quickie update...

I'm in the process of touching up/redoing a lot of the modeling bits. For the time being I'm going to drop the fake toon shading. In the vertex grouping process Blender was being a real bastard about all the flipped faces, so I have decided to sacrifice the shading for more control over my animations. Oh well, such is life when you have to work with shitty open source tools. The toon shading will have to be something that I'll hard code in on the engine side at a later date, in an update.

Speaking of Blender, it continues to be a gigantic thorn in my side. I can't for the life of me find a decent way of rigging a model. Weight painting is SUCH a pain in the ass and is so damn inaccurate. I always end up painting vertices that I didn't intend, or missing some that I did intend. Why can't I just go vertex by vertex and assign them to the bones that I want? I was doing that in Milkshape 3D ten years ago for gosh sakes. But as far as I can tell, my only options for rigging in Blender are weight painting and the easy but wildly inaccurate enveloping. Aarrgh. I'll try googling around/forum diving to help me not hate weight painting.

In the mean time, here is a revised list of things that are going to be in the first release:

• One semi-long level.
• A pistol, smg, and screwdriver for weapons.
• One baddy type with custom AI that can climb/jump around the environment.
• A respawning baddy system that keeps the action flowing.

All of that will absolutely be in at release, and most of it is working already. As i said earlier, I am still finalizing some of the models for the weapons, but the coding for them is done already. The map is mostly done, but I may add on to it/change it around once I start really testing this thing.

Things that I'd love to have in the release but may or may not make it in time (they may still make it, but generally I'm not finished with them):

• Buddy AI.
• Two other baddy types; a shotty badguy and a pistol baddy.

Obviously, the Buddy AI was a big part of the game that I wanted from the beginning, and to probably not have it ready for the demo is pretty painful. The thing is though, this whole project has taken a lot longer than I ever wanted it, which is my own fault through a deadly combination of trying to do too much, having real life badness crop up in the middle of the summer and halt all development, and sheer laziness on my part. I am at the point now where I really need to just get this thing out of the door in one form or another. Rest assured, this is still my baby and with just a little bit of positive attention toward the demo from the community I will continue development and absolutely get those features in.

Things to think about for a future release:

• More levels, obviously.
• A shotty weapon for the player.
• A stamina system for the running and jumping.
• Reloading for the weapons.
• Scripted sequences.

Later days.

Baddy!

*cough*

Get ready to shoot lots of these. For reference, that is a terrorist looking guy and not an S&M enthusiast in a gimp suit. Although now that I am thinking of it, that would make a far cooler bad guy.

Quicky

So I know what you are all saying. "Handshakes, you devilishly handsome, cunning, and all around sexy man, where is your progress on those bad guy models?"

Well, if I were to be completely honest with you, and I rarely am, I would have to admit that things like Ultima Online and internet porn have been eating into my time lately. But I would also add that this content stuff isn't a cake walk for me, and I'm trying my best to achieve an acceptable level of programmer-art suckery that I wouldn't mind showing off in the end product.

I've been spending a tremendous amount of time studying Blender3D, pouring through huge and oddly written English-as-second-language tutorials, and watching hours of low poly character modeling while taking notes. I want to get this right.

There is also a bit of extra pride on the line for me. I got my start in amateur game development on the 3D modeling side of things, doing low poly weapons and the occasional character in Milkshape 3D for various Half-Life mods that would never see the light of day. - In point of fact, I was only involved in two mods that ever saw the light of release day. One, I did some quicky and ugly-as-sin animations for some guy's proof-of-concept Counter-Strike zombie mod. For the other mod I just rigged a couple models as a favor to the mod leader, a coding child prodigy known as General Dodo, who got me started in 3D modeling for Half-Life working on his Predator themed HL mod which was a first mod for both of us. That mod (not Predator, but the one that saw release), known as General Dodo Coop was, despite the name, pretty special. It never really caught on, and it was accused of having stolen ideas from Sven Coop like the advanced physics and, well, the coop. But the fact is that, while it was a lot like Sven Coop, it was actually better in a number of ways, like the physics being better implemented (which was pretty special for the time), having more complex AI, and having drivable vehicles including airplanes (which made for an endlessly good time). - But, I digress. 3D modeling is dear to my heart, even if the skills have severely atrophied, and I want to make something I can be kind of proud of.

That said, hopefully I will have something to show pretty soon. Until then, more studying.