Game Project for CS4213 Sem 1, 2004/05

Heaven & Earth Inc (Aug-Nov 04)

Team Members:• Steven Halim

– Nov 2004 : 1st year Postgrad– Mid 2006 : PhD candidate @ SoC, NUS

• Jefry Tedjokusumo– Nov 2004 : 1st year Postgrad– Mid 2006 : Research Assistant @ ECE, NUS

• Lucas Agussurja– Nov 2004 : Final year Undergrad– Mid 2006 : Research Engineer @ TLI-AP, NUS

• Fabianus Mulawadi– Nov 2004 : Final year Undergrad– Mid 2006 : Working outside NUS

Tale of Time: Summary

• First Person Shooter• Engaging storyline in beautifully rendered levels• Built using:

– Microsoft Visual C# .NET 2003– True Vision 3D Game Engine (

http://www.truevision3d.com)

Character: Mark

• Our main hero• His girlfriend, Ivy, died• His quest: find

Talking Cockto reverse time

Character: Minotaur

• The Big Boss• Guards the

Talking Cock• Hard to defeat• Mark must find

power ups:Tiger Balm

Character: One-Eyed Monster

• Guards the Temple Maze

• Tiger Balmis somewhere inside

Let’s see the game

Full demo in God Mode

Enjoy the story

“Technical” Overview

• Storyboard

• Level Design

• Character Design

• Sound / Music

• Game Engine

• Game AI

• Aesthetic: Particle System

Storytelling via Cut Scenes

• Good Game Good Story– Scripts +– Background pictures +– Voice recording

----------------------------------------------------------------------• LOAD NEXT SCENE• cutscenes\\03_talking_cock.bmp• After hesitating for a while, Mark• decided to use the Talking Cock.

• He bowed to the Talking Cock and• changed into a Minotaur.

• LOAD NEXT SCENE• cutscenes\\12_guardian.bmp• Time was reversed and Ivy was alive• and well again. Of course, she did• not remember anything about Mark...

Level Design (Island / Outdoor)

• Height Maps + Sky Box + Billboards

Level Design (Temple / Indoor)

• Script + Texture Mapping + Mini Puzzle

Character Design: 3D Models

Source:• TV3D Engine SDK• Free 3D models (e.g. Half Life SDK)• Credits to the respective authors

Sound / Music

• Shot• Monster Roar• Opening MIDI

– Chrono Trigger (Super Nintendo 1995)

• Credits to the respective authors

Game Engine: Collision Detection

• We are not allowed to use Game Engine’s default Collision Detection

Collision Detection (CD)

• We implemented:– 2-levels Bounding Sphere– Line-Sphere CD– Static Collision

checks against:• Trees• Walls• Monsters

Minotaur’s AI

We implemented:

• Way markers

Talking Cock

5

1

2

3

4

Minotaur’s AI

We implemented:

• Simple Finite State Machine

Idle Patrol

Attack

“See” Mark?Lost sight of Mark…

Nothing happens

Aesthetic: Particle System

• A simple but effective technique to create: – “Energy Shield”– “Invisible Barriers”– “Glowing Objects”

Let’s see the game (again)

Technical demo (with Debug mode ON)

Behind the Scenes

• Why there exists fog inside the temple?• Why the temple vanishes after you exit from it?

– It was game engine (3rd party) bugs that we hide…– But hey…you didn’t notice this, right?

• Maybe the games that you play now looks like what you see because:– The developer hide something behind it…– Or because they don’t have time to implement

more than what you see…

The Impact of this Game Project for us

• None of us works in game industry now, but…– We can now appreciate or even criticize how the

games out there are created– We still enjoy playing games

Q & A

• Thank you for your attention!

• Time for Q&A

Tale of Time can be downloaded for free at:http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~stevenha/tale_of_time.html