Lugaru Testing

[David]

This is a test thingy of the basic engine for my next game, which will be a weird animal fighting type thing.

Anyways... please try it here (http://david.emuscene.com/Thingy.sit) and let me know if it works, and what fps you get, and what suggestions you have.

The models are all placeholders.

[OneSadCookie]

G4 733/1.2GB RAM/GeForce4Ti -- 30-40FPS.

If you jump, spin in the air while jumping so the camera is facing the player rather than behind, then when the player lands he instantly flicks round 180°. This looks kinda weird :)

[David]

hmm you're right :cool: I might have to change that.

By the way did you have any other programs open while running this? You should be getting 50-70 fps on that system.

[macboy]

Avg. 35 FPS low detail
Avg. 20 FPS med. detail

iMac Rev B | G3 733MHz | 512MB RAM | ATI Rage 128 | AIM open (3 windows) + File transfer

Neat timewaster. Dunno what I'm supposed to do, but cool nonetheless :D

[skyhawk]

this is all weird because when I ran into the block, it crashed OS X. Actually david's program hsa a habit of crashing my computer.

[Mazilurik]

G4 933/512 MB RAM/GF4Ti: 70-100 FPS (at medium detail)

I didn't notice any real problems, except when I once fell off the edge of the map; I'm assuming you won't be able to do that in the final version. :p Also, the motion blur (in slow motion mode) is also applied to the FPS counter (which makes it a bit hard to read), and tends to give me a headache before too long (the combination of high framerate and low resolution certainly doesn't help in this regard).

[kelvin]

450Mhz G3 B&W with rage128/16
30-40fps low
20-30fps med

[jamie]

dual 1 gig, 10.2.3

med: 110-120 fps
low: 150-160 fps

I could get the medium to drop to 90 fps by spawning lots of blocks and also seemed to stay closer to 90 fps while the other 'guy' was on screen.

[aleph0]

10.2.4 on a dual G4/500/448RAM Radeon OEM 32MB

low res: about 70-120 fps
med res: about 40-70 fps

On my card fog is not working properly, the landscape fades away, only to fade in again beyond that point. I can send you a screenshot if you need it.

Anyway, it's really nice to see how your subsequent apps improve over each other each time. :) We'll be seeing a David's Halo Redux from you soon :cool: Keep the cool stuff coming!

-A

[Darkgold]

G4/667mhz/256RAM/10.2.4
60fps - medium

Oh yeah, this is the coolest thing I have ever seen. :wow: :love: How long have you been working on this!? Add wepons and an AI and I would register right now(side note, I have never registered anything) What program did you do the models and animations in, I'd like to help with them.

[Bachus]

G4 867Mhz/GeForce2MX

Low: 60-120fps, 80 average
Med: 50-110fps, 60 average

Running to the top of the mountain and jumping off is so fun. :wow:

[David]

Thanks for all the feedback :) I'm glad it seems to work for the most part.

Mazilurik: I think I'll have options for motion blur to turn it off or change the resolution, a geforce 3 or better has hardware accelerated render-to-texture so it will be able to run at high resolution.

Jamie: Nice fps you're getting there :blink: What kind of graphics card do you have?

Aleph0: I would like a screenshot of that, that seems strange o_0 It should normally look something like this: screenshot from older build (http://david.emuscene.com/Skid.jpg)

DarkGold: Thanks :) I've been working on this since late december, but I re-used a lot of code from Black Shades and some uncompleted projects like this one (http://www.flipcode.com/iotd/03-05-2002.jpg).

Bachus: Good to know :D

[Darkgold]

Originally posted by David
and some uncompleted projects like this one (http://www.flipcode.com/iotd/03-05-2002.jpg).

what was that going to be?

[David]

It was basically just a terrain engine but I was going to make it into a tank game or zombie game or FPS.

I didn't plan that one out too well :p

[willThimbleby]

10.2.3 on a dual G4/450/448RAM Radeon OEM 32MB

40-70 fps on medium detail
drops loads on blurring but looks very cool.

Really neat, like the blurring effect. And killing yourself is good fun, like the physics.

Character animation's good too, like the way his head turns.

I've got a landscape blurring problem too, where it fades to nothing then reappears like aleph0. It doesn't happen all the time, and looks like the last edges on the edge of the drawn world are not set to 0 alpha. Also when blurring occasionally it wont work and will just display a static image, the first time I did this the static image was black and then occasionally from then on it was a static picture of the man running.

Keep up the good work.

[David]

Hmm yeah for some reason on some systems the blur seems to randomly mess up. On X it occasionally just doesn't update the blurred texture and on 9 it sometimes just confuses the back buffer with the front buffer until the program is quit. If anyone knows why this is happening it would be very helpful :)

I'm not sure why the landscape thing is happening, if you have a screenshot it would be helpful.

So far it sounds like it might have something to do with the Radeon :???:

[David]

BTW just spent an hour or two working on a spinkick... if you want to try the new build it's here (http://david.emuscene.com/Thingy.sit). A screenshot is here (http://david.emuscene.com/Spinkick.jpg).

[Darkgold]

lol, i found two more bugs. The first I call the way to much time on your hands bug. i spent an hour and a half building a tower of blocks(don't ask me why) until eventuly I got too high and crashed the program. I wouldn't worry about fixing it because I doubt people will spend the time to build a tower that high. actully I had a reason, I was going to jump off the top ans time how long it took me to hit the ground(at one point it was 20 seconds). and the second one is when you kill your self on the edge of a map so that you fall, it seems to randomly warp you to part of the map. Well just trying to help by finding as many wierd bugs as I can, my way of contrbuting to this great project (seeing how you don't need help with the models)

[David]

:) I think it probably used more blocks than I had in my array and caused an unmapped memory error or something, I'll try and fix that.

I'm not sure why dying off the map causes weird things to happen, but that shouldn't be an issue with the final game.

Help with models would be good, though I wouldn't be able to pay anything.

[skyhawk]

YOU! stick error checking in your program already... no more crashing!

[Darkgold]

Originally posted by David
Help with models would be good, though I wouldn't be able to pay anything.
A free registration for the game is all I be needing.:D

[David]

Well that I could do :)

I have to warn you that I'm going to replace the robots with weird anthro animals though :blink: I don't know why :D

Here's a picture of a model (http://david.emuscene.com/Sillysketch/Freakrabbitnewest.jpg) I just started today

[Quicksilver]

http://66.191.26.36/~atrio/thingyss.jpg

This picture was supposed to be a nice demonstration of your nice rag-doll physics (makes this game a must have), but instead now shows an example of a screen shot issue with Thingy. It's is still a cool demo pic though :D

[ERaZer]

It goes 30-40 fps(low) on my g3 300 ATI Rage 128, and 20-35 on med. Heh, I love the spin kick, its really fun kicking the other guy to the top of a mountain, respawn him and then kick him down and see him flying :) (Me, sadistic? Noo.... ;) )


I like how the sound distorts when you go slow-mo in Phantom Strike(that is yours right? I downloaded before on your page, don't know if I was allowed to...), does the sound distort in this game too? I haven't been able to test with volyme on, but I will later. Oh, and it seems like the drawing to the wrong buffer almost always happens to me, not always but always when I try it the second time(ie turns on slow-mo, turns off and then turns on again).

Could you please add something so that you could choose monitor or always go for the first, becouse it always switches to my ATI card. Or is this becouse it only works on ATI cards or something?

[jamie]

the graphics card in my machine is: nvda geforce4mx

just got back from chicago so I have not had a chance to try the new spin kick... going to check it out later.

[codemattic]

Originally posted by Darkgold
i spent an hour and a half building a tower of blocks(don't ask me why)

how do you find/move/build blocks in the Thingy demo?

Still - this is a very cool demo. As with Black Shades - love how the bodies crumple when they fall.

cheers

[David]

Cool screenshot :) Looks like for some reason it's trying to take a screenshot before the screen is done drawing :blink: I'll have to see what's up with that.

I don't know why the motion blur randomly dies on some ATI cards, I'll probably just turn it off until I get options working.

Yeah this one distorts sound in slowmotion also :) Not sure about the dual monitors, I didn't think about that. It should work on both ATI and Nvidia cards... I'll try to fix.

You can spawn blocks with m :)

[aleph0]

Hi David, here is a screen of the problem of tris drawing beyond the fog limit, which appeared in your first posted binaries, the later one with the spinkick did not have this problem..

http://www.xfinitegames.com/~arthur/fogbug.jpg

Anyway, it's gone now, but something was not right, perhaps a weird bug in the OEM Radeon drivers?

-A

[David]

It could be.. I guess if it's working now I won't worry about it :)

[codemattic]

Originally posted by David
You can spawn blocks with m :)
hey - you can! cool.

I also like the running animation - he looks so *determined*. He is really hustling.

The helmet and antenna make him look like Boba Fett. I like how if the camera is behind the character the head looks where you look - but if the camera moves in front of him - the head looks *at* the camera.

What did you do the modelling/animation in?

[jamie]

The helmet and antenna make him look like Boba Fett.

I agree, but I also got a very strong feeling of Ultra-man. In particular during the jump and landing...

[David]

I do modelling in meshwork mostly. This particular model was made by meshwork by David Drew for GLFighters 2, but I got distracted and started working on this one. :) Since then I've gotten kind of tired of robots because of glfighters and of humans from Black Shades so now I'm going to have weird animal people.

