[hermitC]

hermitC

hermitC

Visit hermitC's website.

Show hermitC's last posts.

Show general stats for hermitC.

• 
• Newbie
• Score: 1
• Posts: 44

[Video - Nordenfelt Alpha Version]

Hi there,

I'm going to share Nordenfelt's development trace in this thread. Nordenfelt is a vertical 2D steampunk shmup with some experimental features. I don't want to list them here because some of them may be kicked out for gameplay reasons. Changes and new features will be announced in this thread anyway.

Video - Nordenfelt Alpha Version

The video shows the game's alpha version. The core mechanics are implemented, the graphics are for tests only. There is still much to do. So this thread will keep growing over the next few months.

[monoRAIL]

monoRAIL

monoRAIL

Visit monoRAIL's website.

Show monoRAIL's last posts.

Show general stats for monoRAIL.

• 
• Global Moderator
• Sr. Member
• Score: 8
• Posts: 302

Good to see a prototype before it gets art in it. That's how I start most of my games.
Your player's shots look very slow - I hope your planning to speed those up.

[hermitC]

hermitC

hermitC

Visit hermitC's website.

Show hermitC's last posts.

Show general stats for hermitC.

• 
• Newbie
• Score: 1
• Posts: 44

Thanks for mentioning it. Don't worry. Shots are to slow, don't spread out, don't have different sizes, etc. That's all on my huge todo list:)

The shots are so slow that the player can even fly into an enemy shot which already passed by. Big no-no.

I'm approaching real playtests in a few weeks (testers anywhere?). Therefore I left the big flaws behind and concentrated on implementing the core mechanics. The real fun starts now:)

[moosa]

moosa

moosa

Show moosa's last posts.

Show general stats for moosa.

• 
• Exhaust For Brains
• Hero Member
• Score: 2
• Posts: 526

Indeed, it all looks way too slow, but the mechanics behind it are interesting. It reminds me of a flash game, as flash developers seem to reach for upgrade mechanics and interfaces like that for some reason, but I like it. Looking forward to more progress on it.

[hermitC]

hermitC

hermitC

Visit hermitC's website.

Show hermitC's last posts.

Show general stats for hermitC.

• 
• Newbie
• Score: 1
• Posts: 44

Indeed, it all looks way too slow, but the mechanics behind it are interesting. It reminds me of a flash game, as flash developers seem to reach for upgrade mechanics and interfaces like that for some reason, but I like it. Looking forward to more progress on it.

Several people argued about the slow speed. I'm glad about those replies pointing to this problem. Finally it's a relict from testing collision detection. I turned most of the speed configurations down to make bugs visible.

The current steps are level creation (procedural) and long-desired graphical improvements. There should be enough to show here in the near future.

[hermitC]

hermitC

hermitC

Visit hermitC's website.

Show hermitC's last posts.

Show general stats for hermitC.

• 
• Newbie
• Score: 1
• Posts: 44

I'm learning how to draw sprites at the moment. Graphics Gale is the tool of choice. Here are my first 3 creations:

Testing form creation:



Testing detailing (plate joints):



Testing colouring:




The problem with this "hard-black-edge" sprite style is the distortion of the sprites when they get scaled or rotated. At least scaling was intended for handling different screen resolutions. Therefore I have to find a style or some tricks which allow me rotating and scaling my sprites without losing to much visual quality.

Does anybody know different graphics styles which I can investigate? Any tricks for the scaling/rotation problems?

[LorenzoGatti]

LorenzoGatti

LorenzoGatti

Show LorenzoGatti's last posts.

Show general stats for LorenzoGatti.

• 
• Jr. Member
• Score: 4
• Posts: 79

You seem to need completely redrawn sprites for each different orientation. Apart from aliasing ruining the black outlines, the red test shows a lot of lighting (which will have to be different in each orientation).

You might want to render small images from simple 3D models as a starting point for your sprites: they would be consistent and correctly lit, freeing you from the burden of getting the "anatomy" right.

Are you sure you need scaling and rotation in the first place? The video has none, and the only plausible addition that can rotate is large guided missiles (for which 8 directions probably suffice).

