Author Topic: Project Bane  (Read 55070 times)

Joshex

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Re: Project Bane
« Reply #80 on: August 11, 2015, 12:53:49 AM »
Well my tutor wants to see the finished thing tomorrow. I got everything working. I set map bounds with location constraints, I could hard code a Location stop around the buildings inner corners too, but don't have time.

tomorrow I need to make the inspirations, and if I find time finish the enemy's AI.

if I can't finish it there will be only one enemy for the exhibition but that's fine for now.

After the exhibition is done I will begin work to make the game more acceptable for us here at titan and begin the work needed to make it online again..

I will post a video of gameplay in a few days, I do apologize for some of the animations but what with my professor/supervisor demanding to see progress each monday and setting deadlines I had to rush it.

Due to collision problems having slowed me down there are only 5 buildings in the actual game at this moment. seems a very barren city.
There is always another way. But it might not work exactly like you may desire.

A wise old rabbit once told me "Never give-up!, Trust your instincts!" granted the advice at the time led me on a tripped-out voyage out of an asteroid belt, but hey it was more impressive than a bunch of rocks and space monkies.

Blackout

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Re: Project Bane
« Reply #81 on: August 11, 2015, 09:41:06 PM »
Awesome work, and good luck with your deadline. Looking forward to seeing some of the gameplay :)

Joshex

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Re: Project Bane
« Reply #82 on: August 13, 2015, 12:59:46 PM »
Awesome work, and good luck with your deadline. Looking forward to seeing some of the gameplay :)

Thanks!, just recorded the video, I need to go set it up in the exhibition space. but I'll upload it later.

notes, while I was recording the video I found out some of my code for the log-in system is broken now. seems silly as I haven't touched it recently, it might be due to how I saved the game so I could port it to the exhibition computer.

oh well I've got some bug fixing to do, murphey's law you know, if something can go wrong it will especially at the last second when you need things to work to show other people.

found the error, I forgot an "and" in one of the triggers in the code. should I fix it and re-record?....  yeah let me do that.

it was literally just 1 "and" missing, i think blender forgot to save it  last time cause I always copypasta code and edit, so the and should have been there.

regardless, I'll re-record.

edit: meh, I'll re record for titan later, the character designer wasn't necessary for my degree program anyways,
« Last Edit: August 13, 2015, 02:15:17 PM by Joshex »
There is always another way. But it might not work exactly like you may desire.

A wise old rabbit once told me "Never give-up!, Trust your instincts!" granted the advice at the time led me on a tripped-out voyage out of an asteroid belt, but hey it was more impressive than a bunch of rocks and space monkies.

ValianceOnline

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Re: Project Bane
« Reply #83 on: August 13, 2015, 06:46:36 PM »
Looking forward to seeing more of your work!

Joshex

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Re: Project Bane
« Reply #84 on: August 14, 2015, 11:36:20 PM »
Looking forward to seeing more of your work!

thanks!,

I've been busy these last few days running around edinburgh to get the exhibiton space setup properly, today the exhibition finally too place, the computer the school gave me however does windows updates every day at 3 am so I have to get in touch with the administrator as they've locked that feature. in the mean time I need to trudge into town every morning to get the game open again. I will try to find some time this week to show a video of current game-play possibilities.
There is always another way. But it might not work exactly like you may desire.

A wise old rabbit once told me "Never give-up!, Trust your instincts!" granted the advice at the time led me on a tripped-out voyage out of an asteroid belt, but hey it was more impressive than a bunch of rocks and space monkies.

Joshex

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Re: Project Bane
« Reply #85 on: August 28, 2015, 08:22:56 AM »
the hold-up on the video is lack of time due to having to write a thesis, I thought I was almost done but last tuesday my supervisor said it needs more references so that people who don't understand anything about video games can understand it. it's rough, I'm literally looking at 2 to 3 references per sentence that way.

I'll post the a video after I finish the thesis on the 31st.
There is always another way. But it might not work exactly like you may desire.

A wise old rabbit once told me "Never give-up!, Trust your instincts!" granted the advice at the time led me on a tripped-out voyage out of an asteroid belt, but hey it was more impressive than a bunch of rocks and space monkies.

Cheesy

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Re: Project Bane
« Reply #86 on: August 28, 2015, 08:42:46 AM »
Thanks for the update  :)

Joshex

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Re: Project Bane
« Reply #87 on: August 31, 2015, 10:08:27 PM »
Thanks for the update  :)

you're welcome! ok now then with university completely out of the way, I had better get to that video.

