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TIGSource ForumsCommunityJams & EventsCompetitionsOld CompetitionsAssemblee: Part 2Happy Helper Puppy - v0.2 [FINISHED (as much as I'll do)]
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J. R. Hill
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« Reply #20 on: December 31, 2009, 03:58:05 PM »

Yeah it's probably my old video card.
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX
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ChiggenWingz
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« Reply #21 on: December 31, 2009, 06:47:03 PM »

That should work, as it supports DX 9.0c and the shader versions needed from what I understand.
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ChiggenWingz
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« Reply #22 on: January 01, 2010, 05:51:23 AM »

Yeah it's probably my old video card.
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX

Actually I think I know that the problem may be.  What resolution are you running at?  v0.1 has a command console open up behind the game window, and I've hard coded its size to be very big.  Normally when running at lower rez, it throws an error.

So the next version I'll release I'll mod the size so its a better fit and hopefully that'll fix the problem.

------------

BTW, got most of the new state system coded, still a bit to go but once thats done I should be able to throw in just parameters for each character state, and get the Ai to base its behaviour off of it to a degree.  Well, hello there!
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J. R. Hill
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« Reply #23 on: January 01, 2010, 06:45:23 AM »

1440x900
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ChiggenWingz
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« Reply #24 on: January 02, 2010, 04:57:47 AM »

Devestating Update #4 Jumpy Jumpness




So I really had no idea how much was involved to get a character to jump!  Shocked

My initial thought for workload would be to have the Up key to make the character move upwards, and then 'gravity' would do its thing and make the character fall down again.  Its a lot more involved I found out in regards to getting it to feel right.

So though my experimenting and reading there seems to be 3 ways a character can jump in a game.  Here is what I believe they are...

#1 Shot out of a cannon jumping
Basically, when pressing the jump button, your character is given a set vertical momentum upwards.  Its the same amount each time regardless if you hold the jump button or just tap it.  This type of jumping is in a lot of first person shooters.  Once you are given that initial burst, gravity does the rest, slowing you down and then falling.

#2 Rocket boots jumping
Depending on how long you hold the jump button, will depend on how high your jump is.  Mario Brothers is a good example of this.  If you light tap the button you only do a little weeny jump, but if you press and hold Mario goes a lot higher.

Basically you have an initial boost upwards and then if you are still holding the jump button another boost is given, this time with a fraction of the initial power.  The longer you hold it the more boost you get until it reaches a certain point and gravity takes over.

I spent a fair bit of time experimenting with this as it's my chosen form of jumping in this game.  It took a while to get the values right.  Too much initial boost and additional boosts afterwards shot my character into space.  To little and the character wouldn't jump over a rock.  There was also the problem with it feeling like you are actually using a jetpack when you held down the jump button, so getting the fractions of the initial boost right was hard.

What I ended up doing was to have an initial velocity, and make sure my boost velocities never exceeded the initial velocity.  Otherwise you'd get and acceleration feeling when jumping, not a spring feeling.  Also I upped the gravity significantly, so now its much more brutal when bringing you down to the ground, thus it means I had a lot more play room for the jump boost variables.

#3 Powerup and release jumping
Basically, you hold the jump button down and when you release it, the character performs the jump.  The longer you hold the button down, the higher the jump power will be when you release.

I imagine this type of jump mechanic is closer to real life. IRL you bend and then jump, setting up your own power for the launch upwards.  But the downside to this is you have a feeling of laggy jump response.

You could go about it in 2 ways.  Wait for the player to release the button and then apply the velocity upwards.  There would be some sort of cap so the player doesn't shoot off to space.  OR  once the power has reached the cap you make the character jump regardless if the player released the button or not. (this would probably be done in half a second)



So with the physics of jumping implemented, I needed to get back to the character state/animation system so it could take advantage of it.

What I ended up doing is scrapping the old Animation Structures I had, which contained details like, 'if the animation was to loop', its 'play speed', etc, and moved onto a more universal structure that basically held the character's state, their texture for a particular state, and various other values.

It took about 2 days worth of work to get going, couldn't run the game during the re-work as there would be too many errors.  But it seems a lot more solid now.  Its still got a few bugs when it comes to transitioning from one state to another, but as I add more character states in I should be able to identify the common problems and re-work a portion of the system again so it runs smoother.

