[X9] Outbreak – (New) DTO Entry 2011
TEASER / TRAILER
Developers
Hockeykid
Kravenwolf
Engine
V1.19/custom source mod
Latest Video Dev. Update
Obligatory In-Game Screenshot (Updated Nov. 6th)
Project Overview
Hockeykid and I decided to work together on another FPS Creator game and see what we can come up with using the current source. After tossing back and forth ideas for bit (rail shooter, 2D side scroller, and a few others), we decided to see if we could pull off a 3D top-down shooter in FPS Creator.
The game mechanics should be pretty straightforward for this project—the camera should always remain locked above the player character, and the enemy AI should target said character. The game should be wave-based; the player needing to survive so many rounds in order to complete the mission. Airdrops or care packages containing new weapons and additional ammo should be rewarded as the player kills a specific number of infected. Allies should assist the player during larger hordes. Incorporating “special infected” into the waves is still being considered.
Story
Nothing less than what you might expect from a zombie shooter. The idea for this game is to get the player focused more on the actual shooter aspect rather than following an in-depth story background. But, we’ll still have one worked in. In summary, you and the remaining members of your Task Force team carry out your primary mission objective to eliminate all infected within your mission area. Your team extracts in the morning, or 24 minutes after wave one (8 hours x 3 minutes real time per game hour).
DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL
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Development Day #1 - Saturday, Nov. 5th
Part I. Environment
After deciding on the game concept with hockeykid and picking a setting for the game to take place, I quickly threw together a small scene in Blender and then separated the meshes in order to import the level into FPS Creator so I could test the primary game mechanics in progress.
Part II. Programming
In the mean time, hockeykid started on the source modification using the version 1.19 source. First, he began rewriting/adding several new camera commands in order to achieve the top-down perspective without any collision issues or AI problems.
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Development Day #2 - Sunday, Nov. 6th
Part I. Environment
Created a few new temporary meshes/entities in Blender and got them imported into FPS Creator. Particularly a single-floor brick building which I used to help enclose the test area a bit better. This should come in handy when it’s time to test AI confrontations. Once the engine reaches it’s near end development, I can begin working on the final 3D assets for the game. Until then, it saves time to use temporary placeholders while I help hockeykid test his newly implemented features. Also applied the “bleached” post processing shader.
Part II. Programming
Quote: "Characters and dynamic entities now get their Light Source shader value from their closest light source, rather than being weighted toward the player. Prevents characters and entities from glowing at a distance. Can also be used to cast accurate character shadows in shaders that support planar shadows.
--From V1.19 Notes"
Hockeykid implemented a flashlight into the V1.19 source similar to the one used in Fenix Mod. The flashlight follows the player’s entity position and can be toggled on/off with the F key. After a bit of tweaking, the light affects the character shaders applied to the Zombie Apocolypse enemies. The next step is to throw the planar shadow information into the characters’ .fx files in order to have casting accurate character shadows.
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Development Days #3 and #4 - Monday, Nov. 7th and Tuesday Nov. 8th
Part I. Environment
-Created various newspaper overlays and low-poly aluminum cans with 3 texture alterations to help clutter the streets without adding too many additional polygons to the level. Also added a new material and soundest to the material index library to go along with the aluminum can entities. Now, when the player ‘kicks’ a can on the street, the cans make a realistic ‘can kick’ sound in return.
-Created an intersection segment set and modified the existing road and sidewalk segment meshes to address collision issues shown in previous tests. Also reduced the polygons on said segment meshes by deleting all unseen faces.
Part II. Enemies
-Added illumination maps to all of the mob zombies from the Zombie Apocalypse Model Pack and adjusted their specular maps in order to set them up to use planar shadows.
-Added Dark AI to the mob zombies.
-Added a custom destroy script to the mob zombies. Dead zombies now disappear when they are out of the player’s view (off camera). There is also an override to make them disappear after 15 seconds in case the player doesn’t move position.
Part III. Programming
-Added Anistrophic Filtering (enhances the image quality of textures on surfaces that are at oblique viewing angles).
-Refined player’s character movement—use the WASD keys to move the player character up, down, left and right, and the mouse to rotate the player’s view.
-Synched animations with movement (strafing animation now plays when character moves from left to right).
-Player’s character cannot run backwards or when strafing from left to right.
-Added shooting and reload animations to player’s character.
-Added code to support the actual mechanics for shooting, reloading, damage, scorch, debris, and etc.
-Worked fire alliterations into new entity player mechanics.
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Development Days #5-7 – Friday-Sunday, Nov. 11th-13th
We’ve managed to get a lot of work done on the game this weekend in all aspects of design. A BETA release at the end of this week still looks promising. Programming is in the number 1 slot for this update because that’s the hardest category we hit this weekend with progress. With most of the game mechanics now in operation, this week Kravenwolf will spend his time on the project refining and finishing the OUTDOOR map design for the level that will be featured in the BETA.
Programming:
-Added time cycle (day/night lapse). Ambience is now set on a timer which progresses the “day” from high noon to dusk in realtime.
-Updated enemy AI where enemy can hear player gunfire and be drawn to that location.
-Added multiple weapons for player entity and ability to switch player entity weapons [via inventory; see below].
-Added new pick up mechanics for player entity.
-Added ammo system for player entity (includes ammo pooling for weapons that use the same caliber).
-Added reload mechanics, animation, and sound to player entity (will synched reloading sounds with animations in Audacity later).
-Added weapon swapping (player can now swap weapons found during gameplay with a weapon in their inventory, and then pick up the same weapon they swapped out if they want to do so).
-Updated flashlight (fixed bug causing shadered objects to stay lit when flashlight was off and dimmed brightness.)
-Added basic inventory mechanics:
-Player can only carry two weapons in their inventory at any given time.
-Player can switch his weapons via inventory select.
-Turned off object culling for player entity (player entity no longer disappears when entering an enclosed segment room).
-Added investigate mechanics (player can now explore the environment via interactive HUDS and sound effects).
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Kravenwolf
