Wednesday, November 6

Working with MyGUI

As part of our revamped game idea for Capstone, our tool needs for Game Engine purposes has significantly changed.  Our first tool for Vye King remained a comprehensive model viewer, and is currently completed except for advanced shader functionality.  The remaining tools are various component editors for Vye King, ranging from an objective editor, to a creature and node editor.  The core of these three editors is MyGUI, as they are menu-based editors which can be used to change game parameters.  We are planning to link them all into one multifaceted editing tool.

The main editor will allow the user to create and edit custom objectives for the player in-game.  The core game play in Vye King revolves around exploring the island and seeking these objectives, so this tool is being made to add replayability to the experience with custom content.  This tool contains several GUI elements: text boxes for inputting the objective name and description, buttons to filter the type of objective, and another set of buttons to set the rarity of the objective, ranging from common to rare.  Additionally, the player can specify a percentage of this objective becoming active (there will be a list the game chooses from).


Main objective editor layout.
 The main part of this editor is the node map on the bottom left.  On this map, users can click up to 4-5 nodes where the objective can possibly spawn.  In our first iteration, we plan to only have pre-determined nodes to choose from, to prevent objectives spawning in impossible to reach places.  Each of the 3 filters at the top right will change which nodes are active on the map.  This is because certain objective types make more sense in certain locations in the level. 

When the particular objective is chosen to become active in game, it will pick one of these node locations at random to create the objective at.  Once the player completes the objective one (or several) more objectives will become active.  The objectives are only limited by the types of creatures and objects we create for the game.  Players are free to create interesting descriptions and parameters for their custom objectives.

Next I will cover the three sub-editors which match the three objective types.  The main editor will contain a buttom called "Customize" to further edit their objective.

 In the Kill editor, the user first loads a creature from the drop-down list at the top.  We will include a model-viewer for this editor so the user can preview the creature they choose.  The 'Boss' check box amplifies the size and power of the creature when active.  At the bottom the user can also specify a reward (from an item list) for the reward if they succeed in defeating the creature.  This can range from food to tools to any other resources in the game.

Kill Creature editor.









The Collect editor is fairly simple; the user specifies the item to collect, and the quantity the player must find.  Again they can also customize the reward the player will receive.

Collect editor.
Finally, the Find editor will hide an object or NPC near the vicinity of the node which the player must then meticulously search for.  The item they find will be the reward or the NPC will give them a reward for finding them, with this objective type.

Find editor.
Now that all the objective types have been defined, there is one other feature to cover.  After creating and finalizing an objective, the user may then choose to add another in an 'objective chain'.  In these chains, only the final objective will give the player a reward.  Once the player is satisfied with all their objectives, this information is saved to an XML which the game can parse to load in the objective data.  While playing the game, the character can be given any custom objective made from these editors.

Finalize screen.

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