What is KnuckleCracker up to?

[Epic4242]

Will you be giving us weekly videos Virgil?

[jpwanabe]

It's a custom physics simulation.  I didn't invent any new magic math, but I did make an engine that is optimized for dealing with only what needs to be dealt with and is "object friendly".  By that I mean that the the runtime doesn't have to deal with lots of dynamic object creation and deletion.  The simulation itself is uses a simple verlet integration at the core, with numerous tweaks to create some behaviors.  There are also several fundamental forces that act on particles.  Thing like attraction to neighbors, repulsion from neighbors, attraction to units or other objects on the map, forces on the map that can affect particles, bonds between particles of varying elasticity, etc. 

The idea was to create a bunch of fundamental rules, then spend months figuring out ones that make for an interesting play space. I've made some interesting discoveries, and more are yet to be made I'm sure.

Do the specific arrangement of the particles do anything special yet? Like the ones that seem to make a wiggling trail could aim and suddenly rocket towards your stuff by shooting out some other particles for momentum.

[knucracker]

I doubt I will make a video every week, but I will try to post weekly.  Might just be a screen shot some weeks, and I may have to skip a week here and there.  It all depends on how busy I am and if I have something new and interesting to talk about.

About particles... The wrigglers are a side effect of the way the physics engine works.  They are held together by bonds between particles that try to pull particles closer then they repulsion distance.  So you get a fight between two forces that are very powerful and it creates tension in the chain of particles.  The result is a wriggler.  You can vary the strength and distances of the forces to produce different effect.  What's interesting is they seem very organic and act a lot like actual snakes.  The head of the snake will recoil away when it hits against something sometimes and the whole body of the snake will then move away.  They also really like to crawl inside shapes.  I can make tubes and bubbles and stuff and the physics controlling the wrigglers will make them sometimes crawl inside and wriggler their way through.  Its a fascinating emergent property.

Now, there are other more artificial behaviors in place.  For instance, when a ship gets near particles they are attracted to the ship.  That means when a wriggler is coming for you the head will often see the ship first and then make a rapid approach to your ship.  The rest of the body comes along and it becomes a rapid fire machine-gun like assault of particles that can drill a hole in a ship if you aren't careful.

[J]

So basically you simulate natural forces that result in nice movements? Perfect (because nature is perfect).

[knucracker]

So far, that's been what I've been doing.  The particles are "natural" and ships are the rigid and artificial constructions.  Currently there are other interesting emergent behaviors that can show up.  If particles are all pulled into a gravity well (all attracted to a point on the map) rotating storms can form.  A mass of particles will collect and more often than not it will rotate.  The rotation can get fast enough to sling particles out from the storm. 

If the gravity is really strong, the particles won't form a storm that rotates but instead will compress.  This happens when particles are forced within their repulsion distances.  As more and more particles accumulate things get worse and worse and you end up particles that are in a kind of super heated state.  They will bounce from tight arrangement to another and another and it can form chain reactions that cause an eruption from the mass.

If the gravity is super strong, all particles will get compressed down so tight that even eruptions can't happen.  In this case it's really interesting to watch what happens when the gravity suddenly disappears and thousands of hyper compressed particles are no longer being held together.

[Hubs]

I now completely understand how a super nova works :). Virgil, did you solve the mysteries of the universe?

Seriously, this is awesome stuff! Sounds like a particle based enemy is going to offer a completely new type of foe, just like creeper did.

So we know particles form more complicated chains and structures, but will there be different types of particles? Like big/small ones or some that have different attraction/repulsion values?

[knucracker]

I'm still working though attributes on particles and which will be included.  I've experimented with everything from mass, to 'heat', to of course anti-particles.  Other attributes are in the works as well...

[TheBuilder]

/picks jaw up off of floor/
And this is why I check on old forums (old for me at least) every once in a while.  Sometimes they have something new pop up.  Awesome looking new game V, can't wait to play it.

[F0R]

I'm really excited for this new game. So far play style looks fairly similar to Creeper world which i like with hopefully a nice twist to it to diversify gameplay. Wonder if this game will get progressively harder or follow the same pattern as the creeper world games.

[4xC]

I'm glad I kept my eye on KC ever since CW3 went public. Not only did I get used to Play As Creeper maps, but I suddenly find out that Virgil has pulled another rabbit out of his hat: an innovation of the swarm-style enemy.

I love the diversity among both good and evil forces already.

[pawel345]

I doubt I will make a video every week, but I will try to post weekly.  Might just be a screen shot some weeks, and I may have to skip a week here and there.  It all depends on how busy I am and if I have something new and interesting to talk about.

Still waiting for those weekly updates^^

[knucracker]

Yeah :)  I got busy working on PRPL and that sucked up a bunch of time... but I am going to try to pick a topic and do another post in the next few days.

[Blaze]

Oh, hey! I was (am) busy and remembered I hadn't checked here in awhile.
And what do I find? You're making another game! I'm really looking forward to it!