After a week of playing with jME, generally not actually moving forward but more ona tangent, I've added a nice skydome found on the jme wiki, as well as background music.
I've also added a kind of cheap zoom, whereby a user can change the perspective of the camera by scrolling the mousewheel. I also added this snap-camera-to-terrain feature, which I have disabled at the moment because I find it rather limiting, but intend to add a keypress event to enable it, probably M or somesuch.
The one thing I wanted to do after getting one animation playing is to change antimations and play several at once, especially focusing on the animation blending afforded by the md5importer.
So then first up, multiple animations, playing at once, and changing between several.
After that, we just have to have it move about randomly, probably according to a locomotion definition somewhere, probably in xml and via http://javaboutique.internet.com/tutorials/config/ .
Regarding things not code related, we have storyline and other such frivolities to contend with. So here goes my initial idea(s):
The player plays the part of a hamadryad, a nymph forever bonded to their tree.
This particular dryad is actually a new creation, brought to life by a moderately powered druid. After a brief introduction by the druid that created the dryad, during which a seething racial tension seems to be in play; the druid disliking the dryad because he feels that another druid should be doing the job the dryad is about to be charged with.
The dryad's sapling is then planted in the centre of a vast desolate, deforested plain and ordered to rebuild this area of the forest.
The player first has to care for his tree, and coax the first fruit from it. This should take no more than 10 minutes at most. The tree has an uncanny ability to purify soil immediately under its branches, and as such, opens up a nice little circular
Once it's able to produce fruit (which provide essentially one-shot magical spells), the dryad goes on to wrangle his first animal. I'm thinking some sort of vole or mouse.
The first trick is to convince the animal to stay by providing a suitable habitat and food source for it. In the case of mice, this would be suitable cover (lots of grass), and suitable food (lots of grass). Lack of predators helps.
After getting his first animal and plant, the druid will come back and tell him to keep it up (in not so encouraging words) and give a quick overview on reproducing plants and animals. This should be complete with a discussion about the Voles and the Trees (birds and the bees). You know, "You need at least two of something to reproduce them. Mix em together, and a little while later, you get another one. Careful not to breed em too close. You wont like the result."
After reproducing a plant and an animal, he returns and tells the dryad to keep attracting and breeding plants and animals. As they do so, they'll gain experience points and be able to purchase new spells, plants, animals, tools, hardscape, and terrain elements (waterfalls for example).
After getting several species of each, the tree will quietly start to expand the area with which the dryad is free to experiment with.
After a while, the player might be invaded by another dryad or a human or an orc whose land they encroach on. For example, an orc raiding party might send in their worgs who'll run through, killing animals and destroying plants. If the player doesnt/cant fend them off, they'll tire and run off. I expect to have some sort of plant-based defensive measures, not to mention foot soldiers like bears and wolves. I expect the wargame aspect to be a VERY small part of the game. I do however, expect multiplayer and visiting dryads to be a larger part of the game.
More musing on the far future and idea of Sylva next week.
(Grab the code by using `bzr branch lp:sylva`)
I've also added a kind of cheap zoom, whereby a user can change the perspective of the camera by scrolling the mousewheel. I also added this snap-camera-to-terrain feature, which I have disabled at the moment because I find it rather limiting, but intend to add a keypress event to enable it, probably M or somesuch.
The one thing I wanted to do after getting one animation playing is to change antimations and play several at once, especially focusing on the animation blending afforded by the md5importer.
So then first up, multiple animations, playing at once, and changing between several.
After that, we just have to have it move about randomly, probably according to a locomotion definition somewhere, probably in xml and via http://javaboutique.internet.com/tutorials/config/ .
Regarding things not code related, we have storyline and other such frivolities to contend with. So here goes my initial idea(s):
The player plays the part of a hamadryad, a nymph forever bonded to their tree.
This particular dryad is actually a new creation, brought to life by a moderately powered druid. After a brief introduction by the druid that created the dryad, during which a seething racial tension seems to be in play; the druid disliking the dryad because he feels that another druid should be doing the job the dryad is about to be charged with.
The dryad's sapling is then planted in the centre of a vast desolate, deforested plain and ordered to rebuild this area of the forest.
The player first has to care for his tree, and coax the first fruit from it. This should take no more than 10 minutes at most. The tree has an uncanny ability to purify soil immediately under its branches, and as such, opens up a nice little circular
Once it's able to produce fruit (which provide essentially one-shot magical spells), the dryad goes on to wrangle his first animal. I'm thinking some sort of vole or mouse.
The first trick is to convince the animal to stay by providing a suitable habitat and food source for it. In the case of mice, this would be suitable cover (lots of grass), and suitable food (lots of grass). Lack of predators helps.
After getting his first animal and plant, the druid will come back and tell him to keep it up (in not so encouraging words) and give a quick overview on reproducing plants and animals. This should be complete with a discussion about the Voles and the Trees (birds and the bees). You know, "You need at least two of something to reproduce them. Mix em together, and a little while later, you get another one. Careful not to breed em too close. You wont like the result."
After reproducing a plant and an animal, he returns and tells the dryad to keep attracting and breeding plants and animals. As they do so, they'll gain experience points and be able to purchase new spells, plants, animals, tools, hardscape, and terrain elements (waterfalls for example).
After getting several species of each, the tree will quietly start to expand the area with which the dryad is free to experiment with.
After a while, the player might be invaded by another dryad or a human or an orc whose land they encroach on. For example, an orc raiding party might send in their worgs who'll run through, killing animals and destroying plants. If the player doesnt/cant fend them off, they'll tire and run off. I expect to have some sort of plant-based defensive measures, not to mention foot soldiers like bears and wolves. I expect the wargame aspect to be a VERY small part of the game. I do however, expect multiplayer and visiting dryads to be a larger part of the game.
More musing on the far future and idea of Sylva next week.
(Grab the code by using `bzr branch lp:sylva`)