[hermitC]

hermitC

hermitC

Visit hermitC's website.

Show hermitC's last posts.

Show general stats for hermitC.

• 
• Newbie
• Score: 1
• Posts: 44

You seem to need completely redrawn sprites for each different orientation. Apart from aliasing ruining the black outlines, the red test shows a lot of lighting (which will have to be different in each orientation).

I wanted to keep the spriting work as low as possible. Software rotation was my first intention to avoid drawing the same sprite for multiple directions. The more I investigate into this topic the more I see that there is no way around it.

You might want to render small images from simple 3D models as a starting point for your sprites: they would be consistent and correctly lit, freeing you from the burden of getting the "anatomy" right.

First I thought about making 3D models and prerender them for 2D usage. My first battle ship needed 4 days to be completed. This is much to long for a single sprite. So I'm searching for a faster method/style to create the content.
Your idea of using simple 3D models sounds good. I'm going to test my performance on this one in the next few days.

Are you sure you need scaling and rotation in the first place? The video has none, and the only plausible addition that can rotate is large guided missiles (for which 8 directions probably suffice).

I'm pondering if I need rotation at all. It would be a nice feature but it bloats the asset work. Many 2D shmups don't use rotation and do well.

[hermitC]

hermitC

hermitC

Visit hermitC's website.

Show hermitC's last posts.

Show general stats for hermitC.

• 
• Newbie
• Score: 1
• Posts: 44

Further exercise graphics from learning how to draw sprites:







You can find the tutorial for the last sprite at my blog.

[hermitC]

hermitC

hermitC

Visit hermitC's website.

Show hermitC's last posts.

Show general stats for hermitC.

• 
• Newbie
• Score: 1
• Posts: 44

I'm still searching for the right graphics style for Nordenfelt. I made a performance comparison between 2D sprite art and rendering 3D models to 2D.

Some images to wet your taste:











Read about it here.

[Hornet600S]

Hornet600S

Hornet600S

Show Hornet600S's last posts.

Show general stats for Hornet600S.

• 
• Full Member
• Score: 7
• Posts: 197
• Motocycle crusher

Looks beautiful! I wish my drawing/modeling talents were not restricted to lower-end programmer's art 
Nice little dev article btw.

[hermitC]

hermitC

hermitC

Visit hermitC's website.

Show hermitC's last posts.

Show general stats for hermitC.

• 
• Newbie
• Score: 1
• Posts: 44

Thanks a lot!

At the moment I'm experimenting with different "generative" postproduction styles - speak scripts which convert rendered images to something fancy and stylish. The results will pop up here within the next 24 hours.

Example:

   >> becomes >>   

[kdmiller3]

kdmiller3

kdmiller3

Visit kdmiller3's website.

Show kdmiller3's last posts.

Show general stats for kdmiller3.

• 
• Hero Member
• Score: 4
• Posts: 698

That gives it a lot more personality.

[hermitC]

hermitC

hermitC

Visit hermitC's website.

Show hermitC's last posts.

Show general stats for hermitC.

• 
• Newbie
• Score: 1
• Posts: 44

Just finished the blog post about my graphic style experiments.

Please tell me what you think about the styles. Is any of them applicable for a vertical shooter?

     

     

     

     

[moosa]

moosa

moosa

Show moosa's last posts.

Show general stats for moosa.

• 
• Exhaust For Brains
• Hero Member
• Score: 2
• Posts: 526

That 3D render looks great. The Photoshop filtered images are looking interesting, but I don't think you've quite hit the nail on the head yet. Also, you really need to be careful about the resolutions you're working in. That "sprite" as it is would be enormous in-game. That doesn't mean you can't work at high resolutions and then scale the images down to size, but understand that its going to look a lot different scaled to 16%.

By the way, does your renderer happen to have any cell-shading settings? It would surely look a lot nicer if you could get that sort of outline effect out of your renderer rather than using Photoshop-style edge detection.

[hermitC]

hermitC

hermitC

Visit hermitC's website.

Show hermitC's last posts.

Show general stats for hermitC.

