mdgunn

Original tank was always supposed to be something of a stand-in for combat tests as it wasn't clear if we might go more fantasy than sci-fi. As it's been in unchanged a while I though I'd look at a bit of an update. Not final. May not integrate yet until other ongoing tasks are developed further. May just do alternate more robotic and less traditional design.

Here is a mockup of the opening cinematic to test what joining them together would be like. The flyover section (2nd bit) is too long. When I put them together in engine I will make it shorter. There is clipping on the 3rd bit as it was a quick test.

Fixed up Slas's nice clawbot. Did a small amount more detailing, texured and fixed rig. Animation not final just a test that they were coming in OK. This could be an enemy but I also plan either to have them just in deactive form in factory section after ship (assembly line robots on shutdown assembly line), and also in hidden form as part of a claw structure in outside of ship

Hard to know what you have in your scene there but is it possible that you have some meshes that are not currently visible?

OK I think I understand those items and don't see anything I disagree with so I'll work towards being able to do these things within my levels with conisderation of the integration with yours.

OK I am putting together some notes....they are a bit scrappy. I can neaten them up later....here is a suggested scenario so far (perhaps not entirely inline with the detail in the original doc but I'm considering either bringing it closer if it makes sense....or not if it doesn't - depending on if final implemented story ties into a back-story or not). (rememeber I will update and perhaps review later - I only have limited time now but wanted to start making some notes). (From Start Menu) - Space to Planet Cutscene - cube passes from space down to planet surface (fade to white - as if in cloud) - Sky to Ground Cutscene - Cube passes over landscape, underground base and ship scanned through ground, circles above site, descends through surface vent, swoops through temple-like structure, down lava (near ship exit) filled tunnel to land near head of ship (outside sitting area of cryo room but main ship interior level not loaded here - probably) fade to black - [Fade from black] - stationary cube opens on ground revealing sphere - Manupulating arms lift sphere and examine it near entry suction vent tube but it does not pass inside. (consider if sphere should somehow interface with ship and kill off subjects 0-3). Alarm sounds. Ship AI is aware of threat now. AI Attempts to revive subject 004 resulting in subject 004 entering level 001 - [LEVEL 01] Subject explores level 1 eventually reaches goal point to trigger exit from sleep and waking in already open pod 004 in LEVEL 02. - [LEVEL 02] subject 004 falls to floor (physics body or camera path). Fade to black...few seconds of black...fade from black. 004 can now explore room. First actions expected to be to heal and/or turn of the alarm, prompted by visual clues of low health and of flashing alarm button. After this viewer can gather some information from text logs on TABLET ON TABLE, TABLET IN LOCKER. Wall monitor will show images suggesting sphere had landed and is attempting to enter the ship. Flashing light/indicator on monitor (or table display monitor) invites user to interact. THis prompts text log and/or voice log from AI of the situation (unless they have been told this during level 001 - If they have can be update on next objectives from AI). Feel free to suggest alternatives. Also it may be a little hard to read so that will be my fault having to rush.

Let's us show a bit of 'story' via some static rotating images. When alarm going of it might show some schematic type images of the cube with an arrow next to planet, or the sphere emerging from the cube, or whatever. It could hint at what current mission/situation is. So after alarm of and time to go to VR level maybe it flicks through some VR images or shows the headset. Currently it's very simple. Could be more flexible but sufficient for testing the concept.

Checked in now.

I added a test switch and a pulsing light hooked up to it to level01 as requested. You can also take a look at \Maps\Test\Items\test_switch.map which shows it in a more applied situation of a locked door with 2 switches, one of which changes the locked setting of the other one.

Yeah I remember you use it from sort of outside (or can do). Would it maybe be better if you did have to get in the teleporter and there was a button at waist or chest height you had to look at and use. Might feel more involved if you have to get in it and activate it in a correct way? I could demo what I mean if you want. Might be nice to have another shot at the teleporter as the current one was just a quick one as I didn't like the first one I did. Not a high priority but I don't mind having a go at another teleporter and button if you want. Also....is the teleporter sometimes taking the user back out of VR. I am thinking having a VR station in the real world so I think rather than triggering of the table they would go to this station in each of the rooms. So would they use VR station to enter VR and teleporter as a sort of 'exit sign' for coming back out? I'm trying to look more closely at level 3 but I am still having trouble with the consol loadmap. Seems to crash out for me always. Here is video of me trying to do it. Not sure it really shows much but here it is anyway. Also the red teleporter looks less aggressive from this distance so maybe there is a balance to be struck which emitters and how many and also the probably appears less bright when not lots shooting in close proximity and also not when not bright white.

