Leechlabs Blog

Flash - Dynamic Smoke FX

2010-06-12T21:28:00.002+02:00

Check out this new feature I've been toying around with and testing. Its some sort of animated and physical emulated smoke engine, which might end up in the Jump-N-Gun project. Though this is a first prototype and the performance is questionable.

W.I.P. Platform Shooter Preview (3)

2010-02-10T20:39:00.002+01:00

Latest preview of the W.I.P. - Platform Shooter engine, enjoy:

AS 3.0 BitmapData based Destructable Terrain

2010-01-12T11:03:00.002+01:00

Here is another bit of source code, that I had posted on the newgrounds BBS.
If you wish to know how to make BitmapData based destructable terrain (like in worms) in AS 3.0 check out the source code .

Here is basic example to see how it works:
example swf

Cheers and stay tuned!

AS 3.0 Key Controller

2010-01-12T10:34:00.002+01:00

A while ago I had posted a Key Controller for AS 3.0 on the newgrounds BBS. So for all of you who are having trouble with key events and managing key presses in AS 3.0, here is the source and example .

You can use the controller like this (also check the example flash develop project that comes with the source code):

import source.ui.keys.KeyAction;
import source.ui.keys.KeyManager;

// init keymanager
KeyManager.init(stage);

// bind some keys to the predefined gameactions
KeyManager.bind("UP", "w");
KeyManager.bind("UP", "UP_ARROW");

// in your enterframe / game loop
if (KeyAction.UP) {
 trace("UP");
}

Cheers and stay tuned!

W.I.P. Platform Shooter Preview (2)

2009-11-17T11:28:00.001+01:00

Alright here is the promissed preview of the latest state of the engine:

The lighting model can be considered somewhat complete now, its time to place the challenges of game play mechanics ect.

cheers

Latest Improvements

2009-11-16T13:32:00.006+01:00

Final improvements on the lighting model. The normal mapping is improved as screen space ambient occlusion was added. The screenshots below show the different lighting model parts individually on white textures. Special thanks for the great assistance and advice to Jazz!

Light and "softish" shadows

Normal mapped lighting

Screen space ambient occlusion

The final result will follow, once some texture issues are resolved, stay tuned!

Normal Mapped Tiles

2009-11-02T14:00:00.009+01:00

The latest addition to the platform shooter engine are "normal maps". The data is not entirely correct for every tile, since the normal maps are procedurally created and some will have to be manually created. Anyhow it has quiet some impact on how the graphics look. Stone looks more like stone and lightsources have a tiny reflection on rough struktures.

See it for yourself in the following screenshots. Left side are without normal maps and right side are with normal maps.

If you are interested in how this is actually done, feel free to drop a comment on this post. Since I've always been wondering if anyone actually cared and read this blog :).

BubbleShells, new Game Released

2009-10-17T23:42:00.004+02:00

I proudly anounce the latest released game called "BubbleShells". This game looks obviously very similar to kilotron.
The story of this game is that it was specially reskinned for a sponsor who got cold feet in the end. Hence being stuck on two games and the work had been put in, both are released now.

Spacial Partitioning - Quad Trees

2009-07-01T09:15:00.004+02:00

An important element needed for various things in the engine are Quad Trees.
Here is an example of a Rectangle checking collisions against random pixels on a bitmap data.

Quad tree

As you see with a quad tree it can easily handle 100'000 objects and do collision detection. If it wasn't for the long loading time it could even be a million or more.

The quad tree in the example isn't fully optimized and visualisation slows down performance of course.

Here is another example testing rectangles vs. a rectangle:

Quad tree 2

WIP - Platform Shooter Sneak Preview

2009-07-01T09:13:00.001+02:00

Check out the pre-alpha sneak preview of the platform shooter on youtube. Its the first public demonstration of the engine.

Pro or Regress, not sure which

2009-06-08T21:00:00.003+02:00

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
-- Robert A. Heinlein, _Time Enough For Love_, 1973.

Sorry, but I thought you should read this :)

Unfortunatelly there is a huge pile of work and various projects going on, as usual. Oh and I also found the lost GUI graphics of cave cult evolution again! So this project is back to live support although resting in hybernation for now.

