Just wanted to let everyone know things are moving along, though never as quickly as I would like
We have the first room upgrade complete. Changed to using Maya and there were art export/import problems
The user interface is coming along, that has been a lot of work to redo everything, plus add new features. Quick Play is done, load/save game, the career room (where you pick players), career management.
Still to be done is career map, tournament brackets, in game interface, in game menu, online lobby, in game play choice and call pocket menus.
Rules customization is working. The current generic customization for most games is:
Break - default, winner, loser, alternate, trailing player
Call Shot - default, off, on
3 Foul - default, off, on
First Break - default, coin flip, lag balls, lowest rating
There is a some of the game specific done, more to be added
Money Ball Call Shot - off, on
Bank Pool Rack - long rack, short rack
Snooker - 15 reds, 10 reds, 6 reds, 3 reds
I was thinking of adding;
One Pocket - front pocket (normal), back pocket
8-ball, pocket 8 in - last pocket (last pocket your last ball went into, opposite pocket, bank, side pocket
Cowboy - normal (can either shoot ball or a carom), alternate (must alternate ball and carom)
Bowlliards - normal, rotation
Handicapping is in with the following:
Handicap type - games, points, multiple money balls, ball goals
Except for Straight Pool and Billiards all games can handicap by games
Point handicapping is applicable to Straight Pool, Billiards, Bowlliards, Snooker, and Cowboy
Multiple Money Balls is applicable to 9ball, 10ball, and 6ball
Ball Goals is applicable to Banks, One Pocket, Basic Pocket, and Honolulu
I'm thinking of adding:
Odds on the money, for wagers on any game
No count for straight pool (must run X balls to count on the score)
8ball handicapping on 8 ball - last pocket, side pocket, opposite pocket, bank
8ball handicapping on all balls - rotation, bank
Still plenty of other things being worked on too dull and boring to be worth speaking of but necessary
UPDATE 2
Things are coming along nicely, lots of work to do.
The new menus now have the custom rules and handicapping in with custom rules for 8 ball, 9 ball, bank pool, and snooker.
Working on the in game display, plenty has changed here, will post some sort of screen shots after a little more clean up.
Have icons for the information window close to done. FYI the information window tells about the menu item you are interacting with and the icon is a little extra info and flash.
The custom rules for 8ball are done completely (except online) including the CO. The CO turned out to be a pain, lots of modifications to get it to understand the rules.
Still have to put in the custom rules for the CO for other games.
Looking into a major physics upgrade. Don't know if this is happening or not, depends on cost and schedule.
UPDATE 3
The art updates are for the menus (major), in game (minor), rooms (medium, upgrading what was done for XBox), plus hoping to add at least one new room.
Will have to do some web art as we need to do a web portal for the online version. I thought about doing everything in game but that is probably a mistake. I also thought about putting a web browser in game to access the web portal but right now the design does not do that. All presentation in game is a custom interface.
Certain things must be in-game:
Login
Lobby
Game Rooms
Chat
Messaging
Other stuff could be in game, web portal or both:
Sign up for an account
Player Stats
Tournament Admin
Tournament Signup
Tournament Bracket
Tournament Stats
League ...
The advantage of using a web portal is you can get to it any time anywhere. It also integrates into our web site and others. And it will be better publicity and give us more traffic.
That is why I'm planning on doing a lot of web stuff. Still have not decided if I'm going to put a browser into the game. That would be an easy way to access all functions from VP.
If anyone is interested in helping out on the web dev side of things PM me what kind of experience you have and what you want to do.
The back end will be:
Linux
Apache
MySql
PHP or ROR, have not decided which to go with yet
The front end will be:
HTML, CSS, of course
JS using JQuery library
The game art will be used and derived to get web art, though there may be some additional custom art produced for that as well.
Anyone out there that knows how to use Maya or Max and has the talent to build a room is welcome to give it a go, PM me before doing anythin,
IF YOU THINK YOU COULD ASSIST STEVE WITH ANY OF THE ABOVE YOU CAN CONTACT HIM VIA HIS PROFILE PAGE ON THE CELERIS FORUM EITHER EMAIL OR PM HIM FROM THIS PAGE
CONTACT STEVE CHAPLIN AT HIS PROFILE PAGE
