Visibility System

The player can now only see enemies which are visible to friendly units. All other enemy units are hidden. I've also added a new eye button to enable and disable the soldier "sight lines". The video shows the button and the visibility system in action. The jittering in the video only happens when recording, i still have to find out why.

 

All soldiers now also have a hearing distance, so if enemies come from behind and get too close they will be heard. I also improved the training system and the soldier collision code.

New Test Version

I've uploaded a new test version of Total Tactical Warfare. It includes all the updates since the last test version.

Changes:
- MG's and sniper rifles
- weight effects
- improved soldier behavior
- campaign support
- new training system
- high scores
- new sound system

Here's a link to the download:
TTW.zip (36MB)

For it to work you'll need the .net Framework 2.0 and DirectX 9.

It would be great if you could try it and tell me what you think :)

Scriptable AI

I've added some new objects to the map editor that will allow mission designers to control what the computer player does.

The objects include: AIPlayer, AISquad, AISoldier, AIWaypoint

The picture shows the new objects in the map editor.














When the game loads soldiers and waypoints are assigned to a squad. When the game starts the squad follows the waypoints until the last waypoint is reached.

Waypoints have a number of properties:
- radius (squad inside radius has reached the waypoint)
- squad ID (squad that will move along this waypoint)
- waypoint number (0,1,2... determines the order in which waypoints are moved along. The squad will stop moving at last waypoint)
- TimeToRemainAtWaypoint (time the squad waits at the waypoint before continueing to next waypoint)

- StanceOnArrive (Prone, Crouch, Standing)
- StanceOnLeave (Prone, Crouch, Standing)

- MoveIntoBuilding (True, False)
- BuildingLevel (0,1,...)

The video shows soldiers following waypoints and acting according to the properties.

High Scores

I've added a High Score list to the main menu. High Scores are added and shown if you complete a map or a campaign with a good score. The High Scores add replay value to the missions. They also allow you to compare your skills with other players.

Campaigns & M240

Total Tactical Warfare now supports linear single player campaigns. I've added all the necessary menus and even the ability to play videos before and after missions. The campaign menu is shown in the screenshot.


















Striker made a nice M240 model. I skinned it. Check out the render below

Training

There are three types of training available for soldiers in Total Tactical Warfare. Basic Training, Class Training and Ability Training.

Basic Training (Example: Survival Training)
-requires skill points (you get them when you level up)
-upgrades skills

Class Training (Example: Sniper Training)
-requires certain skill levels
-allows use of special weapons
-only one Class Training allowed per soldier

Ability Training (Example: Grenade Training)
-requires certain skill levels
-allows use of special weapons and abilities

Check out the image below for an overview of the training system
















I added new menus for the new training types. Striker came up with some basic training activities, complete with pictures. I also improved the response time of the main menu a lot. Before i was using the "transparent" background color on nearly all of my controls. That allowed me to have a custom background texture. Unfortunately that also meant that the controls had to do a lot of transparancy calculations. Now the background is one color and no more extra calculations are needed.

New Weapons!

I skinned some more models. There are now 4 new insurgent weapons to choose from:


Browning Hi-Power















Makarov (Modeled by Striker)















SKS Simonov















SVD Dragunov (Modeled by Onryou)

Weight Effects

Soldier movement and agility is now affected by the weight of the gear carried. That means a guy carrying just a knife will be able to run and turn a lot faster than a guy in full combat armor carrying an MG.

Snipers!

Soldiers now have the ability to use the scopes on their rifles. It works by clicking the all new "binoculars" button and clicking on a location on the map. The soldiers sight range will then increase. They'll be able too see and kill enemies that are far away. The sight cone will also get narrower and the soldiers will stop looking around and focus on one location. This will make them volunarable to enemies coming from the sides and from the back.

The sniper rifles in game are less accurate at close ranges, so storming a house with snipers won't work. For each shot at a stationary target the accuracy is now improved, this simulates "zeroing in" on a target. For testing I skinned and added the M24 sniper rifle.

