...well, probably more like 1.2 or something. But 2.0 sounds all Web 2.0 coolness and makes for a better title.
So yes, I think I've finally made enough progress to warrant a new point release. For this release I've decided to leave out the Norn once again as I don't think I've made enough progress and I only want to show things that are predominantly working. That and the whole 360 degree turning of the head is kind of creepy...
In this release there is a completely new movement system (although the old one should still work).
Use the left mouse to pick up and drop objects. Also used for 'pushing' or interacting with the world.
Use the right mouse button and drag to rotate the player. I advise going into full screen mode for this as right click in normal browser mode brings up a context menu and gets really annoying.
Middle mouse for panning (apologies to anyone who doesn't have a middle mouse button. I haven't implemented an alt-click option).
Scroll with the middle mouse to zoom in and out.
You can check out the applets, although without a Norn to interact with they wont do a great deal. Same deal with the 'play' and 'norn view' buttons down the bottom.
The game should now be resolution independent, meaning everyone should be able to see the whole screen without having to scroll in the browser.
Predominantly this release is to let people try out the new movement system and find any bugs I may have missed. Let me know what you find ;)
http://www.arch-dragon.com/creatures4.html <<< Game Link
Creatures Community Chat
Friday, August 27, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
SAM 6: A fond farewell
I've been away for about a week, hence the lack of updates recently. I've only been home for a day so it'll still be a little while before I can get another update ready for 'The Island', however I thought it time I finally brought some closure to what happened with SAM 6, my Creatures 3 world.
Unfortunately I can't say the wolfing run ended on the most positive note. The Chichi tribe ended up out breeding all the others and very few of the other tribes genetics seemed to remain in the pool.
At some point I managed to breed an obsessive compulsive Norn, who spent most of her life pushing the vendor buttons in the Meso. A generation or two of Norns ended up getting a free ride in terms of food and I fear they had little ability to fend for themselves.
Once the OCD-Norn passed on the group was left rather forlorn and scattered to the far reaches of the ship. Their numbers dwindled and I ended up with too small a population in each room for the species to really thrive.
I stepped in at this point and moved all the remaining Norns to the Norn Terrarium, but unfortunately with the lack of genetic difference I had begun to lose interest. So the population is currently in cryo.
I'd considered running some different experiments; ones where I have control over the breeding population to see if I could breed some interesting traits. I doubt it will happen any time soon.
I'm currently engrossed in the world of Creatures 2. Although less experimental, I'm finding I'm having a great deal more fun with the Norns themselves. The fact they actually need you to survive is refreshing. Although their lack of eating as they get older is darn annoying.
Anyway, that is the end of SAM for a while. I shall be dedicating my time to learning from my C2 Norns and attempting to make more progress on 'The Island'. I'm currently at a stage where I need to try and make the Norns 'think' for themselves and it's getting quite hairy...
Unfortunately I can't say the wolfing run ended on the most positive note. The Chichi tribe ended up out breeding all the others and very few of the other tribes genetics seemed to remain in the pool.
At some point I managed to breed an obsessive compulsive Norn, who spent most of her life pushing the vendor buttons in the Meso. A generation or two of Norns ended up getting a free ride in terms of food and I fear they had little ability to fend for themselves.
Once the OCD-Norn passed on the group was left rather forlorn and scattered to the far reaches of the ship. Their numbers dwindled and I ended up with too small a population in each room for the species to really thrive.
I stepped in at this point and moved all the remaining Norns to the Norn Terrarium, but unfortunately with the lack of genetic difference I had begun to lose interest. So the population is currently in cryo.
I'd considered running some different experiments; ones where I have control over the breeding population to see if I could breed some interesting traits. I doubt it will happen any time soon.
I'm currently engrossed in the world of Creatures 2. Although less experimental, I'm finding I'm having a great deal more fun with the Norns themselves. The fact they actually need you to survive is refreshing. Although their lack of eating as they get older is darn annoying.
Anyway, that is the end of SAM for a while. I shall be dedicating my time to learning from my C2 Norns and attempting to make more progress on 'The Island'. I'm currently at a stage where I need to try and make the Norns 'think' for themselves and it's getting quite hairy...
