One of the toughest weapons to code in a shmup...

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ForteMP3
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One of the toughest weapons to code in a shmup...

Post by ForteMP3 »

This has been driving me nuts for ages, and sadly, the only shmup programmer that I've seen pull it off is rather difficult to contact (Alluro).

What weapon am I talking about coding, exactly? Well, it's the infamous Lock-On Laser from Raiden II/Raiden Fighters. Y'know, the purple beam that curves around and such, and locks onto an enemy when it hits them. The logic and physics behind how such a weapon is coded have always been beyond me, I was wondering if anyone might be able to shed some light on the topic.

For the record, GameMaker is my program of choice, so anything from a language like C++ and the like wouldn't be of much help to me.
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fog
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Post by fog »

I'm not entirely sure what GameMaker can and can't do so offering advice is a bit tricky.

I know how I'd do it though and that's probably with Hermite splines.

This basically lets you define a start point and end point for your path (laser) and the tangency at those points. The maths can then work out the x,y co-ords of any point along that path where you'd place your laser sprite images.

I could write something in BASIC but I'm not sure that would be any use to you.
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ForteMP3
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Post by ForteMP3 »

Well, there are some similarities in the GameMaker Language (GML for short) and things like Visual Basic. I'm not sure if I could implement your ideas, but if you'd be willing to show them, maybe I could at least learn something from them.

In all honesty though, your idea sounds exactly like what I'd need.
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RedKnight
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Post by RedKnight »

Bezier Patches.

I have made some Homing Bending lasers for my shmup demo.( check it out. 8) )
There's alots of calculations involve with this effect.
Sides calculating, bezier calcualtions, etc etc.
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ForteMP3
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Post by ForteMP3 »

...Nevermind, found it. >.>;
YOU ARE APPROACHING THE TARGET OF ATTACK! THE MISSION STARTS NOW! ARE YOU READY?!
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