For the school I did an audio narrated video of game play explaining the point of my research for Titan I suppose I can explain some different things.

question is audio narrated or not?
There is always another way. But it might not work exactly like you may desire.

A wise old rabbit once told me "Never give-up!, Trust your instincts!" granted the advice at the time led me on a tripped-out voyage out of an asteroid belt, but hey it was more impressive than a bunch of rocks and space monkies.

Joshex

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Re: Project Bane
« Reply #88 on: September 03, 2015, 12:48:36 PM »
Ok no one has a preference for narration or not? I'll just record a video without sound then.

will post either today or tomorrow.
There is always another way. But it might not work exactly like you may desire.

A wise old rabbit once told me "Never give-up!, Trust your instincts!" granted the advice at the time led me on a tripped-out voyage out of an asteroid belt, but hey it was more impressive than a bunch of rocks and space monkies.

Joshex

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Re: Project Bane
« Reply #89 on: September 04, 2015, 10:31:24 AM »
I will still post a video today, but I have an update as well.

it really feels good to be able to work on test files again and not feel guilty about wasting time when there's a deadline ahead.

no deadlines means I can make as many test files as I like. When i do test files it's for the purpose of making new features, rather than building them into an already large game and chancing all sorts of bugs, I just make them in a separate file and test them till they work.

right, so what have I done? Dynamic color change.

we all know CoX had a whole palette of colors to choose from when designing costume parts, this was the first test; to check if blender could change an object's color to a variety of preset colors in-game. the outcome, yes, yes it can.

the next test done was to determine if I could manipulate a preset color in game by number. CoX didn't have this feature, I'm talking about Red Green Blue Color sliders and number input boxes for color change control. and for that matter not many MMOs do have it. in order to do it you need to be able to set the RGB values on a couple frames to a user given number. initially the test was a failure but I figured out a way to make it work.

this means we will have choices for how we do colors!

Edit; I want to eventually do something like F-Zero GX, where in our case we could make our own small images (50x50 or something) in-game for like SG symbols and chest symbols etc. and be able to drag them around the character's body/costume and leave them where we will. but that's a ways off.
« Last Edit: September 04, 2015, 10:57:19 AM by Joshex »
There is always another way. But it might not work exactly like you may desire.

A wise old rabbit once told me "Never give-up!, Trust your instincts!" granted the advice at the time led me on a tripped-out voyage out of an asteroid belt, but hey it was more impressive than a bunch of rocks and space monkies.

Joshex

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Re: Project Bane
« Reply #90 on: September 04, 2015, 03:04:05 PM »
Ok what you've all been waiting for! a video of gameplay!

https://youtu.be/a0PZEt1ZZGw

check it out, I hope to get it multi-player by november/december with actual costume choices and powers (most of which is already set-up it's just a question of tying it into place).

also need to make a female model and fix some sloppy animations. Oh well lots of work to do yet still.

some things you'll notice;
Spoiler for Hidden:
the enemy has Absolutely no AI, well, that's not true he has AI but I disabled it cause he just runs at you at nearly the same speed as your run following you move for move unless you get far enough away (kinda a pain) I need to work on the AI.

the word Stamina is used to replace Endurance; to me Endurance is how much strain you can take, stamina is how much you can do before getting tired. for that reason I found stamina to be a better fitting word.

Inspirations are pick-ups!: yeah, I decided it would be neat to include some collectibles. don't worry though I will make 3 or 4 settings for them

1: "Touch", you have to touch it to pick-it-up
2: "Proximity", you have to get with-in melee range or hold power range (requires use of a power) to collect it.
3: "Click", you need to click it with the mouse pointer.
4: "Automatic", doesn't matter the range if it drops anywhere you get it in your inventory. (CoX style)


Timeout considerations; Items will not disappear until a mission is complete and you leave the map. if on a city map the items become public when you leave. Hint, Drops are only normally visible to the players who earned them, so no one can steal it or complain or know what you got.

you can get 3 powers from the start, your choice: 1 primary and 1 secondary and 1 travel, Or 2 primary, 1 secondary, OR 2 secondary 1 primary, yes that means players will be allowed to have more than 1 primary or secondary set.

The first NPC, his name is "The Nameless Hero" kinda a joke, yet at the same time I have a story for it. I don't reveal much here.
Spoilers beware.
There is always another way. But it might not work exactly like you may desire.

A wise old rabbit once told me "Never give-up!, Trust your instincts!" granted the advice at the time led me on a tripped-out voyage out of an asteroid belt, but hey it was more impressive than a bunch of rocks and space monkies.

