Nice riffs yo

Keep it up!

Yo

Tom n Rollin-- sending you a new song I did over break. School just started today, so I'll get more in on this project when I can.

To busy being busy.

Long Time no Post!

Check It

Some cool footage from the Indy Games Summit- dude talking about prototyping and game design and such. You should watch it!

Yes

Do the zombies first and animate the body parts separately.

Characters Are Next, Right?

So... I think the plow has all of its necessary parts (though they could still be moved around and such). I guess I'm working on characters next, right? Zombies, the player, et cetera.

Couple of questions:

1. Which should I do first?
2. Should I animate the different body sections (head, torso, legs) separately, so they can later be blown off? I think this would be the best way to do it- that way the torso can rotate independently from the legs (necessary for the main character).
I suppose I could just do the legs, torso, and head separately for the main character, and then just do the body and head separately for the others... but then we couldn't have paraplegic zombies crawling around after having their legs explode.

My Thoughts

1. Yeah, screw the plow.
2. I think the crane shows promise- we could have a Kirby-style vacuum (that can't be repositioned) and just have body parts slowly move towards it as the vacuuming button is pressed, and then have the crane to pick up boulders and things and whip 'em around at zombies and such.
The crane could be made less awkward by having the chain shoot out and retract- it would basically be a grappling gun that could only shoot down, but could be "aimed" by rotating it.

The main character should have to get out of the carriage- but he already has to get out for retrieval of items, treasure, wounded crew members, etc... Meh. Gravity gun would still be cool, though. Is there any reason not to put it in?

Plow, crane, vacuum, gravity gun?

How should the player interact with zombie piles:

1. I think the plow is out.
2. The crane could work, but it seems awkward.
3. I was thinking it would be easy to go with the Kirby style. When a body is vacuumed up it would be instantly shot out of a positionable tube.
4. Rip off the gravity gun idea from Half-Life. It would also create interesting game play to not allow the carriage to move the zombies which would force the main character to get out of the carriage and use the gravity gun. Or the carriage could have a gravity gun attached to it.

Your thoughts?

Particle Engine Wish List

1. Zombie Blood
2. Character Blood
3. Gold (Treasure)
4. Water
5. Smoke (Comes out of fuel tank exhaust pipes and a little out of the furnace in the carriage; also tags along with fire)
6. Fire (Comes out of damaged things; also a bit out of the furnace when the carriage accelerates)

Cool Tutorials

The guys that made N (a little platformer about a ninja that has really cool physics) put up some tutorials about hit detection and some other things that I don't really know about. I just thought I'd start posting stuff that might generate ideas.

Spotlight on Tom

Perhaps with this nifty spotlight we can deduce... where the hell Tom went?

Better Looking Cannon

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.