Scaleform Complete

I've just finished my Scaleform demo. I tried to minimize the use of Kismet as much as possible. With the exception of a single trigger, everything is handled by a combination Actionscript 3 and Unrealscript. Unreal passes item data to the interface when it is opened. The flash then handles the information accordingly. Flash also provides handles to pass data back to Unreal, but since this is just an interface, the Unrealscript doesn't do anything with it yet.

In any case  I'm a big Borderlands fan, so I figured I would try and replicate some of their HUD elements. Here is the final result.

Actionscript3 and Unrealscript with Scaleform from Mike McCollum on Vimeo.

Scaleform - Ready to Skin

My project in Scaleform is well underway. It looks terrible, but the functionality is all there. It is also entirely Unrealscript, since I was trying to avoid using Kismet if possible.

When the menu is initialized, Unrealscript loads the player's inventory data, and passes it to the flash file. There is a system in place for easy communication and data passing between the two, in either direction. Additionally, the placeholder art is setup with simple transitions, which should make adding the final effects work down the line, considerably easier.

Here is the skeleton running in UDK. Pardon my programmer art, and terrible placeholder text.

Derek Hetrick just sent me over a pretty awesome interface. I need to revamp the code to handle the layout, but it shouldn't take too long, and time permitting, should be done by the end of the week.

Prototype: Generals

Just an update on a prototype I've just dived back into, out from not too long ago. I was working on a couple options for a top down tactical game. Originally, it was planned as a typical tower defense scenario  We really liked the idea of dynamically generated tracks, and were considering allowing the player to purchase length onto the track, as an upgrade. So, I wrote a small code sample, that could produce a track of any length, and make sure it never loops back in on itself.

Ultimately, we decided to try out using hexes, rather than squares. the project began to shift more into a top down tactical game, rather than a typical tower defense. This meant adding path finding as well. I set up a few options, including A-Star, and node based path finding, which takes elements from both Hammer and Unreal's bot pathing systems. As a final touch up, I added a simple level editor in flex, that would allow me to generate levels far easier.

At the moment, it's just a matter of figuring out what types of games could best make use of this. If all goes well, this will hopefully start up into a new project in a few weeks.