Posts Tagged sirren
Day of unity
Posted by mvbarracuda in Misc on October 6th, 2009
Heya and welcome to yet another PARPG news update. Sorry for the lack of updates lately but I had to take a break from the project to sort out a bunch of problems in real life. Now I’m finally back, reunited to PARPG. Let’s get started right away, the vast majority of the news update will cover our plans for the first public release of PARPG that we hope to ship around the end of the year.
We were holding an IRC meeting of the entire development team recently to discuss the plans for our first public release. This update is mainly a rephrased extended version of the meeting notes. If you’re interested in all the small details, check out the full meeting log!
Programming department
The are a bunch of news to report in the programming department. While the blog was quiet for the last weeks, we found a bunch of new programmers with our last new update in August. One of the new guys is or1andov (known as superfluid at our forums), who’s currently working on the dialog engine of the game. While API documentation and general code annotations are still missing for the dialog engine, you can already test it yourself by grabbing the latest version of PARPG from our SVN repository.
Here are some screenshots for your viewing pleasure and yes: this orlandov is a funny guy 🙂
Furthermore we’re trying to implement the following code-related features for our first release until the end of the year:
- Simple inventory/object/looting model
- Basic dialog engine supporting branching tree dialog
- Getting the FIFE map editor working with our customized maps (editor currently mangles our maps due custom data used)
- Optional: saving and loading (serializing/deserializing of the gamestate)
Writing department
Unfortunately we still haven’t figured out how to merge the two different storyline proposals that have been brought up in the past. As we don’t need a fully fleshed out main storyline for the techdemo, we’ll rather focus on bringing two small quests into the game so we can test the whole framework.
Quest #1 will be about beer brewing / booze distilling: http://forums.parpg.net/index.php?topic=458.0
Quest #2 will be a fedex in its purest sense: http://forums.parpg.net/index.php?topic=459.0
If you’re interested in helping to flesh out these quests, check out the threads at the forums linked above and your quest design might end up in the PARPG techdemo 🙂
Both quests are meant to offer some alternative paths to resolve them as well as some consequences depending on the choices that you’ve made. Some possible alternative paths were discussed at the meeting, check out the details in the full log.
Graphics department
The required graphics assets for techdemo 1 will naturally largely depend on the two planned quests of the techdemo. As soon as we have the quests fleshed out in terms of ways to solve them, we’ll compile a list of needed graphical assets for the graphics department so our graphics artists can start to tackle these ones.
4-5 different NPCs + 1 PC with a full set of animations (standing around idling, walking, running, using, picking up) are meant to be featured in the techdemo. These animations can actually already be found in SVN. Graphics artist Sirren created a whole set of new NPC for the first release.
Long coat (female):
Long coat (male):
Farmer (male):
Traveler (male):
Right now we’re still short of graphics artist, Sirren is basically the only active artist on the team at this point. If you are a graphics artist who likes the concept of the game and would like to help us, please don’t hesitate to get in contact with us by introducing yourself at the forums!
As every update: there are bunch of new 3d models and concept art pieces that didn’t make it into this update. Feel free to check out the gallery at the wiki to see every piece of art that has been created lately.
That’s all for today. Next news update scheduled for Monday, 19th of October. See you then 🙂
Newsflash Gordon
Posted by mvbarracuda in Misc on August 19th, 2009
Heya and welcome to yet another PARPG news update. I’m still quite busy with writing papers for university but as I got 1.5 weeks until I need to hand in the next one, there is sufficent time to finally post an update here. Enjoy!
Project management department
Some of you might have tried to update your PARPG SVN checkouts lately but wondered why SVN reported an error. We’ve recently restructured our SVN repository so the game’s path has slightly changed. If you’re doing a fresh checkout, use this URL to just grab the game itself: http://parpg-svn.cvsdude.com/parpg/trunk/game/
For the ones who have already checked out the game in the past and would like to update now without having to download all the files again, check out this guide at the forums that explains how you can do so: SVN switch to new game path
The download article at the wiki was updated to reflect these changes as well: how to download PARPG
Programming department
In the programming department, there are a bunch of ongoing refactoring efforts. We were lucky enough to attract quite some fresh blood lately and the new guys are becoming acquainted with our code right now. While some refactoring efforts already found their way into our SVN repository, it’s still a long way to go. If you’re interested in the details, check out the programming section of the forums to get an idea of the ongoing refactoring discussions: programming department section
As we had to cope with a bunch of problems and staff changes in the programming department lately, we’ve decided to establish a so called “board of programmers” to address these kind of issues when they arise. The board of programmers will consist of three seasoned developers; bretzel, tZee & Kaydeth have decided to step up for the task. These three developers will have two main tasks:
- Coordinate the efforts in the department, defining the programming roadmap.
- Making final decisions in cases where a topic has been discussed in detail with all other programmers but an agreement couldn’t be reached nevertheless.
As every board member has one “vote” in the second case, there should be no draw situations and this new mechanism hopefully helps to decide tricky cases that turned out to be roadblockers for us in the past. In case any board member has to take a longer break from the project, the remaining two programmers and the project management will ask a candidate of their choice if he or she would like to become a new member of the board for the time being.
