Wrapping it up and closing it down

Just want to make a brief announcement that I’m closing down this blog soon enough as I am working and writing on this new labs section back at x-com

All tutorials in here will be moved to the labs section so if you are looking for a great tutorial and it’s not here anymore you can always find it over there with a lot of other great flash stuff.

/Andreas

The future of 3D in internet – part 2

My previous post was intended to be a draft that I would continue on this orning. Now it seems that I published it so it will stay like that but here comes what I really would like to say with that post (more than announce that Archon2160 will at least be put on a halt).

As usual, a lot of things are happening when it comes to webdevelopment and if 3D had it’s big entrance during 2008 it will definitely expand to a whole new level during 2009. There are several wise men with open-source-beards that predict the upcoming of alternative techniques such as Unity3D. Now, for you who hasn’t been following the progress of that exciting toolset, Unity3D is, just like flash, a package of tools for creating animated stuff on the net. Complete with a very functional drag and drop GUI, 3 different programming or scripting languages and a great set of support. Now here is where similarities of Flash ends, because Unity3D is in 3D. I mean for real. It is built up from scratch with a clear focus on game development in 3D and take use of all the new hardware functionality that comes with todays OpenGL standards which allows for a whole other experience compared to Flash and it’s 3D-engines out there.

But will it really bring the revolution to the net? What about the plugin for the browser? Will people really care to install that?

Those are a few question you are hearing both in the industry and among developers. I got no answers either but if you are referring to the slow start of Silverlight and other similar products there is a big difference here. First: Silverlight didn’t really offer that much of a difference. It takes a lot of time, energy and money to switch over to a new system and if you got tools to create the same thing already you wont find the need to switch that easy. Unity3D offers something we have never, ever seen before on the web. Throw in the fact that you can publish the same 3D apps and games directly to the Iphone , using all it’s features. and even the Wii.

Secondly: The tools will now soon come for the PC and open up the scene for the big audience of developers.

Many companies are very careful to switch to something new and they are probably right. One should be. The big entrance for 3D on the web is knocking on the door but the question is if Adobe will answer to that call or if we will be forced to look outside the box to find it. But it will come, I am sure about that. One interesting thing I have found about Unity3D is that the community comes from a different industry. It is not the flashdevelopers, working with commercials and putting up nice sites on FWA. They come from the gameindustry. It’s the boys and girls that plays with XNA, Irrlicht and Ogre + a lot of big shots with lots of game experience taking their steps into the web.

So what does this mean? Am I closing this blog down jumping to Unity3D?

No, of course not. Flash and PV3D is a part of my daily work here at x-com and even if I like what I see on the other side we are all careful to spend half a year learning a whole new set of techniques before we know that this is what the market really is ready for. I will continue just as normal, cheering for PV3D, being grateful to the team, hoping for PVX (even if it’s in a total other division and should not be compared with Unity) and give you tips and tricks both specific for Papervision and general.

Why it suddenly stopped. The future of 3D on internet

It has been a long time since I wrote last post but there are several reasons for that. The main reason is that during the development of Archon2160 I reached a point where I slowly realized that regardless of all the tweaks, optimizations and tricks, Papervision is yet not as powerful for me to able to create the game I have designed and visualized. I have already stripped it down extremely much to be able to fit it into the box that PV3D 2.0 provides but as I added HUD, some AI, basic environment and it’s collisiontests it just is clear that I am maybe a little, tiny bit too early for this project. I know that the wonderful team of PV is working hard to bring it to full Flash10 support which might be the answer.

Flash 10, do have some great speed enhancements which will come in handy and this blog will continue to bring you tips and tricks but maybe broaden the subject so it will be more general and flexible when it comes to tutorials for Papervision.

3D-Collisions basics

One thing that is absolutely vital in most games is the actual event when two objects somehow collides.