All the animations are done in my custom animation program :) It doesn't have any documentation but it's pretty good for making interesting animations relatively easily. The spin kick took about 10-20 minutes to animate but the run animation took a bit longer.

Some parts of the animations are hard-coded, like whether he should be looking where the camera is looking or if he should be looking at a target like in the spin kick.

[erazorhead]

i really think that i speak for everyone when i say that this is the most fun game ever made by anybody in the world.

so, with that said....

i am using the spin-kick rabbit version

g4 867, 640mb ram, geforce3, os 10.2.4

seems to run at about 80-100 fps at medium detail, 90-120 at low detail.

hitting "z" while jumping causes you to freeze and slowly drift to the ground.

there is somethings strange about the rabbit's left foot in the running animation... it seems to quickly turn inside out or something at one point in the cycle. you can see this better in slow motion.

also motion blur doesn't happen for me

do not let my comments change the direction you had for this game, but personally i can see this becoming a really fun sort of 'oni'-ish game, (just the hand-to-hand combat stuff, not necessarily incorporating weapons or anything). incorporating the slow-motion would add a whole lot to that type of game i think.

i dont know if this would be incredibly hard to do, but if you could make ragdoll-style collisions between enemies, THAT would really be something... i.e. I kick enemy 1 and he flies into enemy 2, knocking enemy 2 down or staggering him or anything like that. i imagine kicking one guy into a whole group of guys and having him take out several of them, or else they all have to dive out of the way or something. especially if it could be scripted on-the-fly... like if i send enemy 1 spinning along the ground into enemy 2's legs, it knocks out enemy 2's legs and he falls accordingly (as opposed to if he had been hit in the head). obviously my head's way in the clouds and i have no idea how any of this could be done, but i'm just talking i guess. i am really stoked on this game.

personally, i would move the rabbit's second (bottom) leg joint up somewhat. at it is, i think it looks too much like a regular human foot, standing on tiptoes.

i really like the idea of the main character being a weird animal person. but in my personal opinion (not knowing what kind of game it will be of course) i would like to see a lot of human soldier-type enemies. something about being the weird animal person and beating up charging black-suited soldiers seems really really appealing to me.

summoning blocks crashes the game. if i do it twice in quick succession, crash. if i do it gradually, i can get four or five before i crash.

the hawk looks great



let me know ANY way i can help you with this game. i can do icons, splash screens, menu screens, beta testing, textures, etc...
or if there's something else you need just ask and i'll see what i can do.

[David]

i really think that i speak for everyone when i say that this is the most fun game ever made by anybody in the world.

:blink: Thanks :)

there is somethings strange about the rabbit's left foot in the running animation... it seems to quickly turn inside out or something at one point in the cycle. you can see this better in slow motion.

I think this has something to do with my rotation interpolation, I'm going to try and fix it.

Most versions that I've uploaded recently just have motion blur turned off to improve compatibility, it will be an option when it has config files though.

do not let my comments change the direction you had for this game, but personally i can see this becoming a really fun sort of 'oni'-ish game, (just the hand-to-hand combat stuff, not necessarily incorporating weapons or anything). incorporating the slow-motion would add a whole lot to that type of game i think.

That's basically what I'm going to try and do, though I'll probably have some swords/spears etc.

i dont know if this would be incredibly hard to do, but if you could make ragdoll-style collisions between enemies, THAT would really be something... i.e. I kick enemy 1 and he flies into enemy 2, knocking enemy 2 down or staggering him or anything like that. i imagine kicking one guy into a whole group of guys and having him take out several of them, or else they all have to dive out of the way or something. especially if it could be scripted on-the-fly... like if i send enemy 1 spinning along the ground into enemy 2's legs, it knocks out enemy 2's legs and he falls accordingly (as opposed to if he had been hit in the head). obviously my head's way in the clouds and i have no idea how any of this could be done, but i'm just talking i guess. i am really stoked on this game.

I want to try that :) Doesn't sound impossible.

personally, i would move the rabbit's second (bottom) leg joint up somewhat. at it is, i think it looks too much like a regular human foot, standing on tiptoes.

You're right. I think I might just mess around with the foot's shape instead of the skeletal structure though.

I was thinking of having the rabbit guy lead some kind of rebellion against the wolves or something, just because that would be a pretty easy plot and would explain the melee fighting. Soldiers in black are always fun but might be a bit too oni-ish.

I'll have to look into the block thing, it's probably my weird memory management stuff.

I'm still working out the basic gameplay ideas, but once that's done help would be appreciated :)

Beta testing is always good.

[erazorhead]

I want to try that :) Doesn't sound impossible.
holy crap that is fantastic

I was thinking of having the rabbit guy lead some kind of rebellion against the wolves or something, just because that would be a pretty easy plot and would explain the melee fighting. Soldiers in black are always fun but might be a bit too oni-ish.
wolves in the same general design type as the rabbit character would be super sweet.

I'm still working out the basic gameplay ideas, but once that's done help would be appreciated :)
Beta testing is always good.
well i know i'm not the only one eagerly anticipating the next build...

have you thought about developing the story with a few in-game cutscenes? the slow-motion and camera control give Thingy a really cinematic feel, i think some super cool cutscenes could be done with this engine. or is it way too early to be thinking about that


i let a 13 year old play Thingy, he played it for three hours straight. he too suggested the characters-colliding-with-other-characters thing (would work great with throws). he also says that the rabbit should wear a tuxedo at some point in the game
:)

[erazorhead]

Originally posted by David
You're right. I think I might just mess around with the foot's shape instead of the skeletal structure though.

i dont know... could look cool with a much higher second joint

like what if it looked like this-ish? (super quickie mockup): http://www.rroland.net/misc/rabbitcompare.jpg
the left is the current rabbit and the right is an idea for how it could be

just an idea, thought i'd toss it out there

[David]

That looks cool, but I kinda want to keep the basic proportions similar to humans though, so he can pull off martial arts moves and all.

I changed the proportions and foot a little bit to get
http://david.emuscene.com/Rabbitnew3.jpg
but he still has a pretty much human structure.

have you thought about developing the story with a few in-game cutscenes? the slow-motion and camera control give Thingy a really cinematic feel, i think some super cool cutscenes could be done with this engine. or is it way too early to be thinking about that

Definitely :) That's actually one of things I was going to focus on for this game; I'm going to try and have cutscenes that are good for once. And SKIPPABLE. Maybe it's just me but cutscenes that can't be skipped get annoying. (ala Oni) I was just playing some old-ish games like Conker's Bad Fur Day and Metal Gear Solid, which have really low-detail graphics, but have amazing cut scenes, and decided to try and do a bit like that. :cool: I mean of course with much less quantity, to keep it kinda possible, but hopefully around the same kind of quality.

i let a 13 year old play Thingy, he played it for three hours straight. he too suggested the characters-colliding-with-other-characters thing (would work great with throws). he also says that the rabbit should wear a tuxedo at some point in the game

:D that could be possible.

[erazorhead]

first off.. if i am going overboard in this thread and you want me to A) shut up or B) move this to email, feel free to say so

metal gear solid is a fantastic example of A) using low polycount to PERFECTION, and B) excellent game engine cutscenes for a seamless feel.
(on a side note, it could easily be the most well-executed game ever, in my opinion, so i may be biased here :)

i was wondering if you still have the earlier version of Thingy for download somewhere, so i could check out the motion blur, etc

OK here is another random idea, ready? i think you did guns just right in black shades, and maybe that element could really click in this game. not as a primary element, but as a sometimes thing. i'm seeing my character during battle pick up a handgun with, say, four or six shots in it. i continue to fight hand-to-hand as normal, but then when i hold down command or something, camera quickly zooms into my character's head and i'm aiming down the barrel a-la black shades, and mouse button fires. enemies react to bullet impact differently depending on where they are hit (head shot sends them over backwards, leg shot makes them crumple sideways).
maybe that's a bad idea, or too much work, or doesn't click with the lo-tech story. i just got excited when i thought about it and thought i'd throw it out there.

[jamie]

for the record, I hate cut scenes that are NOT skippable. No matter how good the scene is, if you have to watch it ten times it really becomes boring and a pain in the a$$. Skippable cut scenes would definitely be the way to go.

:)

[DaFalcon]

I agree that non-skipable cut scenes are one of the more annoying things in many modern games.

Kingdom Hearts seems to use the cutscenes as some kind of punishment for dying vs. a boss; the cut scenes are beautiful, but having to watch it three or four times because you keep losing to a boss would be no fun at all, and aren't games supposed to be fun? I have to admit though, those cutscenes are good motivation to defeat the boss right the first time, which encourages me to use all the potions and ethers and stuff that I otherwise end up hoarding throughout the whole game in other RPGs.

[skyhawk]

TELL ME ABOUT IT! I'm playing kingom hearts right now and I CAN NOT beat ursula... that sea *itch (w or b) keeps twirling and spinning and not dying and the snapping of the eels and the yellow teeth... arrr... and goofy and ariel are a complete waste as they end up dying way too early and only attack the eels. And if they do decide to attack ursula, they always seem to think the best time to attack ursula is when she is spinning. Ugh... and the cutscene is 30 seconds+ and I've fought it like 20+ times... so yeah... they've wasted over 10 minutes of my time just replaying the same crap over and over again. Now... if someone would like to give me some major hints on how to beat her.... oh yeah and magic on the cauldron doesn't work as well as it should.