And yes, I stink at making games and especially doing long blog posts about em. Anyhow no reason to worry about the Jump n' Run shooter thingy (gotta find the right name for it still) either, its alive and kicking.
Sad part of the story is that development was going in slow motion due to silly problems.

If you wonder what the problems were, well that much I can tell you now already.
Since I am using an existing tile editor (namely TilED) and just wrote a plug in for it, it threw up problems creating some objects or data necessary for a level.
The only kind of okay working solution for the moment was just including that crap into the game engine and doing it there (it supports itself, wierd huh?) since the editor would not deliver that functionality.

The rest is just implementation details, like LOS and DIJSTRA.

Oh and I also forgot to mention the new scripting possibilities, but did now :).

So now the idea is just getting all the neat ideas out of my head and into the game, and you wouldn't believe it but the story is actually developing more and more. Its a rough path with lots of swiss cheesy holes in it but can be considered a story.
Okay you cought me! But at least it was something I managed to bother a friend with and took more then a cigarette to tell. :D

And sorry, no screenshots, no demo and certainly no game yet! As George Broussard "used" to say When It's Done (RIP Duke).

Artificial Neural Network v2.0

2009-03-27T22:26:00.002+01:00

After a long discussion about evolution with someone I remembered the NN Ants experiment and couldn't resist doing an updated version in Action Script 3.0 .

Neural Networks are a pretty neat tool for AI purposes, yet its a pain to debug and tune.

Watch ants evolve and learn how to pick up crums. A simple process using a Feed Forward - Artificial Neural Network (ANN) with 1 input, 1 hidden layer with 6 nodes and 2 outputs.

If the population reaches the approximate maximum stage of skill the genetic algoritm gets stopped and the crums eaten up. After that you can click to place crums and watch how the ants react.

May be I will have a go at some more experiments and different approaches of problem solving. Also a contextual memory would be neat, but then again the performance of flash is still limited.

Example App (no preloader beware):
ANN v 2.0

BitmapData Transparency Masking

2009-02-11T19:29:00.003+01:00

Have you ever wondered what the most efficient way to mask transparent areas in a bitmapdata is?
Well out of interest for my current engine I ran a small test on the 3 possible methods:
BitmapData.treshold()
BitmapData.copyChannel()
BitmapData.merge()

My results lead me to believe that threshold works best so far.

treshold time: 281 ms
copychannel time: 873 ms
merge time: 1162 ms

Here is the testclass I used:

package {

import flash.display.*;
import flash.events.*;
import flash.geom.*;
import flash.ui.*;
import flash.utils.*;

public class MaskTest extends Sprite {

private var testBuffer:BitmapData;
private var displayBuffer:BitmapData;
private var maskBuffer1:BitmapData;
private var maskBuffer2:BitmapData;

public function MaskTest() {

init();
runTests();

}

private function init():void {

testBuffer = new BitmapData(200, 200, true, 0xFF000000);
displayBuffer = new BitmapData(200, 200, true, 0xFFFF0000);

maskBuffer1 = new BitmapData(200, 200, true, 0xFF000000);
maskBuffer1.fillRect(new Rectangle(50, 50, 100, 100), 0xFFFFFFFF);

maskBuffer2 = new BitmapData(200, 200, true, 0x00000000);
maskBuffer2.fillRect(new Rectangle(50, 50, 100, 100), 0xFFFFFFFF);

var bp1:Bitmap = new Bitmap(displayBuffer);
var bp2:Bitmap = new Bitmap(maskBuffer1);
var bp3:Bitmap = new Bitmap(maskBuffer2);

bp2.y = 200;
bp3.x = 200;
bp3.y = 200;

addChild(bp1);
addChild(bp2);
addChild(bp3);

}

private function testThreshold(sourceBuffer:BitmapData, maskBuffer:BitmapData):void {
// mask black -> transparent white -> original value
sourceBuffer.threshold(maskBuffer, maskBuffer.rect, new Point(0, 0), "==", 0xFF000000, 0x00000000, 0xFFFFFFFF, false);
}

private function testCopyChannel(sourceBuffer:BitmapData, maskBuffer:BitmapData):void {
// copy alpha channel
sourceBuffer.copyChannel(maskBuffer, maskBuffer.rect, new Point(0, 0), BitmapDataChannel.ALPHA , BitmapDataChannel.ALPHA);
}