M249 & RPK

I skinned the M249 and RPK models. Check out the renders below! I also added a new playable army, the "Insurgent Army". That army uses my insurgent model for the soldiers and has the AK47 and RPK as selectable weapons. Also added the M249 to the US Army.

Soldiers looking around

I added code that makes soldiers look around, instead of just standing and looking in the same direction all the time. They look around at random intervals, so no two soldiers have the same movement. For now soldiers move their whole bodies and that looks a bit weird. Later on i want to add some new animations, so that soldiers only move their heads when looking around.

Additionally i improved the "game result" menu and added an option to turn off sound completely.

Test Version

The guys over at www.truevision3d.com released a public version of their TV6.5 Engine. This means i'm now allowed to put test versions of my game up for download.

The first test version of Total Tactical Warfare supports singleplayer and multiplayer over LAN. It includes 2 maps.

Here's a link to the download:
TTW_Test_2.zip (33MB)

For it to work you'll need the .net Framework 2.0 and DirectX 9.

Please tell me what you think about the following:
- general impression
- menus and user interface
- ingame controls
- soldier behaviour/ai
- sound effects

Things you can ignore for now:
- missing/crappy animations
- missing effects
- ugly models/textures

Happy testing :)

Main Menu

I took some time to modify the main menu of Total Tactical Warfare. It now includes buttons that highlight when the mouse is moved over them. The menu also has a brand new skin. Check out the screens.

Updated Camera and new Map

A while ago i played the beta of World in Conflict. I really liked the camera system, so i coded a camera for TTW that behaves exactly like the one in WiC. The mouse wheel controls the camera height. Holding down the middle mouse button allows you to look around. The W,A,S,D keys move the camera.

I've also been working on a new map called Oasis. It has a small village and some water in the middle. The players spawn around this area and their objective is to seize the town. It supports up to 4 players.

M203 Grenade Launcher

I modified the M16 model and added the M203 grenade launcher. The next step will be to get it working in the game.

Help Text & Minimap

I added some Help Text that pops up if you leave the mouse on a button for a while. That should help people that don't understand what the button icons mean.

I also upgraded the minimap a bit. It now shows your units as green spots and you can right click it, ordering units to move.

Attack Move and Hold Fire!

I've added an "attack move" button. The normal move command orders a soldier to move to a location, even if he sees an enemy on the way there. The attack move command orders a soldier to stop if he sees an enemy. If the enemy is killed the soldier will move on to his destination.


I've also added a "hold fire" button. Enabling it will keep soldiers from shooting at enemies, but they will still aim their weapons and track the enemy units. This is ideal for ambushes and sneaking up on the bad guys.

New blog & website!

From now on we'll use this site as our main website and blog. I chose to make a www.blogger.com site, because it's free and lets you customize lots of things. The old wordpress blog just had a fixed number of themes and couldn't show photobucket videos and slideshows.

I've also copied over all the old blog posts, so check em out if you haven't seen them yet.

Ragdolls Part 2!

The ragdolls now react to bullet impacts. I've also tweaked a lot of settings, so it should look better now.

Ragdolls!

I’ve added ragdolls to the game. When a soldier is killed a ragdoll is loaded. The soldier’s body then behaves just like a normal dead body would. It can slump to the ground, fall off buildings or get thrown through the air by explosions.

It wasn’t easy getting the ragdolls to work properly. First i had to create a simplified skeleton from the normal skeleton. Just using the normal skeleton would have been too much for the physics engine. Then i had to attach the bones from the complex skeleton to the simple one. After that i had to create all the joints and hook up the skeleton properly. It took me a long time to get all the joints working and to get the skeleton proportioned correctly. I think it looks pretty good now. Check out the videos…

Nades!

I added grenades to the game. They use physics, so they behave just like the real thing. They bounce off walls, roll down slopes etc. There’s also a brand new “grenade button” that lets you throw them. When many soldiers are selected only the one closest to the target throws a nade. That keeps the other soldiers from wasting their grenades. I’ve also added a range line that turns red if the target is outside the throw range of the soldier. Check out the video!

