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Work in Progress / 3D fighting game - Dark Dragon

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Design Runner
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Posted: 20th Apr 2012 21:30
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Sure, I'll send it over tomorrow as I am working on another project atm. The mast is a separate object from the boat, so you could make it breakable. If you judge size based on the barrels and crates the area should be large enough to fight on.

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Dimis
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Posted: 27th Apr 2012 15:10
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Finishing moves added!

Took a little time to find a way to make all the splatter effects, but I got something done. Each fighter will have a finishing move. Simple stuff only, not like the extreme fatalities in Mortal Kombat 2011.
Needs more work for the blood to look real, and some texture blending to make the killed fighters appear covered in blood, because everything looks like B-Movie effect now.

Doesn't look good yet...


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baxslash
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Posted: 27th Apr 2012 15:13
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Looks suitably gruesome

Might be better if the blood mostly comes from the neck rather than the head though?

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Dimis
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Posted: 27th Apr 2012 15:17
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Oops.. Just realized that. The blood emits from the wrong object when player 1 kills player 2!
I will fix that.


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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 29th Apr 2012 15:55
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Looks good! Any more demos?

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Mastas Inc
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Posted: 29th Apr 2012 18:32
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Yo Dimis would you mind if i ask for some advice in creating a fighing engine. i'm stumped at how i should start the coding. also what program you used to make the backgrounds for your game. i would appreciate the information
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Dimis
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Posted: 30th Apr 2012 01:28 Edited at: 30th Apr 2012 01:31
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Fatality time...
Improved things a little, neck and head bleed better now. Still the bleed effect doesn't look very good but I am working on it. At the time of the final blow the screen goes red, to make the effect more dramatic.
Just completed the first fatality animation, the longest animation I made for the game. This guy slices the neck of the opponent with his weapon and then kicks the head away.


@Pincho Paxton
I plan to post a new demo but it will take more time than I expected. I am trying to perfect things. And the transition to a fully 3d game was a bit tricky. For the next demo I want to have characters that will be 100% completed. There will be only 2 or 3 characters in the demo.

@Mastas Inc
All my backgrounds are created in 3d Canvas pro 7.
About giving you some advice to make a fighting engine... Well first of all I can't offer a general advice about how you should code your own. I can only offer information of how I created my game only. It is all relative to the experience that you have and the way that you work. Keep in mind that I have been working on my game for many years. I started making a 2d game in Visual Basic probably 6-7 years back and when I decided to move on to 3d (Dark Basic seemed like the perfect choice because of my experience in VB) I had a basic concept to work with.
And I am still learning.
My best advise is that you shouldn't try to make your game directly. Try to make something more simple first. A simple program with one character will be a good beginning. Find the best way to add your animations, your controls for your character and a simple collision system. Keep in mind that if you want to start building on that program later, you need to have a good base. Since you will want to add more characters you have to use types to store your characters data, not individual variables for each fighter, so you can use the same basic code to control the behaviour for all your fighters. You can't use seperate code for each fighter, it is not efficient enough.
Anyway it is getting a little late here and I can't explain what I have been writing for the last 1,5 year in 12000 lines of code now. Probably I have not helped with this post. My question is what is your experience in making an action game?


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Mastas Inc
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Posted: 30th Apr 2012 09:50
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to be honest i'm just starting out in basic programming. i'm currently going to school for C/C++/Java programming and i heard that basic is a good starting ground for programming. i have little or no experience in programming but im famiiar with some of the commands. i also have both volumes of hands on darkbasic pro to learn more about the commands, im a quick learner when focus my mind to something. anyway my goal is to create a fighting game as it always been a dream of mine to do so when i was a kid. i know it would be hard and time consuming but i will stop at nothing to do so. since i work for myself i have all the time in the work to achieve this goal. Thanks Dimis
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Agent Dink
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Posted: 1st May 2012 00:44
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I want to see a video of that fatality in action. Looks awesome!

http://lossofanonymity.wordpress.com
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Dimis
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Posted: 2nd May 2012 16:07
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Fatality in action... (wip)

Still need to fix the blood particles because that blood "fountain" doesn't look good. And the rotation of the head needs adjustment, because it rotates in 1 axis and it looks like the old 2d Mortal Kombat games.



