Myrlea, "The Shepherd's Quest"

EDIT: Sunday August 13, 2017
more inventory work and code clean up(refinement…and some complete overhauls)

EDIT: Sunday, July 23, 2017
you can get the full information on my most recent post, or on youtube.

EDIT: Tuesday, July 11th, 2017
testing the animation re-targeting for enemies, workflow proofing

EDIT Sunday July 9th, 2017:
here is a short video of the current state of Valiant, some things were removed(from the level but exist in code)like the questing. Still very far from complete, but here is a video.

Well I thought I might finally show at the minimum a screen shot of my project…it is far from complete…matter of fact I just finished implementing the enemy and NPC dynamic pathfinding…there are no animations and only a few sounds…just because when I get stuck I need a ‘win’ so I add something simple to keep me motivated :wink: anyway…
The player can defeat enemies, and I am currently working on the player damage system(player taking damage)…so this morning I implemented his HUD, I wanted a visual display to see if it works anyway… and was wondering what people think of it…I am worried it is a bit large…I want to show hp, mp, stam and xp(old school ;))…so any suggestions are welcome…or any designs someone would want to share would also be fine…I’m more interested in functionality, but it should have some character as well.



I am also not too happy with a few assets I’ve created like the bushes…but most assets are still just placeholder so…no worries.


This is Fergus, I wanted to go with an ugly name so that he has to have a lot of character…excpect some humor.
from left to right :Cloth>Leather>Plate base armors.
I still have not completed all the skinning(as in texture painting) of the base mesh because the UVs are not finalized yet and I want to be able to swap out the textures based on the armor.
UPDATE:
Today I have been working on re-rigging Fergus and texturing the plate armor…as many know it is better to just rig once and attach weapons and armor to the one rig…this way they all stay neatly in place and there is no complex vectors and trig to attach weapons and armor…simply attach them to your player. Here is a current shot of Fergus…armor looks very flat still and needs some love.


Before I forget I wanted to ask how much impact using stencil maps vs splat maps on multiple terrain objects gives…is one more efficient…I have the feeling that with only two textures per material stencil maps would be more efficient…any thoughts or knowledge to share?

I’m using eight textures (128x128 each) on my terrain and a couple of dynamic painted textures (again around 256x256) including a normal map and I get no slowdown even at full screen in stand alone player.

By having a lot of small repeating textures and a high frequency stencil map you can get quite varied looking terrain.

Here’s my mask textures as they appear generated in game. The result, with the normal map (an early version where I had calculated normals wrongly) and the nodesset up I use.

My project is deliberately pixelated, I’m going for a certain style, but the effect can look much better with some work. The important thing is to think about how the eight textures are stacked. I think of them as layers or strata. On top are is long grass, shave that down to short grass and then scrub. Then dirt, mud and stones. If you start from white, you can draw out your map as if it were carved out of layers of the ground.

I like that look…I’m pretty old :wink:
I think my textures for the masking will be 1024 though…maybe 2048…I try to avoid larger textures…2048 is a last resort…the other textures color etc range from 1024(rare) to 128(normal maps I can usually do like this)…I would say my average size though is 512. I also have 16 terrain chunks atm…this is why I need to make sure I optimize as much as possible I already am using a 3K view distance…not noticeable in the image.
*if the framerate ever drops below 45 I will have to make cuts…45 I can deal with since I have an older machine(amd phenom II 1055T and gtx 650)…not bottom of the barrel, but close :wink: I feel it is also a good target platform.

Looks Great…like the forest atm.

thanks…The screens really do not do the player any justice since you cannot really make him out…
During the day I have been implementing the enemy damage class, so I can just adjust a few properties to have ranged or mele etc…getting them to damage the player…simple stuff…just adjusting the scale of the bars based on the hp percentage…etc…I am having an issue with the xp bar…no matter how often I manually apply its orientation it always scales up on the ‘y’ axis


if player['xp'] > 0:#do not want to divide by 0 ;)
    xp_percent = player['xp'] / player['xp_max']
    XP.localScale = [xp_percent,1,1]
else:
    XP.localScale = [0,1,1]    

now I am assuming obj.localScale[x,y,z] is local…but it does not matter if I apply it’s rotation…it is aligned to the world…Meh, I’ll figure it out.

