Hello all,
The time management game is making good progress. Richard started to work on the interface animations this week. We are using 3d models to display the interface elements. Some of them need to be animated. Imagine appearing. disappearing or animated icons in general. Such as coins or clocks which need to have some sort of animation. Not only to make it look better, it's also important information for the player to see what is going on. It shows the player the status of an object/item for example.
These animations are done by changing the 3d mesh of a model realtime. Imagine a clock icon playing a 'Ticking' or 'Counting' animation. The image below shows a mockup animation sheet of this icon.
Every so called 'Frame' or 'Sprite' is actually a seperate 3d mesh. These are all flat objects consisting of 2 triangles forming a quad, but have different UV coordinates to display another frame of the animation. The model which is displayed ingame will change it's mesh during the animation. It will switch between resource frames in about 50 milliseconds, so it will look like a 'Ticking' , fully animating, clock.
This technique is often used in 3D games. Smoke, fire and debris particles can be done this way for example. Also explosions can be made using this technique, as seen in burnin rubber 4.
Thanks for reading :)!
--Joep
It makes me chuckle that you're developing a time management game! Most people would reject such an idea as self-defeating, but I agree with the logic that sometimes making a game out of things is the best way to get people to participate and make progress! best of luck with the game development, I'll be watching by to see how it comes out.
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