PreVa - Anime-Stylized Mecha Action

more work has been done in the ai this week, as well as new collision detection, so you can own bots with a beam saber...well that's all i'm saying, can't reveal anymore company secrets

Great job keeping up the good work guys, I'll have my eye on you.

umm, yea, btw beta testers, don't think we've given up on you yet, you're still in, and of course you'll get something to beta test in the future, it seems we tried to get some beta testers a little to early, however, soon you will have some to test, and yes, we'll keep our end of the deal as long as you keep yours, as ambe has seen (and now trooper119) we have had some good progress, more screens have been posted in the preva section of our forum rather than here, so they have gotten more updates than you guys if you want more frequent updates, we'll have them there, i suppose

Here is a big update.

Their will be more on the way, we are planning to release preVa by the end of the year. "If all goes well."

Great this kinda reminds me of Custom Robo Arena
hope you can finish it

we will be finishing it, whether we make our deadline or not, we just really want to finish it by the end of the year, and the explosions use a destruction shader by 5c0rp10n (thank you)

Looks nice indeed, can't wait until the release

Cheers

Frazzle

When I first saw this project I tought it'll never make it even half the way , but this thing keeps getting better nice work!

PS.: I think the explosion sphere needs a little tweaking,maby higher res texture.

heh, thanks...i think...

but none of you guys have actually played the game yet, the movement system is very much improved from the beta demo, and the ai is greatly improved, they now "seek you out" rather than just sit there as a target like in the demo, they will also conserve booster energy when boosting above you to seek you out, and if your hiding, they'll find you, as well as flank you sometimes...

you guys really have to play it to get the full experience, but thank you all for comments, we'll soon have something for the beta testers, maybe

and if you want to be a beta tester, be our guest, you just have to have at least some experience with 3DGS, and at least a minimal amount of c-script knowledge.

Neat game! , though I have some comments that might help:

From the screen shots, what I think is that the textures could be more detailed... using some small photoshop/GIMP tricks might do the thing.

Also, instead of making the explosions translucent, try solid explosion shapes with their normals flipped. That would look cool. Smoke is good too.

Some normalmapping/bumpmapping shaders would do wonders, though thats alright if your computer cant handle it with a high enough FPS.

The ground definitely needs detailing

I very much like the HUD though, it is awesome.

I hope my comments dont strike you as too negative, I REALLY like what I see in the screen shots. Giant robots are awesome.

well, we would've used normal mapping, but it's not the style we're going for, and not only that we're aiming for a bigger audience with lower pc's than most of us have, for instance i could run all these great shaders at home, but not all casual gamers will be able to, so we want it to look good, but run at at least 30 fps on a system that's a few years old, considering that alot of casual gamers won't have great new video cards or processors, but at the same time, it still looks good for those gamers.

The explosions are actually models with 2 sets of normals, one flipped inward and on flipped to the outside.

Thanks for the input Metal_Man

Nice screens!

They even show, that there is quite some game development skill in it and not only nice landscapes, that's pretty cool!

hey looks nice, but i think the explosins and the terrain looks a bit bloggy, all in all a cool game...if the gameplay is right

true, in stills the explosions don't look good at all, but with your destruction shader, in motion they look really great, and do you really think the terrain looks blocky? or do you mean the metal platform looks stretched?

Yes those are really NICE shaders, fantastic (compared with my simple floating water shader.. lol) !!!

btw. has anyone ever made shock-shader that stretches the view around an explosion for a sec?

OMG really really awesome work man can´t wait, want to play. !!!!!!!!!!!!
You should make an updated download link from Preva.
PLEASE!!

