tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21643011931511915312024-03-14T09:06:42.074+00:00YorkshireRiflesOne bloke... in his bedroom ... making indie games ... (development blog)Steve_Yorkshirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06014767867779183995noreply@blogger.comBlogger208125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164301193151191531.post-15816249040431825132024-02-29T22:49:00.001+00:002024-02-29T22:49:12.421+00:00Leap Into The Future<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/84UI5rc.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/84UI5rc.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Monsters Loot Swag Now With HDR And PBR<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>February has arrived ... and by the time you are reading this, it has also gone. But not before <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1789310/view/4150700931638733147" target="_blank">Monsters Loot Swag</a> got a huge update on <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1789310/view/4150700931638733147" target="_blank">Steam</a>, and has been ported to a completely new engine build.<br /></p><p>This included finally retiring the old engine build and replacing it with the latest game engine build, complete with all of those 21st Century shiny things like an asset system, HDR lighting, Physical Based Rendering of reflections and so much more. The <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1789310/view/4150700931638733147" target="_blank">changlog</a> itself ran to some 36 items.</p><p><a href="https://i.imgur.com/I5uhLq0.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/I5uhLq0.png" width="640" /></a></p><p>In other game development news, I also ported my old "Aeronauticals" proof of concept demo to the latest engine version. You can download and play that <a href="https://yorkshirerifles.com/downloads/aero_conceptDemo.zip" target="_blank">here</a> and watch me do just that below.<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bdh0IVViQqM" width="560" youtube-src-id="bdh0IVViQqM"></iframe></div><br /> February 2024 is a Leap Year! And soon to be leaping are what is in this pond! 🐸<br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/BG8Bj3M.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="480" src="https://i.imgur.com/BG8Bj3M.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p>However since this arrived there has not been much froggy activity due to the weather reverting to being bloody freezing for the last few weeks. Thankfully it looks set to become milder and much croaking was heard earlier.<br /></p><p>So that was the month with a strange number of days, and all because two despots mangled the perfectly working 10 month calendar by inserting their egos into new months and totally throwing time out of order every 4 years.</p>Steve_Yorkshirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06014767867779183995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164301193151191531.post-36160627126145842542024-01-31T23:17:00.004+00:002024-01-31T23:17:39.275+00:00Space Year 2024 Is Go<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/4sCqnSK.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://i.imgur.com/4sCqnSK.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><p></p><p>DIY gambeson, with padded arming cap (not visible) to stop sallet wobbling on head - it's everything you need to keep warm on a cold winter's night ... or possible prepare for the GREAT HAPPENING when modernity crumbles and all is returned to the ashes ... </p><p>Monsters Loot Swag has received it's 24th Early Access Update, available <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1789310/view/4041486102482299321" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p>Speaking of which, I ran some of the game engine's internal debugging tools - which I have previously been unfamiliar with - to see what was happening with networking. Alas these debugging options were not as helpful as I had hoped ... </p><p>TORQUE_DEBUG_NET for NetConnection packet logging, DebugChecksum guards to detect mismatched pack/unpacks, and Detection of invalid destination ghosts.<a href="https://github.com/TorqueGameEngines/Torque3D/blob/development/Engine/source/T3D/gameBase/gameConnection.cpp#L1440" target="_blank"> Link to PacketDataChecksum disagree code.</a><br /></p><p>TORQUE_DEBUG_NET_MOVES for detailed console logging of net moves. <a href="https://github.com/TorqueGameEngines/Torque3D/blob/development/Engine/source/T3D/gameBase/std/stdGameProcess.cpp#L354" target="_blank">Link to moveChecksum disagree code</a>.<br /></p><p>What I got was kind of annoying and much less useful than I had hoped ...</p><p>Test1: <br /></p><p>Spawning into a loaded level, with the randomized gameplay assets unbuilt (the Swag), I got 6 packetData and 17 moveChecksum disagrees, all from loading the level to the client and then spawning the player object.</p><p>Shooting 6 times gave me 3 packetData and 3 moveChecksum calls.</p><p>Moving around in a small circle had no effect.</p><p>Test 2:</p><p>Spawning into a loaded level which had then been populated with the randomized gameplay assets (the Swag), gave 4 packetData and 38 moveChecksum calls.</p><p>Shooting 6 times have the same 3 calls for each.</p><p>Moving around in a small circle for a few seconds gave 57 calls for both packetData and moveChecksum.</p><p>Conclusion; everything that gets loaded AFTER the level has been loaded is going to throw checksum disagree calls with every update of the client's position just because it wasn't in the original level file. Now add hordes of monsters, explosions, projectiles, etc and there is a huge amount of console spam with very little debugging value for networking ... :/</p><p>The good news would be no packet dropping showed up. <br /></p><p>Anyhow, we perserve.<br /></p>Steve_Yorkshirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06014767867779183995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164301193151191531.post-7579845933879202552023-12-31T21:49:00.006+00:002023-12-31T21:49:45.642+00:00That Was The Year That Was: Space Year 2023<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/9zfrAPC.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="800" height="207" src="https://i.imgur.com/9zfrAPC.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />2023 comes to an end ... and if I am honest, it was kinda non-descript ...<p></p><p>So what actually happened? I have no idea, but it did include me porting <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1789310/Monsters_Loot_Swag/" target="_blank">Monsters Loot Swag</a> to the latest version of the game engine - <a href="https://github.com/TorqueGameEngines/Torque3D" target="_blank">available here for FREE under MIT license</a> - and all it's glorious new fangled stuff like asset systems and Physical Based Rendering (PBR). <br /></p><p>Have you seen this PBR'd catgirl?</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/BDSzlu6.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="708" data-original-width="530" src="https://i.imgur.com/BDSzlu6.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><p>You have now!</p><p>So, anyhow, the latest engine version of <a href="https://steamcommunity.com/app/1789310/allnews/" target="_blank">Monsters Loot Swag</a>
got a BETA, whilst I fixed a few things up on that version to bring it
more into line with the default v.3.x which I had initially uploaded to
Steam - not that I got the feedback and testing which I was hoping for,
but hey, that's just one of those things. The v.4.x Beat build did come
with it's own script compiler which was invaluable to finding scripting
issues which the the default version would not. I will probably retire
the default Steam version and replace it with the Beta as standard
moving forwards. </p><p>Have you seen how to opt into the Beta? <br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/3V0AlhK.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://i.imgur.com/3V0AlhK.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p>You have now!</p><p><br /> I also beat Micro$oft at it's own game when it locked me out of the source code for <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/308380/view/5368909498005862883" target="_blank">Airship Dragoon</a>, and managed to finally put out a new update with the latest version of Steam.</p><p>Have you seen this Airship Dragoonette?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://yorkshirerifles.com/gallery_airdrag/images/dragoonette_repaint_central.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://yorkshirerifles.com/gallery_airdrag/images/dragoonette_repaint_central.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p> You have now!</p><p>Have you seen this Sparrowhawk?</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/W3vYnjO.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="480" src="https://i.imgur.com/W3vYnjO.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p>Well he spotted me first ... I mean what did he want? It's not like I can just feed him juicy blackbirds, which judging from the carnage near the veg patch, is his sole diet.</p><p>In other news I managed to survive five (5) whole decades on God's blessed earth, I think wearing a sallet for the whole time helped.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/SH08n5S.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="480" src="https://i.imgur.com/SH08n5S.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p>In other news I have made good progress with my GAMBESON which I have designed specifically to survive Winter with when heating prices go through the roof, or someone Kalibrates the UK gas pipeline, and yes, season should have caps. I am currently messing around with the edging at the moment and need to sort the arms out and some strapping for the front which is double layered in a slightly eastern fashion. No prizes for the sewing aesthetic but it will hold together. </p><p>It's surprising how sore my finger and thumb has got just from holding a needle.</p><p>Once I get chance, I will return to my <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4eyjcALykA" target="_blank">medieval hack-and-slash-cum-RPG idea</a> which I have already coded combat up for, but really now need some 3D artwork and animations, and I'm thinking of a lowpoly aesthetic with that. </p><p>I also intend to port my old <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jpokdK9RVA" target="_blank">aeronauticals air combat game demo</a> to the latest version of the game engine and release it for testing. To be honest if I go back to that I might make it low-poly too as that seems to be faster with production. It's a style which certainly did not do Valheim et al any harm.</p><p>Another 365 days are gone, so you for the next 365 ... unless it's a leap year some time ...</p><p>Happy New Year!<br /></p>Steve_Yorkshirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06014767867779183995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164301193151191531.post-50093670514781136432023-11-30T22:57:00.002+00:002023-11-30T22:57:33.476+00:00Novemeber Cometh November Goeth<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/Mjg2xyn.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/Mjg2xyn.png" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p>November has come and gone in what felt like record timing. The Steam Autumn/Fall sale is underway and I threw in Airship Dragoon for the Steam Awards category "Labor of Love", due to updating it after nine years on Valve's platform. More on that <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/308380/view/6187444621028204282" target="_blank">available on Steam</a>.