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TwinBeast

Blaze

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So, every time I play Doom on Doomsday (or make some Doom levels), I want to use it...

Well, I put the monster models into it, and tried a really simple art style while at it. I had thought of this kind of style some year ago, but never tried it.

Basically just colors, and let the engine shade things. The level textures need some shapes and shading, otherwise they would be kind of plain. The texture resolution is same as before (somewhere around 256x256 for most), but it could easily be less. The models could have some really smooth AO baked into the texture.



Don't know if I'll change to this style or Doomsday.
If I changed to this style, texturing would be much faster.
If I changed to Doomsday, level editing would be more fun and I'd make more detailed levels faster, but there would be less verticalness in the levels, so flying might feel more like a cheat.

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I'd miss the atmosphere you originally had going.

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Jimi said:

http://media.moddb.com/images/games/1/20/19999/blaze_in_doomsday_003.jpg

Don't know if I'll change to this style or Doomsday.
If I changed to this style, texturing would be much faster.
If I changed to Doomsday, level editing would be more fun and I'd make more detailed levels faster, but there would be less verticalness in the levels, so flying might feel more like a cheat.

We already have Wrack. Go for Doomsday I say. I quite liked what I've seen in the screenshots and videos on previous page. Maybe once I'll even get Doomsday for this. :)

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Thanks for the feedback.

I could use the earlier texture style with Doomsday. Lighting and some texture and other effects would obviously be different.

Also liked to do the textures same style as they are in Doom (lowres), except didn't like to do the palette, or to make the textures fit into the palette (and then refit them when I changed the palette, uhh).

Quake type levels would have more potential to be more interesting, but I feel it might be too complicated, and would result in the levels looking like box shaped rooms with some 3d bridges and some slope somewhere.. then that wouldn't be worth it. Also if the level editing is complicated, then it's less likely that Players would make new levels?

Both engines have some framerate issues with the newest versions/builds. The older DarkPlaces versions renders monsters/models faster than the older Doomsday versions. When the monsters fire lots of projectiles with dynamic lights, then both engines have same framerate. If I used the model-distance cvar in Doomsday that sets the distant models into sprites, then Doomsday could render faster. Lots of dynamic lights with sprites don't affect the framerate much at all...

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scifista42 said:

We already have Wrack.


Kinda how I felt.

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I wonder what happened to that Retro Blazer game, I almost mistook Wrack for it at the very beginning Wrack was shown on Doomworld.

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Careful there. Don't throw around the word retro or we'll consume the thread like what happened in Rekoil.

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You can find it here: http://www.retroblazer.com/ ... Apparently it also use DarkPlaces engine, but the game is more like Blakestone/Wolfenstein3D... If I was making that kind of game, I'd just use Doom.

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If I had continued my own engine development, and if it had been an FPS game, and I had been successful at making the engine, I would have made the level editing more like Doom. But I probably would not been successful at it... I'm just not that good at programming.

While I was thinking about this, I got some idea how I would have done 3d bridges, etc with it. First there's a main sector, and when editing its properties, the level author could add a 3d bridge into it, which would then be like another sector within the main sector. A main sector could have multiple sub sectors, so there could be like a bridge over some swimmable water. And each sector's top/bottom parts could have an angle/direction, so there could also be slopes.

--
And I'll probably change to Doomsday, but anyway I'm pretty happy how far I got my game done with DarkPlaces, and overall just how far I've got it done. I got 4 animated characters!

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Oh yeah I remember retro blazer now. A vomit of color.

Anyway, I like Blaze more so far. Lasers and glowing lights in darkness. The new shots of blaze just look too bright and perfect.

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Been thinking of not having alt fires for weapons. I usually just used the "better" attack with any weapon.

Also it kind of feels like things are going more sci-fi direction. So I decided to replace the sword with a sci-fi weapon: a plasma sword. It shoots a short range plasma beam. Basically it combines the metal sword melee/projectile attacks into a one, more useful attack.

Currently the beam is projectiles that disappear after some 384 units and go through enemies. Doesn't follow player's view, so it can appear curved. Maybe I'll try making it straight all the time. Though the curving can make it easier to visualize how long the beam is...