I was gonna share what powerful explosion looks like but I just realised its a great idea and I'll keep my (stupid) ideas for me (You probably wont like it)
So far,the game looks good to me.The only think I'm concerned about in-game is the animations of the mechs. Noone can get a feel of the game without seeing the mechs move around,because every game has its unique movement system(a feeling that noone forgets. for example Unreal,Quake,Half-Life,Colin McRae,Need for Speed,Alien Vs. Predator...) Thats one of the most important aspects of Game Design because it gives your game 'unique and rememberable' style that wont be forgotten after the user hits the Quit button. So Enough teaching , show us some videos

in due time my friend in due time, but share your idea if it's stupid we won't hesitate to say so (jk ) but we are open to hear your suggestions.

@Gafgar: @.@ omg...if only i could code something like that O.o

shake does a ton for the environment.

sure gafgar, send me the code if you will, i'd really like to see how it looks, and it would be kinda hard to determine the radius of the actual explosion to tell you an exact measurement, because it's not set to stop at a certain radius, and i may try adding a camera shake, but i'd have it depend on what view you are in, you are in a huge mech anyway, but a good shake in first person (cockpit view) might be pretty cool. i'm open to more coding opinions if anyone cares to share, and if anyone wants the specular shader, just ask, but i would like to know how to change it to add dynamic lighting, but thats a bit hard...

i'm not sure where you could find a shell shock shader...hmm...maybe you could use a blur shader and have it render to two view entities and make one zoom out a bit quickly (both being transparent) i'm not sure, but it may work well.

O_O, okay, I will give up with my creation of the ULTIMATE custom explosion function... c-script is really bad(and I don’t have time or lust to get in to little-c right now) >.<... I had totally for gut how restricted everything is and how few things you actually can do with this, without working around a huge amount of problems, that would never be anything near a problem with another real language like ex C++, java or normal C O_O...
I will just make a normal explosion with gibs and post it here tomorrow, I am really frustrated right now, after have been battling with empty pointers, function parameters and not being able to send data to effects nor actions... not continuously send data to functions through functions (ex a send a vector and then continue to send that vector to a new instance of the same function)... I know there is tons of ways to work around many things, and I tried lot of them, but never with a result that is good enough, so I give up on doing something advanced with this.
I have not even begun to explain all of those things that I dislike , but this is actually not a post for this, so I wont talk any more about it, but in short terms… I will make a explosion effect that looks something like the image I posted, and if you want to have it different, you will have to change the code and make many different effect functions if you want different behaviour in different situations.
The originality thought was that you should be able to send data to the function to get totally different looking and acting explosions... but now there will be much less options. The options that you will be able to sent id the “scale”(amount of particles and force feed back to the camera), amount of gibs and there gravity and random direction, and a vector to tell witch direction it will explode to(if no special send a nullvector), like if it is a ground placed turret, it will most likely explode upwards with the grounds normal, and if you shoot a rocket at something, the explosion will probably explode out from the normal or the bounce vector, and if it is a moving object, then maybe it will explode more in the direction of its movement.

Enough talking about that now, I will post it tomorrow and it will include a text document explaining how you use it and customise some standard things.

And sorry fro the hold-up, I have been having a lot of homework this weekend, so have not been able to work with is until today afternoon.

(And just tell me if you want me to post this in another thread)

EDIT*

This is how it looks right now.





Gibs and some other effects will be added tomorrow...

Okay, i have finished the explosion now, and here is a screen shots showing its development, using 7 gibs, but they are not that visible, if you want the gibs more visible, you will have to use smoke sprites that is more sufficient for smoke trails, the ones I'm using now is the same as for the smoke cloud.



And again, sorry it took so time .. it is really little code and actually did not take that long time to make, but i got another 100sides of math to work through until Friday...
I will just make documentation, zip it and upload it. I am including my sprites and textures too, also free to use and all specially created for this project.
I will PM you with the link, so you can post it if you want any one to have it, or else you can just use it to your project only, your choice

actually, i think you should contribute it, and the credit should go to you, i may have it as a "high quality explosions" option, when i add it i'll post screens (since i implemented slowmo, and screenshot key)

can you please post that smoke-tga(or the whole script ^^)?
i really like what you are doing there

Wow, Gafgar those last explosion shots totally kick ass, they're practically perfect. Reminds me of Killzone:Liberation explosions which is a good thing.

