• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Project Spark Information Q&A

D

Dead Prince

Banned
i need to catch up on these streams (they always do it when i'm at work D:)

also it says beta starts in october. that's not like october 1st right? just somewhere in october?
 
H

hipbabboom

Huh? What did I say? Did I screw up again? :(
belucheez said:
Finally gonna catch one lol
Click to expand...

I was just in time to see the boss shut it down :3

...however, I saw just enough to be floored by the flexibility of this game O_O! Seriously... angry birds? really impressive how they framed the POV camera too.
 
B

belushy

Banned
hipbabboom said:
I was just in time to see the boss shut it down :3

...however, I saw just enough to be floored by the flexibility of this game O_O! Seriously... angry birds? really impressive how they framed the POV camera too.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I came in pretty late too lol. The stream should be put on youtube in the coming hours, so I'll link it for you. :)
 
J

J10

Banned
They didn't really detail anything new today. Mostly terrain sculpting and painting with dev team introductions and some Donkey Kong Country style barrel shooting gameplay. It would have been nice if they had detailed the making of the Angry Birds clone instead of just demoing it for 30 seconds at the end.
 
H

hipbabboom

Huh? What did I say? Did I screw up again? :(
Will it be possible to access character skeletal information (default animation or what was recorded with Kinect) and map it to none-character objects to create character proxies? I imagine if one was really determined, they can just use the brain to manually program all the [body] parts of the character proxy but I imagine programmatically creating animation would be a nightmarish task (...I'm remember the days back in QBasic trying to make animated 3D stick men).

EDIT: Alternatively, is there a ping (do people still use this term?) or some key-framed animation system?

= = = =

I'm having random machinations now about how to make a particle/object emitter I can "can" and put out there so people can make particle effects in their games. It would go something like this:
  • I would allow people to choose what kind of object
  • I'll alow them to specify things like holigram to allow transparency
  • I'' have various models like fluid dynamics or explosions, etc...
  • I'd create pre-allocated data-structures to control a pre-defined number of particles that are alive at any given time... messing with this can control density
New question:

I say this because now I'm wondering if PS has a particle emission system built-in already? :)
 
J

J10

Banned
If I wanted to make a tree man, what I would try to do is take logs, twigs, and leaves, and attach them to the body parts of a normal human character, and then make the human character mesh invisible.
 
M

Mike_Lescault

Neo Member
I'll post a link to the video after we finish the stream. This should be a pretty fun stream, because some really interesting and fun things tend to happen when we play with our water pool physics. :)

-Mike

Date: Thursday, 10/3/2013
Time: 3pm PDT
Location: www.twitch.tv/project_spark
Title: Project Spark Dev Twitch Stream – Point & Click Adventure Creation

Description:
Team Dakota Creative Director Henry Sterchi and Community Manager Mike Lescault will be hosting a live community Twitch stream showing gameplay from Project Spark, the highly-anticipated game-creation title coming to Xbox One, Windows 8, and Xbox 360. Henry and Mike will demonstrate how to quickly and easily create a Point and Click Adventure game, using suggestions from the live Twitch chat audience. They will also experiment with the new water pool feature and explore possible game mechanics use cases. The stream will end with a short community Q&A session. Anyone interested in participating in the free Project Spark beta may sign up at www.projectspark.com.
 
L

LukasTaves

Member
Finally in the longest time I'll be able to watch one video live!

Hopefully I won't have too much trouble to follow, since I'm still way behind on the previous streams XD
 
L

LukasTaves

Member
Watching the vídeo, but since I don't have a twitch account, I'm gonna ask here:

Is it possible to create "check points" when testing the game? For example, in the stream demo start testing with the troll killed and the object retrieved already?
 
C

co1onel

Member
I remember seeing this game a long time ago when it was first announced and thinking it looked interesting, but then it completely fell off my radar. I stumbled into this topic and found myself reading through the whole thing, and wow, this game is really astonishing to me. I hadn't realized just how much depth there was to the creation tools of the game.

I'm definitely very interested in hearing more about it now, and being able to play it once it comes out. I just love how open the game is left, it makes for far too many possibilities. I fear I will spend way too much time with this.
 
J

J10

Banned
LukasTaves said:
Watching the vídeo, but since I don't have a twitch account, I'm gonna ask here:

Is it possible to create "check points" when testing the game? For example, in the stream demo start testing with the troll killed and the object retrieved already?
Click to expand...

