Azareal Online 3D Game/Engine Development:

[JGorard159]

So, I've been working on a 3D game engine in C++ (OpenGL, with Panda3D for high end stuff) for a few days now, and I thought I would show off my progress. My development team and I have always dreamt of developing an MMO game, and we recently came up with the name of Azareal Online. We don't want to get too ahead of ourselves, so we're just concentrating on building up our main engine and other technologies so that we can make games in the future, but I think it's good to have an ultimate goal of one day creating an MMO (I know it's ambitious, but I think it's good to have a carrot in front of you when developing something low-level and dull like an MMO, even if the carrot is hundreds of miles ahead of you.)

I'm working on an XML parser so that we can have XML as a built in scripting language for the engine, as I believe XML would be the most powerful choice. However, there may incorporate other languages which translate into XML before being run through the engine. All that I have finished at the moment is a basic model loader/renderer, a terrain layer, camera system and basic keyboard controls. Here are a few screenshots of what I have so far:





Our Forums can be found at http://azareal-online.darkbb.com.
We will be purchasing a website domain soon.

[ibly31]

Looks pretty cool! This is one of the few projects that I see people talking about that I actually feel like there is a good future towards. Seems like a cool idea!

[GroundUpEngine]

Cool idea, good luck with the project

[Ginto8]

Looks pretty cool! Out of curiosity, what graphics library/engine are you using?

[GroundUpEngine]

Looks pretty cool! Out of curiosity, what graphics library/engine are you using?

Seen this

I started work on the engine (OpenGL based at the moment) a few days ago

[JGorard159]

Thanks guys, I didn't expect to get so many responses!

Looks pretty cool! This is one of the few projects that I see people talking about that I actually feel like there is a good future towards. Seems like a cool idea!

Thank you, that means a lot! There's not much to show yet, although we have been working a little bit on backstory recently...

Cool idea, good luck with the project

Thanks man! Watching you and your team develop that 3D engine from scratch was actually one of the inspirations which led me to start this.

Looks pretty cool! Out of curiosity, what graphics library/engine are you using?

Yeah, as GroundUpEngine pointed out from our Forum, the low level rendering stuff is OpenGL based (for optimization purposes), but high-level shaders and animation may be coded using Panda3D, I am not sure yet. Actually, I should probably have put that in my post, I'll change it now...

[JaxDragon]

I was wondering why I saw that awkwardly familiar panda3d demo scene.

[JGorard159]

I was wondering why I saw that awkwardly familiar panda3d demo scene.

Haha, yep our current main artist (Tun) is only really working on character concepts and 2D sketches right now, so I'm stuck with rubbish Panda3D demo graphics and random models I grab off the web for now .

Considering I'm only really developing the technology at the moment, I don't think it matters too much!

[K-Bal]

Nice screens In which way are you using XML as a scripting language?

[JGorard159]

Nice screens In which way are you using XML as a scripting language?

Hey! Well, I'll be posting some actual in-game examples of this once I've finished working on it, but I thought XML would be an easy way to script in behaviours to NPCs, Monsters, Items etc. Here's an idea of the kind of thing we would use:

Code: Select all

<npc>
 <npc name="Inn Keeper">
 <npc behavior="walk">
  <walk_forward>10</walk_forward>
  <turn_left>180</turn_left>
 </npc behavior>
 <npc event="start">
  <npc do_behavior="walk">
 </npc event>
</npc>

This is rather a verbose way of making an NPC walk backwards and forwards, but I have yet to optimize the system I have in mind . I'm only working on the parser for the moment!

[JGorard159]

OK, I haven't yet posted an update for this project, so here goes:

Alpha 0.2 of the Engine/Client has been completed. New features include a Playscript-style Scripting System, Scriptable NPC AI, Conversations System and Scriptable Conversations.

Although I'd implemented an XML scripting system for the game; our main writer, Will (who'll be writing the majority of our storyline, quests, AI and conversations) is not familiar with XML, so I decided to take a different approach. I have now implemented an AI and Conversation scripting system which is based upon a playscript format, which is easy for experienced writers to pick up. 'Stage Directions' are in square brackets, and are used to script AI. Here is an example of such an AI script:

Code: Select all

[Walk Forward 20 Paces]
[Turn Left 90 Degrees]
[Repeat]

And an example of a simple conversation script:

Code: Select all

Player: Sup.
Innkeeper: Sup.
Player: Ale?
Innkeeper: Get the hell out of my Inn.

Obviously, things such as prompts and conversational branches will have to be programmed into the scripting engine. When the engine reads this 'playscript' it converts it into XML, and then parses that directly.

In fact, here's a youtube video to show all that off!

[eatcomics]

Looks amazing (I have no idea how I've been missing this thread) I really look forward to seeing progress on this :D

[JGorard159]

Looks amazing (I have no idea how I've been missing this thread) I really look forward to seeing progress on this :D

Wow, this is why I love the Chaos Rift. The motivation I gained from that comment just translated into an 86 line C++ coding streak in about 10 minutes Thank you so much, eatcomics!

Oh, by the way, I only just noticed the ultra-crap framerate and quality of that video, meaning that it's quite difficult to see what's actually going on... I believe that's a problem with Youtube's uploader/my recording software, and not the actual engine!

[epicasian]

Looks amazing (I have no idea how I've been missing this thread) I really look forward to seeing progress on this :D

Wow, this is why I love the Chaos Rift. The motivation I gained from that comment just translated into an 86 line C++ coding streak in about 10 minutes Thank you so much, eatcomics!

Oh, by the way, I only just noticed the ultra-crap framerate and quality of that video, meaning that it's quite difficult to see what's actually going on... I believe that's a problem with Youtube's uploader/my recording software, and not the actual engine!

Camstudio SUCKS at recording anything interactive, so you're not the only one :D

[eatcomics]

Looks amazing (I have no idea how I've been missing this thread) I really look forward to seeing progress on this :D

Wow, this is why I love the Chaos Rift. The motivation I gained from that comment just translated into an 86 line C++ coding streak in about 10 minutes Thank you so much, eatcomics!

Oh, by the way, I only just noticed the ultra-crap framerate and quality of that video, meaning that it's quite difficult to see what's actually going on... I believe that's a problem with Youtube's uploader/my recording software, and not the actual engine!

Camstudio SUCKS

Fix'd