Tried some lowres pixelated look with that model. Not sure if I'll use that kind of style, but I know I won't use the really clean style.

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That's why you diversify. Like do you want a 5x power beam or 5 1x beams when you're surrounded? Machine gun or grenade? Flame thrower or long range laser?

I'd say its all sci-fi. Robots and stuff. Good lights. Its very sci-fi in a good way without being squishy aliens or space zombies.

Sadly, I'm not a fan of the low res pixelated.

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There will probably be some aliens and zombies some day...

I wrote some stuff about the various styles I've used so far, kind of a long list: http://www.moddb.com/games/blaze/news/styles-summarythoughts

From all those styles, I liked the lowres stuff the most. I like it both unfiltered and filtered.

Here's some new images.. All textures using 16 color palettes.. they could use any 16 colors, so not tied to a 256 color palette. Seems it didn't work so well with the models, as they had more Colors, while the level textures were just one Color. Some of the models could have had bigger res textures, so the pixel size would match the level textures.

Alternatively the level textures could have fewer shades, but I think I'd rather have more shades for the model textures.



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Continuing with the pixels...

Textured/tweaked the player model. Now it's 712 tris, 256x128 texture, scaled to fit a 56 unit tall hitbox, which made it a bit squashed. The special powers could appear in the back.. but in first person view they would appear at the top/sides, just so they are visible there too.

Made some energy charge pack. It's 40 tris, 128x64 texture. Current thought is that it will give 20 energy (could be different amount depending how many energy items I do). The energy is used as basic armor/shield, and also with the special powers.

Tried the lowres textures in DarkPlaces. It's definitely easier to do colored lighting there. Made the level with the new JackHammer editor, which feels nicer/clearer than Radiant. Maybe I create/size brushes faster with Radiant, but eventually there's just so many brushes and stuff that all look the same in the 2D views and selecting them is difficult. I also tried Trenchbroom, but I do like to have the 2D views.



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Thanks! My intention is to be able to sell it... if I ever get it done.

Here's a M199 Minigun with 398 tris and 128x128 texture. Thought I'd do weapons with max 400 tris. Inspired of the M197 Gatling gun.



Also showing the jet/jumppack model, which is 108 tris.. but doesn't really have a texture, just uses some parts from the player texture. The cylinders could show at the top of the first person view when player has it. I thought the special power models would be max 200 tris.

Character models would be max 800 tris (boss characters would have more).

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Trying the player stuff ingame...

The jet/jump pack thing shows in the first person view at the top, so player knows when he has it. actually he's just a head

The minigun has a 0.6s prespin and then fire at 1200rpm. Sounds/code, but no animation yet. Also did some accelerating rockets. Maybe I do a rocket launcher next.

Up/Down looking done with 5 animations/poses and the 1/3rd pitch angle effect. I think it worked quite ok. Don't know how fun it'll be to copy about every animation 5 times...


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Some HUD graphics.. (the mid part wasn't from ingame screenshot). Will improve placement of stuff later with CSQC, but otherwise have it look something like this:


Banana Container.. going to improve this one a bit, as the other one got more detailed. Was thinking it would get some dark grey things in it like the other one.


Tomato Juice Blender.. this is the other one:

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Some update on the player model and a weapon..

Decided to go with fewer stuff on the player. The jetpack tubes or whatever they are, will always be part of the player model. I tried some shoulder mounted special powers, but they looked better as weapons for the enemies.



LAW.. Light Automatic Weapon or Law Automatic Weapon. Inspired of the Law Pistol from X-Com Apocalypse. Player could start with these:



The earlier super/mega items plus the bonuses, also improved the super charge: http://www.moddb.com/games/blaze/images/health-energy-items#imagebox
Still need the middle/regular items. I'll probably alter them with overlapping similar parts to get them a bit more highres looking, as I've been doing that for the new models.

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What makes this weapon different than the others? Does it shoot twice as much because there are 2? Does it do twice as much damage? They just seem weak compared to the tank sniper, the Gatling gun and most of your other weapons. Maybe it is an enemy only weapon?

Its great that you're still as productive.

