, i.e. the color black. The same technique can be used with
dither patterns, i.e. rotating them by 45 degrees and apply them. This would
diminish the patterns on a subjective level and as such would improve
perceived visual quality of an ordered dithered animated-gif further.
I never saw the approach mentioned above in any animated-gif program. If such
program doesn't exist, and no one is going to write one, then I will do it in
the course of my color reproduction phase.
Speaking about ordered dithering, it is clear that such patterns are pretty
much retro. :+ Other techniques like random dither are also quite cool and
were used in the past. Only dithering due to error diffusion isn't as cool
for animation and wasn't used much in the past anyways, because it also
required much more computing power -- whereas stills are done fine using
dithering based on error diffusion (Floyd-Steinberger and friends).
Now whats really interesting is that back in the days some graphics
programmers build their own patterns that do violate good modern pattern
construction as those given of Bayer for example. Why? Either they didn't new
about proper construction (some didn't as can be seen on modern systems) or,
what's more likely, they were designed in accord with the antics of the system
-- the CRT -- to use the ringing effects to produce colors the system
couldn't generate.
I was able to reverse such a pattern sequence from a Commodore C64. Patterns,
no one would use today! Yet they play a fundamental part in being retro. :+
I want to use these patterns in my engine, next to many others. These specific
patterns may produce a more interesting retro look than some modern ones would
do and as such may produce a more faithful reconstruction of old-school
graphics while sending them through a software simulated CRT. Crazy, isn't it?
Things are progressing nicely with Olympia Rising dev! Here's a little peak of our newest area - Cocytus, the Twisted Garden. Once I get some actual levels built, I'll make sure to record some gifs of the newer areas. I personally think they're a lot more impressive in motion with parallax going on.
Tweaked a bunch of the main characters animations as well. She was the first sprite I made for the game and I've improved a lot over these past several months, so I figured she deserved a little update.
We also finished up our official poster for the game. We have two color variants - which do you guys prefer?
Game looks great. I'd love to play the poster too!
The rockets are well locked in a hunger waiting to get ignited again!
Well, after having implemented the 6-DOF equation of motion I did some more
experiments with the physics esp. with angular momentum and have build a
simple wing while implementing the standard lift an drag equations utilizing
lift and drag coefficients. I found that such a model will be insufficient for
Superstall's stalling characteristics (too stiff). And as such I didn't
composted a prototype aircraft together. It wouldn't be too difficult to make
one, but I was already gone further in investigating into the lift and drag
issue which brought me to the roots of it all, i.e. in understanding the
pressure distribution around a moving obstacle. So I tried to build a very
simple pressure model by simplifying the fluid and its dynamics and tried to
derive how the pressure would build up on a simple obstacle under different
inclination within my fluid. Surprisingly, I could derive a simple formula of
how the pressure changes on said simple obstacle from which I can compute lift
and drag, and (best of all) the center of pressure -- depending on the
obstacles' orientation. I now have an idea how it all works and how I can use
it for the aircraft's of Superstall. This is all very basic research so to
speak. Roughly speaking, instead if using coefficients with a simple model for
lift and drag, I instead simplified the fluid and come up with a formula. The
formula isn't necessarily more realistic or anything, but it allows for a
greater variety. For example, the lift/drag and momentum coefficients for some
known wings are almost always given just for 0 to about 18 or 20 degrees. Now
one can start to get more data from somewhere or may even try to extrapolate
(which won't work). However, my formula gives values from 0 to 180 degrees
with respect to the geometric configuration of the wing, i.e. plan-form which
can be dynamic as well. While in the stalling regime, the lift and drag forces
and the dynamics of the center of pressure do really dictate the dynamics of
the aircraft to a large degree. During this time the aircraft is very prone to
angular acceleration. Some little forces applied and it goes the other way
around.
This is one of the core elements of Superstall so to speak, so it needs some
little more considerations. And it isn't finished yet. Anyhow, I hope it makes
a difference in the end. At least I want to give people something to master,
something which isn't too simple, too stiff, or can be understood right away,
something you can experiment with. Inclusive gameplay! :+
For the time being I've postponed any further development on the physics and
stuff to not get too far ahead with just one component. Current component
under consideration is graphics. I have some deep ties into Computer Graphics
and really love to do research and implementing stuff. A couple of month ago I
thought Superstall would need a distinctive look to separate it from the pack,
so I looked around and came to realize that there isn't much old-school retro
3d graphics. And since I like low-poly, low-res, low-color graphics/shading
etc. as well as building things from scratch, it became a perfect match for
me. Btw; I'm done with all the graphics APIs, anyways!
tinkering around with the antics of old-school CRT TVs and stuff. The idea
behind is that low-res graphics has a very distinctive look while sending it
through a CRT TV. I mean, all the irregularities coming along with a CRT and
sh!t do have some interesting influence on the picture. Tomorrow I may show a
rather simple graphics which looks very crappy on an RGB LCD, yet I will also
show it on my basic PAL CRT TV (yet-not-working). And I hope we will see the
difference.