Just one other thing....when in the editor the effect was probably appearing to run all the time as in the screenshot I posted, but with the prefab it only fires on triggering, though I sometimes have teleporters which have some minor effect running all the time which can be nice to add some visual movement to a scene.

I'd maybe consider making it so that there is one of the emitters running all the time (not a one shot but a loop) - maybe some beam like particles but up to you. I would probably only run the others as one shots when it triggers and have a delay before they fire whatever the normal command would be ( a simple timer). The reason I mention this is that some of those emitters were on purpose quite aggressive because the intention was that you would be inside the effect when it was fired and only looking at a small section of the effect so it more 'full' than if you get to see the whole thing from outside.

Added in test teleporter to level 3. This will need to change to match in part how the current teleporters work. I have added these in for now as a demo for @aiafthat we have some scripts to do the particles and sound (which could change) so that we can move fowards and integrate part sound and particles into the existing.

@aiaf Can you confirm that loadmap still works. I get crashes. Tried removing gworld to allow it to regenerate but still fails. I'm trying to load 03 so I can look more closely at how to integrate VR with cryo. Seemed to fail on any level though. for me. Could be something I've caused so just wondering if still working for you or if you can see what's up. Most of the time I use the simplified main.lua.orig (or a variant) but in trying to use items in VR room it's complaining of "attempt to index global 'gui' (a nil value), probably because I not entering using the full main.lua.

Work in progress. Test of what alarm mode lighting and sound might be like. Is the sound TOOOOOO annoying I wonder?

We need to decide how much we want to put between ship and surface. I have a short map section that could cover getting out of ship and then through a short temple like bit to an excavation pit and temple entrance. I will post below. I am thinking though that this gives us some options to insert one or many other sections at this point if we have the straight forward route blocked, on purpose by enemy or others or accident by being collapsed due to age. The player must then go through some other bits like cave or factory area etc. As we have much of the story and tricky integrated level bits done these levels can probably be much simpler in nature, though I think they should still be of good quality, and we need to be harsh about this I would say. I think I will try to bring back in my first test level as some sort of factory area with partially assembled bots and storage area or something. I don't want to extend the amount of time it takes to get to a v1 though, if others don't want to so if everyone is keen to just get a v1 then we can just use the ship to surface map (with no blocked area) and continue polishing existing areas up. May depends if others want to get old stuff back in and/or if they have the time to do it. Alternatively might depend on if people would prefer for getting quick to surface and seeing if we can get the ship off the ground and into an island form with some sort of finish around that sort of situation. Here is the map I am working on that provides ship to surface option and possibility to either end quickly or for us to insert more work in between. May need to expand to read text. Reverse view. First map as it was but to possibly be re-purposed to factory/staging area.

Are we planning to bring in more of the old maps at this point? I plan to see if my original map can integrate with a temple like level I will do a different post I think about progressing any further levels.

Accreditation - I will review my stuff for the copyright file. In some cases I most cases I had planned to end up using my own stuff as final replacement but in some cases I think I have attribute zero - which I/we could attribute anyway I suppose. If not on title screen then in accompanying file (may depend how many there are). Combat - I will leave this alone for now. Note there was missile code which included dealing with spawning, removal and area damage in a generic way (I think) there is a test map in MDG_Missile/maps/start.map . In that the missile is mostly just a prefab item that could be something else. There was some generic explosion code there. You might want to hook these into what you use or maybe you have your own thing. They may have been usable for some sort of ceiling mounted turret. Could be that the tank fires missiles and the turret is more of a hit-scan type bullet weapon.

