it all started from this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lMpdX-emxk
it’s been a while, and as you probably know, i’ve just got out from a really rough couple of months, with examns, huge emotional stress and lack of motivation but i’m back and i’m off to finish what i started for over a year ago.
so for short, it’s an (d’uh) indie FPS game, actually, it’s more of a “FPA-P” (first person action-puzzle, as i like to call it) game, following the scenery and idea from the Vancouver Film School video - The Room, and extending the gameplay to make an actual fast-paced, eye-candy-full puzzle game. In Gen - The Room the playground consists of a cube-like interior with mobile surfaces. going further than that, i had a few more ideas: there’s no predefined ground (a.k.a. you can walk on walls), do some tile behaviour like with a rubik’s cube (for some “haha, i’m on the floor, now on the wall, wow, now i’m on the ceiling”-like action), the environment (a.k.a. puzzle) will be procedurally generated (really hard thing to do, btw), or can be created in an integrated editor by the player. there will also be a multiplayer section, with all-known game types like shoot em all or capture the flag.<br /> <br /> <strong>what's been done so far</strong>: procedural generated maps, tile movement, world & player movement, personal physics engine (separate project - game needs speed!), "minim" sound system integration (for voice chat over multiplayer and voice recognition - half way there :)), almost a complete UI (separate project, own true-type font class, +mathematically simulated fluid system for the main menu - cuz it looks pretty), and tons on things to improve FPS (the map contains a list of all the tiles in the game, which are combined and/or subdivided in a world matrix, thus drastically improving frame rate. unused map objects are combined in a single tile, and their textures are multiplied, giving the illusion that all objects are rendered, when only one is. the objects are normal mapped, technique combined with geometry instancing, bounds checking, back face culling, etc. thus, frame rate can rise up to 10 times higher than a normal rendering technique, while the visual representation lacks no detail.)
and just as a reminder, i didn’t forget about the: http://www.jmonkeyengine.com/jmeforum/index.php?topic=11084.0, i plan on finishing it this week, and including it as a benchmark for automatically adjusting graphics settings in the game (sorry for the extremely long wait).
for all you talented 3D and/or 2D artwork designers/artists, we need you!
so if anyone could join/help in this area, i shall give cookies and personal gratitude as a reward anyway, i really want to push this project really far, open-source-ing it in 2 or 3 months and really getting somewhere. first, i’m going to a national software presentation in 3 weeks where i shall reveal Gen - The room the first time.
to start with, here are some screenies:
to be done: groovy scripts-based AI and gameplay, finish GUI, finish map editor, use some shaders (!!) (for this i need a new laptop, unfortunately, my stupid integrated videocard doesn’t speak GLSL…).
updates in more detail shall be posted on https://victorporof.wordpress.com/
if you have any more ideas for the gameplay, please tell! :lol:
EDIT: videos added.
benchmark (w/ vegetation system):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCW2SljB14U&feature=channel
main menu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niSDKrZldOM (old version)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ff30FNNWAR8
early gameplay (tile management is pre-alpha now, movement isn’t quite right yet…)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Fgh4yQvWAU&feature=channel
The same video was also an inspiration for Grappling Hook. 
Nice screenshots. 
That looks very promising, i love the menu/gui style.
Maybe instead of a white shadow for the options dialog, you could add a nice looking 3d like border, something like the buttons in your menu.
That GUI is gorgeous! It's the perfectly balance of minimalism and "technology" while keeping with the color scheme of your other screen shots. nice work!
Core-Dump said:
That looks very promising, i love the menu/gui style.
Maybe instead of a white shadow for the options dialog, you could add a nice looking 3d like border, something like the buttons in your menu.
noted. :D thanks for the idea.
sbook said:
That GUI is gorgeous! It's the perfectly balance of minimalism and "technology" while keeping with the color scheme of your other screen shots. nice work!
:D
Your GUI is nice and I'm happy to see another cool project here. Keep it up.
Seems like we just got ourselves another mentionworthy project ;D
So the neat GUI, did you program it yourself completely from scratch, or was there a framework to help you going?
Seems the UI isn't the only thing you did seperately, e.g.
personal physics engine (separate project - game needs speed!)
So I'm wondering, where does jME come in? :D Do you feel like it's filling the holes of your game framework satisfactorily, or is it more the other way around; it's making them.
