10.26.09
There and Back Again
So, for this milestone, I have been basically refactoring all of the game’s code in order to get nowhere…
First is the XML content control. We wanted the ability to design levels with XML scripts, instead of hard coding the levels into the game code. So, I’ve been working hard on abstracting all of the elements of every game object and combining them into a single object definition that can be filled in with serialized XML data. It is nearly complete, but enough is working to move on at this point.
Next was a complete overhaul of the collision detection system. The previous loose octree structure that we were using was starting to become a performance drain when large scale collision sweeps were needed (like the ones that I needed to do for the AI). The tree was just being made too deep and the game would spend too much time traversing the tree instead of performing checks. So, I tried implementing a few different systems. I have finally settled on a grid system that seems to be working well enough.
Our artist did get some new textures done and I did have some time to add some specular highlighting to the lighting model… so of course, we have a new eye candy video. Enjoy:
