Find Week 3's report here.
For the week 3 meeting on 4/13. In the last two weeks, our group took its first steps in building our maze-based player vs player shooter. For graphics, we rendered a 3D world, created a moveable object, and implemented collisions. For gameplay, we are able to move playable characters locally and account for collisions are beginning to build a structure for our firing mechanism. For networking, we have established an asynchronous echo server and are working on sending stringified game state structures from server to client. For art, we have created base models for the playable characters, weapon, and power-ups. Group morale is high. We are excited about the project and happy with our progress so far.
My concrete goals for the week were to fix the input lag delay on the movement keys when walking around in the 3D world and to implement collisions.
I was able to accomplish both of my goals.
All concrete goals were accomplished.
My specific goals for next week are to work with the networking group in order to have the graphics client communicate with the server. Additionally, I would like to create the crosshair for the graphics client.
This week I learned that axis aligned bounding boxes are harder to implement than I thought. Originally, I was planning on working through the collision resolution problem myself without consulting outside sources to see how other people had done it. However, I soon realized that it was better just to work with methods that have been tried and proven to work.
My individual morale is that I would like to get the graphics client and server talking as soon as possible. This way we can have everyone start to work on the gameplay features so we can get close to a working product.
Function skeletons for firing. Movement and collisions complete. Eliminate bugs in input lag and viewing.
All 3 goals are complete.
All done for now, but I anticipate that working on real firing will be a challenge without proper models and “objects”.
Actual firing with graphics and mechanics of gun.
Learned how to use the graphics system on the client.
Good, looking forward to the project.
My concrete goals for the week was working on movement and shooting functionality. Another goal was to create a high-level overview/specification of the classes and functions needed for the gameplay portion of the game.
I was able to finish movement and fix the speed and delay issues with movement. I was also able to create a high-level overview/specification for the gameplay.
I did not get to finish shooting functionality, but am currently working on it still.
My goal for this next week is to finish shooting functionality and gameplay and work on creating/generating the maze.
I learned to better coordinate and update my group members to make sure we don't work on the same thing by accident.
My individual morale is high still.
My concrete goal for the week was to think about the style of the game and to make a basic model for the player character in Blender.
I was able to create the basic model for the player character but I am still figuring out what style we want to go with for the game.
I was unable to meet the goal because our team still needs to discuss the specifics of the style and general look of the game.
My goals for the next week are to rig the character model and to create keyframes for a walking animation.
I learned the basics of how to use Blender. I did expect to learn it as I am a beginner to modelling.
My morale is very high because I really enjoyed working with Blender and with modelling in general.
For this week, my goal was to help out with building the basic models for our game.
I helped out our art specialist with constructing the models and animation for weapon and power up.
I have not started on the animation for our weapon because we are still undecided on the desired animation and method for shooting. I have also not worked on designing our gameplay. For next week, I will catch up the pace with basic gameplays.
For next week, I will finish the animation for shooting and help out with gameplay part of our game.
I learned a lot about blender and designing 3D models. It is actually a lot more work than I thought. There is a lot of details I have to note and pay attentions to while constructing the models.
Game design is something that I have never worked on before and I am very excited to work with my team to make it work. Although a lot of stuff I will have to learn on the spot, I believe this is a great learning opportunity.
My concrete goal for this week was to work with Robert to get an async TCP client/server framework up and running, that could send basic strings, just so we could verify that we could communicate over the network.
I was working on a tutorial to get an async client/server working, but ran into some issues with the code. Thankfully Lucas (slightly modifying Robert’s code) managed to get a basic client/server running. So I spent my time testing the framework and seeing if I could implement object serialization, turning a game_state struct into string format so it could be sent over the network.
The reason I wasn’t able to get the framework running myself was because of the platform I was working on. My platform was different from the tutorial I was following, which caused many problems. I was also very busy with other coursework which ate into my time.
My specific goals for next week are to fix a bug I found in the current framework, that prevents multiple messages dynamic from being sent from the server to the client , as well as fully implementing object serialization code so we can efficiently send the state of the game from the server to the client.
I learned a LOT about the ASIO library, and have grown more confident in my network programming skills as a result.
My morale is good. While I didn’t accomplish what I’d like this week, I feel I’ll be able to get more done this coming week.
My goal was to create an echo server where the server would return any message to it back to client.
With the help of teammates, we were able to create an echo server.
My goal was met.
Next week, our goal will be to create a game state structure that can be stringified and sent by the server and rendered when it reaches the client. I will also aim to improve the look of the site.
I gained experience with the Boost Asio library and refreshed my knowledge of C++.
I am feeling positive about the direction of the project.