Zombies !

By bestguigui Date 2011-07-04 11:35

Hello everyone !

Here comes my new project !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Np0gUfOyHA

It uses Gosu and Ruby-OpenGL. It's of course an early WIP build, but things start to get interesting. Graphics are temporary, I found a 3D artist that provide me those sprites (generated out of a 3D model he made), and he'll create definitive ones when the engine will be more advanced.

The idea is to create a "survival horror" game, but with a tactical gameplay. You can shoot zombies efficiently (I scripted an automatic aim, and you can select a target that ranges the weapon carried by the character), but you'll have very limitated ammo. The idea is more to choose shoting a zombie that succeeding in the shot action. You'll never miss the target, but shoting is not always the good solution.

For now, the engine displays a 3D world, characters are all 2D textures on 3D planes. It's possible to move and aim (shot too, but I don't have the animation yet). Zombies chase the character, and they don't collide with each other. I still have work on IA, even if zombies are by nature stupid. :)

By jlnr (dev) Date 2011-07-04 12:07

+1! Did you manage to make it a big continuous world or will there be individual scenes/rooms?

By bestguigui Date 2011-07-04 15:24

In fact I'm not sure yet. I coded a MaxScript script to export directly the scene under 3D Studio Max as a text file describing what .obj file to load and where to draw them. So it works pretty well. But if I go to a global big map, I guess I'll had to code a streaming way to load content, or maybe it will fill memory too much... But I'll test it, maybe I'm worried for nothing :)

It's possible to make it Resident Evil like, with some big areas and some isolated rooms, we'll see when level design will really start :)

By bestguigui Date 2011-07-05 08:55

Jlnr, do you have an idea of the limitation of Gosu for the loading : how many textures can I load for one map without using a "loading queue" ? I'm asking myself that question to avoid coding something maybe not necessary if I go for small rooms, which by the way would be easier to do for zombies AI.

By jlnr (dev) Date 2011-07-05 10:56

You will need to time this. It depends on the size of the tiles and on the "normal" CPU load that your game is causing.

By bestguigui Date 2011-07-05 11:08

Yeah, that is the direction I'm taking, using various advices I got on the IRC channel. I created a Queue system, with an Array containing resources to load. After one thing is loaded, I check time compared to the time it was when the load method was called. If current_time - load_call_time >= 60.0 / 1000.0, then we don't load anything more on that call. It inferior, we load another thing. I don't know if that will work, but I'll give it a try.

By Spooner Date 2011-07-04 14:23

Ah, proper 2.5D (unlike Wrath). Huzzah! I remember seeing your older videos and being impressed and this seems to be a big improvement. I watched the other videos of your new engine and it is looking very good. Hope you get something going with this.

I might have tried to use proper 2.5D for Wrath if I had faith in the openGL gem actually working :(

By bestguigui Date 2011-07-04 15:27

Thanks ! If you're under Windows, I maybe can help with Ruby-OpenGL. It's really a pain, but I found help on this board and made it work under Ruby 1.9.2 !
And now, with Ocra, that works perfectly too !

Ruby-OpenGL is such a pain I was thinking about C extensions and to create my engine under OpenGL in C, then to port it to a .so Ruby library file. But I don't have experience in that, and when I tried, it was really a pain.

By Spooner Date 2011-07-04 15:35

Might even be easier to "fix" ruby opengl instead with a fork, which would benefit a lot of people, rather than messing around so much with making the current release work with a lot of hacking. Still, I assume people have been trying to do that already. I was loathe to rely on it for this reason, but since I do expect Windows people to be using the Ocra version, that sort of removes the need for end-users to fiddle around with something that might or might not work. I'll give the opengl hack a try now, I think, though I'm not sure if I want to use it or not (in Wrath, at least)

By bestguigui Date 2011-07-05 11:05

If you could do that, that would be awesome ! :)

By Maverick Date 2011-07-04 14:45

I've been watching your videos too and was slightly afraid there wouldn't be anymore progress! Awesome work man! I'm excited to see where this goes! :D

By bestguigui Date 2011-07-04 15:28

Thanks ! In fact, I had the same problem in all my projects : graphists always let me down :(
Now I found one that seems to be interested in the project and works great ! Can't wait to see final characters, since his job is 3D artist in game industry :)

By Spooner Date 2011-07-04 15:34

The current art is release-quality, in my opinion. Concentrate on getting object variety before you worry about improving what you have.

By bestguigui Date 2011-07-04 15:38

Yeah, you're right. But zombies are really ok, even if they stay that way. Only main character is not really pleasant. She's well animated althought.
Variety will come, yes, it's only a matter of modeling low poly stuff. I created this test room really dirty and quick, but we'll go to the next level. After that, I guess I'll create variations on zombie to have a few different.

I added a resident evil music and sound effects, that becomes scary, in fact ! I'll show that when shot animation is ready.

By Maverick Date 2011-07-04 15:44

If you need any creepy atmospheric music, I'm available. :D Send me an email regarding details if you're interested.

By bestguigui Date 2011-07-04 15:49

That would be great, yes ! For now, I'm using the OST from Resident Evil Zero (I'm a big fan of Resident Evil series, which as we all know ends on... 4th ? There never was a 5th game lol) and Resident Evil 2 sound effects.

But I'll be glad to have original soundtrack for this game, I'll contact you be sure of that !

By kaBOOM Date 2011-07-08 03:30

solidboko, been a following you on youtube for quite sometime.
Keep the excellent work.

By bestguigui Date 2011-07-09 08:43

Thanks ! I'll be on holidays from tomorrow to next week. When I come back, there should be important updates since the graphist is working on missing animations. I hope I'll be able to provide a demo soon.

By Maverick Date 2011-11-04 17:50

How's the game going? I'm really looking forward to this!