I think it would be a good idea to have the camera actually following the turret’s aim, instead of the edge-of-screen scrolling.
[quote]May I ask, do you have a grand plan with some kind of mission structure, or is it “action until you die”?
[/quote]
I already have a plot ;), you are sent to a hostile island to destory a (maybe 2) secret prototype tank called “the annihilator”. It will look quite similar to the classic
mammonth tank in C&C series. It will be located in centre of the island. You will have to find a way to penetrate into the enemy base before you can fight
the annihilator. There will also be some hidden powerups to be discovered.
[quote]It uses JPCT I believe.
[/quote]
No, I wrote my own rasterizers. I borrowed some functionalities from idx3d engine created by Peter Walser.
[quote]I think it would be a good idea to have the camera actually following the turret’s aim, instead of the edge-of-screen scrolling.
[/quote]
It is not a good idea IMO. Because your aim would constantly move to the left/right. it is rather annoying if you try to aim at something that doesn’t move.
The mouse turret & camera turn is awesome 8)
I like the solution of turning the camera if the mouse approaches the left and right of the window. Maybe also this ‘camera turn zone’ should also include the part of the screen under the tank since I tried to turn the turret/camera 180 degrees left by moving the mouse under the tank but nothing happened.
Also, maybe the range of the bullet should adjust to where you’re mouse click is. It sucks when you fire at something far-ish away and the bullet doesn’t make it.
It’s pretty impressive that you coded the whole thing from the ground up. it’s getting better and better!
[quote]I like the solution of turning the camera if the mouse approaches the left and right of the window
[/quote]
Thats all markus.borbely’s idea ;D
[quote]‘camera turn zone’ should also include the part of the screen under the tank
[/quote]
Thx for pointing out, I have made changes according to your suggestion.
[quote]the range of the bullet should adjust to where you’re mouse click is
[/quote]
Well The whole idea is that the bullet is meant to have a short range. Later on the player will discover longer ranged weapon such as the rocket launcher.
Anyway I have increased the bullet travel distance a little bit.
Its because everyone is weird 
take me for example… my key setup for fps shooters uses left mouse and right mouse for strafe and D and C for forward and backward with A as fire.
I know… i know… strange!
Cool game! Has lots of potential…
Unfortunatly it only worked ok for a minute or so, I had multiple tabs open and when I switched between them, the game became uncontrollable and the browser window became unresponsive. I could access the java console though, it displayed an exception (might be unrelated), but still:
Exception in thread “Applet 1 LiveConnect Worker Thread” java.lang.ClassFormatError: Incompatible magic value 1008813135 in class file netscape
at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(Unknown Source)
at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Applet2ClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClassInternal(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Class.forName0(Native Method)
at java.lang.Class.forName(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.main.client.LiveConnectSupport$PerAppletInfo$JavaNameSpaceProxy.getJavaClass(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.main.client.LiveConnectSupport$PerAppletInfo$JavaNameSpaceProxy.getField(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.main.client.LiveConnectSupport$PerAppletInfo$2.run(Unknown Source)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at sun.plugin2.main.client.LiveConnectSupport$PerAppletInfo.doObjectOp(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.main.client.LiveConnectSupport$PerAppletInfo$LiveConnectWorker.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
[quote]Unfortunatly it only worked ok for a minute or so, I had multiple tabs open and when I switched between them, the game became uncontrollable and the browser window became unresponsive
[/quote]
Damn! The applet failed me a couple of times too, it just suddendly stopped showing anything. Also the console shows nothing (unlike ur case).
I think it could be a flaw in my timer class, which cases the system to sleep forever.
May I ask what is your JVM version and what browser, operating system you are using?:
[quote]Thats all markus.borbely’s idea Grin
[/quote]
Thanks but actually, no. Was it Dzzd game that had it like this?
Some more ideas:
Could you have a secondary weapon, like a machinegun? Fire against soft targets (and make some of the targets soft).
Turrets with very good weapons but that were slow to change aim. Normally they sweep the terrain. The player can avoid them by staying on the blind side, or take them down.
The projectile from the normal cannon looks like a solid slug. Can you change it to something that have motion blur? I think it would look better.
[quote]Was it Dzzd game that had it like this?
[/quote]
In most of 3dzzd applets, the camera is always in a moving state. (i.e there is no centre control area)
[quote] Can you change it to something that have motion blur? I think it would look better.
[/quote]
I tried to implement the motion blur, though it is hard to notcie right now.
[quote]Could you have a secondary weapon, like a machinegun? Fire against soft targets (and make some of the targets soft).
[/quote]
It sounds like a good idea, I will implement this later on.
[quote] Turrets with very good weapons but that were slow to change aim. The player can avoid them by staying on the blind side, or take them down
[/quote]
May be I should make the turret reponse a little bit faster.
You can’t out range these turrets, except when you are firing with the rocket launcher.
[quote]I tried to implement the motion blur, though it is hard to notcie right now.
[/quote]
I think it looks great.
Looking forward to see more features!
Ah sorry, forgot to post that:
Java Plug-in 1.6.0_10-beta
IE7.0
Windows XP
Also, with unresponsive browser window I meant the IE window didnt respond to anything (close, mini/maximize)… The applet kept updating, but couldnt get focus and my last key command was kept repeated (the turret kept rotating). Actually the same thing happend just again while typing this message; I can play the game for a while but then it just stops responding to input. IE becomes unresponsive and the tab keeps “loading” (the IE page loading indicator keeps spinning). So the liveconnect exception could be related… I noticed you dont provide a mayscript (http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/guides/plugin/developer_guide/java_js.html) param to your applet? Not sure if you use js communication, but given the liveconnect bug in my console and the page that keeps loading…
PS: I just tested it in FF 3.03 and that works perfectly!
i have download the latest java 1.6_10 vm, and i had the exactly the same problem as you described.
I suspect that the web server i am using has some issues with this update. Now I have host the applet on my own tomcat server.
Could you try it again and see if this works:
http://130.216.39.215:8080/bt2/play.htm
Many thanks
(dont hack me plz)
Your server seems down atm…
Sorry, I was hoping there wasn’t a firewall preventing people from accsessing the machine inside the campus.
I have uploaded my applet to another website. Could you try it and see if this works:
Yep that version works perfectly fine!
Ey! Great game! I only try it some seconds (I’m at work) and it looks very fine 
I’m very bad designing in 3D so you have all my respect
Good job!
Very cool game, I’m always a little surprised when I see good 3D graphics in my web browser.
I got this exception mid game
I was using the machine gun an shooting some tanks.
Damn, I never thought this would happen. Just added an extra array boundary check,
and it should prevent this from happening again. Thanks for pointing out.
I finally managed to finish the game. Not much improvement on graphic side. Added game menu and more fluid mouse interactions.
Hope you guys enjoy it!
Applet version here:
http://www.freewebs.com/phu004/bt2/play.htm
PS:
Just make it eaiser for trying out my game, hold “I,L,M” at the same time to have unlimited health and ammo!