That's it. What I am doing exactly at this moment, next to writing this post
and drinking coffee, is applying signal theory, filtering etc. to my CRT TV's
input signal. When I'm satisfied with the CRT to some degree I will spend some
time on color reproduction techniques. After this am going to build a simple
rendering engine, i.e. a raterizer utilizing said color reproduction
techniques. What I'm after is the following; due to the ringing effects and
bandwidth limitation of old CRTs, color dithering produces some very
interesting effects. For one, the ringing effects will be seen on the isolated
dither dots, and second, due to the bandwidth limitation of the CRT and the
color reconstruction from the signal (demodulation), the dots smear a bit and
will shift their color slightly changing the color impression of a surface to
some extend. Cool stuff! When this is done, am going to work on the 3d part of
the retro engine. Then physics again, collision detection and response. After
this I guess its time for a prototype. Oh yeah...!
That's what I thought... ;D
I love that what you're doing is totally unique. When it actually turns up, it'll be worth the wait!!
Been a bit slow lately sharing progress. We are still nose to the grind with StarDiver. Here are a couple gifs of the most recent progress:
Solar Exploration:
Gravity Slingshot:
HD video link here:
http://www.indiedb.com/games/stardiver/videos/solar-exploration2
As always, any feedback is greatly appreciated!
Solar Exploration:
Gravity Slingshot:
HD video link here:
http://www.indiedb.com/games/stardiver/videos/solar-exploration2
As always, any feedback is greatly appreciated!
So how does someone go about recruiting the other people they might need for a project?
Like, great, I've got mappers, modelers, sound guys, designers/writers and texture people, most of us being multi-disciplined. I have a junior programmer volunteer who wants to work with someone more experienced. I need an animator.
How would I find people to hook up with? Most of the people I've pitched the project to have basically lost their minds in a good way when checking it out, so the project seems rock solid, but, y'know, without programming and animation, we're a bit boned.
I've been trying to work on some stuff like this, but not had much luck, because brain trauma has really screwed my ability to do any sort of programming.
Got any pointerstuffs/resources/whatever?
Ch-ch-ch-check it out. What it's all about.
(LOTS of gifs in this thread, so, y'know, be forewarned, but there is a tut in there)
Like, great, I've got mappers, modelers, sound guys, designers/writers and texture people, most of us being multi-disciplined. I have a junior programmer volunteer who wants to work with someone more experienced. I need an animator.
How would I find people to hook up with? Most of the people I've pitched the project to have basically lost their minds in a good way when checking it out, so the project seems rock solid, but, y'know, without programming and animation, we're a bit boned.
Might as well show what I've been up to lately:
Got the wallrun jump working.
Totally placeholder, totally test level
I've been trying to work on some stuff like this, but not had much luck, because brain trauma has really screwed my ability to do any sort of programming.
Got any pointerstuffs/resources/whatever?
Ch-ch-ch-check it out. What it's all about.
(LOTS of gifs in this thread, so, y'know, be forewarned, but there is a tut in there)
Thats one big ship
Those planets look great, lots of nice visual effects. Is this a twin stick shooter?
Thanks. StarDiver is a space adventure/rpg and will be heavy on the ship to ship combat. It will be a single stick shooter w/ buttons (for consoles). PCs will have options of mouse/kb or controllers. It isn't dual stick because every ship (targeting 15-30) will be have at least a primary and secondary weapon.. sometimes needing initiation on button down and some event on release. For example below the Krex Cruiser has longrange flak cannon, buttondown launches and release pops the flak. It also has a nose pulse with similar button down charges and release fires. The Sundagger it is fighting, dives through stars to pull plasma to toss at the enemy and to recharge spent energy on forward lasers.
More info on the project
Bomber Bob
Banned
beautiful
Could anyone by chance help me find some flash as3 tutorials?
I'm trying to make a game that is a driving side-scrolling platformer with a boost mechanic. I'm a total noob to flash.
This is my concept
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/22136349/RooftopRampage.swf
I'm trying to make a game that is a driving side-scrolling platformer with a boost mechanic. I'm a total noob to flash.
This is my concept
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/22136349/RooftopRampage.swf
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