Zombie Shooter

[Hypnos]

in the last 2 days i've worked on a quick project, a concept that is very well known, but i wanted to try implemeting myself:

http://www.nouser.org/PMW/pmwiki.php/Portfolio/SparetimeZombieShooter

#edit: fixed some bugs that were caused with 1.6 (it's 1.7 optimized, but should work with 1.6 as well), added a movie on the website

[Mindblighter]

I said this to you on IRC yesterday and looks like I'll say it again: the models have fixed paths (your desktop) to textures that aren't even included in the package. You could also use some better file structuring: moving the sounds into to their own directory, models into their own, cleaning up mac autogenerated files etc.

Sorry if that sounds harsh or like nitpicking, but it's otherwise nice app for a one day job

[rdb]

Very nice! I also like the shadow effects, they make everything even a bit creepier

[Hypnos]

Well Mindblighter, i know about all these things, but i honestly dont care about them. for example even if the textures would have been included, the models still dont have usable uv-maps. of course lots of stuff could be fixed or improved (including the ones you mentioned), but other things (like modelling a usable scene) would be more important.

[FenrirWolf]

Woot! This game is right up my alley. I've been on a zombie shooter kick lately. (When not coding, I'm on Left 4 Dead or Killing Floor.) So this hits the spot.

Unfortunately, there is a slight issue with the new shadows in CVS head and my video card. I'll take a closer look at it later.

[astelix]

really impressive - something to toy with and have tons of fun

[astelix]

to follow what I said in the previous post, this lazy holiday morning I was mumbling about this stimulating snippet and came in my mind some ideas to make a whole game off it, maybe to finally have a showcase with balls to show to P3D newcomers and such:

I would temporarily call the game The Mummy - the story begins inside an Egyptian pyramid of an infamous pharaoh formerly know for his cruelty. A sudden earthquake shake collapsed the main entrance, sited in the lower floor and the game begins here.
The goal of the game is obviously to exit off the pyramid from a small gate located at the topmost floor BUT, obviously, you will inevitably must face the pharaoh mummy, the main boss of the game you'll find at the end of the journey. In between the path to the exit there are lot of things that will made the gameplay interesting and challenging, some of which I'll going to show:
- we got as many maps levels as the pyramid floors, of course the upper the floor, the smaller the map.
- our hero got a starting situation with a shotgun with 2 pack of 80 bullets (not a bullet more than that and no hope to find others in a pyramid), a cranky flashlight that need sometime to be recharged once in a while and stop. Well, a notepad and a pencil to map the place he see, naturally. Another item acting as melee weapon would be great but whips and crowbars are too obvious and taken by other games so there is room here to good ideas but also depends on the hero character: I was thinking about a Panda so a bamboo stick could fit but I'm unsure here...
- NPCs: mummies!
each floor got some different mummies, the upper the floor, the more challenging mummy class will be - I thought some kinds and features but with some characteristics in common: they are all almost blind, they hate the light: closer to a light source or pointing the flashlight in their face, they tend to back off, they can be broken with weapons or close kicks and of course defeated with fire.
= Servant: a random roaming mummy very delicate to broke almost blind and deaf that is a real menace just at a close range - you could broke it also with one close range kick.
= Guard: almost blind but with a nice hearing - they are sleeping but it wake up if you are close to it and making noise. They got a light armor and a short sword - they're slow and a well placed shot could broke it in pieces.
= Elite Guard: a better guard, with a good hearing (still almost blind but with a longer range sight than the guard), better armor (need more to broke), better weapons (spear, long sword, bow)
= Boss Mummy: as every respected game, at the pathway to the next floor there is the boss mummy, impersonated by priests, princes, magicians, doctors and so on with challenging and unique trait.
- NPCs: creatures - of course nasty creatures are always welcome: poisonous snakes, scorpions and spiders, carnivorous scarabs and so on
- Objects the hero could find by the way:
= vials of several substances with curative, poisonous, magic etc properties (PoP lead the way here)
= weapons - the same the guard mummies can have
= oil torches - you need oil vials to light em up - useful to burn or place traps for mummies but also dangerous for the hero.
= jewels: as many people, mummies are not insensitive to money so if you will be blocked by a bunch of mummies, instead be their meal you may corrupt'em with your loot and if you got enough maybe you will eventually convince a boss mummy to close an eye and let you pass with no harm.
- to make the pot more interesting I would add a time limit, pretty much like PoP 2D, because closing the main entrance the air left to the hero to breath is became limited; each floor will got his own time limit starting from 0.