Cheers

I agree with M101 you should post it in the user contributions. And by the way thanks!

Okay, I will do sow, but my school is killing nearly all my free time(reading 150% of normal >.<), and then Taido killed the rest of the time today, so it will be released to morrow then.
The zombie project i have a tread about is also suffering because of that, so any ones who wonders, YES, I will upload that to, but right now I don't have the time >.<

I tried to make a cool explosion effect as I was making my spell effects but I couldn't get one to work I was satisfied with...

But this one looks beautiiiiiiiiiiiiiful! O_O

Indeed a pro looking explosion Gafgar !!
A UC would be great

Cheers

Frazzle

^^ Thanks for all the comments, i just wanted to tell everyone that i have posted the explosion in the UC now, and hopes that everybody is happy ;D...

Sorry guys, no screenshots this time, but good news, PreVa is about 1 month before completion (don't take me on that one, it may be longer) we are planning on it being out before christmas, the really good news is that the ai movement/attack/scan script is 100% complete, the only thing to finish is the specific mecha to add the actions to. at the moment we have one map completely finished from beginning to end (no cutscene yet) and the first cutscene of the game is completely done, as of today. Music work has started, and each song should be done after each level and cutscene, hopefully.

As for those who are enthusiastic for our first game to be released (or those who just think this project is interesting), it will be done soon. Also, we have started implementing Gafgar's code into the game (with which he will be getting full credit for), and will have an option for his explosion, or the 3d circular explosions.

For those who are just interested in Manga Page itself, our website is at http://www.itbgames.com/mangapage . there are updates and job positions, as well as a forum, for anime fans, it still has yet to take off.

If anyone has any questions or comments, then please post them, we'll get to them as soon as we are available.

i will be posting an updated list of all the people who have contributed, in one way or another, through code, or support, as soon as i can, it's late and i need to be off to bed, so, until next time...

Ok, i know what most of you have been thinking, "PreVa must be dead...abandoned...gone into the fog, as if it never existed", but it's not. I apologize for not posting any recent screenshots or videos or anything like that, actually i believe we'll make a video to console your worries (if any are present ). The fact is we have done loads of level work, and the menu has been redone for framerate purposes, it's not complete, but the overall layout has been completed. The levels are almost done, most levels already have their layout, the only thing left for each one is to make the objectives. We have also done work on the cutscenes, which will be fully pre-rendered cutscenes, which will be 320x240 mpg files, to save on space, although high resolution versions will be available for download, so you can enjoy them a bit more.

With that being said, the final things to finish are:

mission objectives
voice acting
cutscenes
menu
level transitions and mission screens
ladder matches
game-play balancing (which comes from beta testing)

and PreVa will be DONE...COMPLETED...FINISHED (caps ). But believe me when i say we're not gonna pull a Duke Forever, and this project will be done soon, i also promise some updated footage, considering we have taunted a bit too much.

so the question is, does anyone want a video?

YES!!!
I want a Video!!!!!!

Cheers

Poison Byte

hell yeah, i cant wait to see it finished, iv watched this game since its inception witha crappy room with a crappy texture and one model in the middle being your first post about it.

Awesome screens waiting for a video too

wow....so ...you guys actually want to play this game...hmmm... i suppose i shouldn't mention the loads of unlockables, or the ladder games...or the ability to play as enemy mechs in the ladder system...or friendly versions of the enemy mechs and enemy versions of the friendly mechs....secret mechs to unlock...secret gameplay modes...

guess i shouldn't mention all that

mmmmhmmm..."accidentally" well this is what happens when you tell secrets ....i'll die in peace now.... X_X

but honestly, feel free to ask questions and ask for content (no demos yet plz ) we're (not) gonna consume your soul if you ask for stuff

MS101, you forgot about the musical score on your list of "things left to do." Although I work at a fast pace with inspiration seeping from my very pores at the sight of your coding genius, the music isn't complete yet! I have "most" of my motifs and concepts on paper, but the actual composition has just begun within the last few weeks.