Will enemies have jetpacks too?

Looking at the 2 grenade types, they are grenades right? What is their difference? Does the tomato blender bounce around the walls and slice everyone? Does the banana one release an extra wide sticky explosion to slow down FAST enemies that take a ton of bullets that a normal grenade wouldn't just destroy?

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The 2 should shoot faster than 1. It's possible that player would only start with 1 and have to find the other. These should be pretty useful against the smaller enemies. The minigun has a long prespin, and when it finally starts firing it would only take a few bullets to kill some small enemy.

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I was thinking the enemies would use more generic looking weapons, so that one weapon/enemy could use alternate textures/colors to indicate a different attack.

The earlier chemical trooper (medium walker), was way too special looking. I'll probably redo/replace that character with something else, that wouldn't look weird if used in large groups or in about every level. Special purpose enemies should be done later.

The other two enemies were more fitting for their purpose, but I'll probably change their weapons. Don't know yet what I'll do to the flyer.. more organic or more robotic? The tank will come in 2 variants: "rocket launcher + machine gun" and "grenade launcher + plasma/energy gun".

If I'll make the flyer more robotic, it could have some jetpack/engine thing for the flying. I also have some old unfinished bio/mech type flyer that I could use/modify into something: http://www.moddb.com/games/blaze/images/unnamed-monster-002#imagebox
At least I liked the circular design in it. The middle part could change.

I'll also want to make some primarily melee oriented enemy, and a stationary turret.

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The banana/tomato stuff were joke names for Super Charge (for shield/energy) and Mega Health. The mid part in the Super Charge just looked banana like. There's a link to a new image of them below the LAW image.

The earlier powerup items could be used for something else. Although I'm going for more sci-fi stuff now than fantasy.

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I think sci-fi and lasers is definitely the way to go for this.

You could have accuracy cones, but I think in single player games, people would hate that. Also do you do damage ratios like the small weapons damage 3 - 6 and the bigger guns do 30 - 60 or whatever.

You could use color for anything, damage they do, their HP. Differing attacks could just be different looking weapons :-) You could also have their color be their HP, as you damage them their color changes. But that would make them stand out, so maybe just a faceplate color could be their HP. Bands on their arms could be damage they do for when your character gets super upgraded.

The organic vs robotic. You could always do both, where the organic is weaker. But really it depends how much time you want to spend making 2. You could also have pieces of armor and then randomize them. Where an organic can randomly have a helmet, or randomly have body armor. Then the hit scan to adjust the damage accordingly. Headshot with a helmet does less damage than headshot without it. But again, its all up to you how much time you can devote to modeling. You can also make it feel like they took dead people and body parts, because its cheaper than metal.

I'm in big favor of turrets or sentries. Hanging, floor enemies, stationary or moving. Heck even orbiting where the sentry hovers and circle strafes you instead of you circle strafing it. You can make accuracy cones for difficulties. You can have laser pointing ones for 100% accurate turrets. Then when it gets a lock it fires. Lots of crazy ideas.

Melees are just fun too. Weak melee enemies you can take out 30 at a time is just satisfying to do. Stronger melee enemies too of course. As I suggested months ago, you can have healing enemies or shielding enemies. You can give the melees a personal shield for variety where you either need to extra damage the shield, use specific weapons to break the shield, or disable a shield generator. You can even have dashing melees that will dash to close the distance. Also melee radius of damage like a sword to make it tougher to dodge, you would need to pull back instead of strafing, instead of point to point damage like a pinkie demon.

That flying thing, since its unskinned, I am imagining a lot you can do this this. It looks as if it could be forward or backward. Let's call it a U. When the round part of the U, it looks like it can fly fast with 2 engines in the back and an eye at the round part of the U. Then on the other hand it looks like the round of the U can be a single engine and the 2 prongs of the U can be double lasers or double rockets. The wings even look like they can have lasers on them. Again, just throwing out ideas. They can explode if damaged 90%. Perhaps just an effect of exploding or doing actual damage. After 90% damage they lose power to fly, and roll on the ground wildly before exploding. I think the wild effect could add some interesting situations.

