Dev Notes and Progress Updates

December 26, 2011-
 * I have been looking into abandoning Panda3d in lieu of Unity. Unity appears to have a stronger backing behind it, whereas Panda3d is Disney's abandoned project that is clinging to life.  I'm not sure how much work I will be able to salvage, nor do I know how much time I will be able to devote to switching over.

June 25, 2011-
 * Basic melee attacks have been restricted in that you must be facing the target and be within range to attack.


 * Instead of just attacking at the press of a button, an "engaged" mode has been implemented. While engaged in combat, a player will continue to attack with a delay between each swing.


 * TO-DO next - create a menu that will pop up when you have something targeted and attempt to interact with the target. The menu items should vary depending upon what you are trying to interact with.

June 22, 2011-
 * "Lock on target" functionality implemented.


 * When "locked onto" a target the view changes to an over the shoulder style view aimed at the target. It also allows panning and zooming.


 * NEXT - restrict attacking to a more "realistic" point

June 19, 2011-
 * Progress on several fronts...


 * As pictured, instead of using that hideous box to show what the player is targeting I have added a target icon. This isn't really necessary for functionality, but I ran into a bug with the green box that was used before that caused the game to crash so in a way it was necessary.


 * Implemented a basic inventory menu that lists everything in the players inventory (as of now the player is created with two weapons) and selecting an item "equips" it. Later selection of an item will open a small panel asking what you would like to do to said item instead of just "equipping" it.  I say "equipping" it because now it just adjusts the players damage and puts the weapon model "in" the players right hand.


 * Update to the target status- an enemy that is a few levels higher will have a red name in the status panel.


 * Experience points are now given out per kill based upon the level difference of the player vs what was killed. Leveling up was also introduced.


 * Implemented an events panel- The events panel tells the player what is going on around him/her... damage done to enemies, notification of an enemy's death, experience points rewarded, etc.


 * TO-DO - Allow the player to "lock onto" a target and restrict the cameras movement to stay behind the character in an "over the shoulder" type view aimed at the target. New movement functions will have to be created because the player's movement is based upon his/her relative position to the camera and the direction that the camera is facing.

June 11, 2011-


 * Learning the Panda3d GUI elements. I have a few menus made and a basic HP bar.  Most of the menu items do nothing, but they will be implemented as time goes on.


 * Started on the "battle-system" a bit too. At the moment the player just pushes a button and does damage to the target from any distance.  An "engaged mode" will be added to auto-attack with a delay between hits.


 * Things are coming together nicely when I actually have time to work on them.

May 09, 2011-


 * The "game" code has been re-written several times at this point. I've mostly been trying to learn as much as I could...  I have created a simple terrain for testing purposes, implemented a sky-box, and made a directional light rotate around the map to simulate sunlight.  Misc concepts and ideas have been added as well in the past few months.


 * The other day I finally came up with a decent, and most importantly WORKING, targeting system (see picture).


 * I would like to throw together a simple GUI/menu system before I go about starting on the "battle system." I think that it would be easier to tell if it was working with health bars and a viewable character stats/inventory menu.

July 22, 2010-


 * I've been poking around with Blender to create my own low polygon character (as a placeholder right now) to test animations and such. This is what I have so far. I'm not worried about the lack of detail on the head, but I think that it's a good start. I'm going to rig it with a skeleton for animations "soon."

July 12, 2010-


 * Built Panda with distinct numpad input.


 * Now I can start developing basic game mechanics:


 * Movement


 * Camera controls


 * Character attributes


 * Targeting system


 * Interact with target (talk, attack, etc)


 * Basic attack system


 * Inventory system (take, drop, equip)

July 11, 2010-


 * Creation of wiki!


 * Currently I am downloading/installing Visual C++ Express Edition and Windows SDK so I can build a version of Panda3d that utilizes (if I coded everything correctly) the numpad as distinct keys rather than "8" and "Numpad 8" being the same button.


 * That's about all that is going on at the moment.
 * New wiki is new...