Leap Year Because Time Is Not Constant Enough

It's a Leap Year, which is a thing that happens every FOUR years, apart from every FOUR HUNDRED years, when it doesn't.

Can I get a quick rundown of the month?

 

I continued to hike at least one half marathon a week but the bit between my ribcage and stomach still has the consistency of a water balloon.

Everything is flooded and there is a constant gale coming off the Atlantic Ocean.

My Valentine's date could have gone better.

I wrote some code to automate the currently selected boss to display health on the player's HUD and made it network safe. Then someone told me a method which did the same thing whilst using 90% less code lines so I used that instead.

Terror Tower Redux

I redid my "terror tower" special item to now look like a pile of skulls because feedback said it was hard to tell what it was before.

I started work on level 5, which is going to be  an ruined and overgrown industrial complex. So far I have the level layout, textures of mud and the foliage, whilst still working on the actual industrial ruins, expect lots of pipes.

I have previously finalized the enemies for this level, who will be plasma rifle wielding "Hive Warriors" and their "Genetically Modified Brute" slaves. However after running through a live fire test of the half finished level, I thought that the colour difference between the monsters did not make them look distinct enough, so I boosted the colour saturation and contrast somewhat.

Before and After ...

Apparently some other things happened too but I can't remember them all - save Valve introduced another Steamworks SDK update just 2 weeks after I installed the previous one for Airship Dragoon. I took this opportunity to try out their new announcement system which now allows small patches for changelogs.

So that was the month that was and it is still blowing a gale and the fire brigade are still pumping out floodwater downtown.

The Boring Look Back Episode Nobody Likes

It's the end of the year highlights show - which I am fairly certain no one likes. So first, here's what happened in December.

I got PTSD from Christmas shopping. Shopping is a terrible thing at any time of year but when the entire country is in panic mode over a certain approaching date this gets amplified even more.

I put on half a stone (that's 7lb or 45grams in new money) in 4 days, and the amount of nibbles that I still have lying around doesn't look like it's going away anytime soon.

I got back into modeling - you know, that thing that I am actually supposed to be doing - and created an animation for the defensive airstrike powerup.

Here's an animated gif, which has been converted into an mp4.

And here's a video of it all in action. It's a defensive powerup so it has a chance to be triggered whenever the player takes damage.

So onto the boring recap.

With the addition of tentacles, I finally completed all the basic enemies and their various special attacks, finally relegating the need for the red placeholder cube enemies which had been the standard for x years too many.

Levels started to get designed (I am about half way through them) and the flat grid world was finally relegated to history.

I eventually upgraded to the latest version of Blender 2.8, after having previously been using the 2007 version which I had found more than adequate for the last 12 years - read as; I don't like unnecessary change for it seems to be a right old faff around.

This change was partially enforced as it deleted another Blender version 2.7 I used for editing normals when v2.8 installed and then it was a simple case of "oh bugger, no going back now".

Thus I was forced by circumstance and the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune to get with the 21st century and learn how to export models and animations anew.

The good thing about upgrading to the latest version of Blender was that PBR suddenly became available, though it was another thing to learn on-top of everything else. Whilst I work on PBR related materials and design, my main test engine is still Dx9.0c for the time being, but will be updated later to brand new fancy Physically  Based Rendering capable Dx11.

Ears go up ...

 

Ears go down ...

Placeholder Player yellow cube was also retired, and replaced with what will hopefully be the first of several playable characters. It's GunGirl, leggy catgirl strapped into a propeller driven harness.

I made a start on boss monsters for each level.

And that was the year that was. Somehow doesn't seem enough. Progress continues next year.

I've made one ...

tl;dr Some things happened, something didn't.

So onwards and upwards. Can't wait for the Olympics next year.

Merry Ruddy Christmass

Merry Ruddy Christmas

Over 9000 hours in MS Paint

And thanks to everyone who voted for Airship Dragoon during the IndieGameStand charity sale. Airship Dragoon received +8% votes during that period on Steam Greenlight.

Next up mod tools ... and maybe a min-map ...

This blog was supposed to be the first part of the Airship Dragoon Development Post-Mortem ... but then I went to the pub, then I got chatting and then I started on the Glenkichie ...