Graphics department
In the past, we used to rely on Blender as prefered 3d modeling package for PARPG. While we were constantly attracting new programmers lately, finding more artists who don’t mind working for free on an open source project seems far harder. Therefore we decided to change our stance concerning the 3d modeling software to use. 3d artists can now use whatever software they like as long as it does the job for them. The obvious drawback is, that we’ll have to create rendering setups for these packages so that the produced renders look the same regardless of the used software.
But we feel that it’s worth the effort; so if you’re using any other 3d modeling software than Blender, feel free to apply now as well! The best place to do so is the introduce yourself board at the forums.
3d modeler Sirren completed his first set of animations for the player character: standing idle and walking around:
Concept artist Border created a soviet soldier, carrying a flamethrower:
Seothen continued to work on the Dr. Felix Weir concept and created a first work in progress full body shot of him:
Suzi, one of the new artists on the team, drew some props that you could be pretty useful when it’s cold outside:
New 3d artist monkeyface modeled an improvised crossbow – reusing a leaf-spring – and bolts for it. And yes: he likes Fallout as well, just in case that wasn’t obvious from the first picture 🙂
Last but not least: Border created a first mockup for the graphics user interface of PARPG:
Game mechanics department
There where two main topics in the mechanics department that have been discussed lately.
There have been discussions about possible ways of implementing levelless character progression. Check out the details at the forums: character progression in PARPG
Furthermore we’ve put the map layout topic back on the agenda. We initially decided to use separate maps for indoor areas of buildings, like it was done in the Infinity Engine games. However with the recent staff changes, it seems that the still involved developers might rather favour an approach as used in Fallout: the ground levels of buildings were usually part of the map where the building resided in the first two Fallout games.
This way you could basically shoot through doors and windows and combat was quite fun. Nothing has been agreed upon yet, but the whole point is basically up for discussion again: reevaluating PARPG map layout
Writing department
Zenbitz brought up two setting-related proposals lately. Check out the state of the world and how to play the game threads at the forums.
That’s all for today. Next news update scheduled for Monday, 31st of August. See you then 🙂
Back from the dead
Posted by mvbarracuda in Misc on June 2nd, 2009
Heya and welcome to yet another PARPG news update. Three full weeks have passed since the last one and I’m truly sorry for the lack of updates lately. I’ve been really busy with university and although I know a lot more about the reconstruction of the failed state Liberia with the help of the UN now, I rather would have liked to post an update or two in the meantime instead of investing so much time into a presentation I had to give last Friday. Anyways, now that I’m done with it, I got some free time on my hands this week so here’s your promised dose of PARPG news. This time it’s more a newsflash than anything else. While I’ve been busy with real life, the others – especially the graphics department – has been hardworking and there’s simply too much to report to do so in detail. Feel free to browse the forums to read about all the details.
Programming department newsflash
Maximinus had to wrestle with some of FIFE’s quirks lately. Frustration grew and we were actively looking for possible alternatives to FIFE just to be not stuck with it as only possible engine. It seems while FIFE comes with a bunch of quirks indeed, it’s still the best option for the game that we have in mind. A more detailed explanation is provided at the forums.
Python programmer Bretzel continued to work on the inventory code. After we covered his standalone version of it in the last news update, we’re proud to present a screenshot of its new ingame version:
Furthermore: we’re still looking for a Mac-based C++ programmer to help us with getting FIFE running on Macintosh systems. While it does work in theory, building FIFE on Macs is incredibly complicated; therefore our Mac-based developers would really appreciate a helping hand. If you’re comfortable programming on Mac and got some solid C++ background as well as Linux experience, please get in contact with us at the forums.
Game design newsflash
Zenbitz has been hardworking as every week and continued to flesh out his thoughts on wounding.
Graphics department
Ohh boy, these artists don’t seem to be sleeping. While this update contains a whole bunch of images, there are about a dozen more at the forums. To save myself some time I’ll simply show some of their latest work and link to a recent thread with more pictures. Enjoy 🙂
Shrew81
Warehouse render (WIP version posted in the last news update):
More weapon renders by Shrew81:
http://forums.parpg.net/index.php?topic=213.0
Zimble
More renders by Zimble:
http://forums.parpg.net/index.php?topic=214.0
Zeli
Zeli is one of the new concept artists on the team.
Sirren
Sirren worked on a bunch of inorganic & organic models for PARPG lately.
Valmet RK 62:
Animated reindeer:
More renders by Sirren:
http://forums.parpg.net/index.php?topic=190.15
Project management newsflash
We’re currently trying to establish developer meetings at our IRC channel on a regular basis; preferably at least twice a month. In case you’re interested to take part, head over to the forums and let us know which day of the week would be best suited for such a meeting.
That’s all for today. See you next week 🙂 Hopefully with less topics to cover that I can therefore flesh out in more detail.
On the upswing
Posted by mvbarracuda in Misc on May 11th, 2009
Heya and welcome to yet another weekly PARPG news update! As we got quite a bunch of topics to cover this week, I’ll keep things short and in case you’re interested in the details, you can always check out the threads at the forums as well as the articles at the wiki.
