TANX (Iron Strike)

[Huehnerschaender]

http://www.dino-it.de/caption.jpg

Hi there,

I was asked to post a thread about my PGD competition entry TANX so that it can be discussed.

I will go on with this project and have many plans for it.
Hopefully I find the time to continue.

What I want to create is a game which puts the player into fast paced action, but the player should also be able to control the action. I think in this version the system of controllable fast paced action is already working, but I have much more plans and features in my head that will support this idea.

So, for anyone who didn't care about the screenshot section of the competition, here are some ingame screenshots of my entry:

http://www.dino-it.de/scrn101.jpg (http://www.dino-it.de/scrn01.jpg) http://www.dino-it.de/scrn102.jpg (http://www.dino-it.de/scrn02.jpg) http://www.dino-it.de/scrn103.jpg (http://www.dino-it.de/scrn03.jpg) http://www.dino-it.de/scrn104.jpg (http://www.dino-it.de/scrn04.jpg) http://www.dino-it.de/scrn105.jpg (http://www.dino-it.de/scrn05.jpg) http://www.dino-it.de/scrn106.jpg (http://www.dino-it.de/scrn06.jpg) http://www.dino-it.de/scrn107.jpg (http://www.dino-it.de/scrn07.jpg) http://www.dino-it.de/scrn108.jpg (http://www.dino-it.de/scrn08.jpg) http://www.dino-it.de/scrn109.jpg (http://www.dino-it.de/scrn09.jpg)

The game has 4 levels now, plus a tutorial. Menu systems are working etc. All goals of the competition have been implemented, so this is a complete little game. But the lack of time during the competition didn't let me do all the things I wanted.

So in the future, I have much to do. Here are some examples:

- changing vehicle. Atm you steer your tank or your bomb drone. I want the player to be able to steer helicopters, too. I have some ideas in my head how and when, but there has to be some more planning on this.
- Much more content! I will create much more objects, background-tiles etc in the future, so that the visuals will change from level to level.
- more enemys. Atm there are 6 different enemys, including the bosses. (7, if you count the enemy bomb drones as enemys (they have their own AI)).
- Collision responses will be a big part of future work.
- enemys will be able to patrol their paths, which will be editable in the level editor soon (this will be one of the first things I do)
- Mission goals will act like "checkpoints" in future releases. You definately will have to reach subgoals to finish the main goal of a mission.

These are the main improvements I plan. There are many other smaller things I want to do, but most of them are not worth to be discussed.

I would like to hear your opinion about the game and my ideas. Is the whole thing worth it? What would you add to the game? What is good as it is, what is bad... any bugs?

So you can download the competition entry here:

http://www.dino-it.de/TANX.zip

I would be glad if you PGD people try it and tell me what you think about it.

Greetings,
Dirk

[NecroDOME]

At first: I'ts a good game, nice to play. Good graphics. Keep up the good work!


I want the player to be able to steer helicopters

Sounds like the good old dos game Seek and Destroy. You control a heli moslty, but there are some tank missions.
Like Seek and Destroy it would be cool to pickup friendly units from an enemy camp and drop them back at your base (start point).

Here are some screenshots:
http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/seek-and-destroy/screenshots

[Huehnerschaender]

Hey!

*LOL*
I never played Seek and Destroy but you are absolutely right! It really has the "general look" of what I want, even though I can't say anything about the gameplay of SaD. But there seem to be many parallels...

Funny! :lol:

[Firlefanz]

Hi Huehner,

the grafix are veryvery nice, especially the graphic effects!

Very good work!

I think I have to play the tutorial to see how I get through that wall. :D

Firle

[Huehnerschaender]

Hi Firle, thank you :wink:

It would have been even nicer if I had more time. But I will add more buidlings, textures etc later on.

Did you try to shoot the cracky wall? It has a lifebar. Try shooting your cannon on it (Machine gun doesn't do anything to walls). Rockets are most effective against walls. You only need one shot to break them. But remember, that only walls with cracks on it are destroyable.

Greetings,
Dirk

Any comments about gameplay? What can be improved?

[Firlefanz]

Okay, understood, I'll try that later. Nice game with very impressive grafix! :D

From what I saw from the comp so far my favourite, can't wait to see more of the others.

Firle

[aidave]

I'm trying to get the boss to get killed.

My recommendation for improvements:
have some patrol paths for some tanks, so they wander around.
I think that would add another element of danger !

[Huehnerschaender]

See my first post, patrol paths are already on the ToDo List :wink:

Nevertheless, thanks for the comment ^^

Greetings,
Dirk

PS: I'll try level 2 of BLOCKED this evening again.

[idee_fixe]

Dirk,

I just played the last level of Tanx again, and I found a trick that I'm not sure you intended - You can destroy all of the turrets and all but one of the tanks at the end boss from the other side of the wall! Just shoot your rockets at the wall, and the explosions will damage them. It usually takes two rockets per target, but it makes the end boss way easier to deal with! By doing that, and by staying as far away as possible, you can take care of him pretty easy.

I like how you have to drop the bombs into the openings, it's a clever use of the weapon!

Now, I've beat your boss, have you beat ours? :wink:

[Huehnerschaender]

Bugalarm! :)


I am aware of this bug, know how to fix it, but I guess I forgot to fix it in the timerace of the last stage... It's just the use of a function I already have when rockets explode. Sorry for forgetting this.

And gratulations on finishing my boss ^^

I didn't manage to play your game again, because I am very busy doing a project for my job, which unfortunately needs all my sparetime too at the moment. But I promise, I'll try again when I'm a little out of stress.

Greetings and thanks for the report.

Dirk

[fragle]

Heh, found another hidden feature in the game ;) If at first you bring up the credits window and then close it, then after opening the options window and closing it you'll get two songs playing at the same time! Not a game-crashing bug or anything, so it might as well be an easter egg 8)

[Huehnerschaender]

*lol*

Yes... you got it! The compo went over the 1st of April, so I decided to implement an easter egg and you found it......



Now I have to go back to the source code, fixing the bug :lol:

[Soulghai]

It's really nice game.
Continue in the same spirit.
Forgive for my English =).

[Huehnerschaender]

Thank you very much for your comment Soulghai.

[Huehnerschaender]

Due to the success in the PGD annual compo 2006 I started working on TANX again. The first price included the entry fee for IGF 2007 in September.

I have much work to do until then but a first step is already done. Today I finished a feature for my enemys to follow patrol paths. This will give new level design elements and another feeling in gameplay, because the enemys don't stand still anymore until you reach them.
I will also enable air units to follow patrol paths, so you never know if a helicopter or bomber adds when you are just fighting other enemys.

Next thing to do is fixing the known bugs.

After that I will begin to design new elements of gameplay and game content (mostly graphical stuff).


At this point I also want to thank everyone who congratulated me for the win.

Greetings,
Dirk

[dmantione]

Next thing to do is fixing the known bugs.


I'd like to report one. Some textures are not transparent on my system, for example the mouse cursor has a black square around it. The same is true for the trees, these are displayed on a black square as well.

System: Win98, 1800MHz, 384 MB RAM, DirectX9, Radeon M7, up to date drivers.

[Huehnerschaender]

What about the explosions? Are they transparent?

Thanks for reporting. I had one other comment about non transparent textures. Yet, I don't know why this happens, because all graphics use the same texture format. I will investigate, hopefully I find a clue why and when this happens. Unfortunately I don't have a Radeon M7 at hand, so it will be difficult to find out what is going wrong.

Greetings,
Dirk

[dmantione]

No, the explosions are not transparant. The "Asphyre Extreme" logo on the title screen is not transparant either.

[Huehnerschaender]

ok, then your video card/driver seems to have a problem with all stuff I draw on billboards. Hmmm... maybe lifepower (developer of Asphyre) can help with that, but he is very busy right now. Did you play around with the video options? Disable Antialiasing, Mipmapping etc? Does this help?

[dmantione]

No, playing with the options has no effect. :?

[Huehnerschaender]

Ok, but thanks for testing it out.

I will PM savage which video card is installed in his laptop. He told me something about "latest Radeon drivers" but missed to tell me which card he has installed. If it is the M7 too, maybe the problem is restricted to that video card.

[WILL]

I have a laptop with a Radeon XPRESS M20. I doubt that I have the latest drivers, but all the textures seem to work fine here.

The only thing I notice with graphical glitched is the 'tiles' or blocks that the map is seperated into shows glitchy gaps or seams esp. when turning the tank. (I think due to the screen rotation...)

[Huehnerschaender]

Can you post a screenshot? I know about the gaps at special "tiles" like the roads. I also know why this happens but didn't find a solution yet. But thats the only place where the gaps should appear.

Btw.the other video card which has problem with transparency in Tanx is a ATI Radeon IGP 345M. I don't know if it is a driver issue or related to Asphyre. I will ask Lifepower about that.

Maybe it helps if I use another texture format.

[dmantione]

The 345M and the M7 are family. They are quite a bit different, the 345M is extremely budget, it is intregrated in the chipset and therefore uses shared memory. Clock speed is only 170 MHz and it has no TCL engine. The M7 is a discrete chip, has 32 MB dedicated RAM, a TCL engine and runs at 290 MHz.

Other than that, the rendering pipelines of both chips are identical and therefore there is very little difference between them on the software side.

[Huehnerschaender]

Thanks for that information. This might come in handy when searching for the "bug".

Greetings,
Dirk

[WILL]

Ok I have a bout 4 bugs/glitches and technical mistakes(another name for a bug?) to report... with solutions! ;)

:arrow: Road seams glitch: It seems that the seams only show up on specific road segments; corners, T-sections(3-way) and ones that are under walls (like mission 1, right there, where you start)

http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/files/188/TANX_seam_glitch2_indicated.JPG

Solution: This is very common thing with tile rotations... I believe that the edge of the tile is probably being drawn and it's not seeming well. Straight-a-ways ie. straight road tile placed in-length(2 or more in a row) doesn't seem to have this problem.

For better rotation instead of going over each pixel on the original tile and doing the rotation for each of those and drawing it to the destination, most 'good' engines will do the reverse and determinds the destination area and then for each pixel in that section, it does a reverse-rotation function and finds the original pixel to be drawn there.I think your glitch might be due to a part of this. So...

I think maybe if you provided a bit of 'bleeding space' graphics around your tile it might clear up the ugly seam. What I mean by 'bleeding space' is as if your tile was continued(seamlessly repeated) outside the actual tile graphics. Like a 2 pixel border around your actual tile.

That or just do what you did with the straight tiles. :P


:arrow: I noticed that that cool hydrolic movement with the player's turret that the rocket (when you get it) does not move with your tank's turret, but the tank's hull it's self. :o

An easy fix I'm sure... ;)


:arrow: This was kind of annoying and worth pointing out. Collision with other tanks is a bit off. Here shows how close I wasn't passing them on the road, I should have been able to slip by, but I actually magically bumped into them instead. :x

These show the exact position I'm stuck at and what direction I'm going:
http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/files/188/TANX_tanks_hit_not_close.JPG http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/files/188/TANX_not_close_zoomedout.JPG


:arrow: Reverse/Forward control glitch: I almost forgot about this one. It's kind of minor, but I noticed sometimes --comes up when trying to manuver your tank in intense fighting-- when I'm holding down the forward key and press a key to turn(either left or right) and hold it, then I release the forward key and press the reverse key while still holding the turnning key, it will then continue to move forward even though I've changed directions. Same thing can happen when I go from reverse to forward.


:arrow:/:idea: Lastly... the 'dirt' that you get from the tank's treads will be a little different depending on what type of ground you are on. No dust on paved roads. :P

And it would be best if you can change the colour of the dirt depending weither you are on the grass or dirt.

Types of dust/dirt trail based on ground + conditions

Sand or Dirt (without rain): Dust
Grass or Mud or Dirt (with rain): Dirt/Mud (Darker than the Dust)
Paved Road or Stone Ground (without rain): Nothing
Paved Road or Stone Ground (with rain): Small Water Spray

Snow on Mud or Grass: Dirty Snow
Snow on Roads or Stone Ground: Just Snow

I think that covers it... only about 4 or 5 types of particles/'dust-trail' effects required to do this idea fully.


Hope these help. A bit detailed, but should get the situation exactly accross, I think. ;)

[Huehnerschaender]

Rockets now don't do damage to vehicles through walls anymore.


It seems that the seams only show up on specific road segments; corners, T-sections(3-way) and ones that are under walls

I am aware of this graphical issue. It is related to antialiased textures. I will try to fix it.



:arrow: I noticed that that cool hydrolic movement with the player's turret that the rocket (when you get it) does not move with your tank's turret, but the tank's hull it's self. :o

An easy fix I'm sure... ;)

Yes, this should an easy one :)



:arrow: This was kind of annoying and worth pointing out. Collision with other tanks is a bit off. Here shows how close I wasn't passing them on the road, I should have been able to slip by, but I actually magically bumped into them instead. :x
.
.
.
:arrow: Reverse/Forward control glitch: I almost forgot about this one. It's kind of minor, but I noticed sometimes --comes up when trying to manuver your tank in intense fighting-- when I'm holding down the forward key and press a key to turn(either left or right) and hold it, then I release the forward key and press the reverse key while still holding the turnning key, it will then continue to move forward even though I've changed directions. Same thing can happen when I go from reverse to forward.