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I liked my earlier setting for the inaccuracy where the origin, angle and end position for an attack depended on the location of the weapon seen in the view. So I'll do something like that, but as I've been simplifying some of the things, I might do it differently.

Damage done is currently very much like that: X + random()*X. This feels like just the right amount of randomness.

I tried simple locational damage some years ago with Quake. But it was too easy to make headshots. And even with more complex systems, it's still pretty easy.

Damage textures.. yea, I'll go with bloodier textures for the organic things. Some cracked metal, smoke and small explosions for the machines.

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At the moment I have 7 basic enemies planned: 2 walkers, 2 aliens, 2 flyers and 1 turret. 2 sizes for all the moving enemies then. These are the minimum I like/must have. When I've done them, I could start thinking about having more, which would be the special purpose enemies and bosses.

The walker enemies are humanoid, and walk on 2 legs. The alien enemies walk on 4 or something like that. The aliens and flyers could also appear as swimmers before I have dedicated swimmer enemy types. Walkers would probably try to get out of the water.

The smaller alien enemies could pop out of some cocoons. The cocoons would have very high armor and regenerate... Though the alien could pop out earlier if the cocoon is shot enough.

The U flyer could also be sideways like some disc/ufo.

The turret... It would have a stationary base, and a sphere kind of thing on it that could shoot any direction within a half sphere area. I'll probably do the turret base with level geometry (so I don't need to have 2 entities for every turret). Then it would also be easy to make the turret base as some rail system where the turret could have some limited movement.

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I think that Gerbox does miss bullets where you still have 100% accuracy, but 5% of hits count as misses. The min / max random is good. Doom and probably most games do that. Then there are distances damages like point blank, short and long ranges each have their own damages. Thus preventing people from pistol sniping across a map. People could always snipe with a Doom 1 shotgun, but not a Doom 3 shotgun.

Cracked metal and blood is always good for damage. Silly of me not to have thought of that.

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Made a rocket launcher. I think it'll have guided rockets, they would fly where player is aiming, but wouldn't automatically home into targets. This one should really have the hands visible in the first person view...



464 tris. 256x128 texture.

I'm thinking the texture on the LAW is looking more high res, maybe sort of too high res. Not sure what to do about that. If I made them 128x64, it might be too low res. If I make bigger weapons 256x256, they would too high res. Maybe I could just scale up the LAW into a two handed weapon?

Overall I'd like the pixels to be approximately the same size on all textures.

Also made a video.. firing the weapons, doesn't include the rocket launcher yet.
http://www.moddb.com/games/blaze/videos/firing-weapons

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Laser guided rockets are fun though and more useful. Especially if you have hiding enemies, like a grenader or something.

Why have just 1 type of rocket launcher? If you can make random enemies, make random rocket launchers. A rocket launcher that only explodes on impact of the enemy. Larger splash radius, smaller splash radius. Inaccurate rockets that do more damage. Rockets that don't immediately detonate, but detonate when you push the alt mouse button, but that might be better for a grenade. Then give them each different colors. You can have lasers and or bullets as an upgrade. Variety is the spice of life.

Wow that's one big rocket launcher. Different than the original Quake rocket launcher in the video. Don't forget rocket jumping.

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this looks really great Jimi. a real nice techno quake vibe in the last few screens. I much prefer the pixelated look you have going on more recently, I think

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Thanks.

I've planned that I'd have 10 weapons max. So, every weapon should be unique. Though maybe the LAW and Minigun are too similar? Player may be able to use the fists too (I like the texture on them).

Explosive weapons.. There will be a Grenade Launcher. It will shoot impact grenades that would fly long distance before gravity makes them hit the ground. The explosion should be different from the rocket explosion: bigger radius, more kick, bouncy fragments.

The rockets would have more direct hit damage, and maybe have better armor/shield penetration.

Then there would also be weapons with flame and plasma type explosions for situations when you need to explode almost everything in sight.

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Player has the jetpack.. though it won't work all the time. I thought the armor is a prototype and not all features work right away. So player need to find the upgrades/powerups. And maybe the upgrades burn out after a while, lasts one level. Makes level design easier, and allows Doom style "pistol start".

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