New building models!

Grassflakes from the gamedev.net forums has made some cool building models for me. I skinned them. Check it out...

Insurgent Model!

I took Onryou’s soldier model and turned it into an insurgent. I had to edit the mesh a bit and then completely reskin the soldier. Check it out…

Soldier stance!

There’s now a button that lets you change a soldier’s stance. There are 3 types of stances: prone, crouching and standing. The stances make a soldier more or less visible and easy to hit for the enemy. It also affects a soldier’s firing accuracy, movement type and movement speed. When prone the soldier crawls, when crouching he makes a ducked run and when standing he runs normally. The stances also work when inside buildings, so you can order your soldier to duck away when the building comes under heavy fire. Check out the screens…

Formations Part 2!

I’ve changed a lot of code to make it work well with the formations. This includes the building code (for entering buildings), the attack code and the rotate code. The rotate code used to rotate each unit individually, now it rotates the whole formation. The first part of the video shows how rotating a formation works.

Today I added some randomness to the formation waypoints. This lets the units move more naturally and less like robots. In the video you’ll see the movement lines aren’t straight anymore.

Formations!

The last few days I’ve been working on unit formations. When a group of soldiers is ordered to move, only the path of one leader is calculated. The other soldiers paths are derived from the leader’s path. This is much more efficient than having each soldier do pathfinding individually. This also allows soldiers to move in formation relative to the leader. For now I’ve implemented two kinds of formations, box and line. I’ve also added dynamic soldier speed. If some soldiers are far behind the group, they will move faster. The group will move a bit slower until the soldiers have caught up. Check out the video…

Smoke!

I saw a screenshot of the upcoming RTS World in Conflict and i noticed they had really nice smoke effects. I just had to try to make smoke for TTW that looks like that. Check out the screen and the video below.

Order Queues!

I added the ability to queue up orders. Just hold down shift and give orders. They will be automatically queued up. If the soldier happens to see an enemy he’ll pause, kill the enemy and then continue with his orders. Check out the video.

Skinned my test building!

Title says it all. Check out the screen.

Soldier “Spots” in Buildings

Today i worked on the places or “spots” soldiers can be in buildings. When the mouse is moved over a building these places are displayed as small squares. Right clicking on one sends the soldier there. Now putting a soldier in a building is really easy and only requires one right click. I’ve also added code to make the levels above the soldier transparent, so your soldier doesn’t disappear into the building never to be seen again. Check out the new features in the video.

Next i have to test what happens when i send a lot of soldiers into a building. I’ll probably have to put a limit on the number of soldiers that can enter a particular building…

Multi-Story Buildings Part 3!

Yesterday i wrote code to make a certain floor of a building show a yellow bounding box when the player moves the cursor over it. This will make it easy to to send soldiers to a specific floor.

Today i adjusted my old single-story building code to work with multi-story buildings. I had to make a lot of new waypoints for my test building and the “reload object” feature i added earlier came in very handy. Anyways, you can see the result of my work in the video :)

 

Next i have to come up with a good idea how to position the soldiers inside the buildings. I could add a few “spots” , so the player clicks the spot where his soldier should go to. I could also allow the player to move soldiers freely in buildings, but then the soldiers would be in danger of getting stuck. I’ll have to think about this a bit more…

Multi-Story Buildings Part 2!

Well I started yesterday by coding the context menu. You can see the result below.



















I was happy with the menu. Then Onryou told me about this really great way to put units into buildings he had seen in Ground Control 2. In GC 2 if you move your cursor over a part of a building, that part highlights and you can see exactly where your soldiers will move to. By holding down the right mouse button and dragging you can also tell your soldiers in which direction to look. I scrapped the context menu idea. Now I’ll do it the GC 2 way.

