View Full Version : Defender / Stargate 2010 in 3D ZOMYGOD!
Following on from the 30th anniversary of PacMan, and the 3D theme of video games moving forward, I am doing an homage to William's Defender on the iPhone.. It's a pet project, so for fun, not for profit.... But if people want to make it a for profit, or for charity game then I am open to reasonable suggestions.
Basically I just want it to be an interesting, but authentic homage to my favorite two games ever - and great fun to play.
But play exactly like the originals, except in 3D.
I am wandering if anyone arty here fancies making pixel perfect versions of the aliens from Defender or Stargate, in the style of 3D Dot Game Heroes....
Something along the lines of this?
http://applenova.com/etc/brad/gallery/images/odds_and_ends/3d_renders/defender.jpg
I made that based on this sprite:
http://i48.tinypic.com/24zyblc.png
Granted, I can't recall playing either game (I guess I'm too young :lol:), but it looks like there are only a few sprites in each... so making these couldn't be too time-consuming, right?
Were you thinking of using rendered graphics or 3D models?
Wow! That's so cool.... You're a genius!
Like that would be absolutely perfect!
3D models FTW. And then when they blow up we frag them!
Here is a graphic showing all the enemies in Stargate, which is a super set of the Defender graphics...
http://twitpic.com/1qa4qz
Are you saying you'd like to be involved? :)
I'll be happy to put together a few models, but that's about as involved as I think I can get ATM. :)
Looks like my copy of C4D will export to the following formats. Will any of those work for you?
http://i45.tinypic.com/15zf8s6.png
3DStudio, just plain old .3DS is fine.
And that level of involvement is perfect.
Exactly what I need in fact. Leave the rest to me.
Thanks dude! :)
Perfect! I'm taking off next Friday from work anyway. Mind waiting until next weekend before getting them?
I found these two sprite sheets extracted from the games. Since it looks like some of the sprites are just showing rotation of a given enemy, I'll just make one for each accordingly.
http://i46.tinypic.com/dvj1w3.jpg
http://i46.tinypic.com/2rylz7t.jpg
Oh, and don't let my early commitment here discourage any other interested 3D hobbyists/artists from contributing. :) If anyone else here wants to give this a try, please do!
I'll say I'm looking forward to the end result! Great job Brad, I love your render.
Perfect! I'm taking off next Friday from work anyway. Mind waiting until next weekend before getting them?
That's perfect mate. Thanks again. No problem at all on the wait.
I am busy working on a stylisation of the landscape from the game that will fit with this pixel methodology also.
This should be a lot of fun! :)
I found these two sprite sheets extracted from the games. Since it looks like some of the sprites are just showing rotation of a given enemy, I'll just make one for each accordingly.
Brilliant. Actually, what you have is better than what I posted above. (I also just learned that twit-pic kills cached pictures too. So will just replace that with a link for reference.)
It was actually a screenie from the game. Whereas your images are pixel perfect.
You are absolutely right on your summation of the "rotations". With some nice specular lighting, one model, and simply rotating them, it will be perfect.
The only ones that deviates from that is the Munchies which do sort of animate. The history behind them was (topical right now) a bit of piss take of Pac Man. ;)
Initially if we focus on Landers, Mutants, Pods, Baiters, Bombers and Swarmers and see how it looks.... Anything else is a bonus! :) They are the original Defender aliens from the top bitmap you posted.
But I do hope to do both (Stargate and Defender) in a bumper pack type app. :)
Oh, and of course we mustn't forget the all important humanoids!!!
This is gonna be sweet. And we can immortalise AppleNovians who took part in the default high scores. :)
If anyone wants to have a bash at re-sampling the original SFX and making them more "2000y", but keeping the same "feel" to them, that would be another possibility for another "team" member. :)
I'm psyched!
Just in case we want any fanciful beauty shots:
http://applenova.com/etc/brad/gallery/images/odds_and_ends/3d_renders/defender-smooth.jpg
Making the "realistic" one got me rethinking a better way to remake that first blocky one...
curiousuburb
2010-05-23, 17:49
MIG-21 derivative?
Atmosphere or not? I don't recall the hinted backstory. :\
Not that your render ain't a fine piece of work... ;)
MIG-21 derivative?
Yeah, I totally ripped off the MIG-21. I even had a picture of one (http://www.richard-seaman.com/Aircraft/AirShows/Gillespie2005/Highlights/SoCalMig21.jpg) up for reference while modeling. :lol: What can I say? It's such a lovely design! :D
Making the "realistic" one got me rethinking a better way to remake that first blocky one...
