Just finished my first game since going solo and it went pretty well. It’s a pretty simple top-down shooter. I wanted to test myself with a 1 week schedule, but ended up taking 2 weeks.
I’ve put it on Flash Game License. This is the first time I try out their service, but I’ve only heard good things. I’ll put a link up after the game’s live.
The soundtrack was done by my brother, Jonathan Rock. After the game’s out, I’ll put the music here for download.
I’m releasing the source code for a Papervision3D game I was putting together. This project was meant to be an interactive visual for a party my friend threw last weekend, Friendly Integration. This game was meant to be projected onto a wall and controlled with a DDR pad for each player. There were also plans to have additional panels that could be stepped on that changed the “theme” of the game.
Long, long ago, I posted about my old TraceManager class for supreme debugging, but it was flawed! Hans from ObjectPainters was kind enough to comment with a link to a similar project he had put together. His did not have as much sophistication in its data tracing, but it did have a “FunctionWrapper.” His FuncitonWrapper could modify existing functions in run-time (so you don’t have to) allowing his tracing capabilities to be applied to any function without requiring the programmer to modify actual class files.
Hans was right about the usefulness of a function wrapper, but I didn’t feel like getting into it . . . until now. A couple days ago I brought up my old TraceManager and decided it was time to revamp it.
//Wrap class
traceManager.wrapClass(testClass , “testClass”)
//Run class function
var diff:Number = testClass.Subtract(6 , 3 , “trace:Infinity”)
The testClass.Subtract() function above was not capable of producing sophisticated trace data until the traceManager.wrapClass modified it and every other function in the testClass class.
I’ve taken Hans’ proposal one step further, by creating a ClassWrapper (using the undocumented ASSetPropFlags) that will automatically apply tracing capabilities to all functions within a given class instance. Finally, I feel the TraceManager to be a tool that all actionscripters could use in any project:
I’ve added those 2 new functions, modified formatting a bit, and made a few other slight adjustments. If you used the previous version you probably will barely notice the differences outside of the 2 new wrapper functions. For a review on the basic ideas check out the original post. Now I give you an example of a trace out and will explain use of the new wrappers. (more…)
NorthStar is my new pathfinder for use with arbitrary, irregular polygons. CHECK IT OUT. Drag around the green and red circles. The green one is used as the start point and the red is the end
A couple months ago I decided I would begin working toward my long time dream of producing a real-time strategy game. I actually finished NorthStar and had this written a few weeks later, but I’m only posting now because I’ve been hard at work with the rest of the game! Now working on unit logic along with a new Sokay project (more on that later) and editing a new film (later still), so I been a little busy. Expect Demos.
I planned on basing the RTS engine on some of my previous work with physics (perhaps that sounds strange, but it makes sense). Step one was coming up with a pathfinder.
Earlier I found this amazing 3d interactive site in a thread on Flashkit. Completely breathtaking. Needless to say, I couldn’t wait to make a post about this one!
The Eco Zoo
This is the best executed 3d Flash site I’ve seen so far. Just check it out. Apparently this isn’t created with any open source 3d engine out there, it’s a custom engine by this guy.
3D on the web is sort of a gimmick right now, as Flash itself was seen as a gimmick in the past (i.e. your site wasn’t cool unless it had a Flash intro). All it really takes is some progressive individuals to define what’s possible with the advances of the medium — beyond spinning cubes and globes. Right now I see opportunities to tell stories in new and exciting ways. I’m hoping to take design elements from motion graphics and create interactive visual masterpieces. Couldn’t you imagine CartoonNetwork.com as a fully interactive playground? Kids would love that stuff. How come we aren’t seeing that yet??
This demo impressed the hell out of me. It was proof that 3d character animation could be awesome in Flash. I’ve been dabbling in Papervision stuff lately. It’s an extra layer of complication on top of AS3 but the payoff is worth it. I created a model in Maya, textured it, and loaded it into Flash and made it interactive. Unbelievable…
For animation, I figured I could either setup some complicated character rig by separating the character at the joints and linking the pieces together. Setting all of that up and creating a system to animate the keyframes would be much to time consuming. renderhjs, from the Flashkit forum, was creating his own custom system of animating the character in the 3d software and exporting the animation frame by frame and playing through the keyframes. I don’t exactly have time to figure that out either so I found Clint’s post searching Google in distress.
Clint explained to me that his character demo uses .md2 format, from Quake 2. It’s similar to, if not the same as, renderhjs’ method of character animation. He linked to this Papervision md2 parser and recommended that I try loading in some Quake 2 models and seeing how it works.
I’m releasing the source code for a Papervision3D game I was putting together. This project was meant to be an interactive visual for a party my friend threw last weekend, 
