Competition Entry

Central TAFE is running a "Make a Game" competition at Go3, and we intend to enter MiniTanks. As such Jordan and I have been working on getting MiniTanks into a better shape.

The first major change we have made is to remove the terrain randomisation functionality since we have been unable to get this feature to work correctly across a network (i.e. we couldn't get clients to get their terrain from the server). However whilst looking for a way to randomise terrain consistently for networked multiplayer I came across a resource for a terrain deformer object. So now instead of random terrain we have terrain which deforms from projectile impacts.

A very late development

Yesterday Jordan and I fixed the multiplayer issue in the presentation build. A wee bit late but it got done. It could have been fixed much sooner had we realised that at the presentation Alan actually fixed the problem in the version he was trying out; sadly we misheard what he said and thought he had only told us how to fix the problem, and his fixed version was lost forever when the computer was ghosted.
Nonetheless we finally got around to fixing the issue, in remarkably little time; after we rediscovered what it was (yes, we also forgot what Alan said the problem was).

Any which way we do intend to continue work on Minitanks, as our schedules permit, and have started a list of what needs doing.
Currently the list is as follows:

• Fix the issue with players own projectiles killing their invisible player object: by offsetting it's mount position.
• Fix the faulty terrain collision that occurs when a tank moves too fast: by placing a second duplicate terrain object just a little below the original, and having a bogged/broken down effect occur when a tank collides with the second terrain object.
• Add a debris object for destroyed tanks: a suitable test debris object already exists within Torque.
• Fix the animation of the Tank Treads: ?
• Make the minefield visible: textures?
• Add the Hover Tank: export/import DTS and create new datablock
  
• Add custom projectile for the missile rack: create new DTS and import it.
• Adjust datablocks for each type of tank: balance the tank types.

Finally we would like to make different versions of the game for the server and client. To do this the following would have to be removed from the client version:

• Terrain randomisation
• Random environmentaly object placement

Most likely we won't get all of this done but we will end up with a more complete version of Minitanks.

Not the End...

fortunately for you guys - this isnt a conclusion to minitanks. Its just a Pause. Later i will look at areas we can publish the game and would be happy to have any of you tag along.

And unfortunately for you programmers being the type that you are, you wont be able to leave the code along - always wanting to tweak and go back and see if it can be improved.

:D

The End

Yesterday Tim had those of us who where in Mark's classroom sign the assessment sign-off form, thus bringing an official end to the Project class.
It's certainly been a very interesting class, in particular the way it showed how the skills we have learnt throughout our courses may be used in a real world working environment. Also impressive was the results that can be produced through a group effort, the results of which seems to me at least to have been more than the constituent individual efforts would lead you to expect.

I wish to thank: all the lecturers who gave advice on the technical aspects of the project; the attendees of both of our milestone 1 presentation and the final presentation; and an extra special thank you to Tim who gave us the initial concept, constant encouragement, and kept us on track when we started to lose focus on the end goal.
Finally I want to thank the entire MiniTanks team, both the programming & networking halves, we couldn't have achieved what we have without your dedication, skill, and hard work.

gw team. wtfhaxlolroflcopters.

R.I.P Minitanks.

Those Chickens

Finally, we can all start counting those chickens....

1,2,3,4,5,6...


Well done to us all

Worth it

Well done everyone with today's presentation yes some of us were nervous and shaky, mentioning no names...(TERENCE)

lol dont worry i was nervous as much as you if not more but yeah glad presentation over and good stuff networkers and programmers.

Wasnt easy but was all worth it at the end.

Dizzy