[David]

This game certainly won't have any 'punishment' cutscenes :) A lot of the time I just write these things to just try out random things that I wish were changed in games I play, i.e. in Black Shades I was just sick of FPS games that have:
-crosshairs and eyes that seem incapable of looking in a direction that is even one degree off from the gun
-no melee attacks
-characters that fall through walls
-characters that can't be interacted with during dying animations
-characters that can't be disposed of without killing them
-obscenely high polycounts that render at 5 fps
-huge loading times between levels
-rigid animations
-too much fake seriousness
etc. :p

Guns are fun but I don't really want to add them to Thingy because I want to experiment with melee fighting a bit, or maybe have bows and arrows. I have never seen a bow done well in a computer game, so that might be an interesting experiment :)

I'll probably have a cheat mode where you can morph into a GLFighter or the Black Shades bodyguard or something though :cool:

[erazorhead]

bow and arrow would be sweet for sure

[Josh]

Originally posted by David
I have never seen a bow done well in a computer game, so that might be an interesting experiment :)The best bow and arrow I have ever seen (in a game) is in LOTR:TT for GameCube. One of the most satisfying things is a killing an orc with one quick shot... :blush: I tried to download Thingy but it downloaded 500k and stopped.

[David]

How does LOTR:TT handle aiming/damage/etc.?

[griffin239]

Very Very cool demo!
I was getting 30 -50 fps on dual 450 with GeForce MX only played medium

Skip the bow and arrow and go for what every rabbit has...PELLET GUN! ha...endless ammo.

He should have an idle -eat grass animation.

This game reminds me very much of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles role playing.
But the charcter looks like The Tick ...wasn't there someone in a bunny suit on that cartoon.
Anyway he's well done. Like to see more animals, its a good concept.
Just avoid the PIGS cliche from Duke Nukem.

I was able to reproduce the make blocks unexpected quit.
don't know how many blocks I made, never saw them,
but hitting the key a few times crashed it.

Keep up the good work!

[David]

lol :D

I'm thinking of just having rabbits and wolves to start, want to make sure it's doable before getting too complicated.

You're right, no pigs. Pig morphs look kinda silly :p But then so do rabbits I guess. *shrug*

The blocks crash seems to occur only under X, I'm trying to figure out why it happens. :/

[erazorhead]

Originally posted by David
The blocks crash seems to occur only under X, I'm trying to figure out why it happens. :/

i think that it does have to do with getting them to a certain height. i can build a bigger tower starting from low ground than i can from high ground.

PS do you still have an earlier version with the motion blur that i could download somewhere, just to check it out?

[David]

I think http://david.emuscene.com/Thingyblur.sit might have blur, but it's low-res and might not work with the latest data files. I think in my next version I'll have low, medium, and high detail, which will have motion blur and 1024*768 and everything.

[Josh]

Originally posted by David
How does LOTR:TT handle aiming/damage/etc.? Aiming is done by having a little triangle appear above the enemy you are targetting. Targetting is done when the user points the bow in the basic direction of the enemy. Damage is done depending on 1) the orc 2) the player experience 3) the player's bow. Some orc's die with one shot others skillfully use their shields to block them.

[David]

Minor update at http://david.emuscene.com/Thingy.sit

Changes:
Block crash is fixed (I think...)
Other rabbits just kinda run at you and try to climb on nearby obstacles, but are stupid and usually fail
Rabbits can die with too much damage
Rabbits can get back up if they're knocked over (unless killed or stunned)
Minor tweaks in the model.
Oni-ish crouch/sneak button

[AJ Infinity]

Forget bow and arrows! CHAINSAWS!!! Just kidding. Plasma blasters or lightsabers.

I'm downloading the demo now.

[macboy]

:wow: Hey, that's pretty cool.

Here's two problems: 1) Sometimes when the rabbits just got up and I move beside them, the spin kick doesn't work for a bit and 2) Once I kicked both rabbits, and like they're supposed to, they fell. Then I respawned them while I was on top of a block and only 1 came even after trying again on ground.

[David]

Hmmm

Well the spin kick doesn't work from too close or too far to the other characters, I'm going to try and have a sort of automatic choice of moves, so it would punch at close range, kick at long range, etc.

Not sure why the 2nd one is happening, did you try z or shift-z?

[macboy]

Originally posted by David
Not sure why the 2nd one is happening, did you try z or shift-z? Only z :blush:

[David]

Ok well I think I've fixed it :)

Now z just gets rid of all damage so they'll just stand up again.

[erazorhead]

everything works here. no blur on low detail. blur looks much 'chunkier' than non-blur in medium detail (intentional?) high detail looks fantastic, blur works perfectly. im on a g4 with a geforce 3

seems like getting the enemies in just the right place where you can kick them is much harder than it used to be... but this is to make room for other attacks i take it. cool.

crouch/sneak works perfectly, including the ability to land in a crouch and kick from a crouch.

do the rabbits have a random amount of "life"? seems like sometimes they "die" in two hits and sometimes i can kick them all day. or maybe the amount of damage you do depends on the situation? (like whether you are kicking from a crouch, how far they fall, etc...?)

i'll play more later today and may post more feedback.

it's coming along great...

[macboy]

One more weird problem from playing too much :D : when you go off the edge and they follow you, then you respawn everything by pressing shift-z, they don't come back no matter what you do.

[David]

Yeah motion blur in medium detail renders to a low-res texture because on older 3d-cards render-to-texture isn't hardware accelerated, so rendering to a full-size texture would go 16 times slower.

The rabbit guys have a weird damage system, they can recover from some of their damage over time. So if you hit them twice as hard it's more damaging than hitting them half as hard twice in a combo, and that is more damaging then just hitting half as hard with a few seconds in between. Falling also does quite a bit of damage.

I guess the going off the edge thing is making them spawn in some funky place somewhere :p Not sure if I'll fix that.

Update:
Added some basic hand/face animation
http://david.emuscene.com/Angry.jpg

[Mazilurik]

Wow, I had no idea that something which is, at this stage, little more than a tech demo could be so entertaining; I can't wait to see what the game looks like in its finished form. The rag-doll physics are great, and should be absolutely incredible in a fighting game. The "blocks" crash seems to be fixed under OS X, though after you've spawned about twenty blocks the game won't allow you to spawn any more; however, I wouldn't invest too much time into fixing this, unless block-spawning is going to be an integral part of the final game (which I somehow doubt). The high-detail version looks great, and I like the way motion blur is used to accentuate particularly painful collisions with inanimate objects. :D (I really ought to be a bit nicer to the poor anthropomorphic rabbit-people-things.)

Keep up the great work!

[Feanor]

Originally posted by David
Minor update at http://david.emuscene.com/Thingy.sit

Changes:
Block crash is fixed (I think...)
Other rabbits just kinda run at you and try to climb on nearby obstacles, but are stupid and usually fail
Rabbits can die with too much damage
Rabbits can get back up if they're knocked over (unless killed or stunned)
Minor tweaks in the model.
Oni-ish crouch/sneak button

Keyboard does not work. I can kick one rabbit, but my dude just stands there and looks around. Nice terrain, though!

[David]

Yeah I don't think block spawning will be too integral, but theoretically it will be doing the same basic thing at runtime if I have any complicated maps, which I probably won't :)

I'm a bit concerned about the keyboard-not-working thing :/ Does it do that if you quit and open it again? Or quit and restart and open it.

[erazorhead]

couple more observations. not sure if these are important at this point, but...

the "n" button does not kill your character, just "stuns" it. (if you do it a couple times it will kill you.) intentional?

if you jump towards a wall (ie the side of a block) and hit "n" in mid-air, you recover as soon as you hit the wall instead of after you hit the ground. super-minor thing

sometimes when i kick a guy twice really quickly, we both die. odd.

when slow motion is on and someone dies, triggering the automatic slow motion for a couple seconds, it turns off slow motion.

this game is already addictive like drugs.

[erazorhead]

also i've been able to (after jumping off a high cliff, dying in midair, and landing) somehow get my character glitched so they won't stop sliding downhill (or even over flat ground sometimes) for up to 30-40 seconds, constantly making the 'landing' sound over and over.

[macboy]

For some reason motion blur only seems to work on medium detail. It doesn't work on low or high. :?:

I looked at your expression screenshot, and the only comment I have is that perhaps you can make the features a little more prominent?

I'm downloading the new update now...

[macboy]

:wow: I think I just had the coolest experience with the physics!! :wow: Go near to a wall of a block and make sure the other rabbit(s) follow(s) you. Get one of the rabbits between you and the wall, aim at him, and kick him! If done how I did it, his head should hit the wall, bounce back, then fall with his body :cool: :D

Wow David this is really progressing :love: :)

[Feanor]

Originally posted by David
Yeah I don't think block spawning will be too integral, but theoretically it will be doing the same basic thing at runtime if I have any complicated maps, which I probably won't :)

I'm a bit concerned about the keyboard-not-working thing :/ Does it do that if you quit and open it again? Or quit and restart and open it.

