3D Baby

A couple of weeks have passed since my last blog and if you remember I was planning on writing a text-based match engine. Well, I persevered with it for a while but soon realised I was barking up the wrong tree and decided to ditch what I had. Basically I realised that there was no point in having 2 seperate match engines (a text one and a 3d one) when the 3d one can feed back the necessary text at regular intervals. Added to the fact that the 3d engine will actually simulate a real match, tracking the movement and actions of 22 players rather trying to mimic the ebb and flow of a football game by generating random textual incidents, and the decision was a simple one. So now I've made some decent progress and have 20 outfield players moving around the pitch according to their formation and the location of the ball.

As you can see, the players are just monolithic blocks at the moment and there is still much to be done as they don't yet kick the ball and there are no set-pieces, but I'm pleased with the movement and the collision detection between players. Strong players should really be able to shove opponents off the ball in a good old fashioned shoulder barge. Another aspect of the match engine that I'm pleased with is that the size of the pitch is actually to scale as are the heights of the players. Each one will be individually stretched to the exact centimeter which of course are set by my wonderful database editors. They also run at realistic speeds. A player with 100% pace and acceleration can cover 100 metres in about 10 seconds. Neat huh?

Aside from the match action I've made a few small changes to the interface which now allows you to completely change the colours so that you can adjust it to your own tastes. Here's a nice red and gold style...


Now I want to spend a week or so tidying up the competitions, making sure all the obscure systems like regional leagues or divisions that split midway through the season are working, and that they are all displayed correctly on the tournaments screen. There are also things like winter breaks in some countries, or playing through the summer months except when there's an International tournament taking place. If only everything was as straight forward as the English league the competitions would be finished by now! At least when the competitions are finally in place I will be able to concentrate on the other important aspects, like the transfer market, relationships, player progression and so on. So that's the immediate plan, I just hope I don't get distracted into tinkering with the new match engine. I enjoy programming all aspects of the game but the action side is the real fun stuff. :)