Today I Have Been Mostly… PhysX

I love using PhysX, OpenGL and C++ so far! Today I messed around with cloth materials in it to see what I could do… and got some really nice stuff out of it.

MyCloth* CreateCloth()
{
 NxClothDesc clothDesc;
 clothDesc.globalPose.t = NxVec3(4,7,0);
 clothDesc.thickness = 0.3;
 clothDesc.flags |= NX_CLF_COLLISION_TWOWAY | NX_CLF_VISUALIZATION | NX_CLF_TEARABLE;
 return (new MyCloth(scene, clothDesc, 8, 6.5, 0.25));
}

Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be starting work on my Games Engines assignment using PhysX: I’ve been tasked with creating physics based version of breakout, changing the game to suit a 3D environment, but keeping the basic idea of a ball breaking blocks. I have a couple of designs in mind, but I’ll leave them for another blog post once I have some sketches done!

I really want to use cloth in my game… not sure how I’ll incorporate it, but I love the way it moves and looks. Especially when NX_CLF_TEARABLE is enabled and the entire thing falls apart! The addition of wind and other forces to a cloth object are also really good-looking. Below are some screenshots from my tests earlier today:

Advanced Games Studies Work (Slimy Goodness)

I think from now on I’m going to add slimes to every game I make. They’re just so damn adorable! I’ve also added some sound effects for the background and the slime’s jumping action. The sound effect for the slime is one made by a good friend Louis Bartlett, who is looking to get into sound design – some top notch work!

Next thing to do: Get the player shooting projectiles at the enemies… simple enough!

Advanced Games Studies Work (22/11/2017)

I’ve been added to a new group for advanced games studies class at university… unfortunately they haven’t really had very much luck in the way of programmers since the start of this semester: so there was a distinct lack of code or game-play implemented.

This week I’ve spent my time re-coding the current game engine that the team had in place, the whole game was controlled by one script – so the object-oriented programmer in me was screaming like a mad-man. It didn’t take to long to re-code what there was there, and now it all works properly. Keys have also been added to the game so the player cannot continue until they unlock doors. (I also stuck a few place-holder textures in and added a black fog and some ambient lighting to make the game look far less pre-alpha than it did last week.)

It’s looking a great deal more promising as a project now, the team has one more week on this before the presentation on the third of December. Next week I plan to implement some form of enemy and a fighting mechanic (probably a projectile based one).