private function testMerge(sourceBuffer:BitmapData, maskBuffer:BitmapData):void {
// merge alphas to add transparency
sourceBuffer.merge(maskBuffer, maskBuffer.rect, new Point(0, 0), 0, 0, 0, 0xFF);
}

private function runTests():void {
var startTime:Number = 0;
var endTime:Number = 0;
var totalTime:Number = 0;
var numTests:uint = 1000;

startTime = getTimer();
var i:uint;
for(i = 0; i < numTests; i++){
testBuffer.copyPixels(displayBuffer, displayBuffer.rect, new Point(0, 0), null, null, false);
testThreshold(testBuffer, maskBuffer1);
}
endTime = getTimer();
totalTime = endTime - startTime;
trace("treshold time: "+totalTime);

startTime = getTimer();
for(i = 0; i < numTests; i++){
testBuffer.copyPixels(displayBuffer, displayBuffer.rect, new Point(0, 0), null, null, false);
testCopyChannel(testBuffer, maskBuffer2);
}
endTime = getTimer();
totalTime = endTime - startTime;
trace("copychannel time: "+totalTime);

startTime = getTimer();
for(i = 0; i < numTests; i++){
testBuffer.copyPixels(displayBuffer, displayBuffer.rect, new Point(0, 0), null, null, false);
testMerge(testBuffer, maskBuffer2);
}
endTime = getTimer();
totalTime = endTime - startTime;
trace("merge time: "+totalTime);

}
}
}

Platformer Engine

2009-02-08T17:25:00.002+01:00

The lightning model got tweaked some more and looks already a lot better now.
Another new addition are the fire and smoke particles, interactive objects (chairs, crates) that respond more or less to physics. Apart from that elevators, switches and doors were added.

In other words the engine is coming along pretty nicely. :)

See for yourself:

Static Lightning

2009-02-03T13:11:00.005+01:00

Here is another example of the new lightning. Just to show how strong it can affect the outlook of normal tiles.

No Lightning on top, lightning activated on the bottom:

Whats happening lately...

2009-02-02T15:36:00.005+01:00

I just noticed, that its about time to do another post on here. It's been half a year now without any news.

Anyways you might wonder what I have been upto all that time. Well appart from being really busy with studies, there are two new games waiting to be sponsored.

I created a small puzzle game called "Kilotron" to give it a shot on Flash Game License (FGL). Its a Bejeweled like puzzle game with a twist.

There was basically no serious interest by any sponsors in the game except for one. Hence I did a reskinning of the game which resulted in BubbleShells

Unfortunatelly, communication has been complicated and yet it is still waiting to be sponsored. Summing it up there are two versions of the game now featuring different designs but no sponsor. It is really sad considering the effort put into it.

Yet it was an experiment that did not go so well as for example Emanuele Ferronando's experiments.

Recovered from liking the wounds of wasted time, I finally got to do something more to my likings. I started working on my first plattformer engine.

After gathering a lot of inputs all over the web and getting enough inspiration I started setting up a prototype and then began working on the real thing.

Yet it is still unsure what features will be included and which will be dropped. A lot of things are in experimental stage.

So far I have set up a new kind of tile engine. It is a mixture of super tiles and regular tile engine combined with bitmap data manipulation. Nothing too fancy but just what is needed for my game.

There are some almost realistic physics plugged into it, ranging from ragdolls to other nifty IK things using verlet integration.

But what I am really proud of at the moment is the lightning. After some experiments and having to live with the fact that flash wont be able to handle dynamic lights and shadows at runtime, I had to do a step backwards to static lightning.

So basically the tiles can be lighted out and throw "softish" shadows. Every moving object will adapt to the environement lightning. Additionally an ambient lightning can be set to avoid the necessity of too many light sources all over the level.

Now the next goal is to bring in all interactive stuff as AI, graphics ect. And make some kind of game out of this basic engine. Hopefully the performance bottleneck wont force me to deactivate the lightning again. Fact is completely dynamic shadows would require hardware accelleration which there is none in flash at the moment.

That's about it for now. Stay tuned!

CC07 - Currently on hold

2008-06-24T16:20:00.012+02:00

Hello again everyone,

as usual it's been ages again since the last blog post. Anyhow I want to ensure you that there has still been progress on Cave Cult Evolution (CC07) but yet it had to be put on hold for the moment.