Note to forum: Btw, I'm the black sheep of the PreVa project team. Sorry I don't frequent here often. They lock me in the basement and force me to write music and sound effects for pizza (i love pizza). Although I'll probably get beaten for leveling my detention, I wanted you guys to know that this game is looking awesome and that the soundtrack is as dynamic as the game itself!

Sorry, I'm not posting any samples of the music yet (except for the music in the videos), but the entire soundtrack will be available for purchase shortly after the game's release.

-- Laterz

flattery

well, everyone welcome our "music man" "TooL"maN jk man

btw, work on preva for me has been slow, something came up and i probably won't be able to resume work on PreVa or any of my projects for that matter, until next week or later

I love the FPS testing screens, we get to see how you guys work, stress tests are fun.

are you still sending out beta versions for testing? I wouldnt mind testing , I can also send you feedback.

Nice looking screens. Very impressive.

at the moment we have no beta demos or any demos at all for that matter, but we are accepting beta tester applicants, our current beta testers are:

lost_climate
ambe
Trooper119

however, we haven't given them much to work with since the beta demo, and stress tests, but you are welcome to apply, although you'll have to wait a while

and by the way, i apologize for giving false info by saying that we will be done in a month or two...we have no actual date for it, all i can say is soon, maybe a few months

Don't rush please, nothing kills a game like rushing it. Just give us a tenative date when we can at least beta again lol.

we're trying...but at this point we really want to get it out...the ai is a bit stupid, although waaaaay smarter than the demo. it's just that it's been more than a year since we started, about a year and a half, and we really want to finish it, but at the moment i'm working 2 jobs and i barely have enough time to work on preva, we have had quite a few setbacks...but we're still not giving up! the game WILL be finished

ok, i'm finally back, and we've been working on preva since last week, so far the levels are more than halfway done, and a couple of cutscenes (rendered and ingame) are done, the last few days were great work days, and we are pleased

We are going to make a longer video soon but for now here is a teaser.
PreVa Short Promo Video

Looks very promising, I'm waiting quite curious to see the longer video
Btw, on the video I've noticed that sometimes the AI lacks abit, that is seems almost too easy

Cheers

Frazzle

We have more difficulty levels, the video was shot in easy but their is medium, hard and realistic as well. Realistic will own you.

Oke, nice to hear
But I think all modes should comprehense the level of realism, off course adapted to each level of difficulity

Cheers

Frazzle

well, the mechs that are on your side, their defense adjusts just as yours does for each difficulty, for instance easy is a cakewalk, as easy should be in all games, but realistic is like playing multiplayer, you hit them for the same damage as they hit you, for instance, certain bullets do 5 damage each time they hit, in easy, it may hit you for 0.1 damage, but in realistic it does 5 damage, but at the same time, the entire time you are doing 5 damage per bullet, so your attack isn't altered in difficulties, but your defense as well as your allies defense is too

Oke, clear enough

Cheers

Frazzle

And now a longer video.
PreVa Promo 2

Now I'm even more curious to play the game itself

Cheers

Frazzle

If anyone is interested we have re opened the preva website, and some ingame screenshots are now available there:

See the site

I like the structure in it, the design is obviously optimized for Preva itself

Cheers

Frazzle

Thanks frazzle, the thing is though the two videos that were posted, are now obsolete, we had a good week of work and balanced the gameplay, alot. We changed each mech's speed, turning radius, damage, accuracy, and added a spark effect to the explosions, as well as adding more damage to missiles and rockets, so they are 1-2 hit kills if you hit someone with them, but if you hit near them it's not quite as painful. There are also some minor effect changes, such as heat blade hits now look more painful as they have flashes as well as spark explosions, so basically, alot has changed. Heres a status in a not very accurate but effective percentage system .

