Battle tank 2 - a bird eye view shooter (completed!)

[zammbi]

Other games that a similar to this type of gameplay have there controls as the mouse controlling the turret and the movement keys move/turn the camera. Which personally I think you should do the same.

[markus.borbely]

1. have the mosue direct the turret only, but it will be hard for the other hand to move the tank and the camera at the same time.
You will need to press at least  6 differnt keys i.e move forward, move backword, turn tank body left, turn tank bodyright, turn camera left, turn camera right.

2 have the mouse direct tank turret and the camera at the same time, then you will need to find a good way to rotate camera within the applet area.

3 click a point on the screen, and have the camera automatically turning to that direction.  I am not sure how well this will work in practice.

I vote for #2. If the mouse approach the edge of the applet, it should rotate the camera and the turret. If the mouse is in a big area in the middle, it only controls the turret.
Or, if the user drags the mouse with the right button, he should control the camera.

BTW, the distortion effects are very very nice.

BTW2, I love to model tanks... Do you need some?

[phu004]

I vote for #2. If the mouse approach the edge of the applet, it should rotate the camera and the turret. If the mouse is in a big area in the middle, it only controls the turret.
Or, if the user drags the mouse with the right button, he should control the camera.

Thats a good idea actually. But i am worried about if the user accidently clicked the outside area of the applet. 
Also if the user moves his cursor really really fast, entering the edge area might not be triggered at all.

But i think I will find a way to get around this...

BTW2, I love to model tanks... Do you need some?

I probably won't need plain geometry data.  But if you have a concept art of a tank model then I would quite
happy to take a look. Thanks for the offering either way.

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[markus.borbely]

Thats a good idea actually. But i am worried about if the user accidently clicked the outside area of the applet.
Also if the user moves his cursor really really fast, entering the edge area might not be triggered at all.

Could you make the window applet bigger and have a frame around the playing area? The frame is part of the applet so the applet gets mouse events from it, but it is not painted so it doesn't hinder performance.

Also, when the tank turns, the turret (and camera) should turn with it. If you circle around an enemy there is less camera movement. If you engage multiple targets along a path, you drive towards hem and don't have to turn the camera as you engage them. Maybe a key could toggle this behaviour.

Edit: It should of course be: make the applet bigger

[markus.borbely]

I probably won't need plain geometry data.  But if you have a concept art of a tank model then I would quite
happy to take a look. Thanks for the offering either way.

I will see what I come up with. But if the concept art is in the form of a model, would you object?

[Orangy Tang]

No resizing my browser when I didn't ask for it please.

[phu004]

I have implemented mouse controls for the game. Now the turret will fire at the direction
which the mouse is pointing. The old keyboard control is  still valid.

I will see what I come up with. But if the concept art is in the form of a model, would you object?

A few screen shots of the model  in varies angles would be  sufficient, I also dont mind if the model is stored
in 3ds format.  Thanks again for offering the help!

No resizing my browser when I didn't ask for it please.

I have deleted all the java script in the back ground, now the applet won't change anything to you broswer.

[NewOnJava]

Hello!

Im myself not very familiar with Java engines.

Anyway, this piece of tank art runs with both my Ubuntu browsers Firefox and Opera without any questions.

with what 3d engine this game is running, game seems to be running on a sandbox.

//----

Thanks,,

[zammbi]

It uses JPCT I believe.

[markus.borbely]

So good!
Keep it up...

May I ask, do you have a grand plan with some kind of mission structure, or is it "action until you die"?

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[3lek]

I think it would be a good idea to have the camera actually following the turret's aim, instead of the edge-of-screen scrolling.

[phu004]

May I ask, do you have a grand plan with some kind of mission structure, or is it "action until you die"?

I already have a plot ,  you are sent to a hostile  island to destory a (maybe 2) secret prototype tank called "the annihilator". It will look quite similar to the classic
mammonth tank in C&C series. It will be located in centre of the island.  You will have to find a way to penetrate into the enemy base before you can fight
the annihilator.  There will also be some hidden powerups to be discovered.

