Homebrew Wrestling - first gameplay video
by David Horn · 05/19/2008 (7:19 am) · 10 comments
So now that I've gotten past the Torque-specific problems, I now have the daunting task of actually making a halfway-fun game. Right now, everything's working well. I have a custom "animate" function that will allow me to pass such parameters as which animation to call, if the animation is to effect the position, if the wrestler should clear his focus for the duration, etc. The only thing that worries me from a Torque perspective right now is the limit to the number of animations. I have it cranked up according to several forum posts and tutorials, but the fact that I had to do that in the first place kinda scares me. I have almost 90 animations already and that's just scratching the surface.
Almost all of the in-ring stuff is done. I just have some top-rope and submission stuff to do. Then, it's on to the outside antics... as well as starting to program the pinning and the A.I.
I'm kind of breaking the rules as far as optimization in the sense that almost all of my programming is being done via Torque script instead of C++. As this is a non-profit educational project, I'd like to leave it as "open-source" as possible. So that as I release it, anyone can go into the code, and see how things work. Or don't work :)
I did notice the framerate dropping. I couldn't figure out what was causing it. I started (sadly) to delete my audience members and replacing them with just static shapes, but nothing helped. Then, just on a whim, I started to delete the lights. Bingo. The framerate went WAAAAY up. Smooth as silk. So I began to code back in the audience members (because of course I forgot to save an older version) and everything is still smooth. I just have less lights than before.
I've also changed up the gameplay. So far I've been very concerned with the keyboard users. It was to the point where it was hindering the gameplay. Now, I don't really care. I'm concentrating on the Xbox 360 controller. It will still be fine on the keyboard, but there will be more keys needed.
So no tech-demo this time as things are just not really in a playable state. However, I do have the first gameplay video available here...
youtube.com/watch?v=4724uzZlhD4
That's all for now.
Thanks and God bless!
Almost all of the in-ring stuff is done. I just have some top-rope and submission stuff to do. Then, it's on to the outside antics... as well as starting to program the pinning and the A.I.
I'm kind of breaking the rules as far as optimization in the sense that almost all of my programming is being done via Torque script instead of C++. As this is a non-profit educational project, I'd like to leave it as "open-source" as possible. So that as I release it, anyone can go into the code, and see how things work. Or don't work :)
I did notice the framerate dropping. I couldn't figure out what was causing it. I started (sadly) to delete my audience members and replacing them with just static shapes, but nothing helped. Then, just on a whim, I started to delete the lights. Bingo. The framerate went WAAAAY up. Smooth as silk. So I began to code back in the audience members (because of course I forgot to save an older version) and everything is still smooth. I just have less lights than before.
I've also changed up the gameplay. So far I've been very concerned with the keyboard users. It was to the point where it was hindering the gameplay. Now, I don't really care. I'm concentrating on the Xbox 360 controller. It will still be fine on the keyboard, but there will be more keys needed.
So no tech-demo this time as things are just not really in a playable state. However, I do have the first gameplay video available here...
youtube.com/watch?v=4724uzZlhD4
That's all for now.
Thanks and God bless!
#3
05/19/2008 (8:44 am)
Really cool animations you have going there, and excellent synching. Great job!
#4
05/19/2008 (10:17 am)
Very cool, as others said, you did a great job getting those animations to work. What I am also surprised about is how you have the 2 different character animations working together.
#5
05/19/2008 (11:05 am)
David, what resource are you using to change the model's clothes? Are you actually changing the skin or are you changing the color of an existing skin?
#6
@Jondo
They are biped based. Character studio to be specific. The key to that is making the player bounding box a little bit small than the default, so the characters can interact. But animatin them is pretty simple. All of the wrestlers in my game are AIPlayers. So at the given moment, I posiiton them correctly and then call two animate function calls. Then I have an "animation done" listener to determine what comes next.
@Steve
It's a texture swap. setSkinName...
http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=12853
05/19/2008 (11:24 am)
Thank you everyone.@Jondo
They are biped based. Character studio to be specific. The key to that is making the player bounding box a little bit small than the default, so the characters can interact. But animatin them is pretty simple. All of the wrestlers in my game are AIPlayers. So at the given moment, I posiiton them correctly and then call two animate function calls. Then I have an "animation done" listener to determine what comes next.
@Steve
It's a texture swap. setSkinName...
http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=12853
#7
That is actually one of the more impressive things I have seen done with Torque! Keep up the good work =)
05/19/2008 (11:34 am)
Wow!That is actually one of the more impressive things I have seen done with Torque! Keep up the good work =)
#8
05/19/2008 (12:49 pm)
Lol nice ode to Ultimate Warrior 
#9
Good luck and I hope to try it soon!
05/19/2008 (4:32 pm)
Awesome work! I loved watching to the progress of this. Add some normal maps for the clothes and specular highlights for the (sweaty) skin and it will compete with the best of them. You would be doing the community a favour if you published a resource on doing character v character combat - there are so many application for this, like a Double Dragon clone, Mortal Kombat and even Spec Ops or WH40K type melees. I would even pay for a melee pack :)Good luck and I hope to try it soon!
#10
Call me silly, but one of the things I like the best is the way that the ring ropes shake when you do a slam. :) I think that's just great attention to detail, and I enjoy it.
05/20/2008 (9:45 am)
SWEET video! I'm seriously impressed!Call me silly, but one of the things I like the best is the way that the ring ropes shake when you do a slam. :) I think that's just great attention to detail, and I enjoy it.
Jondo
BrokeAss Games
Almost 90 DSQs... you are just warming up!
Did you go with a biped based skeleton, or are they .bvh based? Its a very nice group of wrestling moves, well delivered in Torque.
I'd be curious to learn about how you setup the tandem animations (in script/engine). Its territory we haven't entered yet, but need to. I've got some great two-character sequences, but no idea how to activate both, take control of one player, etc...I think that would make a great blog topic ;)
Jondo