Levels - ~80% (some minor changes to make, and one last level to implement)
Voice Acting - 0%
Sounds - ~50%
Cutscenes - ~10%
Loading Screens - ~10%
Menu - Basic layout is done, but the overall menu panels are ~5%
Gameplay - ~90%
Ai - ~98%
Cheats - ?%

Ownage 100%

Also, as an update, i would like to say that i would like to know if our beta testers are still interested in testing for us, because soon we will have a playable result, and will be sending it out, at the moment we have:

ambe
lost_climate
Trooper119

if anyone is interested we will take beta testers, you can post here, or pm either me or mpdev_A.

As one last addition to the update i would like to say that the gameplay has greatly changed from the original "Tech" demo, i gotta warn you, it's a tiny bit fun....i and mpdev_A play it about as much as we develop it . Also the ai is about 98% done, i say 98% because not all extra mechs are added yet, they aren't geniuses, but they will hurt you badly, and the damage inflicted on your ai partners differs with each difficulty, also it's not impossible to play anymore, and we have full difficulty settings in the game, it has been done for some time now, but i'm just mentioning it, and well if anyone is still interested in watching our now obsolete promos, here they are:

PreVa Short Promo Video - includes menu music
PreVa Promo 2 - a longer promo, the music is not from the game, but it is some good dnb

Ill do some testing, but I can only do limited looking for bugs, since I will be swamped, I can help you with code or optimizations, but if you have any questions for ideas on how to fix the bugs'll Ill be able to help with that.

edit:

Just wanted to add, after watching the videos, something seemed to be missing when shooting the enemies, and I just realized, you really need some knock back animateions.

Good to hear you have the ability to tweak your script which is quite important to avoid later bugs
It seems like the game is nearly finished besides the voice acting, the cutscene and the loading screen but I guess you guys will get that running in no time

Cheers

Frazzle

thanks to both of you

@lostclimate: do you mean mechs falling while you are damaging them with machine guns, rockets, etc? i'm not sure about having it, because it would slow gameplay for the player, which we don't want, or do you mean when they die? and by the way, glad to hear you still want to beta test

@frazzle: yep, the only reason the loading screens aren't done is because they are level specific, but with the near beta we will have the first 2 cutscenes which will kind of tease you as to how good they will be

so far the game is coming together as we planned, plus some extra things that we didn't i think it will turn out pretty good

edit: i forgot to say, if you want updated screenshots, or some short info on the game, go to preva's website: PreVa we also have a few promo wallpapers, and the videos are also shown there

yeah, when the get hit with something. like in boxing when someone gets hit in the face.

Good, I like being teased
No serious, about the new screens, I like them, they give the user the information of being a great game but not showing of all the little secrets the game has Now that's marketing ^^

Cheers

Frazzle

well, most of the cheats and funny stuff isn't shown off, we do have some comedy in cutscenes and cheats, but the ones in cutscenes may be hard to notice

Comic robots, now that's creative

Cheers

Frazzle

ok, here's three new videos, they are all actual gameplay footage, so no added music, but here ya go:

Gameplay video 1
Gameplay video 2
Gameplay video 3

Nice video, the gamplay looks quite FUN, especially with all those powerful weapons
I like the fog element from the first environment, it really creates the feeling of anxiety.
The explosions are just perfect, couldn't be better if you ask me but isn't there a way to smoothly fade in/out the dynamic light that appears after each explosion so it wouldn't be just the light on/off effect.
The best part was the 'flame trower', burn baby burn ^^
Great stuff

Cheers

Frazzle

my only issue is the combat.... it seems slow, or something, dont know how to explain it.

