Game making continues with some happy drawing.
There might be more where that comes from.
All rights reserved.
In The Bag
We’ve got an inventory, and we’re getting a first glimpse at Scout (well not quite the first one, but still).
Scout carries a bag with 36 slots in it (no weight limit – it’s a magic bag). Additionally there are 5 slots for charms (think powerups) and 9 slots for weapons and tools. That’s 50 slots. She can carry lots of weapons, but can only ever have one of each type equipped;
- melee weapon;
- sidearm;
- main weapon;
- heavy weapon;
- special.
On top of that she can carry a trap and a couple grenades.
Items in the inventoy slots stack.
The appearance of Scout herself here is pretty final. I wanted her to look likeable but durable, and reminescent of ’90s game heroes. And most of all, no chainmail bikinis.
In case you’re wondering about the look, there is a good reason for it that’ll become clear during the game.
Work in progress, all rights reserved. And this one actually passed the censorship.
HUD progress
We recently made good progress with designing the HUD layout and its various elements. I came up with an art style that ties into the game’s story and developed a workflow to get stuff from the drawing board into GIMP and then into CSQC, and devised a method for animating 2D HUD elements.
I’m also at a point now where I find I really don’t want to share everything with the public anymore, because stuff like the skill tree and so forth just contain too many spoilers. I’m not averse to dropping hints though, for anyone who’s willing to puzzle them out. This is why parts of the tree are hidden.
Anyway. Scout’s Journey has two HUDs.
- the standard ingame HUD which is now completely diegetic, meaning there are no numbers or icons present on the game screen whatsoever, and all the info is inside the actual game;
- the wordy HUD which actually is also going to be diegetic, meaning tied to an ingame thing, but consists of several interactive (mouse) pages of info. The skill tree pictured above is one of those pages.
My thanks go to gnounc for CSQC help, tutorials, mods, HUD ideas, and telling me to drop the stuff that wasn’t needed (in the end, we decided to drop the web browser from the HUD after all). And to Spike for more HUD ideas, technical info and general witchcraft.
I’m sorry to announce that there will neither be an integrated X server nor automatic playing of Binge videos.
Apart from all that, there is now a new game mechanic that should reward exploration even more. This new thing is inspired by literature and has quite some horror potential. It is not connected to loot, rather an extension of the game’s setting.
Make or break
Finally sat down and started doing hands/arms for the viewmodels.
This is my first attempt at modeling a hand ever, and I didn’t have any reference besides my own hands. It’s not finished, but I think this is more than OK.
There was a point shortly after I began where I was quite shocked at how difficult it was to get the shape right and how bad my mesh looked. I guess it pays off to persevere and keep trying. I’m sure I made all kinds of mistakes here, but I have a hand that looks like a hand.
This was surprisingly hard. It was interesting to really have to push my limits. I look forward to modeling faces…
Mega tutorial: Curves
What are patch meshes and what can be done with them? Read it all here.
Radiant / FTE / Darkplaces / Q3bsp only.
New Radiant tut: Making doors, lifts, triggers, buttons, teleporters etc.
I’m slowly working on a tutorial that demonstrates the simplest things, such as “How do I make a door?”. I’m using Quake 1 as an example, but the process is much the same in Quake 2, Quake 3, Doom 3, Quake 4, and all kinds of mods and spin-off games that you can use Radiant to map for.
This is a bit like an engineer trying to explain “how does a car work”, because the more experienced level designers do this in their sleep.
I believe these tutorials are worth it, though, if we can get even a handful of people interested in making their own game levels. Hobbyist level design is a dying craft. We need to go out of our way to invite and help new people get into it.
Making your own level is a rewarding experience, even if it may seem like such an obscure thing and such a steep hill to climb. The first time you load up your own DOOM, Quake, Unreal, Half-Life or Tomb Raider level is an awesome experience. It’s like you created this entire new world to explore.
Anyway, here is the tut.
