Here's a small taste of what our game has to offer. We still have some temporary art so be nice!
Friday, December 9, 2011
Navigation at it's finest
Posted by Brian Pike on 11:11 AM
One component of nearly any shooting game, especially when multiple players are involved, is a mini-map to inform the player of unit positions. This is something we felt was necessary for our game and was part of our recent developments. When rendering a mini-map, any information necessary needs to be re-rendered to the small portion of the screen that is meant for the map.
To do this, a simple algorithm is used to scale down unit positions for the mini-map. The algorithm is as follows:
x position = mini-map screen coordinate + unit x coordinate * (mini-map width / main map width)
You do this for both the x and y coordinates and then draw a small shape or texture to the screen at the location. This draws a nice indicator for the unit in correct screen space for the player to enjoy. You can also play with effects to get player attention. For instance, our end level objective pulses to ensure the player knows about this important location.
That's it for this post, check back for more development updates coming soon!
To do this, a simple algorithm is used to scale down unit positions for the mini-map. The algorithm is as follows:
x position = mini-map screen coordinate + unit x coordinate * (mini-map width / main map width)
You do this for both the x and y coordinates and then draw a small shape or texture to the screen at the location. This draws a nice indicator for the unit in correct screen space for the player to enjoy. You can also play with effects to get player attention. For instance, our end level objective pulses to ensure the player knows about this important location.
That's it for this post, check back for more development updates coming soon!
What made Donkey Kong Country look so attractive?
Posted by Luis Lairet on 5:06 AM
When making a 2D game you will be forced to either learn how to create sprite sheets or navigate the interwebs to find that one sprite sheet that fits your needs. When you usually find that sprite sheet, it's on some weird format or some terrible resolution.
This is how we went about creating animations for our game. It was basically the same steps that the people from Rare followed to create their assets when developing Donkey Kong Country. Take a 3d model and since we don't have the software to render animated 3d objects on our game, we can render it to a sprite sheet and use it on our engine.
Make your art in Autodesk 3Ds Max and then render at whatever resolution pleases your needs and you will have a high resolution, high quality animation that will impress. Thanks to a 3ds Max script written by Geoffrey Samuel, we were able to render from 3ds max to whatever resolution sprite sheet at whatever configuration we needed. It also helped with making alpha based sprite sheets.
CLICK FOR GIANT CRAB!
CLICK FOR GIANT CRAB!
This is how we went about creating animations for our game. It was basically the same steps that the people from Rare followed to create their assets when developing Donkey Kong Country. Take a 3d model and since we don't have the software to render animated 3d objects on our game, we can render it to a sprite sheet and use it on our engine.
Make your art in Autodesk 3Ds Max and then render at whatever resolution pleases your needs and you will have a high resolution, high quality animation that will impress. Thanks to a 3ds Max script written by Geoffrey Samuel, we were able to render from 3ds max to whatever resolution sprite sheet at whatever configuration we needed. It also helped with making alpha based sprite sheets.
CLICK FOR GIANT CRAB!
CLICK FOR GIANT CRAB!