From some quick snooping around on your blog, I couldn't figure out what 'high school' it was that you graduated from, but it seemed game/programming centered. I suppose it wasn't the actual Vancouver Film School though? I attend there you see, GD15!
Also read on your blog that you were now considering Ardor3D. Understandable, but I'm not sure how game-centered that project will be in the future. I would suggest having a look at jME 3.0, which aims at similar quality as Ardor3D, but more centered around games than general use. Would love nothing more than having you around as a contributor, maybe even more.
erlend_sh said:
Seems like we just got ourselves another mentionworthy project ;D
So the neat GUI, did you program it yourself completely from scratch, or was there a framework to help you going?
completely from scratch. i said a while ago it shall be given to jme soon. the greatest thing about it is skinning and scripting, but more details later, when it's finished.
erlend_sh said:
Seems the UI isn't the only thing you did seperately, e.g.
personal physics engine (separate project - game needs speed!)
So I'm wondering, where does jME come in? :D Do you feel like it's filling the holes of your game framework satisfactorily, or is it more the other way around; it's making them.
jME comes in with the graphics-core, but is should metion it's a slightly modified version of the engine.
erlend_sh said:
From some quick snooping around on your blog, I couldn't figure out what 'high school' it was that you graduated from, but it seemed game/programming centered. I suppose it wasn't the actual Vancouver Film School though? I attend there you see, GD15!
Also read on your blog that you were now considering Ardor3D. Understandable, but I'm not sure how game-centered that project will be in the future. I would suggest having a look at jME 3.0, which aims at similar quality as Ardor3D, but more centered around games than general use. Would love nothing more than having you around as a contributor, maybe even more.
i should update the blog more often i was considering Ardor3D, but.. maybe Renanse will get angry ( :)), but i've decided to stay with jME.. it seems it's more mature.. for now.. i know about "jME3", it looks promising, but until a stable 1.0 release i'm staying with jME2.
btw: i'm now uploading videos with the GUI and early gameplay.
erlend_sh said:
Awesome man! Will it be general purpose or jME-specific then?
general purpose is what i'm aiming for..
blue_veek said:Awesome man! Will it be general purpose or jME-specific then?
[GUI is] completely from scratch. i said a while ago it shall be given to jme soon. the greatest thing about it is skinning and scripting, but more details later, when it's finished.
jME comes in with the graphics-core, but is should metion it's a slightly modified version of the engine.Modifications that you might want to see become official? Please never hesitate to put your suggestions out there, or even slapping it right up to the contribution board for hands-on reviews and debate.
Exciting! Remember to add music! ;D
btw: i'm now uploading videos with the GUI and early gameplay.
videos added. remember, this is the alpha version, so don’t expect much! :mrgreen:
main menu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niSDKrZldOM
early gameplay (tile management is pre-alpha now, movement isn’t quite right yet…)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Fgh4yQvWAU&feature=channel
erlend_sh said:
Modifications that you might want to see become official? Please never hesitate to put your suggestions out there, or even slapping it right up to the contribution board for hands-on reviews and debate.
the modifications that are made are somehow similar with what is currently being done with "jME3", starting from the gamestates/abstract game/multi-threaded support/updateRenderState() XD etc.
#jme2 #gui #theroom
Added to jME Twitter. (undergoing fix) Also gave you twitter privileges in recognition of your great use of jME, not to mention the open source plans. Keep it up!
wow looks damn good!
The music makes the vids
Love it.
lanmower said:
The music makes the vids
Love it.
well, it's a good thing that dubstep is usually free stuff, as far as i know.. but i didn't decide yet what the actual soundtrack i should be using.. i thought about something like this.. for some shiny tech/scary/cyber the-room-like atmosphere..
is that hard coded or very skinnable?
It would be nice to abstract such a cool gui and upload it for future projects…
lanmower said:
is that hard coded or very skinnable?
it's actually very skinnable, and the effects are all user-defined
for example, in the main menu i used the exact same controls as in the picture above, but it looks totally different, doesn't it?
thats stunning! I would love to see a running copy soon
lanmower said:
thats stunning! I would love to see a running copy soon :)
there are still lots (!) of things to be done/tweaked, so i can't promise anything, but i hope something like a beta will be finished in the next (at least) one or two months.