AQWorlds
Artix Krieger
| Monday, November 4, 2024
It is my favorite spooky holiday of the year. Yours too? Join us in Artix Entertainment video games for special Mogloween/Halloween events. For even more frightening things (like looming deadlines) check back here for daily progress update posts on AdventureQuest Worlds: Infinity. (Wishlist on Steam!)
Ghost & Nulgath sent in their animations for the Healer & Rouge classes. Animated GIFs coming below! Meanwhile, Warlic restructured the repository and improved the way we upload and define monsters & NPCs. That change was extremely important for Tunik's Dialog Cutscene editor (AKA. The Dialogger).
Taking names....
We had a problem with animations, and Tunik did something brilliant. In Unity, it is not (currently) possible to load something and then simply get a list of all of its animation states. That is a fancy word for animation names like "Run", "Attack", "Death", "Dance". So Tunik made a script that grabs the names of a monster/npc's animation states when the dev is building it and stores it in a list. Then the dialog system can look at that list to play a valid animation. All monsters and npcs now do this. (Note: I have not personally tested it yet, but that is my understanding.)
... and /Kick-ing axe
Meanwhile Yorumi fixed the color issues with character creation and also moderation tools like /mute, /kick, and /ban. Next up is class previews.
Back to class animations
Rogue goes... stabby, stabby, stabby
Backstab!
This is my favorite of the animations Ghost put in. The official name of the skill is "opportunity strike", but I sorta think we should rename it to "Backstab." Technically, since you are jumping so high in the air, you could theoretically come down behind them.
Lights, virtual camera, action!
Nulgath sent in healer animations like the fantastic one above. As seen in the GIF, animations are done on this template character named "Ms. Girl". Animations & spell FX are seperate. So in the above GIF, you see the spell FX.
Here is an example of the player animation. When you perform a skill, the two are combined producing a beautiful 60+ FPS result.
Heart Beat
Heart Beat is a Healer skill that was challenging to make a visual for. So there will be an effect on both the player and the monster.
Classic Heal
Players of AQWorlds can actually hear this GIF.
Indecisive monster?
The monster in the GIF above cannot figure out which side it wants to attack me from. But why? Remember how we added the "footprint" to monsters, players, and npcs about a month ago? Well something is definitely broke as a result. When you attack a monster... or are attacked by a monster... the monster's AI will move it to the edge of your footprint. This is the proper fighting range. We used to use shadow, but the footprint is invisible and far better for correctly spacing things. If you study that GIF you will notice that the center of the monster's shadow is moving to the right and left edges of my shadow. This means that it cannot find the footprint and is defaulting back to the old behavior. This issue will likely be fixed before I sync with the team in the morning... but when working on combat, bugs like this are spooooooooky.
See you tomorrow.
Rogue Skill: Stiletto
For this skill, your hero reaches into "hammer space" and pulls a trio of throwing daggers. This is a ranged attack that can be used at any range. You may have noticed that the actual projectile for the daggers is missing.... <whispers> we are working on that.
Give them the (light) bird!
Healer's primary attack sends forth an angelic falcon to cleanse your target in majestic light. I like how this attack is distinguished from the mage class which fires a cluster of magic missles. The impact effect needs to be a burst.... I am pretty sure that is in the works.
BEST SPOOKY HOLIDAY OF THE YEAR.
Happy Mogloween! Hope your day was adventure and caaaaandy filled!
We were allowed to dress up for the gym this morning.... Dage wore full combat armor. (Not kidding).
Doth thou even hoist?
Watching Dage do a workout in 65 pound armor was.... something to see. If you would like to see too, then good news-- I shot some video of him this morning and edited it together. I will toss it on YouTube for you as soon as Dage watches it and gives the armor-plated thumbs up..
1st Place Table for Halloween?
My neighborhood did a thing for the kids where everyone set up Halloween tables near the playground. There was a costume contest and a best table contest. One family had this giant pirate ship thing. It looked SOOOO good. All I had was a little table with a black cloth, a red light, a bowl of assorted candy, and.... my Neconomicon book prop. Well, it looks like a book, but it is made of wood and hollow so you can store stuff in it. (I keep my dice that were made from wood taken from the Evil Dead II... even got Bruce Campbell to sign it. My most prize strange treasure.) Anyway, when trick or treaters would come to the table... and I told them (in an all too serious voice) that they must choose! You can have candy from the bowl, -OR- have what is inside the Book.... of the Dead. You never knew what would be in the book. Full size candy bars? A rock? Nothing? Everyone picked the book, naturally. I made sure it was a super memorable and funny for each of them. No one left without candy and a good laugh. It must have made an impression.... because that awesome pirate ship thing got 3rd place, my neighbor's table got 2nd, and "THE BOOK".... no, not my table, they specifically said "THE BOOK" got 1st place. It is funny... and sorta made me feel good inside. They gave me a little plastic trophy thingy.
This moment may contain a video game lesson-- how something makes you feel is more important than how it looks. Oh... and my favorite part of the experience? Later that night, when I ran out of candy and more trick-or-treaters kept coming, all 3 of my kids took candy from their bags and put into the bowl so no one ever left empty handed. Halloween is always my favorite time of year-- this was a super memorable one. I hope your adventures tonight were legendary... and you amassed a horde of candy that would make a dragon drool.
Second best day of THIS week. Also known as "I really wish I had not eaten that much candy day."
...tooo.....
...muuuuuch.....
...caaaaandy.............
R.I.P.
