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G.A.C.K. (gaming app construction kit) => Show Off => Topic started by: gernot66 on 2011-Jun-28

Title: my first seuck game
Post by: gernot66 on 2011-Jun-28
since no one else posts here, i have a lot of space to fill...  8)



ok, only 50secs and the level is already finished (and i'm finished to)... horrible.

most of the sprites are based on screenshots of some models i made for pioneer space sim (http://pioneerspacesim.net)
quite a different thing compared to a shoot 'em up.

but, yeah i like the GACK

took me a while to get comfortable with it, i missed some proper descriptions for certain things if you're a noobe on it.

like someone should have told me that the top background layer will be filled by default with the same tiles as the background...
i was wondering for quite a while why my ship allways explodes when entering the game. now i know there are some "traps" build in.
also bullets never left the ship until... i forgot exactly how i managed it, i guess animation speed, but i'm not sure.
anyway now i have a good reference project i can use.

if you really like to involve children  :) you need a very good explained help. every step should be described exactly so you won't miss anything and don't run always into deadends.

the very first games construction kit was made for kids, i guess it was never published here in europe.
it was GAME FACTORY for the enhanced (additional keyboard and tape storage) Intellivision console,
something i could have only dreamed of then.
of course game factory was very limited and you couldn't made actually real games, only hop around with some characters in a still screen.
but the system is the same, make tiles for the background and add some animated sprites.
Title: Re: my first seuck game
Post by: Kitty Hello on 2011-Jun-28
Very nice game. Thanks for posting here. If you have any advice how to make GACK better, post some details, please.
Title: Re: my first seuck game
Post by: Ian Price on 2011-Jun-28
Quote from: Kitty Hello on 2011-Jun-28
Very nice game. Thanks for posting here. If you have any advice how to make GACK better, post some details, please.

GACK? Do you mean SEUCK?

GAC was the GRAPHIC ADVENTURE CREATOR - have you any plans to create the GRAPHIC ADVENTURE CONSTRUCTION KIT? ;)
Title: Re: my first seuck game
Post by: Kitty Hello on 2011-Jun-28
I changed the name, because SEUCK might have been copyrighted or whatnot. GACK means "Game App CK". I plan to make a "player" app available on many platforms (including an online store) and an iPad version to create games. Would be cool to have something like: buy a game for $1 and it goes directly into the pocket of the creator of the game. I fear Apple does not allow Paypal, though :/
Title: Re: my first seuck game
Post by: gernot66 on 2011-Jun-28
something i guess that helps much, tooltips on all function buttons, if you can disable them later they won't hurt.
i guess the few ones that are already present helped me much.

the filelist (e.g. the one for the background tiles) should be sizeable and keep the chosen size. very uncommon but perhaps some idiot like me likes to make a background from a picture and nine in a row are uncomfortable with a screen width of 640 when each tile is 64 (or 32).
i know usually it's not meant to use it this way, but i guess nowadays we don't have to fear for memory use or filesize to much.

palettes should be saveable and perhaps loadable from a .bmp, it would make it easier to create a special palette for a game.
"nostalgia" used a simple bitmap to load and save palettes, you could change it then in a paint program which has all the palette tools you need.

yes, if it's not copyrighted use "seuck", people will remember it by this name.
Title: Re: my first seuck game
Post by: gernot66 on 2011-Jun-30
shortly after i posted it i realized why it's this way (spawn enemy)  ;)

here's another wip i started, more fascinating then a space shooter, imo
(http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/potsmoke66/sshots/th_2011-06-30_222628.jpg) (http://s790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/potsmoke66/sshots/2011-06-30_222628.jpg)

i guess i have to size the screen a bit up, you can't see no points.

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Title: Re: my first seuck game
Post by: gernot66 on 2011-Jul-01
slight update





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Title: Re: my first seuck game
Post by: Kitty Hello on 2011-Jul-01
Very nice!!
I uploaded an update that has a set of new features. Please get it and see if you like them and if all works out.

