Hostile Life Forms (Godot 4)

Jesusemora

Here's a game I'm working on called Hostile Life Forms (the title is subject to change).
It will be an FPS in the style of half-life where you fight aliens in another planet.
So far I have made a starting level and coded weapons, movement and several effects.
edit: updated image
Here's a video I made last week:

And here's one from today:

Tomcat

Jesusemora where you fight aliens in another planet.

Well, here it is possible to play as an alien who defends his planet from the aggression of earthlings?

It looks very atmospheric — the fog is well done, but there's no alien feeling. 🌫️

What did you use to realize the destruction?

SnapCracklins

Cool lighting and ambient effects. Keep it up!

Jesusemora

SnapCracklins Thanks!

MikeCL thanks I didn't know. it's fixed now.

Tomcat Well, here it is possible to play as an alien who defends his planet from the aggression of earthlings?

I was thinking of something like the movie Aliens.

Tomcat It looks very atmospheric — the fog is well done, but there's no alien feeling. 🌫️

I need to make more assets and work a bit more on the scene. I was trying to make it realistic, as opposed to the nonsensical decorations and DNGN (does nothing goes nowhere) commonly seen in science fiction. But maybe it needs some of it.

Tomcat What did you use to realize the destruction?

I took a model and broke it into pieces in blender, then turned the pieces into different rigidbodies. It's more complicated than that, there's a lot of coding for things like the explosions, the "Gibs" group, and decals and needs more work. the glass here is just a test to get the coding done, now i can reuse it with other destructible objects. I'm also using Jolt physics.
I'm was surprised by how the engine can handle 80 rigid bodies flying around at the same time, I was going to make them disappear after a time but now I may be considering adding more.

MikeCL

I really like the atmosphere. Btw, you can embed the Youtube videos by just pasting in the url. 🙂

Tomcat

Jesusemora I was thinking of something like the movie Aliens.

Well, yeah… people, when they break in, they start setting up their own notions of beauty… as usual…

I was trying to make it realistic, as opposed to the nonsensical decorations and DNGN (does nothing goes nowhere) commonly seen in science fiction.

Realism in sci-fi is very difficult and not always spectacular. "You can't hear explosions in space!”

I took a model and broke it into pieces in blender, then turned the pieces into different rigidbodies.

So it's pseudo-destructibility. It's quite workable. For this there is a plugin Godot Destruction Plugin.

There is also a plugin godot-destructible-body, but:

it's old.
~~I haven't explored it yet.~~

Up. I tested it. The plugin works in Godot_v3.5.3. Extremely interesting, but it needs to be finalized.

A here, I think, even promised terramorphing — Voxel Tools for Godot. 🏔️

housatic

Oh this looks cool!

Jesusemora I need to make more assets and work a bit more on the scene. I was trying to make it realistic, as opposed to the nonsensical decorations and DNGN (does nothing goes nowhere) commonly seen in science fiction. But maybe it needs some of it.

Tangent incoming:
My favourite way to make alien environments is to look at normal Earth environments and make them feel abnormal, by exaggerating things that normally wouldn't be exaggerated, combining aspects of natural and man-made objects, or just messing around with filters in (insert your favorite image editor here). Or referencing parts of Earth that can still feel alien to us, like the prehistoric era, the oceans, the underground...
The obvious thing is colors, prioritizing colors that rarely appear in earth's nature is an easy way to make something feel alien. Similar things can be applied to shapes (look at what things are usually round vs. sharp), the scale of objects, or more specific things like the ratios of water-to-land (imagine Earth if you swapped the water and land?), how weather works...
This is more useful for creating alien nature, but you can use the same ideas to make alien technology, or my favourite, do both have the tech design be interconnected with the nature design.

