₦airaland Forum

Lonely thread,  Well, 

MODELING:
I've decided to model assets some assets and environments for the time being but I'm really disappointed with my current character animation. Still can't get the walk cycle right. I'll try working on the protagonist's model later. I'll have to try using a modular structure for the buildings and related stuffs,  In case any one is also working, I noticed a problem with normals in unity and blender so it's difficult to do certain things with planes because of this. I use cubes and cylinders instead and always turn off double sided in blender so I can quickly flip normals when they appear.

PROGRAMMING:
I tested some scripts from the example projects on unity's website but it's going to take some digging and experimentation not to mention time, to understand the parts since there's no tutorials accompanying them. I'll stick to the main tutorials for now and try modifying the parts. I succeeded in scripting additive animation for my test model so he can walk, walk + armed and walk + shoot at the same time. I'll try out the camera system later to see what I can get. I'm currently using the wow cam I found in the forum.


Modeling and animation seems the major problem now and all the artists are no where to be found! Anyways,  I found some free bvh files but I don't know how I'm supposed to add other actions after implementing the bvh using my own bone rather than the bvh's armature.

wow!!! You can actually upload 3d games made with unity 3d on facebook! Check this out :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMaTG1gg0VQ

You guys still on? check out unity3d, For now, we really, really need an artist. My walk cycle turned out funny. Did not check the waist while I was animating! It swings like a girl's! oh the horror!!!

I'll cut off his head later  It just increases the poly count and I still missed the details. On to rigging.

@ d4nyeka: welcome to the team. What areas are you good at?

My modeling still sucks,

I'd say c++ is an all purpose language but it's strength is usually exhibited in the areas you mentioned. As I said before, Microsoft's ninjas may be the right way to go since a lot of research and billions have surely been used to develop them and c# as an option may be the right choice but learning c++ gives him more options because it encompasses all operating systems I know of.

If you're thinking of going into that field, I'd suggest you look into c++ and specific Microsoft programming languages and suites as a starting point because that is what most of your potential clients may be used to. I'm saying this because your job will require rapid yet stable development and Microsoft has developed a lot of libraries and tools to make things easier. Java is also an option here. The best advice I can give now is that you find someone in the specific development field and make inquiries regarding what clients demand and what tools are accepted. Some clients will want you to develop applications with a specific language or library just because it is popular so you're faced with not only the languages themselves. Also note that you may not end up developing a new application with your preferred language. You job may be to maintain and enhance existing ones and I think these are likely to be in c++, java or the Microsoft ninjas(lol, ). C++ is a good starting point in my opinion. Other languages and libraries can be learned faster after mastering it.

Maybe you should change the topic title to something that will draw professionals in the field as they'll have more experience.

It depends on what you intend to do and not necessarily the language. I started with java but despite all the hype, it still can't handle large programs like games which led me to c/c++. C/C++ happens to be the standard(to me) cuz it's widely used and very powerful. Almost everything can be done with it. Most of the best games and large scale software have something to do with it. Even java was developed from it. You should envision what you want to be developing in future to get an idea of what language would be suitable for it.

Hi A-ZeD, welcome to the team. Feel free to contribute.

Still experimenting,  I rushed up the textures for a small neighborhood environment I made which turned out badly  The main problem on the project has now become that of models and textures!!!! @ world best, hope you're checking out the engine.

@ world best: It's a cool engine. I'm currently trying to get my scales and measurements correctly in blender cuz I'm having to resize a lot in unity. I'm also trying to make some cartoonish models for the multiplayer game but still don't know how I'll get the effects correctly in unity.

@ maximip: Good idea. I think a schedule will be helpful for this project. We should set milestones like finishing characters, starting level creation, etc.

@ worldbest: I'm wondering if we should still continue using ogre for this project. It has high requirements on the part of the user and we've all been having problems with it especially since it's a new version. It seems like ogre requires much time, dedication and experimentation before one can beginto manipulate it easily. Our numbers grown and shrunk since the thread was opened but not much has been done. I think we should rethink the project tools and I'm thinking a game engine like unity 3d should be considered as it removes some of the complications that are present. It also makes development easier and faster. The programming is also easy to learn.

Thanks a million, voldemort.

Hi guys, Does anyone know how to judge object scale from photographs or drawings in blender or 3ds max? If there's no reference, how do you also determine your scale?

@ world best: I'm using blender for models and gimp for textures.