Joshex

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Re: Project Bane
« Reply #91 on: September 11, 2015, 01:39:41 PM »
Comments and criticisms on what people think of things so far would be greatly appreciated!
There is always another way. But it might not work exactly like you may desire.

A wise old rabbit once told me "Never give-up!, Trust your instincts!" granted the advice at the time led me on a tripped-out voyage out of an asteroid belt, but hey it was more impressive than a bunch of rocks and space monkies.

JoshexProxy

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Re: Project Bane
« Reply #92 on: October 10, 2015, 01:59:54 PM »
I really didn't want to have to post updates on this account, but I'm not handing my original account info over to a web proxy so this is my only option.

Ok I've been busy but haven't posted in a while due to travels and spam servers etc. I was hoping that I would cycle off the spam server like I did the first few weeks I encountered this problem, but that didn't happen for long enough to become a burden.

I've been wanting to give this update for weeks before I could feel good moving on; I have started the MMO-killer aspects of project bane one of these is functional just needs to be slightly more dynamic in the way it assigns things.

I can't say much (due to google bots reselling information they read to bidders) and that makes this update hard to give, all I can say is that this update means game-play itself is starting to get some key features.

Delays; This thing isn't going to be out by November/December, this whole trip I'm on was entirely unexpected and has eaten a lot of time and plans to eat more. I will be working 3 jobs even though each job is only 1 to 2 hours on average (excluding one job on week ends for 6 hours a day) this still presents yet more things to tire me out.  To be honest I procrastinated for about a week or two because I couldn't get on here to give this update, just left me feeling unsettled.

I should have copied the pm Arcana sent me in my main account to an offline source, she gives great critiques! helps me figure out what needs to be worked on next. Same with any critiques! please do let me know lol.

JoshexProxy

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Re: Project Bane
« Reply #93 on: October 13, 2015, 06:12:30 AM »
well things are chaotic, I'll have more time because I'll only have 2 jobs after today, they thought I would stay longer so they wont sign a contract when they found out I'll be leaving china in November. more dev time is good, loss of job is bad.

got lots of drive to work on bane now. lots of small simple test files I can make which will be importable to the main file directly. It will feel good to enable the Holds/Effects code.

Edit 10/23/2015:

I figured I should give an update, no progress lately. Good news is I have free time again as the jobs all said they want me to contact them when I'm here for a good while rather than 2 months. so, no work, this was supposed to be a vacation after my studies anyways, my GF wanted me to get jobs here though after money concerns, I kept saying it was too late but she wouldn't listen. recently I worked on her PhD proposal, had to write a 500 word one, sentence merging is a brain buster, I can do it but trying to figure out rules for it could be tiresome.

oh well all the time I'm not working I'm planning, so we'll see what comes of it.
« Last Edit: October 23, 2015, 02:10:09 PM by JoshexProxy »

Joshex

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Re: Project Bane
« Reply #94 on: February 07, 2016, 04:23:45 AM »
A long time has passed, this project is not dead however, I'm always pondering things for it, if anything the time off let me think it through better.

lately I've been trying to restore the battle calc and stat system, after I gave it a look though the previous one had no User Instancing, that would have been a problem (players simultaneously attacking a target would all subtract their damages simultaneously making the end outcome that only the last attack in the chain would subtract from HP.)

I fixed that, I put in some basic user instancing, but went to bed last night and realized what I had done wrong, the now current user instancing system put's users and their attacks on a list from which the enemy sends an activation message and subtracts each outcome individually waiting for one player to finish before activating another player's attack. There may be user instancing, but there was no activation time sequencing! I have activation time in the attack list but didn't use it for user instancing (that was stupid).

right now only one user can access the battle calc script at a time too, I'm thinking of changing that if possible by having each battle object perform their own outgoing battle calc then merely send the outcome to the target's user instancing script. (right now I have each target performing incoming battle calcs)

So, what I'll need is one battle calc script and one user instancing script on each object, one Outgoing Battle Calc Script, and one Incoming User Instancing Script, that way nothing is ever tied up, and multiple attacks coming in at once can be cross-compared by activation time and sequenced accordingly, activating them as little as "however long it takes the script to complete the HP reduction on average+ a little bit of timing error consideration" apart from each other, or if it comes to two or more identical timing entries in the list sequentially activate them simultaneously and subtract them combined as one total damage.

I make it sound like a simple fix here but with IRL distractions as usual it may take a few days just to write out the logic (I've found writing it out first helps me think more completely about the functionality). then after that comes the bore of actually editing this into the server scripts. but the outcome will be worth it.

After fixing this set-up, I have like 4 or 5 more things with this level of work to do before I can release a beta client for testing.

