Void Destroyer

Strategy games are great fun, especially in space but leave the action fans out in the cold a little - if you are anything like me you often find yourself musing on how cool it would be to be able to jump in the cockpit and drive all those ships around like Top Gun on crack.

OTOH space games are usually twitchy point-and-shooters which are a great diversion but often lack depth. Wouldn't it be great if some genius figured out a way to combine piloting and fleet tactics into a proper space game...

Well fret no more strategic action fans. Void Destroyer is a brilliant new indy project in development by Chaosavy which pitches powerful space fleets against each other in a rich space based RTS where you not only construct and command your ships, but also lead them into battle.

Since this is obviously very close to my idea of the perfect game I am extremely happy to be on board as of August 2011 to make pretty graphics and hassle Paul about Ogre shaders and physics and stuff.

The game is currently in alpha and latest version can be downloaded from www.voiddestroyer.com. Early days yet, but I'm sure fans of either genre will see the potential immediately.

Here's a sample of things to come...

Epic Salvage

How it was sposed to look.

Unbelievably after 4 years of development hell in a shed, I managed to recover a few old hard drives. Among other things, a bunch of assets for Epic were salvaged and will be included in the next patch...

Tools: Particle Universe

Chess enters the Nuclear Age. 

Now we know what happens when stuff gets obliterated we can start trying to draw it. For that we need a particle system and a rendering environment and this one is pretty cool and free (or at least pretty cheap for commercial use).

Particle Universe by FXpression is a full featured system with a flexible and easy to use editing suite built in that uses the OGRE engine. PU is being used extensively during ongoing MAD development, so far it has proven to be a great design platform with provision for rendering out stills or animations as well as easily and painlessly generating robust particle scripts.

Reference: BOOM!

Humans are dumb.

Designing and scripting effective particle systems is a challenge for the designer, especially when it comes to realistic "next-gen" destruction. Explosions involve some very specific processes, so it helps to understand a little about what exactly is going on when things blow up.

CGSociety is hosting an excellent article by Keiron Helsdon on the anatomy of explosions, everything from a firecracker to a H-Bomb is described in detail and accompanied by a bunch of great reference images. Check it out.

Farewell Niko.

And now the bad news...

Sometimes life is a right bitch.

On this sad day we farewell Nikola Fisher - musician, artist, surfer and pal - now that his long struggle with cancer is finally over.

Niko was the grandson of Schnikelfritz himself - the same Freddie Fisher responsible for the music of Warner Bros. Loony Tunes - and with his father King on the clarinet, Niko carried on the great family tradition of music and farce with aplomb.

I remember an elderly punter at one local gig who was thrilled to have had the opportunity during his life to enjoy 3 generations of Fisher genius. I am not alone in feeling privileged to have shared much happier times with Niko and his family.

Anyways, adios mate. You are sorely missed but I'm sure you are having a good laugh wherever you may find yourself - you never did lose that Niko sense of humour, even if the rest of us struggled to find ours.

Check out http://www.myspace.com/mosquito_creek for a little of Nikos life and work.

Remember Kids...

Explain, explore and expose that which is Forbidden.

Speaking of, the latest iteration of The Forbidden Pit is about to go gold. For those of you scratching your heads check the projects page or head over to www.theforbiddenpit.com for details.

Beat the shit outta your mates and not go to gaol!

M.A.D - Ogre Engine Renders

Nothing to see here...

MAD is starting to come together nicely, here's a recent screen showing off a few playable rides in a desert environment. MADs gameplay will feature a bunch of different settings to break stuff in.

Tools: Tree[d]

Now with 3D wind.

Digital orchard, grow forests of procedural low resolution 3d trees for free. Includes a bunch of textures and runs as standalone or plugs in to their Gile[s] app apparently, hugely useful for the busy mapper. Game resolution output for current gen engines is quite feasible.

Grab it here immediately. It's extremely functional, generates awesome output and will likely save huge slabs of time.

M.A.D - Back on the warpath?

Happy 2011! Welcome to The Future...

Baby it's cold outside...

In late breaking news, work has resumed on MAD. Check the projects page for details and screens from early builds. It's shaping up to be a cool game, great to be back on track!

Latest fixes address terrain shadows and editor. I guess I'd better finish that tank.