Progress as promised.

I'd hoped to have some kind of flashy new imagery to put in my post, but the concept that's currently underway is still under revision at the moment. =\

Despite the lack of aesthetics in this post, there has been a great deal of progress on Afterburn.

In my last post, I discussed the issue of players being able to drive through the terrain at high velocity and the proposed solution of simply slowing the vehicles down. I'm happy to report that this has indeed curbed (although not eliminated) the undesirable behavior.

It seems that, if one is willing to expend nearly every ounce of available energy in jetting the vehicle forward, you can, occasionally, power your way through. More often than not however, you'll wind up taking damage from a nasty collision that throws you around like a bit of a rag doll. Occasionally you'll find yourself upside down and stuck midway in the terrain - and that's no good either, although I do consider it a step in the right direction.

Obviously, not having played any of my previous prototypes, you'll not be capable of fully appreciating that changes that have been made to the vehicle behaviors but, suffice it to say that they have been improved dramatically.

I've played with the physics variables, reference in hand, until the mere mention of stabSpringConstant is enough to send me on an hour long tirade. Let's not go there. (C;

I've also been doing some extensive work with the playGui in preparation for the move from "prototype" to milestone one... namely getting ready to attack the targeting routine.

This has been something of a headache as I am constantly plagued by a duplicate playGui file that, while it's outdated and was *technically* deleted, insists that it's the current version. It's frustrating though hardly a show stopper.

Until such time as I work out what's happening there, I simply turn off Cybil (my "affectionate" name for the offending gui) and select the correct version by hand.

truth be told, I've kind of been dragging my feet on this though, hoping that 1.4 RC 2 will be released with all it's wonderful bug fixes... unless I've missed a press release and Ben has snuck it in on me already. <_< ... >_>

~ Oh well, a guy can dream.

Currently the actual project is a little bit off the map as far as my design timeline goes. What I mean is, I've really already exceeded the criteria I laid out for the prototype, but it just doesn't feel ready for the next phase yet. RC2 will go a long way to allowing me to unleash some visual whoopass and that should help a great deal.

In the meantime, I've begun the process of researching my desired targeting system.

What I intend to do is define a radius on screen, say 256 pixels from the center for a total circumference of 512 (for example sake). Whenever an enemy is in line of sight, within a specified range, and is inside the predefined radius, I want to change the vector of the mounted weapon(s) to target him or her. My thinking is that should change the muzzle vector (since the mesh itself is being rotated) such that the projectiles will intersect the enemy's location.

In the event that more than one enemy fulfills all the above criteria, I plan to just select the closest one and be done with it.

The problem with all of this is that I'm still not 100% sure how to go about it, though I've got some rough ideas.

If anyone wants to drop a few suggestions - or some code - feel free. =P

So, having said all of that, I'll leave you with this aesthetically bland blog for the month on the promise that next time I'll have some cool art to post along with. Of course, I could've thrown a screenshot up here for the time being, but that just wouldn't be visually impressive... yet. (C;