Here is a screenshot of the thing that was made about 2 months ago:

Either way, now you might ask yourself why the game is put on hold. The answer is simple... another game. The development is on hold because I rather focus on one game at a time and want to finish another game before CC07.

The game will be a sequel to an older game called DieFlash (if some of you remember it), namely DieFlash 2 is in the workings. There has been quiet a lot of progress on DF2 though the main issue is finding an artist for the artwork.

Generally I have a feeling that flash "point and click shooters" might be out of date nowadays, with all the fancy raycaster and 3D shooters coming out lately. On the other hand I simply can't resist making this sequel as I had meant to do it 3 years ago and never got to it.
How will it be able to stand out with all the other shooters out there... I don't know and may be it won't but one thing is clear, I am trying to pack in as much action as can be fit performance wise. :)

Current Engine Features:
- Pathfinding
- Dynamic Masks
- "Perspective Mapping"
- Particle Physics
- IK (Ragdoll) Physics
- external handling of data with definition files (whew this is just relieving to modify assets)
- Virtual Script Engine: Makes it easy to change levels cut scenes and what not ever...
- Level Editor

If you pack this all together you can imagine that it would/will be very easy to make sequels or other shooters with the very same engine.

DieFlash2 Preview

Hopefully I will get to post more often on the progress in the future either way stay tuned!

greets

CC07 - Evolution Update

2008-02-26T12:55:00.003+01:00

It's been a while since the last post, anyhow a lot has happened in the meantime.

First of I'd like to move the Cave Cult - Evolution project back into the spotlight. There haven't been any news about it for ages but so far it is still there growing and developing as games in the makings do.

So far I did some small experiments on AI. The first conclusions were that it is really hard making an AI that doesn't always regress into the same old patterns. Yet a few articles in the books Game Dev Gems brought me some fancy ideas about how to polish managment of some aspects within the AI. Basically it is modeled by several layers and two main parts, some sort of economic and strategic division. New AI elements will help the AI to get balanced out in some messy situations as model it more dynamic. But yet this is all stuff that has to wait for other ends of the engine to be finished.

Another new fancy feature codewise is an improved version of the IO departement. Replacing and editing textures is easier then ever, basically the new import class imports and caches all graphics that are defined by a definition file. The definition file holds label and source information on every texture. That way it is simple to edit consisting textures or add new ones. Yet it is the first draft of this class and many features to add to make it feasible to use in more advanced scenarios later, considering that different tribes or texture sets as gui elements should be managed in groups.

Currently I am working on and designing the new GUI to make the player side of the game testable. Since the GUI is not supposed to cover up the whole gameplay area as not to confuse the user this is a tricky part. Since small things are not always easy to recognize as are abstract symbols and desciptions.

Another part that will be essential to the game is some sort of developer console as a script parser and scripting syntax. Being able to script small elements at runtime makes it possible to create advanced player story interaction as make it easy to edit or write the script for it. But yet that is mostly a planed or possible feature and uncertain how much of it will be actually added.

Characters might also get additional behaviour and abilities and the gameplay modified from the original Cave Cult gameplay. Due to some feedback it might be nice to have a slightly different RTS game then the standard ones. Meaning not the pure build and attack model but more factors involved.

Stay tuned and sorry but there won't be any playable demo too soon ;).

Some Handy Flash Books

2007-12-01T19:11:00.000+01:00

If you are new to actionscript 3.0 or want to improve your programming skills a little bit there might be just the right books for you.
First of all there is the "ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook", which gives insight on how to achieve various flash applications.

"Rather than focus on theory, the ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook concentrates on the practical
application of ActionScript, with more than 300 solutions you can use to solve a wide range of
common coding dilemmas. You'll find recipes that show you how to:
Detect the user's Flash Player version or their operating system
Build custom classes
Format dates and currency types
Work with strings
Build user interface components
Work with audio and video
Make remote procedure calls using Flash Remoting and web services
Load, send, and search XML data
And much, much more ...

And if you want to improve your OOP a bit learn more about design patterns and when their useful and what you can achieve with them, there is another neat find named "ActionScript 3.0 Design Patterns".
If you own both books you should probably have no problems getting started with action script 3.0 and there always might be something new to learn to improve your coding style and software design.

