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[Gainsworthy]

You have the art which looks like the idea maybe a mockup but the game which is actually happening with programming and gameplay and brains 

[skyy]

DevLog 16/09/09:
Oh what a day... Didn't get that much programming wise done, just been thinking how things should be handled and how I should structure stuff out to make it work more efficiently.

Today I threw together:
* Slashing
* Slashing in air
* Slashing whilst running
* Added the correct frames to play when doing the different actions.

Stuff for tomorrow:
* Figure out how to go about doing the combo slashes (queue animations/states and once one finishes, play the next one? Player presses key to slash and presses it again in given timeframe to add another animation/state to queue and when the first animation is done the next one starts?)
* Kinnas threw enemies into the map. I can activate the actual enemy entities.
* Enemy behaviour (Simple AI routines:"Is the player in FOV", "walk back and forth" etc.)
* Misc activities like.. NOT PROGRAMMING AT ALL for a change.


For the past couple of days I've noticed I've been easily distracted from the current project. Everytime I start to work on it, I get like a phone call from a relative I haven't heard of in ages, friend comes over or my cat does something stupid and I start playing with him and forget the programming... Durr, distraction, distraction. Can't seem to keep my focus. Should take my head of programming COMPLETELY for few days. I tried last week but ended up fixing the tile problem and other stuff. Silly me. Probably will finish off the slashing and breathe some life to the enemies (as in just have them idle for now) and take a break... An actual two-three day break instead of starting to work on other projects

EDIT #4321542:

There she is 

Ps. kinnas, new release in TEH ROOM OF SECRETS.

[j0d1]

Durr, distraction, distraction. Can't seem to keep my focus. Should take my head of programming COMPLETELY for few days. I tried last week but ended up fixing the tile problem and other stuff. Silly me.

I feel like you sometimes. I'm motivated to get things done but events happens or I find myself doing 5 minutes of programming than 15 minutes of doing everything but programming. Taking breaks is important, especially when you are struggling with a bug for hours ! Most of the time, when you come back from your break, you find it in 5 minutes

[skyy]

I usually get distracted easily if I haven't had proper breaks from programming. Like now I've been doing programming daily for way too many hours on different projects for.. three weeks or so I took weekends off from this project and been working on other things. It's bleh. Should learn to just stop everything at times to calm down and get my head off stuff completely. 

But what can you do, there's so many interesting things to look at and do.

[Jared C]

Guys, this shit is looking crazy!  Kinnas, I love all the art that you touch, and this is no exception. 

[skyy]

DevLog 18/09/09:
Oh wow, been a busy day. Got something for you, a generous 5 second video. Yeah, you heard right. FIVE SECONDS

I just recorded it really quickly to show something. It's a two hit slash attack, done million times in a row (not maybe million but it gets really close to million for sure!).

Enjoy the full five seconds

. If someone is wondering, yes, I'm still running with the FIRST batch of sprite sheets with her. So there might be some silly things going on in the animations. Don't worry, will be fixed.

And back to add the last moves to the combo sequence.

[Robotwo]

the title "NOiSE :: Robots" directly made me think of the manga "NOiSE" by Tsutomu Nihei ...
because its also about robots(mostly cyborgs though) 

[kinnas]

Thanks Masna!

Robotwo: Yeah I've read it, in fact it's one of my favourite graphic novels (along with Blame!). Now that I think of it, it might have subconsciously affected the naming of the game even : O

here's a bunch of screenshots!
check out my ridiculous fps!
the redone bar shelves are a bit classier now!


and there is even a kitchen! There are some issues with the shadows that I have to resolve but otherwise I am mightypleased with the system. A really easy way to get some significant graphical fidelity going.


Here's a shot of a rooftop cafe area. How do people get up on them platforms? 


Some more industrial rooftops. I'm still messing around with the pipes, they're kinda sketchy at the moment. More variety would also be welcome I guess.


Here's an interior area. It's mostly placeholder stuff right now, I need to create a variety of interior sets to have offices, corridors, lounges, halls etc going on. When we get the parallax background layers in there should be a nifty view from those windows.


Crazy structures held midair!

[aliceffekt]

Wicked new Bgs ! This looks so awsome !
is it rendered as 2x pixel size in the game ?


1000 FPS.. damn. :/

[skyy]

@ aliceffekt :
What you see on the screenshots is what you see in the game. Which is the x2 ratio on graphics. Everything is blown out to be double size.

I went and implemented multipass structuring to the rendering (which was again a complete overkill but ) that also allows us to throw all sorts of nifty tricks into it now if we want to...  While doing the multipass structuring I finally got around to change the rendering to actually render all the background layers of tiles and then call for the entities to render themselves on the correct layer and after that render the foreground layers of the tiles over the entities. Which means that the entities are now on correct layer in the game (the shadows actually affect them) and other stuff.