I will do some further work on my whole collision system. It was implemented "quick" and "dirty" due to lack of time in the compo. It will get a complete remake for the IGF :)

The reverse/forward issue is related to collisions, too. I don't think that the direction keys have something to do with it. It happens when you collide with objects (internally the tanks velocity/speed is reversed to let you bump, there is a bug in this functionality)



:arrow:/:idea: Lastly... the 'dirt' that you get from the tank's treads will be a little different depending on what type of ground you are on. No dust on paved roads. :P

And it would be best if you can change the colour of the dirt depending weither you are on the grass or dirt.

Types of dust/dirt trail based on ground + conditions

Sand or Dirt (without rain): Dust
Grass or Mud or Dirt (with rain): Dirt/Mud (Darker than the Dust)
Paved Road or Stone Ground (without rain): Nothing
Paved Road or Stone Ground (with rain): Small Water Spray

Snow on Mud or Grass: Dirty Snow
Snow on Roads or Stone Ground: Just Snow

I think that covers it... only about 4 or 5 types of particles/'dust-trail' effects required to do this idea fully.

Nice idea and quite easy to implement :) I think there will be enough time to include it for IGF version.



Hope these help. A bit detailed, but should get the situation exactly accross, I think. ;)

Thank you very much for all this ^^ Feedback is exactly what I need to make Tanx a "nice" and enjoying game.

Greetings,
Dirk

[WILL]

Oow oow! One more thing... :P

BTW: I've been non-stop sending Dirk little ideas and bug reports... poor guy. :lol:

Top speed cap. for the tank... Roads should be a bit higher than grass, dirt, etc as the softer terrain would work against the tank's traction...

Possibly another minor tweek/detail that can be put in.

[Huehnerschaender]

Hmmmm.... do you really think that the casual player knows that a tank is slower on grass than on roads? ^^

I think this can be done easyly... question is, if it brings a better gameplay... I really don't know. What do the others think?

[jdarling]

Hmmmm.... do you really think that the casual player knows that a tank is slower on grass than on roads? ^^

I think this can be done easyly... question is, if it brings a better gameplay... I really don't know. What do the others think?

Honestly, I think that you will find that a "Casual" gammer won't play this type of game :). A "Typical" gammer would be more likely to play this, and the fact is that they would probiably know. The right question would be if they would care. On that one, I don't think so, but adding the speed difference does add a bit more reality to the game.

[savage]

I think this can be done easyly... question is, if it brings a better gameplay... I really don't know. What do the others think?

I think the proof will be in the tasting. If you can implement it and see what your beta testers say. Make sure you point out to them that you need feedback on that particular aspect of the gameplay. If the it is generally felt that it adds to the game play then leave it in, else IFDEF it out and release it as a upgrade if after he official release you get people asking for it.

[WILL]

I think this can be done easyly... question is, if it brings a better gameplay... I really don't know. What do the others think?

Well my list of pros would be:

- when heading back for those left behind (and sometimes very needed) repair kits, it takes such a long time to go back and forth, it would kinda help to speed things up a tad.

- it adds a touch of realisim in that the player will actually seek the roads when traveling instead of just driving 'whereever', because it wouldn't matter otherwise.

- adds tactical more tactical choices in the game. "Do I follow the road, which will be faster? Or do I try to play it safe and go around through the mud? And if I get caught while in the mud, what are the odds that I'll be ambushed?"

- it's sort of the purpose of having a paved road (noone would actually pave roads if they didn't actually help vehicles get around. cosidering the real life cost/maintenance of roads, thats expensive 'eye-candy' :P)

- it's not a really hard thing to impliment

my list of cons include:

- it might take a bit of time to impliment

- tweeking settings will be required

- players might not like the idea and get a bit fustrated.

- if the speed/ manuverability settings make it too much of a difference it could reverse the effect of being a handy enhancement and a hinderance...


My idea of a difference between road vs. dirt/grass/mud movements might be the initial starting acceleration would be higher... as there is more traction on a road. you might be able to 'get going' a bit quicker so that you can avoid stuff easier...

It's one of those ideas that can go either way I guess. :?

[idee_fixe]

Will, I really like your points; I was going to right very much the same! Your points on seeking the roads and the tactical decision are spot on.

I think the best way to look at it is not to create a disadvantage for driving on dirt and mud, but to create an advantage for driving on the roads. Don't slow the player down for driving on the mud, speed them up for using the road. Changing accelleration is a good idea too, especially for mud situations.

[WILL]

The interesting thing about a road is that it's also an Infantry killer. Ground troops have to avoid flat, open and uncovered terrain at all costs. And when they do cross a road or an open area of land (mostly out of lack of other options) they normally do it tactically.

Now this aspect might be just plain too complex to add in the short amount of time, but honestly thats how they would do it normally.

Thoughts about adding Troops:

Against a tank... troops would either try to sneak up on it from behind and out of the direction of it's turret (a little hard to do when we can just swing our mouse/joystick around and click, but hey. :p) or run away to a hidding spot or defensive position as they don't stand a single chance going toe-to-toe with one. Can you say squishy.?. ;)

Maybe something simple if this becomes a reality in the game. A not too complex algo that detects covered locations or the nearest trench, gun mount, etc... try to keep it simple so as not to make the gameplay too unrealistic.

Troops do NOT charge tanks. :lol: Not even the dumbest trooper would not dare this.

So some other behaviour would need to be used if they are included. Maybe something akin to the way they behave in the Command & Conquer games?

[Huehnerschaender]

Hey Will,

nice thoughts, but I think all this is too much for a game which is styled like TANX. The troops will not have a single chance to play out ANY tactics. When they are spotted, they die. All they can do is to shoot for a second. Seek and destroy. That's Tanx. The way you steer your turret is unrealistic, but it brings action into the scene. So troops are only cannonfodder. But they are able to bring fun into the game.

The way I am implementing troops at the moment is the following:

They are on the map like any other enemy. They are able to follow pathpoints as patrols are available now.

When they are encountered by the player, all the can do is shooooooot. Running away or hiding doesn't make sense here, because you aimed them with the mouse as fast as I can paint a triangle.

What I can do (and I will) is, that if the players cannon hits the ground near a trooper, he will run away from his current position, maybe hiding under a tree. Thats the only useful "protection" for the troops. The "invisible" areas of the player.

A first draft movie can be shown soon!

[WILL]

Yeah... I understand. I would not entertain this idea myself either. I was just explaining --perhaps in too much detail-- what you could expect in real life.

Most of which is not really good for TANX.


What I can do (and I will) is, that if the players cannon hits the ground near a trooper, he will run away from his current position, maybe hiding under a tree. Thats the only useful "protection" for the troops. The "invisible" areas of the player.

You took the thoughts right out of my brain! :lol:

Yeah a big explosion right close to anyone will scare the living crap out of them...

Maybe one more tiny thing you could do is if you are detected by the player and there is a trench in a set range from him, he could try to jump in the trench (if it is not full --3 troops max!) other wise drops to the ground(with riffle) or crouches(with rocket launcher or bazooka) and fires...


A first draft movie can be shown soon!

Sweet! Can't wait. :)

[jdarling]

You could also have the troops run away a small % of the time. If they escape generate an enemie tank and have it move to the position (thus they called in backup). This will give them a little more meaning then simply cannon fodder :)

[Huehnerschaender]

Nice idea Mr. Darling :)

Whatever we do with the troops, here is my start.

This video shows the first draft of the troopers. They can run, shoot, die and fly away *lol*

There is no real intelligence in them by now and I also need to make further animations (idle, crawl, etc)

At the moment they can be shot, blown away and run over by the players tank *hehe*

Ok, take a look at the video and tell me what you think:

http://www.dino-it.de/soldiers.wmv

Greetings,
Dirk

[tanffn]

Looks great! Its starting to look like a commercial level game!

It would be nice if you could make them crouch while they fire.

How did you create the .wmv file?

[Huehnerschaender]

Glad to hear you like it.

Of course there will be more animations later on. Crouching is only one of them, but all this needs time. I have to check what I can achieve until September.

I also want to have at least 3-4 kinds of troopers in the game. One with MG, one who throws grenades, one with a bazooka and maybe an additional one with a flamethrower.

The video is made with Windows Movie Maker. It comes with Windows XP.

Greetings,
Dirk

[jdarling]

:lol: Ok they guys bodys flailing across the screen is worth watching it two or three times. Completely hilarious, in fact I think I'll watch it again next time my co-workers make me angry and just picture their faces on the bodies :lol:

[tanffn]

Do you plan on implementing some AI, flocking behavior on people :)

You can grab a sequence from the screen? I used it to crate an Ant movie, but when I tried to load 4k 640*480 bmp files.. it died :(

jdarling, that should be one of the features, allow you to mess around with the face texture! :)

[Huehnerschaender]

tanffn, no I grabbed the video with FRAPS.
And then compressed it with Windows Movie Maker, because Fraps stores uncompressed data (the captured videos get several Gigabytes very fast).

Hmmm.... I was thinking about another animation for the "flying soldiers" with the face headed to the camera :) Don't know if it makes sense to the game letting the player add his own faces :lol:


There will be some AI for the soldiers, but every single soldier will act on his own. There will be no "grouped" behaviour. Maybe in a later version, but not until the IGF (too less time).

Greetings,
Dirk

[WILL]

What an amazing demonstration of the troops. Really does add a LOT to the level of combat. :)

It might be best in some cases... guage the 'overkill' amount of damage the soldier takes and if it is hurt X amount more than needed to kill him (like -20 or whatever amount based on the HP size you use) his body will be destroyed and leave only the bloody 'stain' :p Maby add more/darker blood colour there to represent the leftover guts...

Just something simple and easy to do. Too complicated and it takes away from other possible features TANX will have for the IGF.

I mean... it looks great as it is now really...

Just using rockets and the cannon you could possibly 'clear out' some bodies in the way... if you know what I mean... :lol:

[AthenaOfDelphi]

Dirk,

That is excellent :-) Nice job

[Huehnerschaender]

Hey Will,

the blood stains (*lol* I call them blood lakes) are a lot more visible ingame. I guess the video compression wiped them off.

Machine gun will "just" kill the troopers, throwing their bodys away one or two meters.
Cannon and Rockets will blew the bodies into the air. I will think about bringing more "guts" into the game when shooting at dead bodies again, but atm the troopers have other work for me :) There are more trooper types and animations necessary.

Of course the troops will get a life bar and they need two or maybe up to 5 machine gun hits to go down. The scene in the is just a first test for my draft trooper class.

@Athena: Thank you very much :)

[idee_fixe]

really nice video dirk! I think they'll add some nice variety, and with a flame thrower or bazooka/rocket launcher they'd actually be an enemy to reckon with! I think you're right about not making their behaviour too advanced - they don't have enough 'survivability' to make the effort worth while.

So, when are we going to get the next playable build? ;)

Good job so far!

[WILL]

Isn't there area damage based on range for cannon and rocket shots? somehting to look at... a blast beside them vs. a blast right on them... it could be the difference between a flying body and *SPLAT!* :)

[Huehnerschaender]

@idee_fixe
Next playable build will be available when I finished the soldier-class I think. I will place troopers in the already done levels so the community can test the troopers.

@WILL
Yes, there is a range of damage. and the farer away the enemys are from the explosion, the less is the damage taken.
So in fact, this could be used as you mentioned

[WILL]

I'm just thinking of all those bodies piling up and bouncing around... :lol:

They need to go after an amount of damage is taken. :)

So if it's a body and you run over it it splats (clearing the body object leaving a blood stain or puddle ;)) but like normal, if you run over a living guy he'll turn into a dead body...

and you don't have 50+ bodies bounding around like pinp pong balls. :P what a gross thought. :lol:

[Huehnerschaender]

lol.... but that's funny, isn't it?

No no no :) You are completely right.... there must be a way to get "rid of" the dead bodies :)

We could send in some invulnerable medics, picking the deads up *lol*

Or mayby they just vanish into a blood pool :)

[tanffn]

Adding blood, and.. body parts.. will limit the age rating (or add parents control to lock that function out).

Dirk, I never done this kind of AI before. But if you want I can try to build something to fit your needs. Just give me the solider information record and make a wrap function that I can use (i.e SoliderGoToXY(...))

[Huehnerschaender]

Hey tanffn.

Thank you very much for the offer.

I thought about it a while, but I came to the conclusion that it won't work with the AI concept I created. I have to do much more work on it (because there will be friendly and enemy units in the future). There is no way at the moment to wrap some AI which will work in future versions.
I don't use a pathfinding algorithm, too. So "soldierXgotoXY" will work with my AI, but they will never walk the same way. I created a AI with sensors. The units only know where they are told to go, but they are on their own to find the way to that place.

Simple example:
If a unit is at XY and needs to go to X1Y1, then it knows the direction to reach X1Y1. The unit begins to walk in that direction. It's sensors (up to six) always control the area around it (like our eyes) and if there is an obstacle, the unit will walk around that, but it's the units decision which way it takes. So two units of the same kind which are told to walk from XY to X1Y1 will reach X1Y1 for sure, but it's not sure that they will walk the same way. That's why I think the behaviour in groups (like formations) will be hard to implement in my code.

Let me finish my AI, then I can see if there is a way to implement groups and if it makes any sense. Because you will not encounter 50 soldiers at once, you will not notice grouped behaviour anyway. One rocket in a group of troopers will kill nearly all of them.