[Hypnos]

i like your idea's, and i think it's a good idea to create such a project.

but i dont have the time to finish the project in the way you propose it. im willing to share all sources and data (blender files) that i've created if somebody wants to pick it up.

another issue is that the currently used maze generator isnt written by myself (that separate file next to the main.py). it could get some improvements anyway (less maze-like, more rooms, maybe symmetrical).

[astelix]

heh mine was just lazy ideas showup but I'm glad you like it - me either ain't much spare time to eventually put in the project, but maybe this thread could become a placeholder for ppl willing to join an lazy open project or sorta - my idea is to start a project of kind "adopt a project part", as is, as long as we split and define the project in every single part, to be code, shader, a model or just the animation of an existing model or whatever, the one interested with time to spend, could sign to adopt a part of his choice and try to produce it, then will be assembled to the whole as he finished it. I guess it is something we could try without to risk an headache. It is just a matter to choose a good cooperative platform to use (launchpad or else) that fit and start it up.
Of course the project ETA will be: WHEN FINISHED

[s0ndeb0k]

Hey, I very much like your ideas astelix.

I'm interested in modeling+animating the Servant guy, but I recently switched from 3dsmax to Blender so it can take a while before I actually produce something decent. One of the things I thought when playing the demo was that multiple death animations would be a pretty nice addition.

Once I'm into Blender I'll probably model the other stuff too (if someone had not already assigned themselves) and an intro cinematic for that cool story of yours.

We should not forget about the Blender model repository - no use doing work that is already done, and contribute - I see they have no mummy model yet.

As far as a melee weapon goes: how about a body part of the first zombie you shoot, and then whenever it disintegrates the next mummy conveniently drops a leg or something.

[Hypnos]

the biggest remaining problem is decals, i'd love to add blood, dust or similar onto the ground after a zombie has been shot. but i dont know how to do that atm.

[Hypnos]

another thing, the zombie & character im currently using:

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1490813/zome ... v012.blend

the texture can be taken from the game.

the parts the undergroundsystem is built from:

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1490813/zome ... less.blend

if you modify this model, make sure to keep the names intact and export it as single model.

[astelix]

Hey, I very much like your ideas astelix.

glad to hear that s0ndeb0k

I'm interested in modeling+animating the Servant guy, but I recently switched from 3dsmax to Blender so it can take a while before I actually produce something decent.

here there is a quite essential website to dig into and learn blender. By the way if you prefer to model it in 3DSmax and then animate in blender I guess you may cos' blender 3Ds importer works nice - maybe you could also animate it in max but as long as you are able to export it as BVH file and then you'll import that in blender. I suggest you to check these things out though with little tests before to start big things. Just be sure to have the latest blender and chicken exporter before to start.

So look like you're the first adopter of the project: the servant is your.
do you already got an idea on how it would be and act?

As far as a melee weapon goes: how about a body part of the first zombie you shoot, and then whenever it disintegrates the next mummy conveniently drops a leg or something.

the mummy breaking up is something I got in mind either cos is funny and I guess it is not something so hard to implement: take i.e. a ripped leg: you duplicate in blender your basic wholesome mummy and modify it to have another without a leg then in the python code we eventually replace the whole model with the crippled one

About the other stuff, the project-way-to-go I got in mind is to go one only little step at a time so, every adopter gotta finish his assignment before to start to apply for a new one. See this like a lazy slow-pacing project and take your time s0ndeb0k.

