Léna Piquet
August 29, 2011
These last days I have created the code which allow the player to climb ledges. Currently it’s not finished of course, I need to tweak a little more the code and improve the animations (but I will do that later, when Lena will be fully animated). Currently I don’t have yet defined the different sizes of the Lena’s movements, so the animations can’t be done until I do that.
My current code use some mesh volume to define were the player can climb, when the player touch a climb volume I take the "normal" of the wall and turn the player into the right direction. After that I only move the player along the wall. My current problem is for the "exterior" ledges, these ledges are not the top of a wall but in the middle, so my current detection system don’t work in the same way. I need to fix these detections, because the player can move on the wall even if there is not more climb volume.
I don’t support yet the corners, I plan to use the red boxes that you can see in the video as detection marker to turn the player. I know that in Mirror’s Edge they do the same thing, when you reach the corner, the player turn automatically. If I remember well, in Mirror’s Edge there is only angle of 90 degrees for the corner. I think I will add corner with 90 and 45 degrees. I don’t know yet if I will support ledges that are not fully horizontal. It will depend on how i can implement them.
I think it’s important to talk about my inspirations, because they define the atmosphere and the background of the game.
I’m a big fan of castles and huge architectures. This is why some artists influence me. Here is a list of the most important :
Beksinski was a surrealist painter, most of his work represent the death or an empty and mystic world.
My inspiration for the desert and the citadel come from his paintings. They tell a lot of feelings, but bad feeling like loneliness, fear or the feeling of being small. This last feeling is the most important for me, I want to create an huge world, I want that the player feel very small and powerless.
It’s a manner to contrast his actions and his accomplishment. The smaller is your start, the more powerful you will feel later.
Website : Wiki page
Naohisa Inoue is also a surrealist painter, but his work is more colorful and cheerful! You still feel this small/huge comparison in his paintings. I think it’s his power : even if the world is cheerful and fine, you still feel the loneliness.
Website : http://iblard.com/english/
I take also my inspiration and my ideas from a lot of artist, trying to mix them and find an original world, here a quick choices of them :
(In order, artist name : Borkur, Kekai, Jonone, Korpi, Levi hopkins, Matt Gaser, Arkane studios - The Crossing, Tinfoil (x2), Tom Scholes.)