• 
• Newbie
• Score: 1
• Posts: 44

That 3D render looks great. The Photoshop filtered images are looking interesting, but I don't think you've quite hit the nail on the head yet. Also, you really need to be careful about the resolutions you're working in. That "sprite" as it is would be enormous in-game. That doesn't mean you can't work at high resolutions and then scale the images down to size, but understand that its going to look a lot different scaled to 16%.

By the way, does your renderer happen to have any cell-shading settings? It would surely look a lot nicer if you could get that sort of outline effect out of your renderer rather than using Photoshop-style edge detection.

The filtered images should just show possible ways to go. You are right, there is no final solution in this showcase.

Cell shading is a good option for edging, did not try it yet.

I'm coming back to these experiments after finishing the first playable demo. Finally the sprites have to be coordinated in lightning, style and resolution in this demo.

[hermitC]

hermitC

hermitC

Visit hermitC's website.

Show hermitC's last posts.

Show general stats for hermitC.

• 
• Newbie
• Score: 1
• Posts: 44

I have added an arcade mode in the game. This step had two reasons:

• most people are used to the arcade play style
• the arcade mode is pure game play - best suited for play testing

I wrote a blog post about this here.

For creating the first sprite for the demo I reused the model of the ship on the Nordenfelt website:

I changed the lights and textures to fit the birds view and rendered it as an ingame sprite:

I think this sprite does not work as the player's ship due to its odd shape. The body is very slim while the wings are rather large. Most shmups use compact and colorful ships which have a better visibility and a slicker shape for steering successfully through the bullet hails.

What do you think? Do you know good examples of ship shapes?

[moosa]

moosa

moosa

Show moosa's last posts.

Show general stats for moosa.

• 
• Exhaust For Brains
• Hero Member
• Score: 2
• Posts: 526

It looks very cool in a perspective view, not so cool top-down. I guess its one of those things where you should try to build your models with the top-down view in mind. However, (this is a little trick I've learned), if you flip it upside down, it suddenly becomes a more interesting design. Perhaps not ideal for a player ship, but still.

I think a lot of player ships end up something like this:


Whether or not it's very creative to just follow after that sort of design for everything though is debatable. I made a little player ship a while back that came out like this:





That is facing the top.
I think the key is, like you said, to have the ship shape be "compact" enough, such that if you were to draw an oval around the edges of it there wouldn't be too large areas of negative space. However you can't restrict yourself so much that every ship has to be a solid circle/square/triangle shape. The MOST important aspect is that the player knows where to expect the collisions with the hitbox. If you can achieve that, then the design is fundamentally sound, and the rest is just cosmetics.

[hermitC]

hermitC

hermitC

Visit hermitC's website.

Show hermitC's last posts.

Show general stats for hermitC.

• 
• Newbie
• Score: 1
• Posts: 44

It looks very cool in a perspective view, not so cool top-down. I guess its one of those things where you should try to build your models with the top-down view in mind. However, (this is a little trick I've learned), if you flip it upside down, it suddenly becomes a more interesting design. Perhaps not ideal for a player ship, but still.

I think a lot of player ships end up something like this:


Whether or not it's very creative to just follow after that sort of design for everything though is debatable. I made a little player ship a while back that came out like this:





That is facing the top.
I think the key is, like you said, to have the ship shape be "compact" enough, such that if you were to draw an oval around the edges of it there wouldn't be too large areas of negative space. However you can't restrict yourself so much that every ship has to be a solid circle/square/triangle shape. The MOST important aspect is that the player knows where to expect the collisions with the hitbox. If you can achieve that, then the design is fundamentally sound, and the rest is just cosmetics.

Flipping the shape vertically really works. Did not expect that!

I think I will start with a basic ellipse, square or triangle as hitbox and add wings, guns and other cosmetics until it looks like a ship. The hitbox should be smaller than the sprite and must be noticeable. Pixel perfect collision detection would be an overkill (of CPU work) and frustrating. Small hitboxes make the player feel like a real pro. I feel that way when clumsy floating through a game's bullet hell the first time

[moosa]

moosa

moosa

Show moosa's last posts.