Not that I've seen, but: Brains can have multiple pages and only one page is ever in use at a time, but you can have a When/Do condition that calls to other pages or even other brains in other objects. You could create a separate page in the brain(s) for whatever game objective you want to bypass that meets the conditions of the objective itself and set that page to temporarily override the primary page that does not have the conditions met.

You can also just pick up and place your character anywhere you want, so if your broader set of objectives aren't directly linked to each other it wouldn't really matter where the character is during testing.
 
L

LukasTaves

Member
J10 said:
Not that I've seen, but: Brains can have multiple pages and only one page is ever in use at a time, but you can have a When/Do condition that calls to other pages or even other brains in other objects. You could create a separate page in the brain(s) for whatever game objective you want to bypass that meets the conditions of the objective itself and set that page to temporarily override the primary page that does not have the conditions met.

You can also just pick up and place your character anywhere you want, so if your broader set of objectives aren't directly linked to each other it wouldn't really matter where the character is during testing.
Click to expand...
That's a very good idea. Brain pages should give all the functionality I need.

Another noob question: Can I selection a portion of the code and create code snippets/functions to reuse blocks of code?
 
J

J10

Banned
You can copy and paste code within a single brain to new lines or other pages or other brains, or you can move an entire brain from one object to another. You can also save brains for later usage and place them in any object you want.

The only thing that can't have a brain is the terrain, but you can give an object a brain that causes it to manipulate the terrain.
 
L

LukasTaves

Member
J10 said:
You can copy and paste code within a single brain to new lines or other pages or other brains, or you can move an entire brain from one object to another. You can also save brains for later usage and place them in any object you want.
Click to expand...
All good too. Just one more noob question, I swear: Can you paste a brain as a new page(s) into another brain?

The only thing that can't have a brain is the terrain, but you can give an object a brain that causes it to manipulate the terrain.[/QUOTE]
That's very interesting!

Thank You!
 
O

Orca

Member
J10 said:
Not that I've seen, but: Brains can have multiple pages and only one page is ever in use at a time, but you can have a When/Do condition that calls to other pages or even other brains in other objects. You could create a separate page in the brain(s) for whatever game objective you want to bypass that meets the conditions of the objective itself and set that page to temporarily override the primary page that does not have the conditions met.

You can also just pick up and place your character anywhere you want, so if your broader set of objectives aren't directly linked to each other it wouldn't really matter where the character is during testing.
Click to expand...

Is there a page limit for brains? Wondering if I can use that as a means of referencing earlier events for continuity.
 
J

J10

Banned
The latest stream is up on YouTube if you missed it.

Project Spark - Water Effects with Point & Click Adventure Creation

I hope in one of these streams that they show world maps and how to code them. I wanna know if you can hit a button and have a full map popup complete with objective markers, points of interest, setting waypoints, zooming in, etc. Not the kind of world map that has to load like another level, but one you can access on the fly.

I'd also like to know if there are alphabet props for sign creation.
 
S

Stampy

Member
I am kind of surprised how awful the text editor in game is. I mean you can only see 5 words that you have written. Why not give a bigger field for entering text?

And I really hope we will be able just to record voices on the mic, be it on the kinect or pc, and just be able to share the stuff with other players. Otherwise, the whole cinematic creation aspect will be pretty lacking.
 
M

Mike_Lescault

Neo Member
Stampy said:
I am kind of surprised how awful the text editor in game is. I mean you can only see 5 words that you have written. Why not give a bigger field for entering text?
Click to expand...

That's currently being reworked. The current implementation was intended just to prove the feature worked.
 
S

Stampy

Member
So guy, how was the stream? What was the topic?

Mike_Lescault said:
That's currently being reworked. The current implementation was intended just to prove the feature worked.
Click to expand...

Great to hear that. :) What I am also hoping for as a basic text editor functionality is to be able to have better manipulation of text. Font types, font sizes, colors, bolding, italics, etc... And an option to choose different text box, maybe even having the ability to customize them. And if the fonts pop out in screen, chooisng more preciesly where they wikll pop out, how will they poput out,etc...
 
