Battlezone Forums

Moves big radar to left, out of center, so he can see beautiful ground texture up close.

LtFEED wrote:Hey Jayden! good to hear from you. Hope all is well with you

Development is going great, you should see the new models Nos did.

Also were working on the final HUD design:

Okay, here's my offering:

- Awkward radar positioning. BZ got it right by having it on a toggle with the minimap.
- Compass is good.
- What's with the red square?
- Opaque is generally bad. Squares are also generally bad. Opaque squares doubly so.
- Gauges are indistinguishable. It should be possible to tell what does what with the briefest of glances. These need to be bigger and more colourful.
- Way too much text.

AHadley wrote:BZ got it right by having it on a toggle with the minimap.
- Compass is good.
- What's with the red square?

Were going to set up a MFD for the minimaps, Im getting the revisions of the HUD this weekend. I just started the 3D minimap, using hotshots hologram material. were going to stay away from the exact BZ look using the wireframe to avoid an IP issues with Atari. I just got the design concept for the Radar View, which is insane.

I like that new compass also, did BZ have a compass? The red square is the placeholder for the target reticle. Im debugging the targeting/command system ATM. Right now there are 28 menus and about a dozen target types (all done in scaleform). I just got done setting up (not debugged) the spaceBAR targeting/command system (yikes, what a nightmare). Im using the original BZ command system as a model. Im setting up the default command system for the spaceBAR, so it can issue default commands based on the target and wingman types (eg place a build target on the ground, then select the constructor, the default will be to build the selected asset). Turns out the spacebar/command/targeting system is so complex, its like a game within a game

BZ1 never had a compass, but BZ2 introduced a turret compass that would indicate which way the body of your vehicle was facing relevant to your current viewpoint.

You'll have to do a lot worse than a wireframe radar to get IP issues with Atari, but if that's the direction you're going that's your call.

Wire frame always seemed to me to be a sort of retro style linking back to arcade BZ. It has no rational reason to exist in the HUD or cockpit of a tank or a modern game. In bz2 it's only useful in letting you know what sort of ship you have just spawned in.

We're referring to the wireframe topography on the radar, rather than the wireframe tank.

I think the wireframe tank is the IP untouchable. I think we migh be able to use the 3d wireframe on the minimap, im not sure. Im going to look at combining a wireframe with the hologram and see how it looks. The commanders will have access to a full screen version of the minimap to be used as a tactical map.

also were looking for VO actors to do the bots, for anyone with talent and the equipment. We are adding voice/text brevity code and we need 10 individual characters.

"wireframe tank" is a bit generic, so I doubt it would cause IP issues, but as MTS points out why would you want such a thing?

As before, I can do V/O.

AHadley wrote:"wireframe tank" is a bit generic, so I doubt it would cause IP issues, but as MTS points out why would you want such a thing?

As before, I can do V/O.

MTS hits it right on the head, however we want to use that element only in the minimap, in a dropped camera view, or in a menu. I agree it would be obsolete in a main or tactical view. I think the hologram image looks good but might not be as clean at such a small scale. Also, here is Nostromos IMI service Bay:


and


This has the service drone actor that goes with it.

Have to say the new building designs sure look good. Nos is a talented modeller... I lost some of the really high-res models he did of BZ2 vehicles when my old external HDD bit the dust, gutted about that.

I have an idea for the building-placement system, if you're looking for one. The BZ2 grid-locked system has always irked me in it's rigidity but it does present advantages over BZ1 in that it can be used to minimize space used by structures, so I recommend a combination of the two:

The first building one places can be any position and orientation the player desires, then when the next building is to be placed the player can hold a key (shift maybe) that grid-locks the next building to the first one. Alternatively instead of a key trigger the second building could grid-snap based on proximity, if the player goes to place it within half it's width from another building it grid-locks, otherwise it's placed outside the grid in the orientation the player desires. Either way the player is effectively able to use a grid to lay out their base but they get to decide what shape that grid is when they place their first building.

Something like that would be optimal in my opinion, as there are times in BZ2 when I want to place something freely but can't and at the same time when playing BZ1 I can never get buildings to line up exaaaactly right when I need them to.

So, best of both worlds in a system that should be fairly straight-forward since it doesn't ask the player to do too much. I can see some issues with allied players trying to share a base and having wildly different grids but otherwise it sounds good to me. Thoughts?

That is a great idea Deus I was just setting that up in the code and I will see what the design crew thinks also. Good timing.

Here is the first in a series of vids I will be posting regarding progress/gameplay/development:

https://youtu.be/I9KTt90gJjo

Weekly Dev uPdate #3:

https://youtu.be/0ftuNV8xAsI

Update #5:

https://youtu.be/xqOmHKMDvvU

The BioOre (scrap) Meter and the Vehicle Status Display:


and