As most people are keeping their games back at the moment to enter them in the competition, I thought it might be a good time to post mine, being that they don’t really fit into the competition rules anyway.
I’ve made Pool (15 ball & 10 ball), Snooker & Billiards. There are 2 versions of each. The first versions are the ones I made for my computer(2Ghz, P4, 256Ram, 64Nvidia graphics),on the second versions I made the controls a little faster, hopefully so they will play on computers that are like me, not quite as fast! I’ve tried the faster ones on my wife’s computer(1Ghz, 384Ram, 32Nvidia graphics) and they play a little too fast on it, so I’m hoping they will be OK for a larger range.
The games with fewer balls will obviously play faster as the poly count is quite high to make the balls look more realistic. They clock between 18 & 29 frames a second on my system(Snooker being the slowest). Because of the difficulty with collision detection I’ve tried using motion actuators and ipos to move the cue but can’t decide which I like the best. There seems to be pros and cons for each.
If some of you have the time, perhaps you could check them out and let me know where you think they could be improved.
They’re all in .exe format at present so that friends and family can use them. If anyone is interested I can upload the blends later. I’m about upto my limit at the moment on this server.
tried billiards and the controls was way too slow and when you hit the ball it doesn’t even go a quarter of the way down the table. nicely done - hopefully you’ve fixed this in the faster version? doesn’t seem to have anything to do with system cause i’ve got a p4 1.3 384M pc800 G2 and it ran great just need to up the control speed.
Thanks for trying the game. Sorry to hear it was slow. If this is a regular problem I will have to upload the blend files so people can set the speed they want. Did holding the spacebar while you pressed the up key not increase the speed? When I use the N or M keys in the Billiards game it blasts the balls into orbit.
must have been a fluke cause i opened it again and it worked. then on 10ball some how a second que ball was spawned… me thinks again about using exe format
Great Job, I enjoyed playing your pool15 ball. I had no problem with speed and when using the “M” button I thought I might knock the balls right out of my computer. Though I do have a fast machine. I am always impressed by someone who actually developes a game to completion, so many games seem to get started but never completed, so hats off to you man!!! What I find most disturbing, so many games have no sound, I am very glad you posted with the sound effects, I feel sound is one of the most important aspects of a game. If I may say what I would like changed if you were to revise it a bit.
The Felt… I “FELT” (no pun intended) that the way the felt showed different hues of green was a bit distracting. I would like just a constant color of green, and a green that is much closer to the color of felt on a real table. Mabey it is the lighting that causes this effect?
The controls. It took a bit to much work to move the cue around the table for me. Mabey somehow you could make a button so when you press it it automatically puts the cue over the cue ball, instead of having to run the stick all the way to the other side of the table.
Hey, I think you did a great job, you should be proud, (as NDNChief pats jrt on the back) “JOB WELL DONE”
P.S. You can enter your games into the competition, the rules were changed to open genre…
Glad things eventually worked tmtechie. I was a bit concerned getting a negative post on the first response. I know from my own experience it makes me think twice about bothering to download a game etc. if someone doesn’t think much of it.
That with the second cue ball happened once before I saved in exe format, I thought I had it ironed out but obviously still needs work.
I had 2 invisible cubes around the table (to register when a ball went astray) one a little further out than the other in case a ball got through without registering on the first one. When that happened I deleted one thinking it may have registered twice. I’ve just checked it out to see if I’d forgotten to delete the second one in th 10 ball version but there’s only one cube so it looks like I’ll be back to the drawing board on that one.
ndnchief. Pleased to hear you liked the 15 ball Pool. I like that one too. It’s also popular with my son. I guess it’s because it’s more visually interesting with the brighter coloured balls.
Sorry about the felt, (There are no lights in the game by the way. I just created the image that way to simulate a centre light over the table) it maybe the brightness on your monitor being different to mine. I’ve noticed when I try them out on my wife’s computer I have to turn the brightness down to get them to look the same. In my space game it makes night look like twilight.
As for moving the cue around, I haven’t worked out a way yet to make the cue jump to the cue ball. I guess the camera could be made to track the cue ball, but I doubt the cue could be operated in the same way. I must confess this is what I would have preferred myself but I’m a bit inexperienced still(only started with 3D games this year)If anyone can suggest a solution I would appreciate it.
Thanks for the other comments. I agree with you about sound. Difficult subject though, not only from the file size aspect but from the irritation side. Sometimes what seems cute at first can really get on your nerves after a few hundred times. I’ve had this discussion with my son many times with regards to websites. He likes a lot of dramatic sounds going on, but sometimes it can get a little over the top. Still there’s always that little ‘off’ button.
Didn’t realise the competition rules had changed(Darn it!).Too late now I guess, mind you I was thinking of making a futuristic pool game, perhaps I could enter that.
This is a pretty cool game. You have taken a lot of time to develop the different games that are played on a biliard table, all the balls are modeled well, and the physics are pretty good. You could make the cue stick go to the ball by vertex parenting it to the cue ball. Place the cue in a desired position for shooting, select the stick and then SHIFT select the cue ball. Then press ctl-alt-p to parent it. could be kind of weird having the stick in the frame as the ball rolls around, so you could make the stick play an ipo that takes it out of view when it touches the ball, then have a button that brings it back.
Just some ideas, but it’s still a good thought out game.
Thanks for the comments. I’ve not used vertex parenting before but I’ll be happy to give it a try. I’m reasonably pleased with the games so far but would like to improve the cue movement a little. Hope your projects are going well. Not much time now I guess.