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
The Island: Butterflies!
What more is there to add? Butterflies!
I know the video quality isn't the best, but hopefully you can see the little fellas fluttering about. Here's a close up just to be sure you can soak in all the details.
Currently they just fly about randomly, with collisions to make sure they don't fly away from the island.
Also did you notice? There's a new hand model. Better modelled, rigged up and ready to animate.
I know the video quality isn't the best, but hopefully you can see the little fellas fluttering about. Here's a close up just to be sure you can soak in all the details.
Currently they just fly about randomly, with collisions to make sure they don't fly away from the island.
Also did you notice? There's a new hand model. Better modelled, rigged up and ready to animate.
Friday, August 13, 2010
The Island: Blasphemy
Hmm, to blaspheme or not to blaspheme. Ah to hell with it. It's a Jesus Norn!!
Norns love cheese waaayy too much.
The Island: Welcome Tiggy
Taken me a while to work up the courage to do it, but I've finally combined the Norn file I've been working on with the world you guys have hopefully already seen.
A couple of things exploded, but all in all it was a fairly painless procedure.
I now have code working that makes the Norn walk over to anything tagged 'food' (cheese and coconuts at the moment) when its hunger reaches a certain percentage. At its basic level the code works, but at present it's still riddled with bugs. Just a couple I've come across include:
Norn will walk through solid objects to get at the food, regardless of whether the object has a collision mesh attached to it.
When objects rot the Norn will sometimes try to go after another piece of food. I think this may have something to do with a bug I've found in the coconut trees.
Norns head can do a complete 360 (Exorcist anyone?)
Only the Norns head turns to look at an object. It will walk backwards or sideways rather than turning around when moving towards objects.
On the plus side though I've converted the original health kit into a GUI (Graphical User Interface) element rather than it being a polygon object. This now means that you can turn it on and off like any other kit. The down side is it's not quite as pretty as it was before. But hey, functionality over pretty, right?
Oh, did I mention the creatures view window? :D
A couple of things exploded, but all in all it was a fairly painless procedure.
I now have code working that makes the Norn walk over to anything tagged 'food' (cheese and coconuts at the moment) when its hunger reaches a certain percentage. At its basic level the code works, but at present it's still riddled with bugs. Just a couple I've come across include:
Norn will walk through solid objects to get at the food, regardless of whether the object has a collision mesh attached to it.
When objects rot the Norn will sometimes try to go after another piece of food. I think this may have something to do with a bug I've found in the coconut trees.
Norns head can do a complete 360 (Exorcist anyone?)
Only the Norns head turns to look at an object. It will walk backwards or sideways rather than turning around when moving towards objects.
On the plus side though I've converted the original health kit into a GUI (Graphical User Interface) element rather than it being a polygon object. This now means that you can turn it on and off like any other kit. The down side is it's not quite as pretty as it was before. But hey, functionality over pretty, right?
Oh, did I mention the creatures view window? :D
Monday, August 9, 2010
The Island: Piña colada anyone?
Well it's taken a little more effort than I would have thought, but I got the coconuts working today.
Coconut trees will now produce a fresh coconut every minute or so and drop one every 2 minutes or so. Each tree can have a maximum of 3 coconuts (this may change later, depending on world size and Norn population). If there is a coconut on the tree, the player can click the tree to drop the fruit.
In addition to all this I've written a dynamic script that can be placed on any object to allow for it to rot. Currently rotten food just disappears, but I'll change that later to allow it to turn to detritus before disappearing completely. Again, for testing purposes this all happens pretty fast but it's easily customisable.
And now for the most exciting part. We're not just exploring images this week. Today, I use video!
Still working on getting the coconuts to sway with the tree when clicked. Technically they are already connected, but with the way animation works in Unity I'm not sure how or even if I can make them stick to the branches. Will need to think about this...Null objects might work...(continues to scheme)
P.S. If anyone is interested, I used 'Capture Fox' to record this video. It's a firefox addon. Not especially powerful, but seems quite efficient.
P.P.S. Mmmmwwwhaaahaha, I got the coconuts sticking to the branches!