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Design Runner
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Posted: 10th May 2012 00:12
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o yah the model, i'll send it right now. Sorry about that, slipped my mind.

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Dimis
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Posted: 4th Jun 2012 14:42
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I had to take a little break from game making.
But the last 2 weeks I did stuff. Everything is again under development...
Animations are improved. Added more key frames to every animation, to make motions more detailed and realistic, as much as I can at least.
Got 2 totally new fighters finished and one 1 more under development. After completing the 3rd and finalize AI and the gameplay I will get the new demo ready. I think that everything looks and plays better now.
Also added a new blocking system. I am trying to make blocking look more real. It is hard to synchronize blocking and attacking animations but it doesn't look too bad.
I uploaded a small video showing new stuff and a bit of work I did with the camera.


Also progressed my Mortal Kombat 1 remake. Anyone who wants to take a look I have some videos in my Youtube channel.



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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 4th Jun 2012 15:09
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It's all looking very professional. I still don't know how you got Poser to work with DBPro.

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Dimis
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Posted: 4th Jun 2012 15:19
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It is a long walk...
I am only animating in Poser.
1st exporting animation to .bvh.
2nd importing .bvh and exporting to .x from 3d canvas.
3rd attaching animation to models with an editor I made in dbPro. Also there I store data for animation speed, duration, active frames and more stuff like that.
I tried to make a custom exporter from .bvh to .x but failed miserably..


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TheComet
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Posted: 4th Jun 2012 21:35
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Can he lose his heart and fight on? LIKE A BAUSS?!

TheComet


TimePlan : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmuAKJolqASndEVYOWMxb3l2OWV0UkV1anRSczZScHc
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Dimis
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Posted: 5th Jun 2012 00:17
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Quote: "Can he lose his heart and fight on? LIKE A BAUSS?!"

Who,Kano? Sure! Mortal Kombat fighters are tough. The other one can also rip out his own heart, for fair-play. No problem.



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Olby
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Posted: 5th Jun 2012 01:17 Edited at: 5th Jun 2012 01:18
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Quote: "Who,Kano? Sure! Mortal Kombat fighters are tough. The other one can also rip out his own heart, for fair-play. No problem."


That would be heartless.

Anyway, great work so far - thumbs up!


Intel Core2Duo 2.2GHZ, 2GB, GeForce 8600M GT 1280MB, Windows Vista Ultimate SP2, PureBasic 4.60 + DarkGDK 2.0
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Dimis
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Posted: 5th Jun 2012 01:24
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Quote: "That would be heartless"

True...


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Takis76
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Posted: 5th Jun 2012 02:02 Edited at: 5th Jun 2012 02:05
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Hello Dimitri,

You have made perfect work here.

I am creating one rpg the forth of the series of classic dungeon crawler Eye of the Beholder IV.

When I was started, I was programmed completely with DarkBasic Pro.

Now I use 3 Programming Languages to create it.

PureBasic with DarkGDK (DarkBasic Pro for PureBasic) and Blitz Max.

I was used 4 Languages.

1: DarkBasic
2: PureBasic
3: Blitz Max
4: Visual Basic 6 (Unstable now)

But Visual Basic 6 is very old and unstable for new versions of windows and I stopped the development. So the first 3 does me work perfect so far.

The main rpg engine was created with DarkGDK and some other parts of the game like file access , music and encryption was made with PureBasic and the Level editor with Blitz Max.

My latest post is here:
http://www.purebasic.fr/english/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=47548

But soon the Eye of the Beholder IV will have its own home.
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Fallout
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Posted: 5th Jun 2012 12:46 Edited at: 5th Jun 2012 12:47
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Hi Dimis. I've been checking on the progress of this constantly and your comment on Carnage prodded me to check back. It's looking awesome.

I too am going to have to work hard on blood effects and am trying to come up with a really good way to do it. Overgrowth seems to have a system that I like the look of. I won't embed the video as I don't want others to be distracted from you game, but have a look here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cXgvW_yHFQ

I think their less is more approach looks good for their game at least. I want maximum gore, and I think you do too, but their thin streams of blood with a lot of speed give that "arterial spray" feel. I think the idea is to have the first spray particle come out fast, and then maybe use a decreasing velocity with a pulse (sine wave maybe), to produce particles that appear to match the dying heart beat. When they hit the ground, they'll leave a line.