The game looks great, Ilove the atmoshere in the first level. The leaves coming from the roof, it's just gives the idear of being in a real jungle.

thanks everybody, btw it's a huge laser gun frazzle, but it is devastating

the combat on those levels doesn't seem to be fast paced, but that is because of the movement of the mechs, we want the "bulky" feeling while at the same time providing easy movement, the "evading" is where the real speed is, it allows you to move extremely fast, and all mechs have it, it's used for dodging or getting somewhere fast

thanks to everyone who has supported, we promise to have more updates, we'll try to keep you posted

A devastating laser is nice too
I'll be waiting for those further updates

Cheers

Frazzle

no problem frazzle

thanks

That must be the most cruel Santa Claus I've ever seen
Merry XMass to you guys at PreVa as well

Cheers

Frazzle

Some updates with some new effects.










As you can see we now have dynamic lights enabled, old shader is gone

Hopefully Gafgar would note that we really appreciate his explosions, he'll have a place in the credits

this looks very cool.
hope you will use "target_map" for the cp.

target_map? i'm not sure what you mean

Those updates keep on looking quite promising but I'm really curious to play the game it self too
That was a subtile tip btw ^^

Cheers

Frazzle

Hi there! I'd really like to ba a part of the team. I'm a modeller, texturer, animator, concept designer and 2d graphics designer.
I'd really like to re-do your models and make them alot better. Hope to hear from you soon!

Cheers!

@frazzle: no kidding, that's not very subtle though i promise it won't be forever

@all: i would mention a lot of updates now, but there's no point, i'll just post some screens

That would be just great.
Having followed this since it started (dont follow very many threads ) I am just as keen as anyone else to see more, it keeps me pumping

lol yep, I remember when this thread started... there was some issues about a really crappy texture and some random random mech in the middle of the room. I think I remember some skepticism about it getting finished you showed them huh

lol, thanks both of you, we're trying of course i do remember a post that mentioned our game being a bit older looking, and truthfully it does, but...umm...

This Is Our First Game....and we had no experience and have been working on it for about 1 1/2 years....2 people.....in my book that's good for a first game, but it's not just another pretty face anyway....

tomorrow i'm taking the day off, so i may just throw some screens your way

Some screens of the island base:

Some more.

It uhm seems very dark, but apart from that it looks pretty cool,

Cheers

yep, that's a night mission (hence the stars) there are a few day missions

Right now we are finishing up the last two levels and polishing, after that the cutscenes, then voice actors recorded and then thats it. It is very nice to be this close to the end of the game. "Knock on Wood"

of course, in the coding area there isn't much to do at all, and in the modelling, it's almost complete as well. basically for the actual gameplay we just have to finish off a few loose ends and it'll be done, then as mpdev_A stated, voice actor recording and cutscenes (and music) and that's it...

Well, good news, from the way things have been, ai is done now, the ai is nowhere near as bad as the demo, they now block attacks and will jump over buildings to find you

Great to hear since the AI is a crucial element in almost any project

Cheers

Frazzle

The kinda shots only a developer can get.

hey, have you thought about either a multitexture shader or detail maps for some of the environment, because right now there is a huge difference in detail between the models and the ground and walls.... other than that looks nice, and I see we finally get to see some new bots

Fancy shots, great post
Btw like lostclimate mentioned, a mts would give a great difference

Cheers

Frazzle

we're using a mts but it's not set very high for framerate reasons, our game already pushes the engine to it's limits

MPD_B is right we have some very large terrains and if you turn up the detail tiling the framerate goes to crap. But since we have done some framerate tweaks, I
will try to up it some and see what happens.

Oke sounds fair enough

Cheers

Frazzle

sounds goo0d, and remmeber ther is always a detail bar

well, i've started working on the menu because you can play all the way through the game from start to finish, boss fight and all

till next time, ms101

As far as I know the render speed wont go down that much if you fix a more frequently looping texture and uses mipmaping (using multitexturing). If you get problems with it try posting on some threads about using the shaders and see if there is something you are doing wrong.
And as you can see in games like Unreal Tournament 2003, detailmapping is not heavy at all. You just need to use it in the right way.

Any way, it might bee that you cant fix those problems for various of reasons, then... have you considered to make the bots less detailed to more match the graphics of the environment? A more united graphical style is important for a game if you ask me, more important than a higher resolution and highly technical graphic.