Be it bullets that collides with it’s target, wheels touching the floor, a paperMario reaching the end of the map or just a FPS-player that tries to walk through a wall, we just need to see whether something is touching something else (especially if inappropriate :) ) Now, there are several ways to detect this and as usual it’s all about processor vs quality. The absolute best and accurate way to do this is to let every single face check with every other single face out there if it has intersected and then dispatch that a collision has occured. Now, this (we call it face <-> face collision) is extremely demanding and even top notch 3D accelerated AAA-titles barely uses it so let’s just put that aside for the mathgeeks and dreamers and let’s look at some realistic aternatives.

Let us start in the other end. How fast can we go??? Well, I say (you can bash me as much as you want to, I have not studied this at all) that he fastest kind of collisiontest you can have is to just make a static numbercheck.

if (mesh.y < 0) { mesh.y = 0}

Yes, we all fid it extremely obvious but sometimes people make things WAY to difficult for them. Still in this game I have used this collisiontype many times where some people would have tried a more demanding approach just for the sake of being dynamic. Just because of the processorpower it takes to detect collisions I have purposely chosen to create a rectangular arena, opposite to the arena I used in my last game. It doesnt have any walls at the moment but when it get walls I don’t have to create some difficult collisioncheck, just a static numbercheck will make the job!

What about the ground?? Well I could have added bumbs in a sandy arena but now I choose a flat one for several reasons.

1. As soon as something like the grenade goes Z < 0 it will bounce up again.

2. When it’s flat and no units will be able to jump/have physics, I can remove all bottom faces of the unit. You should see them, they are all stripped and seethrough from underneath.

3. Putting obstacles on the arena (extra walls, barrels etc) is as easy as Z=0

Now you probably already knew this stupid collisioncheck but I still want you all to remember this simple solution when creating your design for the game. Maybe your 3D pong should go with square walls instead of your freakishly new plasmastyle.

Now, lets start with some “real” collisiontesting then. After the static one, I might be brave enough to say that the next least perfomancedemanding collisioncheck is a single distancecheck. “How far from this object is that object?? Is it to close? then BOOOM!” -style.

In Papervision we got the math already done with it’s  function: DisplayObject3D.distanceTo(otherObj:DisplayObject3D) .  (no it’s not rocketsciencemath either but it’s nice we don’t have to dig out mr.Pythagoras more than needed)

If the distance is lesser than your set value, then you consider it to be a collision. Now, this method is very rarely used but if we enhance it just a liiiiittle bit you will have one of the most common collisiontests in games…

Sphere-collision

When I was a kid, (yes, I promise i have been) I just couldn’t understand how spherecollision could be faster to use than ermm.. other that we will bring up in a short while. Spheres are complicated and as soon as round shapes are involved it means using PI and Sinus and maybe derivata. No, not this time. If you just think of it for a second: distanceTo() is really a sphere. It doesn’t have any direction but checks the distance in EVERY direction building a kind of a “sphere” around the object where the distance is actually the radius of the sphere. Look at this image:

Here I have set a distanceTo limit on the Defender and a distanceTo limit on the grenade so in code it is just:

if (defender.distanceTo(grenade)- (defender.collisionSphereRadius+grenade.collisionSphereRadius) < 0)  { trace(“defender is FUBAR!!!”)}

It’s all about the distance between the objects but we added some kind of radius to each object simulating it’s size. In my game I have set this radius manually and actually do have a “showCollisionSphere” function on each unit and bullet so I can see that it is somewhat correct with the size of the mesh. Still in Papervision3D DisplayObject3D you already have tis kind of collisiondetection in the function: hitTestObject( obj:DisplayObject3D, multiplier:Number=1 ):Boolean

This function takes the furthest pixels away and creates a radius out of that. This could create a collisionsphere that might not be the best for the whole object and therefor there is also a multiplier parameter if you would like to increase or decrease the size of your “sphere”. It works great (I just wanted to create my own flexible collisioncheck but I recommend using the inbuilt one).

Box Collision

What if my object is very flat? It might even be a plane! Creating a collisionsphere around that would just be stupic as it would, in worst cases, trigger collisions way beyond the actual planes location. The other single method that is used just as much as sphere collisions is the box collision. You have probably done it a thousands times already keeping something within a boundary or similar tasks.. does this looks familiar?

if (obj.x > MAX_WIDTH){obj.x = MAX_WIDTH;}

else if (obj.x < MIN_WIDTH){obj.x = MIN_WIDTH;}

if (obj.y > MAX_HEIGHT){obj.y = MAX_HEIGHT;}

else if (obj.y < MIN_HEIGHT){obj.y = MIN_HEIGHT;}

this is actually the technique to use with box collisions. Just check wether a box is within another box.

In every DisplayObject3D that contains a geometryobject you can somewhat easily achieve this as the geometryobject contains a variable with the freakedout name: aabb

This is actually the bounding box we need ( yes it is short for AxisAlignedBoundingBox). It holds all the MAX and MIN values of your mesh in all 3 dimensions so it’s just a matter of creating a lot of “If”‘ rows and you will have your own box collisiontest. Box collision is not as fast as spherecollision but is a very good alternativ for meshes with different proportions.

This was just some simple theory. I will try to stitch this up in some real code in the game to show you later on. Now already I can tell you that if you want to optimize collisioncheck you really should think about WHICH objects really do need to be checked with each other?? Can I remove some of the collisionchecks without harm? All geometry will probably not need to be checked against each other and even some units doesnt have to be checked with some bullets (eg the unit that shot the grenade doesn’t need to be collisionchecked with the nade). I am fond of lists in different ways so I will probably create one now again where objects subscribes to the list where it needs to check with other objects in that particular list.

The just-released StreetFighter IV went back from polygon collision to use classical box-collision just to speed up and recreate the classical feel of the game.

Also one small notice is that there are several other types of collisionchecks but thse are by far the most common ones. They are also very easy to mix together and it’s not unusual that game uses BOX <-> SPHERE collisions and POLYGON <->BOX etc.   Hope I could at least enlighten someone with this basic theoretical text. Have a great time creating things I can play!

Kill your darlings

One of the most important tips I could give you in here is not in any AS3 area nor is it a 3D tweak but it’s a pretty common saying in many creative industries.

‘Kill your darlings’. The simple meaning of this is to try to be as objective as possible and don’t fall in love in some of your best functions, your nicest effects or you genius structures. The hardest thing you will face is when you show your work to the crowd/your friends/or even worse your children and they just say..  “Why did it act like that?” It’s so idiotic obvious and STILL they have the guts and ask such a question??? Or maybe: “So what am I going to do now then?”, “It feels like it’s warping”. But bugs, and bad playability can be dealt with. The WORST thing you will face is when things work terrific! When your effect is just heavenly and you have just created the smartest AI ever and then you’re audience is telling you that, “The effect is bringing the speed down”, or “The guys act too smart, remember it is meant to be casual game. Let them just jump out and be shot!”

I’ve worked with a couple of game publishers and game development has never been as hard as when it is chopped, sliced and stripped from all genius quality just because it need to be more accessible for a bigger audience. You’re genius gameplay is switched with an old overused controlscheme, just because people want what they always done…

Now, we are not all there and most of us will probably face that problem having to answer in front of a publisher BUT this is an important lesson to be learnt in everyday game development. Take this tank I created today:

This tank has been in my plans for a long time and when I finally created the flamethrower I think it looks just great to be Papervision. Still I know I cannot even consider using this weapon after creating it. Why? Well, when holding down the mousebutton, spraying out all that fire the fps drops under 22 fps. It’s a nice effect and I’m quite proud of the result but I know that in the end, I will cut off a lot of players if I let such a demanding effect be in the game. 22 FPS is no big deal but this is just one tank, what if both players use the tanks? Many players will have lesser performing computers than I have, there is still a HUD to be implanted, some collisiondetection, environmentart, sound etc…

Listing it up like this it sounds obvious not to use the effect but I see this over and over again. People fall in love in their physics, in their animated textures, in their multiplied blendmodes.. and in the end as the FPS drops they just can’t ‘kill their darlings’ and instead loose the interest.

Have I removed the idea of the flamethrower? No, not yet, I still have a couple of methods to try but Papervision is really a tight area and demands optimization and chokes immediatly at the slightest overuse of effects or bad coding. Just face it. Choose what few elements you want to have and stick with it. You cannot have shadows, particles and physics and in the middle of development include environmentmaps. You will have great screenshots but you will never be able to release the game to public.

Kill them. Move on.

Special Effects

This is one of the last core parts of the game, at least when it comes to the Arenafighting (we got a lot of lobby, networking and boardgame to take care of). This is also one of the best parts as we will be able to handle explosions, lightnings, sparkles and other effects. I have decided to create an EffectEngine similar to the ShotEngine but to tweak it and keep it a little more open as effects will probably act and look very different depending on the effect we want to create.

First, as usual, I start with an Interface:

package interfaces
{
	public interface IEffect
	{
		function update():void
		function updateDying():void
		function remove():void
	}
}

As you can see, the effects will not have many common functions, but the ones they have, the EffectEngine will use. Let’s build an abstract class of the Effects, using the Interface we just made:

package effects
{
	import interfaces.IEffect;

	// abstract
	public class AEffect implements IEffect
	{
		public var life:int
		public var flag_Dying:Boolean
		public var flag_Dead:Boolean

		public function AEffect(life:int)
		{
			this.life = life
			flag_Dying = false
			flag_Dead = false
		}

		public function update():void
		{
			// here the effect will be updated each frametick
		}

		public function updateDying():void
		{
			// if flag_Dying==true , update with this function
			// instead of the normal update()
			// this is to be able to smoothly remove effects
			// when they are done
		}

		public function remove():void
		{
			// when updateDying is done (flag_Dead==true), remove effect
		}

	}
}

The only thing we add in this abstract class is 3 variables. time is the time the effect will be visible in millisecs. Now we are ready to create our EffectEngine.

package engine
{
	import effects.AEffect;
	import managers.Time;

	public class EffectEngine
	{

		static private var instance:EffectEngine
		private var aEffects:Array

		// ************ SINGLETON CLASS *************
		public function EffectEngine()
		{
			init()
		}

		public static function getInstance():EffectEngine
		{
			if (EffectEngine.instance == null)
			{
				EffectEngine.instance = new EffectEngine();
			}
			return EffectEngine.instance;
		}

		private function init()
		{
			aEffects = new Array()
		}

		public function addEffect(effect:AEffect)
		{
			//Add a new effect into the effectlist
			aEffects.push(effect);

			// different from the other engines, the effects
			// has their own addChild procedure as they looke very
			// different to each other.
		}

		public function updateEffects():void
		{
			var tempEffect:AEffect
			var flagDelete:Boolean

			for (var i:int = aEffects.length-1 ; i>-1 ; i--)
			{
				flagDelete = false	// reseting deleteflag.
				tempEffect = aEffects[i]

				if (tempEffect.flag_Dying == false)
				{
					// if effect is alive and kicking!
					tempEffect.update()
					if (tempEffect.life < 0)
					{
						tempEffect.flag_Dying = true
					}
					tempEffect.life -= Time.getInstance().timeElapsed
				}
				else
				{
					// if effect is about to die out
					tempEffect.updateDying()
					if (tempEffect.flag_Dead == true)
					{
						tempEffect.remove()
						flagDelete = true
					}
				}

				if (flagDelete == true)
				{
					trace("Removing effect from list")
					aEffects.splice(i,1) // removing shot from the shot list.
				}
			}
		}
	}
}

As usual, it is a Singleton-class preventing several instances of EffectsEngine being created. Also, The normal ‘add’ function is there just like the shotEngine. Biggest difference is in the updateEffects() function, hopefully it is explaining itself. The procedure of an effect is this:
First it gets created and then immediatly added to the EffectEngine.
The effect updates itself using update() until ‘life’ has reached 0.
Then the effect update the updateDying() instead until , flag_Dead == true
Last the effect is removed from the list and is running the function remove().

Now I will create two effects that will need some kind of explanation. One Explosion (that is actually two effects in one, I’ll explain later) and one BombDust that will dust up the arenaground where the explosion has been.
Let’s start with the Explosion :) Here is my visual idea of creating it:

I will use two planes. One that is aligned to the ground giving a lightEffect on the ground, and one that is a “billboard”. A Billboard is a plane that is always facing the camera, no matter where the camera is placed. The Billboard will have an animated movieclip where I use an explosion I rendered in 3DSMax. The groundaligned plane will just have a BitmapMaterial with an image I created in Photoshop. I will scale this image back and forth to simulate an intensity increase and decrease of the explosion.

One important thing I want to stress right now before we get to coding is that png and alpha-channels doesn’t match good with performance and optimization. In some projects it is very convinient to use alpha-channels and transparency but when creating a PV3D-game you will immediatly choke the system with more than a few alphatransparencies on the screen.

My solution to this is to use the blendmode ADD. ADD ‘adds’ it’s RGB values to the normal RGB-values giving a “lighter” effect whereever the RGB is more than 0,0,0. If you didn’t catch that just remember this: Whatever on the image you don’t want to impact the screen, use 0,0,0. Hmm I maybe should show you the images instead:

Wherever it is black, it will be invisible. The brighter the rgb is, the more it will lighten up the actual screen, AND most important, this is a faster way to create lighteffects with than using alphachannels, transparency and png’s. Let’s look at our implementation of the Explosion.

package effects
{
    import flash.display.BlendMode;
    import managers.Layers;
    import org.papervision3d.materials.BitmapMaterial;
    import org.papervision3d.materials.MovieMaterial;
    import org.papervision3d.objects.primitives.Plane;
    import org.papervision3d.view.layer.ViewportLayer;
    import se.xcom.math.Degrees;

    public class Explosion extends AEffect
    {
        private static var layerIndex:int = 1
        private var airExp:Plane
        private var groundExp:Plane
        private var groundCount:int
        private var layerAir:ViewportLayer
        private var layerGround:ViewportLayer

        public function Explosion(posX:Number,posY:Number, posZ:Number)
        {
            super(1100);
            init(posX,posY,posZ)
        }

        private function init(posX:Number,posY:Number,posZ:Number)
        {
        // create round sphere explosion in air
            var expMat:MovieMaterial = new MovieMaterial(new mcExplosion1(),false,true)
            airExp = new Plane(expMat,1000,1000)
            airExp.x = posX
            airExp.y = posY
            airExp.z = posZ
            airExp.lookAt(View3D.scope.camera)

            layerAir = new ViewportLayer(View3D.scope.viewport,airExp)
            layerAir.blendMode = BlendMode.ADD
            layerAir.layerIndex = layerIndex
            Layers.EFFECTAIR.addLayer(layerAir)

        // create the explosionlight on ground
            var groundMat:BitmapMaterial = new BitmapMaterial(new bmpGroundExplosion1(0,0))
            groundExp = new Plane (groundMat,600,600)
            groundExp.x = posX
            groundExp.y = 0
            groundExp.z = posZ
            groundExp.rotationX = 90

            layerGround = new ViewportLayer(View3D.scope.viewport,groundExp)
            layerGround.blendMode = BlendMode.ADD
            layerGround.layerIndex = layerIndex++
            Layers.EFFECTGROUND_EXP.addLayer(layerGround)

            View3D.scope.scene.addChild(airExp)
            View3D.scope.scene.addChild(groundExp)

        }

        override public function update():void
        {
            airExp.lookAt(View3D.scope.camera)
            airExp.pitch(180)

            groundExp.scaleX = 1+Degrees.dSin(groundCount)*1
            groundExp.scaleY = 1+Degrees.dSin(groundCount)*1
            groundCount += 10
        } 

        override public function updateDying():void
        {
            this.flag_Dead = true
        }

        override public function remove():void
        {
            View3D.scope.scene.removeChild(airExp)
            View3D.scope.scene.removeChild(groundExp)
            Layers.EFFECTAIR.removeLayer(layerAir)
            Layers.EFFECTGROUND_EXP.removeLayer(layerGround)

        }

    }
}

Some explanation here is needed. In my Layers.as class I have created a lot of different layers and put them in a, in my opinion, good indexed order. Now if I just put my objects directly in one of those layers I would get a very strange effect where two explosions would be drawn upon each other like transparent squares. I want the light of the effects to blend with each other if several explosions are on the screen and that is why I put every object in a single unique layer, put the correct blendmode on them and finally put those layers on the parent layer in Layers.as
Yes it could take some time to get your head around, but hey, it works. This is this typical thing that is hard to explain unless you’ve been there yourself.
Well! The explosion now works! This one doesn’t have any long fading when it’s time to “die” but is removed immediatly.

As we’re on it, let’s create a simpler effect, the BombDust.as

package effects
{
	import flash.display.BlendMode;

	import managers.Layers;

	import org.papervision3d.materials.BitmapMaterial;
	import org.papervision3d.objects.primitives.Plane;
	import org.papervision3d.view.layer.ViewportLayer;

	public class BombDust extends AEffect
	{
		private static var layerIndex:int = 1
		private var layer:ViewportLayer
		private var airExp:Plane
		private var dust:Plane
		private var groundCount:int

		public function BombDust(posX:Number,posZ:Number)
		{
			super(8000);
			init(posX,posZ)
		}

		private function init(posX:Number,posZ:Number)
		{
		// create dustPlane
			var dustMat:BitmapMaterial = new BitmapMaterial(new bmpBombDust(0,0))
			dust = new Plane (dustMat,600,600)
			dust.x = posX
			dust.y = 0
			dust.z = posZ
			dust.rotationX = 90
			layer = new ViewportLayer(View3D.scope.viewport,dust)
			layer.blendMode = BlendMode.MULTIPLY
			layer.layerIndex = layerIndex++
			Layers.EFFECTGROUND_DUST.addLayer(layer)
			View3D.scope.scene.addChild(dust)
		}

		override public function updateDying():void
		{
			this.flag_Dead = true
		}

		override public function remove():void
		{
			View3D.scope.scene.removeChild(dust)
			Layers.EFFECTGROUND_DUST.removeLayer(layer)
		}
	}
}

Instead of the ADD-blenmode, this one uses the MULTIPLY, darkening the area instead of brighten it up.

Now its just a few lines of code that must be implanted in the GrenadeClass just to spawn these effects whenever the grenade explodes.

override public function killByAge():void
        {
            var exp:Explosion = new Explosion(this.x,this.y,this.z)
            var dust:BombDust = new BombDust(this.x,this.z)

            EffectEngine.getInstance().addEffect(exp)
            EffectEngine.getInstance().addEffect(dust)
        }

Try out the link at the new page above (yes in the menu, called Archon2160). If you’re lucky, there might be a build there where you can see how the effects are triggered. Have fun and hope you learn something. I always do!

Adding Guns and Explosives

It’s been a while since I wrote about the game in here and as I’ve previously mentioned, I will not cover every single line of code in this blog.

The simple reason is that I would have no time left for developing Archon2160 if I were to comment every adjustment of the previous classes and additions of small elementary things. Instead I will try to focus of the problems I face and how I solve them, trying to be as tutorial-based and educative as possible.

Now, I promised guns and bullets long ago and what would an action game be without that? Previously I created that ShotEngine.as class taking care of every single lethal object, but as usual it has been slightly modified. Today it looks like this:

package engine
{
	import interfaces.IShot;

	import units.AUnit;

	public class ShotEngine
	{

		static private var instance:ShotEngine
		private var aShots:Array

		// ************ SINGLETON CLASS *************
		public function ShotEngine()
		{
			init()
		}

		public static function getInstance():ShotEngine
		{
			if (ShotEngine.instance == null)
			{
				ShotEngine.instance = new ShotEngine();
			}
			return ShotEngine.instance;
		}

		private function init()
		{
			aShots = new Array()
		}

		public function addShot(shot:IShot)
		{
			//Add a new shot into the shotlist
			aShots.push(shot);

			// code to put shot in the 3D scene will be implanted here
			// this is just temporary ugly code
			View3D.scope.scene.addChild(shot)

		}

		public function updateShots():void
		{
			var tempShot:IShot
			var tempUnit:AUnit
			var flagDelete:Boolean

			for (var i:int = aShots.length-1 ; i>-1 ; i--)
			{
				flagDelete = false	// reseting deleteflag.
				tempShot = aShots[i]

				// first make the shot move/rotate/animate/beam...
				tempShot.transformMesh()

				// is it hitting anyone or anything?
				tempUnit = tempShot.checkUnitCollision()
				if (tempUnit != null)
				{
					// returning 'TRUE' if that specific shot wants to remove itself on impact
					flagDelete = tempShot.onUnitCollision(tempUnit);
				}
				if (tempShot.checkStaticCollision()==true)
				{
					// returning 'TRUE' if that specific shot wants to remove itself on impact
					flagDelete = tempShot.onStaticCollision();
				}

				// checks if the bullet/shot has been on the scene for too long.
				// good for exploding shots or bullets that's been flying out of view.
				// has the life run out?
				if (tempShot.isOld())
				{
					// call the new IShot function
					tempShot.killByAge()
					flagDelete = true
				}

				if (flagDelete == true)
				{
					trace("removed!")
					// code will be implanted here to remove the visual shot from the 3D scene
					// this is temporary ugly code
					View3D.scope.scene.removeChild(tempShot)
					aShots.splice(i,1) // removing shot from the shot list.
				}
			}
		}
	}
}

Newest additions is that AShot now recieved a “lifeTime” that decreases for each frame. When it’s less than zero (0) the shot will be taken out of the scene and the ShotList. I will use this function both for deleting shots that has gone out of view for a while and for timeTriggered explosives (like the grenade I am about to show you). When time run out… BOOOM!
So, let’s look at our first real shot then! It’s a grenade :)

package shots
{
	import engine.UnitList;

	import managers.MeshConstants;
	import managers.Time;

	import org.papervision3d.objects.DisplayObject3D;

	import se.xcom.framework.managers.MeshManager;
	import se.xcom.math.Degrees;

	import units.AUnit;

	public class Grenade extends AShot
	{
		private const speed:Number = 90
		private const grav:Number = 8
		private var speedX:Number
		private var speedY:Number
		private var speedZ:Number
		private var rotX:Number
		private var rotY:Number

		public function Grenade(pitch:Number, yaw:Number, id:uint)
		{
			var tMesh:DisplayObject3D = initMesh()

			// number 1300 is the lifeTime of the grenade.
			super(tMesh,1300,40,id,false)

			setSpeed(pitch,yaw)	

		}

		private function setSpeed(pitch:Number, yaw:Number)
		{
			// here all calculations take place to see at which direction the
			// grenade should go and how high the angle should be.
			// also sets a random rotation to the grenade.

			// pitch = rotating along X-axis
			// yaw = rotation along Y-axis
			speedY = Degrees.dSin(pitch)*speed
			var tempSpeed:Number = Degrees.dCos(pitch)*speed
			speedX = Degrees.dCos(yaw)*tempSpeed
			speedZ = -Degrees.dSin(yaw)*tempSpeed
			rotX = Math.random()*40-20
			rotY = Math.random()*40-20 

		}

		override public function checkUnitCollision():AUnit
		{
			var aUnits:Array = UnitList.getInstance().units
			for each (var tUnit:AUnit in aUnits)
			{
				if (tUnit.mesh.distanceTo(this) < this.csRadius+tUnit.csRadius && tUnit.unitId != this.unitId)
				{
					trace("BOOOM!!")
					return UnitList.getInstance().units[1]
				}
				return null
			}

			return null;
		}

		override public function checkStaticCollision():void
		{
		}

		override public function onUnitCollision(unit:AUnit):Boolean
		{
			return true;
		}

		override public function onStaticCollision():Boolean
		{
			return false;
		}

		override public function transformMesh():void
		{
			/*
			here is our first real use of the DELTA-TIMING I wrote
			about in my previous article. This grenade will move in
			exactly the same speed regardless of the framerate of the
			computer.
			*/

			var delta:Number = Time.DELTA

			// move the Grenade
			this.x +=speedX*delta
			this.y +=speedY*delta
			this.z +=speedZ*delta

			// rotate it
			this.yaw(rotX*delta)
			this.pitch(rotY*delta)

			// check Y boundary
			// if grenade hits the floor. Bounce upwards
			if (this.y < 0)
			{
				this.y = 0
				speedY = -speedY
			}

			// set fake gravity
			speedY -= grav*delta

		}

		private function initMesh():DisplayObject3D
		{
			/* 	here I am putting the grenade into another DisplayObject3D
				and slightly adjusting it's x-position. Later when I rotate
				the wholeMesh, the grenade will "wobble" as it is not placed
				exactly in the center. Not a big thing but it's a nice little
				detail giving some character to the grenade.
			*/

			var wholeMesh:DisplayObject3D = new DisplayObject3D()
			var tMan:MeshManager = MeshManager.getInstance()
			var mBody:DisplayObject3D = tMan.getMesh(MeshConstants.NADE)
			mBody.scale = 70
			mBody.x = -40
			wholeMesh.addChild(mBody)

			return wholeMesh;
		}
	}
}

I have now also put a mouseButton parameter into the controls so now I can actually drive the Defender, move the cannon up and down and fire a grenade that bounces on the ground that after a while EXPLODES!! … well no not yet. It just traces “boom” and gets removed from the screen and from the ShotList.

Several instances of the same object

During the implementation and testing of the grenade I stumbled over the problem of using several meshes using the same original model. Firing one grenade worked just fine but as soon as I pressed fire again I either got an errormessage because I tried to add the mesh on the scene when it was already added or I got the effect of the first grenade disappearing and spawning by the gun again. All this just because I was using the same DO3D for all grenades.

So how do we avoid this? Well, if we know for sure that we will not alter the geometrydata of the object in any way, we can use the same geometrydata to create several “instances” of the DO3D. Having a quick look, not at the documentation but checking the class as of DisplayObject3D you will find a function called COPY(). It actually copys the geometrydata into a new DO3D so we can instead of taking our originalmesh to the scene, we copy the geometry to a DO3D and use that instead. There are two problems to solve though…

Problem 1: Using parsed meshes just like *.3ds or *.dae creates a DO3D and puts all models in there that also got their own DO3D’s. So the first actual DO3D that you control as your mesh is just a container for another DO3D inside. Now this has worked so far but now that we need to recieve the geometrydata fo the 3DS we need to get our hands of that DO3D-child. Somehow for some hightech reason beyond me, you cannot just take it. You will need to know it’s name (!)

So even if you know that the child is in there there is only one function to get it and that is DO3D.getChildByName() … damn. One quick solution to this is to trace out the DO3D.childrenList() string and then see the name and after that code: DO3D.getChildByName(nameTraced) this does somehow seem pretty unconvinient because we don’t at this stage have a clue how many meshes we will need to do this for and it somehow is considered ugly code with this hardcoded names if you later on would like to change the model of your meshes.

Here’s my solution:

			var mesh:DisplayObject3D = parsedMesh
			// getting first child name
			var nameOfChild:String = String(mesh.childrenList()).substring(0,String(mesh.childrenList()).indexOf(":"))
			// extracting child
			var newMesh:DisplayObject3D = mesh.getChildByName(nameOfChild)

Without knowing the name of the child you can now retrieve it. Remember that this only works if the containerObject only contains one single mesh.

If not, the above code will only grab the first object.
Problem 2: When importing different meshes using different parsers the models comes from very different 3D-environments. One typical thing is that there is a difference in what actually is up/down, left/right and in/out. Some uses the idea of letting Y becoming the in/out depth meanwhile Z s going up and down. This is often handled by the parser turing it so it looks “correct” in PV3D. That transformationdata could get lost when copying geometrydata.

Solution: I “ugly”-solved it this time, just rotating every single mesh of mine -90 in x-axis so you wont notice a difference in the end.

I’ve decided to create a new page in here with just the latest compiled version of the game. Make sure to come in here from time to time to check the progress of the game. Sometimes it might look ugly as I’m testing stuff but most of the time I hope you will see the progress of it.

Now there is only one core object I need to create before I an start putting all these pieces together to something looking like a game. We need special effects (!) explosions, lightbeams, dust on the ground, flares… things that makes all the difference that is :)