Over the past few days I have continued developing Planet hopper making progress with the movement and aesthetics. For a good amount of time I was trying to figure out the best way to implement the cameras. For clarification, I had one attached to the ship, then I thought it would be best to add one to the planets. This was because as the ship would enter the orbit the camera would rotate around with the ship causing disorientation. So I started with using a box trigger along with the blueprint below in order to switch in the proximity, but this caused problems with the collision needed for the ship to attach to the planet.
So after troubleshooting for a while and going back and forth to no avail, I then decided to just add a camera component to the planet, so I can just use the same collision rather than having two separate ones which I should have done in the first place. Still this was a clunky solution and in the end not needed, due to me finding this setting –
This stops the camera from rotating but still has a little movement meaning that the game has more of a flow, rather than having a boring static camera. After discovering this I applied it to my ships camera and then removed the planets camera.
Another problem I have to consider is the fact that the game is infinite, meaning that the player can jump to an X number of planets until they miss. So I have to create the illusion of movement. So instead of the ship moving I need to the planets to move towards the ship making it look like it’s moving. If the player stays on the planet for too long, then they will die due to a gas cloud which will consume the ship as the planet moves towards it.
Here are the blueprints I created in order to get the planet to move. I had to create a timeline using vector, which allows you to add key frames for time and speed.
I spent some time getting acquainted with the timeline and how the positions of the key frames can effect the speed of the planet.
Here is the planet moving but at a slow pace.
So I adjusted the timeline in order to increase the speed which should make it more difficult in game, though, testing of course needs to be done.
I also created a sky sphere in 3ds max and used one of the backgrounds I made for the prototype in game maker.
I have also been experimenting with post process in order to get the desired look and effect for my games visuals.
I also added some fog and wind in the attempt of looking as if they are gas clouds passing by, whilst also giving the game a bit more atmosphere and visual fidelity.
I also have been playing around with lighting and seeing how it can effect the look of the scene.
My next step is to have the planets spawn off screen and move towards the player, then start to consider some more HUD elements and implementations along with a menu. Also, title screen and app thumbnails need to be designed.
Sam Akester 