The uphill physics push

I've been working on (and sometimes avoiding) physics improvements in AoG. I wanted to start turning on physics for more entities. I've had physics implemented for material blocks and the terrain for a while using the Bullet Physics library. Turning on physics for other entities showed me more issues with my physics that needed fixing and so the list of things to do grew.

What's the gameplay like?

The back story of the game is described in a previous post, The Discovery. Essentially, you're in charge of saving the goblin race (no pressure).

Your goal is to settle a new colony on a strange and hostile land. Most of your resources and technology were lost in transit, so you're starting from almost nothing. You need to build a home for your goblins, defend it from the hostile creatures that inhabit this new land and create the infrastructure to produce the technology needed to return to space.

Fight or flight? Threat analysis

A still very much in development system in AoG is the threat system. This system is primarily used in combat. It helps entities with their fight or flight decisions.

Basically, the system takes two entities as inputs. The subject and the potential threat. The entities have some facts about them compared and a value is output determining the threat that the potential threat poses to the subject. The facts compared depend on the entities, but some common ones are:

From data files to entities

Data files are just the start for creating entities in Age of Goblins. Once the definitions are read into AoG, they're stored in a catalog of "blue prints" for generating entities and materials. Each blueprint holds information for each component that will be added to the entity.

When the game requests that an instance of entity X be added to the game world, it refers to the blueprint stored for that entity. As an example, lets look at some parts of the goblin data file. The following will describe some attributes that each goblin entity will be generated with when it's added to the game world.

[Model]{
meshname="Goblin"
texturename="GoblinTextures.png"
distantdrawtype="norender"
selectionType="DynamicBone"
}
[Motion]{
maxvelocity=1.5:1.9
locomotion=Walk,Swim
}
[Skills]{
ALL=0.01:0.05,Mine=8.3:8.8,Construction=8.3:8.8
}

Data Files: Entities

Following up on my last post about the data files used for materials. This post will tell you a bit about using data files for defining entities.

First off, it's important to know that Age of Goblins uses and entity/component framework for all the entities in game, similar to the one described here. The data files take advantage of that when defining entities. Basically, the data files for entities tells the entity component system which components to add and what values to give them.

Data files: Materials

Age of Goblins stores a good deal of its data in script files. These files store everything from the blueprints for a goblin to the definitions for materials in the ground.

For all the materials in game, be it a cube making up the terrain:

Or the material it leaves behind when it's mined:

The Discovery

Presenting the first draft of the Age of Goblins back story, names and details may change. Enjoy, let me know what you think.


The Discovery was easily considered the most important discovery in goblin history. Not only did it unify all of goblinkind with a single purpose, it pushed the bounds of known science to previously unfathomable extents. The goblins were simply born too late into Eilliam, the world they called home. The binary stars that gave them life, Qurat and Korbly were building a bomb that would outshine the galaxy. In just a few generations, Korbly would supernova; the goblins had to find a new home.

Pre-Alpha demo 6: Age of Goblins - World Generation and Animation

A new video!

The GUI used in the video is ByteGUI. I'll be releasing it as a stand alone library for other developers. It uses Slick2D and is written in Java. I'm sure it'll be prettier in the hands of someone more artistic. It has various effects, some of which are shown in the video with panels sliding in and out. More details on that when it's closer to release. Thanks for your interest!

The Blender connection (part 2)

I previously introduced loading models and rendering them in-game. Now I'll go over implementing animation for Blender models.

First we have to add bones to the model. If you know pretty much anything about skeletons, this is fairly simple. Your mesh is the flesh. You want to add bones in places where you want the flesh to move. If you want this bit of the flesh to be able to move independently of that bit of flesh, you need to add multiple bones. Take, for example, the simple AutoCannon T230:

The Blender connection (part 1)

I use Blender for all my modeling and animations. I chose it because it was free, ubiquitous and appeared to produce good results. This post will describe exporting that information from Blender and importing it into AoG. This information will not only help those wishing to duplicate this in their own games, but also help future modders of AoG make their own models.

I'll start with the most basic application, a static mesh.

Step one: Make a model! I won't go into the details of making models here, as that's a process I haven't even mastered myself. We'll use a tree:

 

Clear proof I have not mastered model creation.