SeaBomb - Blender as a Basic Level Editor!
I can't imagine a dungeon crawler without boss fights, and so despite the huge scope creep this adds to my otherwise simple production, I had to try prototype one. Throughout this process one thing that really suprised me was how much of a solid level editor Blender wound up being.
Click for more...
SeaBomb - Down The Rabbit Hole (Ambient Lighting)
If you’d read my blog post on PBR (Physically Broken Rendering) you’d know I was cautious of the laundry list of features needed to implement Physically Based Rendering. I’m going to state right off the bat, I’m not there yet. I have however, started to make a dint in ambient lighting.
Click for more...
SeaBomb - Collect All the Things!
Looking back over my last blog post, and reading “Coding [the item system] wasn't that big a deal”, as well as “[coding] isn't where the cost lies.” I can safely confirm, that I am indeed an idiot. Sure, the art creation would have been heavy if I hadn't done all that work. However, since I set out to add items into the game, it's been almost 8 months.
Click for more...
SeaBomb - A Matter Of Substance
I love nothing more than a good dungeon loot crawler. Despite my best intention to keep things simple on this project, I just had to add a loot system. Coding the feature wasn’t that big a deal, however, that isn’t where the cost lies; the sheer number of assets needed is. After all, I wouldn't play a loot crawler if every item looked the same. I needed to cut down on time per an asset fast.
Click for more...
SeaBomb - Physically Broken Rendering
So far on this project I've completed just the bare minimum in graphics and art work. I thought it would be a nice change of pace to finally get around to it. You know, something simple, like say, adding point lights to the game.
Click for more...
SeaBomb – Streaming To The Beat
As far as music is concerned I'm basically the equivalent of a deranged monkey smashing two cymbals together. That is to say rather bluntly, not only do I not have any kind of musical talent, or a single musical bone in my body, I also don't have any real discernible musical taste. I couldn't tell you if what I am listening is good or not, let alone try and make something decent myself.
Click for more...
SeaBomb – Make Some Noise (3D sound effects)
I've spent my whole life training myself to ignore audio in games. Don't get me wrong, I realize it's an important and enriching part of the experience. However, when you are a young teenage boy, staying up late at night to play Diablo II for the umpteenth time, you get used to sneaking around with the volume at zero.
Click for more...
SeaBomb – Flow Map Inspired Path Finding
Now that I have complicated levels with tonnes of places to get enemies stuck, it's probably time to tackle path finding. I read a bunch of blog posts on A*, and while it generally seems to be the default way to go, I decided I wanted to try something a little different.
Click for more...
SeaBomb – Random Level Generation
I'm pretty sure this is about the millionth random level generation blog on the internet. So, with that in mind, I'll try keep it fairly short, include pictures, and cut straight to the chase with a video of the results.
Click for more...
SeaBomb – Level Up
It's been a pretty productive couple of weeks on the project, and I'm really happy with the progress. I've setup a basic game loop, shooting enemies, and level navigation. You can see the results in this video, and read about the additions below. It's definitely starting to feel like a game!
Click for more...
SeaBomb – Early Prototype
I'm sorry “The Antimatter Bazaar”, really... It's not you, it's me. We've just grown apart... Actually, forget it, it is you, you're just a really terrible name. You didn't mean anything to me, you were difficult to pronounce, and I just really didn't know what to do with you. It's over.
Click for more...
SeaBomb – Getting Started
At the start of my epic stay-cation I had huge ambitions: I was going to have a basic playable demo of the game up and running by the end of my break for anybody to check out. Well, it didn't take to too long to realize that I was lying to myself on my time estimates when scheduling.
Click for more...
SeaBomb – The Plan
One of the most satisfying things I've ever done in my life was to program a game from scratch. When I was a teenager I wrote an Action RPG using QBasic and assembler language. The project took me years outside of school hours, but it was immensely satisfying, and ultimately was the catalyst that pushed me into the game industry.
Click for more...
Flow Map Generation
I was asked about flow map generation the other day, and found a lot of different methods for creating them. However, all of them seemed to take a reasonable amount of effort or set up. I wanted to try create something simple and intuitive.
Click for more...
Magic Mushrooms - XNA Based Light Map Baker
After spending a good portion of my career at Bigant Studios building and maintaining a set of scripts for baking lightmaps in Maya across many PC's, I felt there had to be a better way.
Click for more...
Blender Render - Hazard Suit
The Hazard suit's radiation shielding also makes for a rather sturdy combat armour. This image was done in Blender using cycles and Gimp. Cycles node based shader system is ideal for prototyping layouts for game shaders. The model consists of 4504 triangles, and an Albedo, Normal, and two maps for material properties.
Click for more...