The advantage of the new system is I can add 1 line of code for each character state, instead of multiple lines across multiple files.  Previously I would have to make sure the Character Class loaded the correct assets, that the sizing was right and the animation speeds were right.  I'd then have to make matching variables in an Animation class that would pass details onto the draw system as to what to use.  There were some annoying limitations to that system and to get jumping the way I wanted would have mean a lot of crazy code in that system.

The new system basically allows me to fill in the Type Of Character, The State these details will be matched to, the Texture thats used in this state, the frame size for the state, etc.

Code:
       void NewState(  Core.CHARACTERSTATE _characterState,
                        Core.CHARACTERSTATE _characterStateNextPreferred,
                        string _textureLocation,
                        int _textureNumOfFrames,
                        int _playSpeed,
                        int _playSpeedModifyer,
                        bool _animLoop,
                        bool _animHoldOnFinish,
                        int _updatesUntilFinish)



Well with one week left and I start work again on Monday the 4th (after finishing Xmas holiday), time is going to be short and I'm already cutting features galore.

The first one to go today was Walking->Running transition.  While it may seem small to get done, its just another item on the list with other small things that would be nice to get done, but every moment something small like that takes away, it may leave a dent in a larger feature that would be better to have in.

The Main menu will probably also go, and starting the game will throw you directly into gameplay.

BUT, there are things that I really want to get done.

* Enemies (even if they are mindless fodder)
* Dragon Princess attacking enemies
* Some sort of item system that you pick up things and give them to the princess
* Trigger systems for traps

Theres a lot of things I'd like to get in, but I doubt I will before the challenge ends.
* Puzzle systems with levers and other cool things
* Advanced traps
* Smart enemies
* Much more varied role for you as the sidekick

While I like to think big as to what this game could become, I know a lot of it wont get done for the deadline.  So I'll put together a sort of proof of concept and see what people think.

And maybe, assuming I'm not too burnt out by the end of it, see if the artists would like to continue the game further outside of the challenge which would yield more art assets to play with hopefully.

 Crazy

My goal tomorrow is going to be fairly small as I need to get ready for work.  I want to get some sort of enemy added and hopefully the attack system implemented.

Assuming it all looks hunky dory I'll try and release v0.2 that night.  Tired

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ChiggenWingz
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« Reply #25 on: January 02, 2010, 04:53:54 PM »

Hehe, I just got a bunch of fat men AI Enemies patrolling backwards and forwards Tongue


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ChiggenWingz
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« Reply #26 on: January 02, 2010, 06:17:22 PM »

 Ninja

Now she goes along killing them (in a basic sense, need to make the system better to handle more events and such)


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Kazerad
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« Reply #27 on: January 02, 2010, 06:44:05 PM »

TOGETHER, THEY FIGHT OBESITY!

This is turning out quite neat, I like the amount of detail you are going into on its production. Hopefully you'll get a workable and fun game done before the deadline, but either way if you want to continue work after the competition I'd be happy to draw more graphics if you need them.
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ChiggenWingz
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« Reply #28 on: January 03, 2010, 12:32:12 AM »

Hit a road block with the current state system.  Need to work out a way to have some sort of better priority system looks like its not gonna be easy, may need to do a bit of a re-design.  Angry
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ChiggenWingz
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« Reply #29 on: January 09, 2010, 04:20:11 AM »

Holy crap I'm tired

Finally re-wrote the State system AGAIN!  Tired

Hopefully its a bit more solid now and more robust.  So tommorow its more work on AI.  Really wanna get a v0.2 out the door soon Sad

Damn I hope the deadline is extended to next weekend  Beg
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ChiggenWingz
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« Reply #30 on: January 10, 2010, 03:35:29 AM »

Not going to have this ready for the deadline.

Still hours away from getting it to a useable state.

Not to mention is lacking so many features that would make it a game, its more of a follow the ai around type thing at the moment.
 Angry

Bed now, got work tomorrow
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ChiggenWingz
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« Reply #31 on: January 20, 2010, 03:18:29 AM »

v0.2 released

If there are show stopper bugs I'll try to fix them Smiley

There are a few niggly problems, but I probably wont continue this project.  The scope of what I'd like to do is a lot higher, and I find that XNA would limit my audience, so I'd wanna start a new engine from scratch.

I won't be submitting this for the comp, its way to late..
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