Here we go. Much better, IMO.
http://applenova.com/etc/brad/gallery/images/odds_and_ends/3d_renders/defender-pixels-2.jpg
Just posting 'em as I make 'em.
http://applenova.com/etc/brad/gallery/images/odds_and_ends/3d_renders/defender-humanoid.png
Got the Lander ship done. Here it is empty and then having captured one of the humanoids (And turning their heads lavender? Am I interpreting the screenshots correctly?).
http://applenova.com/etc/brad/gallery/images/odds_and_ends/3d_renders/defender-lander.jpg
The center cavity is exactly the right size to fit over a person, but the game screenshots I've seen show the person inside with a sort of cutaway version of the ship. Do you prefer having one side of the ship open like this so you can see the humanoid?
http://applenova.com/etc/brad/gallery/images/odds_and_ends/3d_renders/defender-lander-open.jpg
These are so cool! Feels a bit like Christmas here this morning!
What actually happens in the game is that the lander (green and yellow), picks up the humanoid and carries it to the top of the screen with it dangling beneath it.
This opens up the opportunity for you to shoot the lander, but not the humanoid.
Then the humanoid falls away and you must rescue it by catching it.
If a lander gets to the top of the screen it slowly sucks it up into itself and then changes into the mutant. Which as you noticed is kind of a lander with a humanoid merged with it.
So that last shot would be quite good as the mutant. They're meant to be pretty fugly.. So cutaway like that is probably more authentic... We'll maybe jazz it up a bit with some particle effects in the homage too... I am sure The Vid Kid (Eugene Jarvis) would appreciate that.. He likes particle effects! ;)
Just in case we want any fanciful beauty shots:
http://applenova.com/etc/brad/gallery/images/odds_and_ends/3d_renders/defender-smooth.jpg
Making the "realistic" one got me rethinking a better way to remake that first blocky one...
I like it. It's got me imagining all kinds of morphing effects we could do.
We should probably stick with the pixelized idea for now.. But depending on how you go / how enthusiastic you feel we could experiment with smooth bodied versions of all the sprites and see.... later... Or have that as something you can unlock... :\
Btw, do you know ballpark how many polygons the iPod/iPhone/iPad can display at a comfortable (30 FPS) rate?
The main ship is 330 squares or 660 triangles, if they need to be converted. As you can see here, there's room for some optimization on this model:
http://i50.tinypic.com/5dp1q8.png
The lander with one side removed is 182 squares or 364 triangles. There's far less room for optimization on this one, but some is still possible.
http://i47.tinypic.com/b5fo89.png
Scale the numbers up, and we're talking at least 3000 triangles on screen with the ship, a few enemies, and some humanoids, not to mention the terrain. Does that seem reasonable? Worth thinking about first.
I thought about this because I was going to mention that the "smooth" ship has a much higher polygon count (13,416 polys), and would probably only be suitable for stills unless rethought/rebuilt.
That's not a problem at all. Even on the original iPhone.
I think a tech demo I once saw had close to 140,000 and ran at 5 - 8 fps.
The newer iPods are insane with the amount they can draw. I have full procedural planets running on those with atmospheric shaders and 10's of thousands of triangles and they keep on chugging at 20 fps.
Also, my engine makes everything into integers for drawing, which cuts down on data transfer which is the main bottleneck. So really don't sweat it. Converting from floats to integers gives us another 20% of throughput or more. :)
From memory, on my 1st Gen iPhone I have a space dogfight sequence in my big Space Sim with about 20 ships, each with 600 - 1000 polys each, and 4 screen facing quad lens flares on the engines (on each), and particle effects for plasma.. all running at 15fps. Oh and there are about 40,000 stars being drawn in the background, and a couple of planets. :)
The main overhead is sending lots of individual objects with their own transformations. So one of the things I hope to do, which is break each model into individual cubes when they explode, is going to be taxxing. But we could easily have 15 or 20 of your objects on screen, with particle effects and all kinds of stuff going on. :)
That's reassuring! :)
I should mention, though, that these aren't just cubes arranged together, but that they're actual meshes in the shapes that look like connected cubes. Would you rather these objects actually be made up of discrete cubes? Or can you break up the meshes programatically without too much difficulty?
e.g. Here's the hollow interior of the main ship:
http://i45.tinypic.com/j97vj7.png
Good question.
Far better for you to do the models as efficiently as you can, and then I'll work on a procedural way to generate the cubes for explosions. Then it will be possible to load balance it if frame rate does become an issue.
Anecdotally it's worth remembering that on all iDevices the CPU is awesomely powerful. So procedurally generating stuff (especially with a bit of vector math; VFP or NEON) is often blazingly fast. Much faster than you expect.
Where as moving data to the GPU, or the GPU drawing extra stuff is quite slow.
So overall we try to load up the CPU and do as much culling, or other clever stuff CPU side before we bother the GPU.
EDIT : What would be nice is if we did ever get OpenCL or Geometry Shaders on an iPhone. Then we could just makes the cubes from the meshes on the fly in shaders.. In fact you could make the models out of single vertices for the center of each cube unit and I could construct them, explode them, or turn them into an array of bananas on the fly! But I am dreaming right now. ;)
Another technical thing that just occurred to me...
It's a bit costly to draw lines around polygons to get an outline effect on each cube. That's an effect that a lot of these retro 8bit homages are using. It would be nice to have that option moving forward when we start to bolt it all together and tweak the look and feel.
