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Work in Progress / [RUN 'N' GUN] - 3rd Person Shooter WIP

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hmm
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Posted: 1st Nov 2009 22:10 Edited at: 3rd Nov 2009 01:18
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Hello. I am recently graduated, recently unemployed and therefore have lots of time on my hands with which I should really be looking for a job.

Instead, I have decided to focus my efforts on watching The West Wing and producing a fun 3rd person platformer/shooter, putting to work a load of code thats been sat in my Projects folder for years.

[RUN 'N' GUN] (working title) will be a basic 3rd person shooter/platformer, heavily influence by the likes of GTA, Mercenaries and other highly explosive 3rd person games. At the moment the demo consists of a rather basic looking enviroment and character, but you can run, jump, shoot and change between 5 weapons (the standard set of a pistol, shotgun, ak47, sniper rifle and rpg). Whilst its not much of a looker yet I do intend to update the graphics when the game engine is complete.



Note: It looks a lot better in motion with the bullets flying, the stick man running and jumping in all directions and the guns kicking back when you fire. Also got some meaty sounds for the guns too.

Anyway, heres a demo. DOWNLOAD IT AND PLAY IT AND TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK!!!..... Thank You

[DEMO UPDATED!!! - NOW INCLUDES AN EMENY A.I WHO HUNTS YOU DOWN, THEN DOES... NOTHING!]

http://www.lukeoc.co.uk/temp/3PE.zip

CONTROLS:

WASD - move
Mouse - look
LMB - fire weapon
1-5 - change weapon
CTRL - crouch (cant move whilst crouching)
ESC - quit
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Zotoaster
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Posted: 1st Nov 2009 22:24
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I like the controls. Very smooth and easy to use. I also like the way you've achieved running and shooting at the same time.

A few pointers, most of which you've probably already considered:
- Put a limit on how much you can look up and down
- Smooth the transitions between animations, such as walk to run, or changing guns
- The shadow should tilt with the ground, but, that's assuming you won't be changing to an actual shadow system later.

Good work

"everyone forgets a semi-colon sometimes." - Phaelax
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mYsT!C
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Posted: 1st Nov 2009 23:17
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good work like to see more !

one thing: when i used the rocket launcher and aimed into the sky the missile flew backwards into the floor o.O!
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Lukas W
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Posted: 2nd Nov 2009 00:24
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It was rather fun to play, even though there wasn't much to do except run and gun

It would be pretty cool if you kept this graphical style, but maybe with a depth map shader or something. That way, you have less media to do, but it would still look insanely awesome.

I can definitely see this as a physics game though, will you be adding Newton or DarkPhysics? And jet packs! Wrooom!

A mod accidentally your signature
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RUCCUS
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Posted: 2nd Nov 2009 01:53 Edited at: 2nd Nov 2009 01:55
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Although its pretty basic you've already got a great character style and game-play feel. Look into adding weapon recoil, that will up the control feel even more. So firing a rocket for example would recoil your weapon into aiming 10 or 20 pixels above it's original location.

One thing I've always liked with weapon recoil is adding a system where the character automatically goes back to their original aim after the recoil, but slowly. Kind of like the character is regaining focus. This way if the user clicks the mouse a bunch of times, they'll go way off target, but if they take more time and wait between each shot they'll maintain their shot as the character will keep returning to his original aim.
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Dr Tank
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Posted: 2nd Nov 2009 02:45
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That's really cool. Has a great feel to it, and workings are solid. I'd be proud of this. Has a lot of potential.

Obviously you could add more animation transitions, like changing direction, turning on the spot, landing after jumping, or whatever, or moves like crouch when running = dive or roll, but it's just cool fluff and a big job.

Some easier fluff which i imagine you're adding anyway is stuff like bullet holes/ marks, and the rocket launcher causing an explosion.

I agree with other people about having gun accuracy/randomness- you should play with this. It's like in real life, if you empty the magazine on an AK47, most of the shots won't hit what you're aiming at, unless you're up close. Not so sure whether the error should always just decay to an aiming direction which is totally unaffected by recoil/whatever. There should be some wandering in that too. Also your aim could move a bit when you run.

I wish this engine was mine! I'd make EDF2017 with hot babes vs zombies in it. Unimaginative i know.

SUPER WEBSITE 22G
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hmm
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Posted: 2nd Nov 2009 14:27
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Thanks for all the feedback guys. Have thought a bit about aiming accuracy and it'll be reall easy to implement. But first I'm going to tackle the HUGE tasking of implementing enemies and AI, so I have something to test the weapons on.

@ Zotoaster - Thanks for the tips. Do plan to address them all, though not yet sure how I'll tackle smooth animations. Must admit I have avoided animated models in most of my projects so far, and don't really know how to implement smoothness. Advice would be MUCH appreceiated!

@ mYsT!C - Yeah, have noticed the 'backward bullets' bug. Its related to the fact that the aiming system uses 'Pick Object', so that when the camera is inside the object, the point that the bullets are aimed towards is behind the player character! This should be solvable if I implement code to keep the camera outside of objects.

Due to the enormity of the next task (implementing AI, enemies and producing an editor to generate AI path nodes), it may be a while before the next big demo. However, it should be awesome.

Thanks again for the comments. I really enjoy feedback. Especially when its good.
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Butter fingers
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Posted: 2nd Nov 2009 18:13
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very Nice,

The animation is top notch, I take it that those are DB primitives being moved by something procedural? They look very smooth!

I have 2 crits.