Show general stats for moosa.

• 
• Exhaust For Brains
• Hero Member
• Score: 2
• Posts: 526

Flipping the shape vertically really works. Did not expect that!

It most reminds me of THIS game. It looks similar to a humanoid bot with angel-esqe wings. It could also be bird- or insect-like.

I think I will start with a basic ellipse, square or triangle as hitbox and add wings, guns and other cosmetics until it looks like a ship. The hitbox should be smaller than the sprite and must be noticeable. Pixel perfect collision detection would be an overkill (of CPU work) and frustrating. Small hitboxes make the player feel like a real pro. I feel that way when clumsy floating through a game's bullet hell the first time

I'd recommend either a square or a circle. I wouldn't recommend a triangle. In the ship sprite I made above, you'll notice I worked the "core" of the ship into the cosmetic design of it. That blue square actually indicates the exact pixels that make up the hitbox. The sprite I posted right above that (made by squirrelsquid here on the forums) has a little canopy conveniently placed in the middle of the graphic, which could easily be used as an indicator of where the hitbox is. There's a lot of shmups that don't try to make it so obvious, but I think it's a good idea. The big 3D ship I posted above with the cel shading I used as a player ship as well, and I just placed a little green dot on top of the graphic to indicate the hitbox for it. I think it worked out fine that way, even though the graphic seems a tad large and unorthodox.



I also like the way that Ikaruga's player ship has a field that forms a perfect circle with the hitbox in the exact center. Just goes to show that there's a lot of ways you can achieve the effect.

[hermitC]

hermitC

hermitC

Visit hermitC's website.

Show hermitC's last posts.

Show general stats for hermitC.

• 
• Newbie
• Score: 1
• Posts: 44

Hitboxes are that small? Interesting, I will try this out. Thanks for your help!

[moosa]

moosa

moosa

Show moosa's last posts.

Show general stats for moosa.

• 
• Exhaust For Brains
• Hero Member
• Score: 2
• Posts: 526

Hitboxes are that small?

Depends on the game. A lot of older shmups have larger hitboxes, and with newer shmups they tend to be smaller, sometimes tiny. I much prefer the small/tiny hitboxes, and it can sometimes be a frustrating thing to try and deal with larger hitboxes on older shmups that would otherwise be a lot of fun. It seems like such a small thing, but it can have a big impact on how enjoyable your whole game is.

[hermitC]

hermitC

hermitC

Visit hermitC's website.

Show hermitC's last posts.

Show general stats for hermitC.

• 
• Newbie
• Score: 1
• Posts: 44

First enemy sprite for the demo:

Draft:



3D model:



Sprites, with outlines and without:
       

[moosa]

moosa

moosa

Show moosa's last posts.

Show general stats for moosa.

• 
• Exhaust For Brains
• Hero Member
• Score: 2
• Posts: 526

How did you do the outlines? Could you put them on a lighter background so we could see them better?

I like your models.

[hermitC]

hermitC

hermitC

Visit hermitC's website.

Show hermitC's last posts.

Show general stats for hermitC.

• 
• Newbie
• Score: 1
• Posts: 44

Here we go:

        

What do you think is the better solution? Any improvement suggestions?

[kdmiller3]

kdmiller3

kdmiller3

Visit kdmiller3's website.

Show kdmiller3's last posts.

Show general stats for kdmiller3.

• 
• Hero Member
• Score: 4
• Posts: 698

The outline definitely helps the vehicle stand out from the background.

[hermitC]

hermitC

hermitC

Visit hermitC's website.

Show hermitC's last posts.

Show general stats for hermitC.

• 
• Newbie
• Score: 1
• Posts: 44

Turrets:

Draft:


Sprite:


Ingame:


You can find more details here.

[moosa]

moosa

moosa

Show moosa's last posts.

Show general stats for moosa.

• 
• Exhaust For Brains
• Hero Member
• Score: 2
• Posts: 526

Looking great really. The gray plane thing above would probably look a bit better with more color, rather than the solid (lightly textured) gray. The outlines will look cooler if you mix in a little animation of the 3D models. This is because the outlines remove some of the sense of depth to the sprites, making them look flatter and closer to 2D, but if you mix in a little 3D motion it restores the depth and looks cool.