Hi worldbest, You're right about ogre's learning curve and it's even worse that there's only one published book on it which turns out to be for pros. I'll continue to practice it anyways cuz it's a good engine. That said, we could still make simple games with ready made engines that only require programming only stuff we really need. Unity 3d and shiva are good choices but I haven't tried shiva out myself. I'm currently making a multiplayer shooter with unity but I've been delayed much by my modeling and animation(My walkcycle is too funny, people will be laughing instead of shooting, lol) as well as some networking troubles. I'll post updates on it though. Regarding the flash games, those are cool too. I'll look uo some tutorials on flash and actionscript later. Regarding the original project, I think we should still do whatever part we're able to do and bring everything together later. Wishing you well on your web project, what is it about? Do you have any knowledge of the ZEND framework? Is it advisable to use MVCs instead of plain PHP and header includes but I'm guessing it depends on the size of the task at hand.

That's a good idea but we're actually aiming for 3d games here. Although some 3d games can be embedded into web pages via plugins and web players like those of unity 3d, I don't think facebook supports that right now but if anyone wants to do a flash game, I'd be willing to help although I have no experience with flash or actionscript in terms of programming.

@ Bigstar: whats up? Ogre has been taking me for a ride also. It's mainly due to the fact that we're using a new version and the documentations have not yet been updated. I also take short breaks from it when it gets too frustrating and switch to unity or UDK. You should check them out. I even forgot to download download CEGUI which I've done now.

What are the errors you're getting? I think I manually added it to my environment variables on windows before it worked. You could register on their forum and ask for help if you get the chance. You should also consider the version of visual studio you're using amongst other things. One more thing to note is that problems may arise because of your antivirus! Try switching the antivirus off. I only had the antivirus problem while running on release mode in visual studio but who knows?

Hi guys. Finally added a walk cycle to my crappy model but I'm having trouble exporting to Ogre. I'll check the wiki later. I tested it on unity, it has some problems but is still good enough for cheap prototyping.

Hi Jerry, welcome to the team! feel free to contribute anytime.

Hi don, welcome to the team. Feel free to contribute in any aspect of the project. If you'd like to participate in the programming, you should download ogre 3d and start with the basic tuts. You may also contribute artworks or other things to the project. welcome.

This thread has been quiet for some time, Not nice, Conditions ain't helping either. How far have you guys gone? I don't know about you guys but this is starting to scare me! I think we should discuss time constraints and finalize areas like the game plot.

@ World best: about making a game level editor, how are we going about it? I've only got user-knowledge of the field. My skills are not yet enough to circumvent the requirements. I'm hoping you've got some info or experience in programming it already. How far have you gone on the ogre tutorials?

Thanks! It worked!

@ world best: Thanks for the post. I'll try it soon. I had already gotten frustrated with the stuff since I could not run the program but I'm hoping this will work. I decided to take some time away from it and I've been trying to learn some more on 3d modeling and game design. I've also been playing with the unity 3d game engine, cool stuff.

@ world best: I still can't run the code. How did you do yours?

I think 1 and 2 are meant to showcase some of the properties associated with the engine especially the scene manager and nodes. The objects you define and give certain properties are connected with the scene manager and are usually displayed on the screen through attachment to nodes. The examples give different methods of calling certain objects some of which are may be defined by the engine by default unless you choose to define and customize them in which case you have to create functions for them ike in the second one where we had to create view port and camera functions

I haven't done it. I'll revise the 1 - 4 tomorrow then skip to the 6th one on Wednesday if there's still no solution. The sixth one is on starting up the engine so it doesn't require the files from the 5th one.

@ Big star: I don't know the cause of some of the errors but compare your directory layout with what the app wizard specified in the includes. Eg: Sometimes, in mine, it's set as "Ogre/OgreCamera.h" I just remove the ogre so it's OgreCamera.h or the other way round depending on directory structure and what is already specified in the includes.

@ Everyone: I decided to divert my attention a little from the codes to the design and level layout. I'm not very good at art and since I don't have a scanner, I had to paint with my mouse. I just thought we be building things as we go so perhaps, before we finish reading on the tools we'll be using, It'll be easier to code if we know beforehand the sequence of the game amongst others. I'm hoping we'll have a way to do better character and simple level sketches as well as gameplay sketches but for now:

@ world best: okay, cool. I did not compile the samples in the sdk folder. I downloaded the pre-compiled ones and viewed them. Maybe there's a tutorial on ogre shaders somewhere.

@ big star: How come you had to download directx before you installed yours?

@ Everyone: Which shader technique do you think will suit the game. I don't know anything about programming shaders but celshading does look nice and it's included in the example amongst other cool ones.

If anyone has gone through ex. 5, please inform me on the process. Thanks.