1) the animation is smooth but the transition between jump and move is jarring. Especially when jumping a long way, I expoected the guy to crouch a little on impact.

2) the accuracy randomisation is only positive, so the bullets only go to the top right of the screen. You need to randomise negatively too so that the bullets spray! This is particularly evident on the pistol, because the X/Z randomisation is never negative, it looks like the gun is shooting diagonally!

Top work so far though, you seem to have a solid engine there!

I want robotic legs.
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RUCCUS
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Posted: 2nd Nov 2009 19:16
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A year or so ago I was experimenting with programmed-animations. It worked pretty good. Basically you skin your mesh to a skeleton, but instead of animating it inside 3ds max or whatever you're using, you write a simple animator tool that lets you set the limb positions / rotations for every frame on your own. You make your engine interpolate these animations so you dont have to animate every key frame, as the engine will fill in the blanks, just like DBP normally does with bone animation. But the advantage is you now have the ability to modify your limb positions inside DBP and blend your animations together. IIRC Wolf's animation plugin lets you do this with less hassle.

With that in place you could have different limbs performing different animations at the same time.
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hmm
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Posted: 3rd Nov 2009 01:24 Edited at: 3rd Nov 2009 01:25
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[[DEMO UPDATE]]

Just to bring you're attention to the fact I've updated the demo. Spent a few hours adding simple path finding AI, using an old A* function I had hidden away.

It may occasionally look like the enemy is just pointing at you then running forward (which is in fact the case when you can see eachother), but when he cant see you he is using following a path around the level objects until he can see you again! A bit buggy, but runs quickly and gets the job done. May tweak it further at a later date, once combat AI has been implemented perhaps.

Hope you enjoy the company!

@ Butter fingers - Thanks for the crit. With reference to crit 2, bullet aiming is randomised in negative and positive, but bullets appear to be moving up and right simple because the aiming reticule (not yet displayed), is positioned a little up and right of the player character. Will definately put some work into improving the jumping animation and I do want to add a landing anim, but am unsure as to whether this will be easy to implement.

Keep the crits coming!
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Bizar Guy
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Posted: 3rd Nov 2009 04:23
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File does not exist at line 39

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Butter fingers
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Posted: 3rd Nov 2009 12:30
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Hmm,

Glad it was of help. On a further play through I realised you were right, the bullets were ok. If I were you maybe move the camera so that it is a bit further right of the player. I think that because the camera is centred on the player, it gives and optical illusion that the bullets are off. Think gears of war, where the player gun is centre screen?

I'm going to download and check out the ai later on after work.

As a point. In the games I've done, I do a fall calculation, so that when the player is at the apex of his jump it ray casts down. If the raycast goes beyond a certain threshold, it knows it needs to play a heavy landing animation on contact with the floor.

With your animation engine, you could probably just make the torso sink a little bit as the player lands and keep the running the same. This would give a nice, falling-on-the-run effect?

I'm making a 3rd person shooter too, so this is being watched with great interest!

I want robotic legs.
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hmm
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Posted: 3rd Nov 2009 12:46
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@ Bizar Guy - Thats wierd. I've downloaded the file I put up and ran it ok. Maybe try downloading it again. You seem to be missing the "test_level.x" file in the "media/models/" folder.

@ BOTB Developer - Thanks for the advice on the animations. May play around with it later today. And will add an aiming reticule and see how it looks when I put the camera a bit more off centre.

Next big step may be a tedious one. Now I've added some simple AI the code is spiralling out of control. Therefore, I may need a day or so of code cleanup. All in aid of making a nice, neat product. Also need to expand the level editor... Very exciting
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Butter fingers
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Posted: 3rd Nov 2009 14:51
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BOTB Developer.... it's Butterfingers... BOTB is one of those forum titles from my glory days on FPSC, LOL!

I want robotic legs.
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French gui
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Posted: 3rd Nov 2009 15:13
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My name is... User !
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hmm
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Posted: 3rd Nov 2009 16:15
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oops, copied wrong bit!
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Butter fingers
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Posted: 3rd Nov 2009 16:18
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Hmm, if you're interested I posted a WIP of my 3rd Person shooter HATE, check it out, I'd be interested to know what you think!
(ps, if you feel this is spamming your thread I'll delete it, just let me know)..

Oh, and ... where did you get your wicked gun sounds?!

I want robotic legs.
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hmm
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Posted: 3rd Nov 2009 20:34
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http://www.flashkit.com/

Loads of free sound fx and loops. Some great quality, some not so much.

Just added a whole lot more to the enemy AI. They now move/strafe and shoot without falling off anything! And I also have multiple enemies with different weapons running smoothly. Its all very exciting!
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hmm
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Posted: 11th Nov 2009 23:42
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NEW SCREENSHOT! Showing off the development since my last post. Demo will follow soon.

The visual style has evolved alot since last time, cycling through countless iterations before reaching the style demonstrated above. Nice and clean, with some solid shader effects. May implement a little bloom if it doesnt kill performance.

Game mechanics have come on leaps and bounds too. Enemies die, rockets explode, theres a temporary crosshair, ai is better, and the level editor lets you define ai path nodes and position enemies for quick loading into the game!

NEW DEMO SOON
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hmm
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Posted: 11th Nov 2009 23:44
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also, the demo level above is a big oil tanker. have a bit of an oil theme in the current storyboard...
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Bizar Guy
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Posted: 12th Nov 2009 02:59
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Worked fine once I extracted it.

Not much to say more than has already said, though the new level look much improved!

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