It's a Windows build, only - are you on a Mac?
Title: Re: my first seuck game
Post by: Schranz0r on 2011-Jul-03
HAHA, cool game!
Title: Re: my first seuck game
Post by: gernot66 on 2011-Oct-18
ok, long time no see, hm?

i lost accsess to web that's all, actually i still have no, but my mothers got a lap-top now (macbook)

no, i use a rotten PC with a broken down gfx card (new now).

but i was quite creative since that so i will put the actual wip's here for you to check them out.
except for the "Eagle" space shooter are all projects really unfinished.

"Eagle" has 4 levels and ends after that with a congratulation to the pilot.

"Demon" is in very early stage, lot of tweaking must be done, it's hard to make a static shoot 'em up.

"Adventure" has 4 levels now, while the 4th is unfinished, before i continue with it at all, i feel level 3 and 4! are to hard, what do you think?
i can't manage to get through 4 myself...


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Title: Re: my first seuck game
Post by: gernot66 on 2011-Oct-18
"Frog"
was born on the idea to make a game suitable for children, but has become somewhat hard. basically i wanted to copy "frog bog" from intellivision, only catch some insects for points, but see yourself what it became.

"Copter"
another funny idea a "shoot YOU up" game...

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Title: Re: my first seuck game
Post by: Kitty Hello on 2011-Oct-18
You're pretty awesome with what you did.
The new version will have a _lot_ of interesting features, like "4 elements" for shots and players, power-ups and more.

I'm planning to bring the editor to the touchpad devices. Do you coincidetally have an iPad/HP touchpad or an android pad?
Title: Re: my first seuck game
Post by: gernot66 on 2011-Oct-18
as a "poor starving artist", i'm happy i have a pc running at home  ;/
Title: Re: my first seuck game
Post by: Kitty Hello on 2011-Oct-18
ok, no big deal. We'll find a solution for that.
Title: Re: my first seuck game
Post by: mentalthink on 2012-Jan-16
Jeehaa!!!, it´s very nice game... like C64... ohhh those times  :'( :'( :'(

The sounds are amazing, it´s abosulety brutal the "woowou"...

Good Job!!!  :booze: :booze:
Title: Re: my first seuck game
Post by: gernot66 on 2012-Jun-26
nonetheless (last post >120 days)

thanks,
argh, i had to stop,
can't run S.E.U.C.K on a mac?

(actually i run it halfaways with wine, but i have no sound and the joystick won't work proper)

besides i'm often very busy with my models for "pioneer space sim".
and changes had come, i use a macbook now, while my rotten PC is broken.
gives me problems enough, not that the mac is a bad machine, but it's hard to find useful software for certain tasks sometimes.

in eigener sache:

(http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/potsmoke66/sshots/PIONEER/th_Bildschirmfoto2012-04-25um1607.jpg) (http://s790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/potsmoke66/sshots/PIONEER/Bildschirmfoto2012-04-25um1607.jpg)
besides this is one of the rare LUA scripted models.

Title: Re: my first seuck game
Post by: erico on 2012-Jun-26
Really nice.

Do you work with the pioneer team?
That is a good looking frontier. Their terrain stuff is awesome.
Title: Re: my first seuck game
Post by: gernot66 on 2012-Jun-26
unfortunately, yes   ;)

some even assumed i developed it  :D

but i only made a lot of models and was advertising it in various forums.

terrain yes, truely it's awesome and has getting far better thanks to "s2odan's" effort in it.

while th co-op doesn't works as good now, many new devs have arrived since last 2011 and participating via github is a mess imo.
nah, it's good but i'm a idiot,
or i simply have problems with my macbook, i miss some parts of the OS (X11 to be precisely) we baught it second hand and the one who sold it hasn't installed X11 with the setup of OSX, neither we have the original softs and Xquartz is no full replacement.
so the software which supports git won't run, neither that i can install the needed libs to do so, because even they refuse because of a missing X11.

to keep it short, i have to use the terminal, snapshot and submit new files by it is a treat, imo.