[astelix]

s0ndeb0k have you seen the model v019-v012 posted by Hypnos? I did and think could be a good start to make mummies too considering is already nicely rigged too - check that out

[FenrirWolf]

the biggest remaining problem is decals, i'd love to add blood, dust or similar onto the ground after a zombie has been shot. but i dont know how to do that atm.

If you're willing to wait, I plan on releasing my arbitrary decal code once it's done.

Of course, in the case of this game you could probably just use a simple quad aligned to the collision surface, since most of what you're talking about would occur against a flat floor.

[s0ndeb0k]

here there is a quite essential website to dig into and learn blender.

Thanks a lot! Downloaded all the books and working through them - pure awesomeness...

s0ndeb0k have you seen the model v019-v012 posted by Hypnos?

Yup thanx, downloaded and opened it as soon as I noticed it . It is pretty nicely rigged and looks like a good base to start from.

About the other stuff, the project-way-to-go I got in mind is to go one only little step at a time so, every adopter gotta finish his assignment before to start to apply for a new one.

Definitely agree - one little step at a time, and finish an assignment before starting a new one to keep the focus.

By the way if you prefer to model it in 3DSmax and then animate in blender I guess you may cos' blender 3Ds importer works nice - maybe you could also animate it in max but as long as you are able to export it as BVH file and then you'll import that in blender.

Although I know 3DSMax much better I would prefer to do everything using free (and superior ) software, forcing me to learn Blender much faster and then everything used to create and animate the model is located in one project and can easily be tweaked by other developers with Blender. All my textures and concept sketches will be made in gimp and mypaint (or some other free image manipulation/creation program).

So look like you're the first adopter of the project: the servant is your. do you already got an idea on how it would be and act?

I will use this description to start off with:

= Servant: a random roaming mummy very delicate to broke almost blind and deaf that is a real menace just at a close range - you could broke it also with one close range kick.

When creating a character I usually do a few concept sketches to see what I want to work to - maybe I'll post them here

[astelix]

s0ndeb0k have you seen the model v019-v012 posted by Hypnos?

Yup thanx, downloaded and opened it as soon as I noticed it . It is pretty nicely rigged and looks like a good base to start from.

about that I'd fixed a bit the human model and settled the skeleton as standalone character and applied the armature and you and everybody interested may snatch the .blend from here
by the way I intend to redefine the vertex groups of the armature rig to be compliant with the CM mocap database for obvious reasons. I'll upload the new .blend ASAP

So look like you're the first adopter of the project: the servant is your. do you already got an idea on how it would be and act?

I will use this description to start off with:

= Servant: a random roaming mummy very delicate to broke almost blind and deaf that is a real menace just at a close range - you could broke it also with one close range kick.

When creating a character I usually do a few concept sketches to see what I want to work to - maybe I'll post them here

as a rule of thumb it is indeed a good idea to work iteratively from raw things to the final state and if you're able to provide also sketches is a pretty cool plus.

By the way I started an account on sourceforge for the project - is just an empty box actually but soon I'll start to fill with what we got and add you and Hypnos (if ain't nothing on contrary of course) as project admins

[s0ndeb0k]

Okidoki.

Got the new blender file and checking it out now.

[RebeccaHuff]

Most of the gamers really want a shooting games with full action pack like COD black OPS, Zombieland and Left 4 Dead.

[Hypnos]

That's just plain wrong.
A lot of male kids want action packed games. Neighter are they the largest game consumers, nor do they represent the average taste of gamers.
the acutal fact is that an average player is aged 30, 47% of the players are female, 33% of the games are played on a smartphone (http://www.theesa.com/facts/index.asp). these are all facts that stand in contrast you your assumption.

[drwr]

I kind of suspect this is a robot spammer.