</p><p>November was a blur of getting the dreaded lurgy - which seemed to take forever and half a million hot toddies to clear, and testing, testing, testing ...</p><p>Testing many, many things ... </p><p>Such as trying to lower the polycount on <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1789310" target="_blank">Monsters Loot Swag</a> models. Previously I had used an automated plugin to reduce polycount for Level Of Detail, however this made a horrible mess of UV mapping. So I decided to try Blender's own decimation tools such as "UnSubDivide" - which would surely reduce edgeloops by simply unsubdividing the mesh ... yeah, well, actually it didn't ...<br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/028/596/dsmGaKWMeHXe9QuJtq_ys30PNfTGnMsRuHuo_MUzGCg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/028/596/dsmGaKWMeHXe9QuJtq_ys30PNfTGnMsRuHuo_MUzGCg.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Unsubdivide edgeloops ... unsubdivides right?<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/bS23ehM.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="344" data-original-width="192" height="344" src="https://i.imgur.com/bS23ehM.jpeg" width="192" /></a></div><p>Almost like it does one half of the body fine, then gets bored and just compresses the edgeloops and swaps to the other half of the body.</p><p>I am not a fan of retopology because I do not understand why it cannot be automated perfectly - especially on a model with perfectly equal edgeloops. This is the exact sort of soul destroying donkey work which should be easily automated and technically is automated if you want it to be a shyte ...<br /></p><p>I did try a number of other programs - which I believe cool kids call "apps" these days on the grounds any word over four letters is too difficult or energy consuming to utter. One of these was MeshLab which seemed to do a fairly decent job at reducing 25K to 7K, though I still felt should have saved the UV map better. Or I could just manually retopo, but as I have avoided doing that for years I don't really want to start now ... especially as getting mesh deformation to not be shyte seems to be even more of a pain in the arse ... see below.<br /></p><p>In addition to polycounts there has also been a whole host of messing around with the newer aspects of the engine which has been the focus of the<a href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1789310/view/3710462013792317709" target="_blank"> Monsters Loot Swag BETA test build</a>. This has been a lot of testing, fixing, streamlining and bug reporting, all of which are slowly but surely going into improving the engine and game build, though at the moment there is nothing too concrete to show as a game update.</p><p>But back to low poly.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/xK5njs0.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://i.imgur.com/xK5njs0.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Low poly Lara with some good low poly deformation techniques<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>I started making a low poly character, in a somewhat stylized plane based style. Nigh on 30 years ago I actually sculpted this type of head in concrete with a metal frame made of metal coat hangers... which proved to be a mistake when attempting to move it anywhere as I had not made it hollow, and so it weighed a ton.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/5PdTlPx.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="433" data-original-width="800" height="346" src="https://i.imgur.com/5PdTlPx.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p>Low poly mesh deformation is somewhat more of a pain in the butt than normal. Got a bad deform when bend bones? No problems, slap more edgeloops in and jiggle them about a bit. Except this cannot be done when you are modeling a plane based low poly humanoid.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/LDKsjWK.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="449" height="640" src="https://i.imgur.com/LDKsjWK.jpeg" width="359" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Back of the elbow needs to come out somewhat<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>The simpler meshes get, the more horrendous deformation becomes, and the more difficult retaining versus collapsing polys are.</p><p>This is all being done for two purposes, one is for a potential low poly with hard edges/planes style future project, and the second is for more practise in reducing topology whilst keeping good movement deformation for current work.</p><p>In other news, it's cold and damp. The Pentalon Javelins - that's a type of winter spud that is harvestable at Christmas, and not a 1950s RAF experimental supersonic jet fighter; though it really sounds like it should have been - appear to have died a death, going the way of this year's strawberry crop under the chronic wetness. I've been eyeing up designs of a padded gambeson to try and survive winter and also padded armour may help survive the GREAT HAPPENING when the lights go out and society crumbles.</p><p>December approaches ... and don't even get me started on Space Year 2024.<br /></p>Steve_Yorkshirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06014767867779183995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164301193151191531.post-60813876086482468422023-10-31T23:35:00.021+00:002023-11-03T22:51:15.171+00:00Monsters Loot Swag Beta Available<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/3V0AlhK.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="904" data-original-width="1928" height="300" src="https://i.imgur.com/3V0AlhK.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p> I have been stuck on this rock for 5 centuries - sorry 5 decades, feels like 5 centuries ... and more on medieval times later ...<br /></p><p>Monsters Loot Swag has a new BETA version available on <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1789310" target="_blank">Steam</a>. A BETA in Early Access? Well, yes.<br /></p><p> The BETA branch is a whole new game engine ... well, actually it's
kinda the same game engine with a whole new system. This system includes
a fully function asset system, Physical Based Rendering (that's cool
reflections of roughness and metal to normal folks), and HDR!<br /><br />Want
to try out the BETA branch? Go to your game library in Steam and click
on Monster Loot Swag, click settings (circled in red) and bring up the
drop-down menu, choose preferences and when the new window appears, go
to Beta in the sidebar and select the new BETA version. You can opt-out
of the BETA in the same way, by choosing default.</p><p> <br />Don't want to play the BETA for the new game engine? No problems, the original version is still available.<br /><br />Q: So why is it a BETA and not just the standard game branch? <br />A:
Well because it's taken a fair bit of effort for updating and I need
extra testing for various internal linkages that I may have missed,
before I can set it to the master/default branch of the game.<br /><br />Q: Is the default branch still getting updated?<br />A: YES! The default branch is still getting updated whilst I work on bringing the new game engine BETA version up to speed.</p><p>There have also been ~25 fixes and changes, including finalizing the models and effects for the remaining swag attacks and the special use items.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ls_efdl7Kic" width="560" youtube-src-id="ls_efdl7Kic"></iframe></div><p></p><p></p><p><br /> Monsters Loot Swag now requires just 3 characters, 3 levels, 3 bosses and some extra stuff before Early Access is complete and it can be shipped. I am hoping for completion around April-May.<br /></p><p>I've also been giving some thought about my next project to start sometime in 2024 and was thinking of making a third person medieval melee combat game, but not a Soulslike, more fighting against multiple opponents, but not a Musou-like either. Just a solid hack'n'slash.<br /></p><p>I would like to make a massive single-player RPG but am actually thinking of something more manageable and bitesized. Something that might actually not require 5-8 years of work to finish ...<br /></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/111/193/e5wIF.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="360" height="360" src="https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/111/193/e5wIF.png" width="360" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There has been quite a lot of this in the last 5 millenium ...<br /></td></tr></tbody></table> </p><p>Behold, my new thinking cap! <br /></p><p><a href="https://i.imgur.com/SH08n5S.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://i.imgur.com/SH08n5S.jpeg" width="640" /></a></p><p></p><p>Sallet. Why a sallet? Obvious really ...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/3FXtbIC.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="722" data-original-width="993" height="465" src="https://i.imgur.com/3FXtbIC.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p></p><p> <br /></p><p>
</p>Steve_Yorkshirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06014767867779183995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164301193151191531.post-46597321114886491162023-09-30T22:23:00.000+01:002023-09-30T22:23:43.884+01:00Airship Dragoon Gets An Update<p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/QAk2pvD.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="800" height="207" src="https://i.imgur.com/QAk2pvD.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Airship Dragoon Update Sept 2023<br /></td></tr></tbody></table> </p><p> Airship Dragoon received a rare update this month. This was entirely due to me finally finding a way around using Visual Studio 2013, who's license Microsoft had locked me out of when they retired it a couple of years ago. The solution - the OFFICIAL MICROSOFT solution was ... to hack the registry to forceably gain access to their own product ...</p><p>For more on that escapade, see the Airship Dragoon update on <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/308380/view/5368909498005862883" target="_blank">Steam</a>.</p><p>Work on Monsters Loot Swag and bringing it up to the new and shiny version of the game engine continues unabated. One thing that the new engine has is a full script checker for compiling which actually looks through the scripts and reports errors - and boy did it find some. Whilst most errors were little more than referencing a wrongly named local variable and thus completely harmless, some were not, especially when trying to call function from the server for objects that did not exist at all.</p><p>And so began Monsters Loot Swag; Steam Early Access update 18; "<a href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1789310/view/3650782976852589127" target="_blank">The Big Bug Hunt</a>".</p><p>This was quickly followed by the Monsters Loot Swag; Steam Early Access update 19; "<a href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1789310/view/5848542859103266260" target="_blank">The Big Bug Hunt Part 2</a>" which continued to fix numerous minor issues and also got <b>glyphs</b> which are a fancy term for text and symbols, working for Playstation controllers and Steam Deck.</p><p>I rolled all the fixes from the new engine version into the previous version uploaded to <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1789310" target="_blank">Steam</a>.</p><p>So back to upgrading the game to shiny PBR newness and new fangled asset system. Most of this is now done, with the actual loading/unloading having required some careful following of how the new system works to update, change and port my custom code. Single player campaign is now in and full functional with much fancy shininess to explosions due to the new HDR system. Online multiplayer is really the only thing left to finish off before I upload a full build of the new engine as a Beta Depot on Steam.