Week 5 Update 2

Happy thanksgiving to all! I just wanted to do another update and show more of the rendering in action. I added a ball to the mix to show the collision and I took out the long bricks for now cause I don't have a model to represent them, and you had to use your imagination with the bricks. Without further ado:

(I also put a little perspective on things)

Week 5 Update 1

This week I am working extremely hard on the graphics and rendering and I really wanted to show off what I've done. I took the data from Box2D and rendered each block. Currently we used 2 different boxes in Box2D, the square ones and the long ones, well I haven't differentiated between them yet and that's why there's the placeholder there. The boxes do their initial adjustment and then stay so once I get a scenario in which our ball knocks the blocks over we should see some real action. For now here's my achievement:

Week 4 Blog - Physics and Graphics

So this week we really focused on physics and graphics. We made some progress in that we now know how to apply forces to our projectile and we have started implementing a damage system that should be done in the next week or two. Other than that I was able to retrieve physics information in the rendering class so rendering the individual pieces shouldn't be too hard. As well, since box2d works in metric, I figured I'd also model in metric to keep everything in sync. I also found out that 39 OpenGL units = 1 meter, which will come in hand when converting from box2d's coordinates to ours.

More importantly than all I believe is that the backbone for the game has started to develop. I planned it out last week and this week started implementation, and it's been rocky with a few added problems than I expected, but if I've learned anything from software development that is to expect the unexpected. It's so hard to do something completely perfectly the first time and there most likely will be bugs and/or errors.

This upcoming week I'm definitely buckling down and turning up the heat as the graphics of this really need to be done ASAP, and it'll be good when done. I am worried about framerate though... we played a simple 3D space invaders game made with libgdx (not even incorporating box2d) on Jordan's phone and the framerate was a little low. I don't know if it's just his phone or if that's a common thing. We'll just have to see.

Week 3

It's nice seeing things come together this week. I have now a better idea on the overall backbone of the game. I took some time and I made a UML diagram of the overall game and how it would switch screens and such. As well we got box2D working in our environment and that really shows us the power of the collision engine, and once we get it working in 3D it will be absolutely amazing looking. The one thing that's in the back of my mind that I'm thinking can be a problem is scaling. Box2D uses metric, which can also be used in 3DS MAX, but how will that translate to openGL? Exactly how big is 1 meter in OpenGL units? I guess what I can do is make a meter long model in 3DS MAX and start an object at the same spot as that MAX model, then move it length wise till it's displaced 1 meter. Then we'll have a conversion from OpenGL units to metric and vise versa. I do really wish they would've done the units for Box2D in American Units but then again it wouldn't make much sense.

I also had a new thought on launching the wrecking balls... I was thinking about having 2 cranes with a band between them so that we can do a launcher more like Angry Birds. It would be much more intuitive and easier on gameplay rather that the way it was originally set up.

I'm excited about things to come, what we are lacking right now is an Artist, which would be awesome to find one.

End of Week 2 Blog

So ballistics has a concept design document and there have been some other progressions as well. We we're kind of worried about building a physics engine (albeit 2D physics rendered in 3D) as it can be pretty tricky, but we think that a physics engine that actually comes with libGDX and that is box2d. We can run a simulation with box2d then funnel the results back to the rendering engine. We'll also have to add damage as destroying things is going to be a key part of gameplay but that can be retrieved from acceleration upon collision. Anyways, I'm glad that we made this discovery before getting too far into development. As well as being a great asset to our project, this has the ability to be a game changer for future games/projects. That's about it for now, I'm looking forward to jumping into the coding. Where to start though...