XNA Shmup Ships

[ElysiumGX]

Hi everyone.

These are images from an XNA project a friend and I have been working on for the last couple months for fun. It's a simple shoot'em up we're hoping to continue extending. All visuals were created by me using XSI 4.2 Foundation, and Photoshop 6. I'm mostly displaying the player ship, and its alternate texture. Due to time contraints, one evening was spent on the modeling, and one additional evening on the texture.

The process was simple. Export a text .X model file with .PNG texture (flipped vertically) into the Content folder. The model is added to the project and loaded as an object into the game.

http://elysiumvisions.com/images/shmup/posted/ship1_top.jpg

http://elysiumvisions.com/images/shmup/posted/ship1_front.jpg

http://elysiumvisions.com/images/shmup/posted/ship1_back.jpg

http://elysiumvisions.com/images/shmup/posted/ship1_bottom.jpg

http://elysiumvisions.com/images/shmup/posted/ship2_front.jpg

And the UV's with texture.
http://elysiumvisions.com/images/shmup/posted/ship1_texture.jpg

http://elysiumvisions.com/images/shmup/posted/ship2_texture.jpg

A screenshot of the project so far:
http://elysiumvisions.com/images/shmup/posted/shmup_screen01.jpg

For now the game uses one simple vertex light, so the texture was quickly created by first baking the surface light of the ship in XSI, using an AO light setup, to an image. This was then overlayed onto the color texture and assigned to the ship's diffuse. Later we hope to use FX shader support.

Comments or questions are welcomed. Thanks

[moose o death]

i like it, nice simple shape, kind of seems a waste to model the whole ship and only need the topmost faces though. any chance you'll move to full 3d down the track? the projectiles with full dynamic lighting would be awesome to watch.

[Zac-Donald]

i like it, nice simple shape, kind of seems a waste to model the whole ship and only need the topmost faces though. any chance you'll move to full 3d down the track? the projectiles with full dynamic lighting would be awesome to watch.
Thats what I was thinking, maybe add some rolling maneuvers to show off the ship, like if you double tap the left arrow or something, it be nice to have a dynamic camera.

[AceMastermind]

Your ship model and texture looks great, I wish I had the artistic ability to create textures like yours, keep up the great work!
I see you're also a fellow North Carolinian, you're about 150 miles from where I live. :)

[ElysiumGX]

Thanks guys. Yes, we left open the possibility of allowing ship maneuvers. Many of the enemy ships I made (not pictured) rotate and spin along an axis during their paths. But since polycounts are not a factor atm, I wanted a whole ship to display. The red skin is for the enemy version of the ship, which can be made to spin during its path. :P Even the full textures are overkill due to the size of the ship onscreen. We are hoping to implement a more advanced camera path and level layout in the near future. Like I said, it's all for fun. We'll leave the strict guidelines to our day jobs.

Ace: Glad to hear it. Look me up if you ever drive by the area.

[thefatninja]

I like the design and very well crafted! Have you thought about adding some simple baked lighting (like Ambient Ocllusion)? Also, so decals and battle scars might really help as well. I attached and image as an example (by Henry H. Pashkov). You would be surprised how much little details - even on a small ship - can change the look. I always thought that platformer game with really cool graphics would be very interesting.

[thefatninja]

Also, have you tried using crazybump for normal maps? That would add some extra detail and very easy to use.

[moose o death]

crazy bump is no longer free, and ultimapper is included in XSI. ultimapper can render the whole ship into a sprite with flawless retention of the shape in the normal map and when lit in engine with fulldynamic lighting would never look like it was a flat sprite.

you need to play with that tool. anyone working on gameart who isn't aware of ultimapper needs to play with that tool

[teamcarlisle]

Well, he said at the beginning of the post he is using 4.2 foundation. I thought ultimapper was only in essentials and advanced, and was it even out yet back in version 4.2? (been awhile since I looked at the feature comparison trees)

edit. nevermind, even if he didn't have it, ultimapper is included in the MODTOOL according to the modtool features page, but its limited to 512 x 512 size textures, which would probably be fine for his game.

[ElysiumGX]

Thanks for the replies and advice, guys.

Yes, I'm using 4.2. It doesn't have Ultimapper, but it does have the functionality to create normalmaps/AOmaps, etc. It was later upgraded and called Ultimapper. Both I have used and enjoyed. I hope to upgrade to XSI 7 soon.

As I mentioned, FX shader support is not in the game yet, but possibly will be if we continue to develop this. The intention was to create a simple game for demostration purposes. We used it to teach XNA game design at a local game expo.

See the game in motion here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=U57vrcCAN48