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/tVSGaIE.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="776" data-original-width="800" height="621" src="https://i.imgur.com/tVSGaIE.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">October is coming<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p> Next month is October and I hope to finally have a working beta of the new engine build up and running.<br /></p><p><br /></p>Steve_Yorkshirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06014767867779183995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164301193151191531.post-61891414660332500982023-08-31T22:51:00.001+01:002023-08-31T22:51:13.465+01:00RIP My Strawberry Patch<p>There is a reason as to why I spend as much time as possible parked bollock naked outdoors, lounging by the veg patch, glass of (increasingly cheap - cost of living crisis / flagging sales / bad luck / terminal syphilis / name the James Coburn reference / etc, etc) plonk in hand and that is because of the unpredictable summers on Meme Weather Island (we used to rule the world, you know).</p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/lVlPvCB.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="400" height="250" src="https://i.imgur.com/lVlPvCB.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's a picture of a cut to break things up - not game related<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />Well it's been crap (again) and insesant (how many S's and in which order?) deluges have washed out the delicate summer fruits which barely got the chance to wither on the vine. Last year I was inundated with strawberries to the point of complaint and this year; nada. Circle of life, etc etc.</p><p>Meanwhile in the indie game development world; I have continued to port over <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1789310/Monsters_Loot_Swag/" target="_blank">Monsters Loot Swag</a> to the new engine build. Art assets - mainly texutre images - had all been redone and modified as you can read from last months glorious endevours; as you can read <a href="https://yorkshirerifles.blogspot.com/2023/07/flaming-july-raining-july.html" target="_blank">here</a>. And, yes, I also complain about the weather in that blog too ...</p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/amckVul.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="700" height="640" src="https://i.imgur.com/amckVul.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is a cat pretending to be a dog, pretending to be a seal - not game related<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />This has left me to <u><i><b>"just"</b></i></u> - a euphemism that does not seem to carry the appropriate weight - update and transfer all of the gameplay scripts. Doing this in a methodical manner has been a long, dull, and extracting process, however I have discovered - and fixed - a considerable number of bugs, enough to make a new build patch of the game on their own, which you can see <a href="https://steamcommunity.com/games/1789310/announcements/detail/3650782976852589128?snr=2_9_100003_" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p>Since posting that update I have hunted down and squashed more bugs and issues, which will be included in the next update. I have also ported a whole raft of shaders to the new version of the engine which can be found <a href="https://torque3d.org/forums/topic/2567-updated-shader-library-resource-to-dx11/#comment-21588" target="_blank">here</a>.</p><p>Next up is to port over all of the user interface screens and get them working with a new input system before I can release a beta depot of the new engine build.</p><p>Tomorrow is September, and apparently Meme Weather Island is going back to 24C now that I have packed the summer shorts away ... so I'm not putting the Autumn duvet on just yet.<br /><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/QjQMWcx.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/QjQMWcx.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is cat(girl) drinking coffee<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />Steve_Yorkshirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06014767867779183995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164301193151191531.post-32758228697877817002023-07-31T22:25:00.001+01:002023-07-31T22:25:38.637+01:00Flaming July Raining July<p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/jQbhPmo.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="465" data-original-width="800" height="372" src="https://i.imgur.com/jQbhPmo.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Behold, 693 materials converted to PBR - but the models LOD out quick so you can't see that here - trustMeBro<span>™</span></td></tr></tbody></table>July has ended as Flaming June started ... flaming wet. The chances of a good strawberry crop in August diminish by the second.</p><p>Work wise, every single object in <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1789310/Monsters_Loot_Swag/" target="_blank">Monsters Loot Swag</a> has been updated to the latest engine version and the fancy-pants visuals of Physical Based Rendering (PBR). All 693 materials have been changed to get rid of the diffuse and specular mapping, and brand spanking PBR compiltable albedo and Occlusion / Roughness / Metallic (ORM) maps have been created. I also settled on a standard 512 pixel size for the vast majority of objects as they are not large enough during gameplay to warrant textures any bigger (except bigger boss monsters and the such which are now 1024 pixel maps). All of this should also help reduce the total memory footprint for texture loading.</p><p>This new version of <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1789310/Monsters_Loot_Swag/" target="_blank">Monsters Loot Swag</a> will be initially available as a beta on <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1789310?updates=true" target="_blank">Steam</a>, before later becoming the standard game version.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/QDBD5C0.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="465" data-original-width="800" height="372" src="https://i.imgur.com/QDBD5C0.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Boris The Spoder-Tank reflecting a rather barren test level in real-time<span>™</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p>All of the terrains for the already completed 7 levels (3 more to do) have also been updated to the latest engine build, and are now filled with reflection probes to simulate the area around specific features.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/wtPp1lb.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="465" data-original-width="800" height="372" src="https://i.imgur.com/wtPp1lb.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A reflection probe before I realized I had to embiggen<span>™</span> the capture radius to get objects to reflect in it<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Slowly and methodically porting the game to the new engine has caused a few issues, namely my previous disregard for naming conventions. Many files ended up being called "thing_x_new4_v08_redux_final_final2" and then added to a profile, but the new engine uses an asset system so suddenly naming is important, and the file's name becomes the profile name. This was further confounded by previously having multiple files of the same name in different folders, so a fair bit of renaming has occurred, especially in the 262 audio files which needed to be called the name of their profiles.</p><p>So, next up is getting the actual old gameplay logic to work with the new asset system. I am optimistic that this will not be too difficult and that the main issues will revolve around some renaming of server and client connection commands. As ever I prefer to work methodically so that I can actual see where things have changed and understand how the new processes work - which seems infinitely preferable to ham-fistedly ramming the whole game into the "convert to new build button" and then wondering why everything is a mangled arse afterwards.</p><p>Hopefully August will also see a return to some decent sunny weather and I can get back to shorts and a t-shirt rather than continue building an Ark in a jumper ... we live, as ever, in hope ...<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/OALNUeA.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="465" data-original-width="800" height="372" src="https://i.imgur.com/OALNUeA.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Steve_Yorkshirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06014767867779183995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164301193151191531.post-72295622328387180302023-06-30T19:20:00.000+01:002023-06-30T19:20:30.661+01:00Flaming June Raining June<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8d/Flaming_June%2C_by_Frederic_Lord_Leighton_(1830-1896).jpg/480px-Flaming_June%2C_by_Frederic_Lord_Leighton_(1830-1896).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="480" height="480" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8d/Flaming_June%2C_by_Frederic_Lord_Leighton_(1830-1896).jpg/480px-Flaming_June%2C_by_Frederic_Lord_Leighton_(1830-1896).jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">June started with a jumper, June ends with a jumper<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> June ends as it started ... wearing a jumper. Thankfully the bit in the middle was scorchio and I took advantage of the free vitamin D and got a nice tan. My veg patch also got a good soaking and the emergency water barrels filled up.<br /></p><p>June has primarily been upgrading <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1789310/view/3681172762834356628" target="_blank">Monsters Loot Swag</a> to a new engine build. This requires me to change all the materials from Diffuse/Spec to albedo/ORM for all of those fancy PBR reflections... and that means updating all 693 of them ... (note to self; next game go for flat shading).</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/EARYUgA.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="465" data-original-width="800" height="372" src="https://i.imgur.com/EARYUgA.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Player Characters and bushes get the PBR treatment<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/6K2Dp6u.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/6K2Dp6u.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Catgirl T-Poses over the nettles to assert dominance<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>HDR has proven to be somewhat of an issue in all of this - initially because I didn't realized that it was switched on by default, having not used it in previous version of the game or engine, and is now on as default. This led to some awkward automated changes in exposure for filmic tonemapping based on camera position.</p><p>Eventually, after a little fiddling with sliders and values I settled on an interpretation of ACES filmic tonemapping.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/sqVE6fZ.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="465" data-original-width="800" height="372" src="https://i.imgur.com/sqVE6fZ.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stock ACES tonemapping with auto-Contrast - pass the light blub<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/sCYpF8f.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="465" data-original-width="800" height="372" src="https://i.imgur.com/sCYpF8f.