The blood running down the surfaces is really good and would look awesome in your game. If you could have a stream running down the chest of a decapitated fighter, that'd make the blood so much more real. I'd like to do something similar in Carnage, but how is the challenge! Looking at the Overgrowth video, it looks like at the point of the wound, you move down on the y-axis casting rays (probably using the wounds normal as the directon of the ray). Where the ray collides with the model, add another blood decal, and keep these all orientated/glued to the model.

I might start playing with this tomorrow. Either way mate, the game is looking great. I will continue to keep an eye on progress.

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Dimis
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Posted: 5th Jun 2012 22:28
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@Takis76
Hi Taki! I just saw the thread for your game. Looks good. I haven't played many RPG games, I guess I was more of a tv console type gamer, played mostly action based games but I can appreciate the work you did with the game. I am downloading the demo. I will try it and I will email you about it soon. (Are we the only Greek geeks in the forum?)

@Fallout
Thanks for the good words!
Now about the linked video. First, oversized rabbits, fighting each other, using martial arts? Awesome! I want that game.

Blood effects trouble me too. I am still using a very simple particle system that I developed from the beginning of the game. Time to update it somehow. I see what you are talking about in that video, it looks very good. I want to put something like that in my game too. And it will sure fit in Carnage perfectly. But I don't know how to do any of those effects. I am developing a new blood particle system to produce the effect of the blood spray, I think that when it is finished it will turn out good, but making the blood stream and the blood stains on surfaces, that is a challenge indeed. Still I think that I can do something on their faces, some blood running from the nose and the mouth.
For now, I am using simple texture blending to produce my effects so I just add a static blood stain on the fighters. Pretty much what was used for the older PS2 Mortal Kombat games. Which reminds me that they used a very interesting "blood drop" particle system. They had particles sliding on the fighter's bodies like drops but still they were not creating a stream.
My current particle system is very simple but not too effective. When the particles hit the ground they scale (increase x,z scale, minimizing y scale) and they become transparent until they disappear. That creates a kind of blood pool effect but to make it look good I have to use a big number of particles. That is not very effective, especially for older computers, it can create big slowdown.
Anyway I want to look into the subject, that video gave me a new perspective, but it is good to know that you will look into it too.


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DevilLiger
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Posted: 5th Jun 2012 23:03 Edited at: 5th Jun 2012 23:08
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great work. Your blocking system looks incredible. Looks more advance than most or all of the fighting games these days imo.
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Dimis
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Posted: 5th Jun 2012 23:23
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Thanks DevilLiger!
I needed to add something unique. But still that blocking system is not perfect. It is very hard to synchronize the blocking and the attack animations correctly. If I had thought about that system from the beginning of development I could have done better work with it. Another problem is limbs intersecting each other but that happens briefly and it is not very noticeable. I am trying to fix those problems with extra code.
Anyway that game is not what I would really like to do with a fighting game. This blocking system is just one of many ideas that I have to make something genuine. I guess that have gained enough experience now. After finishing this I plan to do something totally different and more real.


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Fallout
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Posted: 5th Jun 2012 23:31
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Hi Dimis. Yeah, the blood dripping effect is quite difficult. I've been discussing it on the DBPro forum and it's dawning on me that it's very challenging. The difficult bit is identifying exactly where the wound is for Carnage. For your game it may be a little more straight forward, because with the decapitation for example, you know where the wound is and also the orientation of the head on the floor (it's all done in the animation, isn't it? So it's not random)

I think the basic principle is to have another texture layer which is a blank texture and is specifically for the blood. Then you can blend this in with the other texture layers. Then you just modify the blood texture, drawing red lines on it or pasting blood splats onto it. Because you know where the neck hole is on your texture, and what direction is 'down', you can probably draw onto the texture in a preset place and in the right direction. At least, that's the theory!