Overhauled combat system
Zenbitz has been rather busy lately but he invested some of his spare time into overhauling the Combat system proposal. If you’re interested in the details and the ongoing discussion, check out the thread about it at the forums.
On a modeling spree
It seems like the whole graphics department is on a modeling spree lately. 3d artist Shrew81 continued to work on his hut model and the latest – basically finished version – turned out quite well:
Furthermore he also started to work on a larger warehouse so we can use this building for testing purposes. At the moment the programming department is investigating how larger objects can be implemented into the game without running into z-ordering and blocking issues. Anyway, here’s a work in progress render of it:
Sirren has been hardworking as well and has started to model a second female raider. You can check out the latest work in progress version at the forums:
Inventory goodness
Every RPG needs a player inventory. So Python programmer Bretzel teamed up with graphics artist Sirren to investigate how such an inventory could be implemented – programming-wise as well as visually – for PARPG. The current version of the inventory code is actually still a standalone FIFE client but that’s just the first step; the next one will be to properly integrate it into PARPG. For those who are interested in the details and would like to test the inventory themselves, head over the the forums and check out the two threads about it there. For all the others, here’s at least a visual impression of the first draft:
O Tile Artist, Where Art Thou?
Despite all the latest efforts in the graphics department, there is still plenty of room left for additional contributors. At the moment we’re searching for graphics artists who would like to work on creating ground tiles for the project. Lamoot recently wrote a guide about the topic at the graphics section of the wiki. Unfortunately he’s rather occupied with fleshing out the other guides at this point so we would appreciate any help in the field so we can see finally see some snowish looking tiles ingame. If you would like to get involved, head over to the introduction board of the forums and let us know!
Programming efforts
Maximinus refactored large parts of the code to ease the work of potential newcomers in the department. A proper data model has been implemented and the map data has been split up. That means that objects and NPCs are cleanly separated from static map data now.
Now refactoring itself does not provide any material for fancy screenshots but he wanted to provide some eye candy for this week’s update nevertheless. Therefore maximinus imported Sirren’s latest model to give you an impression how it looks ingame:
Last but not least he also commented on the next steps for the programming department. Might be pretty interesting especially to programmers who consider to contribute to the project but also to everyone else who’s interested in PARPG’s future plans in this field.
Trac spam issues addressed
Unfortunately our trac system has been invaded by spammers a couple of days ago. We had to deactivate ticket creation for anonymous users to stop it. Fortunately our host cvsdude.com addressed the issue rather fast and installed an anti-spam addon; anonymous ticket creation is activated again and hopefully the spam problems are gone as well.
On the upswing
Despite all the economy recession going on at the moment, the project seem to be on an upswing nevertheless. It can’t be coincidence that the new graphics artists on the team Zimble decided to apply with the model of a windmill. We’ll hopefully find a place for this one in the game as well:
That’s all for today, see you again next Monday!
From sketch to model
Posted by mvbarracuda in Misc on April 27th, 2009
Heya and welcome to yet another PARPG news update! As promised: now delivered weekly again.
An important advantage of weekly blog updates is that the number of topics to cover can be usually kept rather low. This time we’ll take a look into the latest map tests and present Zenbitz’s thoughts how combat could work in PARPG. Last but not least we’ll show you how a piece of concept art evolves from a mere black and white sketch to a colorized version of it and finally into an actual (work in progress) 3d model.
Map code tests
Maximinus has continued to play around with the map code of the game and tried to find out if there are sane alternatives to splitting up larger objects – e.g. buildings – into smaller separate tile-wide pieces. So far it looks like splitting objects is the way to go as it’s hard to work around z-ordering and collision (blocking) issues otherwhise. If you’re interested in the details: check out the thread at the forums. Maximinus does also plan to update the forums with new pictures of his latest tests on a somewhat regular basis. A thread has been opened for this purpose.
Try yourself
As building FIFE and running PARPG is usually quite easy (depending on the distribution that you use in case of Linux), some users might simply want to check out the latest changes themselves instead of just staring at screenshot. As we’ve changed the path of the game folder in SVN lately, the old guide at the wiki was not up to date anymore. So in case you tried to check out PARPG from SVN in the last days and it didn’t work for you, take a look into the now updated download article at the wiki.
Combat considerations
Zenbitz spent his week on thinking how the combat system in PARPG could work. He collected a whole couple of possible options and wrote them down at the wiki. Feel free to check out the combat article there.
From sketch to actual 3d model
As pictures often speak more than 1000 words, we’ve got some visuals for you again. Concept artist JustinOperable (yes, it’s a pun) started to create a bunch of black and white character concept drawings for the project. The next step was to colorize these drawings so they could be used as inspiration for an actual ingame model. Graphics artist Sirren was the one who started to work on an actual 3d representation of such a female ingame character.
Most important: the model is still heavy work in progress; so please keep that in mind! We know that it will still need quite some work but as we try our best to keep all progress transparent, we decided to rather post a work in progress version instead of hiding it from as long as no final version of it is availble. All kind of feedback is appreciated 🙂
Black and white sketch:
Colorized version:
Work in progress 3d model:
That’s all for today. See you again next week!