Greetings,
Dirk

[Huehnerschaender]

Another idea would be to "clone" single units and build formations with the clones. The formation could always do the same as ONE of the living clones. That way they would walk in a formation, but would also shoot at the same time etc.... maybe there are some more thoughts to be put on that (and I think it would be quite easy to implement).

[tanffn]

Good point on seeing if groups even makes any sense in game.. not all the neat code is fun, apparently.. so i've been told anyway :roll:

You can always make the AI even more advances, make them walk in a path (as a group) and if they encounter an enemy run towards it scattering and surrounding the enemy unit, maybe even taking cover.
Now when you reach that level you can create a sequel game, that all of its purpose is training the soldiers AI :)

[WILL]

Another idea would be to "clone" single units and build formations with the clones. The formation could always do the same as ONE of the living clones. That way they would walk in a formation, but would also shoot at the same time etc.... maybe there are some more thoughts to be put on that (and I think it would be quite easy to implement).

Hey Dirk... I just use a 'reaction time' value for all my 'units' or creatures that have to fire. You can obviously just set one of these for each unit, but use a random tollerance level to it.

Example:

Lets say that
Trooper.DefaultReactionTime := 10; // Thats frames of your time increment...
then you would calculate your tollerance like this
Rand := Random(Trooper.ReactionTollerance * 2) - ReactionTollerance;
so then you get
Trooper.TimeToFire := Trooper.DefaultReactionTime + Rand;

The idea is that whatever the usual reaction time is, some will be slightly slower and some slightly faster... Just make sure you have enough tollerance so that there is enough randomness, butt not so much so that there aren't huge, huge delays where they are not firing and just sitting there till they get run over...

[Huehnerschaender]

thats an approach i can use and i guess i will.

i made some stress tests yesterday with 1000 visible troopers on screen. hell, it was really fun to blow them all away with a hand full of rockets. i added life to the troopers and they only fly away when they get a direct hit by explosions.

[Robert Kosek]

Um, Dirk, with explosions and people you'll need to be a little more realistic then that. A rocket such as that would have a signifigant explosion and a kill radius of about 10m, with a shrapnel radius of ~20m. Since the rocket isn't designed to penetrate the target, but to explode upon the surface, you'll want to implement a form of these kill radii.

Just a note on the explosions.

[WILL]

Well players ARE going to expect the following effects from either a cannon or rocket explosion:

(In order from center of explosion out to edge of danger area.)

Kill Zone (All will die!)

:arrow: Direct Hit -- Trooper will disintegrate (or explode) himself.
:arrow: Indirect-Hit -- The close the trooper is to the center the more chance he'll disintegrate or be thrown faster or fly. Farther away the more chance the bodies will remain (for the most part) intact, but will be thrown slower and fly much less.

Danger Area (Some may survive...)

:arrow: Close Miss -- Troopers can still die and take damage when out of the kill zone. The only gaurntee about a danger area is that it's not a 100% chance of death. But all will most likelt take damage, if that is not fatal to them it's self. Most likely near deaths or really hurt. A few lucky ones might be only scratched.

:arrow: Just Inside the DA -- Perhaps a 50/50 chance of taking damage. It probably won't be fatal, but only about half would be untouched. The rest slightly to moderately hurt.


Now a fair portion of that it text book (yes, they study this in the Infantry ;)), but I think that any gamer that plays these types of military influenced games would exspect at least the idea of this as a minimum.

Just my thoughts on this one issue.

[Huehnerschaender]

The video shows the very first draft of the troppers. They had NO life. A hit was a kill. Meanwhile they have a life property which will decrease when they are shot by machine guns, are hit by tank cannons (the farer away from the explosion, the less damage will be taken) and can be hurt by rockets. The rockets make biggest damage of course. There was a radius which worked for non human targets, and the same works with the soldiers now.

If they are hit by a rocket and are quite near the center of the explosion, they will "fly away". Those who get only hurt by the explosion will be pushed away from the explosion center, creating a blood splash particle and go on with the rest of their lifes. Of course, if they get only a bit damage, but life drowns to zero from that, they will die. At the moment there is no "random" factor in the outer explosion ring like WILL said it should be. Do you think it's necessary to implement such "realistic" behaviour? I mean, it's an action game, no war simulation. Shooting rockets and blowing soldiers away primary should bring fun into the game.

[Traveler]

The video ....? :roll:

Btw you might want to check the comments of your blog...

[Huehnerschaender]

The video ....? :roll:

I guess you want to tell me something, but I don't get it....




Btw you might want to check the comments of your blog...

I did and deleted all of them :)

[Traveler]

I guess you want to tell me something, but I don't get it....
Sry about that, I'll refrain from being to cryptic in the future :)

In your previous post you mentioned something about a video

The video shows the very first draft of the troppers.
So I was kind of wondering if there already is a video or if there's one in the making :)

[Huehnerschaender]

Ah ok....

The video I am talking about is on page 3 in this thread. It shows very basic soldier class. All the discussion after that is based on that video.

Here is the link again (although the soldier class changed a lot since that):



http://www.dino-it.de/soldiers.wmv

[Traveler]

Right,... somehow I've completely missed page three. :oops:

I must agree though, Tanx is becoming commercial quality. Nice job!

[WILL]

Naw, the random calculations for explosion damage are probably overkill. ;)

So how is she lookin' so far? I'm anxious to try out a new version. :D

[Huehnerschaender]

At the moment I am not sure how to bring the soldiers into my leveleditor. They are so small :) I guess I will use one Icon for a group of soldiers and you can then decide the type (MG, Bazooka, Grenades) and the amount of troopers. They will be then generated randomly around the position from the level editor in a certain radius. I guess thats the best solution to create whole groups of them and you also can create single troopers this way (amount = 1). But that's still to be done.

There are still some images to be done, too. e.g. "idle" animation and different dead body poses, maybe one or two more flying animations....

In addition to this I am still playing around with the simple AI of the soldiers... It still has bugs...

[savage]

If a soldier is injured get him to run away to recover and may be call for re-inforcements nearby or even look for medi-kits to patch himself up. This will give them more realistic behaviour. We used something similar in SoA.

[Huehnerschaender]

I will think about this, good point.

But I think first I have to decide about the violence in my game... at the moment it's getting more and more bloddy because I try to implement most of the things said here....

Take a look at this:

http://www.dino-it.de/blood2.jpg ('http://www.dino-it.de/blood2.jpg')

http://www.dino-it.de/blood3.jpg ('http://www.dino-it.de/blood3.jpg')

Isn't it too much of violence? What do you think the IGF judges will think about this issue?

Greetings,
Dirk

[dmantione]

You should do something about it, it is not acceptable as many people will do it for fun. How about this: Mutilating corpses is against the laws of war (see for example: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/1880a.htm). So you could display a message like this:
-------------
GAME OVER!

YOU HAVE BEEN ARRESTED FOR VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAWS OF WAR.

Art. 19. It is forbidden to rob or mutilate the dead lying on the field of battle.
-------------

The elegance of this is that you don't need to censor your game, you just punish the player for being too violent.

[Traveler]

Might be me, but I dont see the violence. In it's current state the ripped off arms and legs don't add to the realism. If you must have disconnected limbs treat them as such and add them as seperate objects. Not as the static images you have now. I'd also decrease the number of bodies with missing limbs to mayby 15% or 20%.

Other than that I dont see no reason why you shoudn't add this feature.
Remember Alien Hominid, in that game you could slice bodies in half. Also one of the winners in the IGF. Perhaps the realism was a lot less, but still. Blood and gore all over the screen.

Over the years hundreds of games had blood and gore featuring. Ever since the first Doom (chainsaw anyone?) till recently F.E.A.R.
Just treat the subject with repect and dont overdo it.

In any case you could always make it a option, protected by a password or something.

[dmantione]

Of course, you can get a lot of attraction with controversional violence. It appeals to a lot of people. But you will also alienate a lot of people by turning a fun game into a slaughterhause.

IMHO, if you want a slaughterhause, you must do it well. With the current screenshots you neither get atraction, but do you do become controversial by people who just want fun, it is not just a game anymore.

[WILL]

Well I don't think the graphics will be the controversy if any in this game. :p

I've been helping Dirk with his entry into the IGF. Just the story and level design, but it's kinda fun. :)

Lets just say that I'm doing a lot of background work for the locations that this game will take you (the player) to...

I have a few locations piked out and the basics of the story and what happens (complete fiction.. well I hope so). It's sort of a dark story about a fictional near future, but it allows for some interesting things to happen. And it opens up as to why we are driving tanks around and firing rockets instead of space guns and EMPing everything...

I guess you can compare it closest to a Command & Conquer type of plot. Take our own reality and twist it somewhere and see where we go with it. It should, and I hope it does, make the player want to find out whats next. Or maybe want to discover what happened to this this or the other thing.


But I'm not releasing anything until Dirk says it's final. Thats the deciding factor on it all...

Sorry WILL's sponge-like brain fans. ;)

[idee_fixe]

Sorry I've been AWOL Dirk, a co-worker just passed away which has been personally upsetting, and also meant double the workload...but things are back on track (mostly).

I've got to say, I'm not a big fan of the look of those dismembered bodies. It's not so much the violent imagery I'm opposed to, it's more just how it looks with the same image each time - I think it would be much more effective if each 'piece' (limbs, torsos) were separate and moved independantly.

I don't think you need to go too far with the gore in this game (but a little bit will add some style). I think it would look best if when a soldier is hit directly with something big and explosion like the bomb or rocket, they just disappear in a puff of red. If they are run over or killed indirectly by an explosion, then you can have the body parts, and if they are gunned down with the machine gun, they just die in one piece. That way you'd have variety, and minimize the gratitous violence!

[Huehnerschaender]

Hi Reid!

I am very glad to see you're fine... I already thought there was something happening because I didn't hear a word for two weeks or so.

The things you mentioned about the trooper bodys are already implemented except the independant bodyparts. But this was already on my to do list. It's just a set of new sprites which are done quite quickly.

It would be nice if we could discuss our next steps in time... WILL already has a story plot for the IGF entry which I like very much and if we don't loose too much time we can manage to get it working. There is much programming stuff for me (many new features the plot needs) and there is also much work to do in graphics (mainly 3D models). I hope you find some more time to support us :) I really liked your work in Blocked and I liked the piece of work you already gave me to take a first look at. You have a good hand for hitting the needed style of models for a game...

So don't hesitate to talk to me or WILL to find out what we need to get the story going.

Greetings,
Dirk

[WILL]

Hey Reid! Sorry to hear about your co-worker. Those things suck. :?

But me and Dirk are glad that you at least are well.

I have some ideas that we want to share and hopefully you can help us complete some missing elements that I have come up with. Of couse I've had to work under tight time restrictions, but we still need to complete these to make the story that I have work. So PM us and let us know. I'll tell you all about my idea. ;)

(Can you 'see' the 3rd party spectators drooling by now? :lol:)

[Huehnerschaender]

WIP update:

As some of you know, I've teamed up with WILL and idee_fixe for the IGF entry of "TANX".

idee_fixe (Reid) gently offered his help for creating graphics (mainly 3D models) for the game. This will help me a lot regarding the little time left until september.

WILL is helping me with a background story, mission design and level design. Also this is a great help!

Not having the pressure of developing missions and levels and grahics, I am on the code to add essential features to the engine and editor. There will be a lot of possibilities to design missions in the future and also the visual appearance hopefully improves a bit.

As an example, I had found the time to do something about my "ugly" alpha blending of map backgrounds. See the pic to get an idea of the new blendings:

http://upload4.postimage.org/713241/screen001.jpg (http://upload4.postimage.org/713241/photo_hosting.html)

There are many ideas about the gameplay to be implemented now. I don't want to tell too much, but the IGF version will be very improved! There will be many new features which bring fun and tactics into the game.

So far.....

Greetings,
Dirk

[savage]

Some very nice blending indeed! Looking forward to the improvements.

[Huehnerschaender]

Ok, unfortunately life inetervened Reids plans, so he told me that he will not be able to help that much as planned. He is really apologizing, but as usual, real life has priority Nr 1.

Is anyone out there who would like to build 3-5 3D models (3DS format, very low detailed)?

This project is just fun and so I am not able (and not willing :) ) to pay anything for it. The payment would just be a credit within the IGF entry (as I don't really expect to win any prices).

If you are interested in taking part of this project, just PM me....

(If I will win the 20K $, we surely can talk about payment again *lol*, but I don't expect this and so you shouldn't, too :) )

Greetings,
Dirk

[Traveler]

what kind of models are you looking for?

[Huehnerschaender]

It's nothing special.... one or two jeeps (very low detail), a bomber, and some houses if there is some time left... I am able to do some things myself, but I also have to do textures, programming new features and bugfixing....

[WILL]

There is the issue of a radio tower(could be on top of a building) and a supply truck model too. Sort of story critical. :? But there may be ways to improvise.

[Huehnerschaender]

Hi guys,

here are some environment improvement screeshots.

