Content, Stuff and Bouncing Bombs

Still hammering away at good old (and free) Blender creating urban content with an eye for making objects which you'd expect to see but that block raycasts and projectiles - otherwise they'd just be a huge open environment with no where to hide. (which reminds me of a whole host of games from a decade ago that had awful, open level design)

Signs, bollards, streetlights, traffic lights are all objects that breaks up the players view and movement patterns - and somewhat interferes with line-of-sight. But given the choice of avoiding an explosive crossbow wielding orc, I'd want something bigger to hide behind.

The humble pillar box is just about the right size to cower behind. Also been practising on the normal mapping front.

Equally cower-able objects littering (worst pun ever) the streets are large public bins. And of course it's important to encourage recylcing and keep the place tidy!

I thought that level crossing for trains would be a good, naturalistic barrier to keep a player in an area rather than just sticking more walls in the way. Nothing stops you in your tracks (second worst pun ever - I promise no more) than an electrified railway line.

Found a couple of interesting articles on the nature -and pitfalls of making bad- barriers in games at Gamasutra and here. Nothing irritates me more than an invisbile barrier or a knee-high fence. Six foot/two metre high fence okay, I'll expect it's there to impede and block me, but if I can see over it I'll want to be able climb or jump it.

I always thought minefields were a good (if somewhat lazy) barrier to enclose the player in an FPS. It's believable, in real life if I'd see a sign that said "Caution Minefield" I wouldn't wander beyond it .... or even anywhere near it! The same goes for "Danger High Voltage" or "Beware of the Cougar".

Tom Spilman posted some useful info on mipmaps in the forums, and my textures now look a damn sight cleaner at distance.

I've been making colmeshes to go with the objects and using a bit of polysoup for others. The roads are currently DTS and coming in prefab sections so when I get to some actual environment building I'll merge them into one big model and polysoup it, should be best for performance.

Still a few more models to do, mainly signs, barriers, a red British phonebox (I've made a modern looking phone kiosk but I do like retro) and other stuff.

Apart from modelling I've also knocked up a rifle and grenade launcher wihich uses a delayed fuse. There's hours of simple amusement to be had bouncing it around corners, off objects, fleeing for cover as it comes ricochets back at you......

Link to the low quality Youtube vid of it in action.

Right, need to do just a bit more modelling of objects/obstacles, knock up some more interiors and stick everything I've done so far into some sort of working environment. Then see how that plays and what the performance is en-mass.