Think I agree with all this. Added powered by logo back to screen. It's in level rather than a screen drawn item currently so potentially when the camera is engaged you fly past it. Will soon move to try to figure out how and what actions to link actions in cryo to vr. I will add some vr link (headset) item in the hangar room and I think maybe they need to use this to enable access to the 3rd room (as I imagine it currently), the AI room where you need to get to somehow physically enable overides against the invading virus/ai and allow the ship AI to establish enough control to disable airlocks doors (in hangar) and for you to be able to get out and then through other temple/cave levels to surface. For second sleep level. How about they enter second sleep level due to blackout due to not being fully fit, or not being able to handle the heath station restore. Something like that would probably do.

In general I think we are getting ever closer towards the point where we could bring things to a close if we wanted. Or for a phase one anyway. I suppose that it could be argued that what we have here doesn't match the wizards and islands ideas that were booted around earlier on. However I think what we have is taking queues from the design doc still and has something of a coherent concept. I see the following things as the main things to be done. There are plenty of others that could be named, or even brought in for work but these are the things that seem on the way to being done as part of a first version: More music and/or sound effects - I have not yet tried to pin down exactly what missing or should be upgraded but I think we probably need more. Finalise Menus - mostly there but need some final tweaks to home screen animation (cube was not meant to crash into planet during menu and I've not yet done anything about that). Finish Intro cut scenes - I'd done some demos and need a final version with fade in/out working probably and all linked together. 1) Planet approach, 2) landscape flyover and ship decent, 3) Cube at underground ship with tracking shot into cryo room and stopping near pod. Finish sorting progression in cryo room - Need alarm situation and lighting set up in cryo room. Need to reinstate the cube/light travel - i had envisioned the cube opening outside the ship probaly with some claw/holding device and going up a tube into the ship and along the tube to second (hangar room). Need a few more bits of progression in cryo room joining together with VR room. May need some further discussion around this. We've had a few but thing I'm not quite 100% sure what we need and how we co-ordinate things between levels. Better integrate hangar/robot/device room (second room) - is a bit unused currently need to integrate that better. Further upgrade VR level to have some visual progression - Had planned to do a changing VR level with some new bits getting shown until VR room in better more room like state. Will see if this practical. Also bit of an upgrade to teleporters with effects would be nice. Think I have something I could do there. Better combat would be good - Some basic combat is possible though it would be good to be better. E.g. better death animations and I'd have liked the tank to be better (was just a quick 10 minute model). Think a bit more work would be useful and some further improvements to AI. You can pick up energy and health currently (I think the arena level is setup to show this). Reworking of combat/weapons to be less generic - I'd never really planned it to be a basic shooter but first it seems easiest to do that bit then modify from there and maybe go with plasma ball and other less standard combat (e.g. temporarily shock enemy who may then come back rather than just killing everything). Finish ship to surface levels - I am working on some ship to surface levels to get to a point where the game might come to a natural conclusion. I have a temple like bit which was going to lead up to an excavation area but this becomes blocked and I was going to re-use a re-hashed version of old original level I did as an alternate route up and out. There are also some other part levels around which we might be able to integrate. Accreditation of resources - Need to know of any open source resources which require acreditation. In general I have done everything from scratch apart from possibly a few sound effects (some I generated myself). I usually look for zero accreditation assets first so wouldn't need to be mentioned but I would need to review my stuff in case there is anything that is not. This can then be added to credits. I will continue to try to bring the stuff I've had a hand in together and will continue to try to reflect work on the Trello board and here in the forum. I'm not using Discord much at the minute (just generally) but it might have been handy to have a real time meet up there. If anyone has anything further to add to comment on the above or to add to how they'd like things to progress towards a first alpha release please mention it below.

Yeah may be a good idea. I had thought maybe putting various electronic tablets could have been used at a few locations or checkpoints to flesh things out a bit as to what the situation is on ship and what task is or why it needs to be done or things like that.

I am working on the level between ship and exit as well as fleshing out the AI room which I think will appear before you exit the ship. AI room has been upgraded a bit and probably enough to leave for now and work on putting more bits together....

Further updated room slightly.

I just use Radeon Driver ReLive software. Radeon drivers are pretty good now and some good features. If you're on Nvidia there may be something similar in the driver program where you can just set it to record with a key press.

Physical (non-vr) room representing the physical version of the computer AI room which MIGHT be similar to the VR room in it's final state. Probably not final state (very basic room) so far.