If you can put texture coords on the models so that each cube face maps to a single texture square, we can then either turn texturing on or off, and have either smooth models, or models that look like they have been drawn with individual cubes.
We can then tweak that outline globally by modifying a single texture and blending it with the colours for each polygon.
All that tweaking I can do with OpenGL ES very cheaply. But the texture coords are essential to make it cheap to do on the GPU.
Do you get what I mean?
drewprops
2010-05-23, 23:25
My favorite game on iPhone is currently Tower Madness, which has a great "feel" to it. One of the neatest bits is that it's fairly two dimensional until you zoom in to the field, where you begin to realize the three dimensionality of all the elements... very nice art direction there.
...
bassplayinMacFiend
2010-05-24, 13:13
Oh man, I always wanted a 3rd hand so I could play Defender well in the arcade. :D
Stargate was probably my favorite arcade game. I liked it so much that back 8 or so years ago I actually bought a standup Stargate arcade game. It was teh rulesauce.
Snap! When I sold my first computer game I drove to London, met a dodgy gypsy and bought both an original Defender, and Stargate cabinet from the back of a seedy amusement arcade at 1am. I am sure he probably stole them because he seemed to be in a hurry to load them on the van and get the hell out of there. But I didn't care at the time! I was living the dream!
I also picked up all the boards for Joust, Robotron etc. and became quite expert at maintaining them.
With a few very small modifications they are all basically the exact same hardware.
Good times!
bassplayinMacFiend
2010-05-24, 14:54
I had a friend I work with that used to import game boards from Hong Kong and sell them to collectors on eBay. :D
alcimedes
2010-05-24, 15:05
How are you going to handle the controls for the game? I remember this one being a complete twitch fest back in the day when I played it.
Those little homing dudes would start coming after you and you had to to start flying crazy to keep from getting hit. That and picking up the humans as they fell to earth required a pretty subtle touch as well IIRC, how is that being handled with no D-pad?
bassplayinMacFiend
2010-05-24, 15:44
I'm trying to remember how many buttons there were. Shoot, smart bomb, thrust, hyperspace and reverse are the only ones I can think right now. The stick controlled 4 directions as well, right?
alcimedes
2010-05-24, 16:17
I'm trying to remember how many buttons there were. Shoot, smart bomb, thrust, hyperspace and reverse are the only ones I can think right now. The stick controlled 4 directions as well, right?
Yeah, I think there were also buttons for accel, so you could increase/decrease your normal speed. The only way to outrun the smart bombs was to go top speed and make them try to catch you from the front, at which point if you did it right you could shoot them.
So yeah, 4 directions, shoot, bomb, hyperspace, speed up, slow down, I'm not sure there was a reverse?, but that could just be that I didn't do it very often so I don't recall. :)
My favorite game on iPhone is currently Tower Madness, which has a great "feel" to it. One of the neatest bits is that it's fairly two dimensional until you zoom in to the field, where you begin to realize the three dimensionality of all the elements... very nice art direction there.
That is very nice. Gives me an idea. I think what might be fun to do on this is to try and set a field of view from the side so that it looks almost exactly like it's the original, and then zoom in, and allow you to look around etc...
Should be quite a neat effect.
Yeah, I think there were also buttons for accel, so you could increase/decrease your normal speed. The only way to outrun the smart bombs was to go top speed and make them try to catch you from the front, at which point if you did it right you could shoot them.
So yeah, 4 directions, shoot, bomb, hyperspace, speed up, slow down, I'm not sure there was a reverse?, but that could just be that I didn't do it very often so I don't recall. :)
Defender had Thrust and Fire next to each other. What you tended to do was feather thrust and firing at the same time. Thrust was either on or off, but holding it down was what made you accelerate. So feathering it as you hammered the fire button was an art. I bet it is probably the first real cause of RSI in a subset of our generation! Those buttons had hardcore springs in them.
The joystick only went up and down, which was what a lot of people found hard, and to reverse you hit the reverse button with your thumb on the hand that was holding the joystick.
Other than that you had hyperspace, which warped you randomly somewhere on the map, but also killed you 50% of the time. And the Smart Bomb button, of which you only got three. But like lives you could replenish them.
Stargate made hyperspace a bit less dangerous, but not much. And added inviso. Which was about 5 seconds of time you could use up by holding down yet another button. When you were holding it down you were invisible and could collide with things and kill them.
The things you are talking about chasing you are called Baiters (not SmartBombs ;) ). The best way to deal with them is to run, let them build up speed and then change direction quickly, let them slide past, and then change direction again to face them. All the time using the joystick to slip under them, and then back up onto the same level.
Once you are turned around and facing them. Nail them with lasers.
The reason you see Baiters is because you are taking too damn long to finish the level. ;)
The two big problems with Defender or Stargate (and Robotron for that matter) are that they are kind of specialist arcade games. The whole thing is seems to be designed to be a pig to play. But once you master it it's like playing an instrument. When you consider that it was made by Pinball designers that kind of makes some sense. A lot of work went into the control layout, feel, and also the quality of the mechanical bits.
