Reality Factory

Tutorial? It's a .tga texture with transparency slapped on to a brush flagged "window".

To describe the gameplay I would call it more survival. Not a lot of cover seeking as most of the enemies will use only primitive weapons. Yet ammo shortage will force the player to think on the move under pressure. Since to put it simply to stand in fight will just result in running out of ammo and getting overwhelmed.

Although there will be times when the player has to shoot his way through one way or another. But basically expect to be chased almost constantly. The enemies will break down doors in order to get to the player. Also I'm wanting to be able to move objects so the player can barricade doors, etc.

I've experimented with being able to move stuff around already. Just have to figure out how to make boxes pushed up to a door make it harder to break down. Was thinking of perhaps having doors as pawns as well as boxes, etc. Then when touching each other they would act as one entity transferring damage equally amongst them. So if a door say has 500 life and a box has 20 life and you push 2 boxes up to a door. Then when they take 540 damage the boxes would be destroyed as well as the door.

Thats just an example I haven't figured up any exact numbers yet. Will be some times when you do get to stand and fight for your life since I don't want the player to get tired of being chased.

But I guess run and gun is the word for it. Just with a lot of thinking involved, and luck.

Fresh screenshot hot off the press...



I hate to seem to keep posting the same screenshot however I've been doing some texture and lighting changes. Although they may seem somewhat subtle I find each new pass greatly increases the overall appearance and immersion into the scene.

Also as a learning experience I have been playing Half-Life which I recently purchased since I never played it before except on a friends machine only for a short time.

One big thing I notice is lots of jumping puzzles. Which I don't plan to have any if many in my game. Do people actually enjoy these things? I find the puzzle aspect intriguing. However I think it's just overdone.

Some things that really shocked me and gave me ideas though, and I can see why back in the day and even today really Half-Life was such a hit.

One big thing is how the levels are really broken down into very small blocks. With short load times in between it really keeps the game very fluid. Versus the typical finish the level and wait a minute for the next level to load.

Also after having played Half-Life I feel my level graphically looks 100% better. lol.

I'm starting now to replace things I used base geometry for with static meshe. The reason for this is it's more efficient for complex objects, and allows for better use of textures and texturing.

Some things you may notice in the new screenshot is... the doors are open. Yes there is an interior in there to a degree however nothing I want to show just yet.
Also the lighting has changed and is not as yellow as before. I removed the lights and added a sunlight entity with some low default lighting.

Also I changed the reflect amount to 0.00 and the number of bounces to 0. Although I am kind of wishy washy at the moment on if I like that setting better.

Also I scaled down the chainlink fence texture more as it was too big. Basically a lot of little tweaks. This will be really the first part of the first level the player see's and I want it to glisten if you know what I mean.

On other things I've been concepting the badies I have some prototypes but nothing worth showing. Mainly just playing with textures and Virgil to try out different things.

Also I have creepy camera's in the level now that automatically track the player. I just thought it would be weird to be walking along and realise the camera is watching you. Kinda gives the sense perhaps someone really IS watching you.

Anyway enough for now I'm sleepy as all get out as I pulled a very long shift today at the resturant. It was football game day in a college town so you can imagine the chaos.

Edit: Also in case anyone notices what do you think of my red dot crosshair? I've been pondering ways to get a real laser sight effect but for now I like the dot much better than typical crosshairs.

I think it looks pretty darn sweet. I do have a couple of comments which you can take with a grain of salt.

In the top left is that pillar thingy supposed to have the ladder texture on it? Or is it a temp texture that will be replaced out?

Also, what if right along under the chain linked fence you put some lighting enclosures, you know, so to give a sense that this place could be used at night. It might add a little decoration to the brown look of the textures.

Good luck on this, it's coming together nicely!

The pillar and the texture are both temporary. It's getting replaced by a staticmesh modelling in 3DS Max. It's just the most efficient way to get the details into it.

As far as the lights idea thats on my to do list. I just haven't come up with a look I like for them yet.

Also I'm thinking of enlarging the landing pad a bit as well. I'm think it's a little small. Not much bigger but fairly larger.

Not sure if I should just texture in some lights, or actually model them.

Also I considered putting spotlights on top of the bridge structure instead of around the landing pad.

This is really looking awesome!

If you dont mind a few suggestions, this is what i would do:

The lights on the bridge should be on the sides (not the top bracing) near the floor, actually almost on the floor, but still on the wall of the bridge.

I would put two spotlights in, one on each of the static mesh towers, or somewhere near the top of the building. and i have a good reason for that. the spotlights would be rotational and used for tracking incoming objects/ships, which really wouldn't be practical from the vantage point of the landing pad.

Then, i would put either one or two sets of spotlight batteries. Like the huge towering collections of spotlights you see at a football arena or basketball court. With two rows of spotlights aiming in different directions. Id put these on the far corners of the landing pad, opposite the building.

just as a matter of personal preference i would make the level night-time.

and one last thing, i would try to split up the geometry on top of the building so it doesn't look so flat. Maybe add a ledge.

that's just my suggestions though, i think this level is progressing perfectly the way your doing it, i just wanted to give you my creative input.

It's looking great to me - and survival is one of my favorite genres (with
the Silent Hill series being at the top).

Some random replies to things I saw while reading:

I think there used to be a script that could change the damage-ability
of a door when a block was placed in front of it. I can't remember
where I read it. Maybe in Pickles' "3D Gaming with RF" book...

Re: robots with scrap metal and body parts - check out the movie Virus or
the 1989 movie Moontrap with Walter Koenig.

Re: Jumping puzzles - I can't stand those as a rule, mainly because so
much depends on your processor speed. When Quake 1 first came out,
my friend could always make this jump that I could never make. Turns
out he had a faster machine, better graphics card, etc. If you've already
put them in Titan-IC, then I lied - I like them, really!

I'm really looking forward to this one!!

Thanks for the input GD1. I'm currently redesigning the intro level. It was looking good however the landing pad was too small.

Moontrap - Love that movie actually scared me when I was younger.