It uses JPCT I believe.

No, I wrote my own rasterizers. I borrowed some functionalities from idx3d engine created by Peter Walser.

I think it would be a good idea to have the camera actually following the turret's aim, instead of the edge-of-screen scrolling.

It is not a good idea IMO. Because your aim would constantly move to the left/right.  it is rather annoying if you try to aim at something that doesn't move.

[CommanderKeith]

The mouse turret & camera turn is awesome 

I like the solution of turning the camera if the mouse approaches the left and right of the window. Maybe also this 'camera turn zone' should also include the part of the screen under the tank since I tried to turn the turret/camera 180 degrees left by moving the mouse under the tank but nothing happened.

Also, maybe the range of the bullet should adjust to where you're mouse click is. It sucks when you fire at something far-ish away and the bullet doesn't make it.

It's pretty impressive that you coded the whole thing from the ground up. it's getting better and better!

[phu004]

I like the solution of turning the camera if the mouse approaches the left and right of the window

Thats all markus.borbely's idea

'camera turn zone' should also include the part of the screen under the tank

Thx for pointing out, I have made changes according to your suggestion.

the range of the bullet should adjust to where you're mouse click is

Well The whole idea is that the bullet is meant to have a short range. Later on the player will discover longer ranged weapon such as the rocket launcher.
Anyway I have increased  the bullet  travel distance a little bit.

[moogie]

Damn why nobody like the key setting that I invented

Its because everyone is weird

take me for example... my key setup for fps shooters uses left mouse and right mouse for strafe and D and C for forward and backward with A as fire.

I know... i know... strange!

[thijs]

Cool game! Has lots of potential...

Unfortunatly it only worked ok for a minute or so, I had multiple tabs open and when I switched between them, the game became uncontrollable and the browser window became unresponsive. I could access the java console though, it displayed an exception (might be unrelated), but still:

Exception in thread "Applet 1 LiveConnect Worker Thread" java.lang.ClassFormatError: Incompatible magic value 1008813135 in class file netscape
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(Unknown Source)
   at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(Unknown Source)
   at sun.plugin2.applet.Applet2ClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClassInternal(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Class.forName0(Native Method)
   at java.lang.Class.forName(Unknown Source)
   at sun.plugin2.main.client.LiveConnectSupport$PerAppletInfo$JavaNameSpaceProxy.getJavaClass(Unknown Source)
   at sun.plugin2.main.client.LiveConnectSupport$PerAppletInfo$JavaNameSpaceProxy.getField(Unknown Source)
   at sun.plugin2.main.client.LiveConnectSupport$PerAppletInfo$2.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
   at sun.plugin2.main.client.LiveConnectSupport$PerAppletInfo.doObjectOp(Unknown Source)
   at sun.plugin2.main.client.LiveConnectSupport$PerAppletInfo$LiveConnectWorker.run(Unknown Source)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

[phu004]

Unfortunatly it only worked ok for a minute or so, I had multiple tabs open and when I switched between them, the game became uncontrollable and the browser window became unresponsive

Damn! The applet failed me a couple of times too, it just  suddendly stopped showing anything.  Also the console shows nothing (unlike ur case).
I think it could be a flaw in my timer class, which cases the system to sleep forever.

May I ask what is your JVM version and what browser, operating system you are using?:

[markus.borbely]

Thats all markus.borbely's idea Grin

Thanks but actually, no.  Was it Dzzd game that had it like this?

Some more ideas:
Could you have a secondary weapon, like a machinegun? Fire against soft targets (and make some of the targets soft).

Turrets with very good weapons but that were slow to change aim. Normally they sweep the terrain. The player can avoid them by staying on the blind side, or take them down.

The projectile from the normal cannon looks like a solid slug. Can you change it to something that have motion blur? I think it would look better.

[phu004]

Was it Dzzd game that had it like this?