2; finish the character designer; I actually need to add in a costume designer screen (I also need to make a Female Model Base from the male one to save rigging time, and I need to make the UV layouts) and a shard screen (this part of the client handles login, authentication, and encryption as well, and needs to be split into server and client operations) I also need to finish adding in the various powers and sets and make the window/button graphics more interesting than blank rectangles. I might also profit to redo the mouse script as a ratio comparing game screen width and height  to visible game world width and height (right now it's just a mouse motion to object motion translator).

on note of the costume designer, if anyone is reading this please give me the names of any Hair styles and faces from City of X that you would like to see from the start and I'll see what I can do to translate (because they will be more graphical etc.) them onto the character models. (I'll probably only do 3 faces and 3 hair styles from the start, tights or bare (with underwear) will be the only actual costume options)

ALSO send me emote names from City you would like to see for role-play/dance-offs!!

"2" may take a few months.

3; Finish the tutorial Zone, I plan for it to be more than just a tutorial zone in that people can revisit it as and when they like so it will be a main zone.

On this note BUILDINGS, got any interesting architecture that you would like to be a part of the tutorial zone? send me a picture or address and building name to look at. I need to redo some aspects of the Tutorial zone's graphics as they were rushed and add in some more.

I also need to finish looping the mission and make a few other missions for testing.

I'll need to make a few more NPCs and a hospital, and definitely make more enemies, I'm thinking street-thugs style. I have a story for the thug group and a name and insignia but I need to start designing their looks (obviously I can't rip-off the hellions looks).

Also I need to add in the window designs here too.

*IRL interruption while typing not sure if I said everything I needed to say that needs to get done*

3 may take a couple months work on it's own.

4; Chat system
enough said, I need to make it from scratch. I already have the logic written out and I'm satisfied with it.

I'm not sure how long this will take, maybe 4 will take 1 to 5 months?

5; Items, Items, Items, I need to get some basic items made to test things like the Inspiration system(already partly done just needs a partial fix), recipe and salvage system, and basic enhancement system (as well as a few other Items I will be including).

5 I give it 1 to 2 months on it's own.

total estimated time till it's ready; 10 to 20 months.

In all reality I hope I can finish it faster.
« Last Edit: February 07, 2016, 09:51:55 AM by Joshex »
There is always another way. But it might not work exactly like you may desire.

A wise old rabbit once told me "Never give-up!, Trust your instincts!" granted the advice at the time led me on a tripped-out voyage out of an asteroid belt, but hey it was more impressive than a bunch of rocks and space monkies.

Alpha Series

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Re: Project Bane
« Reply #95 on: February 20, 2016, 09:17:58 PM »
I haven't posted anything in a long time. Have been looking from time to time to see if any news. Josh, your work is impressive! You certainly have created a major piece of work along with a ton of things going on in your life simultaneously! I look forward to seeing more of your creation as you go on. I sure wish you much success in all your pursuits! You certainly deserve a pat on the back and a tall glass of something enjoyable! The best to you!

Quite Sincerely, Alpha.
"You've started an interstellar war!" "No, I didn't start it. But I'm liable to finish it."

JoshexProxy

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Re: Project Bane
« Reply #96 on: February 22, 2016, 08:30:15 AM »
I haven't posted anything in a long time. Have been looking from time to time to see if any news. Josh, your work is impressive! You certainly have created a major piece of work along with a ton of things going on in your life simultaneously! I look forward to seeing more of your creation as you go on. I sure wish you much success in all your pursuits! You certainly deserve a pat on the back and a tall glass of something enjoyable! The best to you!

Quite Sincerely, Alpha.

Thanks!, this means a lot to me!

JoshexProxy

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Re: Project Bane
« Reply #97 on: March 06, 2016, 01:31:15 AM »
again I was forced to do "the impossible" in quotes because that's what everyone including blender devs has said.

A map veil, that black image over the map that gets erased as the player travels through the area.

blender people say "blender has no dynamic texture editing abilities"

LibPNG disagrees, a python module that when combined with blender's videotexture module can indeed produce the desired effect. what other work does it take? a space conversion from the total zone area, to the approximate image canvas space in pixels and the conversion of this information into a script that finds and changes those exact pixels of the png image. seeing as libpng treats the image as a large array of lists where each line of pixels can be it's own list that is an easy conversion.
« Last Edit: March 06, 2016, 01:43:12 AM by JoshexProxy »

JoshexProxy

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Re: Project Bane
« Reply #98 on: April 14, 2016, 04:01:15 AM »
getting off my lazy streak, well not entirely lazy I did some figuring and modelling while avoiding the big picture.

but today, I'm going to try my hand at cracking into the mouse script again, I know what I have to do and how to code it, it's just the conversion of 3D space to screen width/height given that they may change based on user settings, that's the rough bit. but I'll figure it out.

probably best to start with a square screen with a 3d space to screen space ratio of 1:1 or something to count by then merely divide and multiply to get the changed space.

