Further Particle Refinement and New Models

Today I was able to further refine the particle animation. There are some problems in terms to determining when the particle should disappear etc for the loop animation particle currently used for jet and gun fire animation particle. It was actually a small miscalculation in the update function that either cause the last from not to show up or particle not disappearing when it should. There are further refinements still that I wanted to be done with the particle system:

• With the new trail particle class I think I might be able to do some of those explosion smoke.
• Some of the artwork such as gun fire and missile fire needs some refinement.
• Adding particle color definition in the particle XML setup file might also help quite a bit.
• Double check the particle system code, and refactor the codes if necessary.

Another thing I am doing recently is refining the weapon system. I have recently added a new backpack and submachine gun model, as can be seen in the partial screen shot. The one thing I notice is with a top down view it's hard to distinguish equipment etc, if you try to make them "realistic." (like grayish, dull color used on most of the firearms) I guess that's one of the reason why a lot of games like Starcraft 2 uses brighter and more colorful scheme for the units and weapons etc. There are also a few things I wanted to do with the weapon system, some have been thought of for quite a while but haven't been implemented. I will just list them here for a record:

• Shot Gun (spread gun)
• Missile Swarm
• Traditional ballistic bullet (currently all the bullet in game looks like plasma type of weapon)
• Laser weapon
• Charge up weapon (hold mouse button to charge)
• Grenade type (explosive fire and detonate on the location indicated by mouse cursor)

Some of this idea can be implemented fast, but some require a bit more collaboration between game engine mechanism. For example, the grenade weapon would need area damage effects.

Another interesting game mechanism I thought of is an "Special Relativity Field." It's just a fancy name of the circular field in which all enemy projectile enter would slow down. It might be an interesting thing to implement because in a lot of side scroll shooter, the enemy bullets fly slower than the player bullets, to give player the possibility to dodge bullets. I also want the player in this game to dodge bullet like the side scroll shooter, so the SR Field would give a reasonable explanation on that. The amount of slow down would depends on the player robot stats and equipments. But I have to say this idea is not new. I might have been subconsciously inspired by the Starcraft 2 Mother ship special ability seen in the trailer.

At this point I start to appreciate having a team working on a project instead of one person. Because game development has so many different component in it that requires full time attention. If someone can work on the weapon and particle system, I can focus on the level look and feel and tool kit aspect.