One thing I am doing with Carnage to try and get good blood effects is have 3 different blood particles. I have a "spray" particle, which appeared at the bullet wound for a split second, and is like a shower of blood. It just scales up and fades out, just like the wall hit debris effects for bullets. Then I create a "fly" particle, just like yours which fly through the air until they hit a surface. When they hit I destroy that particle and create a "pool" particle. That works just how you've done it, and slowly scales up to give the impression of it spreading out, but it's significantly larger, so I only need one. It works quite well, but I'm going to try and improve it.

Anyway, it's a tough one. I think simulating blood/liquids is a tough graphical challenge, but you have the graphics looking really solid at the moment so I'm sure you'll crack it. I'll keep checking back to see what you come up with.

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Dimis
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Posted: 6th Jun 2012 00:01
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Yes, apparently this whole thing is very challenging but I think that we will work something out. The extra texture layer for the blood effect is a good idea but there is one problem with my models. Their clothes and extra gear, that use UV texture mapping make it very hard. I mean that the skin for the neck on the texture file is at one place and for the cloths is at another. I can't draw a consecutive line to simulate the blood stream starting from the neck and moving lower. It will only work on fighters that are naked on top.
Of course I will look into this whole thing more, but now I am more concerned making a solid gameplay and I am also trying to make some good shadow shading.


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Dimis
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Posted: 9th Jun 2012 17:50
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Updating all particle fx. First the flash particles for special attacks and bolts. I corrected orientation and rotation problems.
The hard part will be the blood. I also need to extend the particle system to support more stuff, smoke, pieces of burned material, sparks.

Another WIP. Character finishing move.
Second character in progress (temp name Gemon), can produce energy balls from his hands. As a finisher he uses a powerful energy ball to explode opponent's head. The whole animation is not finished. I will need to progress the particle system to add sparks and burned material falling on ground.



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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 9th Jun 2012 20:05
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Nice... I can think of a deadly move, and it works with this music track...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYQNA1bE8vE

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Dimis
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Posted: 10th Jun 2012 22:45
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@Pincho Paxton
I think I got it, but... it is done before, sorry.




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Dimis
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Posted: 28th Jun 2012 01:40
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One year on the TGC forums and still working on the same game. I really have to progress things. I have redesigned and animated everything 2-3 times. Whatever I make from now on will be final. I am remodeling again players and backgrounds. I will keep backgrounds circular, no square type backgrounds, this helps avoiding many problems. Plus I am using one texture file for each object. Originally I was using more that one. Now I can see some performance improvement so I guess that it was a right move.
I redesigned the blood particle effects. In the last 20 seconds of the video bellow, I captured a fatality with the new blood particles. It is better but not quite there yet, can't make the blood seem liquid enough. I will try to animate the texture of the particles just to see if I can improve the effect.
Also I redesigned the temple background from my first demo. And made a new one. And more gameplay adjustments.
This is still not exactly the game that I want to make, but it is the best that I can do for now, so I am quite satisfied with the improvements I made. So I will complete 1-2 more fighters finalize game menus, add better sound fx and music and I will upload my new demo in summer.



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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 28th Jun 2012 02:07
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The blood looks very good. I like those blue men on the background too. Yeah the sound effects are a bit dull. Music would be great.

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Dimis
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Posted: 17th Jul 2012 15:22
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Ok, I am working on the same project for almost 2 years and I am really getting tired but I am not loosing interest. Every time I see the work that I posted 1 year ago and compare it with my latest work I feel that I have made enough progress with this game. Now I am finalizing stuff and that takes a lot of time. Remodeling for the second time. I am using 1 texture file for each object. That has increased performance a lot, especially when playing in window mode. One strange thing, when I test the game in windows XP, even with an older pc I get an average 60 - 64 fps, and the action seems more fluid. On a pc with Windows 7 I get an average of 58-60 fps. Maybe there is an issue with 32 - 64 bit operating systems I don't know. Plus I have fps problems when activating sound but only sometimes.
Anyway, 3 fighters are 100% complete, now I only have to finalize the rest... 15.
I post an image to compare latest / last year wip.