I like you a lot, but I won't restart my computer for you. :)

[macboy]

Here's another weirdo been-playing-too-long bug. When you jump in the air and hold z, your rabbit just hangs in midair. Kinda funny when the other rabbits try to attack you though :D

[w_reade]

OK, this is just too painful. I've tried to download Thingy.sit several times, with both Safari and IE, and every time the download has quietly aborted itself before finishing. Sometimes I get a paltry 1.3MB, sometimes 2 or even 3MB, and on one occasion a tantalising 3.9MB...

Any suggestions? I'm positively dying to kick rabbits in the head. I don't seem to be having problems downloading other files...

[Josh]

Originally posted by w_reade
OK, this is just too painful. I've tried to download Thingy.sit several times, with both Safari and IE, and every time the download has quietly aborted itself before finishing. Sometimes I get a paltry 1.3MB, sometimes 2 or even 3MB, and on one occasion a tantalising 3.9MB...

Any suggestions? I'm positively dying to kick rabbits in the head. I don't seem to be having problems downloading other files... I've had the same problem with IE and iCab.

[AJ Infinity]

I use Speed Download (www.yazsoft.com) for all my downloads and everything works.

[Cookie]

Wow I love this demo! One of my favourite things to do is run fast, jump, hit the 'die' button, and see how far I can slide down a really big hill!

Ok, heres a few things I've noted:

If I comit suicide by jumping off a tall stack of blocks, often I find my rabbit half-sunk into the ground. I'm assuming this is happening because of the high velocity of the rabbit when it hits the ground?

When I make a large stack of blocks, and look to the ground, I get some funky drawing artifacts, almost as if the screen isn't being redrawn in certain areas. Do you know what I'm talking about? It happens in most 3D games if you can find your way out of the game world (ala GTA3)

In fact, it's so funky, I was wondering if it was possible to use this as a quick and dodgy blur method on low detail.... ? Or is that just the stupidest idea ever?

Anyway, keep up the cool work.

[David]

If I comit suicide by jumping off a tall stack of blocks, often I find my rabbit half-sunk into the ground. I'm assuming this is happening because of the high velocity of the rabbit when it hits the ground?

I don't remember programming that in, but it seems like an interesting feature :) Do you have a screenshot? It could just be the collision detection messing up. You should sink a little bit into snow, but not into grass.

When I make a large stack of blocks, and look to the ground, I get some funky drawing artifacts, almost as if the screen isn't being redrawn in certain areas. Do you know what I'm talking about? It happens in most 3D games if you can find your way out of the game world (ala GTA3)

That's probably because I turned off the lowest plane of the skybox to decrease fillrate requirements, but I guess it would be best to just do that on low-detail.

[erazorhead]

any word on the 'won't stop sliding after death' problem i mentioned?

[codemattic]

Originally posted by erazorhead
any word on the 'won't stop sliding after death' problem i mentioned?

FYI - I had a similar thing happen. I kicked the man (this was back before they became rabbits) and he just kept sliding and sliding. He slid mostly along a very flat section - and then *up* a hill a ways. It was fun to run after him and see how long he would go.

After he stopped - I kept trying to reproduce the effect and was never able to.

[David]

Yeah I've seen something like that once before, but am not sure exactly why it happens :/ I think I might just have them stop moving sooner.

[erazorhead]

well they almost always slide the "right" amount, just sometimes they get in some weird position where they can't slow down. i've been able to reproduce it by finding the steepest cliff and suiciding at the top of it repeatedly.

[AJ Infinity]

Cool demo. I like the Tomb Raider style climbing animation. Kicking rabbits is fun. I like the slow motion also.

[AJ Infinity]

I found something weird David. I ran and jumped off the side of a hill and while I was mid-jump, I pressed N and killed myself. I also turned on slowmotion and rotated the camera around the guy for a visual effect. When my guy hit the ground, he died :)(figures, I jumped from a very HIGH point). He died and he wouldn't get back up. When I die at any other time, he dies and gets back up. Weird.

Also, I built a HUGE mountain out of 60+ blocks! The two other wabbits followed me and when I jumped of my Bllock Mountain. They jumped with me.:) Very cool effect. I don't like how the reabbits followed me everywhere. They should FIGHT BACK!!

Put some ChickenPeople and DogCows in there also.

[Quicksilver]

Thingy is awsome but the weird rabits and animals take away from it. Makes it like a dimented Alice in Wonderland with good physics.

[Darkgold]

I have to agree with QS about the rabbit thing. I still enjoy the first version of Thingy the most

[erazorhead]

wait until you SEE THE GAME before you judge the characters. this is just a technology demo. david, i trust your judgement and i'm sure this game will rule.

[arekkusu]

Originally posted by David
This is a test thingy of the basic engine for my next game, which will be a weird animal fighting type thing.

Tried on 800 Mhz DVI TiBook, running 10.2.4.

Keys don't work, can't move. Mouse works fine.

[macboy]

Originally posted by arekkusu
Tried on 800 Mhz DVI TiBook, running 10.2.4.

Keys don't work, can't move. Mouse works fine. Jaguar + Carbon + Key Input = BAD PROBLEMS :mad: (this happens with MetaL too 'cause it's also carbon)

[David]

If anyone knows a way to make the keyboard work on all OS X systems, I would appreciate it :)

Makes it like a dimented Alice in Wonderland with good physics.

That's sorta the idea :p I've already done humans (well, block humans) and robots. The characters will look a lot better with textures, but I think their basic concept will stay the same.

He died and he wouldn't get back up.

:) I might have to add that to my quote collection.

Anyways, In that build the 'n' key doesn't really kill you, it just sorta makes you fall over. If you fall too hard or far or get kicked too many times then you die.

[AJ Infinity]

hehe...I just realized what I said. :D

[David]

btw, added some flips and rolls.

What happens if you don't land correctly:
http://david.emuscene.com/Fliplanding.jpg

[erazorhead]

ha ha ha awesome
this project is really rolling! good to see you're getting so much done

[macboy]

Wow nice. Were those atmosphere effects there before? I only tried Low and Medium qualities as I only get about 5 FPS high quality.

[David]

The clouds are just a skybox right now, but you're right I'm using a different one than in the last build, if that's what you mean :)

I just discovered that TerraGen was ported to mac so I went skybox-happy to make skyboxes that blend in with the terrain more seamlessly. This gives a sort of hacked effect of making it kinda seem as if you can see for miles, even though you can't:

http://david.emuscene.com/Newskybox.jpg
http://david.emuscene.com/Newskybox2.jpg

[jamie]

very slick, love the 'long distance' feel....

[monteboyd]

Looking really good.

Hey David, how do you do the transperancy fog effect? As opposed to fogging to a colour. I've asked about this in general before but can't remember a good answer.

[macboy]

:wow: That's awesome!! It looks really realistic!

[David]

OpenGL doesn't do fogging to transparency, you have to do it manually. Basically what I do is just actually mess with the vertex arrays every frame and calculate what the transparency should be for each terrain vertex and for each model.

[monteboyd]

For some reason I've never been able to get vertex transparency to work with lighting enabled. Anyway, I'll just have to mess around with it more, this isn't the thread I should be talking about it on.

I think I speak for most here when I say we're not going to let you get away with not finishing the game with this engine! ;)

[David]

Hehe ok :)

Btw about transparency with lighting, this might be silly question but are you remembering to enable GL_COLOR_MATERIAL?

[David]

Working on fighting system... added move reversals
http://david.emuscene.com/Kickreverse.jpg

[Vraven]

I haven't gotten to play it yet, but it looks cool and it looked cool when I saw it being played... I will have to check it out... and there's nothing wrong with rabbits, no, not in my opinion. If you make other animals just be sure to have a lizard, yes?

[Darkgold]

How come your not releasing any more updates? Want to test out the game with that "long distance feel":D

[David]

Haha ok, I was trying to finish up my fighting system thingy but there's a new build at http://david.emuscene.com/Thingy.sit

New stuff:
Re-done skyboxes/terrain texture
Slightly increased viewdistance
Sweep added
Move reversals added
Flips added
Rolls added
Other rabbit fights back

Edit: OS X support seems to be temporarily broken *fixes*
Edit: Fixed http://david.emuscene.com/Thingyfix.sit

[Darkgold]

thanks you thanks you thanks you thanks you thanks you thanks you thanks you thanks you thanks you thanks you thanks you thanks you thanks you thanks you thanks you thanks you!!!!!!!!
:D :cool: :D :cool: :lol:

[erazorhead]

keyboard not working, in new version of thingy or thingyfix

mouse works, command-q works, nothing else works.

this is in osX

otherwise, game seems to be progressing by leaps and bounds. can't wait to try new version with keyboard.

EDIT: apparently this is a problem on my end. tried an older version, keyboard didn't work (it used to). will try rebooting.

[jamie]

The OSX version worked fine for me, keyboard and mouse.

Running 10.2.4

Very cool progress, I'm loving when the 'enemy' bunny blocks my kicks and then knocks my butt out!

[David]

Erazor: Did restarting fix it? If so I'll add that to the troubleshooting section of the readme.

Jamie: That's good :) Keep in mind that you can do that to the enemy(ies) also.

I'm uploading a new version (http://david.emuscene.com/Thingy.sit) with a Black-Shades-esque config.txt file so I don't have to keep making all these different builds with different detail levels. :p

[codemattic]

Originally posted by erazorhead
keyboard not working, in new version of thingy or thingyfix

mouse works, command-q works, nothing else works.

this is in osX

otherwise, game seems to be progressing by leaps and bounds. can't wait to try new version with keyboard.