I probably sound like a nut here, but the skill required for Defender and Stargate is the closest I think you can get to a martial art in video games. It seems like it's very fast and frenetic, and incredibly unforgiving to the casual player. But once you get into it it's an awful lot about inertia and elegance. Once you are hooked it kind of changes your life. Like Marmite, or Vegemite, you either love it or hate it. You are either a Defender dude or a n00b. There is no half way house. :p
Also the control board on the originals had to be strengthened several times in the machines life as they get hammered! :D
A later mod on them was for an ashtray just above where the Thrust and Fire buttons were as they all used to get a horrible melted divot in the perspex just above there because so many players chain smoked while playing, holding the cigarette in their Thrust / Fire hand. Good times.... Of course at home I had that mod because I smoked something else while playing!
Another scary / weird thing is if I rest my hands on a flat service and think about Defender my hands contort into the positions ready for the controls, almost the same way that your hands get ready to type as you hovver over a keyboard! And I have not played on my actual Defender machine (which is in storage in the UK) in about 10 years!
The reason it's never been a success anywhere but the arcade is that it is the one game you need that very specific layout of controls for. Otherwise it just isn't Defender.
I hope that we can do something which does it justice in a small way now that we have accelerometers, because we might just be able to pull off a good control system on the iPhone because of that.
alcimedes
2010-05-25, 11:19
Ah, see I'd only ever played the game on an old DOS machine, so I had to use the keyboard for all the controls, and have no idea what the arcade layout is.
The whole thing is seems to be designed to be a pig to play. But once you master it it's like playing an instrument. When you consider that it was made by Pinball designers that kind of makes some sense. A lot of work went into the control layout, feel, and also the quality of the mechanical bits.
I probably sound like a nut here, but the skill required for Defender and Stargate is the closest I think you can get to a martial art in video games. It seems like it's very fast and frenetic, and incredibly unforgiving to the casual player. But once you get into it it's an awful lot about inertia and elegance. Once you are hooked it kind of changes your life. Like Marmite, or Vegemite, you either love it or hate it. You are either a Defender dude or a n00b. There is no half way house.
I did however find this to be true even when using a keyboard, there was very, very precise control necessary in order to play the game, not sure how the iPhone will respond to that, but I hope you could pull it off!
He. Sorry I didn't mean to come across as some kind of zealot! :)
Quick question for those interested...
2D or 3D?
i.e. Defender side view scrolling (with a 3D "feel"), or go the whole hog and take Defender into the realms of Zarch?
I am playing with both styles at the moment, and may in the end put both in the game.. Might be nice to morph between them.
Am interested in feedback.
When I get some models from Brad I will do some early screenies and post them here for further feedback.
:)
I'd think 2.5 D (think New Super Mario Bros) would be the best way to go.
Still planning to crank out more models and convert them for you by this weekend. :)
I'd think 2.5 D (think New Super Mario Bros) would be the best way to go.
I've seen both side scrolling stuff (in the style of LBP) and also isometric type views (like Balders Gate).
Which do you mean?
Still planning to crank out more models and convert them for you by this weekend. :)
Looking forward to them very much. :)
alcimedes
2010-05-27, 10:23
I'd say side scrolling. Everyone who played it and loved it had it as a side scroller, and those aren't as common any more. Probably get more nostalgia points (and dollars) if you keep in a side scroller.
I'd say side scrolling. Everyone who played it and loved it had it as a side scroller, and those aren't as common any more. Probably get more nostalgia points (and dollars) if you keep in a side scroller.
I guess I'll have to do both... :)
Zarch / Virus is also another classic, which I think did the best approximation of Defender in 3D.
If we have both then people can choose.
Of course AppleNovians will all get to play-test it. And we can thrash out what the final version is then...
We can then either put it out as two versions, or a two in one.
I think you're probably right about the side scrolling for authenticity though.
Even though personally I am excited to try a proper 3D take. No-one has ever done that justice.
One of my worries is that on the iPhone screen people might not even notice it's done in a pixel art style, and it might just look like 3D sprites if we're not careful. Which is why I was suggesting having a pulled out camera view at a perspective / position that makes it looks exactly like the original video game, but find an excuse to pan the camera around / zoom in to show off it's pixel dot glory.
You've brought up another issue though.. Pricing? Charge or not charge.
Let me make it clear I am doing this for the fun, and to produce something special. Period.
However, I am more than happy for us to charge for it for normal peeps.. Everyone here is free of course.
What I am thinking is that we vote for a charity for 50% of the revenue, and put the other 50% into AN running costs. We can brand it as an AN community project too if people want...
We might only sell a few copies anyway. But if it's super popular it would be nice to do some good with it, and roll some into a nice server package or something for AN.
If anyone, Brad?, wants to chime in with their thoughts, or put up a poll... That would be cool...
I am easy with whatever people here decide, of course.
I've seen both side scrolling stuff (in the style of LBP) and also isometric type views (like Balders Gate).
