curing colors overview (flash game prototype)

Semester (6th semester from 8) project from me and 2 other students from the media study facility at the Burg Giebichenstein in Halle (burg-halle.de)

I created 3 of the characters including the main character, the dark forest level "Rheta" character design, the engine and the pipeline in max (modeling and export scripts). The other 2 students created other levels and character concepts and the other characters.
The whole project was more targeted to a prototype of what could be possible with the right team size and time available.


The engine was developed entirely for this project from the ground up using Actionscript 3. For the 3d and asset pipeline we used 3dsmax in combination with maxscript to export to custom binary files that store the animation of the meshes/characters and or hold camera positions.

Just like the first resident evil games the engine uses pre- rendered static views in combination with realtime polygon models. The key was to write a camera model in Actionscript that would behave just like the one in 3dsmax including focal length and axis system. Animations are read as a vertex animations with defined key-frames (1 key frame = 1 snapshot of the mesh at that time) and linear interpolated in the engine with timer math so that the timing would be constant during all frame rates.

The pathfinding checks within a 3dsmax exported shape for perimetric nodes and finds a soloution through those nodes. Once the path is computed a spline interpolation smoothes the final result so that it looks more natural.

related community threads (for more in depth information):
http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=53198
http://board.flashkit.com/board/showthread.php?t=760371
http://board.flashkit.com/board/showthread.php?t=763187
http://board.flashkit.com/board/showthread.php?t=759766

some of the earlier (not final) interactive online demos might be still available under:
http://www.renderhjs.net/bbs/flashkit/color_dune/demo3/
http://www.renderhjs.net/bbs/flashkit/color_dune/demo5/
http://www.renderhjs.net/bbs/flashkit/color_dune/demo6/
http://www.renderhjs.net/bbs/flashkit/color_dune/demo7/
http://www.renderhjs.net/bbs/flashkit/color_dune/demo_13/
http://www.renderhjs.net/bbs/flashkit/color_dune/demo_r112/

this video is part of my portfolio which is online available under:
www.renderhjs.net

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• flash
• as3
• curing colors
• burg halle
• halle
• renderhjs
• pathfinding
• camera mapping
• engine
• students

[Codycero]

Well well well... Aint this something born from brilliance that you don't normally see. To be completely honest I'm making my own custom 3d rendering engine in as3 right now and I must say this makes me feel all the better of what I might be able to accomplish using flash. I have to say this video should have way more views than it does and I idolize the programmer. I can't help but ask what culling methods are used and whatever else might had been to done to give it such high performance.

[renderhjs]

@Codycero: It was my first AS3 project back then, with Flash Player 10+ things already have improved beyond what was possible back then. I used only a very basic occlusion culling for every triangle face so that usually you render only about 60% of the triangles per model.

These days one can use a batching system that merges the drawing calls and reduces the loops that are needed to render the model. In FP 10 you would i.e. use drawGraphicsData(vector.<graph­icsData>) and reduce that list.

[kackiz]

do you have music for that prototype?

[renderhjs]

it was just a prototype back then, never turned into something beyond that - so no music and sound back then.

[renderhjs]

thank you

[harito7]

As always, your stuff is gorgeous and very interesting. Damn it.

[laughingBun]

you rock incredibly hard, good work!

[ameissne]

very beautiful leveldesign :)

[mercawiz]

Woaw this is highly impressive, your portfolio as well.