EDIT: apparently this is a problem on my end. tried an older version, keyboard didn't work (it used to). will try rebooting.

This happens on OSX *all* the time with games that use GetKeys(). At some point GetKeys() just stops working until you reboot. I posted about it here a while ago - driving myself crazy until I fgured it out.

Anyone writing a carbon game that is supposed to be able to run on classic and OSX I suggest when possible listening for keyup and keydown events instead of using GetKeys().

[erazorhead]

restarting fixed keyboard problem.
wow. this game continues to amaze me.

things i love:
attacking/countering system is really great. the countering system is unlike any i have used, but is totally intuitive after the first time you do it. at this point you can of course counter anything by standing still and hammering "shift", but as the system becomes more sophisticated im sure this won't be the case.

flipping. can't get enough of it. jumping, turning camera 180∞, and then flipping: surprisingly sweet. rolling is great too.

blending of ground into background. looks perfect 97% of the time, especially on snow.

problems found:
"can't stop sliding" problem seems somewhat more common, but far less bad. where in the last version i could get my rabbit sliding for a ridiculous amount of time on rare occasions, in this version the rabbit slides too long every so often, but nowhere near for as long as it used to. not sure if this is really even a 'bug' at this point, but i think it might be (although not a big one at all).

in 'ragdoll' physics, the shoulders get really gnarled-looking when the arms are above the head

things i'd like to see:
key bindings in the config file. i'd especially like to be able to use my other mouse buttons. mostly just the ability to use my other mouse buttons i guess. maybe if the right mouse button did the same thing as shift i would totally stop caring about this.

what happened to the furrier texture on the rabbits from a couple versions back? i liked that.

something about the rabbit model's legs bothers me a little. seems like they could be a little more 'pronounced', especially below the knees. they seem a little too ho-hum, as if the rabbit were wearing sweat pants or something. if that makes sense. maybe it's just me.

if this sky/ground texture is going to be used in the final game, i would like to see an even higher resolution sky/ground texture as an option.

when/if the game incorporates falling damage; hitting crouch/roll at the split-second you land could make you land in a roll, cancelling (or reducing) falling damage.

think that's it for now.

PS
averages about 40 fps at highest details and 1280x1024. goes up into the hundreds at max, and never drops below 20 (and never stays below 35ish for more than a split second). again, geforce3, 640mb, 867mhz. running a web browser in the background.

[Danlab]

:wow: very impressive.. wahoo :wow:

im jalous :blush:

[macboy]

Originally posted by codemattic
This happens on OSX *all* the time with games that use GetKeys().I think it's a problem with Jaguar only, because I'm using 10.1.5 and that never happens :blink:

[macboy]

:wow: Hehe that was awesome!!!

[aleph0]

Man, this rules! I gotta go code faster!

Great work, David. Animation is smooth and just running around kicking bunny butt and flipping around is just plain fun :)

In the latest build, the bug I mentioned before with the outermost vertices of the visible area having a 1.0 alpha is back again, sad to say.

[erazorhead]

another thing i just noticed

when blur is on, something a little strange happens. where a blur has been drawn never quite goes back to how it was before, as if the blur never quite disappears. very subtle. shown here:

http://untitled.waferbaby.com/misc/thingyblur.jpg
(picture on the bottom has contrast turned up)

thought i'd mention it in case it was a symptom of a bigger problem, or something important. otherwise it's nothing.

[David]

Yeah I'm probably just going to add a couple more moves for unarmed fighting to balance out the reversals and everything and then go on to swords/spears etc.

I'm trying to figure out how to use the second mouse button :/ Added the config keys though :)

I'll probably have higher-res background textures, but decided to pass on a real rabbit texture until I can do it properly. I guess I might as well add a placeholder though.

The motion blur thingy is because of the limited resolution of the color buffer, can't think of any way to fix that.

[David]

Update:
Crouch button jamming to get reversals fixed
Added random trippy cellophane option after watching 'chicago' :p
http://david.emuscene.com/Cellophanereversal.jpg
Added placeholder texture to make rabbit guys seem a bit less out of place

[AJ Infinity]

Those cellophone guys are weird.

[erazorhead]

i threw together an icon for you to use during the beta stages of 'thingy'. i guess it's just because of my aversion to the default app icon. anyways, it's here and you can use it if you'd like

http://untitled.waferbaby.com/misc/ThingyIcon.sit

the other rabbit can do a standing 'straight' kick that i can't figure out how to do. does the player not get to use this attack yet?

also, something i'd really like to see: jump kicks/attacks.

[David]

Whoa that's pretty cool :)

Right now I'm basically just working on making the whole fighting system more modular so that it is easier to keep track of all the different moves, so I can add a bunch more.

You do a straight kick to the head if the enemy is crouching :cool: The current enemy guy doesn't crouch very often though.

[David]

Update:
Changed name to Lugaru
Added erazorhead's icons
Added two new attacks
Added reversal recovery

http://david.emuscene.com/Lugaru.sit

[akisha]

Very nice, but on my system, almost every time either I kill the other rabbit or the other rabbit kills me, the screen starts flickering like crazy, and makes the game nearly unplayable. I can't seem to get a screen shot of this bug. I'm running OS 9.2.2 on an iBook.

Other than that, really nice!

[David]

Hmm that means its most likely a motion blur bug, does it happen with blur off? (in config.txt)

[akisha]

Originally posted by David
Hmm that means its most likely a motion blur bug, does it happen with blur off? (in config.txt)

No, it doesn't happen with motion blur off. Thanks a lot for the fix -- now I can spend all the time I want beating up the other rabbit!! :)

[Weston]

Awsome work David!:blink:
It is really fun to mess around with it. The thing I love doing the most is making a huge mess out of blocks (using the M key), and then just jumping around on them and hitting N to kill the rabbit, and watch how he curls up and such. It reminds me a lot of the Wipe Out Play mode in Dave Mirra's Freestyle BMX 2.
Now it'd be cool to have more than just the landscape and blocks, are you gonna add any other shapes/models to this thing?

[David]

Thanks :)

Yeah I'm going to have trees, rocks and structures, the cubes are just there to test out collisions and things.

[Weston]

Originally posted by David
Thanks :)

Yeah I'm going to have trees, rocks and structures, the cubes are just there to test out collisions and things.
Sweet!:D I am really, truly, looking forward to it. :p
On a side note, are you going to release the source code to this also? It'd be fun to see how it was all put together. (that was just a shot in the dark, i'm not trying to force you to do anything... I'm still going through the Black Shades source and such)

[Darkgold]

My friend and I have found quite a few things weird things you can do in Lugaru. So I'm going to start posting them.

DG's Daily Lugaru Trick:
Pressing the 'Z' and 'N' rapidly at the same time. If done correctly causes rabbit to be launched extremly high into the air (higher than you could go building blocks.)

But here is a bug that really "bugs" me. Every once and a while when I am building a tower of blocks the game will spawn a block that you can see but can't stand on.

Also, how do you guys get screen shots of the game? Every time I try I get a screwed up image. i want to take screen shots of "DG's Daily Lugaru Trick" so you guys know I'm not BSing you.

[David]

lol ok :)

Hmm about the blocks bug... when does that happen? Is it after a certain amount are spawned or when you get to a certain height or something?

[ERaZer]

Good work David!
I've also noticed the blocks bug, and I think it happens after a amount of blocks but I'm not totally sure.

[Weston]

Originally posted by David
lol ok :)

Hmm about the blocks bug... when does that happen? Is it after a certain amount are spawned or when you get to a certain height or something?

It usually happens to me after I get close to the Maximum amount of blocks you can make. Although I have never counted the maximum amount.

[erazorhead]

hey erazer

underworld fan?

[David]

I'll have to look into the block thing :/ Maybe it can only support a certain number of blocks per octtree thingy... yup. *fixed* :)

BTW I'm working on a texture for the rabbit, I'm not an artist so right now it looks like this (http://david.emuscene.com/Run.jpg) .

Also adding a handspring (http://david.emuscene.com/Handspring.jpg).

[David]

BTW if any of you are artists and would like to make a better texture or something, here's the mesh layout (http://david.emuscene.com/Wireframe.jpg) and sample texture (http://david.emuscene.com/Texturemap.jpg) .

[erazorhead]

i will do something

we'll see if it's any good.

[ERaZer]

I think you should add more things you can do in air, so that you can jump some 10 meters up in the air and then smash your opponent who doesn't see you coming when he's standing down on the ground :)

[erazorhead]

you can already knock the other rabbit down by landing on him.

but i agree, air-attacks are the next thing i would like to see

[erazorhead]

how do i test out my rabbit texture as i'm working on it? i want to see how it looks in the game so far but im not sure how

i have photoshop so i can work with .tgas

[GameDev]

You should make several different colored rabit textures, use them and the models to replace the people in Black Shades, and sell it to people who need comical releif during Easter time :D

[David]

ERaZer: as erazorhead said right now you can do some massive damage by doing that (a bit too much perhaps) but I will probably add some more air attacks

Erazorhead: I'm uploading a new version here (http://david.emuscene.com/Lugaru.sit) which should have a fur.tga in the data folder. If you replace it with yours (you may have to flip it upside down) then it should show up in-game.

