Cheers Will,

I see what you're saying about the CBC logo.. I could change it to be more in line with the rest of the Gun Metal image.. I'll have a play with it.

It felt like a great accomplishment last night at 3am when I managed to get the Textbox working properly. This will be the first step towards a truly configurable team.

I hear ya with the team config too, I had originally intended to go as far as completely configurable teams (with praise/punish system too to assist the AI) with my 3D version of Guns using the Torque engine but timescales, complexity stopped me... I'll have a think about it.. I could possibly include some form of defensive capability based on increasing intelligence with more experienced units.. I'd have to turn off Friendly fire then.. 'cos they do have a habit of killing each other. either that or factor it all in.

I want to build in a rule based system so that it can learn how to play the game as the player plays. the game. I'm thinking of a large list of rules based around the sensors input around the Guns and their status. The rules would be praised or punished depending on whether the rule led to survival or defeat.. Eventually, the AI player would learn that some of the things the real player does are dangerous and will move out of danger somewhere else.. or will learn that they need to get closer, within range of their target in order to hit it.. and that hitting buildings and civilians is bad.. This needs more thought though.

The shield effect is a repeated animation made from a 3 Stage animation with 8 frames per stage.
The frames were all rendered 100% in Xara Xtreme using basic shapes and a couple of plugins.

I used Electrify from the Xenofex2 set http://www.xara.com/products/xtreme/...oduct=xenofex2
and
Marble, Gradient Glow and Jiggle from the EyeCandy 4000 set http://www.xara.com/products/xtreme/...t=eyecandy4000

The Explosion on the Title page was made using Jiggle and Corona.

Each frame is then BlitAdd'd to the scene. the whole thing looks really nice when it's animated