Author Archives: Alex

UI design

Posted on September 17, 2010 by Alex

I’ve got a plan for the UI, and am now in the process of writing all the C++ funcitons to display and manipulate the separate elements.  Then I’ll finalize the file format for storing the data, then I’ll hook LUA … Continue reading →

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Engine trails

Posted on September 14, 2010 by Alex

Trails are done.  Positions are tracked in memory, but most of the work calculating the trail shape is done in shaders. I’ve given enemy ships trails too.  Zooming out when there are a lot of them around is now more … Continue reading →

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Engine trail prototype

Posted on September 12, 2010 by Alex

I’ve added a map in the upper right of stars and planets.  It’s not great, probably zoomed out too much, and I don’t think it’s centered on the player correctly, but I’ll clean it up later. But what I’m actually … Continue reading →

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Back to the game. Now with wormholes.

Posted on September 10, 2010 by Alex

New in this version: Added a universe system.  Separate “galaxies” maintained with their own individual stars, planets, ships, and projectiles. Added wormholes, to travel between galaxies.  Travel zeroes out any projectiles you left behind, but the enemies will be right … Continue reading →

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Emitter, now using shaders

Posted on September 7, 2010 by Alex

I’ve been working on shaders for the last couple of days.  Nothing final yet, but here’s a preview of my new flame effect, I think it’s definitely a significant step up in terms of appearance, though unfortunately it’s a pretty … Continue reading →

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Shaders

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Alex

I really thought I was done with the emitter stuff.  Then I decided the performance needed improving.  Then I read this. So now I’m going to try to do that.  It does mean that I’ll now be requiring shader model … Continue reading →

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Significant emitter revision

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Alex

This is possibly the final version of the emitter program, aside from adding in actual alpha blending options, which I keep forgetting to do.  It’s certainly not perfect, but it’s not like it’s really part of the game, so as … Continue reading →

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Emitter designer, now with actual emitter stuff going on

Posted on August 27, 2010 by Alex

Well, the emitter code is in, and you can now play with actually spraying particles around.  I’ve included a sample of what you can do by messing with the color values.  It’s a little inefficient, though, if you spawn a … Continue reading →

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Emitter designer

Posted on August 24, 2010 by Alex

First a little background: If you aren’t familiar with what an emitter is, it’s something that spits out a bunch of semi-transparent images (individually called particles).  You set a bunch of rules about how the particles behave, maybe set up … Continue reading →

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Planets

Posted on August 21, 2010 by Alex

Planets are in.  You can land on them.  Land hard enough, and there will be an explosion and a HP penalty (though there is no penalty for losing all your HP).  Most planets have too much gravity to take off … Continue reading →

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