Semi Permeable Membranes

2023-08-25

You know what you need to separate two areas with? Doors.

SceneKit scene with a door concept, made up of 4 rectangular boxes for the door, and a torus for the frame

I created 4 rectangular boxes to represent the door itself, and a torus to act as the frame. The reason I created 4 of them was so that I could move each independently. Early games would just move the door upwards, like a garage door. I could do that by moving all 4 boxes up. Or I could open from the middle by having the top 2 boxes go up, and the bottom 2 go down.

door in its closed state door in its opened state

I was surprised at how quickly this came together, and it works in reverse to close. I added some extra doors, and since my weapon removes things from the scene, I demolished some door segments:

3 doors, two of which have had their upper and bottom door sections destroyed

Attempting to navigate this just with keyboard controls was getting a bit tedious, so I added in mouse aiming, which doesn't really look much different from the perspective of a screenshot.

SceneKit scene after adding mouse control

Also, since I had some doors why not add some walls to the place:

level_concept_hallway

level_concept_door

level_concept_door_open

Also since I was having to deal with creating a level, why not replace the rather nice default SceneKit model with something that better suited the place:

prototype ship model, with textures applied

I had somewhat also figured out how textures worked, so I decided to spruce up everything:

prototype ship model, in the level prototype, all with textures

Up next is refining these concepts into more sophisticated versions. I was very excited to see what I could do with the doors.

Get Smart introductory credits, the famous hallway of doors