Edit:
so, a square screen. I did 500x500 pixels, half of which (for grid space) is 250, and that is equal to 23.259 blender units when viewing from the camera. What I found is that the 3D scene width does not change when expanding width or height of the screen from square, instead the height reduces incrementally. Where as for a width that's less than square the height stays the same (23.259 blender units) while the width changes incrementally.

I'm onto something here I need to find that increment of change. once found I can complete the script.

Edit:
I had work yesterday so I had little time to actually work on it.

but today I found some free time I found the magic number which is a change of 0.03575 per pixel change, with that known I'm moving forwards to finish it.

Edit:

and now it works, but the X axis is somehow reversed, but the fact that it works smoothly means I can forget about the nasty glitch that causes the mouse to jump off the screen and never return, and the other glitch which causes the mouse to jump off the screen at the start and need to be reset.

Mouse Script 1.0 merely translated mouse motion to game object motion, Mouse Script 2.0 translates Mouse Screen Position to 3D game Space positions on the X and Y axis.

with that I can cross one thing off the list of ToDos.

fixed the X axis reversal but there's a blind spot at the top of the game space, a distance the 3D object wont follow the mouse past. this means there's a problem with the calculations I'll have to figure it out.

Edit:

ok, this is not good, when approaching full screen suddenly the Y axis flips.

I have another way to do this script which means I'll have to look into doing a 2.1 version. also the blinds zones are different based on screen size. a tall screen to a slightly wide screen has 0 problems, but when going to a normal wide screen there are worse and worse blind spots.

Found out whats wrong with the current script, I was multiplying the difference between width and height by the magic number 0.03575, there came a point when the difference was naturally much larger than the proposed area and went negative, when it went negative we had a reversed Y axis.

so.. the fix is to use a proportion scale to correct the situation. It could be that the current magic number is wrong, it may be scaling down slowly until it hits some sort of magic minimum number. I'll check that out.

the answer to the question is, the magic number is wrong because it forgets about one key factor; Aspect Ratio.

So I googled aspect ratios and found the most lopsided aspect ratio is 16:9 with a difference of 43.75%, the fix is to use an aspect ratio setting as a trigger instead of lessthan or greaterthan arguments to drive the 3D space conversion and treat it as a percent change versus a pixel by pixel change.

Edit; that was completely unnecessary, the magic number here is just a conversion 'change rate' so in effect in this case it's the speed/accuracy of the 3D mouse object, do we really need to make it so accurate that you can click on each and every pixel? the answer is no, that would be uselessly smooth.

I did a simple trial and error with rounding and found that a change rate of 0.01 works just fine it looks visibly just as smooth.

Script finished, 1 monkey off my back.

Next I'm going to monkey with a costume editor test file.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2016, 09:08:53 AM by JoshexProxy »

Joshex

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Re: Project Bane
« Reply #99 on: April 17, 2016, 02:51:43 PM »
So netfilter was routing my connection through a spam server. wonderful.

I have to be careful where I login to this account from, at work the wifi yields the spam server ban message, but at home it doesn't.

Right so what became of the costume designer test file?

Costume Designer test file (texture swap via VideoTexture):
test result; Partial success:
was able to switch images by material in game.

Parts of test needing more testing:
swapping a specific texture channel of a specific material (on a multi-texture material) such as switching a normal map, color map, mask or reflection without effecting the others.

Need to Learn the code system for the VideoTexture module (limited documentation)

I'm basically flying blind here without documentation, usually I have a nice code library I can just reference, but for some reason the videotexture module has no such library instead even the newest blender/python library merely gives a half-assed tutorial. they supply test files of their own though so I'm monkeying with those. and I might butt heads with the devs to see if I can get them to write or notice there is no blender/python library on the topic and fix it.

The thought did occur to me though that I may be pushing my luck here. I mean overloading the material count is not something I'd like to do, I learned that's bad during my very first day with blender, strange things start to happen when the material count or object count goes too high (though that was when working with blender 2.42, which is ancient).
There is always another way. But it might not work exactly like you may desire.

A wise old rabbit once told me "Never give-up!, Trust your instincts!" granted the advice at the time led me on a tripped-out voyage out of an asteroid belt, but hey it was more impressive than a bunch of rocks and space monkies.