"The Exchange Student: Episode 2" Released!

2007-10-12T11:32:00.000+02:00

Yippee Ki Yay, Motherfucker! Finally The Exchange Student Episode 2 got released, here are the news from the official website:

"Episode 2: Point Club Released!

Thursday, 11 October 2007

Last time Emilio went to bed was August 2006 and now he wakes up in October 2007. That's why the developers have seen to it that Emilio won't be falling asleep at all during Episode 2! Joking aside, the PC version of the second episode is finally here, available for all of you to download. The Macintosh version will follow in the next few days. It has taken a long time until we could finally release Episode 2. The main reason for this was that the developers wanted to change the second episode to the better based on the criticism received for Episode 1. Microsoft's brilliant idea to release Vista right in the middle of the game's development, which meant more testing, more bugs to fix and more problems for our coder also played a role in the delay of the release. But all this belongs to the past and Emilio can now continue his 'ot adventures in Sweden!"

You can download the trial version of the game at the official website.
A lot of effort was put into the last bug fixes and making the game work properly on windows xp, vista and mac osx.
There were some fatal errors in the coding of the previous programmer who worked on it, which also produced some critical bugs that needed to be fixed. Basically the whole engine should be refactored or may be even rewritten to make the next few versions of the game run propperly and add additional features which in my opinion are definatelly missing to make it a real classic adventure.
The handling of data and artwork and combining the logic was a real mess with the current engine though it still was doable in the end.
But for any programmer writing an adventure game engine I strongly advice to keep content separated from code and add editors which feature runtime scripting or may be even a nice fancy debug console to tune the game as this can save you a lot of work in the longer run.
The worst is having to deal with flash vectorart movieclip graphics, using spritesheets and decent pixelart is a ways better way to go in means of programming and making it easier to script the levels. Anyhow as I am not allowed to go further into detail or discuss the TES engine thats all I can state for now ;).

Yarr, beta testing!

2007-08-28T01:08:00.000+02:00

With some casual delay due to missing stuff and the usual things we finally entered the beta testing phase of The Exchange Student Episode 2 - Point Club.

A lot of blood and sweat has been spilled on the way to get here, but we actually made it. So stay tuned and watch out for the soon to be released game!

greets

Minor Setback...

2007-07-01T01:59:00.000+02:00

Unfortunatelly I had to put the Real Time Strategy (RTS) game project named Cave Cult Evolution on hold. This is only temporarily and because of the exams at the university as to another project.
At the moment I am working on the second episode of the "The Exchange Student" Adventure Game. Visit http://www.theexchangestudent.com for further info.

Episode 1 of The Exchange Student is already released and there is a free demo available and the full version is only 10$. Basically it is an Adventure Game in the oldschool style of "Lucas Art" or "Sierra" Adventures (like: "Monkey Island, Indiana Jones and the last crusade/fate for atlantis, Sam & Max, Larry's Leisure Suit).

There are some really skilled people working on the project and a lot of effort is put into it, although the planed released date for episode 2 was back in october 2006.
From a game developer point of view I have to admit, that it is quiet fun to work on these kinds of games although it also requires more testing then ever.

CCE AS 3.0

2007-06-08T04:45:00.001+02:00

I must say, Actionscrip 3.0 does a great deal on performance. It is fascinating how smooth cave cult evolution ran with lots of tiny cavemen and women running around doing stuff.
The tile engine had to be optimized for getting more performance out of it but it was worth the effort aswell. Most of the other engine parts could be adapted and easily modified to the new action script standards. The pathfinder was written new from scratch but also does a much smoother job now. The AI is not totally implemented as in the latest AS 2.0 version of the game yet but is halfway done. Combat units are missing aswell at the moment but the whole combat functions will be redone and modified anyhow. Mainly the troop movement and formations to groups should get improved and general combat maneuvers and strategies for the AI. The fancy user GUI stuff will be added later as the whole concern is getting the AI working nicely at the moment while supporting several computer opponents at once, and may be bigger map standards.

[RTS GAME] Switching to Flash 9 (as 3.0)

2007-05-28T23:48:00.000+02:00

Since there is a much faster new flash version out, the whole Cave Cult Evolution game engine will be redone and updated to the latest standard.

The new version of the tile engine works similar to TE07 altough the performance and rendering are much improved. A few things will be redesigned and modified some will be similar to the preview shown on Newgrounds earlier.