New:

- I made dirt tracks
- I made new streets textures (they are seamless now :) )
- 3 new buildings
- new background textures
- trees can have different sizes, to design more "realistic" forests

more will follow soon. I am on it!

http://upload4.postimage.org/731713/screen004.jpg (http://upload4.postimage.org/731713/photo_hosting.html)
http://upload4.postimage.org/731715/screen005.jpg (http://upload4.postimage.org/731715/photo_hosting.html)
http://upload4.postimage.org/731717/screen006.jpg (http://upload4.postimage.org/731717/photo_hosting.html)
http://upload4.postimage.org/731721/screen008.jpg (http://upload4.postimage.org/731721/photo_hosting.html)
http://upload4.postimage.org/731722/screen016.jpg (http://upload4.postimage.org/731722/photo_hosting.html)
http://upload4.postimage.org/731804/screen018.jpg (http://upload4.postimage.org/731804/photo_hosting.html)
http://upload4.postimage.org/732043/screen019.jpg (http://upload4.postimage.org/732043/photo_hosting.html)

Greetings,
Dirk

[savage]

Did you manage to find a solution to the ATI Mobility texture issue?

[Huehnerschaender]

Unfortunately not now...

This issue seems to occur only on some ATI mobility cihps, like yours.

I have an ATI Radeon 9000 mobility in my laptop and everything works fine, so it is hard to find out what the problem is.

As I only know of your video chipset having this failure, I did not invest any time to do something against it, because there isn't much time left until IGF entry deadline. If there is time left in the end, I will investigate further on, but for now I have to get essential things working first, which have higher priority for the contest.

Greetings,
Dirk

[tanffn]

I got to say, I love watching your updates! :)

I think you should work a bit on the roads, it looks unrealistically prefect. though I don’t know how are the roads in your country but here they have cracks/fixes/patches and so on.. I think it will greatly improve the visual quality of the game.
+ add objects (i.e rocks) to the terrain.

[Huehnerschaender]

Thanks tanffn :)

You are right... cracks, patches etc would look good on the roads. I didn't think about that before. I will see what I can get onto them shortly.

Rocks and building ruins are already planned. But I am alone and so things need their time...

Also statues and other little objects should find their way into the game until IGF. Hopefully there is enough time to do all this.

Greetings,
Dirk

[tanffn]

Your welcome :)

The course you’re taking looks good, how are you with the timetable so far?
Don’t really know you as im relatively new here, but many fall (and not only in game related project) because they plan XYZ but only have time to do Y and since they can’t prioritize they end up with a lot of nothing.. ( :arrow: I hope giving you more things to work on isn’t a problem :wink: )

[Huehnerschaender]

Time is short, but I think I can manage to add the most needed features to get our mission plot working.

I am working in software development business, so I know how to plan things, even if this project has lower priority than the projects at work. So I plan my spare time and substract a good amount of it for family and such things. The left time is what I plan to use for this project (I will not use the name Tanx anymore, the title has already changed, so don't wonder -> An announcement will follow soon).

The only thing which is not clear how to manage is testing. I think I will publish a beta one or two weeks before the deadline and collect bugs from everyone who is interested in playing the game. The biggest issues will then be fixed. Hopefully there are not too many :)

For the motivation I have WILL on my side, who asks me every day about progress of this and that... Sometimes I really feel constrained by him *lol* But thats no criticism, it's very good this way. I need this! I am good working under pressure. Thats what my boss says, too :)

[Robert Kosek]

I'll test for you. I've been a beta tester before and have the time to test during the week. Just send me a PM with details about how to get the files and what you want me to be on the lookout for.

[Huehnerschaender]

Reid (idee_fixe) found the time to complete the watertower he designed for the game. Here are some test renderings I made in 3DStudio. First one shows a perspective view, second shows how it might look ingame (I need to do some more work on my ingame shadows :) )

http://upload4.postimage.org/740657/tower2.jpg (http://upload4.postimage.org/740657/photo_hosting.html)
http://upload4.postimage.org/740660/tower1.jpg (http://upload4.postimage.org/740660/photo_hosting.html)

Great, isn't it?

Thank you very much Reid!

[WILL]

Visuals are looking great Dirk! ;) *cracks whip* ok now back to work. Mush! :lol: (Geez, I hope people know we are joking. ;))

Robert: That'd be awesome. :) I know mission design will be a big part that'll need quite a bit of testing. You know... too hard or too easy. More of this or less of that. Your ugly or I hate you. You know... stuff like that. ;)

Seriously though, it'd be great to have the extra help. Extra hands for this will be welcome, I'm sure.

(Perhaps a select few early beta testers will be needed?)

Reid did a great job on the water tower. I can't wait to see how it'll look in the game. (I know where right where I can put it too. :D)

We'll get it done guys. I'm confident in Dirk and I. However, an extra 3D modeler/artist would help us a lot.

[Huehnerschaender]

jesus, i must have overseen roberts post.

will got it. a helping hand at testing would be great! thanks for the offer robert.

we will have some work for you then in time :)

greetz,
dirk

[Huehnerschaender]

Here is the promised announcement:

The title of the project has changed. After some hours of discussing with WILL, we finally voted for the title Iron Strike.

The IGF entry will have a mission plot consisting of about 7-8 missions. So this will only be the prologue of the real game which we will take care about after the competition with less stress and time pressure.

Because of this, we decided to use some kind of subtitle. Take it as an episode name or something. Our first agreement came out for Stormfront.

Any suggestions aprreciated.

Here is a screenie of the new title screen I finished today.

http://upload4.postimage.org/749442/title.jpg (http://upload4.postimage.org/749442/photo_hosting.html)

Greetings,
Dirk

[Andreaz]

So if the game's supposed to be named Iron Storm, why does it say Iton Strike in the title screen :P

Dont worrry just pulling you'r leg a bit, very good work, looks awesome :)

[Huehnerschaender]

*hehe*

I was writing the last post while skyping with a friend in Miami, trying to fix her network problems.

Iron Storm is the title we first discussed and I liked it very much, but we found out that there is already a game using this name. So it's just a typing error resulting from being unconcentrated.

I corrected this :)

Thanks Andreas

[savage]

I'm not overly kean on the name as most military games have the work Iron or Steel or similar in their title.
I do like the Stormfront bit though.

Maybe flip it slightly and call the series StormFront with a tag line for each set of episodes. something like "StormFront - The Great Escape" and the second one can be "StormFront - Bueller, Bueller, Anyone, Anyone". I'm sure you get the idea.

Actually I just had a wierd idea. Why not have each episode/mission is based on various war films. Could the engine be flexible enough to allow players to take part in war scenes from various war films. You could have "StormFront - Saving Private Smith " ( not to be confused with Shaving Ryan's Privates - that would be a totally different game ). Obviously you probably could not use exact movie names to avoid litigation.

Just a thought.

[jdarling]

The red/blue lettering on the bright top bar makes my eyes hurt, it also doesn't look much like a war game title screen to me. Try black and white letters for the game titile, and a bit of trickery to tone down the flare behind it. If the flare is supposed to be an atom bomb or something going off, then give it a starting point, right now, the title looks like it was smashed into the picture for no reason.

Other then that, like the concept, not so much the name, I liked TANX better.

PS: Huehnerschaender, can't wait to see this one hit the store shelvs, at least I hope it does.

[Huehnerschaender]

@savage

I will speak to WILL and then we will see if your ideas are in his mind. As a matter of fact, he is the native english speaking guy, he has military experiences over several years. So I lay all my faith in his opinions concerning the title, mission design, story and ingame texts.
I don't know if a title like Iron Storm makes more sense then Iron Strike or any other combination. I would know what sounds cool in german, but I let WILL decide what sounds cool in english :)


@jdarling

Did you take a look at my PGD version? The title is a 3D model, turning a little back and forth. The lights (blue and red) sweep over the letters like they come out of the siren lights (don't know a better word :) ) of an emergency car (police, MP etc).
They swift very fast, so what you see ingame differs a lot from the screenshot. You will notice the red and blue light only as a flash on the letters.
The letters themselves are textured with a reflection texture, which looks quite cool when the letter sway.


Other then that, like the concept, not so much the name, I liked TANX better.

PS: Huehnerschaender, can't wait to see this one hit the store shelvs, at least I hope it does

We changed the name, because the whole game concept changed. Just calling the game TANX is too much specialized on tanks. We want the player to be able to DRIVE and FLY other vehicles in future versions. You are also not alone anymore. You will have friendly units fighting at your side in IGF version. You will be able to call air support etc. So just calling it Tanx didn't seem to fit anymore.

My game in store shelves? You are kidding :) I am not even dreaming of this...

PS: I don't want to spent too much time on just the title screen. I know that it doesn't show action or something. Concerning the flare behind the title. I will see what I can do about it. It was made fast... in a hurry. And I know that it doesn't look very good. I am not satisfied with it myself. I will try one or two other things out and then decide what to do with it. This is only a first draft.

[Huehnerschaender]

Long time, no news...

So hear is the actual progress.

I was working on the level editor every free minute I had the last days. I am now at saving/loading data in a new level format (saving them the old way used several MB with the new structure). When I finished this, there are only little additions to the level design components and then I can hand out a first version to WILL. Then he can start playing around with the editor and test if his basic mission plots can be build with the editor.

While he is testing, I will enhance my engine to support all the new features (and there are a lot).

Thats it for now. No new screens, just the info that I am still on it. I really hope to get everything working for the IGF.

Ah, and Reid managed to find the time to finish a radio tower and at the moment he is on a supply truck model and after that he tries to make a bomber model for air support.

Jesus, there are so many things still to be done.....

[WILL]

:drool: I think if I don't get this editor soon, I'm gonna have to start learning how to swim. :lol:

And so the mighty WILL sits... and waits... ... :D


Re: The subject alteration; I couldn't resist. ;)

[Huehnerschaender]

I AM on it Will ^^

Every free minute I have, I AM on it....

Job, family and other things keeping me busy, but I spent all the time I can gain on the editor. I am nearly finished... converted all things which were arrays before to Lists and I think at the weekend I have everything done to give you something to work with, which is in a state that the things you design are not lost because of incompatibility to the next versions of the editor. Thats what I had in mind. Not to give you something which allows you to play, but something that allows you to start your work!

Greetings,
Dirk

PS: If you can't swin, you should start learning it, no matter if you got an editor or not :)

[WILL]

Sorry Dirk, I didn't mean to strees ya. ;) Just tryin' to be funny. :P

I know it's gotta be coder's hell behind that keyboard right about now. But no worries. I'm waiting, but doing so patiently. (Oh who am I kidding, I'm axious! ;))

Oh and I can swim... sorta.. Like a crippled frog, I've been told. :?

[Huehnerschaender]

Will, you don't stress me *lol*

Hope I didn't sound so! I just wanted to inform you that I am not putting the project aside :)

Let's hope I get a first editor for you this weekend.... Then I can get back to the engine, which is absolutely not compatible with the editor at the moment.... hard piece of work waiting for me.

Ah, and don't expect a professional editor where you can alter everything intuitive :) I always neglected the editor and bringing more and more features in it doesn't make it more comfortable :lol:

[WILL]

:) Thats ok Dirk. If it works then I'll be happy. Unless there is some major thing that it slowing me down. Then I may have to have you make a small fix. But I think that'll do it.

So how we lookin' right now? Almost there I'm guessing? :)

[Huehnerschaender]

Yes, we are almost there... I didn't find the time I needed at weekend. There is one more afternoon I have to work on the save/load procedures and List-structures. I want to expand the structures with some "at the moment unused" variables which I save with dummy values. In addition I will create some "dummy" structures which will also be saved (just the amount, no data).

This will make the levels you will create more compatible with future editor releases.... if there are things which need to be added, I will hopefully be able to add them to the editor without varying from the loading structure, thus your "old" levels have no need to be converted to a new editor version.

Don't mind if you don't know what I am talking about... I know what I am doing there :)

I just don't want you to recreate the levels every time we get a new feature. And I don't want me to create several loading procedures depending on the editor version.

Btw, the new loading/saving of levels need MUCH less diskspace now...

[WILL]

Sounds like good stuff!

You're smart to watchout for that common pitfall. (I think it's common anyhow. At least when I was working on my older level editors I fell into it. :P) It can really take time away from the engine.

I think I know what you mean. Basically extending the limitations of the load/save routines so that it'll have more breathing space for both expanding the object total and size limits, etc... plus if we want to add more triggers and types of objects, we'll be able to do so with no change to the load/save routines. Very smart move. ;)

I can't wait to dig into it and start designing missions. :D Hmm... maybe a level design assistant would help speed things up too? Hmm.. (*hint hint* anyone? *;) ;)*) :lol:

[Huehnerschaender]

Wah!!!

I think my level editor is ready for a first test WILL!

We should meet at ICQ when you're online. I can tell you how to use it then.

It took a little longer than I thought, I added some more features to it.

Meet you at ICQ!

Greetings,
Dirk

[Huehnerschaender]

I just got a call from my girlfriend... the postman was just delivering my price !!!!

So now I own my copy of BDS 2006 Architect! Wow, I can't wait to get home :)

Thanks to the whole PGD community!

Greetings,
Dirk

[Huehnerschaender]

Last night I sent WILL the editor and gave him a little introduction (until 2:30 am! :) ). There are still one or two things which need to be added, but all in all he can start designing the levels :)

So now I will take care of my engine, which is not able to process all the level data right now... hard piece of work is waiting for me!

I will keep you informed...

Greetings,
Dirk

[savage]

Just wondering, will the level editor and the game share the same level rendering code, or are you keeping them as separate entities?

[Huehnerschaender]

They are seperated from each other... Rendering in editor is 2D while engine renders in 3D.

Actually, my level editor uses Graphics32 and my engine uses Asphyre eXtreme.

The leveleditor is just drafting the level as some kind of visual concept.

