blog: developer blog #7

Feb 23, 2009 Derek Smart

Another week, another dev blog. I was so busy last Friday, that I didn’t get the chance to do my weekly blog.

At this point, we’re really just down to the minor stuff, tweaks etc. As I said in a previous dev blog, it is the content work that is going to hold us back for a bit. And short of throwing more [new] people at it, it is going to be a close call if we can actually get it all in by the end of March. But, we’re hopeful. We’ve had a few setbacks in the content resources dept. but nothing too disruptive at this point.

As of this writing, we still have quite a few 3D cockpits to complete and drop in the game. I just released some shots showing a new one on the Raven super fighter. There are twelve fighters and six gunships in the game. All of them will have a unique 3D cockpit. At the moment, any that is missing a cockpit, automatically uses a pre-existing one from another model. All remaining ones are on track to be finished in early March, so I’m not freaking out just yet.

The new character animations are currently being tweaked so that the new character animation engine we have can take advantage of this. Currently we’re still using legacy character animations as placeholder.

After wrapping up the detail texturing in the base confines, we’ve also started adding peripheral props to the base scenes. Things like fences, walls, concrete slabs (for taking cover etc). Just misc stuff so they don’t look too barren. We had previously tightened things a bit in the bases, so they are a bit better laid out. With 400sq. km and eight bases (in ten mission zone areas), it is quite a feat. But all eight have different layouts on which the models will be placed. In the shots I released today, you get to see some different base layouts. These bases all cover about 20km. So yah, they’re huge. This is good because thats the open world game that I set out to develop. Until each one has been laid out, most use a generic layout for now – and thus the models are all in the same position/layout – making them all look the same. They won’t be the same in the final game once all eight templates are done.

The good thing about the game engine is that all these assets are drop in so this means no code changes, no level vis work or anything like that. A new model comes in, it gets checked out, tagged, dropped into the assets dB and tested in the game. If its OK, it stays and its done. If not, when minor revisions/tweaks are done, the new rev just replaces the current one.

First person weapons are also coming along at a fair pace, though it is highly unlikely that they will all be done and dropped in before the end of March. But we’re going to try. The game has twenty-two unique weapons and they’re all being done from scratch, while legacy models serve as placeholders in the interim.

This past week was a source code biggie because the 3D audio was also finished. Since we use FMOD exclusively here, most of the work was in ripping out our legacy wrapper and doing it from scratch for this game and doing things we didn’t do in previous games. It makes a world of difference when shots are flying left and right, gunships and fighters speeding past above and you hear the whining of the turbines as they approach, shoot past etc. If nothing else, you’ll hear them coming. :)

A bunch of personnel NPC AI tweaks were also done. These include how escorting NPCs react when under attack themselves, what they do etc. Though we expect multiplayer to be a big draw in the game, that does not mean that we’re just going to throw dumb NPCs in the single player experience.

The game docs are also 99% completed and I got around to doing a media preview package of the game, including some scenarios and such. There should be some previews popping up soon, once they get their hands on it and actually get to actually writing something.

I also did a 24 min narrated video tutorial of an air combat mission. Once the mirrors go up, I’ll post links to the video. It is quite a bit of fun and clearly shows our PC roots. None of that dumbed down console nonsense here. No siree Bob.

A bunch of other gameplay related tweaks, bug fixes and such also marked the wrap of the 1.13.14 build. Next up are character animation engine, physics and multiplayer tweaks and revisions -and we’re done! At which point we can start planning on where to go from here with the XB360 version.

Until next time, go and spread the word!

ps: I wanted to point out that from the blog poll, a whopping 64% (of 143 voters) of you who voted are interested in all aspects of the game. While 17%, 11% and 8% are solely interested in the fps, air combat and vehicular combat. Interesting stuff that.

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1 Comment »

  1. Derek Smart says:

    The links to the tutorial air combat movie (for the latest game version) are now on the media page. Enjoy!

    Posted on February 24, 2009 @ 5:43 pm

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