MIX-IT-UP Comp Entry - Gunstar

Started by STEVIE G, September 15, 2019, 17:01:16

Previous topic - Next topic

STEVIE G

Quote from: iWasAdam on October 15, 2019, 14:09:14
Got to say Stevie, I'm really looking forward to this :)

I'm super interested in the mechanisms you are explaining for how you did it all.
As a quick test I knocked this up:
- about 10 mins work

What I found interesting is my vertex and poly count is about a quarter smaller than yours.
I do have a highly optimised lowpoly editor though  :-X

Haha - excellent - not quite correct on the cockpit but close enough.  Took me about 1/2 day to get the main ship looking good when rendered in low res. 

The reason for you having less poly's will be that I don't cull unseen polys (under the cockpit for example) as they make no difference to the finished render for the Gunstar - it's just a pile of cubes really.  I have to cull for some other models to avoid unwanted artifacts.


STEVIE G

Quote from: Derron on October 15, 2019, 15:32:17
The rendering could still be done in your engine - you just need to load the 3d vertex data (.obj, .x, ...) and then render it out.

Of course you could also fiddle out how it all works in your 3DCC and write a script doing all this (rendering shadow layers, camera rotation, ...) but this is a hassle not everyone likes. But once you did it, it becomes just a matter of executing a script to get a new spritesheet of your current model.
Maybe your workflow is more streamlined - as centric to your visual style - but if you want a more generic approach with especially more detailled objects the use of a modeller will speed up things at the end.

And even if you still favor the "coding approach" - where do you design the prototype / basic shape idea? only in your mind? 


@ Adam
I see six objects mirrored on the x-axis:
- create the right sided 6 cubes (the one behind the cockpit I would keep a qube)
- mirror it
- delete center vertices
Thanks to mirror modifier you can more easily adjust form and shape - and do not have to do all steps twice for the wings. Another mirror modifier and you can create these mother ships etc.

Stuff would become nasty if it all must be a single mesh object.



Seems we all have our favour approaches to things ;)




bye
Ron

I think I'll stick to what I'm doing as it works for me.  I generally have an idea in my mind and can quickly put it together in a way that will look good in a low res render. 

STEVIE G

Had another idea for another enemy and couldn't resist getting it in ... meet the Spinner.  It has multiple spinning sawing blades that cut through Gunstars like a knife through butter  :P


Derron

Sandworms are in already?

Dust storms (particle frenzy!!) could make it hard to identify enemy ships approaching - but it could help to hide from enemies too.

The "Pollution ship" could have a "water soaker" compagnon which stops over water and soaks some of it up.


@ screenshot
Tower element right top of the "star ship" (spinner) looks a bit as if the bottom is "cut". Think it is because it is too narrow to justify an additional row of 2 pixels in the bottom center to make it look "round". Maybe it is as quad-shaped as the top of the tower.


Particle mayhem incoming.


bye
Ron

STEVIE G

Quote from: Derron on October 15, 2019, 19:22:06
Sandworms are in already?

Dust storms (particle frenzy!!) could make it hard to identify enemy ships approaching - but it could help to hide from enemies too.

The "Pollution ship" could have a "water soaker" compagnon which stops over water and soaks some of it up.


@ screenshot
Tower element right top of the "star ship" (spinner) looks a bit as if the bottom is "cut". Think it is because it is too narrow to justify an additional row of 2 pixels in the bottom center to make it look "round". Maybe it is as quad-shaped as the top of the tower.


Particle mayhem incoming.


bye
Ron

I like the idea of the ship extracting the water although it would be too much overhead to actually recede the water - probably just (another) particle effect  ;D
Thought about how I would do the Sandworm so will add if I have time - want it to eat the birds if they stray too close to it's crater home and attack your ship too. 
I did think about sandstorms - maybe some tornado's which can cause a bit of mayhem.

Menu's are almost in (just need a main splash screen) so may have some time at the weekend so do some of this, otherwise post comp.

Keep the idea's coming!


3DzForMe

Quote from: STEVIE G on October 15, 2019, 15:33:06
Quote from: iWasAdam on October 15, 2019, 14:09:14
Got to say Stevie, I'm really looking forward to this :)

I'm super interested in the mechanisms you are explaining for how you did it all.
As a quick test I knocked this up:
- about 10 mins work

What I found interesting is my vertex and poly count is about a quarter smaller than yours.
I do have a highly optimised lowpoly editor though  :-X

Haha - excellent - not quite correct on the cockpit but close enough.  Took me about 1/2 day to get the main ship looking good when rendered in low res.  .....

