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[zamp]

Oh wut, lua in flash? O_O

I've never coded in flash, but what does Lua give you that flash doesn't?

Well you can't pause flash (wait,sleep), but you can pause coroutines in lua.
Although you can do the same stuff in flash but here's an example:
Lua:

Code:

do_something()
player.say("hello world");
sleep(1500);
player.say("1.5 seceonds later");

Flash:

Code:

if (getTimer() < 1500 && _not_said == false)
{
  _not_said = true;
  do_something();
  player.say("hello world");
} else {
  player.say("1.5 seconds later");
}

Which one would you use? Also if you want to sleep longer you'll need even more elaborate if structures. Which reeks of bad code.
There's another way to do this in flash and that's a FIFO Queue stack but you still need to have a parser for the stack or use some fancy ass proxy class to store the calls... But still that requires a bunch of more coding to get it to work.

[eigenbom]

That's a good point, and it is much more readable, just like in stackless python. Is it a common situation in your scripts? What if you pause the game, will the player.say still get fired 1.5 seconds later? What if you kill the player before player.say gets fired the second time?

I ask because my project uses Lua, and I have thought a little about using co-routines, but I think it may be conceptually cleaner to do it the second way, and I can also guarantee the order of execution. Sure the script is more complex, but you can encapsulate some of this stuff if it is common enough, and it means you have more freedom in general.

Code:

wait_clock = nil
talking = true
i = 1
chat = {{"hello", 1.5}, {"how are you 1.5 seconds later", 0}}
function update(dt)
  if talking then
    wait_clock += dt
    if (wait_clock > chat[i][2]) then
      i = i+1       
      if (i > #chat) then
        talking = false
      else
        say(chat[i][1])
        wait_clock = chat[i][2]
      end
    end
  end   
end

That said, the scripts in my game are written just by me, so I don't mind it being a little more technical. If you are exposing the scripting to the end-user then you'd probably want something much simpler -- like the coroutine method, or maybe even better, a little scene language:

Code:

0:00 Hi
0:05 How are you
0:10 What are you doing here
0:11 [Look_Left]

[zamp]

What if you pause the game, will the player.say still get fired 1.5 seconds later? What if you kill the player before player.say gets fired the second time?

In my case the script calls will call the player entity even if it has died. Since all of the entities are stored in an array and on death they're removed from it (they wont render or update anymore), whatever the script does doesn't affect anything and it won't produce an error since the script's pointer to the player is still valid and not null.
Once the script exits and gets removed, everything gets garbage collected.

The only problem with having a coroutine handle scenes is that if there's a lot of people in one scene the script gets bloated very quickly.
I haven't looked into having my own scene scripts yet but that snippet you wrote seems a lot more manageable.

Since LUA can access all flash's imported classes automatically without having to go through hoops to expose them to lua I could use TweenLite's timeline class to have even more control over what happens.

[zamp]

Two more screenshots from debugging. Now text is tiny and probably won't get cluttered as much. Also I changed how paths are rendered in debug.



On the left is a complete path. On the right is the path optimization doing it's thing.

[zamp]

Forgot to share this when I drew it.


Bastards are these mutated rat creatures. They only attack you from behind and they are scared of light.

[zamp]

MMmmmm goody goody.

First version of the guy


Didn't quite look like what I wanted so I modified chubbified it:


If you're wondering why make 3D models. Here's the reason. Same base model different clothes.


Here's Victor, our genetically modified friendly übersmart gorilla who turns into.. well... not so friendly. I havent tested the graphic in game yet so it might turn out a bit smaller.


Next step: 3D Monster. The one chasing the player in my signature.

Ps. I know the smaller player animation clips on the right arm when he falls down. I'll fix that later.

[increpare]

Forgot to share this when I drew it.

scary!

[zamp]

What goes into modeling?

Not as much as one would imagine.

First we start out with the mesh


Then we skin it. To make the UVs unwrap properly we need to mark some edges that will be "cut".


Starting the unwrap process.


Unwrapping nearly completed


Naming of the UVs


Next step is rigging. In this picture I've setup the Main and IK movers. Main mover moves everything and IK mover uses inverse kinematics to animate the skeleton.