Jesusemora

Some updates:
I made some lights in blender and added them to the big "warehouse" area.
I ran into a problem with VoxelGI, basically, VoxelGI took light emission when baking, but then it applied the lighting to the objects with emission. the problem was that I baked indirect lighting and emission into the emission map in order to have more detail, so the light tubes ended up looking too bright.
Luckily i managed to come up with a solution that involved a bit of a cheat: since VoxelGI bakes indirect lighting and keeps it after the object is deleted, I made a script that deletes the light tubes and then I replace them with ones created from a multimeshinstance3D, so I can set GI to disabled.
Edit: ok it looks like it actually works because I disabled ambient light on the material. which makes me wonder if just disabling ambient light was enough.
Anyways deleting several meshes and replacing them with a multimeshinstance3D is more performant, and having a different material allows me to set a different Emission strength, which results in the light objects not being completely bright but keeping the same lighting, so I'm keeping it for now but it's good to know.

I also thinkered around with VoxelGI and managed to create a scene that is completely illuminated by VoxelGI, with no additional omnilights, which looks really cool and it runs really fast.
first is the scene with the original lights, and then the scene with the cheat:

here's a new one with brightness set higher:

Jesusemora

Speaking of tangents:
Fully functioning computer inside Godot!

The screen is a texture and uses a chromatic aberration shader I made, I'm thinking whether to make a round screen or a flat screen. There are more things but I will remember them later. Here's the description of the video:

the command line does everything a DOS terminal would, mostly navigating folders and opening files. it is possible to install programs per terminal, and the folders and files are stored in a dictionary, so I can add whatever folders and files I want.
the WINSTON PROGRAMMABLE TURBO CONTROLLER works by sending a signal through control (the terminal), which is picked up by any PLC connected to it by having the specific terminal in their export. I send whatever data as a dictionary and the PLC actuates, which means I can expand the code to accommodate any number of controls and buttons in the particular program in the terminal, and different programs can control different machines.
This terminal will be used to control machines, open doors, read documents, notes, mail, watch videos and audio and more. And hopefully run minigames and browse the intranet.
Another future feature is the possibility to install programs through tapes and save information to them and to the player's PDA. So there will be a terminal that lacks the program to move a crane or something to progress the level, and you will have to search for the tape to continue. So the terminals will be used for puzzles and storytelling.

Any ideas?

housatic My favourite way to make alien environments is to look at normal Earth environments and make them feel abnormal, by exaggerating things that normally wouldn't be exaggerated, combining aspects of natural and man-made objects, or just messing around with filters in (insert your favorite image editor here). Or referencing parts of Earth that can still feel alien to us, like the prehistoric era, the oceans, the underground...

I'm going to add aliens later, alien animals flying around and alien plants. but for now I'm setting the foundations, making the levels and programing the mechanics. the details will come later.

housatic This is more useful for creating alien nature, but you can use the same ideas to make alien technology, or my favourite, do both have the tech design be interconnected with the nature design.

I'm not sure I'm going to add alien technology, we'll see, it's too early in development.

housatic

Jesusemora Any ideas?

Let the player softlock the game by typing "format c:"
Jokes aside, that's sick!!

Jesusemora

it's been almost a year!
after finishing the second demo for throne of darkness, my broken card game, I felt like going back to an FPS.
there are two reasons for this:
1 - testing godot 4.3 to see if there will be any problems upgrading project metal storm from 4.2, the new version made changes to skeletons and groups and many improvements in performance and shaders.
2 - getting back into 3D

So I made some assets in blender in just 3 days, using PBR materials, and started tinkering with some of the physically based features, like physical camera.
these assets are much better, though there's always room for improvement.

I learned a lot in the last year, not just about godot but also about game development, and I will be going much faster from now on.

xyz

Jesusemora How many game projects can you juggle at the same time? 😃

Jesusemora

xyz one at a time.
with this one the engine had limitations back in 4.1, I had planed to feature lots of water, but the engine was unable to show postprocess effects like water behind glass and glass underwater.
4.3 introduced a new feature for postprocess effects, and I really want to try it out, and it might solve the issues.

I uploaded the second demo for throne of darkness and officially stopped working on it, I treated it like sort of a personal game jam to get to the point of finishing a game within a time limit. while it doesn't have all the features I originally planned, it doesn't have a story or character progression outside of winning cards, but it is a game.

project metal storm is a big one, and I fear the 4.3 changes could break something.

I will probably just make a couple more scenes for this and an enemy and move on, maybe also upload a demo. We'll see.

gocat

Physical camera? It that like those "bricks" got light on them as you walk, in your video. Looks really impressive, makes me also wanna do some 3D thing.

