Content INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................................................5 Conventions................................................................................................................................6 Reader Feedback, Errata and Questions.....................................................................................6 CHAPTER 1: IMAGINE...................................................................................................................7 Finding ideas...............................................................................................................................8 The basic idea..............................................................................................................................9 Fine-tuning the idea..................................................................................................................10 Splitting up the idea...................................................................................................................11 Prototyping...........................................................................................................................13 Project planning........................................................................................................................14 Design document..................................................................................................................14 Time and human resource planning.....................................................................................14 Game Design.............................................................................................................................16 Concept art...........................................................................................................................16 Character design...................................................................................................................16 Gameplay..............................................................................................................................17 Balancing..............................................................................................................................17 Level design.........................................................................................................................18 GUI design...........................................................................................................................18 Audio design.........................................................................................................................19 CHAPTER 2: PREPARE.................................................................................................................20 What will be used......................................................................................................................21 The game engine.......................................................................................................................22 The graphics pipeline................................................................................................................22 The audio production................................................................................................................23 For the release...........................................................................................................................23 CHAPTER 3: DEVELOP................................................................................................................24 How to get get help...................................................................................................................25 Preparing the structures.............................................................................................................27 Creating a simple P3D application............................................................................................28 Make a character.......................................................................................................................29 Creating characters...............................................................................................................29 Bring the characters into the game.......................................................................................32 Basic setup.......................................................................................................................32 Simple animations...........................................................................................................35 User interactions..............................................................................................................36 Extended character movements.......................................................................................40 Add two player gameplay.....................................................................................................43 Basics...............................................................................................................................43 Advanced.........................................................................................................................45 Camera control.....................................................................................................................51 The environment.......................................................................................................................54 2 Creating the environment.....................................................................................................54 Loading the environment into the game...............................................................................55 Building the GUI.......................................................................................................................59 Adding a simple main menu.................................................................................................59 Character selection...............................................................................................................66 Level selection......................................................................................................................72 K.O. screen...........................................................................................................................75 HUD Head-up-Display.........................................................................................................77 Credits..................................................................................................................................82 Game Enhancements.................................................................................................................86 Mouse cursor........................................................................................................................86 Audio....................................................................................................................................88 Music...............................................................................................................................88 Ambient sounds...............................................................................................................91 SFX..................................................................................................................................92 Particles................................................................................................................................94 Blood...............................................................................................................................94 Falling leaves...................................................................................................................96 P3D shader system...............................................................................................................97 Drop shadows..................................................................................................................97 Fog........................................................................................................................................99 Crips Graphics....................................................................................................................100 Antialiasing....................................................................................................................100 Texture Scale..................................................................................................................100 Font Scale......................................................................................................................101 Debugging and Testing...........................................................................................................102 Cheats and the in game terminal........................................................................................102 Direct tools for debugging and performance tuning..........................................................102 On Screen Debug (OSD)...............................................................................................102 PStats.............................................................................................................................102