Gamedev: That would be interesting :) Maybe in Black Shades 2 that could be an easter egg :p

New stuff in latest version:
Texture for rabbit guy
Some engine optimizations
Option to have multiple enemies
Unconsciousness
Better model animation (blinking, breathing, etc.)
Smarter enemies
Handspring move (back+click)

[erazorhead]

accidentally left a trailing slash on that url

actual download is here (http://david.emuscene.com/Lugaru.sit)

[David]

Oops :blush:

Thanks, fixed :)

[David]

BTW started working on my site at http://david.emuscene.com/

The first two links work.

I am terrible at web design so was just wondering if any of you had suggestions. As you may be able to tell this is almost a complete copy of the Golive 6 template #4 or so

[OneSadCookie]

Red on red? Not good. I doubt much is good on red, but white's gotta be the best option...

For some reason I always think of you as blue, I was very surprised to see your website red :blush:

[David]

I like blue better, and my old site was blue, but for some reason I find red easier on my eyes on CRT screens. Probably something to do with the frequency, I probably only notice it from staring at a screen for most of the day. Also the flaming wolf thingy is red :p

Is it really hard to read like this? If so I guess I should probably change it :blink:

[macboy]

It doesn't look that bad. Maybe you could do black, blue, and yellow or something. That really is pretty bright. :sorry:

[AJ Infinity]

Owww....I can't look at your site for too long or my eyes start pounding. Other than that, the site's cool. :)

I notice how you only did the Lugaru page and not the glFighters and Black Shades pages. :)

[Matt Brown]

:???: Dosen't seem overly bright to me...*runs a finger over his dusty screen* Oh, so thats it...
Seriously, it looks a bit like the Contraband Entertainment site, and Ambrosia's getting them to port EV Nova, so it cant be that bad.

[erazorhead]

i'm still working on a possible texture for the rabbit. after reading the game story on your site, i think maybe he should have a wound on his arm? any other pertinent details would be good to know too.

[erazorhead]

i think i have an alright bunny texture. i'll upload it as soon as my site is back up (going through a server change)

anyways let me know about previous question

cool

[David]

Finished the broken links and toned down the colors a little bit, same link. http://david.emuscene.com/

Can't wait to see your texture :) I'm going to have dynamic blood/cuts in Lugaru so you don't have to worry about that.

[AJ Infinity]

Originally posted by David
I'm going to have dynamic blood/cuts in Lugaru

Now that sounds so cool!! :cool:

[Najdorf]

Oh, no, I tried 20 times to download something from your site but I never managed to get the complete files...:mad:

[David]

Is this problem unique to my site? :blink:

[w_reade]

I had that problem too, but AJ Infinity recommended Speed Download (look back through this thread for a link) which got it OK.

When I had the problem, though, it was unique to your site, David. Haven't tried to download it that recently, though.

[David]

Do you have any idea why it could be doing that?

[AJ Infinity]

Many different reasons
1. Old version of StuffIt Expander (Najdorf).
2. Your server doesn't understand sit's (David).
3. You declared the links to the download incorrectly (David).
4. You need to use a download manager like Speed Download (http://www.yazsoft.com/) or Download Deputy (Najdorf).
5. You are using Safari :) (Najdorf).

[Wrisc]

It happens @ David's site, but also a few others for me... I put it down to having a 56k, it going slow, then the download truncates & pretends that it's the complete file ;); It depends on the server I download from as to whether or not this error occurs though.

~risc

[David]

It sounds like I can't solve that problem :/ I guess I'll just have to get a real site if I ever seriously have to use it.

BTW I updated the Lugaru page (http://david.emuscene.com/lugaru.html) with a few screenshots, especially some differently-colored rabbit based on erazorhead's amazing texture.

[Wrisc]

... Or use a hotline server (MES mb?)

~risc

[Bachus]

Man, this game keeps getting better and better.

"Lugaru"? I take it that's a play on "Lougarou," the Cajun/Creole/Caribbean/Voodoo/etc werewolf?

Can you tell that I live in Louisiana?

[macboy]

Originally posted by Bachus
"Lugaru"? I take it that's a play on "Lougarou," the Cajun/Creole/Caribbean/Voodoo/etc werewolf?He said it was French for werewolf :blink:

[David]

Wow I didn't think anyone would figure that out :)

Yeah it's from loup-garou in french which is apparently the same as in those other languages :p

[David]

Added some optional blood to Lugaru, in case intentionally or accidentally do way more damage than needed to knock them out.

http://david.emuscene.com/Blood2.jpg

New build here at http://david.emuscene.com/Lugaru.sit

[w_reade]

:D

[Najdorf]

Go on, William, let' s start again the debate... you' d like to... you know you' d like to... let' s tell these hypocrites the truth:
David, when a big humanoid rabbit kicks a big humanoid werewolf, its leg at high speed impacts with the body, and of course this causes veins to break and blood to spill out in litres. You must be realistic! This must cause floods of blood all around! If you put blood only as an option, the poor boys may think that they can kick their dog without causing him suffering! Be honest and keep the blood!

Go on William, your turn now;)

[AJ Infinity]

Cool blood. Use particle fx to make it appear as if it's spurting out when a character is hit, like in Tomb Raider. :)

There's nothing wrong with blood in games. Now sometimes it does get out of hand or outrageous, but blood effects like the ones in Star Fox Adventures, Mortal Kombat: Dark Alliance, or MAFFia, :) are OK.

David: Make a hacking engine so that characters can get arms or legs chopped off by swords, etc. :D

[diordna]

Please keep the blood as an option. I want the game, but my mom wouldn't be happy about a really bloody game. I love the engine :love: but I want to be able to actually play the game.

[w_reade]

Well, Najdorf, under provocation... this is exactly what I mean. It seems like diordna's mum won't mind her lad playing a game where he can kick something in the head so that it flies backwards, smacks its head on the corner of a big block of concrete, and then tumbles off a precipice to land in a crumpled heap at the bottom - good clean fun, etc. - but if the kickee bleeds in the process, that's a whole different story.

btw, diordna, no insult to your mum intended. Like I said, it's an endemic problem, it's just that the example presented itself and was too perfect to pass up.

Anyway, David, just a few details:

(1) I can't seem to roll on landing any more. Maybe I'm just lame and have lost the knack...

(2) Collision detection/response could maybe use a bit of work, especially with the rabbit kick - I've hit when I should have missed a couple of times, and missed when I actually hit a few times more. Oh, and (2a) once, jumping away from a fight, I got punched in the back and (i) flew much further and (ii) took way more damage than seemed appropriate, given the relatively small closing velocity between the fist and my back. Actually, the same thing happens if I get rabbit kicked when I'm running away, now I come to think about it.

[macboy]

Three things I noticed:

- What does 'v' do? When you press it everybody freezes, and when you press it again everybody unfreezes and they all die. One thing I've noticed after doing that is no matter how I hit the enemies it didn't seem like they were losing blood.

- The speed of reversals seems to be a bit behind... for instance I pressed and released shift almost right before the other rabbit spin-kicked me yet it still hit me and nothing happened to him. :blink:

- Oh crap... forgot the third... I'll edit this if I remember.

And, as w_reade said, the collision detection seems to be off.

[David]

I think I'll save the spurting blood for when I get swords working :)

Right now I'm aiming for a semi-realistic blood system, i.e. realistically I would think if someone is beaten to death then they must have some kind of internal bleeding, but wouldn't actually be spurting blood everywhere, so I just have this kinda trickle from their nose and/or mouth. Btw has anybody done this before? Real-time blood flowing on the models I mean. Maybe it's just me but it seems like in most games, even ones with supposedly realistic gore like SOF2 the models never get blood on them, except a bullet hole if shot. I want to avoid over-the-top silly blood like in q3 but add more believable things like if you cut someone there should be some blood on your sword, and on you if they spray too much :blink:

I think I'll avoid severed limbs though, mainly because of technical difficulties and because that would just be kinda hard to do unless you had a chainsaw or huge battleaxe or something.

Theoretically if you hold shift and a direction while landing it will do a roll, unless I messed up the controls somewhere. :/ The collision response just adds a certain amount of velocity when you hit them, but I suppose for the punch attack and rabbit kick it would make more sense to just set the velocity to a certain amount because they're more front-and-back attacks then sweeping ones. *fixes* I'll see if I can get the rabbit kick to be more accurate... ok it's better now. You're right that everything should do less damage if you're moving away, I'll have to look into that.

V is meant to just freeze everything so I can take screenshots better, it seems to make people fall over but I'm not sure why :/

Right now they only bleed if they're actually killed. If they're just hit or knocked out they don't bleed. If you really want to kill them you can jump on their unconscious bodies a few times :sneaky: Or just damage them a bit and then do a rabbitkick.

Are you sure you're getting the timing right on the reversal? You have to release shift when he's in the middle of the kick and not before or after. If you try it in slow motion and it still doesnt work then something is wrong :/

[AJ Infinity]

If you hack enough times with a sword, you can cut off an arm. :)

I'm just being the Fantasy Warrior I was meant to be (as in, an Orc Grunt or Raider from WarCraft 3)

[David]

Ah ok :)

Btw I just remembered that if you try and counter, but miss then there's a short delay before you can do it again, to make it impossible to just jam on shift. That could be the problem.

[jamie]

One thing id like to see is some indication that they rabbit is stunned and not dead. Something like spinning birds around his head, but not that corney!

just a thought....

