Week 14:
I know it's been awhile since we've done an update, we've been busting our butts to get B2 to you within the time frame we promised. Unfortunately that means the updates have to suffer, and will continue to suffer until we reach close to release, when we'll gear up to really promote B2. Ok, here's what's going on:
Weapons: 20 of the 21 weapons are modeled, textured, and have initial effects. Once we finish that one stray weapon (the decapitator) we'll work on finishing up animations, finalizing effects, and finally, play balancing. Right now everyone's favorite is the Tesla Cannon, which is fire beautiful bursts of electric energy and we've nearly got the lightning effects finalized, which are pretty impressive. However, with the fire effects right around the corner I don't think the Tesla will remain there long. All the bulleted weapons, the beretta, shotgun, mac-10, sniper, etc., are complete, needing only minor animations. Andy Mattingly and Eric Kohler have been working on the weapons, and they will be moving on to power-up effects and then finishing up the interface shortly thereafter.
Creatures: All the creatures in the game are modeled, with the exception of the final boss, who is currently under construction. Only one or two creatures still need textures, and about a third need animations. Brian "Ernie" Waite has been kicking butt on getting the models done, and we've temporarily brought on Akika Tanaka to help out. Kevin Kilstrom is the master of creature textures and has also been doing an awesome job of filling in hand animations where the motion capture doesn't work. Kevin is an incredible animator, so much so that it is hard to tell his hand animations from motion capture.
AI: Scott Schlegel has been working primarily on creature AI. The stuff he's doing there are almost too numerous to mention. He's got path-finding pretty much finished, and running really fast. Creatures that use weapons choose the weapon most appropriate to the situation, and will use alt fires as well as regular fire. It's awesome to run around a corner trying to hide from a Fanatic and here the distinctive "fump" sound of the assault rifle's under-barrel grenade launcher and then see a grenade bounce around the corner right at you. The AI also uses several attack states, like ducking, running, walking, etc. Unlike other 3D shooters, B2's creatures have a variety of ways they can attack. The Cultist's don't stand still and shoot at you, they may duck and shoot, run at you while shooting, etc.
General Game Engineering: Greg Kettell, B2's lead engineer, has been working on general stuff, like finishing up the scripting language, which is almost complete, and working very well. He's also been working on optimizing performance, and adding various other features. Greg also works on all the feature requests for the level designers. He recently added some awesome stuff that was in Blood. 'Wave Forms' for doors and moving objects, which allows level designers to apply movement attributes to any moving object. Take a look at doors in most other games and you'll notice they move at a constant rate from open to close, but in Blood and Blood 2 we can make doors accelerate while they open, close, or both, to make much more realistic movement. He also added tons of dynamic lighting options which are really helping to bring the levels to life.
Level Design: Bill Vandervoort, Ben Coleman, and myself have been working on the levels. All the single player level foundations are complete, which means they all have layouts, architecture, and lighting. We are now going back through them and improving what's already there, like lighting and architecture, adding enemies, scripts, power-ups, effects, and specialized textures. We have about half of the Bloodbath levels complete, and we're bringing on a new level designer on Monday (I'll name him in my .plan) to help finish out the Bloodbath stuff. Kevin Kilstrom, wearer or many hats, has been finishing up the level textures, and at this point he's just doing clean up and specialized additions, since the majority of the level textures are complete.
Sound: About half the game music is complete, and Guy Whitmore is finishing out the rest. The stuff he's done so far has been amazing, and we'll post an example soon. James Ackley and Cass Thruston are working on weapon and creature sounds, as well as level ambients. We've got a lot of sound in place already, and like Blood, B2 will be exceptional in this area, with a lot more ambient sound than any other shooter out there. Expect to be blown away. I also directed several voice sessions, and we've completed about 80-90% of the voice work for the game.
Ok, that's about it. But to make sure you leave happy, here's a bunch of screenshots. Like always, keep in mind that none of this stuff may be final.
