So I'm guessing that a create a character option is out too.
Wow, you've really put a lot of thought in what you want for a storyline. Awesome. I'm impressed. Whoever writes the scripts (be it me or anyone) should really confirm with you while writting it. That way, less confusion. So when you mean non-transformer enemies, do you mean animals or monsters?
WW
Prime: "Any last words?"
Demolisher: "not the face, NOT THE FACE!"
Building the characters will be a lengthy process, so as of right now I don't have plans for creating an interface that allows you to build/customize your Beast Warrior.
I want to have each character like a class; good example is the game Team Fortress 2, because you choose a class: i.e. sniper, heavy, flamer, or whatever. Each character will excel only in certain areas, so the character you choose determines how you will play the game.
As cool as doing an 8bit platformer would be, I am shooting for the sky, but if it fails I might try something simpler.
I am not coping the original story, so technically no there will not be the seasons of Beast Wars. My focus is to create the show characters of all three seasons, but I am not doing transmetal/transmetal 2, so much as I want all beast forms to look like the transmetal look, but without vehicle modes. Characters will not change there look as the story progresses. If we finish all of the characters from the show I would like to continue with creating other official Beast Warriors from the toy line/comics.
A world littered with space crafts from all over the galaxy could contain anything, so just about anything that a writer could dream up could very well get onto this world. Simple scenario you get a mission to search one of the downed space crafts from parts to repair the Axalon, the ship could be filled with internal defensive turrets or traps. You could go into a ship and open a large door to find out that yes a Monster was indeed inside. You could have non cybertronian robots in there own downed space craft, and Megatron could try to manipulate them. I am trying to create the most open ended beginning as possible, but ultimately no matter what else is on the planet everything revolves around the greater conflict of Maximals and Predacons.
I'd say WFC had the classes down pretty well which could cross over into your game. Quick question, though: how will a character's class impact his/her gameplay? For example, scouts were quick and fast. Scientists were fragile, but agile and aerial-bound. Soldiers were slow and durable. Leaders were all around. Each had their respective abilities and whatnot that complimented their role. However, Beast Wars tends to overlap some of these attributes. For example, Optimus Primal had the most firepower out of all the Maximals, but he was durable, fast, and flight-capable. Are you writing the story to better suit each individual into a specific classification?
Also, I wish you the best of luck on creating the transformation sequences. That's gonna be a pain to make one that doesn't screw up your frame rate.
No question getting transformations working seamlessly is going to be difficult if not improbable.
There are some characters like Optimus Primal, Megatron, Rampage, Tigerhawk, Depth Charge, and possibly others; which are not going to be balanced characters. I like what Star Wars Battlefront did with some of it's classes, to spawn as some of the more powerful classes you had to score more points, and only so many of the advanced classes could be spawn. So for team death match I am thinking it would be nice if the first couple people on a team to reach a certain score would be allowed to change to one of the elite characters.
Because of the uniqueness of most characters I want to refrain form creating "classes', but classes is just a way I can put it into perspective that characters will determine how you play. Balance will be very difficult, so right now I know it won't be balanced at first. To some extent I will need to bend some of the characters into somewhat classes, but I want them to remain much like what we saw on the show. Some characters will need to get weapons/abilities to balance out the faction so there is someone on both sides that has an ability.
No assets have been completed, but I have been busy programming with existing material that came with the UDK. This is mostly a demonstration of what everything looks like right now. The HUD (Heads up Display) shows health, energon, energy, ammo, weapon name and icon. Health and ammo are pretty generic to games, but energon is just like it was in the first Beast Wars game: something to determine how long you could stay in robot mode. Energy is a limiter for abilities/actions; it's used for jumping, double jumping, dodging, sprinting, melee, once flying mode is created it will be used for that too, and any special abilities a character might have. The melee concept might look crude now that I don't have proper animations or sounds for it, but it works, and was demonstrated by the odd sound, character doing funny gesture, and enemy glowing red for a second. A warning to low energy is a blueish purple overlay glow, but once energon reaches zero the character will experience energon surges that knock the player down, get faster and faster, and in no time kill the player. At the end of the video the character was about to die by energon surge, but fell over the cliff first.
The energon surge definitely looked well done. Would it be possible to design it so that transforming to beast mode would stop the energon surge from killing you, although you'd be left with low health and restricted to melee attacks?
As of right now I haven't created a simulated Beast mode state, but the coding does account of the concept. Once the beast mode variable is set to true, then energon will recharge, the energon warning will remain while energon is less then 20% of your total energon, but there will be no energon surges. Beast mode will limit you to a weaker melee then is in robot mode, so combat wise your not much of a match, but right now Beast mode is planned as a recharging state; not only to restore energon buffer, but also health and energy regenerate at increased rate while in beast mode. Health regenerate is temporarily delayed every time you take damage, and in beast mode that delay is doubled, so even though regeneration is increased if something hits you, then you will have to wait 8 seconds if robot mode delay is 4. So if your low on health, energy, or energon you can transform into beast mode and hide while your stuff recharges.
One advantage to beast mode will be any abilities in beast mode will not require energy, so beast modes that fly can do so without using energy.
Progress has been slow, but continues. Getting a working transformation has consumed far more time and energry then I had hoped, and right now our working character is being redone to get a fully working transformation.
UDK(the software suite with engine that this is to be all built on) has the capacity to use GFX scaleform to create user interfaces from flash files with action script 2.0. Does anyone have much experience with any flash applictions or action script 2.0? or photoshop for creating the images to import into flash? I am focusing on making multiplayer right now that starts with a user interface to choose your faction, character, and weapons before entering the map.
mcshooterz wrote:Progress has been slow, but continues. Getting a working transformation has consumed far more time and energry then I had hoped, and right now our working character is being redone to get a fully working transformation.
UDK(the software suite with engine that this is to be all built on) has the capacity to use GFX scaleform to create user interfaces from flash files with action script 2.0. Does anyone have much experience with any flash applictions or action script 2.0? or photoshop for creating the images to import into flash? I am focusing on making multiplayer right now that starts with a user interface to choose your faction, character, and weapons before entering the map.
You should talk to Cypherplex. He's already created a significant amount of BW models + their transformation animations. He could probably help you out significantly!
Progress continues even if slowly. It will still be a while before anything playable is released, but I figured I would show this video demonstrating an early low detail skin on one of our characters, and me running around shooting rockets/melee attacking enemies. http://www.youtube.com/user/HardcoreHobo?feature=mhum
