Gratuitous Alien Death Effects!
I was showing the game to a friend a few weeks ago and he commented that the aliens should have some sort of effect when they die.
Continue reading for more pictures of the new effect and how I made it.
This is something that I struggled with quite a while. For those of you who played the earliest versions of Infested Planet, you’ll remember that there was a red puff that the aliens emitted. Unfortunately it was too slow – each puff was a dynamic particle system.
It was especially bad if a bomb killed a bunch of aliens at once, so I changed the effect to pink alien bits flying off. That solved the speed problem and it looked great with explosions, but individual marine weapons felt a bit anaemic as a result.
Finally, I decided to make each alien death throw out some sort of effect, but I also wanted it to be quick. My solution – I cooked up a particle explosion in Blender and rendered it a sprite. I get my particle system with 10000 particles and it’s quick!
This and more goodies will be in the next patch. Expect it sometime in August.
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July 31st, 2012 at 11:33 pm
Nice! What’s also planned for this update? I hope you’ll flesh the campaign out some more.
July 31st, 2012 at 11:35 pm
And please try to find some solution for different level backgrounds. I’m pretty sure the fact that all levels look the same will be criticized if you don’t improve that detail of the game.
August 1st, 2012 at 9:02 pm
Let’s see, there are also new spiffy animated menus and almost completed audio! We’re just finishing up the mixing right now. I’ll see if I can get some campaign goodness in there.
As for the mission backgrounds, I agree with you. I just haven’t thought of a good way to do it yet and found the time for it.
August 2nd, 2012 at 12:17 am
Good decision. The only thing that you can advice is to make several different sprites for the massive kill that will be appear in random order.
August 9th, 2012 at 11:07 am
[...] Gratuitous Alien Death Effects! (Rocket Bear Games Blog) “I was showing the game to a friend a few weeks ago and he commented that the aliens should have some sort of effect when they die. This is something that I struggled with quite a while. For those of you who played the earliest versions of Infested Planet, you’ll remember that there was a red puff that the aliens emitted. Unfortunately it was too slow – each puff was a dynamic particle system.” [...]
August 31st, 2012 at 3:00 am
haha cool game, will this be able to play online swf file for this game?
September 6th, 2012 at 2:40 pm
Hey, August is over. When can we expect the next patch? It’s taking pretty long so far. I’m pretty eager to try out a new version.
September 12th, 2012 at 11:56 am
Sorry! I’ve been going to Klei to work on Eets and I’m pretty tired in the evenings. Still haven’t found a good way to juggle the two projects. Perhaps it’s more realistic to say that the patch will be in September. =)
September 12th, 2012 at 5:16 pm
OK, that explains the recent delays. Thanks for the answer. Looking forward to the next update on Infested Planet and good luck on both projects!
September 27th, 2012 at 5:43 am
Trying to download the latest beta using the links from the purchase mail…
“DOWNLOAD INSTRUCTIONS:
To download the beta, click on ONE of the following links:”
But it just says “The password has expired” !?
Cheers,
Brian.
September 27th, 2012 at 8:04 am
That probably means that you bought the game over a year ago (thanks!) and the password timer has run out. I asked BMT to refresh passwords en-masse, but they can’t do it, unfortunately.
Just send me an email at support@rocketbeargames.com and I’ll do it for you.