Development Report
In this latest Dev Blog we wanted to provide an update on the development of the prototype. Overall things are going slowly and we’re happy with the progress to date. We hope to move beyond the prototyping phase and into full development shortly now that we’re confident that we can do our ideas justice and that The Ranger Unit will be fun, enjoyable and challenging. To date, we have the following core elements up and running to a level we’re happy with for the time being: -
Graphics Engine – While we know it will be difficult to match similar big budget titles we are confident our graphics engine will be right up there with comparable games. We’re currently playing around with some post-processing effects to allow us to portray the feeling of being in different parts of the world at different times of day, it also allows for a cool night-vision effect. We are also drawing decals for shot collisions to provide the user with enough feedback to feel like they’re really shooting a weapon.
Materials Editor – done and dusted for now but we will need to add more material types and effects later.
Audio – We have an audio engine in place with gunshot effects.
Networking – We have online communication up and running and have introduced a system to smooth over lag.
Controls/Camera – We have the basic first person controls/camera in place and have tried to give our game it’s own feel/tempo within that framework.
Physics – We have shooting and movement physics up and running.
Collisions – We’re particularly proud of the collision system, especially for characters moving against walls/windows and going up/down stairs.
Level – We purchased a 3D model of a military base with buildings and vehicles for the prototype. N.B. for the foreseeable future all art and audio will be placeholder, we’ve been using royalty free assets and will eventually replace them with professionally made resources for release.
Our next goal is to introduce some very simple gameplay elements or scenarios. Our aim is to add a basic shooting range with targets and scoring system and a simple online Deathmatch mode. Once they’re in we can then make the final call as to whether we’re happy that the prototype provides enough fun and enough potential to start full development. We hope to be able to share the first screenshots with you in the near future. It’s always a difficult balance between showing something too early that doesn’t do the game’s potential justice and waiting too long. As such we will not rush to show screens that might underwhelm, we will wait until what we show is of a high enough quality to demonstrate how good The Ranger Unit is going to be. Before we get to that stage we want to tackle the following: -
1] Polish the environment and models
2] Improve environment, normal and specular mapping
3] Support animation in 3DS Max exporter
4] Add placeholder character and animations
Due to forthcoming holidays the next Dev Blog will be Saturday, June 20th, over and out.
