#95314 - ScottLininger - Fri Jul 28, 2006 6:22 pm
For several years, I've had this "world" engine that allows one to create a quasi-3D space inside Flash. I've played around with using the engine for a game or three, but I think I'm too close to the code, and I constantly get distracted with the display settings, physics, etc. I can't see the forest for the trees!
I'd like to finish it, just 'cause there's so much work into it at this point. But I'm stuck for a good game idea.
Here's a link. Basically, there's a grid on the ground and the ability to project a POV and assorted objects accurately into the space. In this implementation, you're in a spaceship flying through a wrap-around space. Collision detection is turned off, (though it's implemented)
http://www.scottlininger.com/blackice/test.html
Any ideas? As a game designer, what would you use such an engine for?
The capabilties/limitations of the engine:
- The POV is always facing one direction. I'm sure there's a name for this... it's like a fixed-facing, Mode7 thing.
- Objects in the space are not 3D. They're like 2D scaling sprites, so you're limited to objects that are horizontally skinny like columns and such. If you try to put in really wide (or deep) objects like whole buildings, they look like cheesy paper cutouts.
- No good way to do walls or levels of terrain. (Though, like the red lines you see in the demo, it is possible to paint some very basic vectors onto the ground. I've also had some success putting in a whole line of objects to create "walls" of trees and barrels and stuff. That works okay. The collision mask of an object is a 3D bounding box, so objects can have depth and height from a physics perspective.)
- Though you can change the color of the ground, grid, sky, fog, etc., performance becomes an issue if you try to apply textures to the entire world. (Well, with the exception of the sky, since that doesn't have to scale or skew... so you can put image backgrounds back there.)
- Fog is 1-dimensional... After a certain threshold, objects fade, but only in the Z direction.
- When you get more than a couple hundred objects into a space, performance gets crappy, so each world needs to be fairly concise. You can load new worlds at any time.
-Objects can move themselves at run time, be driven by AI, etc., so you can create enemies and such.
I've played around with 3rd person RPGs, several flight sims, and a multiplayer shoot-em-up. But like I say, nothing's ever been finished. I'd love to hear any good ideas... especially if they're light on content development.
-Scott
I'd like to finish it, just 'cause there's so much work into it at this point. But I'm stuck for a good game idea.
Here's a link. Basically, there's a grid on the ground and the ability to project a POV and assorted objects accurately into the space. In this implementation, you're in a spaceship flying through a wrap-around space. Collision detection is turned off, (though it's implemented)
http://www.scottlininger.com/blackice/test.html
Any ideas? As a game designer, what would you use such an engine for?
The capabilties/limitations of the engine:
- The POV is always facing one direction. I'm sure there's a name for this... it's like a fixed-facing, Mode7 thing.
- Objects in the space are not 3D. They're like 2D scaling sprites, so you're limited to objects that are horizontally skinny like columns and such. If you try to put in really wide (or deep) objects like whole buildings, they look like cheesy paper cutouts.
- No good way to do walls or levels of terrain. (Though, like the red lines you see in the demo, it is possible to paint some very basic vectors onto the ground. I've also had some success putting in a whole line of objects to create "walls" of trees and barrels and stuff. That works okay. The collision mask of an object is a 3D bounding box, so objects can have depth and height from a physics perspective.)
- Though you can change the color of the ground, grid, sky, fog, etc., performance becomes an issue if you try to apply textures to the entire world. (Well, with the exception of the sky, since that doesn't have to scale or skew... so you can put image backgrounds back there.)
- Fog is 1-dimensional... After a certain threshold, objects fade, but only in the Z direction.
- When you get more than a couple hundred objects into a space, performance gets crappy, so each world needs to be fairly concise. You can load new worlds at any time.
-Objects can move themselves at run time, be driven by AI, etc., so you can create enemies and such.
I've played around with 3rd person RPGs, several flight sims, and a multiplayer shoot-em-up. But like I say, nothing's ever been finished. I'd love to hear any good ideas... especially if they're light on content development.
-Scott