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Manually defined auto-contrast values for a sunny day<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>Whilst all of this was going on I ended up helping out with a new implementation of parallax mapping.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/jePcGuT.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="465" data-original-width="800" height="372" src="https://i.imgur.com/jePcGuT.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Old parallax mapping<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/ceX7lTD.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="465" data-original-width="800" height="372" src="https://i.imgur.com/ceX7lTD.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New parallax mapping<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/iF2aPOC.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="715" height="640" src="https://i.imgur.com/iF2aPOC.jpeg" width="572" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yes but actually no!<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>This is the start of a change in how parallax mapping works in the engine, with the original version being replaced with a brand spanking new Parallax Occlusion Mapping. And this is what that looks like! (minus the occlusion casting it's own shadowing).</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/UYElJIP.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="465" data-original-width="800" height="372" src="https://i.imgur.com/UYElJIP.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Definately not the same picture ...<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p> The POM version required a total change of art pipeline where the alpha channel receeds from maximum height of white, downwards to lowest area of black, whilst the original parallax mapping built up and outwards from the lighter values.</p><p>So far I have the characters, bushes, trees, general vegetation, all of the level objects such as rocks completely transformed into PBR mode. So, still to do are the dynamic objects, animated explosion effects, most of the terrains and all of the monsters - and as it's a game about monsters, there are rather a lot of them ...</p><p>All that to do in Flaming July - which is not a painting by Lord Leighton.<br /></p><p><br /></p>Steve_Yorkshirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06014767867779183995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164301193151191531.post-84540289204665376642023-05-31T16:42:00.000+01:002023-05-31T16:42:44.940+01:00Boxes In Boxes<p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8d/Flaming_June%2C_by_Frederic_Lord_Leighton_(1830-1896).jpg/480px-Flaming_June%2C_by_Frederic_Lord_Leighton_(1830-1896).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="480" height="480" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8d/Flaming_June%2C_by_Frederic_Lord_Leighton_(1830-1896).jpg/480px-Flaming_June%2C_by_Frederic_Lord_Leighton_(1830-1896).jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">According to the weather forecast, she will need a jumper ...<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></p><p>After getting mild sun burn sat out by the veg patch with a bottle of wine, we are now back to standard British weather of needing a jumper for late Spring and early Summer ... <i>Flaming June</i> looks like it means that the fireplace will need to be lit ...<br /></p><p>Steam brought out an update to the Steamworks SDK, sneaking it out again as they did in the previous month without any fanfair. Once again they had made changes to the authentication system, and once again I had to wade through code comments to find out what it all meant - except this time I also had to wade through the online documentation, complete with it's links to various 404 dead pages. To quote the docs at <a href="https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/webapi/ISteamUserAuth">https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/webapi/ISteamUserAuth</a>:<br /></p><p></p><blockquote> <i><strong>NOTE</strong>: This call requires a publisher API key to use
this method. As such this API MUST be called from a secure server, and
can never be used directly by clients!</i></blockquote><p></p><p>So, yeah I'm good, this was just splitting up web-based games from the standard Steam Client authentication. Also feel free to click the <a href="https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/webapi/ISteamUserAuth" target="_blank">api.steamworks link at the bottom of that page</a> for more helpful advice. 😉<br /></p><p>In April I had attempted to create a melee combat system of checking through a defending player object's hitBoxes for intersection with an attacking object's hitBox - to see if this would be faster than using a raycast system of quad edges projected from the attacker's weapon - all whilst suffering from the <a href="https://yorkshirerifles.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-dreaded-lurgy.html" target="_blank">Dreaded Lurgy</a>.</p><p>What I found, during illness enduced brain fog, was that there was no current system to determine whether rotated worldSpace boxes intersected (OOB) only AABB. Now without the brain fog I had another attempt at coding a solution to this, with a nice easy early out if half longest box sides added together were beyond central distance, though ended up using raycasts after all for the actual connection checks, which were oriented in worldSpace with the attacker's box and then a perpendicular test if no initial result was found.</p><p>The end result was that I found checking through the defender's 12 hitBoxes (but potentially up to 20) could easily take more than the standard 4 raycasts which I had been previously using. On top of that, box intersection would take more the boxes behind the initial hit into account, nearly doubling the struck areas, so a big melee swing would 98 damage rather than 40 something. To order these results in worldSpace would require another raycast or more maths based on location and orientation.</p><p>tl;dr - I've kept my original melee system, it works fine for what I want, but I might use the OOB intersection for weapon on weapon parrying.</p><p>So, that was the month that was. Flaming June awaits, with a promise of thick jumpers and hot cocoa ... 😒<br /></p>Steve_Yorkshirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06014767867779183995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164301193151191531.post-43645977318653136102023-04-30T22:37:00.006+01:002023-04-30T22:37:54.761+01:00The Dreaded Lurgy<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/G7ZW7X6.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="800" height="207" src="https://i.imgur.com/G7ZW7X6.png" width="640" /></a></div> <p></p><p>The Dreaded Lurgy is a Rare SWAG Power-up. It is an Attack Based event which causes the targeted MONSTER to succumb to the Dreaded Lurgy. The infected MONSTER is highly contagious and will transmit the Dreaded Lurgy to any other MONSTER who they come into contact with. However, after receiving the dark gift of the Dreaded Lurgy, the victim is now immune from further infection.</p>Annoyingly
this is also a thing in real life, and I have spent the last month
suffering from The Langshan-Po Lurgy - a free internet to anyone who
gets the reference, but Gen-X (greatest generation) here, is probably
just showing his age.<br /><br />Needless to say 3D vector maths, gimbals,
quaternions, cpp and general cerebral activity, has been somewhat
compromised with lurgy brain fog. In celebration at the cerebral
degradation - which hopefully will only be temperory - I have revised,
both the icon and the in-game activation event art, for<div class="bbcodes_Underline_3vpZi">The Dreaded Lurgy.</div><p>However
during this time, Steam has snuck out a new update to Steamworks
(v1.56) ... which broke previous coded
SteamGameServer::getAuthentication <img class="emoticon_emoticon_316r8" data-copystyle="merge-adjacent" data-copytext=":steamfacepalm:" data-emoticon="steamfacepalm" src="https://community.akamai.steamstatic.com/economy/emoticon/steamfacepalm" /> - thank you Valve devs for the code comments which gave a good explaination of the new changes. </p><p><a href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1789310/view/3681172762834356628" target="_blank">The Steam update for Monsters Loot Swag is here</a>. <br /></p><p>It has also spent all month raining again - just like last month. So it turned out in the end there really was enough rain for April showers. In the midst of all these downpours there has been a frequent visitor, and pidgeon numbers are being reduced.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/W3vYnjO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="480" src="https://i.imgur.com/W3vYnjO.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Who's a pretty boy, then?<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>In the world of melee combat coding I decided to try a new way of doing things and ended up on some terrible code carousel, going round and round in circles - and having the Dreaded Lurgy did not help brain function. </p><p>I had wanted to look down a list of the target's hitboxes and check if they were within the bounds of a weapon's hitbox. This caused far more problems than I had preceived, with a total lack of being able to get the transforms and orientation of the hitbox meshes within the model. When I could get the hitbox mesh itself it wouldn't allow me to translate it to into world space because it was the wrong class, when I had world space I could not access the hitbox mesh because that was then the wrong class.</p><p>I could test a strike against the target bounds and check for intersecting but then to get the actual hitboxes still required using a raycast against all hitboxes to get their transforms and then suddenly we were into more load than I had before.</p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/Iqcv0Fn.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="469" data-original-width="800" height="375" src="https://i.imgur.com/Iqcv0Fn.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dave is made of hitboxes and the raycast is checking alignment of the forearm hitbox<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> The only thing I can think of is to create a whole series of points within each of the target's hitboxes and and then check the Box3F of the weapon hitbox against all these points --- and once again we are into even more load, and not the less I was hoping for with just intersection checks of boxes.</p><p>Giving all of this up as a bad job, I decided to use the 4 main edges of the weapon hitbox and fire a raycast down each length for more accuracy than a single, central raycast check. This has turned out to be infinitely simpler than going down a list of up to 20 hitboxes checking for intersections.<br /></p><p>I also coded up a fatigue system for heavy attacks, sprinting and swimming, and completely rewrote how fall damage works. I started to add attribute statistics for the player, which are fairly similiar to standard RPG stuff with STR, DEX, CON, etc, and the start of a leveling and experience system.</p><p>Next up will be to code classes and jobs with bonuses for these attributes on how fast experience points boost them.</p><p></p><p>Next month I am not certain whether I will continue with the melee action RPG prototype or start porting Monsters Loot Swag to the newest an shiniest version of the engine - I expect it will be a bit of both.<br /></p><p></p><p>The Dreaded Lurgy is finally subsiding and I am down to a dry and
somewhat sore throat with an occaisional dry cough. A pox upon the ...