The following scene in the editor

http://www.dino-it.de/editor1.jpg

could give this rendering:

http://www.dino-it.de/editor2.jpg

Greetings,
Dirk

[Traveler]

This thread makes up for an interesting read.
Its great to see how it's all coming together.

Keep it up!

[WILL]

We're gonna try. ;)

Thanks to Dirk's awesome Mission Editor, I'll be able to now work on my mission maps. Which I've been really itching to do since I joined up with the 'TANX Team' aka WJD or 'was just Dirk' (and Reid too! He made some very nice models for IS!). :D

We are gonna need you guys to help us 'beta' the missions/engine for us. Find bugs/glitches and critique missions; too hard, too easy, easy/hard to understand objectives, too long, too short, cool, boring, etc, etc...

I think we have a few interested parties so far, but the more the merrier they say. ;)

Also a 2nd 'assistant' map designer would be of benifit. Just simple stuff like putting together a nice ground layout with trees nicely placed, etc to match the forrestry/buildings/walls req'd for the mission to take place in. The missions are already defined, we just have to design the mission maps in the editor.

[Chebmaster]

I want to expand the structures with some "at the moment unused" variables which I save with dummy values. In addition I will create some "dummy" structures which will also be saved (just the amount, no data).
IMHO, the "micro$oft approach" is better. The first field of a structure is the structure's size. If you add some new fields, the structure that you read from the file will be shorter than the current version of the same structure, and you just fill the missing "tail" with zeroes.

Why is it better?.. You won't limit yourself with pre-set structure sizes, always able to expand them as you wish.

[Huehnerschaender]

My first approach was going into that direction (eg. Blockwrite(file, structure, sizeof(structuretype)); ). But it stopped working when I was in need of storing data of variable size (e.g. string;) You'll never know how much chars belong to the string, so you cannot say structure XY has size YX.
That would work with something like limited strings (string[100]), which I don't want to use.

If there is another approach please let me know. Maybe some source? But however, I am in a horrifying hurry to get everything working until September, so I will use my solution for now. No time to change anything that is not absolutely necessary.

Greetings,
Dirk

[Chebmaster]

Well, I just finished a grand thing dedicated to saving/loading of complex data structures. The sources are available - but I'm afraid it would be of little use to you. It's too deeply integrated into my engine. You'd need to do a lot of montage work to cut the system out, plus implement a lot of dummy plugs for various functions.

You may look at the sources : this link (http://www.chebmaster.narod.ru/cge/cgedownload_e.html) > cge_test_012.zip > core/src/mo_classes.pp and all the *.inc inc files it uses (mainly, mo_registrator.inc, mo_basket.inc and mo_trulypersistent.inc).

In short, I spent last months resolving exactly the problem of storing complex data structures and backward compatibility of data files. The main idea that all used types are registered, and divided to "binary" (which are saved/loaded as is) and "complex" (each has a custom loading/saving procedure). Then all fields are registered. While saving, all the adjacent "binary" fields are saved as a solid block of bytes, and for all the "complex" fields a corresponding procedure is called. For the string, for example, it first stores the length, then, if the string isn't empty, its contents - and so on.

Maybe you'll have an idea how to apply similar approach to your own engine. Or maybe it's too complex for the amount of time you have. Anyway, I created this stuff because I never saw anything similar being done, but the demand for such things, I presume, is high.

It always irked me that every time you add a new data structure, you need to spend a lot of effort on the boring, non-creative background work of creating the save/load mechanism for it - if you wish it stay persistent. And the published properties are no help. Mainly because there is no mechanism to check if you forgot to include something.

[Chebmaster]

Maybe you can do a simpler thing: for each data structure create a "scenario" structure filled with commands for saving/ loading it.

Like "Write from field a to field b", "write field c as a string", 'write from field d to the end" - something like this. Both simple and effective.

Or just use additional routine that will treat the strings separately.

[Chebmaster]

so you cannot say structure XY has size YX
..not to say that the strings are pointers and storing them directly would be disasterous.

[Huehnerschaender]

Hi Chebmaster,

thanks for the information about your efforts.
I will surely take a look at it after the IGF, but I think for now its too much effort for a thing which is already working. There is no time to "just make it perfect". Only three weeks left until entry deadline and I have so much things to do. All the new features which are already in the editor cannot be handled by the engine at the moment. This is much more important, otherwise I will have an editor, but no game for the IGF :)

Greetings and thanks again,
Dirk

[WILL]

I don't usually have as much trouble with strings. I usually just treat them like arrays of Chars or as a fixed datachunk. They are just arrays of chars after all, right?

And when I use an array or a list in my structures, I'll have a Count variable --usually a 4-byte Integer for speed sake-- that reads just before the data.

So basically, I'll do something like this....
var
MsgTxtLength: Integer;
MsgTxt: Array[0 .. 255] of Char;

...

BlockRead(FileStream, MsgTxtLength, SizeOf(MsgTxtLength));
for i := 0 to MsgTxtLength - 1 do
BlockRead(FileStream, MsgTxt[i], SizeOf(Char));
// or BlockRead(FileStream, MsgTxt[i], SizeOf(MsgTxt[i])); should work too!

...

It may seem like a slower way to do things, but to be honest, it's an array you're trying to retrive from file afterall right? ;)

[jdarling]

Slightly faster:
var
MsgTxtLength: Integer;
MsgTxt: Array[0 .. 255] of Char;
MyString: AnsiString;
...

BlockRead(FileStream, MsgTxtLength, SizeOf(MsgTxtLength));
BlockRead(FileStream, MsgTxt[0], MsgTxtLength); // Char is size 1 so length works
// Or into a string
BlockRead(FileStream, MyString[1], MsgTxtLength);
...

[jdarling]

Actually here is real code :)

procedure WriteString(ToStream:TStream; Str : AnsiString);
var
i : Integer;
begin
i := Length(Str);
ToStream.WriteBuffer(i, SizeOf(Integer));
ToStream.WriteBuffer(Str[1], i);
end;

function ReadString(FromStream:TStream) : String;
var
i : Integer;
begin
FromStream.ReadBuffer(i, SizeOf(Integer));
SetLength(result, i);
FromStream.ReadBuffer(result[1], i);
end;

[WILL]

Ah... nice use of TStreams. ;)

[Chebmaster]

Oh! :idea: I got an idea! I will modify my persistent sysem slightly, making it usable by anybody. It's really not too big a work, compared to the pain of building it!

TRuly: there are lots of ready *visual* systems (GlScene, DelphiX, etc.), but there is no such thing as a ready persistency system!

I wish you luck then :)

[Chebmaster]

Actually here is real code
Bah! Streams are too slow!

procedure RP_AnsiString (PField: pointer; OP: TFieldOperation); typeprocscall;
begin
case op of
fio_Load: AnsiString(PField^):=ReadAnsiString();
fio_Save: WriteAnsiString(AnsiString(PField^));
fio_Skip: SkipAnsiString;
end;
end;

[Chebmaster]

Ok, this is getting off-topic. Let's continue it somewhere else.
But, anyway, when you have a dozen types or more, having two separate procedures for saving and loading begins to get messy.

[Huehnerschaender]

Hehe, indeed it's getting a little offtopic :)

The way I am doing it now is something like this:



// read buildings
BlockRead(MapFile,ItemCount,sizeof(integer));
for i := 1 to ItemCount do
begin
new(BuildingItem);
BlockRead(MapFile,BuildingItem^.PosX,sizeof(intege r)); // PosX
BlockRead(MapFile,BuildingItem^.PosY,sizeof(intege r)); // PosY
BlockRead(MapFile,BuildingItem^.Angle,sizeof(integ er)); // Angle
BlockRead(MapFile,BuildingItem^.BuildingType,sizeo f(integer)); // type
BlockRead(MapFile,BuildingItem^.Destroyable,sizeof (boolean)); // Is it destroyable?
BlockRead(MapFile,Size,SizeOf(Integer));
SetLength(TmpString,Size);
BlockRead(MapFile,TmpString[1],Size);
BuildingItem^.DestroyOn := TmpString; // triggeraction that destroys the building
BlockRead(MapFile,Size,SizeOf(Integer));
SetLength(TmpString,Size);
BlockRead(MapFile,TmpString[1],Size);
BuildingItem^.OpenOn := TmpString; // For gates only (Triggeraction that opens Gate)
BlockRead(MapFile,BuildingItem^.Active,sizeof(bool ean)); // Is it active (atm radar only)?
BlockRead(MapFile,Size,SizeOf(Integer));
SetLength(TmpString,Size);
BlockRead(MapFile,TmpString[1],Size);
BuildingItem^.ActivateOn := TmpString; // Triggeraction that activates building (radar only atm)
// Read Dummy 1
BlockRead(MapFile,Size,SizeOf(Integer));
SetLength(TmpString,Size);
BlockRead(MapFile,TmpString[1],Size);
BuildingItem^.Dummy1 := TmpString; // For future implementations
// Read Dummy 2
BlockRead(MapFile,BuildingItem^.Dummy2,sizeof(inte ger));// For future implementations
// Read Dummy 3
BlockRead(MapFile,BuildingItem^.Dummy3,sizeof(inte ger));// For future implementations
// Read Dummy 4
BlockRead(MapFile,BuildingItem^.Dummy4,sizeof(inte ger));// For future implementations
// Read Dummy 5
BlockRead(MapFile,BuildingItem^.Dummy5,sizeof(bool ean));// For future implementations
BuildingList.Add(BuildingItem);
end;


This is the code to read building data from level file. It is nearly exactly the way WILL described, so I think there is no need to change it for IGF now. We can add things to the editor which are unused yet, and I am also able to convert old level data to new level data if there is any need. All other things will cost too much time now.

Greetings,
Dirk

[Chebmaster]

All other things will cost too much time now.
Which is the key here.


Other than that... I last used BlockWrite in the times of 80486 and MS-DOS. A terribly inflexible approach. The streams are much better: you always can swap TFileStream with TMemoryStream for saving to a memory buffer, or with a custom stream with compression, CRC checking or something else equally useful -- without touching the saving/loading code.

For a competition entry it's, probably, Ok.
But for anything else... My own sad experience says that using the "shortcut" ways and simplifying things to quickly get your game working leads to limitations and unnecessary work later, when you try to evolve and finish it. In short - you save today, you get sorry later. :(

[Huehnerschaender]

The key is that I definately HAVE to save today :)

Nearly my whole engine needs a review due to the many additions in level design. There are so much things I have to do. Graphics, Sound, Gameplay, Collisions, Menus, everything needs a final touch.

And, there are only 3 weeks left until the entry deadline for IGF.

I have a job, 2 kids, a girlfriend, some other projects which need some spare time. I have no time at the moment to exchange anything within my game until IGF :) I don't mind changing anything later. But first I need to complete a working entry. Even if it uses a loading procedure which is not perfect. Main task is that it is loading the level and this, it does :)

The way my engine loads data is one of the most "unimportant" things right now, because it works as it is implemented right now. My main task is to let the engine process all this data as it was intended...

Greetings,
Dirk

[Chebmaster]

Of course. I didn't suggest to change anything now. That would be unwise -- as old saying goes, "better" is the enemy of "good". :roll:

[Huehnerschaender]

:)

Please don't get me wrong. I am very happy about any comments about anything. The suggestions you made are very good and I will let them influence my game when I have the time. I just wanted to point out that I don't have the time right now, even if it would be a good thing to continue in a more "future-proof" way. As usual, TIME is the factor which doesn't allow me to do the things like I wish...

I don't expect to get a rating on one of the first places in IGF, I don't expect to get a special price for innovation, gameplay, graphics or whatever.
But I need a playable game on 8th of September... to proof myself I can make it. This is my first game which is "playable"... I need to see it played by someone *hehe* :P :twisted: :D 8)

[Chebmaster]

Oh... 8th of September - that's harsh. :shock: I wish you to make it in time then. :)

[Huehnerschaender]

Thank you Chebmaster. I think now you got the point of view :)

[WILL]

I have the basic layout of the first mission done. :) Need the final enhancements to complete it, but it's a start. Will PM the map to you so you can use if for some testing.

Maybe stress testing is a good thing at this point too? I mean, I've put quite a bit of trees and am to be honest wanting to put a lot more for a heavy wooded effect. How much 'strain' can I put on the engine with trees? Is having a ton of trees on a mission map a bit of a problem or is it perfectly ok?

BTW: It's all the trees and ground layout that will be the most work on these maps. Anyone ever design their own C&C Red Alert, Starcraft, WarCraft3, etc... maps? It's making the land look good rather than placing the buildings and objects that take up most of the time isn't it? :P

[WILL]

Awe crap! I just noticed a BIG problem with the Briefing Text. :?

It comes up as garbage when loaded from file. :( I also get an "Error while loading Map!" message and an application error message that is in German saying "Zugriffsverletzung bei Adresse 00404B1C in Modul 'ISEditor.exe'. Lesen von Adresse 00B5E170."

Can you retrive my briefing text and fix this issue? Or is my briefing text gone for good. Darn! It was a good one too. :?

[Huehnerschaender]

Investigating....

[Huehnerschaender]

Ok, got it... of course, my fault. I changed a little thing just before I uploaded the editor for you :oops: It was already late and so it seems I forgot to test what I changed *hehe*

Your mission briefing text is unfortunately gone, only crap saved in file. The rest of the file is still ok.

Since it should be night in Canada and daytime here, I will use the time to get the missing additional things into the editor. Then, hopefully, you will have a "fully functional" editor with (nearly) all the features we discussed on ICQ.