[erazorhead]

if you look close, they are breathing (you can tell from the chest rising and falling) if they are unconscious, but not if they're dead. correct me if i'm wrong here.

[David]

You got it :) Also when they're unconscious they have their eyes and mouth closed and arent as bloody

[David]

Update:
-Tweaked rabbitkick collision detection
-Changed collision response for rabbitkick and upunch
-Made AI a bit less stupid
-Added fighting stance
-Fixed bug with blood on non-nvidia cards
-Fixed pause when loading motionblur for first time
-Added 'tips' section to readme
-Changed collision detection with structures a bit

New build is at http://david.emuscene.com/Lugaru.sit

[ERaZer]

Bug! In the newest release, when I killed an enemy rabbit, the screen goes into a mode(I guess its supposed to be the slow mo mode that it goes shortly into when you kill someone) where it flickers horribly and it won't stop for a short while either.

[David]

That seems to happen on certain ATI cards when motion blur turns on :/ does it still happen if you turn blur off in the config?

[AJ Infinity]

David: Make blood spurt out when major blood vessels (like the aorta) are hit or when a bone is broken. Make blood spurt out with sword stabs (hacks don't produce alot of blood). I like the internal bleeding system.

Try to make the blood engine realistic. Check out a book on circulation in the body. Also, check out the blood in Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance for the PS2.

[Najdorf]

...:shock:
I didn' t think idev was a hiding place for so many aspirant Jack the Rippers...

WAHAHAHAHAHA.

[AJ Infinity]

Very funny. I'm just taking info from one of my school books (a section's on blood circulation)

[Darkgold]

I'm confused here, people keep talking about swords. I know David said he was going to add them in, but the way you guys are talking about it makes it sound like its already in one of the builds. Is it? I didn't see it.

[erazorhead]

Originally posted by AJ Infinity
David: Make blood spurt out when major blood vessels (like the aorta) are hit or when a bone is broken

i haven't read any books on blood circulation, but why would blood spurt out when a bone is broken

[Jake]

Originally posted by erazorhead
i haven't read any books on blood circulation, but why would blood spurt out when a bone is broken

Hehe...

David: The download keeps stalling for me... Dont worry I will have broadband tomorow for one day so I can download it :D

[skyhawk]

Originally posted by erazorhead
i haven't read any books on blood circulation, but why would blood spurt out when a bone is broken
If a bone is broken harder than a hairline fracture (enough to pierce the skin) blood will spurt because it has broken A LOT of blood vessels. Remember, there runs a blood vessel next to EVERY cell in the body

[David]

I haven't actually tried MK: deadly alliance but if its anything like the other ones... there's WAY too much blood :p

If you break someone's bone or hit them hard enough there would be massive internal bleeding, but that would only be visible as a bruise and/or coughing up blood, but you can't see bruises when you're furry :) Hitting someone in the head can cause bleeding because their skin presses up against their bones (skull, teeth, etc.) but I don't think you can cause people to bleed much otherwise by just punching them.

I don't have swords yet, but that will be my next step after adding a bit of scenery :)

[AJ Infinity]

If a complex fracture pierces the skin, blood spurts/floors out.

[w_reade]

I believe the term is "compound fracture".

[David]

A compound fracture breaks the skin but I don't think I really want to go there.:blink:

[erazorhead]

yeah i think broken bones sticking out of the flesh is probably beyond the scope of this project

[Najdorf]

yeah i think broken bones sticking out of the flesh is probably beyond the scope of this project :D Funny

[erazorhead]

although it would be sweet

[AJ Infinity]

I meant to say compound.

[Jake]

The download keeps stalling on me... I have tried 3 times on a dial up and It won't let me resume downloading after it crashes (2 different web browsers say complete at anywere from 1 to 6 megs)

[macboy]

Originally posted by Jake
The download keeps stalling on me... I have tried 3 times on a dial up and It won't let me resume downloading after it crashes (2 different web browsers say complete at anywere from 1 to 6 megs) Get Speed Download (link 3 pages back I think) or iGetter, both available from MacUpdate (http://www.macupdate.com).

[erazorhead]

since there seems to be a lot of download woes, i'll mirror the file and see if it makes a difference. Here's a link to the newest version (as of april 9)

http://www.rroland.net/misc/Lugaru.sit

any modem users who try this mirror, let me know if the download works better. if so, i'll try to leave it up and keep it updated with the newest versions.


blah blah blah more feedback:

when doing a counter escape (hitting shift to escape your enemy's counter) after the U punch attack, the enemy sometimes behaves strangely. one time, i punched, he countered, and i escaped, and then he just fell down as if someone had landed on his head. a minute later, he punched, i countered, and he escaped... and i fell through the ground (i was standing on a block, so i fell through the block and onto the ground 'inside'). a small bug that may or may not require attention.

(some of these i might have mentioned in our conversation, but anyways, to continue..)

i think the back handspring should be away+shift, instead of click, since it's not an attack.

when is it determined whether an attack is successful or not? is it right when the attack is started? because on a few occasions i have clearly avoided attacks but was hit by them anyways (handsprung away from a jumping kick, but when the handspring was done i flew sideways as if i had been hit, despite the enemy being a ways away by that point).

what determines when a rabbit goes unconscious? it seems random to me.

anything that tells how much life i have would be great. even if it was just a little number in the corner or something. for balance tweaking it seems like each character having a small number or life bar floating above their heads would be super nice. this could be re-used in the final game during a tutorial level, so people get a feel for how strong various attacks are.

more to come, probably...

[Jake]

Originally posted by erazorhead
since there seems to be a lot of download woes, i'll mirror the file and see if it makes a difference. Here's a link to the newest version (as of april 9)

http://www.rroland.net/misc/Lugaru.sit

any modem users who try this mirror, let me know if the download works better. if so, i'll try to leave it up and keep it updated with the newest versions.
more to come, probably...

Thanks, im downloading it right now :)

[David]

when doing a counter escape (hitting shift to escape your enemy's counter) after the U punch attack, the enemy sometimes behaves strangely. one time, i punched, he countered, and i escaped, and then he just fell down as if someone had landed on his head. a minute later, he punched, i countered, and he escaped... and i fell through the ground (i was standing on a block, so i fell through the block and onto the ground 'inside'). a small bug that may or may not require attention.

Hmm... *fixed* :)

i think the back handspring should be away+shift, instead of click, since it's not an attack.

Naw I kinda want to keep shift to mean 'crouch' as much as possible.

when is it determined whether an attack is successful or not? is it right when the attack is started? because on a few occasions i have clearly avoided attacks but was hit by them anyways (handsprung away from a jumping kick, but when the handspring was done i flew sideways as if i had been hit, despite the enemy being a ways away by that point).

It determines the target right when it starts, and then checks for collision at the end, so I have no idea why this happened unless somebody else hit you from the side.

what determines when a rabbit goes unconscious? it seems random to me.

anything that tells how much life i have would be great. even if it was just a little number in the corner or something. for balance tweaking it seems like each character having a small number or life bar floating above their heads would be super nice. this could be re-used in the final game during a tutorial level, so people get a feel for how strong various attacks are.

Ok, *adds a text health thingy next to the fps* :cool:

You have a maxhealth and a currenthealth, whenever you are hit your currenthealth goes down twice as much as your maxhealth and slowly regenerates. If your currenthealth goes below zero you are knocked out and if your max health goes below zero you die.

When you are hit while below a certain amount of health you start bleeding a bit, and if you die you bleed a lot

[David]

I was bored for about 10 minutes so I made some "art" (hehe) by freezing time, turning on motion blur and rotating around.

http://wolfire.emuscene.com/Trippyblur2.jpg
http://wolfire.emuscene.com/Trippyblur6.jpg
http://wolfire.emuscene.com/Trippyblur8.jpg
http://wolfire.emuscene.com/Trippyblur9.jpg
http://wolfire.emuscene.com/Trippyblur12.jpg

[erazorhead]

Originally posted by David
It determines the target right when it starts, and then checks for collision at the end, so I have no idea why this happened unless somebody else hit you from the side.

hmm that is possible... if it comes up again though i will let you know the exact circumstances


Ok, *adds a text health thingy next to the fps* :cool:

awesome, can't wait to see the next build (as always)


You have a maxhealth and a currenthealth, whenever you are hit your currenthealth goes down twice as much as your maxhealth and slowly regenerates. If your currenthealth goes below zero you are knocked out and if your max health goes below zero you die.

that is a pretty advanced, and realistic, system. pretty awesome. in the game maybe it would be cool to see a life bar kind of like in street fighter alpha... a main 'life' bar and then a smallish "stun" bar underneath ('stun' meaning consciousness in this case)

i have some new textures (reworked all the rabbit skins and improved the 'blood' targa a bit), next time i see you on AIM i will send them over to be included in the new version, if they're up to par. cool.

[ERaZer]

Ohh, those screenshots are pretty trippy... I liked the first one, it looked really cool.

I can't either wait for the next release.

[Shivers]

I like the screenshots. I love spending time in Lugaru trying to get a really cool "matrix" style screenshot. Like I said to you on IM, replays would be awesome. And an option for turning on slow motion would be handy too.

[David]

that is a pretty advanced, and realistic, system. pretty awesome. in the game maybe it would be cool to see a life bar kind of like in street fighter alpha... a main 'life' bar and then a smallish "stun" bar underneath ('stun' meaning consciousness in this case)

If I add a health bar it would probably be like that, but I'm thinking getting rid of a health bar altogether and just giving your guy different animations to show his health.