er ... pox!</p>Steve_Yorkshirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06014767867779183995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164301193151191531.post-55020710734604805602023-03-31T21:56:00.006+01:002023-03-31T21:56:41.741+01:00Damp Island is Damp<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/9zfrAPC.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="800" height="207" src="https://i.imgur.com/9zfrAPC.png" width="640" /></a></div><p>It seems to have been raining forever - at this rate there will be no water left for April to have showers ...<br /></p><p>Monsters Loot Swag has had it's <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1789310/view/6521815776475418596" target="_blank">13th Early Access Update</a>! This fixed a whole load of minor issues and one major one - the awful openAL crossfade falloff has finally been slain ... with, naturally, a 2 line fix. 😫</p><p>Turns out it all that was needed was to feed openAL an ini file to tell it to stop dropping the fall off so early.</p><p>Also our leggy, harness encased, propeller powered catgirl has been testing an engine upgrade with glorious PBR! For which I made a Cornell Box in Blender 3D.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/BDSzlu6.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="708" data-original-width="530" src="https://i.imgur.com/BDSzlu6.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Reflections! Shiny, shiny reflections!<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>Now, updating the whole game to a new engine build which features not only shiny stuff like PBR, but an entire modular system is going to take some time. </p><p>However, talking about new engine builds with funky modular features, I have been coding an animation based melee combat system in C++.</p><p>So far I have light and heavy attacks, activated by either tap or hold input. Both kinds of strike share a single Prepare Attack Animation, which works like a charge-up, and is based on weapon type. Light attacks are randomized, whilst heavy attacks are based on player input at the end of Prepare Attack Anim.</p><p>Each weapon has it's own attack speed and the player themselves have a "rage meter" which increases attack speed with the more blows they land on an opponent.<br /></p><p>There are also primary and secondary types of damage, for instance a broadsword is primarily for slashing but can also stab. I plan on introducing different styles of armour (gambeson, lamellar, chain, plate, etc) which offer varied protection against the major types of attack damage of slash, blunt and stab.<br /></p><p>Here's an animated gif showing a light thrusting attack - this was before I added weapon specific speed modifiers.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/TPJPOzs.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="480" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/TPJPOzs.gif" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Light Attack - Yellow Circle Capturing Button Input<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>So that it was it for the wash out of a month which was March. I had was planning on setting up the Spring duvet for my bedding, but it's been so miserable and cold I think I will stick with the Winter duvet for another month. 😰<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Steve_Yorkshirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06014767867779183995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164301193151191531.post-38609942068877957152023-02-28T22:27:00.002+00:002023-02-28T22:27:24.456+00:00February Is For Pumpkins and Witches<p> <a href="https://i.imgur.com/jtnNAeN.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/jtnNAeN.png" width="640" /></a></p><p></p><p> February, the month of the year long associated with witches and pumpkins!</p><p>Yeah, no, okay it isn't ... but my latest update for the top-down swag-em-up waifu shooter <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1789310/view/3677789357672480686" target="_blank">Monsters Loot Swag</a> features the first of the unlockable player characters, Pumpkin! </p><p>*<i>Crosses off cute witch from his list of weibo anime meme characters</i>*</p><p>Pumpkin can be unlocked by getting the "Marathon" achievement, and her attributes are as follows:</p><p></p><blockquote>PUMPKIN is a mix ranged, playable character with a long ranged standard
attack and decent strength for knocking monsters out of the way. Her
special attack is a very high damage strike to the enemy to her
immediate front, whilst her evasion stuns all monsters within half the
screen with a slap of her broomstick. Whilst her healing and enery
recharging is somewhat low, this is made up for with her exceptionally
high starting mobility.</blockquote><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/09llDsW.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/09llDsW.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vital Statistics ... 38-26-34 *rimshot*<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>And here she is in video action.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N8sMd1qMSFc" width="560" youtube-src-id="N8sMd1qMSFc"></iframe></div><br /><p>Speaking of videos ... here's a few more.</p><p>I have been looking at updating my working game engine code to the latest release of <a href="https://torque3d.org/torque3d/" target="_blank">free and Open Source Torque 3D</a>, the version with the fancy PBR and 21st Century asset system which apparently all modern game engines consider to be a must have. </p><p>I had also spent some time making demo code for a third person camera system that has movement input orientated in screenSpace - eg: input "left" makes the player move left along the screen. Most third person games like Elden Ring, GTA and Sleeping Dogs (which is the only one of those I've actually played), have this input-to-movement system. For years randos in the forums had asked for this type of camera based movement, and I coded it up in an afternoon. This differs importantly from the top-down system in Monsters Loot Swag, as the camera is still the property of the player object, rather than being a seperate entity that orbits the player and is beyond their immediate control. This did mean quite a bit of hacking away at the player's move function but I managed to leave in the original system for first person view.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/spIr5v1p2Go" width="560" youtube-src-id="spIr5v1p2Go"></iframe></div><br /><p>After this I added a lock-on system, so that the camera would orientate to view a target whilst keeping the player in-frame and allowing the same screenSpace based movement input system. To test the correct rotational direction of the camera I gave the rotation speed a delay which makes it look kind of janky.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qXQ0660xNhg" width="560" youtube-src-id="qXQ0660xNhg"></iframe></div><br /><p>Both the <a href="https://torque3d.org/forums/topic/7065-elden-ringgta-third-person-free-camera-with-screenspace-movement/" target="_blank">third-person camera</a> and the <a href="https://torque3d.org/forums/topic/7075-lock-on-target-camera-with-screenspace-oriented-movement/" target="_blank">lock-on</a> resources are up on the <a href="https://torque3d.org/forums/forum/3-torque3d/" target="_blank">Torque3D forums</a>, but do be aware that the lock-on code was written in a haze of sleep deprivation and the maths can be described as "<i>fugly</i>", the networking is good though 😅.</p><p>Next up is another unlockable character for my <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1789310/Monsters_Loot_Swag/" target="_blank">Early Access title on Steam, Monsters Loot Swag</a>, and I may also start to write up some demo code for a melee based hack-and-slash game, which might use actual weapon hitbox detection rather than faking the whole thing with maths and raycasts.<br /></p><p></p>Steve_Yorkshirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06014767867779183995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164301193151191531.post-76779656096172925352023-01-31T23:30:00.062+00:002023-02-01T00:56:12.360+00:00New Year, New Game Update<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/HSP2wtJ.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/HSP2wtJ.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There's a joke in that loading screen somewhere ...<br /></td></tr></tbody></table></p><p>A new year, a new game update, a new level, and a new level Boss Monster to be defeated! It's Zorra, the Knife Enthusiast who guards the firey lava lakes of the Temple of Pele - that's the Hawaiian Goddess of volcanoes not the late footballer.</p><p>The update changelog can be viewed on <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1789310/view/3650765224128663874" target="_blank">Steam</a>. <br /></p><p>It's level 7 - so that is 70% of the game levels now complete, and it's the first level to introduce the environmental hazard of lava.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://media.makeameme.org/created/its-called-liquid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://media.makeameme.org/created/its-called-liquid.jpg" width="600" /></a></div><p> As there was already a callback for entering liquid in C++ which passed the type it was fairly simple to set up a damage system when the player was immersed. However as there was no string variable for the player to record what type of liquid it was, the type would not get passed on the leave liquid callback. In the end I just used a trigger.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/yf8caHM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/yf8caHM.png" width="640" /></a></div><p>With another level complete, next up, will be some new cosplaying characters for the player to use. These will be the start of the unlockable characters, which is a Steam achievement in itself.</p>Steve_Yorkshirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06014767867779183995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164301193151191531.post-30503533780171005202022-12-31T21:04:00.004+00:002022-12-31T21:04:48.939+00:00That Was The Year That Was: Space Year 2022<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/famBDlc.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/famBDlc.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Level 6 Monster Boss, Kareu The Horticulturist<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>So, annoyingly, I somehow missed November devblog, being the first month missed in 4 years. Bloody Embuggeration!</p><p>Not doubt I was otherwise engaged with a number of updates to <a href="https://steamcommunity.com/app/1789310/allnews/" target="_blank">Monsters Loot Swag on Steam</a>, and trying to get the new level knocked out. This not only had Level 6 and it's monster boss, Kaeru The Horticulturist, as pictured above, but also a final fix of a long running bug issue, the dreaded "Out Of Bounds Index Array" which I had previously narrowed down to some sort of audio issue. And, eventually I had it cornered and trapped, and finally fixed, Audio Emitters had been getting their ghosting out of synch. The simplest solution was to create a delay in turning them off and then deleting them, but this had taken months of investigation.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/eofZvP5.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="501" data-original-width="500" src="https://i.imgur.com/eofZvP5.jpeg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Literally ALL the printf<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p> With all the bugs - that I am aware of anyhow - finally vanquished, I could finish off the newest level, finalize the missing portrait artwork for the previous level boss monsters, and get on with expanding the game. I am now on the <a href="https://steamcommunity.com/app/1789310/allnews/" target="_blank">9th Early Access</a> update to the game, and the <a href="https://steamcommunity.com/games/1789310/announcements/detail/3645132549641365773" target="_blank">fourth major update</a>.<br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/pW8RczC.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/pW8RczC.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Level 5 Monster Boss, Lula The Non-Resident Alien</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>And so that is where we are now, with the game running well and up to speed, waiting for completion of levels 6-10 and the remaining 4 unlockable catgirl cosplayers ... and a few other things such as the Souvenir system I have planned, where boss monsters drop a collectable via RNG with a difficulty setting modifier.