After having a slow start with getting the spritesheet import working the work flow is pretty decent and so far tests have been very satisfying.

The image on the left shows the current project status and hierarchy.

Stay tuned and cheers!

Real Time Strategy (RTS) Game

2007-02-01T11:41:00.000+01:00

Good news everyone,
so far the basic engine for the economics system, building of units and buildings works. Altough before working on the graphics there is still a huge step to take. The artificial intelligence, as it would be boring playing a game without an opponent. This might be the most complicated part of the engine as the AI has to work with low performance usage on one side, on the other it should give the player some competition without having to cheat. Well okay, a tiny bit of cheating will be necessary when dealing with flash, and neural networks ect. are no option. Basically the AI will be divided into 2 main modules with several sub levels. As those two are:
1) Economical Management
2) War Strategic Unit
While the first module takes care of organizing the worker units and building the infra structure, the Strategic unit will try to defend the tribe and try to weaken and finally extinct the player. Sounds simple, but well its not simple at all! :)
I might post more details about each unit once their further developped, yet I just started working on the AI.

RTS engine

2007-01-30T12:05:00.000+01:00

I've been toying with another rts game engine recently. So far a lot of the basic things seem to work but graphically its nowhere. May be this will develop into something playable, yet its not possible to determine how it will run as the game rules and AI are not implemented yet (except for low level AI). Plans are big and many features and story elements on the draftboard. The main goal is to make an improved version of Cave Cult that might finally be accepted as an RTS game. :)
The screenshot to the left doesnt represent the final game graphics at all, they could be completely changed during the developing process.

It's been a while....

2007-01-30T11:59:00.000+01:00

...since the last post. But a lot has happened since then, like my main harddisk refusing to continue doing its job. In plain text: "All my stuff is gone."
Unfortunatelly mostly everything of the GTA style game source was lost in the hdd-crash. May be I'll pick up the project again sometime in the future but definatelly not now, as the setback was to huge. The only thing left is an undebugged car physics class. :i

I hope you like the new blog format, as it might be easier to read the posts now.

New Tile Engine

2006-01-04T02:28:00.000+01:00

The first Benchmark version of the new tile engine (te06) is online.
It features new texturing methods as dynamic shadows and a z height of tiles only limited by texturesize. Plus its taking advantage of a lot of new features of flash 8 like scroll rectangle, matrix, bitmap data, copypixels and varius others.

Yet the perforamnce is not total satisfactory but its still being improved.

Te06 Benchmark

GTA style

2005-12-20T14:41:00.000+01:00

Fasten your seatbelt Dorothy, because Cansas is going BYE BYE! ^^

Minigames

2005-04-03T03:04:00.000+02:00

I have created a series of short minigames. They are made for the FlashKit
Minigames Marathon.

.

The Minigame Marathon consists of a holder which randomly launches 5 second games on the user. Each game is really simple with either keyboard or mouse control.

All of the games are open source, so feel free to download the source.
Here are the games and some screenshots:

GTA style engine

2005-03-16T17:55:00.000+01:00

The tile engine has improved a lot, its probably bugfree now and performance wise it should be faster.
Also other small things have been improved, test performance for yourself.

greets

GTA style engine

2005-02-24T16:48:00.000+01:00

Major bugfixes and performance optimization was done on the tile engine. The zoom was improved and a radio was added. When driving you can choose from 20 radio stations which sound you like best. Have fun testing!

GTA style engine

GTA style engine

2005-02-21T03:45:00.000+01:00

Finally the zoom has been added :). Also there is a small test city now.

greets

GTA style engine

2005-02-17T17:29:00.000+01:00

The major tile engine bugs should be fixed now. Unfortunatelly it seems impossible to get the engine up to 30 fps under mozilla. Though it should run smoother now and have less errors. Also mac users don't need to activate any special function anymore.

GTA style Engine

2005-02-13T07:25:00.000+01:00

The bugs in the collision detection have been fixed. Also there are 8 types of cars now instead of only one testcar. Each of the cars has a unique physical behaviour.

