Blogs - CGBYLG

We're going as forward as we can on the levels. I may jump in and model a enemy mech or two from the conecpts we have. The level itself is pretty much done. Just lighting. Freaking Mac Mini is slow as hell when it comes to lightmap baking. I took some screens on the way to work today, but realized I had debug text on there. So after I get level lighting down and spawn points where I want them, I'll post some screenies.

And I hope to get the first boss mech done by next week.

So I sketched the level out a few days ago and last night I started putting it together. And before I got too into it, I tested it out and it sucked. Not the art, it was the layout of the level. These levels should be thought of as arenas for combat: A little open with some debris here and there. The problem I had was that AI could not navigate around the debris/buildings I had put, so the best thing is to design around this. Now my level will consume less polys, but have a better feel and not piss off the player. Maybe one day I can make AI that can navigate around a trashcan?

So one of the biggest issues with B.U.R.N.: Swarm was that it was lacking in the "swarm" department. Performance was crap. I was getting about 10fps with 20 enemies on screen. I knew the issue was with Fixed/Late/Update. I was invoking repeating coroutines in start/awake and performance was the same. Then I found an article on AI taking about Doom. And this is where I met my new friend FSM. So I learned how to do case statements and did this:

MyCaseStatements: [1,2,3}

Start()
{
invokerepeating("MyCaseControl");
}

MyCaseLogic()
{
Case 1; DoThis().
Case 2;OrDoThis().
Case 3;OrThis().
}

MyCaseControl()
{
If this
{
Do this
}
If this
{
Do this
}
}

DoThis()
{
Whatever I want to do.
when this is done...
}

OrDoThis()
{
Stuff goes in here...
}

OrThis()
{
More goes here. When it's done do this.
}

Notice there are no updates at all. So when you see screens of B.U.R.N.: Swarm, you will REALLY see the SWARM part. I'm currently overhauling my boss AI as well. With this HUGE performance boost I can do much, much more on the iOS.

Yung has a nice preview of the player mech for this version of B.U.R.N... but he didn't post it here. I'll post it myself later tonight. Also, music. Someone offered to do a track for us to see if we are a fit as a team, I hope so, because the music on his site is pretty damn awesome. When the sample track is done, I'll get permission to post it.

When I REALLY start playing the game and working out the kinks and trying to make it fun, more images and video will be coming down!! There are so many ideas I have but I can't tell if they will be good or not until I actually play it out.

Trying to come up with a kick-ass background for the title/intro/level select screen. Been sketching while on the train going to and from work. But so far nothing worth showing. I fixed the issue with the player shooting and found a cool way to handle iOS touch events in Unity:

The issue I was having was that the emulated mouse on iOS is mouse button one or two. iOS does touch from 0 to 4 (five inputs) and it does it in order of contact. So my code to detect what area was touched was fine. But in my shooting code it was the mouse button, so I removed the mouse button and defined the same area as the touch control and said:

var myRect(xPos, yPos, width, height)
function Update()
{
touch in touches

If (it's not canceled or ended)
{
var myArea = rectangle area that I defined
if(myArea)
{
shoot;
}
}

function IsItInTheArea( float and an int)
{
The touch is inside!!!
}

I will publish the actual code, as it's a REAL time and stress saver. You can do many cool things with this (like make a piano I guess).

Second thing I fixed was the enemy death reporting. I wasn't reseting the death counter when I started/finished a level. That's fixed. Still taking a break from the code stuff and doing this contract work for the trade shows. Then after that, it's back into BURN. Get the fluff for the GUI done and get back to work on the AI. I want them to avoid eachother and kind of react. All the code done for this game can be used for many kinds of 3rd person side/vertical shooters.

I really like that game Jackal on the NES and doing a homage to that would be awesome, even just one level.

As was mentioned, Yung and I both freelance on the side. This week is a big week in sports fishing in America, so I have work related to that due... well in order for it to be "due" I have to "start". So I better get on it tonight. Well by tonight, I mean around 11pm. I want to get the GUI fully done and working (minus the animated background) and I am so dang close. Stopping in the middle of something when it's this important drives me crazy.

Screen shots will start pouring in once the first level mech/boss/enemies and environment is done. Music is a bit of a ways out.

So after going over the game and what it offers, I was thinking of having the game unlock an infinite mode along with options to adjust your level between 1 and the max you've completed. Infinate mode would be in an arena outside of the main game that's more like a "training ground" type setting. The swarms get bigger and the enemies get stronger/faster the more you proceed. Of course there's a cap to all of this since iOS can handle only so much on screen.

All GUI screens for the game are done. Some of them just need some kind of background "motion" so they aren't so static. So at this stage you can fight hoards of cubes, capsules and spheres. We need to hammer down the environments, enemy/boss mechs and most important: sound. I am not a sound guy. I don't want to pretend to be a sound guy. We need a sound guy. Hopefully Tommy found one for a fair price. His stuff is good, like "I want this so bad" good. We will find out when we present him with the game in it's "no sound" state.

The way I coded this game is to be expandable in the number of mechs and levels. We can easily kick out a trial game AND a full version. The trail version will have one level and a much lower cap on the progress.

I can play the game from start to finish. Tonight is GUI night, it's Saturday evening now (almost 5pm). I can get the basic UI stuff in and remove all the programmer button crap. I'm doing two versions for mobile: iPad and iPhone/Pod. And then I want to do PC/Mac using a controller after the game sells through x-ammount.

Funny how things work out. B.U.R.N was supposed to be FPS on rails. It wasn't working well that way AT ALL on the iOS device. I just personally don't like many of the FPS's on iOS, and I myself could not get it to work right. So, spent a lot of time testing the best kind of way to present this game on iOS. Doing it as a top down arcade shooter. Yung as designed new mechs for this, and I am doing the modeling and environment stuff. The enviros will take place in large arena type areas.

Basic enemy AI is done. Actually, it shouldbe "AI" as they are far from the "I" for AI. I think a jar of peanut butter has more "I" than these guys. But they see the player, attack if there is line of sight and die... just like the old days. Boss AI is like old days, runs a series of coroutines, speeding up/changing the coroutines as they are near death. After boss AI is in, the game will be playable. I hope to have new screens soon :D.

Oh and I signed up for XBL Indie, this is going to be on XBL Indie channel in some form.