Ok, I will start now :)

[Traveler]

Just a tip: Always write all of the texts in a word document and then copy/paste into your game/site whatever it is your making. That way texts are a whole lot easier to look up when you need to change something. Or in case you need to translate them, you can just handover the document to your translator. You are also less likely to loose the material in case of crashes like these.

[Chebmaster]

I'd go further and store all the text not inside the level itself, but as an external text file (maybe with the same name as the map file). You kill two rabbits with one stone: both the text becomes easily modifeable, and the map format becomes easy to maintain.

Like this:
#EXPL_VID_RESTART_REQUIRED
~Russian
Переключение этой настройки требует перезапуска CGE%0.
~English
Changing this setting requires to restart CGE%0.

#EXPL_BECAUSE_OF_COLOR_DEPTH_MISMATCH
~Russian
, поскольку не совпадают глубина цвета рабочего стола и глубина цвета, выбранная для полноэкранного режима, и при переключении потребовалось бы изменить формат видеобуфера. Если попытаться сделать это без перезапуска, очень высока вероятность сбоя.
~English
, because the desktop color depth and the fullscreen setting for color depth do not match each other. Switching it would require changing the frame buffer format on the fly, which may cause a crash

#EXPL_BECAUSE_OF_ANTIALIASING
~Russian
, поскольку при включении суперсэмплинга происходит фактическое изменение размера и формата видеобуфера, что крайне не рекомендуется делать ¬´на лету¬ª.
~English
, because switching the the full-scene anti-aliasing (FSAA) practically changes the size and format of the frame buffer, which may cause a crash if performed “on the fly”


PLUS, editing it in Word/OpenOffice/Whatever gives you the spell checking.

Tip #2: share the same code (via {$include xxx} ) between the game and the level editor. Namely, the code that defines the data structures and the code that saves/loads the map. You can try it even at your current "deadline-is-looming!" stage, because it's very easy to implement, but saves a *LOT* of troubles with inconsistencies. The effort of keeping the different version consistent and de-bugging [shudders http://host-17-99.imsys.net/_share/pink_woo.gif] them does *always* outweight any expenditures from making the piece of code shared.

Note: I, for example, gone even further and use the same definition block in *four* different places (see below: the purpose is to export some functions *backward*, from the main executable into the DLL loaded by it).
{
This header is used by both the core and the modules.
The core definition style:
function A (): integer;
, so macro e_fun_1 is "function", e_fun_2 is "", and e_cm is "".
The module definition style:
var A: function (): integer;
, so macro e_fun_1 is "", e_fun_2 is ":function", and e_cm is "".
The core exporting proc definition style:
3: p:=@A; //a part of Case statement
, so macro e_fun_1 is "", e_fun2 is "" and e_cm is ":p:=@"
The module importing proc definition style:
RegisterProc(3, @A);
, so macro e_fun_1 is "RegisterProc(", e_fun2 is ")" and e_cm is ",@"

************************************************** ********************}

e_pro_1 {$ifndef header} 05 e_cm {$endif}AddLogOK e_pro_2 {$ifdef header}(); expconv{$endif};

e_fun_1 {$ifndef header} 07 e_cm {$endif}GetModNum e_fun_2 {$ifdef header}(): integer; expconv{$endif};
e_fun_1 {$ifndef header} 08 e_cm {$endif}GetModName e_fun_2 {$ifdef header}(num: integer): PAnsiChar; expconv{$endif};

e_fun_1 {$ifndef header} 10 e_cm {$endif}GetGLProcAddress e_fun_2 {$ifdef header}(ProcName: PAnsiChar): Pointer; expconv{$endif};
...


- may look scary at the first sight, but is *always* consistent, saving me a lot of unnecessary work!

[WILL]

Problem Fixed:

Ah, fear not gents! (and ladies too :D) Dirk fixed the editor and I'm back at it. In fact he added the last of the features I needed to complete the missions.

So far it's 1 out of 7 in total. Well almost one. ;) I still have to add the dialog, triggers and in-game events, but the map is done. It was a small map though. Next few will be bigger.

On map design:

Actually, you know what? If I only got help with adding trees so that it looks good, I think that'd be enough. It seems to be the hardest part of making these levels. Making a convincing wood-line/forrest assortment.

Some background Graphics for Mission briefings

Hey does anyone out there want to help make some nice looking world/regional maps for the backgrounds of the briefings? All thats really needed is either a drawn/satellite picture of the western-Kazakhstan region, North of the Caspeian sea. That is where this version of the game will be taking place. Some basic HUD-like graphics indicating where the mission will be taking place on a 'real' map (something that'll look good in the game) and in what direction they'll be coming from. Just to give a bit of an idea of the bigger picture of whats going on in the story. Any takers? Deadline for this will be end of August (so we have time to plug it into the game)

[Chebmaster]

is either a drawn/satellite picture of the western-Kazakhstan region, North of the Caspeian sea.
Well, I have this huge map on my wall. I shot its portion, but... the map is very old and a bit crumpled, and my digital camera is a piece of cheap shit. Try these, maybe you'll be able to salvage something out of them:

http://host-17-99.imsys.net/_share/_ck/

[Traveler]

Try these, maybe you'll be able to salvage something out of them:
Ok, I just had to give it a try.

http://www.gameprogrammer.net/pics/outside/missionbriefing.jpg (http://www.gameprogrammer.net/pics/outside/missionbriefing.jpg)

I made this from the first photo in your list. Little less than an hour work. The black/white photo should not be used, but I thought it would be cool to place in there. (It's a actually a photo taken from the NRO website (http://www.nro.gov) (yay google images). And I dont think you should actually use that in your game.)

In any case, let me know what you think of it. :-)

[WILL]

Whoa thats awesome! Better not let Dirk see that this thread will turn into drool session all over again. :lol:

It looks great Alex. If you recall how the menu system looks with the alpha blended transparent 'black glass' forground screens. I think this would work great on top of where you have the green stuff.

This is actually something that I had in my 'brain box' as per concept of the briefing screen. I think Dirk will like... Nice work guys! ;)

[Huehnerschaender]

Amazing!!!!

I don't know how to say it.... but GIVE IT TO ME!! Can't wait to bring it into the game! Alex, you are hired for this task :) :)

[WILL]

The only thing will be to match the exact location we'll be in for each of the 7 missions. I can PM you a mission details list if you are up to this?

I know I've already put you to work for that other thing and all. ;)

Lemme know ok?

And thanks again Chebmaster! You are of course a contributor to this aswell. (Hence we'll need your full and proper spelling for your name for the credits. ;)) I love the fact that the map is in Russian too! :D

[Chebmaster]

The only thing will be to match the exact location we'll be in for each of the 7 missions. I can PM you a mission details list if you are up to this?
Ok, I'll try to look into it - in about 24 hours from now [sleepy]. It's pity that map doesn't fit into a scanner. 2x3 meters vs. A4... :(

Note, that the location you pointed at is at Azov sea, not Kaspian one. Closer to Ukraine than to Kazakhstan.

Note 2: tis is the map of USSR, so the now state borders are shown as administrative. You may want to correct that (kinda, make them bolder?..)

But for now - good night... [snoozes out]

[WILL]

The main border between Coalition(bad guys) and the Alliance(former NATO + friends / good guys) follows down the mountains that split Russia in half to the northern tip of the Caspian Sea.

To the West is The Iron Coalition (ran buy a former Russian General turned rouge opertunist tyrant and now dictator) and to the eastern side is the Alliance. Austrailia, India, Pakistan, China and Japan amoung other countires joinned former NATO countries in forming the new Alliance of Free Nations to fight the Iron Coalition. (hence the game's title)

The region south of the Caspian Sea is still unrsolved in the story though as there is a greater story that we can tell with all the Arab, Jewish, Persian and Turkish factions already there. It is afterall the middle east and a obvious location for mass conclift to ensue. Perhaps a 3rd faction or so for campaigns in that region.


Please note that the similarities to these names and any real-world titles have no other connection than simply that. We are not expressing any political views of our own about current events, just telling a fictional story about a dark future based on what we know of today's world.

Ok that should ward off a few death-threats. :P


The basic gist of the story is that in the near future the world experiences a troubled time. A 'Year of Terror' in Europe. During that time the EU(European Union) and NATO begin to feel the strain of combating repeatedly increased terror attacks throughout Europe, Africa and the middle east. The following year the Russian President and several other members of his cabinet are assassinated. This throws the Russina government into chaos and ultimately into collapse. Proventing nuclear weapons from getting into the hands of terrorists and the arresting of rouge military personnel takes top priority. Most of Europe turns into a war zone.

Not long after the fall of Russia the United States and most of Canada and Mexico are attacked by nukes. North America is turned into a nuclear wasteland. Those few that survived (including military units and personnel) were taken in by other NATO countries.

With the fall of both key members, US and Russia the Untited Nations disbands as remaining members lose faith in it. China, Japan and several other major countries petition to join NATO in their fight against the terror organizations that threaten what was left of the free world.

One organization successfully taking advantage of the chaos in Europe and Russia seizes large amounts of land in Western-Europe was led by a former Russian general who turned rouge and seized many weapons and vehicles for his war campaign. With his extremely large success rate he became known as the 'Iron General' and thus his army 'The Iron Fist'.

After months and months of fighting and loyalty changes the world was split up into 2 major military factions. The Iron Coalition (those loyal to the General) and the newly formed Alliance of Free Nations (China, Japan, surviving Canadian-US-Mexican military, Austrailia, etc).

A war then raged for several years until both sides gainning very little ground signed a non-agression pact. A pact that has lasted for few years, until a recent incident sparked new hatred and a new war would ensue. This bring us up to the game's start. :)

[Chebmaster]

So, the real area where the action takes place?.. You did previously say it's north of the Caspian sea. If it's south, then, I'm afraid, I need to move the table (heavy one) away from the wall to shoot it.

:idea: An idea (for side-mission, maybe?): The North Kaspean and estuary of Volga are the (as far as I know) the last natural areal of the caviar-producing sturgeon. Even now (it's a real-life fact!) the poachers grew so bold that it takes an armed force (the border patrol) to keep them down. The patrol helicopters have sometimes to return to base without finishing their mission, because their blades are damaged by enemy gunfire. There were very real terrorist acts against the families of border patrol officers (one or two high-rise appartment buildings blown up). Well, if the matters are like this in our, relatively "peaceful", time - imagine what a war would wage for the caviar in an uncontrolled war zone?.. Iron coalition (it's our caviar) vs Alliance (you are enemies of peace and ecology!.. Oh, and it's our caviar!) vs poachers mafia (we'll take it while you, fools, fight each other). Add here a tale of all caviar farms over the world struck by some disease (or bio-weapon), leaving the area the only source of the product...

I still didn't get your PM with mission details, to try to... how to call it... proof-check them against the local geography.

[Chebmaster]

Oh, and... Maybe I watched too much anime, but better to make the situation a bit questionable. Some positive and noble traits to the Iron Coalition (why else it gained so much followers), some negaitive and selfish traits to the Alliance. Like it's always in the real world. I don't think this would affect the game so much (anyway, all the story is in the mission texts, yes?..) - just slip sometimes between the lines. Or in the enemy radio transmissions: they firmly believe their side is just and you are evil :wink:

Oh, and the gaping contrast between the public press-releases and the internal disciplinary manifests (I believe it's quite common for the corporations as well as for the armies).

[WILL]

Well I'm off to work right now, but when I get back I'll send off a message to both Cheb and Traveler.

The things to note are the directions the units are traveling and relative positions to where the front lines' are. The front being a jagged line from the southern end of the Mountains across down to the Northern portion of the Caspean Sea.

Here is a small map with some Defence industry related information we could use to 'bias' some of the borders of the fictional Allied/Coalition front:
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/commonwealth/dfnsindust-kazakhstan.jpg (http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/commonwealth/dfnsindust-kazakhstan.jpg)

Oh and one for Russia too! :)
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/commonwealth/russia_defense93.jpg (http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/commonwealth/russia_defense93.jpg)
Dated for 1993, but good enough.

Other things like 'Star City' and other major populated towns and cities would make for persuasive 'hold points' aswell. Not to mention transportation too! ;) I think that the much more common Russian knowlage of these areas would be of great benifit for accuracy. :) Maybe a version that is raw for the game graphics and another version edited in Paint/Photoshop suggesting possible spots for the mission.

Due to time constrains and some graphics development limitations we have unfortunately had to stay away form any cities, towns or even villages. So in this, you could help us to avoid dropping our stories in on some unsuspecting town without knowing it... :)

[Chebmaster]

I think, it's best to assume that everything had changed in so many years and so many wars, and just build a new, fictional map of defense industry and such.

Because of this: I have a very old but extremely detailed atlas of USSR (dated by 1969). It, albeit partially, *does* fit into my scanner, so...

First, the population map. Note, that the West coast of the Kaspean sea is densely populated, and most of this population is islamic. Chechnya, dagestan, Azrbaidjan... This side also has the resources (oil, etc).
The East coast is practically a desert. The yellow color means "less than 1 people/sqare kilometer" (read: inhabited). There are practically no resources.

Next will be the vegetation map and resources map, where you'll see that most of the metal ore deposits are (unsurprisedly) concentrated in the Ural mountains.

[Chebmaster]

Ok, the vegetation map. 31:
a wormwood and saline deserts. I.e. don't put any trees in the missions that take place in these areas.