Rigging almost completed


Testing that I've set up IK targets properly


In these two images you can see the hands and feet stay put even when the IK mover is moved. This makes animating a breeze since you control the goals (where hands and feet are) directly.



Next step is animating the 4 required animations. Idle, Walk, Run and Attack


And there we go. Here's the result


Time taken from start to finish: roughly 5 hours.

[zamp]

Here's a little something. Nearing demo release. Menus are almost done, only needs backgrounds, better load menu and a save menu.
http://youtu.be/MbHpdnWY1rs

[laxwolf]

Looks awesome but I can't say I'm happy with the new art direction... maybe I just have to get used to it.

Glad the games coming together! 

[zamp]

Looks awesome but I can't say I'm happy with the new art direction... maybe I just have to get used to it.

Glad the games coming together!  

It's a decided compromise. Back when I drew the first monster spritesheet I later found out I wanted to make it bigger. Problem is that pixel art doesn't scale. With 3D models I can scale the graphics up or down and just rerender the spritesheets.
If I need to add more weapons or items to the graphics I can just attach them to the hand bone and that's it.
Btw. This is the way they made Fallout 1 & 2 sprites

Edit: I fine tuned the rendering a bit which made the player graphic look a lot more natural to it's environment.


Still I have to admit that the monster looks weird. I'll have to scale the arms and redo the animations to make it spooky.. not silly.

[zamp]

Screenshot of that stuff.
It grows, it moves, it's covered in acid so it burns. Better get that axe ready and go whoopass on it.

[kitheif]

Me fighting blood red vines.

I'll miss the old 2D character, but this new style looks really cool 

[zamp]

I took a long break from developing this game since I just cba to do it. I had no inspiration and every time I opened a source file or the map editor I just ended up shouting "fuck it!" and quitting before putting any work down.

Now that I'm working on the game again I spent quite a while trying to get the 3D rendered sprites to not clash with the graphics style of the game. Guess what happened? They still clash... So at this point I submit to defeat and will go back to using hand drawn 2D graphics even if it means more work.

At this moment the game is roughly at what I call a demo level of completion. You can play the game to get the overall feeling of it. There are couple placeholder graphics that need to be replaced before I can feel comfortable about releasing a demo.

Today I when I fired the game up for the first time in months I wasn't happy about how the game ran. Less than acceptable framerates and it kinda lags every now and then. After couple hours of optimization I got fps up to 30 which has been my goal from the beginning.
I had to remove the flashlight beam effect that makes it thinner the further you aim it. It was just way too expensive to run per frame, took a whopping 5 ms to run maybe 20 lines of code.

Also I haven't really felt that the name belongs to this game. Sure the storyline works around you being at the epicenter of what is to come but another name might be more suitable.
Here's a list I came up with and would love it if you picked your favorite and replied telling me to pick that one, maybe toss in a reason too
(Note: I haven't googled these so they might be used already)

Virus
Trapped
Host or The Host
Infected
Infection
Escape
It
Thing

Let me know if you think of a better name.

! SPOILER ALERT !
The rest of the post uncovers a major part of the plot. I tell you this so you can better figure out a name or come up with other ideas. (Select text to view it)


The goo you might have seen in screenshots is a part of a collective consciousness. The goo is like a fungus, it searches for nutrients and once it finds them it then builds up a network to them so it gains better access to them.
This is a genetically altered fungus that was infused with a virus' RNA that gave it very peculiar properties. It doesn't only grow like plants it can also move.
What the scientist didn't understand was that when they enabled the fungus to produce muscular tissue it also produced a nervous system.
The fungus also incorporated properties that enabled it to infect animals and humans.
Once it had infected the first person it gained access to higher brain functions and became self aware.
It's only will is to escape the trap it's in, you just happened to have an accident and were unconscious when they evacuated the facility.

[eigenbom]

I don't think I like any of those names, they are all quite generic and/or are associated with major movies/stories (fyi: The Host is the best. movie. ever.) Mind dump:

The Plague That Ate My Face
Who knew plants could talk (and kill)
The Night Of The Man-Plants
Brainpulp
The Evil Fungoid
Botanikiller 17
Myxomycetic
Plot-wise, sounds a bit like Day Of The Triffids combined with The Thing.