Which do you mean?
Side scrolling.
Wait... Don't tell me you haven't seen New Super Mario Bros! :eek:
New Super Mario Bros Wii (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpcJNEWKzCY&fmt=22) (Wii, circa 2009)
New Super Mario Bros (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeM37OW3cKw) (Nintendo DS, circa 2006)
It's a mix of 3D and 2D sprites in what's effectively a 2D space, and it feels both new and nostalgic at the same time.
edit: Yes, like Little Big Planet.
I would charge for it, personally, but I would keep the price low. No more than $1.99. Personal opinion based on what I'm willing to spend for apps and games depending on their worth to me. I'm a huge fan of Stargate/Defender so I will pay $2 without blinking, but to rope in the more casual "Oh I remember that game" crowd I think $2 is a good price point.
I am wondering about the controls. Stargate was pretty button heavy, no good way to make that work for a touch interface. I have a driving game that, instead of making you work the throttle, brakes and steering, just accelerates on its own, you steer by tilting, and you tap the screen to brake, I thought that was a nice solution.
I was thinking about making up and down movement driven by the accelerometer... Tilt up, tilt down...
We'd obviously have to have touch equivalents, but I think that is worth experimenting with. It may take a little getting used to, but would become intuitive after a while... I think... Maybe?
If we did that we could cover Fire, Thrust and Reverse almost identically to the arcade.
Reverse on the left. Fire and Thrust on the right - mash-able.
Smart, Hyperspce and Inviso were always stuck slightly away from other controls so could be in the middle of the screen at the bottom..
Those are my initial thoughts. Obviously we'll have to try it and see.
I am all for configurable sensitivity for controls. And have GUIs for that already done from other projects.
Side scrolling.
edit: Yes, like Little Big Planet.
Cool we'll focus on that! :)
I am a Mario n00b I am afraid.. The last time I played any Mario game was on an arcade cabinet on a ferry going from the South of England to The Isle of Wight, when I was still at school!
It had Mario and some turtles in it. :D
Graculus
2010-05-27, 12:17
Sidescrolling for me, and the tilt for up down should be natural enough I'd have thought. Howsabout a panic shake for hyperspace?
When you've done with defender (prob my fave game), can I vote for Phoenix next (prob my most played game).
On a serious note... are there likely to be copyright issues in this venture, particularly if paid for?
I don't see there being copyright issues. There is already a total rip off of Defender in the App Store. Been there for ages.
What we are doing is an homage, and an augment.... So we are investing new IP.
I am happy to take the risk. :)
Graculus
2010-05-27, 15:10
Cool. And the hyperspace by panic shaking? You know it makes sense.
alcimedes
2010-05-28, 12:23
Except if you have to shake it to hyperspace, won't you have a hard time establishing your accel etc. when you stop shaking it and try to figure out where it warped you to? Warping was a crap shoot under the best of circumstances, not sure that having to shake your phone around is going to put you in a better spot when you're done.
Except if you have to shake it to hyperspace, won't you have a hard time establishing your accel etc. when you stop shaking it and try to figure out where it warped you to? Warping was a crap shoot under the best of circumstances, not sure that having to shake your phone around is going to put you in a better spot when you're done.
You do have a point. And that has occurred to me...
At the end of the day we can have an option screen and let people tweak it to suit.
I think I may prefer a button in the middle of the screen, or even a jesture. And am happy to have them all in there for all tastes..
Brad, how's your hangover?
Any joy on the models.... No pressure. :)
I am a Mario n00b I am afraid.. The last time I played any Mario game was on an arcade cabinet on a ferry going from the South of England to The Isle of Wight, when I was still at school!
It had Mario and some turtles in it. :D
:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
I am officially giving you permission to emulate. Or shoplift. Steal a Wii if you have to. Just...play some form of Super Mario. Good god man! :lol: <3
I got my copy of SMG2, so it's Mariomorial Day here in the States. :D :D :D
I didn't forget! :) (And technically the weekend isn't over here in the states since today's Memorial Day! ;))
I've made a few additional models in the mean time...
Bomber:
http://applenova.com/etc/brad/images/defender-Bomber.jpg
Baiter:
http://applenova.com/etc/brad/images/defender-Baiter.jpg
Swarmer:
http://applenova.com/etc/brad/images/defender-Swarmer.jpg
Pod:
http://applenova.com/etc/brad/images/defender-Pod.jpg
And even though it seems to only be used in Stargate and not Defender, this guy looked too cool to not make. :)
Yllabian Space Guppy:
http://applenova.com/etc/brad/images/defender-Yllabian-Space-Guppy.jpg
Is that it? Am I missing any? That's all I was able to find sprites for, at least.
I'm about to start making the plastics! exporting to 3DS.
And here are the 3DS versions. After some experimenting, it looked like the 3DS exports weren't keeping the color-polygon assignments. So, I split each model into one part for each color. The swarmer, for example, has two model objects: one red and one green.