34. saline land/saline marsh meadow vegetation. I.e. the same, but with greener grass.

30. cereal/wormwood steppes. Again the same - but with more dry grass. 28 and 29 are steppes too!.. I thik, you get the idea. The entire region is a steppe, as flat as pancake. Not surprising, considering it's the ancient seabeed.

Ok, now what is my (fragmentary) cnowledge. The steppe is cut with narrow river dales that are filled with trees.

Now move north. The mountains are clearly visible on this map. 22, 41, 42 are forests of different kind and 21 - mixed forest and steppe. And so on...

...Oh, yes. and the valleys of Volga (west) and Ural(eastern one): 35/26 are mostly meadows and marshes mixed with forests (not surprisingly).

[Chebmaster]

Unfortunately, I must go. My vision of the border between Alliance and Coalition is shown on the border_approximate.jpg (in the same folder).

The exact reason - later. (For Coalition, losing the resources would be fatal, so they directed all their resources defend 'em in the previous war, and Alliance advance stopped here). Generally, matches the modern Russia/Kasakhstan border - but I used the resource and population maps to build it.

[Huehnerschaender]

wow... it's really amazing how you guys get into this :)

I am very happy to get all this help! Hopefully I don't disappoint you all at IGF. I do my very best to complete all things that need my hands on, but my time is very limited. I need coffee, Bacardi and some snacks *cracking fingers*

<-------- back at Iron Strike

[Chebmaster]

Added resources.png - the natural resources map. The oil regions are painted magenta, and the metal ore deposits are marked with red latin letters: Fe, Cu, Al, Ti (see the periodic table of elements).

In my opinion, the Coalition should have most of them, to be balanced with the Alliance (which includes China).

Since most of the wars are waged for resources, you can use these maps for setting your mision goals. :)

[WILL]

Am I losing my mind or is there no URL or link your are posting? :?

I don't see these files... :(

EDIT:

OH!! Ok, I are smart! (see s.m.r.t. :P) :) I figured it out once I went back and looked at the URL you posted earlier... :lol:

Very cool!

[WILL]

Wow the detail that you put into making up this border was great! :) I'm usually very meticulous about the little details and I'm left with nothing to pick at. Great job! :thumbup: (You know apparently this means something bad in Iran? :o Our persian friends, must think we are very rude people. :lol:)

If I may ask, where abouts in Russia do you live? :)

Since I'm home I'll send you and Alex(Traveler) the Mission Details (:shhh: Classified: Top Secret :shhh:) so you can find suitable locations for the missions.

Again, we are limited to un-populated locations. And we have only Grass, Mud, Dirt and Sand for ground types (no snow so it's summer early fall. :)) we can set rain or snow, but again no snow ground yes so only rain to use.

1st mission is in a forrested area and my plans where to have a forrested area for mission 2 aswell... Hopefully we can assume some growth in forrestry around the area we'll be air dropping our player into. yay! :D

I think it's best if we continue this conversation via PM. I'll send you the details with my further footnotes there.

[WILL]

Woah memory leak! :shock:

got up to 230,000+ KB in a matter of minutes of being non-responsive. I was using my mouse cursor to zoom in/out just after deleting a unit that had a long waypoint path. Possibly something in those features caused this? Anyhow it seemed to be not too common a thing to run into so... don't worry about it, just note it for later I guess.

If I run into it more often I'll make sure I tell you about it. ;)

[Chebmaster]

Woah memory leak!
[winces] Ouch. I hope you'll manage to catch that bastard.

PM received, processing... Estimated response in about four..six hours.

[Huehnerschaender]

Hey, you guys are doing great background work. That's why I decided to show you that I am not lazy and take your advices for real...

Here is a little video of the current state of the briefing screen.

Check it out. I am quite satisfied with it yet, even if the graphics are just placeholders I created in a hurry. I guess with Travelers backgrounds and closeup photos it will look a lot better.

In this video I used a TTS-Engine we are using at my company for some things to speak the mission briefing text. Is any native english speaking guy interested in recording the mission briefing texts for me with his own voice? It would be much more authentic than the synthetic speech even if the quality is a very good one :)

Ok, let me know what you think about the briefing screen so far.

I added a visualisation of the new "smoke engine" in the end of the video... take a look at it, too :)

http://www.dino-it.de/isbriefing.wmv

Greetings,
Dirk

[Chebmaster]

I am currently working on the background workaround (no pun intended) for the sake of trees. I'll PM the updated map version in a few hours.

[WILL]

Yeah, it seems that we are in a rut with terrain objects that I can use to make the maps more interesting and complex enough to layout a good solid mission out of them. Besides just having a plain 'blast em' type of missions, which I feel would get a bit boring after a while if thats all we had.

Basically it comes right now to needing more things like rocks, dead trees, cactuses, bushes, small brush and such for the more arid terrain. WHICH btw is all that we seem to have to work with. Then again there will be some time that passes in the world we will be working with, but I doubt that there will be much change in a desert. Thats why it's a desert in the first place right?

I've messages Reid and Alex to see if they would be able and willing to create some simple (it really doesn't need to be that complex of an object set) things to use in the dryer, desert and dirt type of maps. Water would be a HUGE help here aswell (a river like we have the roads) but that will require brides, etc and thats just too much at that point. Maybe a simple small oasis/pond patch for the desert/dirt maps?

Well we can move the front lines further north or west if it helps to give us more useable spots to place trees and such... There is not much else we can use as visual 'cover' anyhow. 1st map is mostly grass and is heavily wooded so we should look to relocate (or just plain shift) the whole location scheme over to a spot that will support this.

[WILL]

Just had an idea... you know how on the news you keep seeing those really 'crummy looking' short walls(up to about waist high so it'd block movement, but can be shot over) all over the place? Maybe we can use those aswell as an object?

One thing is for sure we need to add some kind of map elements.

Dirk: Can't see the video, I'm at work. :( They filter out anything other than images so unless you have a screenshot, I'll have to wait until I get home to see. :P

Voice recorded briefings would be cool. It would also means that I'd have to hurry up and write them. :shock: Maybe if we had a --respectfully-- 'chick' read the intro video that tells of what happened to form both the Alliance and the Coalition that would bring some excitement aswell.

Speaking of which... we should make flags already! :lol: Seriously, The Alliance flag would resemble the (old to these people in the game) NATO cross and the Iron Coalition could be created using some ideas based on what we 'know' about those people....

[Traveler]

Nice video Dirk. I see you are scolling the background a bit. Nice touch!
What size do you want me the images to be?

It shouldn't be too hard finding someone on this board who likes to have his (or her?) voice featured in a game, right?

There was one small flaw I noticed in the game. Around 1:40 the tank is driving on top of a fallen tree, however the tree appears between the lower section of the tank and under the barrel.

[Huehnerschaender]

Hi all,

@Traveler: 1024x768 would be great. It's a good resolution to keep things unblurred, even if we play at 1280*1024.
Yes, the slight movement and zoom of the map gives a cool touch to the briefing screen :)
The fallen trees have no collisions. Thats why you can drive through them. If I would add collisions to them and not let the player drive through the treestamps, he could get caught in fallen trees when fighting in a wooded area. It doesn't look nice to drive through them, but believe me, the player doesn't want to get stuck every 2 minutes. The map WILL created for mission 1 is surrounded by forest. Any ideas how to make it better than in current version?

@WILL:
If you want I can post a screenshot, but you will miss the animation and sound then... And thats what the briefing screen changed most :)
Adding new objects would be a great thing. But always remember that it takes my time too to get it into the editor and game. And there is my problem again :) Time time time...

Anyhow, I am very glad you guys support me with graphics, story and ideas. I wouldn't have a single chance to complete anything until 8th of September if I were completely alone.

Greetings,
Dirk

[WILL]

Yeah, I guess I'll just wait. No worries. ;)

As for the objects. If Reid or Alex get some stuff made up. how long for each one will it take? If it's just an hour to stick a bunch in all in one shot then that helps a LOT for such a small price, no? ;)

[Chebmaster]

As I said (am not sure you received my PM), the current maps could be used without any change, if we presume this strategy: since the tanks amidst the open steppe are a big fat bull's eye for the enemy air forces, they move from cover to cover. There are little woods/groves, where both sides take cover and clash. I am already working on the mission map, where I use every forested spot to put the missions in.

[Chebmaster]

If my images are unacessible, for some reason - don't be silent, notify me with PM oe e-mail. I'll upload them to some other location.

[jdarling]

Why not make it so that the player "Drives Over" the trees. They are still an obsticle, but you can run them over once you have shot them down. This can lead to things such as building blocks of trees to climb over a wall and gain special prizes :).

Just a thought, great job thus far!

[Huehnerschaender]

I'll try to let the Tank move over the trees, but I will put this to the end of my long long todo-list. There is too much game mechanics which need to be ready for the missions to work correctly. All the trigger events and triggertypes still need to be added to the engine and the according game behaviour too. This will take the next full days... I don't know what I can achieve and what unfortunately has to wait until after the IGF. I hope I get everything planned running.

Additions will be made after the IGF. Firts, we need a running game which is playable as intended...

Greetings,
Dirk :)

[WILL]

I got the PM. :) The idea is to keep to my 'general' path layout.

Your original map didn't quite flow well as it had the the tank squad backtracking and going in all directions.

I think that we can do without some grass-based maps. ie. the bases and maybe the last one... but we have to stick to the directions specified the way they flow on my non-plausible 'guessed' map. (Sent in a PM to Chebmaster.)

Like I said if we can shift those spots to locations that make more sense, yet keep the general shape of the layout (directions from mission to mission stay the same) If it morphs a bit where we some things are a bit more stretched over from how close I put them thats ok too. But the direction and the basic way the spot is approached between the missions is important to the briefings and bigger story. The first map was just too different from what the plot needs so we have rework the one I sent you to work better wit hwhat we have to work with.

[Chebmaster]

Ok. My new version. Maybe needs to move the mission #1 location.
http://host-17-99.imsys.net/_share/_ck/newlegend_cropped.jpg

Missions 4, 5 and 7 are placed in the *real* forest areas (see the forest map layer in the http://host-17-99.imsys.net/_share/_ck/newlegend.psd.zip (Warning! 41 megabytes * 15KBytes/second limit - it's like download a camel through a needle eye!). Other locations are just guesses where the groves could likely be (beside rivers/lakes). The front line is more detailed now, taking into account the terrain (Ural river, effectively separating the Weas and East and some salty swamps East of it).

http://host-17-99.imsys.net/_share/_ck/newlegend_full_downsampled.jpg

Mission #1 thext: + "After landing from the airdrop, your squad prepares to move out to the front. This is when you notice a BIG problem. The area where need to be is marked on the map as a flat, open desert. Where's the hell the forest come out...? Either the map is wrong, or worse. You are lost!"

Mission #7 text: + "Fled to the South and hid in the forested area"

Well, it seems this is all I can do. :?

[WILL]

Hmm... well it seems we are limited in where this 1st mission can be. It seems VERY high up north from the front(that means a HUGE HUGE screwup by the inteligence guys :o) and the direction you have them going back south would lead them directly through the enemy lines... if you could find a better direction considering that they were dropped so fare in the middle of enemy territory that might work better. Maybe if they instead tried going southeast to wrap around through the mountains but before they got there ran into the supply convoy? That might be more feasible for your suggested 1st location.

Plus the 4th mission where the air base is could be a bit more to the east. The air base can be in the desert because we can easily place the walls and stone ground to take care of any map issues there.

Same thing with the supply base too... it's not really limited to grassland.

Also Reid recently PMed me saying thta he might even have some stuff ready to go. So... this might open up some more rocky looking territory.

Appreciate all the effort to getting detailed location information. ;) We're making progress, we just need to refine some small bits now.

[Traveler]

Okay, I have just pmed Dirk with some desert (cactus & rock) models to try out. If those work out, i'll probably be able to create a couple more and different models....

[Chebmaster]

that means a HUGE HUGE screwup by the inteligence guys
Or a medium-sized screwup by the pilots of the plane our tanks were desanting off.


Plus the 4th mission where the air base is could be a bit more to the east.
Well, my suggestion then is to swap the 4 and 5 points (and move point 3 accordingly). Really, the current point 5 better suits for the air base. It's on the authentic enemy territory, not on the recently claimed lands.

Why I'd prefer to *not* move too dep into the enemy territory is because these areas contain Coalition's vital industrial and mining plants, so it should be *very* strongly fortified (did I forget to draw that...?).

Oh! An idea! The anti-tank obstacles! I don't know how the modern ones look, but back in the time of WW II these were just three pieces of railroad rails welded together. Put a lot of such things on the field - and voila, tanks can't pass!

Should be *extremely* easy to model.


The air base can be in the desert because we can easily place the walls and stone ground to take care of any map issues there.
Well, see the little dots near the point 5 that mean "sand" ...? Thus the idea. Swap 4 and 5, and nudge the former 5 a few pixels left. It will end in the desert.

[WILL]

Oh! An idea! The anti-tank obstacles! I don't know how the modern ones look, but back in the time of WW II these were just three pieces of railroad rails welded together. Put a lot of such things on the field - and voila, tanks can't pass!