In most of 3dzzd applets, the camera is always in a moving state. (i.e there is no centre control area)

Can you change it to something that have motion blur? I think it would look better.

I tried to implement the motion blur,  though it is hard to notcie right now.

Could you have a secondary weapon, like a machinegun? Fire against soft targets (and make some of the targets soft).

It sounds like a  good idea, I will implement this later on.

Turrets with very good weapons but that were slow to change aim. The player can avoid them by staying on the blind side, or take them down

May be I should make the turret reponse a little bit faster.
You can't out range these turrets, except when you are firing with the rocket launcher.

[markus.borbely]

I tried to implement the motion blur,  though it is hard to notcie right now.

I think it looks great.
Looking forward to see more features!

[thijs]

Damn! The applet failed me a couple of times too, it just  suddendly stopped showing anything.  Also the console shows nothing (unlike ur case).
I think it could be a flaw in my timer class, which cases the system to sleep forever.

May I ask what is your JVM version and what browser, operating system you are using?:

Ah sorry, forgot to post that:

Java Plug-in 1.6.0_10-beta
IE7.0
Windows XP

Also, with unresponsive browser window I meant the IE window didnt respond to anything (close, mini/maximize).. The applet kept updating, but couldnt get focus and my last key command was kept repeated (the turret kept rotating).  Actually the same thing happend just again while typing this message; I can play the game for a while but then it just stops responding to input. IE becomes unresponsive and the tab keeps "loading" (the IE page loading indicator keeps spinning). So the liveconnect exception could be related... I noticed you dont provide a mayscript (http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/guides/plugin/developer_guide/java_js.html) param to your applet? Not sure if you use js communication, but given the liveconnect bug in my console and the page that keeps loading...

PS: I just tested it in FF 3.03 and that works perfectly!

[phu004]

i have download the latest java 1.6_10 vm, and i had the exactly the same problem as you described.

I suspect that the web server i am using has some issues with this update.  Now I have host the applet on my own tomcat server.
Could you try it again and see if this works:

http://130.216.39.215:8080/bt2/play.htm

Many thanks
(dont hack me plz)

[thijs]

i have download the latest java 1.6_10 vm, and i had the exactly the same problem as you described.

I suspect that the web server i am using has some issues with this update.  Now I have host the applet on my own tomcat server.
Could you try it again and see if this works:

http://130.216.39.215:8080/bt2/play.htm

Many thanks
(dont hack me plz)

Your server seems down atm...

[phu004]

Sorry, I was hoping there wasn't a firewall preventing people from accsessing the machine inside the campus.

I have uploaded my applet to another website. Could you try it and see if this works:

http://phu004.hostrator.com/Bt2/play.html

[thijs]

Yep that version works perfectly fine!

[pagantipaco]

Ey! Great game! I only try it some seconds (I'm at work) and it looks very fine ;-) I'm very bad designing in 3D so you have all my respect ;-)

Good job!

[argonide]

Very cool game, I'm always a little surprised when I see good 3D graphics in my web browser.

[bobjob]

I got this exception mid game

Exception in thread "Thread-17" java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: -79
   at rasterizer.renderLightMap(rasterizer.java:384)
   at rasterizer.rasterize(rasterizer.java:97)
   at stealthTank.update(stealthTank.java:557)
   at enemies.update(enemies.java:137)
   at main.actionPerformed(main.java:208)
   at Ticker.fireActionPerformed(Ticker.java:59)
   at Ticker.run(Ticker.java:66)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

I was using the machine gun an shooting some tanks.

[phu004]

Damn, I never thought this would happen. Just added an extra array boundary check,
and it should prevent this from happening again.  Thanks for pointing out.

[phu004]

I finally managed to finish the game.  Not much improvement on graphic side.  Added game menu and more fluid mouse interactions.
Hope you guys enjoy it!

Applet version  here:

http://www.freewebs.com/phu004/bt2/play.htm

PS:
Just make it eaiser for trying out my game, hold "I,L,M" at the same time to have unlimited health and ammo!