Jesusemora

gocat Physical camera? It that like those "bricks" got light on them as you walk, in your video. Looks really impressive, makes me also wanna do some 3D thing.

perhaps what you are seeing is just parallax. parallax gives materials more depth. the materials I'm using are PBR, so the textures are made to work with each other.

the physical camera uses real world measures and instead of setting a FOV I put real values for camera lens, aperture, etc. it has a DOF (distance of field) that is better than the practical one because it blurs things near and away from the camera, focusing on a point in the middle. so I set up a raycast3D to calculate distance to the object in the middle of the screen and change the focus distance.
It might be more noticeable if I add some objects to the world.

yes, godot has really good graphics when it's set up correctly, and I'm getting pretty good FPS. I would say it's one generation behind unreal but one generation above unity, in the middle.

REVBENT has a good look to it... a kinda fallout feeling to the "bunker".

I'm making more assets, I made a small door, a bigger light, and was working on a big intersecting room. and the big door needs to be reworked.

I also put some though into what enemies I want, but haven't started yet:
tiny spiders
chicken aliens
flying alien
crab alien

REVBENT i swear i see you have different game each time i get on here. Now just make a card game that can be played in game on the computer... full circle lol

making games and projects is the best way to get familiar with the engine and get better, you gotta stay updated and not be left behind 😃

REVBENT

has a good look to it... a kinda fallout feeling to the "bunker". i swear i see you have different game each time i get on here. Now just make a card game that can be played in game on the computer... full circle lol

REVBENT

very interested with how you progress, especially with the "alien" assets. always fun to see someone's ideas come to life. i always seem to start a new project each time i realize how bad i am at something, and work on that until i get inspired to return to the project(s). i have too many going as well lol.... but that IS how we learn, hands on (or fingertips lol).

Jesusemora

REVBENT i always seem to start a new project each time i realize how bad i am at something, and work on that until i get inspired to return to the project(s).

same, but in my case, I could make anything I wanted, I know how to code it and how to model. the problem is it's a lot of work, you get tired over time, when you start a project you are full of energy and excitement, but as you continue to work on it that excitement goes away and it becomes tiresome, tedious, and then boring.
after failing enough times you learn to withstand failure and start to manage your time better to get things done, but also take the time to rest and think about something else, so when you go model or code you do it with a clear mind.

the room is almost finished, it just needs some lights and wires and pipes. the doors where not that bad after all, the textures were just not set to high quality (this is a tedious "feature" of godot).
next I need some light tubes and a bigger central light, once I replace the omni-lights with emission ambient light, the atmosphere will improve.

REVBENT

i like the feel of the room. there is a lot to catch your eye and keep you busy even when not engaged in gameplay.
just a different idea i had looking at the room... feel free to use it or not.... the center light could be like a projector, and below it you could have a sun of sorts as a ball of light. The classic projector rays leading from the outer edges of the fixture so your eyes understand its a "hologram". It would feel very alien i.m.o. and you seem to have the headroom to the ceiling. the same way of lighting could be applied to street lights, wall lights, beam lights, and the sort.

Jesusemora

found some old incomplete blends, changed the materials for PBR ones and baked. I think I baked the albedo as srgb when it should've been linear, since the normal and roughness were, but I forgot.
here's the scene with the light tubes instead of omni-lights:

I also made a texture for using as projector mask with the flashlight. it's barely noticeable but it does help the atmosphere:

REVBENT just a different idea i had looking at the room... feel free to use it or not.... the center light could be like a projector, and below it you could have a sun of sorts as a ball of light. The classic projector rays leading from the outer edges of the fixture so your eyes understand its a "hologram". It would feel very alien i.m.o.

I havent though of what to add to these rooms, for now I'm making corridors and rooms. a hologram is a good idea.
I will slowly make assets to fill these rooms, I need to put interesting things so the levels don't feel repetitive.

REVBENT you seem to have the headroom to the ceiling. the same way of lighting could be applied to street lights, wall lights, beam lights, and the sort.

the whole scene is using a VoxelGI, It doesn't "need" lights, but I added spotlights to cast shadows on moving things like enemies. In this last screenshot I actually removed 4 lights.