Anyway ^^, you game seems to come closer to a finished product :], I will be back later and hope to play a eventual demo ^^, I wish you good luck with further development and hope that it comes together as you wants it to :]

thanks for your input gafgar, the only thing about downing the mecha's detail is that they won't fit in the underground bases, or the space, or the forest....

but hey we really like the explosion script

also it's nice to hear we have one more waiting to play

Fun with big lasers.

Makes me wanna play it even more !!

Cheers

Frazzle

Hey there mpdeveloper's (i hope im saying the right group)

Your game is quite advance. You got a good gameplay, eventhough here are a few Critique's and suggestions if you appricate:

-The Models and envoirments probably need more Dynamic forms. For now
most of it looks pretty boxy/sphere like, just to simple.
There are quite alot of Mech models/games representing a much complex/dynamic form of Mech's. Maybe take a look at them.

To the envoirments i would simply suggest to get higher buildings and more Buildings themselfes. Its Normaly that Mech's are alot bigger and used to fly around the City Blocks to fight another mech wich is trying to get behind the enemie.

So Higher builded Buildings + More Buildings themselfes + More Dynamic Meshes/shapes ingame would be absolutly a great kick up for your Game.

As a Suggestion for the gameplay i would suggest you making the radar on the left bottom , rotate abit slower and maybe with an effect on it when it detects an Enemie. About 20-40 frames should make it smooth enough.
Also maybe try to support more the Flying-Combat gaming. Shooting while walking is kind of to Boring after time, in my opinion.

Also maybe try to get a look at the game "Exteel" , maybe it says somethign to you. It a free Beta Mech game yet with awesome graphics and gameplay. The Flying inside the game gives the "realness" inside a Mech.
While Flying the mech moves/fly's a few positions away from the middle of the camera and the camera feels like dragged to the position of the mech.


This game looks very Promising, nice shaders and Features so far. keep it up!

Well as for the look of the game we are going more for classic 0079 Gundam then say, Zone of the Enders. And the game only takes place like 30yrs in the future so these are some of the 1st and 2nd gen mechs. And we would love to add more to the levels but the FPS drop so bad it won't play well on a low to midrange of the self PC and thats who we are selling to.

Looking good and the beams are great Would love to see Mechs coming apart on destruction though

so would i

if only we had physics and a better renderer i'd also like bloom but we have com, but we have to wait for pro...

wouldnt that be great! But you can gib them apart if you want and use bounce to get passable physics effects

For some reason the DLL will not load we have tried many times, as for the gibs we have some in the mechs explosion and a setting to turn them up.

and when we got it to run there was problems, it's not the video card or the specific pc, it just doesn't work, and v 1.1 does absolutely nothing

remember the demo? it's gotten an update:









sorry photobucket resized them

his foot's in the terrain. it's a huge change in the atmosphere, and to the better for sure.
but the terrain still looks boring.. only one tree model, and all trees are the same?

not perfect, but it looks waaay better.

I wouldn't say boring but to uniform
Anyway, the map looks quite big which I like in these kind of games
Good work !!

Cheers

FRazzle

not really, all trees are random in size, it's supposed to be an old forest in the mountains that would normally include cedar trees rather than a lot of others

yes, but maybe puttin a few broken ones, a few with limbs extending or something. that would do a lot for it.

hmmm, it's a possibility, all trees are destructable, even if you run into them.

a small update: with test after test we finally have the r2t dll working, so we now have bloom implemented, as well as a kind of bright blur (using the bloom) when explosions go off. Also we are starting on cutscenes this week, most likely tomorrow. The bloom really adds a good touch to the game, and screenshots and a video are to be expected soon.