I still don't use any shaders, but I learned how to use my light sources carefully in my scene. The entire scene is a little dark but I don't think that this is a big problem.
I made more progress with blood particles. I use animated textures and the effect seems better now. The blood fountain and the blood pool at the fatalities is hilarious still, because I haven't adjusted the emitting quantities. I tried to capture the effect but it is not very clear on the video.
Here's a video with "Yin" the 3rd completed character. One more and I will upload the next demo.



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OldPMan
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Posted: 17th Jul 2012 15:46
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Well done Dimis !
I also had seen a difference in FPS between systems Win7 and XP. I realized that I need to disable Aero. helped me, and here's the solution. I would be happy if it turns out useful.




I wish you success.

.....already beside.....
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Dimis
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Posted: 17th Jul 2012 15:54
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Thank you RUSSIA! I didn't know that. I will try this the soonest possible, I hope it works for my case too.


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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 17th Jul 2012 18:35
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Well it's a top project for anyone to work on for 2 years. I wonder what you will work on next?

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Dimis
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Posted: 18th Jul 2012 00:42
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What next? I was thinking about it lately. I have ideas for smaller fun games. On the other hand, I could exploit my game's engine further. I did work for so long to build it. Dark Kumite is, I guess a classic fighter following the rules and the gameplay of most fighting games, it doesn't have an original concept. Now that the engine is complete I can concentrate on making a good game. I could maybe try a sequel, or a totaly new game with more original concept and gameplay, especially now that I gained enough experience and I think that I can do my own stuff.
I think that I will be busy with this project until the end of the year so I have enough time to think what will follow.


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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 18th Jul 2012 00:48 Edited at: 18th Jul 2012 00:49
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I always liked that Matrix Reloaded sequence with hundreds of Smiths. I always wanted to make a game like that. Just an idea.

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xcal1ber
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Posted: 18th Jul 2012 08:48
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This looks so awesome!! Loved playing games like Mortal Kombat and Tekken back in the day. Can't wait to see this when totally completed.
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Fallout
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Posted: 18th Jul 2012 11:03
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Quote: "One year on the TGC forums and still working on the same game. I really have to progress things. "


Just wanted to pick you up on this comment! This IS NOT a bad thing! This is an admirable quality mate. 99% of us come up with an idea, run with it for a month, lose interest and then move onto the next thing. There's nothing wrong with spending a year on a game slowly making it better and better. That's exactly how it should be.

Looking great too btw. I like the particle improvements.

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Dimis
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Posted: 20th Jul 2012 00:26 Edited at: 20th Jul 2012 00:28
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@Pincho Paxton
Not a bad idea. I too, always wanted to make a beat'em up game where player could progress in the game, fighting more that one enemies, moving from one stage to the other. I just don't know if I could handle all the graphics myself, I would need help at least with the backgrounds. I could do the animations, the level editor and the program myself but I could only get good results working with more people.
Since you mentioned the Matrix, I like the stylized fighting scenes in those films. As I said in my last post if I will make a sequel of my current game I would try something different. I would change the gameplay and the whole fighting system generally to match the quick fighting action style of movies like the Matrix, or other Kung Fu films, like Jet Lee's "Fearless", another movie that I like also. I have time to decide.

@xcal1ber
Thanks! I hope to finish the game before the end of this year.

@Fallout
Maybe I am thinking like that because I got a little tired. This summer I really need that holiday break. Life lately is becoming hard. Game making hasn't stopped being fun but it is not the same as when I started developing in DBpro.

@RUSSIA
I have to search the use of that dll more, because it gives me weird results (it forces windows to change color scheme). I am not giving up.

Another thing, I worked with shadows. So far I have been using a ghosted plain object on the ground with a blurry black circle. Not bad but it is not a real shadow, so I tried something else.
First I used Evolved's Advanced Lighting, the result was good visually of course, but I had a dramatic frame loss, even when updating shadows every 5-7 frames, the game was unplayable. I guess that is because my models are too high poly.
So I tried a "stick figure" shadow casting. The result is fast but not totally accurate, and it is not very good visually. Maybe if I find a way to smooth and blur shadow edges it could improve.
Example:

Need opinions. Crappy shadows or just the ghosted plain on the ground.