other things going on with the "young folks", they like to remove the Lua modeling resource and replace it with something more "state of the art" like DirectX meshes (argh, i wouldn't say i hate, but hmm, imo it doesn't fits to pioneer and it's no "new" way to go. yes making scripted models IS tedious and it IS oldfashioned, but i think if you like to find something new you can't build on others work).
i don't think that we gain one FPS with any other system so i see no reason for it, but i'm just the (one) modeler.
i know tom morton (http://tom.noflag.org.uk/index.html) the project starter loves it, else he wouldn't used it.
and was more then happy to find one who had the will to bite himself through this piece of turd.

but perhaps they don't get far with their longings, i hope the last word is left to Tom and J.Jordan.
besides if i remember right he refused to use any other then a wavefront support, because of 100% GNU compliance.
so you can make models with any CAD and export them to .obj, but all the rest must be done scripted.
and animating the stuff seems to be the crux, yeah boys make yourself wise.  :D
it isn't that hard and imho if one is for real interested in 3d models, well he should try.
if it's good for nothing else, but it's good to teach you making better animations even with MAX or whatever you use.
i know this because i have seen many mistakes made in other opensourced games models animations, just because they miss the basics.
likewise you have to learn in school 1x1, there is a 1x1 for modelers. if you know that shit you won't make mistakes like wrong rotating parts, flickering positions and such. it's imo all because they depend on that the software solves all.
but MAX and even Blender are made to render models, so they use a lot of correctional data to make it easy for you.
but when you export the mesh to i.e. XNA, you wonder why it didn't works like expected, because their is no correctional data stored.
(most seen mistake, add i.e a landing gear to the right side, now go and mirror it, max can handle it you can animate the mirrored part like the original one, but in fact the axes are mirrored, so when you export it now the movement is mirrored (matrix shit).
one who knows this fact knows that he has to find a way to have the parts axes aligned to "world" before you export the model.
else all comes "upside down". what is tickling, yes tickling me, i had to laugh, seeing them correcting this behave with a framerate of 30'000 i.e. it's very fast then but the problem still persists, the matrix of the animation don't reflects the matrix of the model.
well "idiots" like me can hack it, but...

yeah, learn the basics...

besides a problem you don't have with a script and wavefront objects, i can declare the axes in the script and anyways they are loaded all aligned to world.

and tom is a mathematician, he just loves this stuff of making models with expressions. which completely overwhelms me when i see how a bezier can be precalculated i.e. this is out of my reach.
Title: Re: my first seuck game
Post by: erico on 2012-Jun-26
I understand what you mean.

I did ´code´ objects but it was a long time ago, on a 3d program on the amiga called something like vectorscape (aegis)  :o

I have been using lightwave ever since, I tried and worked with other packages too, but speedwise, I dropped them all.
I do keep Blender around couse of its vanguard in scripts and fluid calculations.

For sure exporting OBJ from full packages is a huge sucking activity, other them pivot and flipped stuff, you get wrong sizes, gargabe points and surfaces, some of them comes flipped. UV map screwed and many more trouble. It is really tough to build up a working pipeline without having to go deeper.

Sometimes, inside a 3d package, it is faster to redo the model then to fix it.

As for the new generation wanting newer things, I would not know, there is good and bad I guess.
The good is it may be accessible to more people, but still, even using a 3d package, it requires more then common knowledge and you don´t just find 3d people around easily. As for bad, it is going to be a lot of work for something that won´t show on the final product and it feels like this work should be directed to a more productive side of things...that, if I understood what you meant. :good:


edit: Talking about old school, I´d wish they kept the looks similar to what frontier does. I would actually reuse the same cockpit style, I kind of don´t like the newer look (frontier II) neither much of the textures. I prefer old school polygons flying around :)
Title: Re: my first seuck game
Post by: gernot66 on 2012-Jun-27
really, old school polygons?

then you might like this,
my first transcription, yes a true transcription of FE2 geometry (thanks to theunis de jong, jongware)
(http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/potsmoke66/sshots/PIONEER/ScreenShot00012.jpg)

and of course the classic eagle followed
(http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy187/potsmoke66/Bildschirmfoto2012-06-27um091046.png)
it's from a "downgraded" pioneer without textures
the ships of course have slight additions, like "modern" radar dishes or the nazelles needed to properly reflect all thruster directions.
but i know, for today you need some textures, you won't attract many without them.