Coconut trees will now produce a fresh coconut every minute or so and drop one every 2 minutes or so. Each tree can have a maximum of 3 coconuts (this may change later, depending on world size and Norn population). If there is a coconut on the tree, the player can click the tree to drop the fruit.
In addition to all this I've written a dynamic script that can be placed on any object to allow for it to rot. Currently rotten food just disappears, but I'll change that later to allow it to turn to detritus before disappearing completely. Again, for testing purposes this all happens pretty fast but it's easily customisable.
And now for the most exciting part. We're not just exploring images this week. Today, I use video!
Still working on getting the coconuts to sway with the tree when clicked. Technically they are already connected, but with the way animation works in Unity I'm not sure how or even if I can make them stick to the branches. Will need to think about this...Null objects might work...(continues to scheme)
P.S. If anyone is interested, I used 'Capture Fox' to record this video. It's a firefox addon. Not especially powerful, but seems quite efficient.
P.P.S. Mmmmwwwhaaahaha, I got the coconuts sticking to the branches!
Friday, August 6, 2010
The Island: A feverfew by any other name would taste just as delicious!
I'm up to a point with Tiggy now that I'm going to need to take some time to animate before I can do too much more. So instead I've decided to do a little more work on the world which will allow me to do some additional coding. I'm a sucker for punishment :D
For the next release of The Island expect to see the Feverfew plants with a full life cycle!
As with most things at the moment the life cycle is very fast, but that will be adjusted once we've got some Norns working 'properly'.
As you can see, the feverfew now start life as seeds.
After a period of time the seeds will sprout and out will pop a feverfew plant. But be warned! The seeds only have a 50/50 chance of growing at all. As you can see in this image, only 4 of the 5 seeds have grown.
When they die the plant will drop an additional two seeds, which will also have a 50/50 chance of growing. Theoretically this means that a garden left unattended should grow all by itself. In reality though, this isn't always the case, so the player will need to keep a watchful eye on their crops.
Currently I still have it set up so the player needs to water the plants to make them grow. This is mostly so I have some control over their cycles in the testing phase and this requirement will be removed later on. Instead I want to replace it with a function that allows you to water the seeds, which will then bump them up to a 75% chance to grow. This way an attended garden is more likely to succeed.
And so the player isn't left in a world without greenery, a dispenser will be added for each plant type. More on that another time.
Next job? Coconuts!
For the next release of The Island expect to see the Feverfew plants with a full life cycle!
As with most things at the moment the life cycle is very fast, but that will be adjusted once we've got some Norns working 'properly'.
As you can see, the feverfew now start life as seeds.
After a period of time the seeds will sprout and out will pop a feverfew plant. But be warned! The seeds only have a 50/50 chance of growing at all. As you can see in this image, only 4 of the 5 seeds have grown.
When they die the plant will drop an additional two seeds, which will also have a 50/50 chance of growing. Theoretically this means that a garden left unattended should grow all by itself. In reality though, this isn't always the case, so the player will need to keep a watchful eye on their crops.
Currently I still have it set up so the player needs to water the plants to make them grow. This is mostly so I have some control over their cycles in the testing phase and this requirement will be removed later on. Instead I want to replace it with a function that allows you to water the seeds, which will then bump them up to a 75% chance to grow. This way an attended garden is more likely to succeed.
And so the player isn't left in a world without greenery, a dispenser will be added for each plant type. More on that another time.
Next job? Coconuts!
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
The Island: Heath and Science kits
The last week or so of coding has really done my head in. Took me nearly a week to wrap my head around making a Norn reduce pain over time while allowing it to be injected with pain as well. Anyway I shan't bore you with all the programming details, suffice to say I've finally got it working.
Which means I've finally been able to give Tiggy some 'life'. Still incredibly primitive and in no way resembles an actual brain or any other organs, but I've got enough interactivity in the code to start working on some advanced animations.
As you can see by the image I have some rudimentary kits in place, as well as having them interact with an actual Norn. At the moment Tiggy's hunger, tired/sleepiness and boredom will increase over time. His hunger and boredom can be alleviated by feeding or playing with him (no animations yet). As well as this the science kit will allow you to inject any of the listed chemicals based on a percentage dose.
