Halfgeek's Forum Posts

  • Trolls be trolling bro. Welcome to the interwebz.

  • Is there a version without the Protracker plugin. I don't like to use many plugins for C2 because after some time, with updates and all, things could end up broken.

  • I dug through this section but couldn't find one that fits..

    Typical sci-fi movie effect, ships exploding, generating a massive shockwave & flames/particles.

    I can replicate it with 2D animations but I would love a more dynamic effect that can be randomized, to look less static/repetitive.

  • Nice.

    I'm done with all the mechanics in SN2. Now just putting it all together & putting in lots of content, then polish.

  • Looking good! It's got some nice atmosphere going with the awesome pixel art!

  • Making a complex spacesim is a great way to improve at using C2! It definitely taught me a lot and still, lots more to learn.

    Good luck with it!

  • —

    I have side thrusters for all the AI ships originally, it was a continuous stream, but I wanted to save some CPU cycles so I cut it down to only fire once per turning initiation. It doesn't look as obvious.

    For the player & squad ships, the side-thrusters are continuous streams, fire left to turn right & vice versa.

    This one is earlier on, but you can see the movement & thrusters for the AI in action. Note that it fires the side thrusters only once per turning maneuver initiation.

    Video of a major 3 faction battle:

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzblvP ... NseTg/view

    Let me know if you got more feedback!

  • Thanks guys!

    I've decided to move away from a static BG and make it more dynamic.

    Now it's a base nebula type without stars, add dynamic shimmering stars , add some storm fx, make it darker and add more parallax dust specs that's visible only when players are flying/moving (to give it depth perception).

    By doing this, I can do away with the dust cloud parallax layers that gave the game a faded look, as some of the earlier art input was correct. Now it looks sharper & the moving nebula clouds & stars raise the overall feel a lot.

    https://halfgeekstudios.files.wordpress ... port-3.jpg

    Better?

    Jesus Christ I wish we can stop going back to using all these old SDKs and work arounds constantly.

    Are we stuck on 10.5 NW (with hacks to get it to work!) forever? Any day steam may do an API update and we're screwed.

    It needs to be said, this should be the priority Scirra!

  • What if both are 60 fps, do you want the cpuutilisation %?

  • The stutter and fps drop you are seeing with the HD4600 is a known issue in complex games or ones that use a lot of effects and in particular, WebGL shaders. Intel's OpenGL performance is attrocious and their drivers for it even worse. They seem to only care about DX and not OpenGL for gaming.

    I posted something regarding CPU usage here:

    Essentially, C2 is single threaded for the most part, all that logic uses 1 out of 8 threads on your i7 CPU. It can max out on 1 thread, when it shows 99% CPU use, the game will bog down and frames will be dropped, regardless of your GPU.

    So be very careful when you design a bigger complex game, ensure that the reported CPU use stay less than 50% on your i7 as its a very strong CPU with high single thread performance. Someone on an older CPU, or an AMD CPU with weaker single thread performance, will suffer greatly if you are designing your game to go beyond 50% of an i7's single thread capability.

    Also if you want gamers to play it on Intel HD graphics, don't use WebGL shaders. Maybe do a "Low/High FX" option, low for people on Intel iGPU and High for AMD/NV GPUs.

  • Update: Planet art overhaul

    Major planets will be the main destinations for the bulk of the game, including conquest, as such they need to look impressive & unique.

    In order to achieve that, I have separate sections that can assemble to make unique looking planets, ie, landmasses, oceans, other terrain features so there’s going to be lots of variety in SNII.

    The atmosphere has a few layers which are semi-dynamic to give it depth, especially in motion and the dark crescent corresponds to the star within that system.

    Open image in separate window for full size: https://halfgeekstudios.files.wordpress ... net-02.jpg

    https://halfgeekstudios.files.wordpress ... net-03.jpg

    https://halfgeekstudios.files.wordpress ... net-04.jpg

    When you approach and slow down, a docking icon appear and its just a simple click to request docking. I’m planning on doing some NPC comms, confirming docking or denying docking (based on faction standing).

    Currently I’m undecided if players should be able to dock during combat or not… there’s pros & cons that need to be weighted carefully, but I dislike the idea that combat engagements can be instantly disengaged with zero risk.

    Chromium did have a problem with loading games with over 500 images on PC but that was fixed, guess they didn't fix the bug on MAC/Linux!

    Linux will be a growing platform due to SteamOS on the Steam Boxes so that's a shame its so problematic.

    Also, it should be priority #1 to get GreenWorks to work with later NW.

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  • A great example of GOOD pixel art game on C2:

    And no, it doesn't look bad. In fact, it looks AMAZING in its aesthetics.

    Good pixel art is damn hard.

  • It depends on the art style you are after, I think if you change it to pixel art, you will lose all the gruelsome-ness and shift the game atmosphere from serious to light-hearted. It's a huge change so think about it carefully.