THURSDAY, 24 JUNE 2010 BY EARL (SIGNET)
Over the last few days I have been working on various bits of the game. Most of the work has been polishing some of the little things and also the addition of more Annor GUI elements.
Today, in-game and working is the first permanent button on the GUI screen. This button opens the Skills window which in its basic form tells you how good you are at different things. I have started work on coding this GUI window and added a few of the database functions in to test it live. The screenshot is at the end of the post. Please note that NWN2 takes terrible screenshots that look blurry as hell when compared with the actual game (due to image compression).
I have almost completely polished the drinking button. Drinking from rivers and lakes will now take 10 real time seconds. During that time you will be unable to move. Your character will keep going down to the water. Yes there is an animation and yes there are also sound effects. It is really quite good and makes it feel more involved with the game. Busy tomorrow night and away all weekend but I will try and finish more of this skills window before next week. It won’t be done before that though (I think).
TAGS: drinking, GUI, polish, rivers, screenshots, skills
POSTED IN Character Skills, GUI | NO COMMENTS »
TUESDAY, 22 JUNE 2010 BY EARL (SIGNET)
Last week I mentioned Action Zones. There are invisible triggers which open up certain GUI elements.
When standing on the edge of a lake or river the Action GUI pops up. Currently the only option is to drink from the lake/river. This is a great way to keep yourself alive in the forest, grasslands and hills of Annor. There will be an option for filling certain drinks containers for adventuring into the more arid regions of the world.
The system currently works and increases a large amount of your thirst bar when used. I still have various exploits to cut off and some animations to put in but the system is in place.
I will put a screenshot up later if I have time. Working on the Skills window tonight.
TAGS: action zone, action zones, drinking, screenshots, water
POSTED IN GUI | NO COMMENTS »
MONDAY, 21 JUNE 2010 BY EARL (SIGNET)
Well this is the final version of the felling GUI for the current alpha.
Much more organised.
Next up, skill windows and action buttons.
TAGS: felling, GUI, screenshots
POSTED IN Character Skills, GUI | NO COMMENTS »
SUNDAY, 20 JUNE 2010 BY EARL (SIGNET)
This is the first version of the Felling GUI. I have had a few issues closing the window after the tree falls. Something in the engine stops the call for the GUI to close from actually triggering. I think this is a small quirk in the engine and for now its just going to have to remain a small annoyance.
The GUI closes if you walk away from the tree. I can only assume that if the tree is destroyed before the GUI closes (by another player perhaps?) then it will remain open in a similar way to before. Again, not a problem as it can be closed manually with the esc key. I will investigate it later.
Another thing on the “Investigate later” pile is making it movable. The flags are there but I obviously havn’t set it up right. (Click to make the picture bigger)
Please be aware that this is NOT the final version of the GUI. I have things to add and things to move, but the functionality is there. The green triangle is like a progress bar. It starts out green and finished red. As you can see from the screenshot I have been hitting it for a while.
The “Hit” figure is the amount of felling that has been done. This will probably end up being a percentage. The “Wood Loss” figure represents the amount of wood you have smashed/ruined on the tree in the process of chopping it.
And the skill level… well it explains itself. My character is “Adept” at Felling.
TAGS: felling, GUI, screenshots, skills
POSTED IN Character Skills, GUI | NO COMMENTS »
FRIDAY, 18 JUNE 2010 BY EARL (SIGNET)
Last night I added a number of things to the game. Mainly a few new icons and an updated one for weapons. Weapons will have a material related backdrop to their icons. Stone will have stone, wood will have wood etc.
The main update which I will be working on tonight is the GUI for doing things like cutting down trees. When you start cutting down a tree you are presented with a window that lets you know how well you are doing. Unfortunately there is a limitation in the NWN2 engine that prevents this window closing automatically when you run way from the tree. So you would have to close it manually.
This wouldn’t be a problem if tree spawns were static as this could be handled by a trigger. However… I have written a simple script to close the window after 6 seconds from opening UNLESS it is still being used by the game. So, another NWN2 engine quirk written around and another feature added.
Screenshots of this window coming tonight. Maybe a video?
TAGS: GUI, Icons
POSTED IN Character Skills, GUI, Scripting | NO COMMENTS »
TUESDAY, 15 JUNE 2010 BY EARL (SIGNET)
I have a number of upgrades to the Felling Skill which I hope will set a standard for the way the rest of the games systems feed information back to the player.
