Using “loc” and “rot” to move your ship around isn’t realistic at all and using “force” and “torque” is very annyoing when you’re trying to win a race. Therefore I made a movement system. It makes the spaceship kinda moving like a car. I also made a mercator projection of a stars render, so you don’t see any seams. I made the texture extra bright and used mist. The objects that are far away are now a bit darker than the objects that are very close to your ship.
Unfortunately, the laserian font turned out to be too wide for a game font. Therefore, I used the Blade Runner font http://www.1001freefonts.com/bladerunner.php.
Here’s the movement system: http://www.box.net/shared/885q94xr4f.
There were four errors:
The true level triggering of the always sensor wasn’t enabled.
You named the collision sensor “Collision” instead of “collision”. (Python is case sensitive, a bit annoying sometimes…)
There wasn’t a speedometer yet, so the script could not update it.
Some locals in the move actuator weren’t enabled the right way.
Is there any way to get the speedometer to work in GLSL? It seems to not.
edit- btw thanks dedean for your help! I’ve been thinking, and - would it be possible to surround the ship with a ring of empties as sensors? Then when they detected a collision the ship could steer out of the way.
I’m not very familiar with GLSL materials. My computer is not very fast and it seams GLSL materials don’t always work on my computer… I’m sure there’s a way to do it, though.
I don’t know if it’s necessary to use GLSL materials in this game. Good textures can do a lot. And GLSL materials can slow down the game. However, there were improvements in the Game Engine since Blender 2.49…
It is possible to surround the ship with a ring of empties. I don’t know exactly how I’m gonna do it, but I think I’ll use empties for the A.I. system…
Sorry dedean, got some more troubleshooting for you…
(These files I’m posting are the newest version of the game, even though the older version looks better, this one will eventually pass it up in quality- I’m just putting in your movement and checkpoint systems before graphics becomes a priority.)
Anybody else with some good ideas want to help? I am still looking for modelers, texturers, unwrappers- heck, pretty much anything!
The game looks nice! The scripts aren’t finished yet, though. I will probably have to change them when I finish the A.I. system.
Have you already got an idea of what you want the checkpoints to look like? Didn’t you say you want to make blue rings…?
Basic Theory:
7 empties (left, right, up, down, front, back and center) are parented to the ship. 1 empty (direction) is parented to the ‘center empty’. The ‘center empty’ is tracked to the next checkpoint. Because of this, the ‘direction empty’ always points to the next checkpoint. The script calculates the distance from the ‘direction’ to the ‘right’ and to the ‘left’. If the distance to the ‘right’ is shorter, the ship will turn right. Otherwise, the ship will turn left. Same for up, down, front and back.
Problems:
The ship doesn’t avoid obstacles.
The ship doesn’t slow down to make a small curve (that’s why I made a temporary speed limit).
The ship heads straight towards the next checkpoint, not paying attention to the fact that it might already should go a bit to the left or to the right, so it can get easier to the other checkpoint…
A.I. path method:
If I manage to solve these problems, it’s still not 100% sure the ship will do what it’s suppose to do. However, there are more ways to make the race opponents do complex things. Who says the A.I. has to decide what to do on it’s own?
I think a lot of racing games use (invisible) paths for the A.I. Instead of a few checkpoints to know where the ship has to go, every race has an invisible path the A.I. ships try to follow. The path may even ‘tell’ the ship when it has to slow down. Since this path is made by humans and not by a script, the ship can easily take the best route, without a complex script that attempts to calculate the best route. This can of course not be used when you’re chased by the United Worlds Space Patrol but I think I’m gonna try to use this method…
Like I said, it’s not finished yet. You don’t need to put it in yet. I just wanted to show what I’ve got so far… And the other scripts need to be changed too. It’s normal to change things when you make a game.
I can understand you find it hard to put it in the game, since you have no programming experience, but that doesn’t mean the game has to do without it. I can put it in the game when it’s finished. I think it’s better if people who make something, put it in the game themselves anyway…
OK, I get your point. Sorry if i seemed …anything… in that post. I didn’t mean that the game had to do without it, just that I really had trouble trying to put it in.
I think you should make the asteroid different shapes. those spherical asteroids just seem way too abnormal. try elongating random sides of the asteroids
I have another idea for the game: maybe it would be nice to have some races along several planets. One story problem, though. If you want to race along several planets, you’d need to go faster than the speed of light. But maybe we could use the hyperdrive to do these races instead of using it to get to other parts of the galaxy (you could still do that using wormholes and stargates…). Most races of the game can be asteroid races. But when you won some of those, you get a hyperdrive so you can do a few planet races as well. Same can be for an anti-gravity device, so you can do races near black holes as well. An advanced heat shield to do races near stars… And maybe you could also do a few races on a planet, (like the Pod Race from Star Wars). Don’t know what device you could need for that, though. Anyone an idea…?
I made a ship too, by the way. (It looks white when you open the blend file, but the colors are right when you start the game.) http://www.box.net/shared/pj9n0yv3bh
EDIT: I uploaded it again because I forgot to pack the thrust texture. I changed the UV-texture too. It now looks black when you open it, but again the colors appear when you start the Game Engine. Only the window and the thrust use textures now. The rest are just blender colors.
I agree with dedean16, a racing game would be much cooler, especially if the gameplay would be on-planet and like in Star Wars: pod racer(I remember playing it when I was 6 , it was an Awesome game). The game seems to develop pretty well as I can see :D:yes:, so I wanted to contribute with a ship too: The Hawk 7, a single-drive ship . I hope you’ll like it
P.S. And by the way, you forgot to pack the blend file together with the textures polyman
Thanks, dedean, for the ship and ideas, and thanks christiani for the ship and for alerting me to my texture packing mistake! Also could I maybe use your other ships in the game? They look really cool!
Here’s an idea of what the title screen could look like.
(Hey, ShingWanTin- I missed your response earlier and just saw it!!! Sorry for the long wait, but if you can still help I could use it. will PM you.)
If you were asking about using my ships polyman, you can use(and anyone else) All of my ships for either free or commercial use (just put me in the credits and don’t claim my work to be yours;) ). I’m glad you like the ship, however, the others have cannons :D, and I dunno if you’re going to use them in the game because of that… ( but you can always modify them :)) ;)) )
I’m sure there’s a way to do it, though.
, it was an Awesome game). The game seems to develop pretty well as I can see :D:yes:, so I wanted to contribute with a ship too: The Hawk 7, a single-drive ship . I hope you’ll like it