Hmm... indeed! I was hoping for those, barbed wire and land mines aswell, but time kicked our butts in those areas unfortunately. :( I'm hoping that the IGF people will forgive us for some mission features. We can even call this one a beta version and release an 'enhanced' version of 'Stormfront' after. Then when Dirk wants to release the full version we can add all the other cool stuff and a whole other pile of missions. :D

Mind you Iron Strike has come a long way since TANX afterall. Dirk has put a lot into this version and I think it's gonne turn out great. ...if we can ever figure out where on earth to put these darn missions. :lol:

Supply/Air Base Locations & Direction from Mission 1:

Ok here is my latest idea... I'm inclined to agree with you on the airbase and the supply base aswell. However I think that we should probably move 2 UP to where 3 is... and we'll put the new 3 right in between the new 2 and where the new 5 (supply base) will be. Make sense?

Basically have the squad move towards the eastern edge of the front INSTEAD OF going right through the middle of the whole 'dug in' enemy trench line. (aka suicide lane! :roll:) It'll make more sense to the players too I think... If I can get some other objects for the desert/rocky/grassland maps then we can place 2 in a spot that has that.

4 Tanks in the middle of enemy territory explaination:

As for the reason why the tanks are smack dab in the middle of enemy territory... we can go with 2 other posibly more plausable scenarios 1) The planes had engine/navigation trouble (possible hit by enemy EMP weapon) and had to ditch the tanks or 2) the plane crash landed and the tanks bailed out before they hit ground. Problem with the last one is that a plane crashing would bring attention to their location so they might in that scenario, be stuck running from an enemy that knows where they are right away. (works against the whole chapter's plot) I'm leaning towards option 1 on that one myself. Much cleaner/simplier explaination to it.

[WILL]

Here is a little video of the current state of the briefing screen.

...

http://www.dino-it.de/isbriefing.wmv

Finally checked out this video. Wow! Very nice. :D The voice is pretty darn nice. Computerized voice isn't too bad either...

I think we'd want a voice actor for the introduction's narration though. IF we sent that way with it. I'm thinking either a woman's or a young childs voice. Something to really draw out the empathy in their voice for the terribleness of the situation. After the intro text and narration we can put in the audio clip that was used in the 'TANX' version only have that as the menu audio.


Intro 'movie' sequence idea: (Time willing... and if we can make is SIMPLE ;))

We could possibly use some TV/news footage/clips/pics showing terror(biological/chemical/bombings) attacks and a few nukes going off in cities, etc... for shock effect to put them in a huge OMG mood while the narration is going on. We could even create --using existing media-- faked scenes for each earth changing events such as;

- Increased bombings and terrorist plots in Europe
- Russian president assassination,
- Entire continent of North America going under quarantine from a biological attack initiated pandemic (I changed this because only nuke attacks made less sense! Pandemic is more believable)
- Overseas Canadian and US military stranded without a home (US/Can off limits for fear of spreading desease!)
- Rise of the Coalition under the feared Russian General(the new Hitler/Napoleon), fall of the UN (burning of a flag?), Reformation of NATO and signing of new Alliance by China, Japan, etc...


Oh and I'll see if I can come up with a few concept flags/banners we can use in the game's title/intro/somewhere... :)

[savage]

In this video I used a TTS-Engine we are using at my company for some things to speak the mission briefing text. Is any native english speaking guy interested in recording the mission briefing texts for me with his own voice? It would be much more authentic than the synthetic speech even if the quality is a very good one :)

Ok, let me know what you think about the briefing screen so far.

I added a visualisation of the new "smoke engine" in the end of the video... take a look at it, too :)

http://www.dino-it.de/isbriefing.wmv

Hey I think I know that TTS voice intimately. It's one of Loquendo's voices. I'm intrigued what your company is using the Loquendo stuff for. I was in negotiations with them to try and get some "free" voices for Seige of Avalon, but it never really went anywhere.

Btw, smoke looks good.

[Huehnerschaender]

Hi savage,

I am working in a software development company for telecommunication platforms. Last year, in one project I needed the Loquendo software to speak SMS texts. I was developing a service which converts SMS into talking MMS with an animated character reading the text (for fixed network MMS capable phones).

Thats why we have the TTS from Loquendo (we have some others too for other projects, eg Speechify). The license is house bound of course and I don't know if it would be legal to use the voice in my game, so a human speaker would be the best of course.

Greetings,
Dirk

[WILL]

Hey Dom, why don't you do a 'voice test' for us? :) Anyone have any cool girlfriends with a nice voice for the intro?

Oh btw, I spoke with K4Z (we'll hopefully be seeing more of him now) the other night and he says he'll look at creating some object for the maps too.

We might not be able to add them all for whatever reasons, but at least we'll have a repository of things to use post-IGF.

[WILL]

Ok I think I've solved the Mission 1 location problem. :D EMP Blasted the plane screwing up the insrumentation and damaging the engines! Hence they had to do a hurried combat drop behind enemy lines.

Now if we bump Cheb's Mission 2 location to the Mission 3 location and move 3 to somewhere less grassy but heading towards the supply base from 2. We can manage this with the extra objects being supplied by Reid and Alex.

The bases aren't so much of a problem as we will have walls, gates, cement 'ground' and buildings to keep things all nice.

*Whew* I think we've solved this terrain/map problem. :thumbup:

You know... I think half of the people reading our problem solving conversation is wondering what on earth is the second half of this that they're missing. :P

[WILL]

Concept Flag for the 'Alliance of Free Nations'! :D

http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/files/188/IronStrike_Flag_of_AFN.png (http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/files/188/IronStrike_Flag_of_AFN.png)

[K4Z]

(:o Hi again everybody! :o)

Huehnerschaender PM'd me a small list of models he needs the most.

- a bomber plane
- a Jeep like vehicle
- buildings which fit into the Iron Strike style
- Maybe a hangar like building and a tower for an airport

So I got started on the jeep today (Still pretty much WIP). I am trying hard to keep it low poly :).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/JeepOneA.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/JeepOneB.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/JeepOneC.jpg

[Huehnerschaender]

Wow... looks really great!!!

Can't wait to see it ingame :)

You can delete the front lights and the alloy rims if you want. I guess those are not seen in the game anyway... but maybe it's good to keep some details for post IGF... maybe we add a physics engine some time and the vehicles can overturn by rocket blast etc....

Hmmm.... anyway, very nice work K4Z!

[WILL]

Very nice Kaz! :)

I think we can spare a few extra polys for make the tires a bit rounder though. esp. the one on top since it's seen more than the ones on the side...

I guess we have this think of weither or not the gun on top will be fired in a conventional way or by robotics. Since we have automatic turrets in the game it would make sense to have automatic guns for our jeeps too. It will also save us on the detail level too. ;)

After that is the driver and the gunner to deal with. Perhaps puting a cover up over the whole back? (of corse leaving an openning for the gun to come out the top of it) That would solve even more detail issues.

[WILL]

Oh yeah... I remember Dirk and I talking about models and what works best in the engine due to it's current state. (There is not much time to change it either so we are stuck to this as a rule for pre-IGF.)

The easiest things for him to add in-game are things that are more rectangular or circular. Tirangles and diagonal polys will kill the engine fast. So when you guys are making the models please keep this in mind so that they will be easy to render in-game.


The things I find I need the most for mission map design right now in order of importance;

- buildings (a hangar like building and a few different looking base buildings)
- rocks and bolders
- bomber plane
- smaller old brick walls(not a high as these huge base walls)
- tank obsticles (remember those WWII things that would be on the beaches that the allies would storm?)
- barbed wire fence (I can find examples if you need, I want to see if this will fit, it'll be a huge benifit if I can use this...)

[K4Z]

Ok, Modifications:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/JeepTwoA.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/JeepTwoB.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/JeepTwoC.jpg

Yes, No?

Had my doubts about the cover, but it turned out not that bad. The interior will of course be removed in the final version, and more detail on the cover added to make it look like canvas. Doors?

[Huehnerschaender]

Great!!!

- No doors needed
- canvas-look can be made by texture

It's perfect for our needs I think ^^


Greetings,
Dirk

[WILL]

Indeed! Looks great Kaz, nice work. ;)

Now how about some buildings and rocks? :P

I could really use some rocks for the more arid maps in my missions. And the bases would look kind of dull without more buildings. I think these are the most dire things next.

[WILL]

Concept Flag for the 'Iron Coalition'! :D

http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/files/188/IronStrike_Flag_of_IC.png (http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/files/188/IronStrike_Flag_of_IC.png)

[Huehnerschaender]

Great, now we need to get them into the game in some places and taraaa... we have the good and the bad guys indicated...

[WILL]

Yup! :) Just download the full sized png file from here as it is full quality. I have one more tweek which make it look better, I think... just make the red spaces on the edges above and below the black bars also black and you'll have what I think it a better version. ;)

[WILL]

I made a little update. Looks better I think. :)

[Huehnerschaender]

yep, it does :)

[savage]

Hey Dom, why don't you do a 'voice test' for us? :)

What text do I need to read out? I can try and put something together this week-end.

[WILL]

I think I can come up with the intro text...

I think Dirk was hoping for a voice narrated briefing text, but I'm not sure if I'll have anything 'final' in time to do the voice authoring.

Fact is that we're far too close to the deadline and we're all last minute now. :?

But we can test things for post-IGF if you are interested? Heck if it goes well we might even have voice scripted dialog too. That'd be fun to do. :)

[IlovePascal]

Hey I would like to try ur game but the link u give doesnt seem to be working... can u update that? Cheers

[WILL]

Go to this year's PGD Annual Competition page to download the original TANX version: Click and Scroll Down (http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/competitions.php?p=details&c=1) ;)

OR...

We will be releasing the new engine/game soon to the general public as we have been 'ok'-ed by the IGF rule-makers to release publicly however we want. (See this thread for more details on the project! (http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=24966#24966))

[IlovePascal]

Oh yeah, cool. Found it. Cheers. Ill give some feedback soon!! ;)

[IlovePascal]

Im back! Well, I guess everyone said it already, so now's my turn:
Your game is the man!!! :clap: lol

I absolutely love the graphics, as well as the ''tank bits'' flying up to the camera and down when you blow them up! lol
Its a shame it slows down so much, sometimes, though. I have a gig of ram, and it's a pain to shoot helicopters bcos when they're on screen, it kinda lags...
But congratulations, nontheless!

How long did it take you? Have you done programming courses and stuff? Do you write in other languages as well?

[Huehnerschaender]

Hey ILovePascal,

sorry for the delay, but I came back from holidays last night at 3o'clock, so I was not able to take a look at the forums for 2 weeks.

I know that the PGD entry had some lag issues, and the IGF version has some too (when much enemys are on the map), but there are already some thoughts on solving the problem. The lags in the PGD version came from the trees and ground tiles. This problem is already fixed in the IGF version, so don't worry about it, all the lags will be gone some day (I will work further on the game).

The game took most of my spare time in the beginning of 2006. I started with 0 lines of code in february and ended up with the entry in may.

I am using Delphi since version 2, never did any course or something though. But I am glad I use Delphi at work, too. I am working as software developer. But in fact, I don't think this helped me a lot when working on TANX, because at work I develop everything else but games :)

I am glad you liked the entry.

I use a little C/C++ at work only (Linux).

Greetings,
Dirk

[IlovePascal]

Ok, that's cool.

I was wondering how you reduce the lag? Is it just by going around your program and deleting the parts you don't absolutely need (tht's the only way I've ever managed to reduce lag) or do you do it another way? I would love to learn more cos lag is a real pain!

cheers and c ya!

[WILL]

I may be going off topic here, but; Most lag can be reduced by optimizing the way you do things rather than not doing them at all.

Some examples;

:arrow: Pre-calculate common math functions rather than doing them each time in your main game loop.
:arrow: Simplify your algorithms. Sometimes you have done more work than you need to the first few times around.
:arrow: Limit the amount of memory and elements you access to only that which you need. ie. Checking 10 items every 100 loops per frame is far faster than checking 1000 elements every 100 loops per frame.

Just a few things you can consider when you go back over you code to optimize things to run nicer.


Iron Strike runs much nicer now, for sure. However I think Dirk can make it run nicer with enough time to optimze things. Now that the IGF is over with, I'm quite certan that he will soon. :)

[Huehnerschaender]

A simple example of the optimization is the trees. I calculated their movement (many sin and cos functions) in the render routine, which, of course, was a bad idea. When I moved the calculations to the TimerProcess routine, the lags with many trees on screen were gone.

Processing and rendering should always be seperated, because the video card can render WHILE the CPU calculates things...

The above mentioned bad code was made in the hurry during the compo where I was happy that things work, not how good they are implemented.

The things WILL mentioned are always the first things which can be optimized....

Another big thing in my case was:

Redesign of game classes...

During the compo, all my enemys had its own class from scratch...

While changing the engine for IGF, I built base classes which now every enemy class is derived from (the way it was meant to be from the beginning).
The base class can move, collide and all other basic behaviours... this allows me to store all enemys (no matter what kind) in a single list, which is much more comfortable (and faster) to process...

My current attemps to use Newton Game Physics for the game will speed up things, too... My own collision procedures are crap and buggy. Newton does a good job and if I manage to include it in the engine, even the collision response and special effect will look much more cooler.

Greetings,
Dirk

[IlovePascal]

Cool! Thank you both for the ideas! They were indeed very helpful! At the moment Im a bit busy with exams and stuff, but soon I'll get back to my game and maybe by next year (i know it's a lot of time, but im REAL busy!!!) I'll get some screenshots! (It's quite an ambitious game!)

have a good one ;)