The GUI for Annor is quite reduced. We don’t want to add a load of clutter to the NWN2 display. Currently when you chop a tree nothing happens visually. Your character just hits the tree with whatever weapon until the tree falls over. You have no idea how well you are doing or indeed, how badly you are doing. You also have no idea how close to falling the tree is.
To inform you of your progress there will now be a new GUI window that pops up the moment your first swing makes contact with the tree (provided you arn’t punching it).
The GUI window will be dedicated to showing the FELLING progress. It will have a tree picture on the left (done in the Annor Classic GUI style of White & Colour like the Status GUI element). Next to the tree will be a V shape on its side making a wedge. This wedge will be like a progress bar and decrease as the tree gets closer to falling.
After each hit the GUI will update and tell you how good your hit was and how much damage you did to the tree in the process (for the last swing). It also tells you your level in Felling. This standard GUI will also be applied to the Bucking and Hewing systems when they are written. The images etc will be changed accordingly. Screenshots to come later this week.
TAGS: felling, GUI, lumberjack, skills
POSTED IN Character Skills, GUI | NO COMMENTS »
THURSDAY, 10 JUNE 2010 BY EARL (SIGNET)
The other day I was talking about drinking for streams and lakes from the waters edge or whilst standing in it. I have conducted several tests to confirm we can do what we plan to do. The results have confirmed that Action Zones will be implemented into the system.
So what are action zones?
Well they are basically triggers. Triggers from a NWN2 engine point of view. We have triggers painted on the the floor of the game which initiate a large number of functions. They are not visible to the player but a few of them will be key to the players survival. So the most important one would be the Water Action Zone.
The Water Action Zone is activated when a player is standing on the bank of a river, or in it. When they do this a GUI element will pop up giving them a few possible actions. One action will be to drink from the river. Another action would be fishing. If they player possesses a suitable fishing tool then the option will be available. We still need to find the best location for the Action Zone GUI elements to show up but they will most likely be in the middle of the screen above your character.
Another use for these zones are for the game to decide whether certain things can be done. Things such as farming and construction. There are areas where it would be ridiculous to build a house. On the edge of a cliff perhaps. Or planting your crop on the beach. Madness. Action Zones put a stop to it. Screenshots coming next week. Video of some of the finished features will be coming soon.
TAGS: action zones, drinking
POSTED IN GUI, Map Design, Scripting | NO COMMENTS »
SUNDAY, 9 AUGUST 2009 BY EARL (SIGNET)
The character status GUI is all but done. The only thing left to do is fix a bug when first logging in. It is programmed to load the status bars but doesn’t. I have some idea whats wrong there but waiting a bit for the deduction phase to trigger gives you a clear representation of your characters current status.
There is a GREEN bar which is for Fatigue/Tiredness etc. Below that is an ELECTRIC BLUE bar for Thirst/Fluid level. Last of all is the RUBY ORANGE bar for Hunger/Energy.
But here are some screenshots, enjoy:-
** UPDATE: GUI bug fixed by adding delay to status bar updates on client enter. **
TAGS: screenshots, status gui
POSTED IN GUI | NO COMMENTS »
SATURDAY, 8 AUGUST 2009 BY EARL (SIGNET)
Steering away from the core mechanics of the game we find ourselves heading towards the more visual features. This evening that feature is the GUI.
Although there is a great deal of amazing scripting work done, none of it can be properly demonstrated without a technical demonstration video and alot of justification!
For now I want to focus on bringing those mechanical elements to the visual department. These are the map, done by Relentless and the GUI, hammered in to shape by me.
The character status system has been fairly well complete for a long time. It affects the characters and generally adds some much needed difficulty to the game. Up until now a visual representation of the condition your character is in has been ignored.
From today I will be focusing on completing some of those ignored GUI elements. The Character Status which will appear just under the character portrait is the first on the list. I hope to have that finished and working within a few more hours, if not then it will be done by tomorrow morning. It currently has 3 progress bars indicating thirst, fatigue and hunger. In front of each is an icon so you know which one it is. To finish it properly (alpha version) I will need to make custom progress bars and script the status update scripts so that they update the GUI when the stats change.
Screenshots will be posted when its FINISHED.
Note: Today I also found some interesting bugs in the death script which I will look at eventually. The death script is not a priority at this time.
TAGS: bug, custom graphics, death, GUI, player status
POSTED IN GUI | NO COMMENTS »