Moving soldiers up a high building will require a lot of waypoints in the building’s XML file. Editing the XML file and reloading the level to check if the waypoints are at the correct positions is a very tedious task. That’s why i added a new feature to the map editor. It allows you to reload the selected object from its XML file. If the XML file is corrupt an error message is displayed, but the editor doesn’t crash. It simply continues to show the old working object. This functionality isn’t just useful for editing waypoints, it’s also useful for editing and testing stuff like models, textures, relative positions etc.

Below are a few screens of this new feature

This first one shows my building with a working XML file












This one shows what happens if i change a texture name and hit reload












The last one shows what happens if i corrupt the xml file by removing a “

Multi-Story Buildings!

Imagine being able to position your sniper at a specific window in an 8 story building. That’s what I’m aiming for. My plan is to make a menu pop up if the player right clicks a building with more than one floor. On the menu the player can quickly select the floor his soldier should go to. The soldier then enters the building at the bottom and actually moves up the stairs of each lever until he reaches his target position. Every building is divided into different floors. If a soldier is on a specific floor then all of the floors above him will be made transparent . To test this I’ve made the house model shown below. Next up is the difficult part, the actual coding…

Help Wanted

The development has been put on hold for the time being. Too many other responsibilities...

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Downloads

Latest version of Total Tactical Warfare:
http://www.mediafire.com/?tzzflbmdh2y

Latest version of the TTW Map Editor:
http://www.mediafire.com/?no2eg9ovdo3hhfl

Note: The latest version of TTW must be installed in order to use the map editor.

Note: If the game or map editor fail to run, try installing the DirectX 9 Redistributable November 2007 from here or here

Images

About TTW Map Editor

Map Editor Features:

Straight forward and easy to use interface

5 different editor modes:

Terrain Edit Mode: Manipulate the terrain, generate a random terrain, smoothe the terrain






















Terrain Painting Mode: Apply a land and/or a detail texture, add and edit splatting layers, paint on the terrain in real-time






















Vegetation Painting Mode: Paint vegetation like grass and flowers onto the terrain






















Object Placement Mode: Place and manipulate objects






















AI Area Mode: Mark the areas that units aren’t allowed to go.






















3 different camera modes:

• Normal RTS
• Top down
• Free

Tools:

• Minimap generator
• Heightmap generator

Minimap

Atmosphere settings

Water settings

Different graphics settings

TTW Map Features:

• Complete day/night cycle
• Realistic lighting
• Moving clouds
• Fog
• Detailed terrain that supports splatting
• Realistc Water
• Vegetation
• Detailed and animated static objects

About TTW

TTW is a modern real time tactics game that is being developed by us as a hobby. The aim is to make a very engrossing game by letting the player customize his army. With each successful mission the army earns experience, allowing the player to improve it even further.

We plan on releasing the game for free at the moment. We might go commercial if we can get enough people to help out with game content like models, maps and campaigns.

We’re developing TTW using C#.net and the Truevision3D 6.5 beta engine. This allows us to concentrate on the game logic and not have to worry about all the things involved in writing a 3D engine from scratch.

Team

Ghost (Lead)
Country: Germany, Namibia
Occupation: Studying Computer Science in Germany
TTW: I've been working on TTW for about 2 years already. It's been a lot of fun and a great learning experience so far and i'm very determined to finish this project. I do most of the work including programming, modeling, skinning, researching and a lot of game designing.


Here's a list of people that are still helping or have helped me with the development of TTW:

Onryou (Modeling, Game Design)
Country: South Africa
Occupation: Studying Multimedia in South Africa
TTW: soldier skills, us soldier model, various static models, various weapon models

Rooikat (Coding)
Country: Australia
TTW: game idea, game framework, server hosting, TV license, commercial soldier model

Silence14 (Modeling)
Country: USA
TTW: various weapon models

Maestrodeclure (Sound)
Country: USA
TTW: soldier and weapon sounds

Striker21 (Animating)
Country: USA
TTW: soldier animations

DesolatorDan (Skinning)
Country: USA
TTW: us soldier skin