And here are the 3DS versions. After some experimenting, it looked like the 3DS exports weren't keeping the color-polygon assignments. So, I split each model into one part for each color. The swarmer, for example, has two model objects: one red and one green.
Brilliant..
And you are a genius on the parts for colours stuff.
That problem occurred to me last week, but as you'd already started I decided to just see what you came up with because I didn't want to make more work for you. I was going to write a script to work around it.
But.. My engine actually expects different parts for each colour, and then either makes a vertex buffer for the entire model with colour info spliced in, or batches models and draws all the instances in one colour, and then all the instances in the next colour, and so on...
So that is perfect.
Oh, and btw the Pod is used in both Stargate and Defender, and is probably one of the most important characters.. It's where swarmers come from. :)
But you'll see all that soon...
I have some coding to do. :)
@Roboman - OK OK! I'll see what I can do on the SMB thing... The Wii is gathering dust at the moment. :)
I'm loving the work going on here! Really, it's looking good and making me really look forward to a public release. :)
Or private beta. :p ;)
http://i46.tinypic.com/2he8q9y.jpg
I love it when a plan comes together.
Can I suggest that we lock off the download in some way?
Obviously not from members.. But it would be frustrating if your excellent work pops up in some other piece of software before we get our version out. :)
Good point. I've re-upped the archive with a password. If you want it, PM me. :)
Just a quick update. I am about 50% of the way through the first stuff I can show here... Want to make it a bit more pretty yet.
I am also supporting a couple of things at WWDC so will be busy this week, and have a deadline on some of my other software, so will be back on this at the weekend again... when I hope to make a couple of vids for here, for initial feedback :)
Thanks for the update, scratt!
Graculus
2010-06-07, 03:27
I am also supporting a couple of things at WWDC so will be busy this week, so will be back on this at the weekend again...
Wo, woo, woooah.
You mean Steve's not going to use this as 'one more thing'. darn. ;)
LOL
He asked. But I suggested he "educate himself" that writing an epic like this takes longer than a week! ;)
Here is a quick set of teaser shots from my development sandbox... I think it is amazing how immediately recognisable the space craft, humanoids and aliens are. Nice work Brad!
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7301714/ARCFighter3D2.png
At the moment the entire play area is an infinite square of procedurally generated landscape.
You can swing the ship around to face any direction in 360 degrees and fly forwards across the landscape.
When you fly off the edge you seamlessly come back on the other side, so although you are in a fixed play area it seems to go on forever. So exactly like Defender, except you can fly around in a 360 degree arc.
It feels silky smooth on everything down to an original iPhone. I also have a bare 2D version with a landscape more like the original in Defender made out of cubes similar to those of the enemy ships. But I think that will look too simplistic. I will however be developing a pure 2D version alongside this version moving forward also. If anything perhaps as an easter egg for the main game...
Ultimately I think what I am going to end up doing is making the landscape a gully running from left to right, kind of like the Grand Canyon, with any foreground elevations transparent, so we get a feeling of speed and parallax, but also depth to the play area. Instead of having the freedom of movement in 360, you will basically only go left or right, and perhaps have some control over 3 or 4 lanes of depth you can move forward or backwards in, as well as elevation. So kind of like LBP. At the end of the day the controlling factor for those decisions will be based on gameplay feedback. Too much freedom and it's going to be hard to aim at anything.
Our ship hugs the landscape at the moment. So you can't crash. On the original you could fly through the landscape. Obviously that won't work for us. So the idea I am working with is we hug the landscape, but can lift off from it to gain altitude. If you are carrying humanoids and come down hard towards the landscape as you bottom out you drop them back to the ground again. Again, feedback on that idea is welcome. It's the best solution I could come up with so far. But when you zip over the landscape and the ship follows the contours it feels great on my iPod! When I make a video you'll see how tight you can bank the ship, it tilts as you turn and you can whip around almost on your side, like you are in a jet fighter. That almost makes me want to keep the 360 steering in. But it takes a lot of getting used to. Especially when you are flying towards yourself. Feels great though!!
The Palm Trees, are just a bit of whimsey. We'll have something else for ground features. But whatever they are you'll be able to frag them also. On, and the landscape is theoretically destructible. So I am planning to have big explosions darken it and dent it as you progress on a level. The code for that is all done as the landscape is generated on the fly from a big database in memory. All the moveable objects in game have a coordinate that maps directly to the landscape height map, so it's easy to deform the landscape around them when they explode.. Should be quite impressive to behold! :)
On newer devices, if the water stays in (it's a just a rudimentary transparent layer right now) then it will be reflective. I also have a whole host of starfield, and lighting effects to go with a range of different other worldly sky boxes, like the yellow one I am using right now. So we'll have different colours terrains, and skies. So think, post apocalyptic Earth, Mars, Asteroid etc. etc.
If you want to test early versions then PM me the UDID of your iPhone / iPod or iPad and I'll include you in builds in the coming week or two.
This weekend my main task is experimenting with controls and shooting stuff, and also doing the conversion from models to cubes for explosions so everything explodes in fragments and bounces on the landscape. I'll also be tweaking the abduction logic for the landers so we can see that stuff working.
