Because banging can be fun, can't it?

OK, the title is a reference to this video (RIP Roy Skelton), which is marginally justified due to this post including physical collisions between convex objects.

Since the last post quite a few significant updates have been made, which are best expressed through the medium of bullet points.

• The convex object collision detection/physics is working well (huzzah!)
• Springs (currently massless) have been implemented in the physics engine, which will form the basis of the tractor beam with Juggernaut.
• The damage and destruction framework has been significantly upgraded to include penetration levels for both laser and projectile weapons.  For example, in the video you will see that the laser weapon immediately terminates upon hitting the debris, but passes through several Scourge enemies before terminating.  A larger penetration factor for a weapon will improve its effectiveness against multiple enemies, but not against single tougher enemies.  
• Each object can now have a convex collision shape associated with it that will be intersected with by laser + arc weaponry.   This replaces the bounding-circle based object/object collision.
• Upgrades the asset management framework that allows resource files containing multiple asset types to be loaded in transparently.  Dull, but very handy ;)

The ship editor in action:

This video demonstrates the initial drag/drop ship editor interface in action. It shows that each ship component has a number of slots that can be used to attach either other structural components or weapons.

This video starts after the two wing elements and one of the engines have already been added (due to FRAPS time restrictions) - you then see the addition of a couple of power generators, which provide increased power recharge rate and power maximum (which is consumed by firing weapons), a missile launcher and a couple of standard energy cannons.

The angle of any of these components may be changed by dragging with the right mouse button, so you can create rear-facing/side facing weaponry as desired. As development progresses, there will also be computer-controlled turrets that will auto-target enemies.

Juggernaut Ship Editor Demo Video from Darren Myatt on Vimeo.

Time for reflection...

OK, while I'm putting off a bit of particularly annoying refactoring, I thought it may be a good time to post a quick reflection on how far Juggernaut (and I) have come so far.

I quit my previous job (as a technical consultant at a defence subcontractor) on the very first day back this year, because I simply couldn't do it any more. Monetarily it was a pretty good job, which is how I can now afford to do this, but I got no satisfaction from it and the pressure nearly drove me crazy.

I'd been working on the code that became the Juggernaut engine for about a year in my spare time (including long periods of nothing) before then: it initially started out as the engine for a 3D game named Super Robot Harpsichord which, who knows, may one day still get made. However, it quickly became clear that attempting to create a full 3D game on my own was completely infeasible in terms of art assets, at which point I came up with the basic idea for Juggernaut, although it has evolved a lot since the initial conception.

The Super Robot Harpsichord graphic engine at the time when work was stopped.  Notice how everything has the same texture, a constraint that I quickly removed when creating Juggernaut!  The red spheres are a large number of test bullets that bounce around the scene.

So, after fully leaving my last job on the 5th February, I have been working on Juggernaut (more than) full time. It is still quite ambitious (something warned of by MrMacguffin), but I am trying to keep to deadlines, and progress has been rapid.

My original plan was to make a first demo in May, and I think I'm still reasonably on target for that, although it's now going to be the end of May. It's certainly going to be an alpha release rather than a beta, but hopefully it should demonstrate enough of the concepts of the full game to get people interested.

The first high quality Alpha video!

Yes, it's finally here, I've managed to make a video that doesn't look like arse! Alas, the free version of FRAPS only allows clips of 30 seconds, and this video doesn't necessarily show off anything to the best effect, and the sound is knackered, but it's at least a start. Now that I'm confident it produces good results, I'll upgrade so that I can record full videos.

The video demonstrates the laser weapons and the force-applying missiles with space-warping effect. There's also going to be a graphical explosion effect for the missiles, but that hasn't been implemented yet.

Also, note that the Scourge aren't bothering to attack the player in this video as the AI is just set to do a patrol loop. In the actual game they'll turn and start following/attacking the player once spotted.


Juggernaut Alpha Demo 1 from Darren Myatt on Vimeo.

Juggernaut Development Update.

My new keyboard arrived today that should help streamline the development of Juggernaut:

It'll be so much easier having the 1 key to the right of the 0, unlike standard keyboards.  Also, the air-cooling will definitely reduce the level of key-melting that I usually experience.

Post-Easter update

Since the 15th I have been exploring the vast and desolate wastelands of the North of England (while visiting my family over Easter), and only returned to Guildford a couple of days ago.  Now, after going to the Reading Beer Festival yesterday I'm ready to start work properly again.

This is not to say that I haven't been working over the couple of weeks: things have actually come quite far.  Before now, the main thing missing from the Juggernaut engine is any proper collision physics: rather than the player's ship bouncing off walls and taking damage (as you'd expect), damage was just applied while the ship was colliding with the main environment.  This was just a temporary, but obviously incomplete, solution.

However, the advantage of being back in the North was that I only had my laptop with me, which lacks DirectX 10 hardware, and as a result there was no way that I could work on the main game engine.  This forced me to do the necessary research in order to be able to implement a decent rigid body physics engine, which means that not only will the ship react well when colliding with walls, but it leaves a lot of room for interesting physics-based challenges, including pulling things around using a tractor beam.  I'm currently just doing the refactoring necessary to integrate the physics engine with the main game engine, but in a few days I'm confident that this last major aspect of the game will be working well.

After that, it will be full steam ahead towards the creation of the first demo!