Star Maps

Because this game will be based in space I'll need a lot of starry backgrounds. I found some nice tutorials for making realistic looking star fields using GIMP and gave it a go. My first attempt came out with this:

The title picture for this blog currently, not to bad for a first go!

After that one I made a much larger black and while one to test some resolution settings:


And then I made a very simple star map filled with basic stars (good for deep space scenes):


So there some good initial tests. GIMP will certainly be able to make decent star fields for this game, I could of course use Blender for this as well, so I might give that a try sometime. These textures are going to be tilled onto background objects in the game, to give a nice background of stars, nebula and other spacey stuff.

The Beginning - Protostar

'Protostar' is the current title of the game and every day it seems to sound better, so its probubly what ill stick to.
So what is a Protostar? The title certainly sounds space-like and somewhat mysterious (at least I hope so)

Putting it simply a Protostar is a star in its very early stages of development. It forms from a large interstellar cloud as the gases collapse inwards from strong gravitational forces. As the cloud gathers into a central point it begins to form a spinning sphere, the soon to be new star. The interstellar clouds swirls around this central sphere, until they are consumed by the new star or collected into orbiting lumps of rocks and gas (soon to become planets)

What does this have to do with my game?
Well the majority of the game will place aboard a large ship (named IcarusIV, of course), which is disabled and caught in the gravitational pull of the Protostar, with a strangely unresponsive crew. The scene would be spectacular, and a race against time to reach the ship, fire up its systems and propulsion drive, saving it from a fiery death. Easy right..?

But regardless, I find a huge developing star to be a unique and very interesting environment for a game like this, I originally thought to have a normal star, but that seemed far too cliche (and somewhat boring compared to a Protostar).

The final image below is an artists impression of a Protostar, certainly something you don't see every day. There's more information about Protostars on the Wiki.
So that's where the title of the game comes from, ill post some initial concept work and more plot details soon.

Weapons of Choice

So I'm going to make a game, which programs will I use?

That's always an important initial question for any game designer. Personally I've been getting into the open source software quite a bit, open source programs are free to download and usually have good support. Perfect for a hobbyist not wanting to spend thousands on industry software.



My first and favorite opensource (or otherwise) program is 'Blender3D'. Ive been using it for over 4 years now and have become reasonably experienced. Its great for all 3D work, ie modeling, texturing, rigging, animations and making games with the inbuilt BGE (Blender Game Engine). Its really a very flexible program, doing nearly everything you would ever want. There's also updates all the time, anywhere from 3-6 new versions come out every year, each with heaps of bug fixes and new features usually requested by the Blender community, along with great tutorial support so its nice and easy to learn.

Ive been part of the Blender community for as long as I've been using Blender. The main forum is at Blenderartists.org which features a great community of over 40,000 members. There's also a more game orientated forum at GameBlender.org.
I've also been working as a writer/editor at Blendernation for over a year now, which is great fun.

(Blender can be freely downloaded from www.Blender.org)



For 2D work the opensource program 'GIMP' is the way to go. Its just like Photoshop, except lacking a few features. But hey, it does everything I need it to, and saves me buying photoshop. Plus its regulary getting new features, much like Blender.

(Download from www.GIMP.org)



And for scripting, 'Python' is my program of choice. Mainly because its the native langue of the Blender Game Engine, and of course is free to download. Its even packed into Blender, so you dont really have to download it at all. Probubly one of the easyest scripting languages to learn.

(Download from www.python.org)


I'm also considering the OGRE or CrystalSpace game engines for the game, if the BGE cant handle it (the Blender game engine is lacking in some areas currently, but has improved a lot since a year or so ago)
We'll see how the BGE goes first though, I'd love to be able to promote the BGE and show what its really capable of when in the right hands.