Life is growing

Being sick sucks...


I'm getting better  but the weekend is over. Damn! In previous message I shown some 3D textured models I made. They're now integrated in the game. Here is how it looks :

Ground texture is still a place holder with low repeat so pixels are big. And if you're wondering what is the red thing on the last screenshot, this is the cursor. It should not display there.

Textured place holders incomming

Now that I know a simple way to create textured models I see the game growing visually. I made a lot of work on the gameplay, but the visual feedback was missing. That's like a building rising from it's blueprints. Quite impressive and deep feeling, I have to keep calm and move forward.

Here are some models I made :

Refinery place holder

Warehouse place holder

Research Center place holder

You may recognize common forms as I only made 4 different textured "base blocs"! That's good enough for place holders.

Sick times ahead

This weekend I got sick and couldn't fully work...

A friend helped me applying textures on a model in Blender so I hope to be able to texture my place holders soon. Here comes the first ever textured model I made!

Simpler 3D model ever : a cube

I also worked on gameplay. Structure construction is getting better and better! Warehouse store capacity is now handled : building a warehouse will increase the zone's storage capacity.

Structures are no more built in one click : building takes time. They don't provide any service until construction is done. The 3D model scales up to stop at it's full height when it's done. Cool effect!

Today I could practice on texturing and I found a quick (and dirty) way to create texturized models. Here is the first attempt for the Command Center :

Command Center with textures

Organization

I just want to code... but I have to organize a little bit.

I made a list of things I have to do on the first step (zone vision). I also continued the list for next steps but some things are still missing. Here is the list :

• [OK] 3D camera management
• [OK] Get 2D coordinates from 3D view
• [OK] Add structures on the 3D view, aligned on the invisible grid
• [OK] Neighbours conditions for structure construction
• Resources condition for structure construction
• [OK] Natural resources harvesting
• [OK] Energy production (and consumption by the structures)
• Structures construction time
• Building bots management
• [wip] Create the place holders for all structures
• [OK] Natural resources exhausting
• Ground digging / earthwork
• Warehouses
• Built structure selection
• Special actions for strucutres (such as building a bot, starting component production, etc...)
• Structure upgrade
• The global UI (resources stored, natural resources left in the zone, the actual energy production, the building menu, etc...)
• Custom structure building

That's quite a big amount of work! And I surely forgot some things. The next step will probably be the UI. Now that the engine works, I need feedback of what's going on. Raw data drawn on the screen is no more enough!

I worked on place holders too, making existing simpler and creating new ones. Here is the work :

The Command Center

The Carbon Mine

The Research Center

The Fuel Refinery

The Solar Plant

The Starport

The Warehouse

Those models are made with Blender (v2.64). I'm new to 3D, so some of them may look... interesting... Don't judge my 3D skills, I'm not a 3D designer! Keep in mind that those models are just place holders. I tried to make them easy to recognize, as I want them in the final game.

Tough week

Gah...

After a tough weekend previously, that's going to be a whole week! My night planning is almost full.

• On Mondays I usually take piano lessons
• Tonight I meet team members of my association to do a debrief about the last game jam
• Tomorrow, I meet other members of my association to talk about the conference I'll give on january about amateur game projects
• On Thursday, I meet friends to finalize the event on Guild Wars 2 we're going to perform for our community next day
• On Friday I perform the event

When am I supposed to work on Alone in Space?!

Coding this week will be hard but I still have time to think about the gameplay and making some project management.

Energy

Energy management is another gameplay of the game. All structures will need energy to be able to operate properly. This special resource cannot be stored. Unlike the other natural resources, energy must be produced continually to supply the zone's structures.

This part of gameplay is created!

On this screenshot you can see some solar plants supplying 2 refineries. Unfortunately, the solar plants don't produce enough energy for the 2 structures so one of them is currently shut down. In order to tell the player that something is wrong, a rotating storm is shown above the structure.

On the road again

Structures cannot be built anywhere. They need to be linked to roads in order to load/offload goods. Structures which don't produce resources nor goods need roads too (obviously). Here is a simple pattern :

If you follow the project from it's very early beginning, you'll recognize this outline :-)

Command Centers can be built anywhere but only once (during the colonization process), roads must be linked to a structure, and structures must be linked to at least one road.

This part of the gameplay is done. See you on the next step!