And an option for turning on slow motion would be handy too.

You can toggle slowmotion with 'b' right now, or do you mean an option to turn off the auto-slowmotion thingy for certain moves? I guess that would be good.

[AJ Infinity]

David: Camera rotations are eaaaasy in GL!!! Why didn't David add them in the first place? :D

[David]

huh?

[macboy]

Did you upload it again yet?

Here's 2 bloody screenshots I took (the same shot but at different angles):
http://www.silvernetwork.net/~quiksw/pic1.jpg
http://www.silvernetwork.net/~quiksw/pic2.jpg

David saw these already. :cool:

[AJ Infinity]

David: I met The Matrix style rotation and slowmo effect.

[David]

Ooooh

I didn't add automatic camera rotation because I figured it would get a bit repetitive after a while.

[erazorhead]

yeah it's easy enough to rotate the camera yourself. i'd rather maintain camera control during slow-motion parts

in this game, my character being unconscious is to gameplay what dead air is to radio : it makes me want to stop playing. my idea: when my character is unconscious, the screen starts to darken and get blurry. shaking the mouse and/or clicking the mouse button and/or keyboard fast enough 'fights off' the unconsciousness (and darkness/blurriness effect), eventually bringing my character back to full consciousness. this all takes place within 3-10 secs

this could also make use of the 'trippyblur' effect that you used for the screenshots above, or else maybe a modified version of it.

could be cool....

[macboy]

Doing rabbit kick seems to make you go through blocks...

Here's some screenshots:

http://www.silvernetwork.net/~quiksw/pic3.jpg - Actually rabbit kicking through the block

http://www.silvernetwork.net/~quiksw/pic4.jpg - Right after landing from kicking

http://www.silvernetwork.net/~quiksw/pic5.jpg - Same as 4 but from the other side

[David]

Well being unconscious is essentially the same as being dead, you're meant to respawn yourself :) Basically in the final game if you get knocked out it will probably have the same basic effect as being killed, except maybe you have to escape from prison or something instead of starting over.

I'll have to look into the going-through-blocks thing :/

[macboy]

My last ******** post for the night:

I was really bored (possibly more than David above) so I spent about 20 minutes making this handspring GIF animation. The colors are messed up because GIFs can only handle 256 colors.

http://www.silvernetwork.net/~quiksw/handspring.gif

It's sad, isn't it? :zzz:

[David]

Hehe neat

BTW how exactly did you kick through the block? I can't seem to reproduce it :blink:

[Jake]

WOW! I just got around to playing it and its awesome! It looks like a commercial game (well the starting of on), what do you plan on doing with it, shareware?

[David]

Thanks :)

Yup, I intend to release it as shareware.

[AJ Infinity]

I found a bug that, when you kill the bad guy wabbit, he sinks into the ground like this (http://www.geocities.com/ajinfinityx/downloads/lugaru_bug.jpg).

Note: Contol-click on the link and select Copy Link to Clipboard. Then paste the link in the address bar and access the picture. I'm on GeoCities and you can directly link to files that are not HTML files from other sites. Weird.

[David]

That should only happen when you press 'e' and a ton of snow falls on him :) Did this just kinda spontaneously happen?

[Darkgold]

where do we download it from, your site is down

[erazorhead]

the url is changed to
http://wolfire.emuscene.com/Lugaru.sit


or you can download it from my site, mentioned here before
http://www.rroland.net/misc/Lugaru.sit

[macboy]

Originally posted by David
BTW how exactly did you kick through the block? I can't seem to reproduce it :blink: Just start running then do a rabbit kick right before you come to the block. On mine if you do that, he'll fly through it. :sorry:

[AJ Infinity]

Originally posted by David
That should only happen when you press 'e' and a ton of snow falls on him :) Did this just kinda spontaneously happen?

Spontaneously, yes.

[Darkgold]

Originally posted by erazorhead
the url is changed to
http://wolfire.emuscene.com/Lugaru.sit


or you can download it from my site, mentioned here before
http://www.rroland.net/Lugaru.sit
:( Niether of those work, i get a file not found error for both...the game gods must not want me to play it...:(

[skyhawk]

Originally posted by Darkgold
:( Niether of those work, i get a file not found error for both...the game gods must not want me to play it...:(
find a link earlier in the thread, those work.

[erazorhead]

sorry, it is actually

http://www.rroland.net/misc/Lugaru.sit

and i thought i checked the other one but i guess it doesn't work

[David]

New build up at http://wolfire.emuscene.com/Lugaru.sit

Changes:
*fixed crashing
*fixed kicking through blocks
*fixed/changed blood
*added auto-slomo toggle
*added textual health display
*sped up some collision detection
*added camera shaking when hit

[erazorhead]

new build mirrored at http://www.rroland.net/misc/Lugaru.sit

[macboy]

I think you should make the camera shaking a little more noticeable. I didn't know it was happening until I read the feature list again.

[David]

I'll probably make it a scalable option :)

I don't want it to be too noticeable by itself, it should just kinda add to the feel. I.e. I want people to say "Wow that was a solid hit" and not "Wow the camera is shaking" :cool:

[David]

New build up at http://wolfire.emuscene.com/Lugaru.sit

Changes:
*fixed a memory leak
*added crouching to reduce dizzyness
*added weird fire effect (http://wolfire.emuscene.com/Fire5.jpg)

[AJ Infinity]

The fire effect should only appear when a wolf uses a flame thrower on Turner.

[David]

I can't actually think of any time it would be in the game, I just saw postal 2 and wanted to do a fire effect :)

[macboy]

I like the fire effect! :wow: Maybe it could be some super powerup that hurts enemies when you're around them. :cool: Or a powerup that makes you stronger and faster, because that's what the fire seems to make him seem like. :)

[erazorhead]

yeah the fire effect is great, i would really like to see it find its way into the game somehow. maybe an 'overdrive' that makes attacks do more damage, or (even better) a temporary 'fire shield' that reflects 25% (or more) of melee attack damage back to the attacker. or maybe it could just do a set amount of damage to each attacker for each attack.

if neither of those sound good, maybe you could still use it on a boss (a large mythicalish wolf that was aflame during its periods of invulnerability; attacking it while it was on fire would knock you back and light you on fire too for a couple seconds, dealing you some damage)

or maybe a (the final?) boss battle could take place during a forest fire? would rendering that much fire throw the framerate to crap? on my comp (max detail), fire knocks the framerate down by about 20

[AJ Infinity]

David: DON'T use the flame shield thing. It's already in Sonic and H2O. :) Although going ahead and doing the flame sheild won't cause me to give Lugaru a bad review. :D :ninja:

[erazorhead]

AJ, i assure you, everything in every new game has been used before in SOME sense or another. that's like saying 'dont use a rabbit for a main character because "BUGS BUNNY'S CRAZY CASTLE" for NES already used a rabbit for a main character.' so what!? the difference is in the execution of the idea, not just having a "flame shield" in the game in the first place. and the execution would be totally diferent.

Sonic the Hedgehog : "flame shield" makes character invulnerable to flame-based attacks. Also gives character ability to dash in the air and break certain walls.
My Lugaru suggestion : "flame shield" damages melee attackers.

as you can see they both have a "flame shield" per se but they both affect the gameplay in totally different ways. i can't add h2o to the comparisons because i have not played it, but i would guess that it is not exactly the same either.

sorry if this comes off as really defensive... my idea(s) are probably not the hallmarks of originality but i think they could possibly add to the game. also my last twenty dollars just dissapeared from my bank account and i'm a little antsy.

[AJ Infinity]

I was just being funny in the post above.

BTW, Sonic's flame shield had a rush attack too.

[David]

Heya, I've been away for a little while in San Diego but found a handy Apple Store :)

Anyways I'm undecided as to whether I'll have magic in Lugaru, I might just use flames for flaming arrows and burning buildings or something, but then it would also be fun to have flaming shields and swords and fireballs and things.

We'll see :cool:

[Najdorf]

Originally posted by David
Anyways I'm undecided as to whether I'll have magic in Lugaru, I might just use flames for flaming arrows and burning buildings or something, but then it would also be fun to have flaming shields and swords and fireballs and things.

We'll see :cool:
:blink:
...
<heavily shocked>
oh, my, this guy IS cool...
<\heavily shocked>

[David]

Ok I'm back :)

Went on a brief coding spree due to computer withdrawal...

Added:
-Dynamic music
-Trees
-Basic 'patrol' AI
-A basic level loading system (added a couple mini-levels to test it out)

Levels load very slowly in this build so it might not be too fun, or might not work at all, but anyways if you'd like to test it's here (http://wolfire.emuscene.com/Lugaru.sit)

[erazorhead]

the levels didn't seem to load too slow for me. this is excellent.

so, on with the feedback...

- the standard non-confrontation song is beautiful. especially feels appropriate on the snow levels. where did you get it?

- AI seems generally solid. can they 'hear' footsteps?

- AI jumps to its own death kinda often on the floating platform level.

- it feels like flipping in the air should have some purpose. maybe you could dodge an arrow while in midair by flipping just before it hits you. or maybe it is just for re-orienting yourself? i hesitate to say you should have to flip to be able to jump on fallen enemies (idea stolen from oni) but still it feels like there should be a reason to flip. besides looking cool.