Orcs vs. Martians progress - part 2 (lots of images)

Here's part two of progress on Orcs vs. Martians.

By the way, OVM is implemented on a hybrid TGE 1.3 / 1.5.2 codebase. Are we old-school or what. OVM doesn't even use TLK / TLS (yet).

Anyway, on to the update.

Doodads

Orcs vs. Martians now places decorative objects around the map to add ambiance and art appeal. They don't affect gameplay other than being obstacles. Starcraft called these things "doodads", so I've been calling them the same.

The random map generator places doodads partly randomly, and partly algorithmically. For example it makes freestanding pillars tend to be placed in rows, to give the impression they used to be part of a structure. I also decided to allow placement of doodads in un-reachable parts of the map, like in deep water and on steep slopes. I think it creates an impression that the doodads are very old--as though the water table has changed, or the terrain has shifted, since the time the doodads were created by some long-gone civilization.

I really like the atmosphere that doodads add.

Dust & Debris

There's now a bit more dust & debris in the game, especially once battles start. If hit hard enough, buildings sway and jostle a bit, emitting dust from their foundations. Bits of stone and lumber break off and fall to the ground. When a unit dies, the falling corpse usually causes a dust puff upon impact with the terrain; or if falling in water, a splash. Units, especially large ones, tend to kick up dust as they run down roads.

The falling debris from buildings doesn't look that great yet, but once the code is finished I can concentrate on making it have a better range of sizes, better textures, etc.

Muzzle Flashes

Martian laser rifles now emit small muzzle flashes when fired, human towers emit a little dust puff when shooting arrows, and martian towers emit a few glowing embers when firing their bigger lasers.

As usual its all work-in-progress, so the muzzle flashes aren't yet quite lined up with the ends of the rifles, etc.

I plan to scale up the muzzle flashes as upgrades improve attack power. That should be cool because it'll give visual feed back to the player about how powerful a particular unit / building is.

It's a little hard to capture these in screenshots but here's my attempts:

Scaffolding

The game now shows scaffolding around buildings, as they go up during construction.

I just started this feature so if my scaffolding occasionally looks more like sheep pens, that's why :-P . At the moment I'm just stretching one DTS model to accomodate several different size buildings.

Like the building foundation feature, the scaffolding is its own TSStatic object, not part of the building DTS. As soon as construction is complete (or the building gets destroyed), I just delete the TSStatic. It's all done purely client-side which helps simplify the code.

A.I. Sharing Its Attack Plans

I really like it when A.I. players seem more alive and human-like. To that end, I've made the A.I. players share their attack plans with the human player. (If they're allies, of course!)

So when an A.I. ally decides to attack a common foe of yours, they tell you about it. The game displays a pop-up alert on the HUD, directing you to the attack destination. It also shows a special ping indicator on the minimap. You can then decide if you want to join your A.I. buddy in the attack. There's nothing special you have to do to join; you just try to show up with your forces at the same time the A.I. guy does.

As with teamwork amongst real players, this can often make attacks much more effective.


- - -
Hope you enjoyed the update and the pix!

Geom