And current aim is to develop the game in a direction of being as much as possible data driven. So basically we are reading just insane amount of data in from the tile editor (AI way points, graphics and all sorts of other nifty stuff) to minimize hard-coding stuff and to give more flexibility to kinnas to design and pull off stuff in the editor. And maybe later allowing easy(yeah right..) modification of levels and creation of levels.

There are like one thousand things we still need to figure out how to implement but this week we got loads of stuff done. Most of the work was under the hood work that lets us read in more and more data from the tile editor and logging of different events in the initialisation phase of the game.It's been busy week.


Have a nice weekend everybody. I'm off again 

[commodore]

Wow you're going through so much trouble for a 2d platformer. Awesome coding man!

[Ted]

This is looking so great.  The style is wonderful.

[j0d1]

@ aliceffekt :
I finally got around to change the rendering to actually render all the background layers of tiles and then call for the entities to render themselves on the correct layer and after that render the foreground layers of the tiles over the entities. Which means that the entities are now on correct layer in the game (the shadows actually affect them) and other stuff.

Man those priority/layering/whatever-scheme-to-render-stuff-correctly are driving me crazy It's hard to have a generalized (or enough-generalized!) solution to this problem. It's cool you found one for your game !

@ aliceffekt :
And current aim is to develop the game in a direction of being as much as possible data driven. So basically we are reading just insane amount of data in from the tile editor (AI way points, graphics and all sorts of other nifty stuff) to minimize hard-coding stuff and to give more flexibility to kinnas to design and pull off stuff in the editor. And maybe later allowing easy(yeah right..) modification of levels and creation of levels.

Good job ! The code is sooooo much cleaner when your data is outside (i.e.: in xml files) and like you said, after that you can work that data from a simple editor. Tweaking is also way more easy. 

[skyy]

Thanks again guys. Also the screenshots kinnas posted, seriously wtf, I just now found about the areas when I found them    haha

I've been squashing few bugs and there are still few simple ones but nothing too serious, solving those later once I've got other things up and running. I've got an insanely big TODO list in the associated with the project that pops up every time I open the project, heh. I always write stuff on it when I wrap up for that day or clear out stuff.

But for the err .. interesting(?) news, the development will slow down a bit. Mainly due both of our universities (kinnas and me). I've got my final year of my Bachelors of Computer Games Programming starting next Monday and I'm going to graduate with top marks so the uni gets my full focus. It doesn't mean the development of NOiSE does not continue. It just slows down, at times a slow like a slug and at times a bit fast as hell. Just thought I'd mention that to everybody.

So it's time for me to back up my luggage and random stuff and head back to UK
Wait till you hear from me next time, that's when we'll have bullet management in place, shooting animations working aaaaaaannnd.. you can kill the enemies by shooting them.
 
I'll be talking more of it in October.




Also for those interested, my final year modules:
- Multiplayer programming (game)
- Handheld programming (game for either GP32 or PSP)
- Game AI
- Group game project (8ppl, can't remember the exact numbers but I think it was 2 designers, 3 artists and 3 programmers..?)
- Dissertation (Haven't fully decided on subject.. Currently leaning on Android game dev and try pushing out as much of the platform as possible)

[ Here she is again... Jumping out of joy ]

[Damian]

Damn, that sounds like an awesome course. What UNI you at?

[skyy]

University of Teesside. It IS damn fine university, I'm traveling from Finland to England to study there  One of the obvious reasons why I'm taking it really seriously and only the top marks will do.

[Ishi]

Hah awesome, I thought the modules you listed sounded like Teesside. I just graduated that course in May Let me know if you have any questions about it. I've got an artist/designer friend who's there, looking for good people for the team project, though it sounds like you already have your group sorted out?

[skyy]

OH wow Ishi, actually, I don't know any. Would be awesome to team up with ppl who are willing to work hard and get better. Don't have to be so god-like to start off with. Going back on thursday so that's when I know more of where I stand. Like, who of my mates actually got placements and such. But I don't really know any final year art/design ppl so new contacts are always welcome. :-)

And sorry for completely derailing the devlog lol. Ppl can pm me about it if interested

NINJA EDIT #:
Oh wow Ishi, you are the guy who Keith mentioned quite few times during GSD2. Heh. Just noticed it from your portfolio of work and I think I actually saw you guys producing the Twilight of the Tieran in the labs Not sure but I think I did. In Athena building, close to the summer break. You guys were there always, so was I

[Ishi]

Yep that sounds like it was me. It's a small world! I'll be up in boro for graduation in November so we might be able to meet up for a drink or something. I'll PM you contact details for my friend.

To un-derail the topic: the game looks awesome.

[neon]

any progress on this?  it's incredible looking.