The nice thing is this has been coded in such a way that additional chemicals and organs can be added with minimal effort. The way the chemicals interact however...that'll still be pretty complicated.
As well as this I've set up a tickle and slap function. Mouse over his head or his bottom and the little angel or devil symbol will pop up. Tickling reduces pain while slapping increase it. Again, nothing in the way of animations.
I've set up some basic animations of Tiggy for testing purposes. In this image he's rubbing his tummy, indicating he's hungry. He also has an idle animation where he kind of stands there and looks around a bit, and a tired animation where he bobs his head as if he's about to fall asleep.
Finally, the organ kit. A basic version of what is found in C2, different organs will take damage when specific chemicals are too high. For example in this image Tiggy has been hungry for a little while and as a result his intestine and body in general have taken a small amount of damage. Currently the damage organs take is set quite high for testing, but that'll be reduce later so Norns don't die in several minutes from basic needs.
Speaking of dying, when an organ reaches zero a message is displayed telling the user the Norn has died.
So what's next?
The next major chunk of work is going to be animating. I want to make it so he will play with a toy when you click the play button at the bottom of the screen. I also want the 'food' button to drop a piece of cheese to the side and have code that will make him walk up and eat it if his hunger level is high enough and the food is close enough. He will already reject feeding if his hunger is low.
I want him to fall asleep if his tiredness and sleepiness is too high.
Tickling and slap animations for the Hand.
A death animation.
Behind the scenes this will mean a more complex rig, specifically more advanced facial expressions.
Pretty up the kits so they don't look so much like prototypes.
The ability to select at least two Norns. This will allow the use of an owners kit where the player can name the Norn.
And a whole heap of other stuff I haven't even thought of. Any suggestions for what people would like to see implemented next?
Which means I've finally been able to give Tiggy some 'life'. Still incredibly primitive and in no way resembles an actual brain or any other organs, but I've got enough interactivity in the code to start working on some advanced animations.
As you can see by the image I have some rudimentary kits in place, as well as having them interact with an actual Norn. At the moment Tiggy's hunger, tired/sleepiness and boredom will increase over time. His hunger and boredom can be alleviated by feeding or playing with him (no animations yet). As well as this the science kit will allow you to inject any of the listed chemicals based on a percentage dose.
The nice thing is this has been coded in such a way that additional chemicals and organs can be added with minimal effort. The way the chemicals interact however...that'll still be pretty complicated.
As well as this I've set up a tickle and slap function. Mouse over his head or his bottom and the little angel or devil symbol will pop up. Tickling reduces pain while slapping increase it. Again, nothing in the way of animations.
I've set up some basic animations of Tiggy for testing purposes. In this image he's rubbing his tummy, indicating he's hungry. He also has an idle animation where he kind of stands there and looks around a bit, and a tired animation where he bobs his head as if he's about to fall asleep.
Finally, the organ kit. A basic version of what is found in C2, different organs will take damage when specific chemicals are too high. For example in this image Tiggy has been hungry for a little while and as a result his intestine and body in general have taken a small amount of damage. Currently the damage organs take is set quite high for testing, but that'll be reduce later so Norns don't die in several minutes from basic needs.
Speaking of dying, when an organ reaches zero a message is displayed telling the user the Norn has died.
So what's next?
The next major chunk of work is going to be animating. I want to make it so he will play with a toy when you click the play button at the bottom of the screen. I also want the 'food' button to drop a piece of cheese to the side and have code that will make him walk up and eat it if his hunger level is high enough and the food is close enough. He will already reject feeding if his hunger is low.
I want him to fall asleep if his tiredness and sleepiness is too high.
Tickling and slap animations for the Hand.
A death animation.
Behind the scenes this will mean a more complex rig, specifically more advanced facial expressions.
Pretty up the kits so they don't look so much like prototypes.
The ability to select at least two Norns. This will allow the use of an owners kit where the player can name the Norn.
And a whole heap of other stuff I haven't even thought of. Any suggestions for what people would like to see implemented next?
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