There are / will be lots of particles and flares, like the ones which look like a little glow under the landers. They will be tweaked as I go along. But rest assured this will be a fragment fest! For example, if you look closely at our ship we have a cockpit glow. I'll be adding lots of bits like that, so that things like the bright yellow points on the pods pulse and glow also.. Just to add some feel to it all overall. Also the particles from the landers and our ship are all single point particles, and just placeholders at the moment. Expect them to get bigger, softer, and to have more weight and relevance to them as I tweak stuff also.
I also have someone working on remastering the original Defender SFX so they are re-imagined for 2010, but still sound like the arcade game....
Feedback is welcome on the limited pictures I have put up so far. Bear in mind it's early days, and this will get more tidy, and more pretty in the coming week... I will also try to put up a video of gameplay and some more screen shots here in the next 48 - 72 hours.
I have been busy with a WWDC project, and another overdue project, so am fitting this in in the weekends, and evenings. So most big changes will come over weekends in the coming weeks.
Fixed. It was a Photoshop png. I re-saved it with Preview.
I guess I am able to see it as I have Photoshop on my machine.
Seems weird though.
Nice. I'm looking forward to seeing it play. :)
Oh. I meant to add I am also looking at a way to gently apply a kind of pixelation to the landscape. So that it looks blocky in an atheistically pleasing way.. We'll see how that goes... Might give the whole thing a more cohesive feel.
This is another couple of rough shots from my sandbox, but shows me testing the "Pixel Cube Particle" system for explosions. I'll be augmenting this with a normal particle system too. So we get more eye-candy, and the individual cubes disintegrate at the end of their lifetime.
You can also see some Swarmers, err.. swarming, in the distance!
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7301714/ARCFighter3D3.png
The cubes are unlit at the moment, so appear to be just one solid colour. That's because I have not sorted out how I am going to light stuff to give it a nice shiny feel. But the cool thing about these particles is that they are actually geometry cubes, that can rotate, and also fall according to gravity and bounce on the landscape. (I noticed that one of my vertices is out on the cubes also when I looked closely at these shots. Easy to fix.)
I was mainly worried that this would be very slow, on the original iPhone particularly. And had some plans to vectorize the maths. But even in simple C, with a bit of clever batching it has turned out super fast. So I still have the vectorisation to use later if I need to squeeze more speed out of things. As it stands we can have a few thousand fragment cubes on screen, flying around, and bouncing on the landscape etc.
When they hit the water level, they'll fizzle out and I'll make some steam rise up also. I just decided! That is if we keep water in the landscape.
I've also got a description system, which is basically text files that describe the positions and colours for the particles for each type of explosion. So we get appropriatly placed and coloured particles for each type of enemy exploding.
Also because these are 3D objects and not particles / sprites they scale properly as they come out of the screen, and look exactly like the "pixel" components of the objects they come from..
bassplayinMacFiend
2010-06-15, 07:17
Wow, it's looking great, scratt! :D
Oh. I meant to add I am also looking at a way to gently apply a kind of pixelation to the landscape. So that it looks blocky in an atheistically pleasing way.. We'll see how that goes... Might give the whole thing a more cohesive feel.
Hmm. Maybe giving it a wireframe/polygonal look, or (less drastically) drawing a sort of grid over it? Keane did a novel "grid over natural landscape" thing in their "Perfect Symmetry" video and I thought it looked kind of neat. (Keane : Robo :: Rads : FFL, apparently.)
I'm sure you'll think of something. :D I like the idea of having the ships explode into 3D "pixels" -- it sounds like an awful lot of work but totally worth it. And I actually dig the CMY cubes, but of course I'd say that.
If ever there was an appropriate thread for this image, it would be this one.
http://applenova.com/etc/brad/random/MUCH_WIN.jpg
That said, I really like this idea:
Hmm. Maybe giving it a wireframe/polygonal look, or (less drastically) drawing a sort of grid over it?
Let the terrain be dynamic and smooth, but overlay a wide wireframe or grid to keep that "techy" old-school feel.
edit: And to tie in with my MUCH WIN picture, I'm of course thinking something kinda like
http://i50.tinypic.com/s2gv9e.jpg
;)
Let the terrain be dynamic and smooth, but overlay a wide wireframe or grid to keep that "techy" old-school feel.
Yeah, that's what I was trying to describe. In the video, they used real footage of like a waterfall and stuff, but they overlaid a grid over it all and had it only roughly match the actual shape of the scenery. It looks pretty and Max Headroom at the same time.
Thanks for all the feedback and comments guys. Really appreciate it.
I will certainly work on the outline for the landscape. Sounds like a neat way to get what we're looking for.
What I will most likely do is have a few options to try, so you can experiment on the Prefs. screen for the game. i.e. Switch to outline, or blocky etc.
In the Prefs screen there are also sliders to adjust sensitivity of the accelerometer etc. That's all part of my iPhone engine anyway.
