As promised on Wednesday, I have a new feature of Reloaded to reveal. It is in the very early stages graphically, but functionality it is pretty cool. Rather than the simple pick-up, throw, drop feature of the current FPSC engine, a new inventory system will be added to allow collection of multiple items and the ability to store, share and even steal items within the game.
This first shot shows the inventory panel opened for the player after he collected three items from the level. Each item has a thumbnail, description, weight and size properties which will confine how much you can carry at any one time. As I said, the artwork is programmer art, and I have now passed this prototype to our 2D artist to work his magic!
Here you can see our intrepid player pickpocket the contents of the Thug character. The same system will be used to conduct trade with Non-Player-Characters and everything in between. Scripts will ensure that dodgy trades or foul play (like the character discovering he is being pick-pocketed will result in further gaming fun!
And no RPG style game would be complete without opening treasure chests, cupboards, draws and other storage containers, choc full of lovely items!
With the addition of inventories for players, characters and in-game objects the games you can create open up in new and exciting ways. Once we have some mock-ups of the final inventory panel artwork, I will share with you so we can have a chat about which one is best.
Explosion Take Two
For those who did not see the improved explosion capture from Rick, I have posted it in my blog today (without the stutter) so you can see where we are. Don't worry about the background, it was an old level taken from FPSC X9 and does not reflect the artwork that will comprise the Reloaded scenes. You are also looking at the explosion without any shading which will blend the effect with the rest of the scene to make it look highly polished.
Signing Off
The storm last week nearly ripped a 1000V line out the wall of my house and it's pretty dangerous right now. The engineer is replacing it as I type so I might lose power any minute. Going to sign off now just in case I don't come back :) Catch you Friday!!
Thats some great progress
ReplyDeletehope to see some fancy hud integration
that leads me to the question did u considered using qtwebkit?
i do understand that awesomium is out of reach but something like qtwebkit might come in handy
for a couple of things
another thing that probably went unnoticed i suggested in the ai thread the
RecastDetour Library
http://code.google.com/p/recastnavigation/
it is free under the mit license
and might just be what fpscr needs?!
takin a look doesnt cast a spell ;)
However keep it up and great work on the explosions, kudos to bond1
We're using Dark Basic Pro for the engine in Reloaded so QT would not have any place to live :) The Recast looks good but we already have a cool multi-core DarkAI module that we've just scratched the surface of, and container based navigation is one of the things to be used for Reloaded plus plenty of cool AI tricks for game play too. Watch this space!!
ReplyDeleteSome real nice progress. Will we be able to customise all the inventory media?
ReplyDeleteSame thoughts I had as Ched80. Good progress and nice to see, custom is good wherever possible I agree.
ReplyDeleteI can see that the creative thoughts of users working away already thinking of how they might use this in their games in readiness.
The item thumb and name are directly from the entity you drop into the level. The weight and size will have defaults. You can then change these in the editor (not the thumb) as you would any entity attribute. You can of course go further and modify the FPE of the entity for total customisation :)
ReplyDeleteThat's good to know, but what about the back drop image, size, opacity? The size of the thumbnails? Can we have opaque overlays to make the inventory look like a bag or a computer or a trunk?
ReplyDeleteI think we need the ability to tweak these otherwise all FPSCR games inventories will look like clones.
We'll provide something generic that looks good, then you will be able to go in and change the art files as you see fit to customise for your final game, much like most assets in FPSC right now.
ReplyDeleteYour killing me Lee... I'm getting so excited with what I see.
ReplyDeleteBe kinda cool to have within the editor the ability to place weapons and ammo into the inventory property of a character. This for when robbing them or maybe even when they die they appear by their body. Just an idea.
Oh by the way to make the explosions seem more realistic in sound, make it randomize between two different explosion sounds, possibly three. This is what a lot of games do so that the sound doesnt become notably the same.
ReplyDeletebecause all i hear is "boom-da-dish, boom-da-dish" lol