I got it working…just a bug somewhere, needed to restart blender…that’s it.

got the skill points working and a simple quest system…not the main quest system, just the little side quest things…so I managed to get a few little things done this weekend before I head off to work in the morning…I may post a character screen sometime this week…just depends on time…I’ve still got a lot to do…

dynamic music(looking for some good free music btw ;))

all the animations(one rig to rule them all)…rigging is complete…and some base animations but I am sharing them among most of the humanoids so, I still need monster rigs

environment effects(day/night || rain/snow/sun …etc)

a lot of main quest work plus the scripted events

menus, death save and load(this will likely be easy aside from design, and some save load hiccups are to be expected)

still looking for advice and criticism(as brutal as possible, nothing was ever improved upon by telling someone ‘it’s good’) from my initial post :slight_smile:

I have updated the first post with some armors on the main character(protagonist)…I couldn’t help myself…as usual criticism is encouraged.

Looks nice, the character looks good, and I like the overall style.

Fergus character looks really great…nice stylized…nothing to criticism:)
…This may be one of the best games made with BGE

Well, to be fair you have not seen it actually running yet…it’s not perfect, but that is why we call it ‘development’ ;)…

I work a normal job during the week so there may not be much progress to be seen…but if I get around to it, I would like to finish those alternate armors textures for the body and the plate specifically.
and I REALLY need to start animating, after I get some animation I will post a video.

I like your style, keep it up.

I have updated the initial post with my reworking of the pate armor…I still need to add specular mapping and some more detail on the texture itself but the base geometry is done, there is not much to it actually…

I also ended up re-rigging to accommodate some other items he may use like lanterns and things…weapons etc. So like always I want criticism…give me the bad stuff first…without negative comments I cannot improve anything. :wink:

ok, I should really refrain from posting here daily I will try to keep it down to twice a week or less, but I just was polishing up the plate armor and thought I would share…feedback always appreciated.


Attachments


It looks great, but you’ll find that with a long term project like this you’ll end up redoing a lot of stuff later.
When I was making an RPG I spent a long time doing all the clothes, weapons etc… this dragged out the project for much longer than it should have taken and when I look at what I made now I’m not at all satisfied with it.

It’s good to keep practicing the art side of things, and it’s important to have a good looking main character for generating interest in the project. But the main focus should be working on gameplay and game mechanics, then after that visual assets, sounds and level design (at the same time).

Oh yes, not my first game…I do realize that, and to be fair that is why I have been trying to implement more of the ‘code base’(scripting really ;))before I go nuts on the assets…I know you are aware of the back and forth…no amount of planning can cover everything…you are well established though…I know you are well aware of this :)…up 'till now I only made smaller games for my children…I just thought it was time to bite off a little more…otherwise I will never grow as a developer.

Yep, I did the same thing…coming from a more art inclined background I started there(with the assets)…3 times now :slight_smile:
Here is my first try back in…2006

I could not agree more, a lot of combat elements need to be added, but the basic system IS in place…pathfinding, taking and receiving damage…and even leveling up…

The main reason I am working on the character ATM is that I need to get some of the timing down from the animations for spells and combat etc…having the UV’s and base maps(more the UV’s)completed to a point where I do not need to change them whatsoever helps a lot for adding other skins and assets later…with that out of the way I can concentrate on some other parts…sound is a big one that I need to think about…story is relatively simple. To keep it interesting I am not saying anything about the story until I progress further…
I really appreciate you taking the time to give advice, even if I have a decent understanding already…
What I am really interested in are more negative comments…I know it sounds odd to some…but others here who know the value of negative criticism know for certain the best way to improve something is by knowing what people do not like about it :wink:

Nice cartoon style character. Just dont use alpha sort for the plants. :slight_smile: You use IK for the chars?

I use alpha testing, otherwise I see a lot of sorting problems with faces showing up as if ‘x-ray’ is turned on…is there a better solution? The bushes themselves are just placeholder, but this is good information for me to have anyway. Let me know.

I am using IK. I know it can be slower sometimes, but for all my humanoids I am sharing the rig…otherwise I would need to animate every humanoid individually…again I ask…are there issues I should know about with using IK? I have already been animating a bit…not too mush…I do work during the day.:wink:

Sorry no update this week, I am rewriting a major part of the AI where I found a frame rate related issue with multiple enemies. More than 4 enemies dropped my frame rate from 57 down to 35…and I cannot have that :wink:

While I am here, can someone answer the questions I had in my previous post about IK and alpha testing?

I mean, that upbge have a bug with alpha sort, that can drop the frame. I dont know if its really a bug, but the devs have a plan how to speed the alpha, but its on the todo list. So for now dont use that. UP/BGE dont like IK, until you have a gpu skinning.(or ask Lordloki if he would have time to finish it for the latest version of upbge.) :slight_smile: So you should convert the ik to an fk, etc bake the keys… Also try the latest master, it have an armature/animation optimization.