[hermitC]

hermitC

hermitC

Visit hermitC's website.

Show hermitC's last posts.

Show general stats for hermitC.

• 
• Newbie
• Score: 1
• Posts: 44

Looking great really. The gray plane thing above would probably look a bit better with more color, rather than the solid (lightly textured) gray. The outlines will look cooler if you mix in a little animation of the 3D models. This is because the outlines remove some of the sense of depth to the sprites, making them look flatter and closer to 2D, but if you mix in a little 3D motion it restores the depth and looks cool.

Thanks for the hint. Good to get guidance here.

I'm going to refine the graphics when the demo is complete (including ships, turrets, tiled landscape, shots, explosions, gameplay and an endboss). Hope to bring it out you as soon as possible.

[hermitC]

hermitC

hermitC

Visit hermitC's website.

Show hermitC's last posts.

Show general stats for hermitC.

• 
• Newbie
• Score: 1
• Posts: 44

After some days offline (due to 0MB download volume left) I'm back with some thoughts about shot design. Inspection of many reference titles showed me that good designed shots are very important for the shmup genre. I've listed some aspects of design in this blog post.

The first shot type within the game:

I'm looking forward for your comments. Please tell me if you know outstanding shot types, especially suiting the Steampunk style (speak rockets, bullets, grenades, etc.).

[moosa]

moosa

moosa

Show moosa's last posts.

Show general stats for moosa.

• 
• Exhaust For Brains
• Hero Member
• Score: 2
• Posts: 526

I'm assuming you're talking about enemy shots. Do you mean bullet patterns, individual shot behaviors, or the actual visual/graphic design of them?

[hermitC]

hermitC

hermitC

Visit hermitC's website.

Show hermitC's last posts.

Show general stats for hermitC.

• 
• Newbie
• Score: 1
• Posts: 44

I'm assuming you're talking about enemy shots. Do you mean bullet patterns, individual shot behaviors, or the actual visual/graphic design of them?

Yes, enemy shots. Player shots have lower priority at this point.

Examples of everything on your list would be great. I'm currently into checking out

• how other games shape their bullets,
• how fast they are,
• how important colors are,
• how bullets get arranged in patterns and
• how attack patterns are bound to the difficulty curve

Good examples and explanations why they are good would speed up this process. I'm thinking about moving pictures like YouTube videos.

[moosa]

moosa

moosa

Show moosa's last posts.

Show general stats for moosa.

• 
• Exhaust For Brains
• Hero Member
• Score: 2
• Posts: 526

Without actually digging up specific examples, first things that come to mind are this:

-Bullet shapes are most commonly circle or oval shaped. There may be some things like lasers (as in a long straight line, can be a wide variety of thicknesses) here or there too. Missiles can look like missiles. For common shots/bullets though, a round shape is probably ideal.

-How fast shots are is in large part up to preference and how difficult you want it to be. A general rule of thumb though is that the slower the bullets, the more you can cram on screen reasonably, and vice-versa. Its a good idea to balance the speed of the bullets and the speed of the player ship, I think.

-Colors are very important, I would say. The MOST important thing is that the enemy bullets are highly visible, easily distinguished and not covered up by or blending into anything else on screen. They should be drawn on top of everything, have distinct boundaries or outlines, and have good contrast with the background, powerups, explosions, and everything they would ever be drawn on top of.
Colors can also be used to indicate different bullet types, for example it's fairly common to have bullets of a certain color able to be cancelled or destroyed by a player shot or a sword attack (for example, Chaos Field), while bullets of a different color cannot be cancelled, forcing you to dodge them. And, obviously, the distinct colored shots in Ikaruga are very important. There are different things you can do with colors to be sure.

-Patterns are really up to your preference, imagination, and programming prowess! The one thing you need to work on is to make sure that they always feel FAIR and never put the player in a situation that he cannot get out of without bombing.

