Need advice regarding Game Programming

Hi,

Firstly, I would like to thank the team of SIO2 for the excellent 3D Game Engine for iPhone.
We are a group of three students who are planning to release a 3D game for iPhone. This is our first project creating a game, so, we need some advice/tips from you. We would be really grateful if you could help us.
We are creating a 3D Cricket game. We have see that the Physic module mostly deals with the Physics that are applicable to the bodies. However, I have a few doubts regarding the following. Please clarify us if you can.
1. The batsman may swing the bat and mostly, it may not hit the ball exactly due to the dimensions and all. It may be really frustrating for the user in this case, so, we need to set a threshold distance, within which the balls presence would be counted as a hit. Is this method possible and/or preferable?
2. The baller throws the ball, so, in this case the Baller and the ball are two different entities, so is the case with the batsman and the bat. Do you think its preferable to render the model of the batsman and the baller WITH the bat and ball respectively? Or is it preferable to programatically do this task - in which case, please guide us what we could do.

Also, please guide us with any reading material/books which might help us in this.

Thanks and Regards,
Kiran

Hi,

First of all, the SIO2 team consists of just one person (superhero), sio2interactive.

I would definitely make the ball a separate object. I would probably use a player model with the bat physically attached. You can use a separate, invisible object at the position of the bat for collision detection.

There are ways of doing collision detection which will make it easier to hit the ball. One of the easiest is to use bounding spheres. Google should yield lots of info/code about that.



Best,
-joshua

1. The batsman may swing the bat and mostly, it may not hit the ball exactly due to the dimensions and all. It may be really frustrating for the user in this case, so, we need to set a threshold distance, within which the balls presence would be counted as a hit. Is this method possible and/or preferable?

>> Increase the collision margin of the object by setting a user property "margin" of type float within Blender


2. The baller throws the ball, so, in this case the Baller and the ball are two different entities, so is the case with the batsman and the bat. Do you think its preferable to render the model of the batsman and the baller WITH the bat and ball respectively? Or is it preferable to programatically do this task - in which case, please guide us what we could do.

>> Both of them 2 different entity. I would use for the "Baller" a cylinder for the body and a sphere for the ball and for the "Batsman" 2 cylinder, and would take the suggestion of meteors using invisible collision shapes, just to create an envelope around the 3D object...


ps: First of all, the SIO2 team consists of just one person (superhero), sio2interactive.

>> Hehe tks dude!

[First of all, the SIO2 team consists of just one person (superhero), sio2interactive.]

Oops, I am really really sorry for not noticing . So, all the good works by one person . Thats pretty cool. Thats great, keep on the good work dude.

[I would definitely make the ball a separate object. I would probably use a player model with the bat physically attached. You can use a separate, invisible object at the position of the bat for collision detection.]
[There are ways of doing collision detection which will make it easier to hit the ball. One of the easiest is to use bounding spheres. Google should yield lots of info/code about that.]

And thanks for the advice meteors. That was really helpful.

[Increase the collision margin of the object by setting a user property "margin" of type float within Blender]
[Both of them 2 different entity. I would use for the "Baller" a cylinder for the body and a sphere for the ball and for the "Batsman" 2 cylinder, and would take the suggestion of meteors using invisible collision shapes, just to create an envelope around the 3D object]

And thanks "superhero" . It will he really helpful. I will keep in touch. I will have more queries once I start the programming aggressively, after finishing the background work. I would be glad if you could recommend me any books or material or reference sites which you think are a must for game development.

Thanks again.

Regards,
Kiran

PS: I am planning to release the cricket game as an open source once we stabilize it so that we may be able encourage more people develop games for iPhone, and use the SIO2 SDK. With your help, I guess we can do it .

I highly recommend "Introducing Character Animation with Blender".

It has some great primers on Blender basics, designed for people with experience in other 3D apps.


Best,
-j

Also, I would be remiss if I forgot to recommend the greatest OpenGL book of all, Richard Wright's "OpenGL Superbible". Simply one of the best programming books I have ever read.


-j