I am still putting it together as being played on a big square landscape which wraps, but making it a 2D sideways scroller is as simple as constraining everything in the Z coordinate, and scaling the landscape so it has a gulley down the middle.
It is much easier if I put it together as a 3D gameplay area, and then constrain it later (as I think we'll have to), than writing it 2D and then wishing we had more freedom.
Ultimately I'll probably do a Zarch clone, which will need a 3D play area, in the future. So the engine is being written to be as flexible as possible. :)
Hope to post some vids later this week, or over the weekend.
And aiming to have a very very early playable demo sometime after that.
Hope to post some vids later this week, or over the weekend.
And aiming to have a very very early playable demo sometime after that.
And sometime after that, you should port it to 3DSWare. :p
You know what, just this morning I was considering looking up some old Nintendo contacts... ;)
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7301714/ARCFighter3D4.png
I put this in quite quickly tonight in a spare moment. Looks better when it's in motion. You'll see a video soon.
In static shots it looks aliased and dotty, but I can fix that with slightly thicker lines. It's a trade off on the iPhone screen without proper anti-aliasing though. Thicker lines can also be overkill.
In any case when the landscape's in motion you lose the bitty feel, and I can affect the colours of the lines to reflect stuff going on, blend it better. Perhaps the line colour can also affect the state of the planets stability as you get low on humanoids etc. And when the planet is about to get destroyed and you enter "Deep Space" (Defender aficionados will know what I mean by that) we could fade the landscape out and leave just the wire frame for a few seconds... before it all disintegrates!
I think just as a quick mock-up in this shot it already adds quite a lot to the landscape. But on reflection, looking at the static shot here, it certainly looked better when I was flying around!
I just came up with the idea of moving the blast from Smart Bombs out across the landscape through those landscape segments... in a ring growing out from your ship. I'll have a think about how to do that and add it to my ever growing list of wacky ideas!
Needless to say I'll refine it more yet. But just wanted to share as I go along. :)
Awesome! I <3 this project.
More models!
This set includes the merged mutant (half lander + purple head humanoid) and a set of numbers.
http://applenova.com/etc/brad/images/defender-numbers.jpg
Same password on this zip as the other. If you want access, feel free to PM me.
And of course I forgot to make the miniature versions of the numbers. Consider that omission corrected.
http://applenova.com/etc/brad/images/defender-numbers-mini.jpg
Brad, you're like the coolest person ever. You know that, right?
scratt is super cool too. Count me in for a copy when it's done :D
Hoping you'll be a tester Robo. Just make sure I have your UDID. Thanks for your kind words. :)
Thanks Brad. As I explained in my PM to you I am suffering from a mean Mohito hangover, and iPhone 4 lag at the moment! But I am sure you can all understand! :p Jesus! There's so many setting on these things. The iPhone 4 I mean!!
The models are awesome as ever.
The 3D radar is done on the program now.
I am just tidying some of the alien logic and do expect pics, and some vids imminently. :)
Thanks for your kind words.
YVW. :)
I've never playtested anything before, so I'm not sure if my input would be, uh, helpful, but I'll happily try it out on my iPhone 3G and iPad when the time comes. :)
2D or 3D?
i.e. Defender side view scrolling (with a 3D "feel"), or go the whole hog and take Defender into the realms of Zarch?
I am playing with both styles at the moment, and may in the end put both in the game.. Might be nice to morph between them.
If you do morph between them, be sure to call the 3D mode All Range Mode. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Fox_64) :D
If you do morph between them, be sure to call the 3D mode All Range Mode. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Fox_64) :D
Whew. For a minute there I thought you were linking to the vgcats slash again and I was gonna be all "whaaa?!"
http://i45.tinypic.com/33de3yr.png
Whew. For a minute there I thought you were linking to the vgcats slash again and I was gonna be all "whaaa?!"
http://i45.tinypic.com/33de3yr.png
I thought about it, but I thought that would be just a little confusing if scratt hadn't played SF64. :D
Also, OK, now I want to use that as my avatar. :lol:
EDIT: Look what you have wrought. (http://twitter.com/xRobo) :D
Graculus
2011-04-19, 06:40
Bump.
What happened to this?
Just found some old Spectrum games and they reminded me.
This thread reminds me of Minecraft now. Brad, dock a replica of that spaceship you made at your airport! :D
Sort of relevant:
How do you pronounce "Galaga"? GAL-uh-guh? Guh-LAW-gah?
alcimedes
2011-04-19, 07:47
LOL, minecraft Defender. It could happen.
Bump.
What happened to this?
Just found some old Spectrum games and they reminded me.
Still working on it.. But only on weekends.
I am rather stretched at the moment working on another rather special title... http://www.tequilabomb.com/shotglass/2011/04/11/the-future-of-space-sims/
Once we get through our next push I *will* finish it. :)
This thread reminds me of Minecraft now. Brad, dock a replica of that spaceship you made at your airport! :D
Good call. :) Maybe not docked, but I could definitely seen an invasion force in the not-too-distance future.
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