</p><p>All that and more is planned for the new year, with a final completion of the game between late Spring and early Summer. After this I might code up a melee based combat system for a hack-and-slash-cum-Soulslike to see how that works, before deciding on whether to use that as my next project or the Aeronaut vertical slice I made a year or two back.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2jpokdK9RVA" width="560" youtube-src-id="2jpokdK9RVA"></iframe></div><br /><p>Happy New Year, and see you in 2023!<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Steve_Yorkshirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06014767867779183995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164301193151191531.post-66922158585436208872022-10-31T20:28:00.001+00:002022-10-31T20:28:23.008+00:00Halloween Horror Space Year 2022<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/WNhP3QK.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="783" data-original-width="800" height="626" src="https://i.imgur.com/WNhP3QK.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Behold The True Horror This Halloween!<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> More terrifying than any cosmic horror dredged from the neurosis of HP Lovecraft ... it's the <a href="https://www.usdebtclock.org/world-debt-clock.html" target="_blank">global debt clock</a>! </p><p>Okay ... have you recovered from this ghastly Halloween fright? Then we shall continue with October's dev blog.</p><p>Finally I discovered the true source of a long running bug. I have spent months slowly chipping away at this bug, narrowing down the source and timing, even fixing the crash and suppressing the Out Of Bounds Array messages. Should have known that it would be an audio emitter issue.😫</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://y.yarn.co/76c65c90-5e05-419f-9a84-0f8adc431d92_text.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="215" data-original-width="400" height="215" src="https://y.yarn.co/76c65c90-5e05-419f-9a84-0f8adc431d92_text.gif" width="400" /></a></div><br /> So it turned out that a lot of events happen when a player buy's Swag in <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1789310/Monsters_Loot_Swag/" target="_blank">Monsters Loot Swag</a>, effects sparkle, audio plays, icons appear, objects spawn, marker objects hide and if there's a lot of other stuff happening at the same time ... and it's a game where there's always a lot of stuff happening at the same time ... the audio emitter can get out of synch when it wants to disable.<p></p><p>The solution was to stop everything from happening in the same engine tick with a simple schedule to make it all happen in order, giving the audio emitter a good half second to turn itself off and make sure it's ghost update of the network doesn't go tits up. Hurray, fixed and understood the cause. 😓</p><p>And speaking of audio bugs ... years ago I noticed that sometimes the audio went ... iffy. It would start going off-key and warble intermittently. Not long before shipping the start of the Early Access game on Steam, I realized that this was caused by the camera being offset from the player location and thus camera and player could end up fighting for who got the audio source, with the sound cutting out if the camera was further away from the audio. At the time I threw in an emergency workaround by making the radius of all audio emitters large enough to swallow the camera.</p><p>Eventually I got around to coding a proper solution, use the camera rotation and the player object's location. This took a fair bit of maths as I could not remember which column of the matrix transforms I required to get to mix together ... until help on the Torque Game Engine Discord Server pointed out that there were already helper functions for matrixes and I could just use <i>matrix.getPosition();</i> in cpp - boy did I feel dumb. 😅<br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/Nx45egk.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/Nx45egk.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">The Takiyasha Ornamental Water Garden - early image<br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>So, I have spent this month working on<i> Level 6</i> for the next big update ... which I was hoping to have released this week but will probably take longer as I have redesigned the boss monster twice aleady. It's the <span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><b>Takiyasha Ornamental Water Garden</b> and it builds on the environmental hazards which I introduced previously in <i>Level 5</i>. Behold water! Water is an environmental hazard as it slows down both the player and enemy monsters. I have designed the level so that if the player wants to get somewhere fast they're wanting to go through the water, but slow movement and enemy missiles are bad, so the player could decide to stay out of the water and go around it, thus preserving speed and the ability to dodge better.</span></p><p><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">I've also coded a lava type of liquid which only damages the player - more on that in<i> Level 7</i>.<br /></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/MVI38pi.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/MVI38pi.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Level 6 early testing gameplay<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>Level 6 is the home of the Stone Golems, high DPS, low HP, but very strong, range-based player characters have much lower strength than melee ones and so have a hard time barging them aside, and can easily get surrounded and trapped.</p><p>Once I finish up the level boss, Lady Kaeru The Horticulturist, who is not going to fight you, and her giant champion who is going to fight you, I will be uploading the third big update to Steam, and the <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1789310/Monsters_Loot_Swag/" target="_blank">Early Access game of Monsters Loot Swag</a> will be around 60% complete.<br /></p><p>In the meantime, don't have nightmares! <a href="https://worlddebtclocks.com">https://worlddebtclocks.com</a><br /></p>Steve_Yorkshirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06014767867779183995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164301193151191531.post-38911990990365423562022-09-30T23:56:00.002+01:002022-09-30T23:56:22.914+01:00Monsters Loot Swag Early Access Update 2<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/t7ZBzdr.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/t7ZBzdr.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is Pauk The Engineer, she drives Mecha-Boris, the Spidertank. Spidertank, spidertank, does whatever a spidertank does ...<br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>September saw two Regular Updates for Steam in one month, but that mostly because I brought early October's update forward a day to coincide with Friday and the start of the weekend.</p><p>Regular Update 1 did pretty much what I said it would in August's blog; the main emphasis was on the player requested radar system so players could find each other in online Co-Op multiplayer mode, and the rest of the update was tweaks and bug fixes.</p><p>Regular Update (because that's what Steam calls them) 2 has just shipped, and as this was the first update to have an actual month of work available since launching last month, it has a whopping 50 fixes, improvements, changes and new content.</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/pPXb6dm.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="465" data-original-width="800" height="372" src="https://i.imgur.com/pPXb6dm.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I forgot I wasn't in developer mode on Steam, got killed, and permadeath erased my own save file - bugger ...<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> The main focus for this was to revitalize level 5 and turn it into a broken industrial aesthetic, complete with shattered piping system leaking toxic goo (not a comment on current events). I also fixed the chatHud so that players can talk to each other in multiplayer game mode, whilst waiting for the game to start, and after the level is complete and everyone is waiting the 60 seconds before the next level loads.<p></p><p>There was also a whole load of balancing and bug fixes, and the portrait and loading screen for the level 3 Monster Boss, Pauk; see above. One of the changes was to drop the Shipping Build from the executable which I have long had suspicions causes instability (like 10+ years), crashing when any other build would have managed to get through the error alright. This also allows for the player to access the console, which can be useful when they come across a bug because they can then send me the console.log text file and I can see where the script loop got up to - and I am a dev who likes a lot of script echo to log to find out what is happening (printf too).</p><p>And here is a video of what Level 5 looks like, though I decided to remove the ground fog in the end.<br /><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Hp77uh6dUMc" width="560" youtube-src-id="Hp77uh6dUMc"></iframe></div><p></p><p>So that was the month that was, I removed the summer duvet in favour of the thicker Autumn one. Next month I will probably be working on a whole new level for Monsters Loot Swag; the Water Temple. Ninty plz no sue.<br /></p>Steve_Yorkshirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06014767867779183995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164301193151191531.post-23712906908002770692022-08-31T23:29:00.007+01:002022-08-31T23:29:58.853+01:00Monsters Loot Swag Steam Release<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/8m8DwxH.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/8m8DwxH.png" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p>Monsters Loot Swag officially released as an "Early Access" title on Steam, and was immediately drowned under an ocean of gay, furry porn. Such is life. Early Access titles do not have access to Steam's marketing visibility rounds, which are only visible upon full release.</p><p>Naturally with any new title release, an emergency hot patch fix was uploaded within the first 24 hours, for a bug which had never happened in any of the previous years of development.</p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://y.yarn.co/76c65c90-5e05-419f-9a84-0f8adc431d92_text.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="215" data-original-width="400" src="https://y.yarn.co/76c65c90-5e05-419f-9a84-0f8adc431d92_text.gif" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And thankfully was not too difficult to hunt down and squash<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> Cue begging emails for free keys, including "pay us money and we'll give you a one word review on Steam's Curator system". lol no. I did send off a few keys via Steam Curator to groups which looked like they might fit the bill.<br /></p><p>I did however get some feedback, that players in online multiplayer Co-Op mode wanted a radar so that they could find each other. And there wish was my command! Taking the ghosts from the local connection I could get the locations of the other players and their status, so dead players who need resusitating can be displayed with a different icon from alive players. I made the radar range fairly small, a couple of hundred metres and had players beyond that appear at the edge of the radar so that they are always visible. As the player gets closer the icons fade as they move towards the centre of the radar.<br /></p><p>Here's the initial video of that in action, minus the fading.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oit1F1AVKF4" width="560" youtube-src-id="oit1F1AVKF4"></iframe></div><br /><p>So we shall continue, gearing up for the first month post release update, which will actually be 2 weeks after launch and thus a smaller update than the ones to come. This smaller update is mostly about some bugfixes and quality of life improvements, as well as the portraits of the Level 2 Monster Boss (above in desktop format), Lapin The Ranger.</p><p>Next month will be solely about working towards the first major update.<br /></p>Steve_Yorkshirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06014767867779183995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164301193151191531.post-48743577832450595042022-07-31T23:11:00.003+01:002022-07-31T23:11:39.166+01:00Preparing For Release<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/fRVDOPg.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="433" data-original-width="800" height="346" src="https://i.imgur.com/fRVDOPg.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is a bunny. This bunny rides dinosaurs.