J

J10

Banned
Today's stream for anyone who missed it. It was excellent start to finish. Terrain deformation as a gameplay mechanic, plus lots of general questions answered.

ldc6ifo.gif
 
M

Mike_Lescault

Neo Member
We're finally able to get to Swan Song. :)

Project Spark – Swan Song play-through
Thursday 3pm PDT
www.Twitch.tv/project_spark

Microsoft’s Team Dakota shows off one of the first complete game experiences by doing a live play through of the “Swan Song” RPG, created entirely within Project Spark. Community Manager Mike Lescault is joined by Technical Art Lead Rusty McLellan, creator of the Japanese-RPG inspired game that includes a fully-functional leveling system, complete with stat increases, new spells, and armor upgrades. Created as a labor of love during Rusty’s free-time, Swan Song sets the bar for the use of cinematic transitions and environmental effects to create a compelling narrative introducing the player to a robust and engaging universe, in this hardcore RPG with turn-based combat.
 
B

belushy

Banned
J10 said:
There's an actual rain prop effect you can use for that.
Click to expand...

edit: weird, some how posted before finishing the post.

Yea, I know. Can you set it to hurt you, though? Also, this could be used to simulate hails storms too if you set it up right.


@Mike Can't wait! Been waiting for this stream!
 
J

J10

Banned
belucheez said:
edit: weird, some how posted before finishing the post.

Yea, I know. Can you set it to hurt you, though? Also, this could be used to simulate hails storms too if you set it up right.
Click to expand...

Go into the brain of the rain prop and set up something like

WHEN: [Detect] [Player] DO: [Damage]

and then adjust the detect sensor range in the properties of the rain prop.

For hail storms you probably wanna add in a line like

WHEN: (leave blank to mean always) DO: [Throw] [Ice]

and just scale the ice to the appropriate size, put in a timer on an indented code line beneath that to stagger the deployment or something. Some combination of those two lines. Put the damage line beneath the throw ice line probably.
 
S

StudioTan

Hold on, friend! I'd love to share with you some swell news about the Windows 8 Metro UI! Wait, where are you going?
Mike_Lescault said:
We're finally able to get to Swan Song. :)

Project Spark – Swan Song play-through
Thursday 3pm PDT
www.Twitch.tv/project_spark

Microsoft’s Team Dakota shows off one of the first complete game experiences by doing a live play through of the “Swan Song” RPG, created entirely within Project Spark. Community Manager Mike Lescault is joined by Technical Art Lead Rusty McLellan, creator of the Japanese-RPG inspired game that includes a fully-functional leveling system, complete with stat increases, new spells, and armor upgrades. Created as a labor of love during Rusty’s free-time, Swan Song sets the bar for the use of cinematic transitions and environmental effects to create a compelling narrative introducing the player to a robust and engaging universe, in this hardcore RPG with turn-based combat.
Click to expand...

Awesome!
 
M

Mike_Lescault

Neo Member
Garrett 2U said:
Whoahhh!
I'm curious if he's talking about PC/tablet version maybe?
Mike, any chance you could clarify?
Would be incredible if this game didn't require Gold on Xbox.
Click to expand...

During E3, we announced that the core Project Spark experience would be free-to-play, and would not require a Gold membership. We'll be sharing more details as we get closer to release. Gold membership generally provides a tremendous amount of value, and for past Xbox titles, has been required for specific product features such as multiplayer.

Hope that helps!
 
B

belushy

Banned
Mike_Lescault said:
During E3, we announced that the core Project Spark experience would be free-to-play, and would not require a Gold membership. We'll be sharing more details as we get closer to release. Gold membership generally provides a tremendous amount of value, and for past Xbox titles, has been required for specific product features such as multiplayer.

Hope that helps!
Click to expand...

Ah okay, I get it. We will be able to play and most likely create with Spark, but the yet-to-be-revealed mp Spark features will not be playable without Gold.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

There will be No WoW Live Q&A at BlizzCon 2023
Community Cringe
10
1K
lh032 replied
Phantom Blade Zero 30-Min Demo Will Be Invite-Only
News
0
398
Don Carlo replied
Teyon Wants To Work On More IPs After RoboCop: Rogue City
Game Dev 2
74
3K
AGRacing replied
Would you want your player avatar to sound like you, too?
2
54
939
buenoblue replied
Do you know of the sorcery known as "Arbitrary Code Execution"?
12
1K
Pegasus Actual replied
Top Bottom