3drts eye candy

This is more or less a test to see how well the 3d object and distort maps would work for making an rts, or some sort of sim.

The rts behavior works fairly well with the 3d object with a few dummy objects paired up, so an rts is definitely doable.

I'm kind of thinking about perhaps using Scidave's online plug to do a 1 vs 1, or maybe even a turn based chess/checkers with tanks thingy.

One thought I've had is a simulation phase where you build up resources, and invest them into your team. Then have an online part where you do the turn based battle.

Collision detection is pretty much a no go since its 3d, and the online plug really wasn't designed to handle a bullet hell. So I'm definitely leaning more towards the turn based scenario. I'm not sure exactly how to handle that, but chances are it would probably be based on a percentage system, IE chance to hit, chance to do so much damage, etc.

Any thoughts or ideas?

Edit: der forgot the link... may upload screens later.

Link to demo

the demo was pretty cool. you could definitely make a fun game from gfx like that. I think collision might not be such an issue. just have instantaneous bullet collision, and if it hits on the offending player's side, the defensive player is struck without testing whether it agrees, maybe have checks every few moments to make sure the simulations agree as to where they are, but in the event of a hit, favor the simulation of the shooter. but you should definitely keep working on this.

True for bullets it really wont matter if I don't have an onscreen representation. They are pretty much instant hit visually.

I would like to do some visuals like missiles, and perhaps some sifi stuff like lasers, or lightning bolts a la Command and Conquer, but those could still work off of instant hit, or percentage, especially the lightning.

Also screens:

<img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/666516/screencapture1330118714.bmp" border="0">

screen2

screen3

screen4

I've tried a 3d RTS myself and to be honest i don't see why collision detection is "pretty much nil". Just make a box or something below the unit & projectile and check if it hits anything.

For some reason norton , the sh*ttiest AV out there , is saying your exe is infected. lovely.

Wow that looks really nice !

Lacks a bit of shadows of the mountains imo. They seems just put down on the ground. Something of a projected shadow on the ground would give them a bit more depth/realism.

Still this is a remarkable job and this proof of concept is not that far from being a playable game.

Very nice render. (I like the mask.png of the map !)

Instant: I always have had false positives with CC's executables. (my previews/exports and those of other people). I use Kasperski 11 and it detects some sort of key logger.

I used to have the same false positive with sdl games. What makes me say it's a false positive is that I used to run a sdl game with a previous version of kasperski (2010) without it saying anything, and the day I updated to 2011, SDL game were flagged.

It is a warning of a potential harm. It has to deal with the way the keyboard is inputed in sdl games and CC.

Instant

Dummy hit boxes are fine for 0 z, but the visual offset just gets bigger, and bigger when you raise the z. You might not notice it right under the camera, but it becomes quite obvious when your shooting at something to the side, and there's nothing at the point where the bullets are going.

Kyatric

Shadows are doable. In fact I would just compare pixels on mask.png, and have it shade a vertex if like the value at 16x,16y+1 was black.

Well that would be more like bumpmapping, but you get the idea.

Don't raise the Z that much then , that's the only solution I can think of. Unless you can make another layer that moves at the same speed as a certain Z layer , then maybe you could fake collision detection for that height.

insanely awesome (atleast for a newb like me) :D

Very nice. What did you used to make 3d objects?

Wings3d works well enough for me.

It's basically a modeler, with some built in unwrapping. Pretty much all you need for the 3d object.