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> So I have spent the month gearing up for Steam release ... which ended up with me failing Valve's build review. Part of this was due to the testers not realising that the player hosts games on their own box, whilst they had expected online dedicated servers ... and if their testers had not realized that, then I surmised players would also be likely to make the same mistake, and so I changed the whole multiplayer selection screens to be more obvious, state exactly how online play works and also tell them to unblock port 28000 on their router if they are hosting.<p></p><p>Resubmitting the build review I realised that time was ticking on, and with it taking around a week to get feedback, I moved the date of release back. It is now <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1789310/Monsters_Loot_Swag/" target="_blank">Thursday 18th August</a>. Thankfully my build passed review once I had made a few more corrections based on Valve's feedback.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/5S8jVp5.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://i.imgur.com/5S8jVp5.gif" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the dinosaur the bunny rides<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p> I had been working on boss monsters, level two has a bunny riding a dinosaur, level 3 has a sailor driving a mechanical spider called Mecha-Boris.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/pocxyJO.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="467" data-original-width="623" src="https://i.imgur.com/pocxyJO.jpeg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You can't stop Mecha-Boris!<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Stop Boris was a game with a lightgun and spider when I was a kid. The advert was awesome and it's a shame I can't find it on the internet. Here's someone playing it though.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y6TVKoR7h9M" width="560" youtube-src-id="Y6TVKoR7h9M"></iframe></div><p> Due to a deprived childhood I never had Stop Boris and this has led me to become the broken shadow of a man that you see before me. That and the PlayPeople(Mobil) Operating Theatre which I always wanted to finish off my hospital collection. From then on spiders were always known as Borises. The Who had a song called Boris The Spider.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/VM9zvJ6.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" src="https://i.imgur.com/VM9zvJ6.gif" /></a></div><br /> I also got footsteps and dust emitters working, finding some broken code that would lead to a crash to desktop if the emitter was invalid. Probably been there for 10 years. A quick check for nullptr fixed that and it got sent to someone who can actually use github to upload to the engine's master head build.<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/GARNoTV.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" src="https://i.imgur.com/GARNoTV.gif" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Insert Coins - now with added insert coins<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>A tester had mentioned that they had been unaware of how to trigger the exit node to spawn the level boss due to the GUI being transparent and a lot of action happening on screen, so I made the above GUI to make sure that players can actual see it.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/FAAYSU1.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="722" data-original-width="701" height="640" src="https://i.imgur.com/FAAYSU1.jpeg" width="621" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Catgirl Golfgirl<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Playable cosplay character four is a golfgirl. Everybody likes golf, except me who was around 40 over par on the crazy putting golf round the back of the pub.</p><p><a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1789310/Monsters_Loot_Swag/" target="_blank">Monsters Loot Swag releases Thursday 18th August 2022</a> - in the meantime here's a video of Mecha-Boris before I added dust puffs to movement.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3kNBowVxH-0" width="560" youtube-src-id="3kNBowVxH-0"></iframe></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Steve_Yorkshirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06014767867779183995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164301193151191531.post-55947120584261390042022-06-30T21:24:00.004+01:002022-06-30T21:24:57.368+01:00New And Improved Mouse Aiming<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/XTqfIH9.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/XTqfIH9.png" width="640" /></a></div><p><span style="font-size: small;">So it turned out nobody liked the original mouse aiming system</span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;">This was not entirely a surprise as literally nobody had previously said that they did like the mouse aiming system, but at least I got some feedback and examples of games which had good mouse aiming schemes. What people actually wanted was not the direct input control system to player character rotation, but for the player character to turn towards a visible mouse based cursor or aiming reticle.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;">And their wish was my command! Had a bit of trouble networking it in multiplayer co-op mode at first but got an example of setting up a net event that would send the client input directly to the server object rather than having to wait for standard client/server updates.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4u2cjL9Q1_Q" width="560" youtube-src-id="4u2cjL9Q1_Q"></iframe></span></div><p><span style="font-size: small;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><br /> It
was also Steam Next Fest, were a thousand desperate indie devs got
harvested for demo downloads so that gamers could get a badge and 55XP
off Valve.</span><span style="font-size: small;"></span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/uhGOhFt.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="800" height="207" src="https://i.imgur.com/uhGOhFt.png" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"> I ran two livestreams with varying amounts of success and terrible audio until I ironed those problems out - even though I had ironed those problems out in testing previously. Was hoping for 10% wishlist but got 1%, which is at least better than Sweet FA%.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1789310/Monsters_Loot_Swag/" target="_blank">Monsters Loot Swag</a> will ship as an Early Access title on Friday, July 28th, 2022 - which gives me four weeks to get it into a shippable state. eg: make more boss monsters for the compeleted levels. </span><br /></p>Steve_Yorkshirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06014767867779183995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164301193151191531.post-37252125369416396422022-05-31T23:59:00.094+01:002022-06-01T00:35:30.443+01:00Demonstarting Demo Steam Next Fest<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/UVCIqr4.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/UVCIqr4.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brilliant Advertising That Gets Straight To The Point<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>Steam Next Fest is a thing where desperate indie devs big and small plead with Joe Public to notice their upcoming game and add it to their Wishlist. It runs for a whole week from Monday the 13th of June and <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1789310/Monsters_Loot_Swag/" target="_blank">Monsters Loot Swag</a> will be there, with a playable demo - <span style="font-size: xx-small;">that I am still hammering the bugs out of</span> ...</p><p>At some point during this Steam Next Fest, I will be streaming on the <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1789310/Monsters_Loot_Swag/" target="_blank">Monsters Loot Swag Steam Store Page</a> (if I can get it to work - even Valve say it's awkard as hell in their documentation) to demonstrate the game and I dare say ramble incoherently about things ... probably 8pm BST on Tuesday 14th, and again for a late night comfy playthrough at 11pm BST on Thursday 16th.<br /></p><p> The playable demo has the first level available in Single Player, or Online Multiplayer (or LAN for those strange folks who have physical friends in the real world) and now features THREE player Co-Op (4 in the full game) and the new character "Bikaver".</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/1WxaOec.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/1WxaOec.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Melee Based Wine Drinking<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p> Bikaver is a close-range, melee based character. She likes long walks in the rolling hills, eating grey
cattle salami, drinking red wine and dealing out blunt force trauma. <br /></p><p>Bikaver has a trio of
hand-to-hand standard attacks, features high mobility, with high
strength for knocking monsters out of the way. Her special attack is a
low damage but wide area attack which stuns all enemies, whilst her
evasion is the fearsome - and instantanious - Huzzar Charge, propelling
herself through multiple ranks of monsters, both stunning and damaging
all in her path.</p><p> She also got a character profile redesign because I didn't like the first one.</p><p> <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1789310/Monsters_Loot_Swag/" target="_blank">Monsters Loot Swag</a> even runs on Valve's new handheld console Steam Deck ... apparently, I mean I don't actually have one.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/Y9HynG9.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="423" data-original-width="800" height="338" src="https://i.imgur.com/Y9HynG9.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>And here is the first glimpse of Multiplayer Co-Op mode in action - with low audio because I forgot to turn the volume up for recording ... and then I forgot to turn off the video after we both got killed so half of it is a character screen whilst I was chatting on discord.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/L-2t3IWAYK0" width="560" youtube-src-id="L-2t3IWAYK0"></iframe></div><br /><p>Plz wishlist <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1789310/Monsters_Loot_Swag/" target="_blank">Monsters Loot Swag</a> on Steam!<br /></p>Steve_Yorkshirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06014767867779183995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164301193151191531.post-85109269852903843972022-04-30T22:34:00.000+01:002022-04-30T22:34:38.252+01:00The Steam Upload And What Was I Thinking When I Wrote This Steam Stats System<p> Monsters Loot Swag is on Steam and available for <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1789310/Monsters_Loot_Swag/" target="_blank">wishlisting here</a>.<br /></p><p>So, after a few months of testing off Steam, I have uploaded a build to a Steam depot ... and then immediately started to fix everything that didn't work ...</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/QjQMWcx.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/QjQMWcx.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Who's Best Girl? You're Best Girl! If you don't get ganked ...</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> Primary here was the minor issue that to finalize the build I had encoded the script files - and that my own script reading function only dealt with unencoded script files ... this could have been forseen but because it has been so long since I shipped a game to Steam *** <b>26th August 2014</b> *** I had forgotten about this sort of thing ... What I hadn't forgotten about was my system for storing Steam Stats.<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://external-preview.redd.it/q7q416b_RczyKUbCMp14dMTNQmT-vBLvYBWHkov379o.jpg?auto=webp&s=6e4af3bf578c6c99f4f05474a5a5df0b5698f899" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="550" data-original-width="461" src="https://external-preview.redd.it/q7q416b_RczyKUbCMp14dMTNQmT-vBLvYBWHkov379o.jpg?auto=webp&s=6e4af3bf578c6c99f4f05474a5a5df0b5698f899" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>This May Have Explained My Overly Convoluted System ...</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>Overly convoluted seems a little weak ... even reading through my own code comments it is best described as baffling. I clearly wanted a system which saved as much as possible on server calls but this was truly was absolute gibberish even if, most terrifyingly of all, it worked. All the same, it still had to be rewritten to make the whole thing readable again.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/WqhkDJq.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="230" data-original-width="464" src="https://i.imgur.com/WqhkDJq.jpeg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>How Much!??!?!