3D Tank Game by Porter --------------------------------------------------------------------- Email: porter.f.loring@vanderbilt.edu URL: http://www.geocities.com/porter_loring/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a OpenGL game i made, my first 3D one so its not perfect And it really works well if you have hardware acceleration The Controls are Up/Down Arrow - Change aiming angle Right/Left Arrow - Change aiming direction Home/End Keys - Change shooting Power W,S Keys - Change Camera Zoom Factor U Key - Move the Current Tank forward Left Mouse Button - Change Horizontal Camera Position Right Mouse Button - Change Vertical Camera Position F1 Key - Change the Current Tank being viewed ESC - Quits the program Level Editor (TankMap.exe) A,Z keys - Change Ground Height Home/End Keys - Zoom out/in from the point Left Mouse Button - Change Horizontal Camera Position Right Mouse Button - Change Vertical Camera Position Right/Left Arrow - Change point right or left Up/Down Arrow - Change point up or down --------------------------------------------------------------------- Updates August 15, 2000 * Fixed the controls for the TankMap so it actually moves the direction you want. i fixed the ranges for which it determine the direction to move, i had it set along the axis now i have it set along the axes if they were rotated 45 degrees. August 14, 2000 * Fixed the camera so that it doesnt jump up and down if its outside of the drawn ground. * Fixed the ground rendering in the game, there was a bug that drew extra stuff that didnt actuall exist where it was drawing it. * Fixed TankMap so when you move camera the arrow keys pretty closely move the active point in the right direction. * I just got new drivers for my video card and i have found that there is a HUGE improvement in the performance i get with this game. when you turn VSYNC on i get around 80 fps, when i turn it off and dont have full scence antialias(FSAA) on i get somewhere near 250 fps and when i have FSAA on the lowest setting i get around 150 fps. August 11, 2000 * I have changed the level editor so that it raises the height 0.25 of a unit each time you press A. this i thought was a good idea because it allows the ground to look smoother on the hills and more "rolling" and natural instead of jaggy as it use to be. i might make it even smaller increments to around 0.2 . August 07, 2000 * Well i have been gone the last two weeks but during that time i decided to make some changes. i wrote a basic level editor to make the terrain look more real so its not random anymore, the controls are very simple and im in the process of adding save/load features. this only took me an hour to make so its not very complex 9 buttons total & some simple mouse movements similar to the actual game. i also fixed the camera a little better. i will add instruction for the level editor someday soon. July 21, 2000 * I have added side to the terrain so it looks a little better instead of having 2d planes floating around it looks like its actually solid ground. fixed the camera so it will never be looking under the ground and i added a FPS counter which the program will display after you close it. im getting around 75-80 fps on my geforce 256 64 mb ddr so im getting pretty decent numbers. July 20, 2000 * Well ive been working alot so nothing much has been done to the game. i have fixed the lighting for the tank so when you rotate around the surface of the tank is lit correctly. now that i fixed that problem i am ready to go onto more AI stuff. July 13, 2000 * Took out shields cause the look gay. but now the tanks will rotate around the direction it is pointing so it actually looks right moving forward, just gotta fix normals so the light looks correct as it bounces off it. July 12, 2000 * After each shot control moves to the other tank. so you can basically try to hit yourself as many times as you would like. next thing to add is the computer tank shooting back at you. which it now does except that i have added so "intelligence" so it rotates around & fires and continues to fire everytime its the computers turn July 10, 2000 * Well its been a very long time since ive updated but i have completely redone the entire ground rendering, detection, everything that has to deal with the ground and now it looks perfect and i can calculate exact heights at every point. so when you move the tank around it follows the terrain. the bomb explodes on the ground now as well. May 17, 2000 * Added a new movement feature to move in which ever direction you are aiming. It will allow to move over the terrain soon instead of going straight through it. Also i might make it where you just push the key 1 time to start moving then again to stop. its been a while since ive done anything with this cause ive been pretty busy. * Added a tracer to the bomb, it now draws an arc after the shot and it stays there until you shoot another one. also added the Q and A key which just changes the shield strength so that you can see the shield get weaker/stronger, no effect as of now but thats the next thing im working on either damage or other tank shooting May 15, 2000 * I had an idea on how to make shooting code more accurate with the angle above ground actually make more of an impact, as well as draw it better. this lead to more thoughts of spherical coordinates and as it turns out they work in this case as well. 1 small bug though, if you aim straight up it doesnt ever come down which will be fixed because it violates one of the most simple rules of physics May 14, 2000 * I have added a shield, although it does not do anything, but you can see it. I was learning how to make transparencies and i think i did it pretty well. * The lighting code is a little better may not be the most efficient way of doing it but it gets the job done and still runs smoothly. i will most likely either start on some basic AI code to get the other tank shooting or work on some visual effects for the explosion. May 11, 2000 * Added the some lighting to the program so the hills are actually dark if its not facing the "sun" this will be tweaked until it looks a little more real May 9, 2000 * Added the Bomb Chase Camera when you shoot. If you use the same buttons to change the view you can rotate around the bomb in mid flight. May 7, 2000 * Fixed shooting code 1 more time. I did it a completely different way and it is 100% perfect. So i no longer have to worry about that so i will move on to the effects or AI May 2, 2000 * Been a while since ive done anything. i fixed the shooting code more should be more accurate and really damn fast. please email me any fuck ups anyone sees. thanks April 27, 2000 * Started work on better shooting code. You can now fully rotate 360 degrees to fire but it is not completely accurate, the problem is with calculating the amount of time that has passed correctly so that it is realistic. much harder than it sounds. April 26, 2000 * Added the F1 key that will toggle between looking at the different tanks * Added sphereical coordinates for the camera giving a nice sphereical movements April 25, 2000 * Added basic mouse support to control camera position. If you hold down the left mouse button and move it side to side it will move * Added random tank positions * Took out FPS counter because it really was not needed because it runs insanely fast when there is hardware acceleration April 24, 2000 * added a frames per second counter to the title bar, my average is 350+ fps * Huge performance boost, took out the windows timer animation and it now runs much faster and much smoother April 23, 2000 * changed ground code again and fixed some rendering things, might be faster cause its a hell of a lot more efficient * took out follow bomb code for now its faster now and made terrain code better, found a way around all the floating point stuff, just gotta fix 1 more bug with ground and it will be good. April 22, 2000 * ground is much more accurate and gives much faster performace and works probably 90+% of the time * ground terrain works pratically perfect. fuck ups probably due to floating point roundoff. same reason why it explodes a bit underground sometimes. * moved bomb camera to always 3 units above bomb * fixed texture mapping of the ground. picture lines up correctly with the other triangles making nice squares --------------------------------------------------------------------- any problems email porter at porter.f.loring@vanderbilt.edu