Number 6 - Indie Game using Bullet

Show what you made with Bullet Physics SDK: Games, Demos, Integrations with a graphics engine, modeler or any other application
Korut
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2008 12:12 am

Number 6 - Indie Game using Bullet

Post by Korut »

Hi there everyone. This is my first message in the forum. I have been reading you for a time, since I decided to use Bullet for my master project: Number 6.

I have worked on the project with 5 more people (2 other programmers and 3 artists) for six months now. It has been done as the final project of the Master in Videogames Creation of the University Pompeu Fabra at Barcelona, Spain.

Number 6 is a 3rd Person Shooter where you take control of Number 6, the last android of her series, owner of an special arm with the ability of moving objects and enemies remotely. To recreate the interaction of the objects with the environment I needed physics simulation, and after a little bit if research, I chose bullet.

It's unfinished yet, but you may see a gameplay video of the game on the following link:

Number 6

As you can see, the interactions and shapes are very basic yet. Now I would like to go deeper into the physics part, that directly feeds the main feature of the game: the remote pushing of objects and enemies.

The scenario has been represented as boxes created by the artists. I have tried to pass the static meshes directly, but it really slowed the game down a lot, I think I should first subdivide it on different meshes and try from there.

Basically the next thing I am going to do is to prepare a Shape Manager for the objects, to be able to share shapes among bodies and allow the artists create compound shapes for the different types of objects ( now there are only boxes and cylinders ).

Thank you for your attention and your hard work. Keep it up!

P.S: Excuse my English ;)
fullmetalcoder
Posts: 29
Joined: Mon May 19, 2008 5:01 pm

Re: Number 6 - Indie Game using Bullet

Post by fullmetalcoder »

Just curious : how does your character controller works? I've myself been forced to create a custom collision dispatcher to reach satisfying results with decent performance but I'm not entierly satisfied with it right now. It would be good if we could create a proper character controller for Bullet because it really lacks one (the Kinematic character controller example is nowhere near usable though it is a good start...)
Korut
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2008 12:12 am

Re: Number 6 - Indie Game using Bullet

Post by Korut »

That is one of the biggest issues I have had until now, and I haven´t solved it properly yet. Right now I am just using the old throw-a-couple-of-lines-and-slide, that just simply doesn't work fine. So my idea was, as soon as I have time, to create a custom collisison dispatcher as you have done. In fact I was eager of trying the new Kynematic controller, but if you say it is not useful yet...

I really do need a good controller for this kind of game, so you can count on me to work on it ;)
fullmetalcoder
Posts: 29
Joined: Mon May 19, 2008 5:01 pm

Re: Number 6 - Indie Game using Bullet

Post by fullmetalcoder »

the new controller is not that bad actually. It is just unfinished and does not fit a game where many characters need to be controlled (which include AI-controlled character) hence the reason for me starting to write a new one. So far my implementation works well, is faster and presumably less memory consumming with a large number of controlled characters. The only problem I'm facing is walking up stairs (slopes work well though). I tried a couple of tricks in the collision dispatcher using the normal and the position of the contact point to determine whether there may be a stair on the way and then lift the character up but it is far from being smooth atm...

you can find the code on the SVN repository http://first-king.svn.sf.net/svnroot/fi ... nk/physics

world.cpp contains all the relevant code.

the code there is GPL but given the lack of such a component in Bullet I have no problem in making it available under the same license as Bullet so that more people can work on it and use it.
Korut
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2008 12:12 am

Re: Number 6 - Indie Game using Bullet

Post by Korut »

Thank you for the link. I'll give it a look as I can (right now I am on vacation and a little disconnected ;) ).
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projectileman
Posts: 109
Joined: Thu Dec 14, 2006 4:27 pm
Location: Colombia

Re: Number 6 - Indie Game using Bullet

Post by projectileman »

Great work!!
Felicitaciones.

A propósito, como pudiste hacerte tremendo juego en Irrlicht? Me impresiona el manejo de camara.

Gracias por publicarlo.