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swx

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  1. Coding either is easy. It's the difference between commenting and uncommenting: if (isTurning) velocity = 0; I'm more interested in the impact that it will have in the game. It's a matter of "realistic" movement versus controllable movement. Empire at War is truer to the movies in that ships move and turn at the same time, but, as a result, it's impossible to accurately control units' movement.
  2. I've been working off-and-on on a Rebellion-inspired strategy game. After a number of engine switches (and switches back), I've finally settled on an engine I like. I've been working on a tactical game, and have coded the basics for everything I need. However, I wanted to bounce a couple of questions off of all of you. I'll be periodically posting questions in this thread. (1) Movement Behavior. After experimenting with a number of different movement styles, I've decided to take a step backward, so to speak. Rather than moving and turning at the same time, ships turn towards the desired position, move to the desired position, and then turn to the desired heading (fighters behave differently). That is, they move more like rotary wing aircraft than wheeled vehicles. I did this because I felt that it was too difficult to effectively control units that turned and moved at the same time. It's much more difficult to control units in Empire at War or Sins of a Solar Empire than it is in, say, Starcraft. How strongly do people feel about turn-and-move as opposed to turn-then-move? Don't worry about implementation. It's trivial to code either. (In fact, turn-and-move makes pathfinding easier since it can be done through steering behaviors.)
  3. swx

    Rebellion UI

    Alright, several hundred pages of tutorials later, I feel a bit better about this. I think I'm going to go ahead and code it in Unity and then switch over to Panda when I'm happy with what I've got. A couple of reflections: 1. Unity isn't completely visual, just visual enough to be annoying. 2. Visual programming isn't slower, it's just more frustrating, since it doesn't have the instant gratification of typing. 3. Visual programming has its benefits. It forces you to think about class structure in different ways. When I go back to Panda, I'm going to change some things around. 4. Unity's graphical tools are really nice. Built-in particle editor? Yes please.
  4. swx

    Rebellion UI

    I started out using Panda3d, writing in a combination of C++ and Python. I am in the midst of trying to switch over to Unity, which uses C# and Boo (and JavaScript). I thought that the change would be nice for several reasons. First, Unity has much more robust out-of-the-box gui tools, which I felt was important given how Rebellion plays. In Unity, I can write this: function OnGUI () { scrollPosition = GUI.BeginScrollView (Rect (10,300,100,100), scrollPosition, Rect (0, 0, 220, 200)); GUI.Button (Rect (0,0,100,20), "Label"); GUI.EndScrollView (); }. In Panda, this took me about three hundred lines of code to get the functionality I wanted. Second, workflow. Unity supports a much wider range of image and model formats, and importing graphics files is extremely easy. No special import/export required. Third, I prefer Java's syntax to C++ and even Python, so C# and Boo 'feel better'. Unfortunately, Unity is at all what I expected. It's written for artists (who I'm not) rather than programmers (also who I'm not, but sometimes convince myself that I can imitate). Almost everything is handled visually. This is disturbing, since I'm a control freak. Functions are 'attached' to visual representations of objects. Classes and objects are hidden in 'prefabs' and 'GameObjects' which, again, are given visual representations. Why does my objectManager class have to look like a cylinder? I know that there's some way to dynamically instantiate prefabs and GameObjects, but darned if I've figured it out. If I can't figure out how to use the engine within the next several days, I'm going to switch back to Panda and just deal with its shortcomings. But hey, if you can do this: http://vodpod.com/watch/2413481-rpg-prototype-made-by-unity-3d in Unity, even with its annoyingly oversimplification, then surely it'll work.
  5. swx

    Rebellion UI

    Just wanted to check in. The lack of updates is due to switching engines. I've got the gui, movement, and basic missions working, but I'm switching the codebase over to another language.
  6. swx

    Rebellion UI

    Okay, last question before I put it all together. Right click popup menus for non-click-and-drag commands? Or RTS-style bottom menu?
  7. swx

    Rebellion UI

    Quick question: What would everyone find less annoying? Drag and drop to an object on the gameworld (say, a planet), and then have a popup which asks you which action to perform (like the mission screen in Rebellion), or drag and drop and then automatically choose a certain action (say, move) and for other actions, use a right click system?
  8. swx

    Rebellion UI

    Yeah, that's the current setup. I want to do away with sectors entirely. (So far, I have Coruscant, Yavin, and Belkadan in for testing purposes. ) I'll try to get some screenshots out by the end of the week. That should give me some time to work on the graphical end of things.
  9. swx

    Rebellion UI

    After playing a few games of Rebellion, I realized that the empire tree might be more workable than I thought. I've implemented 2d drag and drop icons that interact with the 3d galaxy map. Screenshots to follow shortly.
  10. swx

    Rebellion UI

    I thought about integrating some sort of empire tree. I had two main concerns when I considered it: 1. Rebellion is a deeper game than Sins. I don't mean this as an insult - I really enjoy Sins - rather, in Sins, the lowest level object is a ship, in Rebellion, it goes one level deeper. Ships can contain other objects. If I wanted to move a squadron from a fleet on Dantooine to a fleet on Coruscant, there's no easy way to do this using a Sins style empire tree in a way that preserves its benefits. 2. Rebellion creates (or should create) a greater sense of attachment to fleets than Sins does. The empire tree overabstracts.
  11. I am currently working on a Rebellion project, but before I show anything I want to lock down the UI. I want to move away from the original window-style UI and move to something a bit less heavy handed. I currently have a planetary zoom system in place, similar to the one in Empire at War. The problem I'm facing is in designing the planetary screen. In order to be effective, the UI needs to be designed to facilitate moving forces: between planets and fleet, between fleets in the same system, and between fleets and other systems. Ideally, it should be easy to move forces between specific ships. Yet, I haven't been able to put anything satisfying together. What ideas do people have? Since a picture's worth a thousand words, here's my first pass effort: http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/1503/mockup.gif The planetary screen is a black overlay on the main screen with six panels. Players can set these panels to be 'orbital forces', 'planetary forces', or 'manufacturing panels'. Players can also select panels from other planets. If you wanted to, say, transfer troops from one fleet to another.

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