</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>Something else which I had overlooked was size - and in particular the minor issue that I had completely forgotten to trim my master files for things like artwork and audio. After some careful pruning the required HD space dropped to around a single gigabyte.<br /></p><p>Steam Cloud save system is also fully up and running, and the Swag unlocks recorder fully functioning and integrated with User Interface so that the player can look through what Swags and Power-Ups that they have unlocked at a more leisurely pace, outside of the frenetic nature of the game.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/e9M_Fizv41g" width="560" youtube-src-id="e9M_Fizv41g"></iframe></div><br /><p>As ever, there has been mountains more of work, but I can never seem to remember it all when it comes to the month blog write.</p><p>Monsters Loot Swag has been accepted for Steam NextFest, the forthcoming showcase of indie games on Steam, which runs from the 13th-20th of June, so look out the freely available demo coming at the end of May. So that's the next major job.<br /></p>Steve_Yorkshirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06014767867779183995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164301193151191531.post-13802075213292101082022-03-31T23:36:00.000+01:002022-03-31T23:36:28.324+01:00Players Can Interface With The Interface Part Deux<p> March comes to an end ... with me starting a blog in the same manner as February, whinging about the weather ...</p><p>I had hoped to bravely remove the winter duvet but I got snowed and hailed on earlier and the wind is coming directly from the Artic. The winter duvet is staying in place.</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/xvOXwfR.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/xvOXwfR.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Behold Stats!<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/C73GPj6.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/C73GPj6.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What Does What<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Other things which can be construed as mildly irritating is the amount of time I have spent making the Game User Interface, actually useable to the game user ...</p><p>As ever, whatever part of indiedev appears somewhat straight forwards suddenly become incredibly convoluted and the gamepad useable menu system has been just this. This included making a brand new input system for button selection that uses both vertical and horizontal selection, including uneven rows and columns.</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/jNiD4Um.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="256" data-original-width="512" height="256" src="https://i.imgur.com/jNiD4Um.gif" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Blast Monsters</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p> The statistics were not such a problem as setting out the tutorial in a way that the player could easily digest. Highlighting individual HUD elements seemed the best way of doing this and giving a brief explanation of what the player was seeing in game with any key/button related actions to that element, based on the player's currently selected input type. Now there are some stock engine ways of doing this but instead I wrote my own so all button selection goes through a custom input script.</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/vQFRjzX.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="256" data-original-width="512" height="256" src="https://i.imgur.com/vQFRjzX.gif" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Win Loot<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p> This useful and problematic in it's own manner, especially with the input system losing focus if you tabbed out or opened the console, but did give immediate response for sudden changes of input. I wrote my own custom key/input remapping system.</p><p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQM_27KbTSaJ7mNVOvx-57PJURgHTj_lVx-P3LhMRQvm7kXnG0MBcyDOp6m7Cd8WBnrUb2ZAjOMabRygHMOoOjAkD1fwwAmXqiZ7bEfpTeOwEyJRstISB4xNQ1m0820LkbYZmWv9S2Iy6sssCDPRmE3hHop8Gs2SxjkksXYxNAVHqSQMVb-nRkNYXj/s512/swagTest1512x256.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="256" data-original-width="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQM_27KbTSaJ7mNVOvx-57PJURgHTj_lVx-P3LhMRQvm7kXnG0MBcyDOp6m7Cd8WBnrUb2ZAjOMabRygHMOoOjAkD1fwwAmXqiZ7bEfpTeOwEyJRstISB4xNQ1m0820LkbYZmWv9S2Iy6sssCDPRmE3hHop8Gs2SxjkksXYxNAVHqSQMVb-nRkNYXj/s16000/swagTest1512x256.gif" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Get Swag!<br /></td></tr></tbody></table></p><p>So after a monumental kerfufle, the userable user interface is finally useable by people who are not me and do not know what everything does or means.</p><p>Next up is actually getting a build uploaded to <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1789310/Monsters_Loot_Swag/" target="_blank">Steam</a>.<br /></p><p><br /></p>Steve_Yorkshirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06014767867779183995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164301193151191531.post-44424542026923837302022-02-28T20:29:00.000+00:002022-02-28T20:29:34.293+00:00Players Can Interface With The Interface<p>February comes to an end. February, a month when the weather is so bad that it was shortened, so it would end quicker. The fence blew down, I got soaking wet and snowed on.</p><p>Anyhoo, that is enough of Johnny Britisher's favourite past-time of whinging about the weather.</p><p>Whilst the actual gameplay of the game has been working fine for years - the actual getting to and from said gameplay has been a bit of an unreadable mess. It has long been a spaghetti of various and conflicting buttons for starting a new game and hidden console commands for loading saved data.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/XOg2oBG.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/XOg2oBG.png" width="640" /></a></div><p> First screen when starting a game gives the player the opportunity to load a saved game - if there is one. This gives basic information about the saved file such as the player's previously chosen character, level progress and difficulty. It also displays the character portrait and the portrait of the level boss. If either of these cannot be found it defaults to showing the "unknown" portrait, which is a tentacle who's shape resembles a question mark.</p><p> Starting a new game allows the player to first chose difficulty - which
still requires some artwork for the settings - and then moves to the
character selection screen. In the stock game there will eventually be a
choice of 8 cosplays to dress you catgirl up in, each with their own
stats and ability displayed. At initial release there will be 4.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/nbhbOlS.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/nbhbOlS.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />This is "Sunrise", she likes walks on the beach, drinking cocktails and large calibre handguns. She is a range-based class with medium maneuverability, low strength (for pushing monsters out the way) and her evasion is a simple speed boost. Bonus points if you can name the movie this character references.<br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/mEHqJcg.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/mEHqJcg.png" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p>This is "Southern Hospitality" - because I don't want suing by some US drinks corporation. She likes riding through mud, drinking bourbon and blasting gators with a sawn-off. She is slower rate of fire but high damage, mixed range class, with medium maneuverability, medium strength for shoving, and an evasion which allows her to both vanish and run through monsters to escape.</p><p>And here is what it all looks like in action on video:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aX_3hOUUstw" width="560" youtube-src-id="aX_3hOUUstw"></iframe></div><br /><p>So, that was the shortened and rather soggy month of February 2022, were I made the interfaces for getting the game to actual work to be player friendly. There's still a few things to finish off like extending this to settings and adding statistics button to the Main Menu screen, but things are at least working quite nicely now.<br /></p>Steve_Yorkshirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06014767867779183995noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2164301193151191531.post-9614065438167859232022-01-31T23:44:00.003+00:002022-01-31T23:44:41.421+00:00Monsters Loot Swag<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/rZkftZz.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://i.imgur.com/rZkftZz.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Monsters Loot Swag -> Blast Monsters -> Win Loot -> Get Swag!</b></span></p><p>Available for <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1789310/Monsters_Loot_Swag/" target="_blank">Wishlist on Steam</a> now. Coming Soon(ish)™.</p><p>So I finalized my Steam Store Page, and had a name change. It has monsters, loot and swag so ... it does exactly what it says on the tin!</p><p>As the game plays fully but is not complete on the artwork side, with the later half of boss monsters and level designs being placeholder only, I decided to try my hand at the "Early Access" route. This means that the game will ship with a disclaimer that I am still working on it, and it will be periodically updated until completion. <br /></p><p>I've also been working with someone else, helping to create an <a href="https://github.com/OTHGMars/Torque3D-1/tree/steamBase_wip/Templates/Modules/steamworks" target="_blank">engine integrated module</a> for the <a href="https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/sdk/api" target="_blank">Steamworks API</a> so that everything could be utilized via game engine scripts rather than being hardcoded in C++ by per game.</p><p>I also took the time to upgrade an old resource that someone else had created of a free <a href="https://torque3d.org/forums/topic/2567-updated-shader-library-resource-to-dx11/" target="_blank">postFx Shader Library</a> from DirectX9.0c to Dx11 and then to the latest Preview build of Torque3D 4.0.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://torque3d.org/uploads/monthly_2022_01/screenshot_007-00000.png.d028b8ee930b85d7175c59941aa01c79.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://torque3d.org/uploads/monthly_2022_01/screenshot_007-00000.png.d028b8ee930b85d7175c59941aa01c79.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Night Vision with noise<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://torque3d.org/uploads/monthly_2022_01/screenshot_006-00000.png.4ea9ff5613add5c143c2ddd6772239cd.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://torque3d.org/uploads/monthly_2022_01/screenshot_006-00000.png.4ea9ff5613add5c143c2ddd6772239cd.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chromatic Aberration - the most hated of shaders ...</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://torque3d.org/uploads/monthly_2022_01/screenshot_004-00001.png.102057a3e9ddc5059e2a7115f0602f00.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="360" src="https://torque3d.org/uploads/monthly_2022_01/screenshot_004-00001.png.102057a3e9ddc5059e2a7115f0602f00.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pixelation, for when you want your expensive GPU to pretend it's a 1989 console</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>In fact most of the month has been shaders and effects ... only for me to discover some gaping problems with my approach and dash into a phone booth to emerge with a flowing cape and my underpants outside of my tights as Captain Workaround!</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.imgur.com/I8qmIMF.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="256" data-original-width="256" height="256" src="https://i.imgur.com/I8qmIMF.gif" width="256" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wow did I get this gif to nearly loop properly?<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>Next up is actually uploading a workable version of the game to Steam. This is likely to be the Dx11 pre-PBR version as it is the latest fully working one, though it still requires a bit of GUI (Game User Interface) work for it to be player friendly. A lot of stuff happened this month but most of it was not very image postable.<br /></p><p>So that was the month that was, the first month of SPACE YEAR 2022 when I
was promised flying cars but instead got a report about a cake that
didn't even mention whether it had marzipan or not ...</p><p><br /></p>Steve_Yorkshirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06014767867779183995noreply@blogger.com0