Also looking forward to this - more so than finishing my own little western at the mo;) ;D
BLitz3D, IDEal, AGK Studio, BMax, Java Code, Cerberus
Recent Hardware: Dell Laptop
Oldest Hardware: Commodore Amiga 1200 with 1084S Monitor & Blitz Basic 2.1

STEVIE G

#51
Got my menu's working  ;D

I wanted it to be fancier - especially the title but the minimalist look is kinda sci-fi esque and I can't spend any more time on it.  Yes I know it's almost the same as Vanarchy but hey-ho!
I am pretty pleased with the scene at the top.  It took a couple of hours and has 128 frames of animation as it rotates around ... not perfect but might revisit after the comp.  You can see 3 x Gunstars + the dropship, trees and buildings as it slowly spins.

Now I just need to finish off another 20 waves and do some testing so should make the deadline .... I think.





EDIT .. now with 256 frames and a bit more detail ..


Steve Elliott

Nice colour tones and I like the rotation idea, perhaps some twinking/shooting stars?
Win11 64Gb 12th Gen Intel i9 12900K 3.2Ghz Nvidia RTX 3070Ti 8Gb
Win11 16Gb 12th Gen Intel i5 12450H 2Ghz Nvidia RTX 2050 8Gb
Win11  Pro 8Gb Celeron Intel UHD Graphics 600
Win10/Linux Mint 16Gb 4th Gen Intel i5 4570 3.2GHz, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 2Gb
macOS 32Gb Apple M2Max
pi5 8Gb
Spectrum Next 2Mb

Coder Apprentice

Gevie Stee! Looks awesome! As I said before I hope this will evolve into a commercial game. By the way is this a Blitz3D project? I can't see you mentioned anywhere what tool you're using this time around.

STEVIE G

Quote from: Kris on October 18, 2019, 19:52:30
Gevie Stee! Looks awesome! As I said before I hope this will evolve into a commercial game. By the way is this a Blitz3D project? I can't see you mentioned anywhere what tool you're using this time around.

Yip, still good old B3D.  ;D Depending on the feedback I get from whoever plays it - I might try to sell

Quote from: Steve Elliott on October 18, 2019, 17:05:04
Nice colour tones and I like the rotation idea, perhaps some twinking/shooting stars?
with a load of other features and enhancements.   

I tried putting in some star particles blinking on and off but didn't look good.  Did anyone notice the car parked beside the Dropship ... stolen from Vanarchy  ;D

Qube

He he, love the spinning scene at the top of the menu, nice touch ;D
Mac Studio M1 Max ( 10 core CPU - 24 core GPU ), 32GB LPDDR5, 512GB SSD,
Beelink SER7 Mini Gaming PC, Ryzen 7 7840HS 8-Core 16-Thread 5.1GHz Processor, 32G DDR5 RAM 1T PCIe 4.0 SSD
MSI MEG 342C 34" QD-OLED Monitor

Until the next time.

GaborD

Haha yep, agree to that!

Looks great!

3DzForMe

Love the rotating scene on loading menu, most awesome stuff sir Stevie  :o ;D ;D
BLitz3D, IDEal, AGK Studio, BMax, Java Code, Cerberus
Recent Hardware: Dell Laptop
Oldest Hardware: Commodore Amiga 1200 with 1084S Monitor & Blitz Basic 2.1

Xerra

Fuck, that rotation thing is well clever. How did you do the 128 frame sprite? Actual manual editing or some clever conversion process?

M2 Pro Mac mini - 16GB 512 SSD
ACER Nitro 5 15.6" Gaming Laptop - Intel® Core™ i7, RTX 3050, 1 TB SSD
Vic 20 - 3.5k 1mhz 6502

Latest game - https://xerra.itch.io/Gridrunner
Blog: http://xerra.co.uk
Itch.IO: https://xerra.itch.io/

STEVIE G

Quote from: Xerra on October 19, 2019, 10:36:20
Fuck, that rotation thing is well clever. How did you do the 128 frame sprite? Actual manual editing or some clever conversion process?

Manual editing ... behave  ;)    I'm sticking with the 256 frames as it's smoother.

It was actually very easy and turned out exactly as I'd hoped. Here's the process:

* I create one large 2048x1024 texture to contain 256 individual frames of 256x32. 
* The base scene is just a cylinder 128x2x128 units.
* The various models were just placed and combined to form one scene mesh.
* The scene mesh was then re-coloured to be greyscale.  I darkened it and added fake lighting in the cyan colour.
* To get the final frames I just rotate the final scene mesh for 256 frames, render it in 3D and copyrect to the final texture.