-Dunno what to say about the difficulty curve. There are a lot of ways to make it more difficult. Usually it amounts to either adding more enemies/bullets on screen or making the enemies on screen shoot trickier patterns. Or whatever.

[hermitC]

hermitC

hermitC

Visit hermitC's website.

Show hermitC's last posts.

Show general stats for hermitC.

• 
• Newbie
• Score: 1
• Posts: 44

Without actually digging up specific examples, first things that come to mind are this:

-Bullet shapes are most commonly circle or oval shaped. There may be some things like lasers (as in a long straight line, can be a wide variety of thicknesses) here or there too. Missiles can look like missiles. For common shots/bullets though, a round shape is probably ideal.

-How fast shots are is in large part up to preference and how difficult you want it to be. A general rule of thumb though is that the slower the bullets, the more you can cram on screen reasonably, and vice-versa. Its a good idea to balance the speed of the bullets and the speed of the player ship, I think.

-Colors are very important, I would say. The MOST important thing is that the enemy bullets are highly visible, easily distinguished and not covered up by or blending into anything else on screen. They should be drawn on top of everything, have distinct boundaries or outlines, and have good contrast with the background, powerups, explosions, and everything they would ever be drawn on top of.
Colors can also be used to indicate different bullet types, for example it's fairly common to have bullets of a certain color able to be cancelled or destroyed by a player shot or a sword attack (for example, Chaos Field), while bullets of a different color cannot be cancelled, forcing you to dodge them. And, obviously, the distinct colored shots in Ikaruga are very important. There are different things you can do with colors to be sure.

-Patterns are really up to your preference, imagination, and programming prowess! The one thing you need to work on is to make sure that they always feel FAIR and never put the player in a situation that he cannot get out of without bombing.

-Dunno what to say about the difficulty curve. There are a lot of ways to make it more difficult. Usually it amounts to either adding more enemies/bullets on screen or making the enemies on screen shoot trickier patterns. Or whatever.

Sounds good! Especially the color section and the "situation without bombing" helps me a lot. Thanks, man!

[hermitC]

hermitC

hermitC

Visit hermitC's website.

Show hermitC's last posts.

Show general stats for hermitC.

• 
• Newbie
• Score: 1
• Posts: 44

Just a quick status update:

I'm busy implementing an editor for Nordenfelt. Hopefully the basic version works within the next few days so I can drop a video creating a small level here.

[hermitC]

hermitC

hermitC

Visit hermitC's website.

Show hermitC's last posts.

Show general stats for hermitC.

• 
• Newbie
• Score: 1
• Posts: 44

6 weeks after the last post I'm back to show you the Nordenfelt editor in action:

Nordenfelt Editor Version 0.1

I'm going to publish demos of the game in the near future. I will drop a line here when I've something to play for you.

[Odessi]

Odessi

Odessi

Show Odessi's last posts.

Show general stats for Odessi.

• 
• Jr. Member
• Score: 3
• Posts: 57

Looks neat.  I've always found creating editors to be almost as fun as writing the game itself, which is terrible for productivity!

[hermitC]

hermitC

hermitC

Visit hermitC's website.

Show hermitC's last posts.

Show general stats for hermitC.

• 
• Newbie
• Score: 1
• Posts: 44

Looks neat.  I've always found creating editors to be almost as fun as writing the game itself, which is terrible for productivity!

Indeed, writing the editor is fun because the results are always immediately visible. The missing time for coding the game itself is not so funny.

[hermitC]

hermitC

hermitC

Visit hermitC's website.

Show hermitC's last posts.

Show general stats for hermitC.

• 
• Newbie
• Score: 1
• Posts: 44

[Nordenfelt 0.1 will be available for download on July 4th]

Decided to set a deadline for the first playable Nordenfelt demo:

    Nordenfelt 0.1 will be available for download on July 4th

You can find a list of included features here.

[hermitC]

hermitC

hermitC

Visit hermitC's website.

Show hermitC's last posts.

Show general stats for hermitC.

• 
• Newbie
• Score: 1
• Posts: 44

Concept of first boss in Nordenfelt 0.1: