Humble Bee Island

Posted By: zwecklos

Humble Bee Island - 12/22/06 18:11

Heya folks
Here is our newest work in progress, its about being an humble bee on a nice little island.

















what we have done so far:
- player-modell (without animations yet)
- basic level-design
- basic flight control
- basic camera-script
- multi-texture terrain-shader
- added plants

things left to do:
- add grass-shader
- add bloom-shader
- fur-shader for the humble-bumble-bee
- extend terrain to an whole island
- replace water-shader
- better skycube
- animations
- menu
- lens-flare
- Multiplayer LAN (deathmatch with bombs, missiles etc.)
- Missions (Fly trough bonus-gates, time attack etc.)

A demo will follow soon.
What do you think so far? Comments and critics are mostly welcome.

cheers and merry x-mas

Zwecklos & Sinnlos
Posted By: KMS

Re: Humble Bee Island - 12/22/06 18:14

very,very nice pictures!
Posted By: Captain_Kiyaku

Re: Humble Bee Island - 12/22/06 18:15

is humble suppose to be a word joke or do you mean "bumble bee"?

but the screenshots are nice i can see you use your same rendering techniques like in the othe rporject (backed textures, etc)

Hope to see more soon
Posted By: Germanunkol

Re: Humble Bee Island - 12/22/06 18:18

I especially like the house... very nice job!!
keep it up!
looking forward to that demo!!
Posted By: zwecklos

Re: Humble Bee Island - 12/22/06 18:28

Quote:

is humble suppose to be a word joke or do you mean "bumble bee"?



Indeed, we ment bumble-bee not humble-bee...
Oh my God our english sucks terribly!

cheers

PS: YaaY my 100th post
Posted By: Gamesaint762

Re: Humble Bee Island - 12/22/06 18:32

Excellent Job on the terrain, you have some nice cuts in there. House model looks great. Would love to know what shader you use for the water. Looks like its well on its way to being a fun little game. GS out.
Posted By: zwecklos

Re: Humble Bee Island - 12/22/06 18:46

Quote:

Would love to know what shader you use for the water.



Its the mirror-effect of the A6 Pro-Version. It looks very nice but it kills the fps, because of that we are going to use a water-shader.

cheers
Posted By: Excessus

Re: Humble Bee Island - 12/22/06 19:55

Looks good, but you should make your terrain texture mipmaps less blurry and use anisotrophic filtering. The rest looks really nice.
Posted By: sinnlos

Re: Humble Bee Island - 12/22/06 20:05

we are still thinking about the water shader issue.

why does the A6 Pro-mirror ability use so much performance?
is it maybe related to the high entity-count (ca. 600)?
is there a difference about two or three models with 50k polys or 200-300 models with 50k polys altogether?

we are planning to upgrade to 6.5 to use the built-in water shader. but not sure about that. anyone got experiences on that shader? does it use cubemaps as reflection or does it also reflect models?

or are there any other suggestions, we are really open to every idea.

cheers
Posted By: Excessus

Re: Humble Bee Island - 12/22/06 22:15

Yes to both.

The water shader is slow because the scene is rendered twice, first from the waters point of view, then from the camera with the first render used as texture of the water surface.

The entity count also matters, more entities is slower, even if the total amount of polies in the scene is the same. Try batching the grass sprites and such.
Posted By: Alexander Esslinger

Re: Humble Bee Island - 12/23/06 00:34

Since when do bees have fur??
Posted By: Damocles

Re: Humble Bee Island - 12/23/06 00:40

Bees have Fur

or hair in some cases.


Posted By: zwecklos

Re: Humble Bee Island - 12/23/06 00:50

We are not sure yet if the player is going to be just a bee.

Maybe we are going to upgrade it to an humble-bumble-bee so a fur-shader would fit here

cheers
Posted By: Captain_Kiyaku

Re: Humble Bee Island - 12/23/06 00:53

or just add some layers of polygons, and give it a noise texture, like i did it once as test after playing Shadow of the Colossus.

Here a testshot from Cinema4d i made that time:


Posted By: zwecklos

Re: Humble Bee Island - 12/23/06 01:01

Quote:

or just add some layers of polygons, and give it a noise texture, like i did it once as test after playing Shadow of the Colossus.
Here a testshot from Cinema4d i made that time:




this is a damn nice looking good effect, we are still exploring all the possibilities to realise fur.
Your effect opens new points of view for our purposes, thanks for this example.

cheerio

Edit PS: what is "Shadow of the Colossus"? Is it maybe a nice game that I have missed?
Posted By: Captain_Kiyaku

Re: Humble Bee Island - 12/23/06 01:07

yeah, and if you have a good sorted vertices for those polygons, you can write a script that let them wave by moving the vertices from layer to layer just for a bit. like all vertices in layer 1 (on the bottom) moves for 1, the layer abour vor 1.5, the layer above for 2, and so on. and let it swing around, maybe even depending on the fly direction so the hairs get pressure from wind. its a greatz effect, just a bit "hairy" (8D) to script.
Posted By: zwecklos

Re: Humble Bee Island - 12/23/06 01:16

Sounds really interesting...
We surely will check out this technique. Do you think it will be more efficiently than a common fur-shader (fps dis-/advantages)?

cheers

zwecki

edit: with this technique you could be able to move/animate the fur-layers dependet to the physical forces acting on the bee...this would look terrible amazing!
Posted By: Captain_Kiyaku

Re: Humble Bee Island - 12/23/06 01:41

well without moving the hair, i think its faster than the fur shader (at least it was for me. depends on how many layer you add and how many polygones they have)

the vertices movement might be a bit slower, but again, depends on the amount of layers.

but yes, thats a big advantage, you can let the fur react to wind/physic.

EDIT: Actually, if they are seperated models, you can just move the UV map of the fur, depending on the wind/physic again. but then you need to call more function, which might slow it down too.
Posted By: zwecklos

Re: Humble Bee Island - 12/23/06 03:25

Thats already sound like a work-around for me....
Just moving the uv map with a speed/direction value (uvspeed) calculated by the force which is acting to the modell will speed up the things
and would be also a very nice effect...
Arrgh I wish I would be at my workstation in the office. I want to test out some things... You made me horny on a couple
of ideas too bad its x-mas and family-time argh aaargh I have to wait.

cheers and thx again for the nice inspirations.

zwecki
Posted By: sinnlos

Re: Humble Bee Island - 12/29/06 16:01

Hiya...

the project still goes on...
we mentioned that we will extend the terrain to an whole island.
this is what we have so far:



what we have done so far on level design:
- added cliffs
- added sand
- added stairs from the path down to the boat landing stage
- added boat landing stage (ein Steg beziehungsweise eine Anlegestelle für Boote, wie heisst das zum Teufel auf Englisch?)
- added a cave which is connected to the well


still to do on level design (or at least planned):
- more trees
- bushes
- add interior to the house: table, chair, shelf
- beehives
- add plants on the new parts of the terrain
- add grass

besides this we are fighting with the multiplayer-script... wouldn't it be fun flying around this island with ur friends as bees.

stay tuned... demo coming next week!!! hopefully

cheers

zwecklos & sinnlos
Posted By: frazzle

Re: Humble Bee Island - 12/29/06 16:14

Nice level design sinnlos
But what's the poly count ??

Cheers

Frazzle
Posted By: sinnlos

Re: Humble Bee Island - 12/29/06 16:29

70k polys... with the plants counted in which u dont see on the rendering above...
aiming for about 100-120k polys inclusive plants and grass
Posted By: ShoreVietam

Re: Humble Bee Island - 12/29/06 16:43

Hey that's really neat, nice peaceful scenery.
Posted By: zwecklos

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/02/07 16:46

Heya there,
I think we were too optimistic about releasing a demo this week.
The multyplayer takes more time than expected.

so we thought, we make a little video of what we've got right now. In order to make you guys horny for the demo

Download here (AVI, zipped 70MB)

The demo itself will comming soon (approximately in 2 weeks).

We've planned to do something like this:
- single player mode (Race through gates with checkpoints)
- multy player mode (death-match air-combat)

Have you any other ideas for games, which you could implement into this scenery?
We looking forward to your ideas. Please feel free to post any suggestions.


cheers

Useless & Senseless
(Zwecklos & Sinnlos)
Posted By: EX Citer

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/02/07 18:25

well... games... HAven´t seen yet the video, right now downloading. 1min 22seconds...

Hmmm... Strange music. Game modes, death match, team death match, capture the flower, flower breeding*, last be(e) flying, KotHh*, honey masters*, bee boom*

*flower breeding: A big flower in the center of the map produces from time to time spores. The players can collect these spores and must bring it to their base. If a spore carrier gets shot by an opponent she drops the spore. They have to drop the spore over their base (by pressing the drop button or flying close over the base ground. After 10seconds the spore becomes a seed and so it gets a point for that player and can´t be stolen. The first player who gets 3 seeds(points) wins. While the spore isn´t a seed it can be stolen from the players base so he has to defend it. The bases and the big flower are all close together, not too far away from each other.

*King of the Honey hill (needs teams): On top of a rock or hill or roof or something a physic item gets placed. Team A has to keep it on top of the building the opponent team B has to get it down. The longer the game lasts the less fiction the physic item gets. As soon as it drops to the ground the round is over and the teams switch positions. Now team B must keep it on top as long as they needed to get it down when team A was defending it. The physic item could be a honey filled Bienenwabe.

*Honey masters (needs teams 4vs4 or something): Flowers are spread over the island. Each team has one mainbuilding at start. The bees have to fly to the flowers and collect honey and bring it to the mainbuilding. There they can buy buildings, units and weapons. The team whos main building or players gets destroyed loses.
Buyable stuff:
Buildings: defence buildings A,B,C
defence building A, shoots semi fast big balls towards the enemy (only fast and not close bees can avoid getting hit)
defence building B, shoots explosive balls towards the enemy (ball explodes where the bee was when the ball was shot or when it hits something)
defence building C, shoots fast tranquilizer spores (enemy, gets slower and his view gets blurred or something)
Weapons:
Units (different Insects which are locked to the main bee):
Moskito - shoots into the direction in which the bee is shooting like a machine gun medium small balls
Bee Drone - (armor)
small Bug - shoots in the direction the Player bee is shooting, explosive small balls
other small Bug - shoots towards opponent when it gets shot
big Bug - like a drop bomg, damages everything around it in a huge area, can be detonated by the player, the closer something is the more damage, espacially useful to destroy the opponents main building
Hornet - shoots homing missles which slightly move towards the enemy

*bee boom (multiply players needed, must be played inside the house, with some obstacles): Game starts like death match. BUT when the first players health drops to 0 he becomes a bee bomber. But no one knows who it is except the one who is the bee bomber (and maybe the one who shot him, but he can´t be sure because everyone was shooting everyone). Now no one can get shot anymore and all have to run away from each other because they don´t know who will detonte. They all just hear the countdown while the bomber is hunting/sneaking into them until he detonates. After the countdown is over all can shoot again till the next countdown starts (the next player is hit to 0 hp). If someone got hit by the detonated bee his hp gets lower. If it should get to 0 the next countdown starts. If multiple bees get their hp to 0 by the detonation they are all explosive bees and detonate at 0. The last bee who survives wins the round.

*bee boom 2: in this mode the explosive bees are visible. They spread spark particles and glow or make a noise or something.
Posted By: sinnlos

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/03/07 14:58

Thx for the nice ideas.
We definatly will have a closer look on them.

we especially like the bee bomb idea (humble bomble bee)

cheers

Sinnlos
Posted By: Germanunkol

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/04/07 10:17

Looks great!!

I like those ideas Ex citer had ...

My idea:
Suicide mode:
Bees die when they sting someone once, right? You could have a game mode where the goal is stinging the opponent. Then you die too, but you win anyways ...
just an idea... if you're using bees maybe you should use their real weapon, stinging someone, as well as others...:)

Uhm... one thing I noticed: When you fly through the broken glass or through other small holes like the fence, the camera goes into the fence etc for a short time, showing only some polygons...
Maybe you can do something like camera collision, it would be great.
Also, I'd change the shading of the bee a bit. The surrounding is a bit darker than the bee, it looks a tiny bit to bright an perfect for my taste... that's just my opinion though...

Other than that: Looking great! I like the island... looks very cool
And the game idea's great as well^^
Posted By: zwecklos

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/04/07 10:45

THX Germanunkol,
The suicide-mode would also bring a lot of fun I think
I especially like the idea of stinging down your buddies in Multyplayer-mode

Camera-Collision is already implemented in the latest version and yes you are right, the shading of the bee and of some plants need a little overwork.

thx again for your input it is a great help to hear other opinions from people that are not involved in the project.

cheers

zwecki
Posted By: broozar

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/04/07 11:05

i'd sooo love to see the video, but 70 MB is much too heavy. won't it be possible to scale it down to, say, 30? thanks.
Posted By: zwecklos

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/04/07 11:33

Hi DaBroOzar,
We have a problem finding a good compression. We are using Cinepak Codec by radius. Its the best compression we've found so far, it safes a bunch of MB without loosing too much quality.

Do you or any other fellows knowing a better compressor? Would be great if we could crunch down the video some more

cheers

PS We will put the video on google or youtube in a couple of days.

zwecki
Posted By: broozar

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/04/07 11:36

DivX 5/6; Xvid; wmv 2-pass, i tend to recommend DivX
Posted By: zwecklos

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/04/07 12:51

THX Da BroOzar,
This was a very good tip. The Video has now only a file size of 16 MB. But the Quality is not so good as the cinepaks but is still acceptable

We have to apologize, we are not so good with those video-editing and cutting stuff

however 5 stars for you BroOzar and the link for the video

http://www.roxxor.ch/shared/bumble_bee_divx.zip zipped, divx, 16MB requires divx codec

cheers
Posted By: PHeMoX

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/04/07 13:48

It is looking awesome, good job. Although the flight model is not bad at all, I'd expect smoother flights (not sure if this is because of the DivX video or not). Bees tend to fly supersmooth paths and when they 'hang idle' in mid-air, they move around quite a bit in oval shaped paths. Off course this is for finetuning and less of a critic, perhaps having the 'realistic' idle behavior would make a player crazy in no time, because the screen would be moving up and down following the bee all the time.

I also think the bee doesn't quite fit into the otherwise more realistic environment, but that's a matter of taste. The bee is a bit more cartoony,

Cheers
Posted By: JetpackMonkey

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/04/07 14:24


Yeah the textures (grass, skydome) would look good if cartoonier, maybe hand-painted in Painter? Keeping the models chubby and squishy looks good, I like the wooden building especially. The bee's very cute even without fur. I think he'd look good if his front antennae were longer and kind of worked like a little bit of hair over his eyes.

Nice job!

Zweck and Sinn, the brothers 'los! (assuming yr both guys)
Posted By: sinnlos

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/04/07 14:55

thanks for your comments... we appreciate them alot

@phemox:
we are going to fine-tune the flight so it will be smoother... and with the animations on the model it will hopefully feel like flying a bee.

@jetpack_monkey:
yeah we would like to add a little more cartoonish look to the texture, but we just dont have the skill yet to make good looking handpainted textures... (still learning to paint with my wacom )

maybe we will completly replace the bee-model... with more silhouettes and maybe with some clothing and gadgets like helmet, ammo-belts and a tiny gun.
we will see... atm we are still working on the level design and the multiplayer.

thx again and have a nice day

sinnlos
Posted By: zwecklos

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/05/07 16:10

Heya there,
I want to keep you guys up-to-date so Im glad to tell you that the importest part of the Multyplayer is done. I had some problems to synchronosize the physics but today I got it to work

Next step is to implement a nice shot. Im still not sure how I will implement this or how it should look like. The main problem is, that the bees are very tiny so it is very hard to hit an other bee even if you have a machine-gun-like shot.
For sure I will have to make a target-system maybe I will use cruise missiles that follows the target as well

So if anybody knows an other good shot-type please let us know

cheers

sinn & zweck
Posted By: PHeMoX

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/05/07 18:05

Quote:

So if anybody knows an other good shot-type please let us know



Not really a shot-type I think, but a sticky honey bomb or something alike would be awesome.

Cheers
Posted By: sPlKe

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/05/07 18:36

the graphic styles dont mach, some textures are too big, you need a smootehr transistion from one texture to another. water is good, but could need some transparency since its just a small pool and not the sea. other than that, its pretty well done.

ps.: sky looks booring, level a bit empty
Posted By: broozar

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/05/07 18:40

i have to make ahuge compliment to you and your project. the graphics, with its highly detailed textures, nice plants, smooth realistic shadows etc. is by far the best i've seen in a 3dgs project for a long time, though you obviously do not target sphere2 shader standard, you do your style very well.

i agree with PheMox, " I'd expect smoother flights", esp. in right and left bends. maybe you could create a sideward looping when the player changes the direction very quickly? plus, maybe a small camera bobbing would make it less static.

i'd love to see a hit prototype animation, when you fly against eg. the hut. for the next vid

i don't share the opinion that the textures should be cartoonier, they're brilliant as they are.
Posted By: EX Citer

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/05/07 19:22

simply make the bullets bigger. Its easier to hit with a huge energyball. And make itlike in twisted metal, that even the default rockets slighty move towards the enemy
Posted By: zwecklos

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/06/07 01:24

Quote:

simply make the bullets bigger. Its easier to hit with a huge energyball. And make it like in twisted metal, that even the default rockets slighty move towards the enemy



Yea thanks a lot you brought me the idea how it will goes. I will use a bigger bounding box for the shot-entity. This will make this thing more accurate without using elephants as ammunition

cheers

zweck
Posted By: EX Citer

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/06/07 08:51

Hmmmm, you don´t have to use elephants or wales. You can use a big hull for a sprite. But the sprite is actually a lot of dots. So it doesnt look big, but it looks like many small particles, but is only one thing.

So you get a shotgun shot, a hug hit hull and only one entity to calculate which goes straight.
Posted By: Blitzblaster1

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/06/07 17:21

Hi !

The screens looks funny, i wait for a playable demo.
Posted By: sinnlos

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/16/07 19:11

Hi all
just a little screenshot update:











we planned to release the first beta-demo by end of this week, so keep tuned.

cheers
Zwecklos & Sinnlos
Posted By: DLively

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/16/07 19:35

Great work. Terrains and textures look very nice. Looks very cartoony. Great work! Cant wait for the demo
Posted By: EX Citer

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/16/07 20:17

Will there be a way to replace the playermodel with an own model?
Posted By: broozar

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/16/07 20:27

textur im dritten bild rechts unten ist matschig, ansonsten: lob für die stetige Verbesserung! ist das wasser jetzt final? ich fand's vorher nämlich nicht schlechter...
Posted By: zwecklos

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/16/07 21:22

Quote:


Will there be a way to replace the playermodel with an own model?



Why?
Do you want it to be replaced with a naked beauty?


Quote:


textur im dritten bild rechts unten ist matschig



Ist eine 1024er Textur die über das Terrain gekachelt wird. Wir probieren mal 2048er DDS Texturen, mal gucken ob die Perfomance spielbar bleibt.
Ist eben so ne Proportionen-Geschichte, wir haben ne Biene die ist 1cm im Durchmesser, in 'nem level von 100x100m.

Quote:


ist das wasser jetzt final?



nö... ist noch nicht final. Wir probieren immernoch verschiedene Sachen aus.


thx for the comments and inputs, keep'em coming.
sinnlos & zwecklos
Posted By: PHeMoX

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/17/07 00:01

Looking good. About the last screenshot you've shown, how's the performance in that screen, a big fps drop, or .. ?

Cheers
Posted By: Germanunkol

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/17/07 17:28

Are you going to add some sort of targeting system? First reaction to seeing you made the level bigger was something like "cool!!" Then, right after that I thought about how to find a small bee somewhere on an entire island. I think you should probably put in a radar or something, in a way that fits the screen, cause otherwise finding something that is 1 cm in diameter on a 100*100 meter island is gonna be pretty hard.
Looking great though! keep it up!
Looking forward to the demo also
Posted By: frazzle

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/17/07 19:12

Nice update, this "mini" game is looking very promising
But as PHeMoX mentioned, will the total environment have a major effect on
the FPS ?? Btw, which multiplayer games have you coded untill now ??

Cheers

Frazzle
Posted By: sinnlos

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/18/07 08:59

Hi all, thanks for the input.


Quote:


About the last screenshot you've shown, how's the performance in that screen, a big fps drop, or .. ?




No, we dont have a big fps drop there. At least not with the computers we are developing. (P4 3GHz, Geforce 6800 256MB, 2GB RAM)
On our oldest computer the game doesn't work at all. It's a :
-Dual Pentium III 866
-Geforce TI 4200 32MB
-512MB RAM

If your pc is similar or lower, the demo will probably not work.


Quote:


Are you going to add some sort of targeting system? First reaction to seeing you made the level bigger was something like "cool!!" Then, right after that I thought about how to find a small bee somewhere on an entire island. I think you should probably put in a radar or something, in a way that fits the screen, cause otherwise finding something that is 1 cm in diameter on a 100*100 meter island is gonna be pretty hard.




Yeah good point, we already thought of this problem.
For the multiplayer it would be absolutely necessary. We are thinking of a mini-map in the lower right corner, and a targeting system (a crosshair following the other players models)

Quote:


Btw, which multiplayer games have you coded untill now




Not sure, if we get your question right. Bumble Bee is the first MP-game we're developing.
The multiplayer-code is about 30% finished, and that's just one mp-mode.
But there is a lot of additional work coming with it like the minimap, targeting system, additional player models (fly, wasp, hornet), items, missiles,... the list is almost endless

so unfortunatly the first demo we will release will only contain the singleplayer modes.

cheers

Zwecklos & Sinnlos
Posted By: frazzle

Re: Humble Bee Island - 01/18/07 11:54

Quote:

Not sure, if we get your question right. Bumble Bee is the first MP-game we're developing.
The multiplayer-code is about 30% finished, and that's just one mp-mode.
But there is a lot of additional work coming with it like the minimap, targeting system, additional player models (fly, wasp, hornet), items, missiles,... the list is almost endless




You got the question right but it's nice to see you're working hard on it

Quote:


so unfortunatly the first demo we will release will only contain the singleplayer modes.




That's alright, I just can wait to play it, SP or MP it doesn't matter

Cheers

Frazzle
Posted By: zwecklos

Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 01/21/07 18:31

ROXXOR Entertainment is proud to present the first demo of Bumble Bee Island.

>>> Download it here: Bumble Bee Island Demo (zipped, 29 MB)

System Requirements:
It worked fine on these two systems:
-P4 3GHz, Geforce 6800 256MB, 2GB RAM
-P4 3.2GHz, Radeon 9800XT 256MB, 2GB RAM
-shader model 2
It didn't work on this one:
-Dual Pentium III 866MHz, Geforce TI 4200 32MB, 512MB RAM

Recommended System Requirements:
-P4, 3D-Craphic card 128MB shader 2.0, 512MB RAM

-We assume that the game should work on a graphic card with 128MB... hopefully aswell with a 64MB.
-We would really appreciate if people who play the demo could give us a feedback with their system requirements.
-There is a "D3DXDLLJune26.zip" included into the zip because the bloom shader requires at least that version.

Controls:
-Fly with the mouse, click on left mouse button to go forward, rightclick for backward. if u don't click anything the bee will stop and u can move the camera around the player model.
-Cursor up, down, left, right strafes up, down, left and right.
-Mousewheel zoom in and out.
-Esc quits the game... a pause-menu is planned (with continue, main menu, exit game).

The game is far from beeing finished. We still call it a alpha-version, even though it's our first game-project which has come this far.
It's planned to be a reference of an advertising game for our company.
We would like to explain what we have done and what's planned. In order to do this we divide this into two sections: "Done" and "It's done, when it's done"

Done:
In general:
-single player race-mode (race through the bonus gates before u run out of time... 3 levels playable)
-single player explore-mode (not really finished yet... if u choose explore mode in the demo version you can explore the island without mission objectives)

Level Design:
-complete Island-Terrain with multi-texture shader
-house with interior, pond, tree, well with a bucket, cave, fence, landing stage for boats, bee hive, stone piles, plants and a sea surrounding the island
-replaced Skycube

Character/Item Design:
-bee model with animations (stand, fly, collision)
-bonus-gate with animation (pop-up)

UI:
-intro roxxor
-startscreen
-singleplayer menu
-racemode UI (Start, Score, Time, Points, Finish)

Script:
-flight control
-camera-script
-animation scripting
-race mode points, time
-UI, menu
-some shaders


It's done, when it's done:
In general:
-multiplayer (the basics are done, but we still have to do additional players, items, controls, etc...)
-single player explore-mode (find different flowers spread over the entire terrain and get their pollen in a certain amount of time)
-particles
-sound effects and music*

Level Design:
-change water
-more tree's and shrubs
-replace some textures and colors
-lensflare

Character/Item Design:
-more animations for bee model
-add some non-player models like butterflies, squirrels, birds, etc...
-3d-flowers for explore-mode

UI:
-intro "Humble Bee Island"
-no need to list up all the missing menus

Script:
-multiplayer
-bee fur shader
-highscore
-particles
-improve single player modes


* We are looking for someone, who would like to design the sound effects and/or music for us. Since "Humble Bee Island" is only for the promotion for roxxor entertainment it is not a paid job (we do this for free aswell). If someday we will gain a profit with this game, we would pay the job of course.
So if your are interested, please pm me or sinnlos, or write an email (u can find the adresses on our page: www.roxxor.ch/team)...patrik is zwecklos and stefan is sinnlos, if u wonder

Credits: (last but not least)
-Bloom Shader from Matt's Sphere Engine
-Font by Daniel Gauthier

cheers
Sinnlos & Zwecklos
Posted By: lostclimate

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 01/21/07 19:02

2 gigs of ram???!!!!!
Posted By: zwecklos

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 01/21/07 19:20

The System Req's are not given yet. We had no possibility to test it on diffrent machines (sorry for not saying this more clearly).
We just put the system specs from our developing machines into the system requirement part.
So dont worry you really dont ned 2 gig of ram for this application

cheers
Posted By: EX Citer

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 01/21/07 19:44

Freefly mode runs smooth on my superslow laptop (without installing these dlls):
1.8GHZ
384mb RAM
ATI RADEON XPRESS 200M

All who havent played here some additional info:
- no installer (thanks guys!!!) I hate installers for demos
- loading the game takes a while (after I have double clicked the exe I have waited around 30 seconds and almost nothing seems to happen)

About the demo:

Good work, here some critique:
- Bee flies too slow. Any turbo boosts or something?
- If you wouldn´t use that game as reference work, I would say nothing against the player model, because I have humor and find it funny. But if I would be a "Kunde" (what is that in english damnit), I would think, well if I want a Doom like game of some guys like Sinnlos and Zwecklos... do the Zombies look as funny as this bee? I think the bee design is a big problem if this game should be a reference model. I highly recomment to make the bee much more realistic. But of course so realistic that it still fits into the scene. If you make it a bionic bee no problem. But for now it looks like "we made it like that because it´s much more simple for us". And that won´t sell. It´s extreem simplyfied cartoon. Of course alot of work are put into designs like Biene Maya for example. They did alot of research how they can make the bee so most children like her. But the result looks like no work. That is a problem to use as reference if you can´t show the "Kunde" how much work was put into the design.

Well, these are the main points. Great work so far Ahhh, one more thing. I am missing the exploding barrels You know, destroying stuff and dangers. Or oozy honey in the BeeHome and maybe some little jokes here and there...

EDIT: *I remember: customer = Kunde... doesnt sound that polite in english. Hope that´s correct.
Posted By: PHeMoX

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 01/21/07 20:04

It's running fine here:
3Ghz HT P4
2Gb mem
Ati radeon X1600XT 256mb

Great demo, I especially liked the exploring mode. Perhaps add some things to collect in exploring mode to unlock things to keep it interesting. (edit: lol, I should read more carefully )

I agree with Exciter, although the bee is flying great it would be a nice if it could fly a bit faster. And perhaps add just a little bit more realism to the bee's skin. At the moment it's véry cartoony and the environment is way less cartoony.

About the environment, it's looking awesome, you guys did a great job. Two things about it though. First off, at some points in the level you can see seems between for example rocks and grass polygons as if they aren't welded together. The 'cliff' like part in the middle (on top) of the island has this if you're flying close to it.
Secondly, you should think of a script to stop the camera from moving into the ground or into models. If the bee is close to the ground it would look better if the camera would not look under the ground, but you probably know that this can happen.

So far so good, looking forward to any progress on this,

Cheers
Posted By: frazzle

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 01/21/07 20:08

First I wanna congratz you two for the nice demo !!
Sec, the water shader isn't working but I've had the latest update with DX9.
And last but not least my C&C:
Plus points:

  • the graphics are nice
  • the idea and creativity I found in the level is from a very high level
  • the bee and the hive is nicely modeled, as well as the rest of the models


Work points

  • the texture are some times blurry but I know that when you higher up the resolution of it so let's say you're using a 512x512 now and you make it a 1024x1024 the FPS will be affected with a relative frame drop. I'm saying relative because I don't know which texture size you're using.
  • the controls are sometimes abit hard after the bee did a 90-180 degrees turn.
  • the speed is to slow as EX Citer mentioned, the race mode would be more attractive if the bee could speed up to let's say 50 mph. A panel showing the current speed would be a nice extra.


Besides all that, fantastic work !! Can't wait to see more of this
Btw, for my spec, look at my sign.

Cheers

Frazzle
Posted By: Machinery_Frank

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 01/21/07 21:44

Wow, amazing. It works fast and even the race mode is already working! Great.

Do you mind asking a few questions? How many polygons does this scene have? Do you have any clipping or LOD (for instance for the cave under the well)? Where did you get this great and fast multi-texture-shader for the model terrain?

Regards,
Frank
Posted By: XNASorcerer

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 01/21/07 23:05

I can see just one problem: Pressing ESC makes the game to exit. Please add a "Are you sure?" Panel.

Other than that... Great work!
Posted By: sinnlos

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 01/22/07 10:04

First of all, we want to thank you for downloading and testing the demo. We are really eased to hear that you like it so far.

EX Citer:
You are right, the bee model is too simpel... We will make a redesign.
We will also make the standard speed a little bit faster and we will add turbo-boosts.
And yeah, the exploding stuff is missing, we try to add this in the next demo.
We thougth that it would be the best to add more detail and little jokes at the very end.

PHeMoX:
Aye, that seam-problem is really annoying.
We already had that problem in the first terrain (first post of this thread) and we spent alot of time to get them closed but with no success yet.
We already scripted a camera collision, but we'll have to finetune it a little more.

frazzle:
There is actually no water shader applied yet. We have some ideas, and will have to test which one is the best.
About the texture sizes: all textures are 512*512 except the blending maps (1024*1024). In a earlier stage we had all textures on 1024*1024 and the blendmaps even 2048*2048, but we thought its better to go down because we want to add so much more stuff like particles, sound, etc...

Frank_G:
The whole level including plants, house, tree, etc... has 87'374 tri's.
We dont have any clipping or LOD-systems. All we use is mipmapping.
The terrain shader we made ourselfes. its a FFP shader with 3 Passes.

Sorcerer:
We plan a little menu where you can choose either to continue the game, go back to the main menu or exit the game.

cheers

Zwecklos & Sinnlos
Posted By: frazzle

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 01/22/07 11:51

Quote:


frazzle:
There is actually no water shader applied yet. We have some ideas, and will have to test which one is the best.
About the texture sizes: all textures are 512*512 except the blending maps (1024*1024). In a earlier stage we had all textures on 1024*1024 and the blendmaps even 2048*2048, but we thought its better to go down because we want to add so much more stuff like particles, sound, etc...




Oke, thxn for the info Btw, are you going to write the water shader yourself ??

Cheers

Frazzle
Posted By: sinnlos

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 01/22/07 12:19

yes...
but don't expect any realtime reflections... we will make a ffp-shader which doesn't take too much performance.
Posted By: sinnlos

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 01/24/07 17:12

here some further progress:
we made a new bee-model. it has more realistic shapes but is still comic-style... we hope this will match better with the enviroment.



this is just a beauty-render where the mesh is smoothed with 2 iterations... the real game model has 1576 tri's.

in the moment we are a bit stuck... we want to add the ability to shoot with the bee... but what kind of shot could a bee do?
-shoot whith a little mini-rifle?
-shoot with a laser gun which is attached to the body (cyborg-style)?
-just shoot with an energy-ball which pops out of the mouth?

what do u think... what could fit into this game?

cheers

zwecklos & sinnlos

EDIT: for those who didn't download the demo yet:
Bumble Bee Island Demo
Read zwecklos his post whith requirements and info on page six of this thread.
Posted By: EX Citer

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 01/24/07 18:35

I think it will be difficult to make the bee hold a minirifle. Not impossible but difficult.
Lasergun attached to the body sounds cool. Reminds me of some old Amiga game
Pops out of mouth, not bad but, too strange und uncool
Posted By: alphaindigo

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 01/24/07 20:16

how about it shoots some kind of sting thing. I know that bees can only sting once then they die but, hey, its comic!
Posted By: Shinobi

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 01/24/07 20:58

Hi , sorry habe zwar diesen thread verfolgt jedoch nichts gepostet . Also euer Bienenspiel gefällt mir gut (mal was anderes) bin gespannt wie es am ende wird .

Die Stachel schiess idee von alphaindigo finde ich sehr gut und habe mal eine kleine animation vorbereitet wie dies in action aussehen könnte.

Die animation zeigt das Stachelschiessen vom fliegen bis zur abschissanimation.

ANIMATION Example
Posted By: Joozey

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 01/24/07 22:31

Let it shoot some honey bubbles out of his mouth like bubble and bobble.
Posted By: EX Citer

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 01/25/07 08:04

Wow, Shinobi, da hast du dir ja ganz schön viel Mühe gegeben für das Video. Das Problem das ich da sehe ist, ist die Videospiel regel das es vor einem Angriff 0 Wartezeit geben sollte. NAch einem Angriff ist es ok. Aber die Biene sollte in dem Moment schießen in dem ich drücke. Mit 0 meine ich nicht absolut 0. Aber es sollte wirklich extrem schnell gehen. Sonst sind meine Reflexe nutzlos. Außerdem entsteht ja schon eine Wartezeit durch meine Reflexe und durch das drücken der Taste.

ICh muss meine Spiele hingehend der Nullwartezeit vor dem Angriff auch noch überarbeiten

Argh, sorry, wrong language: Here ein Short in english: The time until the bee takes so long with that animation. I think that´s a problem.
Posted By: zwecklos

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 01/25/07 10:34

Thank you all for the ideas and especially thanks to Shinobi for your animation example.

cheers

Sinnlos & Zwecklos
Posted By: Pappenheimer

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 01/25/07 14:00

The new bee looks nice, although I got accustomed to the old one in the demo!

IMO, you should make the wings bigger. BTW, don't they have two parts within a wing?
Posted By: sinnlos

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 01/26/07 17:38

Heya
Here is the bee with a basic skin and the original ingame polycount:



As mentioned the bee has 1576 triangles, that equals 796 polys.
Skin texture 512*512

Also we have added some particle effects, shots (just a test shot) and some further finetuning into the game... Stay tuned for the next demo.

For the shot we have thought about using some kind of electricity flash strike coming out of the antennas.
But we have to test if it fits.

cheers

zweckless & sinnless
Posted By: Germanunkol

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 01/26/07 19:37

Awesome!
The bee's so much better now! As you said, still sort of comic style, but a lot better looking!
I think you really should make it two wings, and make the wings bigger. It would look even cooler...
just my oppinion though
Post some screens of that electricity flash once you're done!

Micha
Posted By: Blitzblaster1

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 02/21/07 19:05

Hi !

Sorry habe erst jetzt gesehen, dass eine spielbare Demo online ist.
Also das Game ansich ist wirklich sehr schön, aber mit der Lenkung der Biene, da habe ich total meine Probleme. Man müsste die Möglichkeit haben, per Tastendruck die Rotation der Biene zu beeinflussen, komme ich gegen einen Baum, dann fliegt sie total wirr umher, das nervt. Sonst aber ist das Game echt nett.

Gruß Blitzblaster
Posted By: Iron Chancellor

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 02/21/07 19:28

It doesn't run on my pc as I don't have a Shader 2.0 card
Posted By: Damocles

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 02/21/07 19:59

Can you make a video of the game? as I cant run it on my computer.
Posted By: zwecklos

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 02/21/07 21:32

@Germanunkol
thanks... we are pleased u like the model... we'll check if we add more wings... since its also more work to do in the animations.

@Blitzblaster1
Danke für deine Kritik... wir haben diverse Pläne, wie wir die Steuerung noch ändern/anpassen wollen.

@Iron Chancellor , Damocles
its a pitty the game doesn't work on your computer systems.
what graphic card are you using and with what system specs?

We have posted a vid before... it's kinda old, but we will upload a new one soon. however here is the old vid:

Bumble Bee Island Video - High
avi zipped 70MB

Bumble Bee Island Video - Low
divx zipped 16MB requires divx codec

Here a little screenshot-update:



So far we have made 16 Levels and added particles for turbo, shot, rings etc.
The water shader is final. Finally we've found a reasonable solution.
Also we have found someone who will make the sound for us.

Stay tuned for the next Demo

cheers

Der Sinn und Zwecklos
Posted By: demiGod

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 02/21/07 21:45

Hi, i´ve played for the first time your demo and i must say its a fantastic work, very professional and the graphics are very good.

Dont know if you already improved the camera collision detection which needs some attention.

Keep it the good work and congratulations!
Posted By: zwecklos

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 02/21/07 21:56

Hi demiGod,
Thank you for playing our demo.
There is a camera-collision in the latest version but it is still alpha.

Thanks again for your reply, it keeps us motivated

cheers

Sinn & Zweck
Posted By: Damocles

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 02/21/07 23:44

I dont have shader 2.0, so thats the reason.
Posted By: Iron Chancellor

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 02/21/07 23:54

I have a GeForce 4 Ti 4200, which unfortunatly doesn't support shader 2.0.
Posted By: broozar

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 02/22/07 14:40

the bee's legs should point backwards while flying. and i must admit that i liked the first bee model better, it looked funnier.
Posted By: ello

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 02/22/07 15:20

Quote:

... and i must admit that i liked the first bee model better, it looked funnier.



my first thought, too
Posted By: zwecklos

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 02/22/07 16:13

Quote:

Man müsste die Möglichkeit haben, per Tastendruck die Rotation der Biene zu beeinflussen



Da ist mir noch was eingefallen, wenn du die rechte und die linke Maustaste zusammen gedrückt hälst, dreht sich die Biene immer automatisch mit der Kamera mit...
Hast du das gemeint?

Cheers

Zwecklos
Posted By: sinnlos

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 02/22/07 16:42

Quote:

i liked the first bee model better


he he he

the old bee might be more sweet but it had too simple shapes and its animations are also very sloppy.
a few people mentioned that the bee and the enviroment don't match well together and we think the new one fits better.
Also the new bee will have much more complex animations and the bee will get an improved skin (with a happier face).

We're doing the animations right now. The "stand"-animation is already done and we are half through the fly animation... only the leg-movements are missing:



further we planned a turbo, a shot and a damage-animation.

cheers
zweck & sinn
Posted By: ello

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 02/23/07 07:19

well it looks more like a wasp now, can call it "whizzle wasp" or so:)
Posted By: PHeMoX

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 02/23/07 07:54

It does, but it also looks better lol ,

Cheers
Posted By: broozar

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 02/23/07 08:15

for a bee, it needs fur on the middle part:



otherwise it's really a wasp.
Posted By: Blitzblaster1

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 02/23/07 08:45

Ja sieht doch ganz gut aus, halt mehr nach Wespe, aber egal. Mir gefällts.
Posted By: Puppeteer

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 02/23/07 11:44

Aber Wespe ist nicht schlimm dass sieht "sportlicher" aus
Posted By: Germanunkol

Re: Bumble Bee Island Demo Release - 02/23/07 14:04

"Wumble Wasp"...:P

I have no idea how I'd animate a wasp-bee's legs... good luck with that!

Wow, that's a lot of levels. Good job guys!


Posted By: zwecklos

Wumble Wasp - New Video - 02/28/07 22:40

Wumble Wasp LOL nice idea...
To keep you guys horny we have updated the demo video.
The video includes the new bee with its animations and also some particle-effects, turbo, gates and shot (the shot-entity is still a place-holder).

HighRes version (79.5 MB)

LowRes version (16.3 MB, requires DivX 6.5 codec) Use the DivX player to get the best results or else dark areas will turn out black.

You may notice, that the game is still far away from final... but it shows the progress

cheers

sinni & zwecki
Posted By: EX Citer

Re: Wumble Wasp - New Video - 03/01/07 06:32

Very good. Realy many improvements and good ideas.

I don´t want to critize anything because I like what I see, but I think it would be better to see the a gate AND the next gate. Otherwise the gate race has too much to do with memorizing. To make it more difficult and exciting, you could place the gates closer together and making them form forms, like loopings.
I think it´s also cool to see all gates. I just don´t know about the frame rate then...

And the bee is currently flipping its angle. I think it´s better quality if the be is not flipped into the new direction but rotated. I mean you don´t have to change that movement. But instead of suddenly beeing into that direction the bee could rotate to it with a simple function.
I am using such a function for my AI. It's checking where the target is, then it´s calculating which rotation direction is the shorter way, and then it´s rotating into the direction of the target but never further. Pretty simple.
YOu could make it that way, that the bee is already moveable into the new direction, and just the model is still turning into that direction. I mean that´s better quality as just setting the angle to the desired direction.
Posted By: Captain_Kiyaku

Re: Wumble Wasp - New Video - 03/01/07 06:53

i would suggest to add an arrow which directs to the next gate. or maybe the "antennae" of the bee is showing into this direction
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Wumble Wasp - New Video - 03/01/07 07:06

It's of fine quality.
Could make a lot of fun to explore the island.
(maybe you can insert/hide some funny surprises)

C&C:
The bee could have a more "physical" flight (forces).
What happens if the bee crashes on a wall?
The camera movement is to stiff. A 3rd person camera should be smooth.
Maybe you can let the camera follow the bees path (always looking a the bee).
This way it looks like a following bee and you will not have problems with flying through small holes (hearts in doors/holes in windowes, ...)

good work so long... (nice artwork)

mercuryus
Posted By: XNASorcerer

Re: Wumble Wasp - New Video - 03/01/07 22:43

Perhaps you could add another types of animals and bugs also. Some of them could be a bee predators and would attack the bee when they become near.

Great work!!!
Posted By: lostclimate

Re: Wumble Wasp - New Video - 03/02/07 04:34

it might be nice to have wind in certain places of the map too, like lets say theres a race, you might need to fly through and area were it is a bit windy too.
Posted By: Why_Do_I_Die

Re: Wumble Wasp - New Video - 03/22/07 21:27

Definately should keep the old bee , roundness is your friend when it comes to cartoony cutesy stuff , the new bee looks more realistic , but too serious as well , which doesnt fit good with that type of game , in fact , if i were you I would make the whole bee out of spheres , lol , for some reason fat animals are considered cute and adorable , this however only applies to pets and not humans : \ So go back to ur old style bee , with this type of game you have to think Mario , Kirby , that type of stuff , and try and stay away from realistic stuff as much as possible. Just my opinion.
Posted By: PHeMoX

Re: Wumble Wasp - New Video - 03/22/07 23:52

The problem is, their environment has this level of realism, too cartoony isn't good either.

Cheers
Posted By: CHaP

Re: Humble Bee Island - 03/23/07 00:06

hey,

at first. i can better read english as write and speak. ok, so i hope you understand me.

this pictures and the video are great!

ähm, i still try to make a world like this, but it do not work.

and my question is: whitch editor you are used for this?
does the level consist only of blocks? or is it complete a terrain?
or a mixture from both?

thx

=)
Posted By: sinnlos

Re: Humble Bee Island - 03/23/07 09:53

thanks for the crits and comments.

@Kihaku
-we will add your idea with an arrow showing in the direction of the next gate.
thanks.

@ExCiter & mercuryus
-we will improve the flight controls of the bee (get rid of that flipping) and try to make flying more smooth. we already have done some improvements since we made that demo-video, but we are still not finished yet with that issue. the camera will also be improved.

@Sorcerer:
we have already modeled some butterflies and also are planning to implement 3 end-bosses:
-a frog by the pond
-a spider in the cave
-a human by the house
(but first we have to finish all the other open issues)

@ lostclimate:
yeah, that would be uber... we had a similar idea whith the wind too... but first of all we have to improve the stuff we have done so far until we add more content.

@ why_do_i_die:
thanks for your honest opinion, but we will stay with the new bee.
and yes the old bee is made completly out of spheres.

@ phemox:
thanks, we think aswell that the new bee fits better in the enviroment.

@ ChaP:
your english is fine, and we understood every single word
to your question:
the level is fully made out of models. no blocks, no hmp's just mdl's.
we model them in a external model package and then place them in wed.
Posted By: CHaP

Re: Humble Bee Island - 03/23/07 13:21

just mdl's?!?! wtf! but. whats with the collision detection, shadows, and so on.
if the models are placed in wed, there are be models? or did you convert the mdl in another format?

i cannot image me this.

well, you come from switzerland? there I could write also on german....

thx again
Posted By: zwecklos

Re: Humble Bee Island - 03/23/07 13:31

Hi CHaP,
You can use the polygon flag on mdl's to have a proper collision detection.
The Shadows are baked (painted on the textures).

Our Models are normal mdl's. We do not convert them in a diffrent format.

Hier noch in Deutsch:

Du kannst das Polygon-flag deiner models aktivieren(my.polygon = on).
Damit ist eine saubere Kollisionserkennung gewährleistet.
In neueren 3DGS Versionen kannst du dieses flag auch via WED unter properties der entities setzen.
Die Schatten sind nicht dynamisch sondern wurden auf die Textur gezeichnet.

cheers

Zwecklos/Sinnlos
Posted By: CHaP

Re: Humble Bee Island - 03/24/07 14:45

ok..jetzt nur auf deutsch =)... eh ich wieder kopfschmerzen bekomme

also danke erstmal, dass du so aus dem nähkästchen plauderst. ich hab vor einiger zeit auch mal versucht eine welt zu erzeugen, die rund ist. mit terrain hats nicht geklappt und blöcke waren einfach unvorstellbar. an ein model hab ich erst garnicht gedacht, da ich mir nicht vorstellen konnte, wie das funktionieren sollte. zwecks kollision anderer models.

ich werde es nun nocheinmal probieren.

echt cool, danke. =)

so long...
Posted By: slacer

Re: Humble Bee Island - 03/25/07 20:24

Hi Zwecklos/Sinnlos,

I really like the game, its style and environment. Well, my kids love to fly around in your world.
Don't know if it was mentioned already, but the bee can fly faster if there are less polygons to render. This means sometimes I need more time for a short distance if there are lots of models in front of me, than I need for a longer distance near the waterline.
Maybe you need a time correction for the movement.

Oh, I like the old bee more than the new one

ciao,
slacer
Posted By: harleyb12

Re: Humble Bee Island - 04/08/07 14:19

what happened? this project looked so good! did it stop? i would like to ask how you did the terrain. it looks beutiful. but i agree the bee ruins the beuty
Posted By: sinnlos

Re: Humble Bee Island - 04/09/07 07:53

Hi

Quote:

my kids love to fly around in your world


Thanks Slacer, it makes us proud and motivatet to hear that your kids like to play our game. What a compliment, thanks a lot!

Quote:

the bee can fly faster if there are less polygons to render


yeah we noticed that problem on one of our test-systems aswell, we don't know yet what's going wrong there. Could you give us your system specs?

Quote:

what happened? this project looked so good! did it stop?


no, its not stopped, the development just got slower
we have some other projects going on and somehow were in a motivation hole... so many things we want to change/add and so little time.
stay tuned, we will upload a new demo-version here in the future... but we can not say when.

Quote:

i would like to ask how you did the terrain.


the terrain is made out of models with a multitexture-shader.

Quote:

Oh, I like the old bee more than the new one / the bee ruins the beuty


we are really surprised that so many people seem to prefer the old bee.
though we will stick with the new bee, we will try to make it more cute than the old one.

cheers & happy easter to everyone

zwecklos & sinnlos
Posted By: xXxGuitar511

Re: Humble Bee Island - 04/09/07 08:36

Quote:

the bee can fly faster if there are less polygons to render

yeah we noticed that problem on one of our test-systems aswell, we don't know yet what's going wrong there. Could you give us your system specs?



yeh, the new time_step variable doesn't seem to work completely correctly. I've had speed issues too.



Quote:

the terrain is made out of models with a multitexture-shader.


I doubt your interested in the change, but Excessus and I are developing a normal-mapped terrain system. Check it out in the shaders section...

EDIT: Sorry, wrong name... lol. Fixed and in bold. ^
Posted By: harleyb12

Re: Humble Bee Island - 04/09/07 16:42

models made in med? or primitives in wed? ether way how did you get it to look so smooth?!?! im trying to make an island and its awful. way to ruff and makes my win 98 run like it was from 50 years ago (which isnt much of a difference)
Posted By: zwecklos

Re: Humble Bee Island - 04/11/07 09:13

Quote:


yeh, the new time_step variable doesn't seem to work completely correctly. I've had speed issues too.




We only use "time" but we will have a closer loock at time_step thanks for the hint


Quote:


I doubt your interested in the change, but Excessus and I are developing a normal-mapped terrain system. Check it out in the shaders section...



Looks very promising. We'll keep that in mind for future projects.


Quote:


models made in med? or primitives in wed? ether way how did you get it to look so smooth?!?!



We dont use any wed-primitives and the models are made in an external modeling-software.

cheers

Sinn & Zweck
Posted By: bstudio

Re: Humble Bee Island - 04/11/07 09:57

the time command was replaced with time_step, but time still works though
Posted By: zwecklos

Re: Humble Bee Island - 06/05/07 17:32

Hi all,
Im just wondering if anyone of you guys know, where to get a soundeffect for our bee (the buzzing of the bee)
It should be kinda neutral to make sure that it's not going to be annyoing after hearing it over and over again.
I was searching the net for hours and couldnt find anything useable.

Would be cool if anyone of you guys could help us out

cheers

Zwecklos
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Humble Bee Island - 06/05/07 17:43

Hi!

http://www.findsounds.com and search for "bee"...

mercuryus
Posted By: ulf

Re: Humble Bee Island - 06/05/07 17:47

have you tried to mimic the sound yourself, its quite easy just say "bssssssbsssssbssss" for very long in front of your mic then adjust with a sound program of your choice.
Posted By: zwecklos

Re: Humble Bee Island - 06/05/07 17:59

Thanks mercuryus, I also found this page but was not able to find anything that fits (only swarms and somethings that sounds like a midge)

@Ulf
Yes good idea, I guess we will go for it because it seems that no one has some serious bee buzzing

thanks

zwecki
Posted By: fastlane69

Re: Humble Bee Island - 06/05/07 18:00

http://www.futur-e-scape.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=33_43&products_id=98

lots of other sounds too!!
Posted By: EX Citer

Re: Humble Bee Island - 06/05/07 20:02

if nothing works try sounddogs.com
Posted By: Nems

Re: Humble Bee Island - 06/06/07 12:29

Great concept guys and very well done too.
Shaders didnt come into effect so it played well on my low end system.

I liked the movement and scene and thought this really needs to be a little bigger or something as it seems too small somehow.
Those seams are nasty and you need to either sew them together or use a single mesh, my old way was to create backing models to view thru the seams rather than infinite space.
In your scene, it looks as though you can get away with using growth overhangs to hide some seams.
Posted By: zwecklos

Bumble Bee Island New Demo - 06/06/07 20:55

Thanks all for the input
We've scrambled some sound effects together, but still trying to get someone more professional to get the sound / music done.

However here is the up-to-date demo. (37.7MB, Shader 2.0)

For those who owns older PCs, here you can download a version with lower requirements. (36.4 MB)

The Game contains now 16 Missions, this release is not the final version. We have not implemented all the stuff we've got right now. This demo only contains the basics.
We also implemented a fallback, even older machines should now be able to start the application.
Another thing, the menu and mission objectives are now in german. This is due to the wishes of our customer.

Controls are still the same. Have fun playing our little game

This will be the last demo of this game we will release open on this forum, so please give us as most critics, as you can, to help us improving the final version.

cheers
sinn&zwecklos

PS: NO, we won't change the bee model!!!
Posted By: PHeMoX

Re: Bumble Bee Island New Demo - 06/06/07 22:32

Lol, the bee is fine .. (although a child of a friend of mine said "hey, that's a cool wasp". )

I'd suggest to add the black lines to the mission briefing text too, because it's not very easy to read this red yellow font this way. Flight behavior is pretty good, although we can fly upside down while hovering. It's not such a big thing really, because who's going to stop moving forward while flying upside down in this game. Still, it would be nice to see the bee turn around automatically when not moving forward anymore if upside down.

The sound of the mouse-over-button is a bit too loud perhaps, or perhaps I had my volume too loud. By the way, when the second mission started, the actual timers and stuff didn't start, nor could I pick-up the heart and so on. Music or sounds didn't start either, I was able to fly around, but not do anything. Not sure if that's a demo limitation, but all the sounds were gone there.

Then a final comment, the camera has improved a lot, but it's still possible to come too near to the ground with the camera and see through the models. Not sure if that's fixable though.

Anyways, the whole environment and stuff looks rather good and I like the style. (perhaps add other animals or insect?)

Cheers
Posted By: EX Citer

Re: Bumble Bee Island New Demo - 06/07/07 06:04

Fantastische Arbeit soweit wie ich gespielt habe. Darf sich wirklich das Prädikat "Spiel" geben Die erste Mission mit Stern sammeln & Ringe durchfliegen ist etwas schwer. Kam mit -8 sekunden ins Ziel.

Ich kann es leider jetzt noch nicht ausführlich testen weil ich zur Schule muss

PS: Sorry for german post. I will reply in english when I am back from school.

EDIT: OK, tested the game and got stuck in the level where I have to collect the stars inside the house (and area). Found 7 stars without problems. But the 8 star is impossible to find. I searched for a realy extreme long time and couldn´t find it, so I guess one star is missing in that mission.

Overall the game is very very difficult. Often espacially in later missions the gates are too far away and I can´t see them and have to search them because they are created outside of the screen or behind something (like tree or the fence).

The controls aren´t making the game easier but they are very good, because it realy feels like a flying insect with a mass. For everyone who find it too difficult to control simply zoom in or out with the mousewheel and the controls become much easier.
The grafics are very good. Maybe the hearts should be replaced by some kind of bonus object. The stars maybe could be honey drops, or be called "honey stars". But that´s maybe no real improvement, just an idea.

The timelimit is frustrating. I think it would be much better to place the gates closer together and give the player more time so has more time overall. The negative countdown is just no fun. The idea would still work, because depending on how much time he gets into the finish, the player would get a grade, where every grade is a certain amount of bonus points. Also the level should been restartet if the time runs out.

THE ESCAPE BUTTON should exit to the menu or better open a menu and pause the game.

I am not the target group customer thing for that kind of games. I am more thinking of children. And for them the game is for sure tooooooooooooo difficult especially they don´t understand how to handle physics (me when I was a child).

The soundeffects are good, but you MUST add music and or ambience sounds (ocean waves near the ocean, gulls, zirpende Zikaden-Dinger(!) etc.).

And here is also the next point. The game is too dead. The grafics are beautyful, and it´s realy perfect, but still there is missing more live on the map, like gulls sailing on the sky (I recomment simply to buy some in a shop, I know that they sell them). Other bees would be nice aswell flying their path to flowers and back home.
And even more video game professionality it would be if I could fly to the other bees and talk to them and then they challenge me to a flower(star) or (gate) race.

I didn´t knew where north is, without a compass. At least add to the briefing something like sun stands in the east direction or something. Or from the hive the tree is in south direction.

This game would also work well for older target groups customer things, but then there would be the need for more action. Instead of the timelimit other (colored) bees or something would need to attack the player while he tries to solve the mission. And also other game modes I posted before in this thread.

I don´t know if I wrote it already: The missions should also be a little more different to improve the gameplay quality.

OK, that´s all I remember right now. It´s a realy good quality game, with some flaws which can be improved. Right know it´s a game which could easily sold by the grafics with some good screenshots, which are easy to make in this game and with some good gameplay, which is also easy to presentate. But for the longer time fun, till I have money for my next game, there should be the one or the other thing. An idea I had right now, is to buy/unlock stuff from the points I get in the game, like pictures in a gallery, and funny realtime "movies"/scenes of the bees.
Posted By: frazzle

Re: Bumble Bee Island New Demo - 06/07/07 19:24

The approach of the game is still the same which is good because you need to change it to the will of your clients as you've said.
About the game itself, the graphics are still and will stay good, the different missions are nice to play but sometimes hard to complete, as EX Citer mentioned already. The sounds aren't at their full use but it's still a demo version like you've mentioned. But I'm still missing the water shader but I guess it will be included in the final version.
Great work, my congratz to the both of you
Btw, the German menu isn't that bad for me since I'm capable of reading the language

Cheers

Frazzle
Posted By: zwecklos

Re: Bumble Bee Island New Demo - 06/12/07 21:24

Hi all,
Thanks for the replies. Most of your critics are known bugs and are cleared in the final version.

Quote:

when the second mission started, the actual timers and stuff didn't start, nor could I pick-up the heart and so on. Music or sounds didn't start either, I was able to fly around, but not do anything. Not sure if that's a demo limitation, but all the sounds were gone there.




We havent seen this bug so far, all 16 missions should be playable and the sound should work aswell. The timer only takes part at mission 3-16.
have you found the shot-function? (ctrl)
Are you able to reproduce this bug or is it an all-the-time bug?
Does anyone else have this behaviour?

Quote:

Anyways, the whole environment and stuff looks rather good and I like the style. (perhaps add other animals or insect?)




Thanks a lot
We will add more life in general.

Quote:

Fantastische Arbeit soweit wie ich gespielt habe. Darf sich wirklich das Prädikat "Spiel" geben Die erste Mission mit Stern sammeln & Ringe durchfliegen ist etwas schwer. Kam mit -8 sekunden ins Ziel.




Jo Danke Exciter. Der Schwierigkeitsgrad ist noch nicht balanced. Sprich die Zeiten und die Abstände zwischen einzelnen Toren ist noch nicht 100% richtig in dieser Demo.

Quote:

got stuck in the level where I have to collect the stars inside the house (and area). Found 7 stars without problems. But the 8 star is impossible to find. I searched for a realy extreme long time and couldn´t find it, so I guess one star is missing in that mission.



We are pretty sure that everything is in there to complete the demo.
The Star you havent found in this level is probably the one, which is hidden behind a rock, by the coast behind the house.
We will implement a mission briefing into the pause-menu to get sure that the players will find all the stars and mission objectives.
Also a compass will be included.

Thanks again to all who tested the demo.

cheers

Sinn- und Zwecklos
Posted By: zwecklos

Re: Bumble Bee Island New Demo - 10/05/07 15:50

Hi there,

This project is still going on
After a long break, we are working again on Bumble Bee Island and have added some "life" in the pond area. Butterflies and fishes that is.
Plus a water-shader.



Since the upgrade to A7, it is possible to activate Antialiasing by script (d3d_antialias).
In general it works but we cant apply postprocessing effects anymore, for example a bloom shader.
Frustrating is, that if you manually change the aa-settings (in the graphic card settings) it works. I already posted a thread on this topic:

Link to the thread: Antialiasing problem

Has anybody got the AA activated by script and managed to got the pp-effects (using a quad) running?
Maybe it is a specific graphic card problem (we are using nvidia only).
We are using 7.04... is there any chance that an update to 7.05/.06 could solve this problem?
We would be thankful to any kind of help.

cheers

sinn-& zwecklos
Posted By: Nems

Re: Bumble Bee Island New Demo - 10/05/07 17:49

Good to see an update as I love this game and environment, I'm rather jealous actually but hey, life goes on doesnt it.
Posted By: frazzle

Re: Bumble Bee Island New Demo - 10/05/07 18:08

Idem dito, I really love this project too
Can't wait for a next potential demo version !!

Cheers

Frazzle
Posted By: zwecklos

Re: Bumble Bee Island nostalgia - 03/21/08 02:20

Hello,
I just navigated through some old datas, cleaning up my hard disk and found an old version of a Bumble Bee Island video.
Thought that it would be cool to post this old video, especially because I like it much more than the actual one of Bumble Bee Island

It is a heavy 76 MB file, but maybe some of you fellows want to have a look at the begining of BBI

Bumble Bee Island Video [76MB, zipped avi]

cheers

Sinn- and Zwecklos
Posted By: frazzle

Re: Bumble Bee Island nostalgia - 03/21/08 15:33

Ah yes, that nostalgic feeling

Cheers

Frazzle
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