like tomm, i love i.e. the "xref_flat(6*lod, v(0,1,0), {v2}, {v14}, {v6}, {v8, v10, v0})" (vectors are defined on top of the script)
this builds the top of the eagle, single vectors are straight lines, the coupled are a cubic bezier quad.
there is only one difference between that and what is in FE2, FE2 is lefthanded pioneer is righthanded, so i had to inverse the shit.
and that the left side is not done with a mirroring of the final geometry (xref), in FE2 the vectors get mirrored by default.
phew, building the left side (instead to mirror it) has gave me a lot of problems, i would have liked because of texturing.
but because of winding order it's not possible to do in the same way and the shape becomes different.
later tomm added a "insideout(boolean)" to counter such.
remarkable is that there are not many, even devs, who understand it (or stated, are you really willing to do this?)
i mean i was asking once on gamedev.net what i have to do if a geometry is smaller then 1 and how i can calculate the proper texture projection for it, i'm still waiting for a answer you can say (i would say now, draw the geometry bigger texture it and size it down later).

i have one follower from the states, who stated once: "great i enter a few lines of text (code) and get a model afterwards".
and again "merci ms. descartez"


but now i guess i have to stop, or else i might get banned for trolling  :D
Title: Re: my first seuck game
Post by: erico on 2012-Jun-27
By no means, but we definently should discuss the pioneer/code modeling subject on a proper off-topic subject, fell free to create :good:
Lots of GLB users create their models by code, it is sure to be an interesting discussion.

I love the no-texture eagle, in my humble opinion, should I be leading such project, I would keep all polygons untextured and probably concentrate on some occlusion shaders and more polygons to add details, specially on the sharp corners. But that is just me :booze:

Congrats for the GACK games done so far, I haven´t tried them as of yet, but an achievement is always an important feat to start with :good:
Title: Re: my first seuck game
Post by: gernot66 on 2012-Jul-20
to sad i have only access to a macbook by now, my pc is broken into pieces  :o and i can't work on the g.a.c.k projects anymore (or won't, it runs under wine, but i have no proper joystick support, means one direction isn't recognized by the game then, even the keys i have to remap because i have no "right CTRL" key on the macbook.

so all is delayed now, but i really would like to finish them, even if it's only for my own pleasure.
my personal favorite is "Froggy", did i said already that it was planned as a "childfriendly" game?
it turned out to be much harder as i expected it, catching insects with a tongue is anything else then easy, especially when they can fight back.
i planned the ants in the game as "easy" (jump on them), but they make you a hard life in the game.
i know i overused the capabilities of the g.a.c.k a bit with the photographic backgrounds.
a reason why i started to create repetively to use painted ones for the following "Copter" (radar's nightmare :)), where i would like to have something else as only a extra life for hitting a "powerup", in this case saving a injured soldier.
it would be very difficult then... they shoot and you can't fire back, get life(s) only when reaching the end (the tent).
actually it's a "walk through" because you get rewarded with to many lifes.
further for such games it could be interesting to shoot enemies with enemy fire, leading them to the "wrong" target (e.g. in old "Fantasy" jump 'n' run, where you "control" in one level a gun (pointing at you) with your ballon, to shoot at the enemy helicopters).
b.t.w, "Fantasy" was the first coinop i remember where you could insert additional credits to go on. it drained your wallet  :D (one of the hardest to get rom images for mame or mess)

---

oh yes, a experience with the G.A.C.K, the pixel exact collision checking can be a real handicap in jump 'n' run games like "Adventure" or "Froggy".
in "Froggy" it's possible you get clamped by the foreground (i really did my best to avoid it, it happens foremost if you slip or jump under a shape which hasn't straight boundaries) and in both it's possible to move the "dead" player in similar situations and you can't escape except to restart the game (while in "froggy" you can wait for a shooting bee or ant to "free" you, if some are left of them), i could fix this with a different animation, but i would prefere something else (not moveable when dead? same collision boundaries as the "alive" player?).
Title: my first seuck game
Post by: Kitty Hello on 2012-Jul-21
I think I use the first non-move animation for the jump collision. Try not to have concave shapes. Maybe add a line of shadow at the bottom.