Bioshock a-rock-a-block

Um, I have a GeForce 7600 in this beast. The game runs great on high detail and looks fantastic, and this rig is probably 2 years old technology-wise. I think the card has shader 2.0? Not sure. You sure you can't play it? Did you try the demo or something?

Fucking Pixel Shader 3.0 or whatever

I can't play Bioshock. I need to get a better card to do it.
But I'm not upset.

What kind of card do you have, Chandon?
Also- Tom: is Pixel Shading Number 3 the shit that you were talking about, with the upgrading and all that jazz?

Hey

Just letting you guys know that I've been in crunch time for school, and will continue to be for a couple more weeks til finals are over. I have 3 projects due by the 4th (one down), 3 exams next week, and a couple finals the week after that. THEN I GET A WEEK OFF. Until then, I won't be making a lot of FX but I will be turning a soundtrack song in for my REASON final project.

Unrelated:
I also bought Bioshock as a reward. It's pretty damn cool and super perty, I suggest you check it out if you liked System Shock 2. Can't wait to get into it some more.

Status Check

What are we planning to do with the spotlight now? Should it be fully-positionable, or perhaps just the lamp on top can be spun? What do you think?

Prepare to Suck

I think our best bet would be to have the vacuum sort of roam freely in an arc on the bottom of the carriage, just like the cannon does at top.
The vacuum is the new lowest layer.

Rat-a-tat-tat

That's the sound my machine gun makes:

10 Percent Smaller

It was too big.

I Need A Crane

The crane is the closest part to the front so far. The "cranechain" part is on the bottom, followed by the "craneclaw" parts, then the "cranehand," and finally the "cranearm" is closest to the viewer.

Mapping the island

Here is how we need to go about getting the first level up and running:

Rollin - Sketch a concept of the level and scale it to size using the Necrocarriage as a measure. You should include: the ground, water, zombie spawn points, game object, level decals (ex. mushrooms), and anything else that will make up the Necropopolis world. Make notes on anything and everything in the sketch.

Tom - Overlay polygons to Rollins concept sketch. The concept sketch will not be in the game. Instead the polygons I lay down will be tiled with some arbitrary texture that I rip off another game (preferably another zombie game so we are more likely to run into legality issues, but any texture will suffice). At some point Rollin or Tom should actually create these textures. Also, I will put in game objects and decals that Rollin defines in the level sketch.

Note: After we get the game play working, it will be valuable to create a level editor, but for the first level or two lets stick with this approach.

Note: Ruth pretended to break up with me again, and then I spent all weekend painting her moms house. Yes, I am a little bitch. Shut your mouths. As far as coding goes, I did working on the carriage physics, so now it does not randomly tip over and it's wheels climb up hills. Making the carriage work will most likely be a work in progress the entire development (ex. adding the spotlight makes the carriage tip to the right, so I had to give other parts more weight for balance).

Fucking end of rant!

Nice

Thanks, Skipper.

Can I get the icon in cornflower blue

Yeah, no...actually I'm kinda busy right now. So, I'm just going to have to ask you to come back later.

Ooo Yeah Papi

That lamp look niiiiiiice.

Right. So. You said you possibly make each joint separately-positionable, right, Tom?
I think I'll do the spotlight next.

Oh yeah- and do you think maybe the background could be just a little bit darker? I like it better that pure black, this way, but it also seems a bit washed-out. Charcoal, that's where we need it.

Fucking lamp

Oh That Lamp

Here is version four or five of the lamp. I think it finally looks pretty good.

An Idea for the Cannon Animation

Okay, so here's an idea for making the cannon firing animation look differently "every time" the cannon is fired (which should happen often).

[Really, if Tom decides to go with particle effects, the idea may be moot- but it might make the whole effect better either way. ]

I make a few sets of a few images of the cannon's flare at different flare-lengths. Let's say three sets of three each at short, medium, and long. Tom writes a little bit of code that, when the player presses the cannon fire button, cycles through a random short image, then medium, long, long, medium, and short again. Something like that. Okay well whatever. Fuck you guys.

Cannons Also Boom

Why does the last one look different than the other two? No fucking idea. Try 'em out anyways, I guess.

Really, I'm guessing this calls for an animation, but we'll see. Png's can hold animations, right?

Dialin' On the Bullet

Bang Bang

These are obviously too big for the machine guns. And they have black backgrounds. I'm sending Tom the tiny, transparent-backgrounded versions of them. Tom, let me know if they work or not... Still haven't figured out exactly how I should treat transparencies.

Those are the old sprites i think.

I put the new sprites in the build I sent in gmail.

I Managed to Get it Stuck

Looking good, Tom! I love the new bounciness of all the parts. It's gratifying to see the machine rattle to life. I managed to accidentally tip the carriage over, and it got stuck sort of bouncing on one wheel and the lamp- further evidence that we need a way for the player to right himself.

So here's what I was thinking: Maybe the crane could attach itself to the ground, as well as objects, and act as a sort of winch to pull the carriage upright when it gets stuck? What do you think?

Other minor things: The cannon should be in front of the fuel tank. And it shouldn't rotate all the way around. And the spotlight should be colored in. And the levels should look really cool.

Also: It does basically look like snow. But maybe we could explain it in the game? It would make sense in a Dead-Body Furnace Level to have ash falling down.