Category Archives: Tokusatsu Agent

My latest game project, making a 3D platformer game

Away3D: Animation using Metasequoia

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Another experiment with Away3D 🙂 After successfully loading Metaseq (MQO) file using Away3D, I want to do a simple animation.

Currently, Away3D supports bone animation using Collada. Collada would be great for animation but I don’t have any 3D editor to generate Collada file. Unfortunately, I’m kinda allergic to Blender 😀

Luckily, Away3D is also able to do vertex animation using MD2 or the Animator class. After reading the frame/vertex animation tutorial (http://away3d.com/tutorials/tutorial-how-to-use-the-animator-class), I decided to give it a try.

I still have the Mikoto animation files that I created for Tokusatsu Agent. Haven’t used Mikoto for very very long time but it just take me 30 minute to get used to it again. I took the running animation and saved some keyframes into 6 MQO files. Using my Metaseq library, I load all 6 MQO files, get the vertices data, and pass them to the Animator class.

The result is quite satisfying. Just click the pic below for demo. The source code still look ugly but just e-mail me if you’re interested.

away3d frame animation

More experiments and optimizations will come so stay tuned 😉

Away3D: More with Metasequoia

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[Edited on 20 May 2010: I updated the latest Metasequoia loader for Away3D 3.5.0! See my latest post about vertex animator]

 

Two weeks ago, I started playing with Away3D and working on parser for Metasequoia. There were some codes for that (from sleepydesign or libspark) but they didn’t work with the new version. I have been changing the code so it can change the materials/texture of the model once loaded.

FinallyI made it. Click the picture below to see the demo

hiro-away3d-2b

Click the ‘read more’ below to see the and download the code. It is still in very early version, buggy and some MQO models are not displayed correctly. I am still working on it. But if you want, feel free to use it 😉

Note: The code is only work with the current trunk version of the Away3D version 2.4.0/3.4.0 FP10 (tested on rev. 2039)

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Away3D: Loading Metasequoia model

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So what have I done on the last 3 weeks at home? Cooking, sketching, and of course, finishing my game prototype. It’s done but I need to adjust a lot of things to make it more fun. Another new thing is I learn Away3D.

After doing all tutorials (compiling, putting models on screen, rotating them, …), I really like Away3D. Flash 3D is not as I thought 🙂 Maybe that because I’m already familiar with 3D programming.

Since I’ve done a lot of 3D modelings using Metaseq, I want Away3D to load Metaseq files (MQO). Away3D Lite supports MQO but not the Away3D. So I tried to use Blender to convert the model to obj or Colada, but somehow didn’t work. Almost everything I export from Blender didn’t work (as usual) 😐

Then I found a very nice code at sleepydesign (thanks katopz 😉 ) but the code cannot compile on the new Away3D (version 2.4.0/3.4.0 Flash Player 10). It seems that there are some classes that already gone. So I modify the code a little bit and …. tada! 😎

Load MQO model using Away3D

It’s Hiro from my demo game Tokusatsu Agent. Click the image to play the Flash file. Make sure you have Flash Player 10 installed 😉

The code is still not finish. It only able to load embedded model, not from external file/url.  The model above uses 3 texture files and I am still working on the MaterialLibrary part so later I can change the materials after loading the model. Once finish, I will put it on the net 😉

Large Group Gaming using Wii Remote

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This is my master thesis, developing a prototype of group game for Wii Remote. Using several PCs, a large number of Wii Remotes can be connected to play a video game on a big screen.

For the game development, I use Brian Peek Wiimote Library, Irrlichtnetcp Engine, and Visual C# 2008 Express Edition. The game can be played using 3 different methods using the Wii Remote.

I finished my thesis last month and now I want to share it. Just click the link below to read more about it. In the end of the article, you can download the PDF of the thesis document and the source code of the game.

Enjoy 🙂

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My Next Game Project – Progress #1

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If you read my previous post about my next game project, one of my next game project candidates will be a 3D shmup. A shmup but without any spaceships, only with super-deformed anime characters running and shooting around 😎 Inspired by a doujin game SisPri Gauntlet. There is a bigger chance that I will develop this shmup/gauntlet type, rather than the Ys-style or Drill Milky Punch-style 🙂

So, on the last 2 days, I played (read: did some researches 🙂 ) several shmup games (and also Dawn Of Mana for PS2 😀 ). I am always not so good in playing shmup games but I grow up playing them. So, I am excited to develop my first shmup.

Yesterday, I made a simple test to see the performance of my game code’s (yes, I am using codes from Tokusatsu Agent). My target is to put 200-300 enemies on the screen (not including the bullets), but when I put 30 enemies, the frame rate dropped from 60 to 30 FPS. Twenty enemies were still OK (55 – 60 FPS).


Poor Hiro surrounded by 30 enemies

Each enemy is about 600 polys, and our hero is about 1000 polys. So all together is about 20000 polys. Yeah, no wonder why it’s so slow 😐 Now I know why shmup developers still stick with 2D graphics 😐 According shmup-dev, you could have more than a thousand sprites on the screen, including the bullets 😯

Bullet hell & Shienryu

So what’s my next step? I will try to change the enemy’s mesh, from animated mesh into non-animated one. Animating 30 .X meshes could take a lot of resources, I think. If this one fails, I will change all characters into pre-rendered 3D (2D sprites). Only the game world stays in 3D, maybe including the main character.

But tomorrow, I will have a break after one week non-stop working. I’ll go to Hamburg with my wife for some window shopping 😈