Later there will be more cars added yet already it looks quite different than usual.

stay tuned

GTA style engine

2005-02-11T18:26:00.000+01:00

The engine has a little changed again. The car physics have been completely replaced by the early stages of a more realistic gta2 style physics base. The implementations of the engine is not finished yet. Yet it's stil only 1 gear. Also the slipping and handbrake and such details for high speed are not implemented yet. But the car already behaves a lot different.

The car collision detection has been modified too. Same algorythms but different data and update methods.

stay tuned

TileEditor v. beta 2

2005-01-28T16:59:00.000+01:00

Check out the latest version of the tile editor for the gta style game engine:

TE v beta 2

Sources

2005-01-28T16:52:00.000+01:00

Some new source files have been added. Mostly for flash MX but also containing 2k4 source if neccessary.

Check the .fla / source section.

GTA style engine

2005-01-27T16:06:00.000+01:00

There's a playable testversion of the latest enginestate.
Most of the slowdown problems caused by the spawnengine should be fixed now. Its set to a maximum of 10 civilians and 10 cars. Hopefully thats not too much for slower computers.

Link:
GTA style engine

Playable GTA engine

2005-01-26T03:38:00.000+01:00

There's a new playable version of the gta engine. It contains new features as lacks of some old ones still. Its also still very bugged and messy, but its still in development anyways.

GTA style

Tiles Editor

2005-01-23T12:40:00.000+01:00

Here are some screenshots, of how easy it is to create the tile map in the tile editor. It provides features to edid a background map from small tiles 8x8 x 100 px. Which builds the base of a super tile. Each super tile has the 64 small tiles stored as data. Which you can edit to several kinds of bounds, spawnpoints, streets, civilian spawns, footpaths, crossings, houses and anything neccessary as sprite or object or whatever in the game.

Screenshot 1
Screenshot 2
Screenshot 3
Screenshot 4

*EDIT:* Sorry about the wrong links, their fixed now.

GTA engine

2005-01-20T23:38:00.000+01:00

The GTA engine was debugged a little more, and some new features were added.
Check the latest benchmark:

GTA FLASH

GTA bug fixes

2005-01-13T01:02:00.000+01:00

- Minor performance tweaks for the browser, and improvement of the matrix effect on the
bullets.
- Improved Loading of Data
- Improved Game Launching

The Link

GTA style TileMap Editor

2005-01-12T23:25:00.000+01:00

The Tile Map Editor for the gta style game is already working. The testtile which you already should know quiet well by now, got replaced by a testtile created in the new Map Editor.
Yet it does not contain all the future features it will have, but its already on the best way. :)

stay tuned LeechmasterB
GTA style game with the new tile

GTA Flash Bug fixes

2005-01-12T08:34:00.000+01:00

There have been a few bug fixes on the GTA engine.
Also the first parts of the map editor have been finished. Yet, I am still hoping for a lot of performance improvement when flash player 8 is released. But its running much better already anyways.

stay tuned LeechmasterB

New source added

2004-11-21T11:06:00.000+01:00

New source has been added. Its a strange and slow running realtime 3D engine for flash mx 2004. Its not meant to do anything serious with it.

Mbenney Timer 2k4

2004-11-21T01:09:00.000+01:00

New tutorial/source has been added. A Flash MX 2004 version of the Mbenney timer from flashkit.com, using AS 2.0.

GTA style engine

2004-11-18T22:20:00.000+01:00

The major bugs of the tile engine have been fixed. The latest version is uploaded, same link as always.

GTA style engine

2004-11-18T19:21:00.000+01:00

Lots of things are updated and work a little faster now. Some new bugs have occured and will be fixed as soon as possible. But it s a definite improvement in my opinion. The major (new) bug is actually, that some tiles (or at least one) moves when it should not. I cant explain this phenomenon yet nor fix it. But I'm of course working on it.

The latest testversion of the GTA game is uploaded and available under the same link as always (<==).

Stay tuned

Updated Sprite, Big_Tile and Tengine Class

2004-11-18T16:26:00.000+01:00

All the important things are updated now. All thats missing is a slightly different unloading proceture and then it will be uploaded.

Tiles Engine

2004-11-18T16:14:00.000+01:00

I am updating the tiles engine again. Once more there should be a big performance improvement. :) This also brings a new class type with it.

Big Welcome!

2004-11-18T02:07:00.000+01:00

A big welcome to the new member in the "club", Bad Jaz.
Soon there will be some more sections to the site and may be a new layout. Stay tuned for updates.