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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 20th Jul 2012 02:40 Edited at: 20th Jul 2012 02:43
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Well if you do make something with lots of enemy vs yourself, then the idea that I had was to give each fighter a weight. I mean that your main character would be very heavy like a lion, and the enemy would be very light like ragdolls. Then when you fight the enemy go flying all over the place. But their combined force could still knock your bar down till you run out of energy.

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Agent Dink
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Posted: 22nd Jul 2012 11:43
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Sometimes having two blob shadows looks pretty good. Put them right under the characters feet. That way the shadow changes shape beneath them and feels a bit more dynamic. I imagine you could go further and project a shadow blob down from each individual limb. The shadow would change shape and be quite dynamic then!

http://lossofanonymity.wordpress.com
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Dimis
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Posted: 25th Jul 2012 14:52
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Pincho Paxton
Fighting waves of enemies would be very fun. Fighters could replenish their health over time, so enemies should try to concentrate damage on the player quickly, before he has a chance to restore his health. That would be more interesting that collecting health items.
For graphics, enemy models should be very simplified so Dark Basic could handle so many of them. But player models and the stage bosses could be more detailed, I guess.

Agent Dink
Here's how shading works now. I use simple shapes, attached to limbs for shadow casting. I set alpha mapping to 0 on the shapes to hide them, but they still cast shadows. It is not very bad for a simple dynamic shadow. In screenshot I hidden the right player's body mesh and made the shapes visible to show how it works.


I recently started to experiment with cloth physics. I want to see if I can use cloth physics to make more natural moving belts, cloths and hair. I am more interested about the hair. Till now I was using animated hair but I want to see if I can do better using physics.
Just a first test:



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Dimis
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Posted: 29th Jul 2012 02:27
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First attempt to install cloth physics. I was planning to replace all objects used as hair, belts and generally all animated cloth elements with dynamic cloths. The first results are very promising. I attached a cloth under the belt of one of my latest characters. I adjusted the weight properly and the result is quite natural. What is left is to apply colliders on the character to restrain the movement of the cloth, so that it will not pass through the body.
But there are 2 problems still. First is that the cloth sometimes stretches too much and it seems that I can't adjust the elasticity properly. The second and more important is that the positioning of the cloth is wrong. It always appears to be one frame behind in the animation. It is more obvious when the character moves big distance. I hope that I can find a way to fix that.



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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 29th Jul 2012 18:01
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It doesn't always look like a belt..

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Dimis
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Posted: 29th Jul 2012 23:52
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Quote: "It doesn't always look like a belt.."

I see what you mean Pincho...

About the position of the cloth in space, I had no luck, can't find a way to fix it. I think that I will make a thread about that in the next days to see if anyone can help.


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baxslash
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Posted: 30th Jul 2012 00:01
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Sounds like you are updating physics before setting the character position... when you update the physics might be all it takes to fix the lag. Looks great though I think. Nice work!


this.mess = abs(sin(times#))
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Dimis
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Posted: 31st Jul 2012 12:15
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Quote: "Sounds like you are updating physics before setting the character position... when you update the physics might be all it takes to fix the lag."

Sound reasonable, but I am not sure. I tried updating the physics before, after the sync, before or after repositioning objects, even updating multiple times in my main loop but I get the same result. But I tried attaching the cloth to an with object that is not animated and that doesn't appear to happen when that object moves. I think that it has something to do with bone based animated objects.
The same thing happens even when the character is standing on the same position, just breathing not moving in space. The cloth appears positioned where it should be at the previous animation frame.
Need to look more into it.


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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 31st Jul 2012 13:58 Edited at: 31st Jul 2012 14:03
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The delay is probably to do with the elasticity problem. Elasticity is a physical delay. If you can reduce the elasticity, then you can reduce the delay.

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Dimis
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Posted: 31st Jul 2012 14:22
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That could probably explain the stretching of the cloth. But I have reduced elasticity to minimum. The top points of the object have a fixed position on the object. They shouldn't move at all from the fixed position.


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Pincho Paxton
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Posted: 31st Jul 2012 21:20 Edited at: 31st Jul 2012 21:21
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Quote: "The top points of the object have a fixed position on the object. They shouldn't move at all from the fixed position."


I don't see them moving from the fixed position. Is it attached to a limb? Try putting a limb on the belt, or 2.

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