the muzzle fire effect looks.... deplaced, isn't it supposed to move upwards together with the gun movement?? but apart from that, it's an overall amazing work, i'm looking forward to playing it, finally oneday (i missed the demo unfortunately, and it seems like the file isn't online anymore)

it isn't, and the demo really wasn't good, i still have it for nostalgia some years down the road, but it's acually really lame, the game has changed alot from the demo, maybe we'll release the original demo with the new one when the game is done, to show the differences

actually, if you want, sometime i could post a video of the demo, soon i will do an ai video for preva, perhaps i can do a demo video at the same time...

for the rocket launcher's muzzle, it doesn't follow the gun because of the animation of the muzzle, and the mech's animation, if they were attached it would look rather weird, but all the smgs and assault rifles, and the shotgun have their muzzles attached. btw, are you guys interested in all the weapons?

I think the muzzel firing effect should be as shown due to the speed at which discharge occures.
If you have ever been on the receiving end of gunfire an amazing effect can be discerned, the muzzle flash appears as a bright star complete with rings as shown in some star effects, quite pretty

^^ thanks nems very kind words from you, it looks better when you see it animated, it's very anime

well both the preva and manga page websites have updates so if you are interested in keeping in touch with us, you can join the forum and if you need to know more that we aren't posting, you may read our site's updates, which should be more frequent now, considering that our viewers have gone up a bit, so if you are interested in checking it out the links are below, also if you want to join our forum, we welcome any MP fans, anime fans, tech geeks, modderators, etc.

Manga Page Website
Manga Page Forum

MMMMmmmmmmm......Bloom Shader.

As I mentioned a long time ago - when you guys had just started with Preva, I am not a great robot and sci-fi fan but this game has definitely got my interest! It keeps looking better and I for one, can't wait till you get it finished^^

Great screens like always !!
You definitly made a good decision to input the bloom effect
That second picture just rocks

Cheers

Frazzle

LC: mine too i'm thinking of making it a wallpaper, if i do i'll throw it your way that screenshot was taken in the middle of the "blurriness" that is added when you are close to explosions

Cartoon_baboon: thanks very much, but for more updates check the website, and as mentioned before we're always looking to expand our forum

@frazzle: thanks, you're very supportive, and i agree

If you guys want more that's less than half of the total screenshots we took yesterday, so if you want more we'll show em off

Here are all the new shots.

http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_0-5.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_0B.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_0c.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_1-5.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_2-4.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_3-4.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_8-2.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_9-2.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_9B.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_9c.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_10-1.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_11-2.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_11B.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_18.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_24-1.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_31-1.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_33.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_35.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_38-1.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_54.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_55-1.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_56-1.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_61.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_63.jpg
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_70.jpg

This is my favorite:
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_38-1.jpg
But this one is good too because it looks really "dynamic"
http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p287/jqsharp/preVa/screenshot_2-4.jpg

I like the impression of an action feeling. The particles and effects look very cool in the screenshots.

On the other hand there is little or no lighting. Models are blocky and you should completely re-made all textures.

If I imagine this project with professional models and textures and good lighting then it could have commercial quality.
If you dont have skilled model and texture artists available, then you could get mechs at 3drt.com and textures from Gamebeep, 3dtotal or Dexsoft.

I think your project is worth improving it.

@Frank: well, we wish atm that we had a texture artist, but thats not true, and mpdev_a has done a good job on making the textures that he has, although we do plan on doing a graphics update patch in the future with preva, after it has been released for a while. The mechs are kind of meant to be blocky, it's the kind of style of mechs we're going for, like Gundam. On the lighting aspect, we do have lights attached to bright things, like the laser gun, the sabers, the muzzles, the explosions, etc. but we can't use more than 8 at a time because of a6, and that conitec blamed it on dx (yea.....) but anyway...

Thank you frank for your constructive criticism, it's very helpful, and yea, we just want that "blow sh*t up" feeling, think of it this way, the game is supposed to be a mixture of a 80's mecha anime combined with some newer technology.

@puppeteer: i like both of em especially the big lazer owning the enemy ^^

Don't know if you already saw it but the links on the Indie Gamedev forum aren't working. Might want to fix those.