Site / Deadlinks

2004-11-17T17:25:00.000+01:00

The last deadlinks have been removed. There was a slight problem with the hosting of images and linking them to the site, which is solved now. Again sorry for the deadlinks you may have had.

GTA style: Sprite Class

2004-11-17T17:21:00.000+01:00

The sprite class is up to date now. Whats missing is some slight changements in the update and unload procetures but soon there will be guns (which already work exept for some hittesting and sprite unloading..). As soon as some major bugs and other small problems are solved/fixed the gta link will be updated with the latest version.

Screenshots Revised

2004-11-17T16:11:00.000+01:00

Here Are some Screenshots of the previous versions, to compare and also show how it will be like/was. But of course this is only engine based stuff. The real game graphics will be different.

Early Beta 2:

Early Beta 3:

Sprites

2004-11-16T13:48:00.000+01:00

The sprite class is experiencing serious performance improvement. But since there are lots of sprites its not completed yet. Be prepared for some more extra fps and smoother frame sync. :)

New look

2004-11-15T13:06:00.000+01:00

The site has a nice green new look, how do you like it?

SetInterval VS EnterFrame

2004-11-15T06:35:00.000+01:00

SetInterval VS EnterFrame in the GTA style game, using AS 2.0.
Compare the speed for yourself. I had around 8 fps more with SetInterval. So I think it might be faster.

The site is fully repaired :)

2004-11-15T05:37:00.000+01:00

All the deadlinks from the site breakdown are repaired. The source downloads work again too.
There's also a new (unused) guestbook, so feel free to post.
Hopefully the broadband wont get maxed out again so fast, the site was just up for three days and already broke down before it was even really finished (it still aint but this does take some time). But what would one expect from free tripod webspace hosting...

Site Problems

2004-11-15T04:44:00.000+01:00

The site was down for a while because there was to much traffic. Its soon fully working again but yet only most links work (source downloads dont).

Site

2004-11-14T20:11:00.000+01:00

Well I just wanted to apologize for the deadlinks you may have had lateley. These problems should be solved for now. Anyways I just started making this site so it might look a little like a building site until its done. Tutorials are added as they are written so alway check for new ones. :)

New Tutorial/Source Added

2004-11-14T18:11:00.000+01:00

New Tutorial/Source Added:
A different way for hittesting, using AS 2.0 was added. All the links to the source should work now, sorry for the 404 :).

GTA style engine

2004-11-13T22:03:00.000+01:00

And once again the tiles engine got optimized with another slight performance improvement. Now the state of the tiles engine could be declared as almost complete, since there is nothing much left to improve the performance. There are no more nasty 2D arrays, only single dimensional ones since this will garant faster access.

News: GTA style game

2004-11-13T19:15:00.000+01:00

I did some engine tweaking, its still unfinished and not completely optimized but the tiles engine runs slightly faster as entities loading and unloading.
Every feedback, speedtest and comment is welcome. So feel free to post your test results, opinion or feedback in the ShoutBox.

Expanded Links Section

2004-11-12T04:12:00.000+01:00

The links section got a little expanded. If you think there's an important site/url missing feel free to post it in the shoutbox.

.fla Source

2004-11-12T03:17:00.000+01:00

I added some .fla source files. There will be more made in time but it should be enough for now.

Drafts/Sketches

2004-11-12T03:02:00.000+01:00

I added some drafts and sketches which I drew in highschool, after getting my first hyper pen :). Its really nice how you can draw with it in flash but the vectors get huge and drawing gets slow if your painting lots of lines.

ShoutBox

2004-11-12T01:14:00.000+01:00

Like you might already have seen, there are some enhancements to the blogg :).
Counters and a shoutbox.
As to the shoutbox, feel free to post comments about any games movies intros you liked, played or watched.
Also feel free to post a simple hello in the shoutbox when visiting the site.

Okay

2004-11-11T17:50:00.000+01:00

Welcome to the site, here I will publish stuff thats in development old stuff and other things.
Once i get the time I will also add some flash sources and tutorial like stuff.

Latest project: GTA style flash game
The development is going fine so far, but I also had lots of setbacks due to heavy engine change/enhancement.

YEP!

2004-11-11T13:59:00.000+01:00

This is the first :).