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Slightly cold news on page 10! Phlamey breaks the server. |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #100351, posted by Phlamethrower at 16:19, 20/3/2007, in reply to message #100346 |
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Perhaps I should have listed some choices 
The two choices for setting I have are a Mad Max-style post-apocalyptic wasteland, or a Bladerunner/etc. cyberpunk dystopia (i.e. big city). Or somewhere inbetween. Or somewhere including both extremes.
The two choices of storyline are either no storyline at all (e.g. it's just a game of survival), or a fairly structured set of missions making up a storyline. Or somewhere inbetween.
Of course it's rather hard to fit all of that in one game, which is why I was trying to decide on just one subset to focus on. But I don't seem to be in the mood to pick one  |
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Phil Mellor |
Message #100352, posted by monkeyson2 at 16:30, 20/3/2007, in reply to message #100351 |
 Please don't let them make me be a monkey butler
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The two choices for setting I have are a Mad Max-style post-apocalyptic wasteland, or a Bladerunner/etc. cyberpunk dystopia (i.e. big city). Or somewhere inbetween. Or somewhere including both extremes. How about a post-apocalyptical Bladerunner/etc. cyberpunk dystopia? To make it TOPICAL and RELEVANT you could have the apocalypse caused by climate change and the dystopia by terrorists.
The two choices of storyline are either no storyline at all (e.g. it's just a game of survival), or a fairly structured set of missions making up a storyline. Or somewhere inbetween. Somewhere inbetween. Games like Elite and Zangband have emergent gameplay in the main, but real missions are triggered by certain events or characters. |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #100355, posted by Phlamethrower at 16:45, 20/3/2007, in reply to message #100352 |
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The trouble is that that's 10 or 8 or 12 or 2 times harder than doing just one idea.
Perhaps I'd better THINK, or something. |
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Richard Goodwin |
Message #100357, posted by rich at 17:03, 20/3/2007, in reply to message #100355 |
 Dictator for life
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FX: queue whirring, grinding sounds, and steam.
________
 Cheers,
Rich.
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VinceH |
Message #100370, posted by VincceH at 18:36, 20/3/2007, in reply to message #100351 |
 Lowering the tone since the dawn of time
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Speaking as someone who hasn't even downloaded a copy of anything you've done on this game so far, I shall offer my opinion.
The two choices for setting I have are a Mad Max-style post-apocalyptic wasteland, or a Bladerunner/etc. cyberpunk dystopia (i.e. big city). Or somewhere inbetween. Or somewhere including both extremes. My absolute favourite subject matter to read/watch is post-apocalyptic, so I vote for that.
The two choices of storyline are either no storyline at all (e.g. it's just a game of survival), or a fairly structured set of missions making up a storyline. Or somewhere inbetween. Somewhere inbetweeen. It starts out as a game of survival, and in the underlying gameplay there are hints of bigger things afoot - and as the player progresses, that becomes the focus of the game. (Can you tell I like series wide story arcs in TV shows?  ) |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #100372, posted by Phlamethrower at 19:12, 20/3/2007, in reply to message #100370 |
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Speaking as someone who hasn't even downloaded a copy of anything you've done on this game so far, I shall offer my opinion. Doesn't really matter. There isn't really much to download
I think one of the main problems with this isn't necessarily that I have to think up a storyline/setting, but that I need to try and avoid allowing the storyline/setting to be influenced by outside sources. For example, Ghost in the Shell is the most complete cyberpunk/dystopian/post-apocalyptic world I've seen (disclaimer: possibly because I've seen more of it than any other cyberpunk/dystopian/post-apocalyptic story/world), so I'm going to have to be careful that I don't (a) deliberately set out to copy it (because it will end up being all wrong and a load of shite), or (b) inadvertently copy it (because it will just feel like a copy of it).
Hence all the horrible thinking that needs to be done, to work out how the Earth transitions from an Earth we know to a cyberpunk/dystopian/post-apocalyptic Earth of the future. For example, I've just realised that the "split point" doesn't have to be in the present day - it could be sometime in the past. What if the Cuban missile crisis resulted in a different outcome, and America got nuked to buggery? Hmm... |
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Tony Haines |
Message #100377, posted by Loris at 20:42, 20/3/2007, in reply to message #100372 |
 Ha ha, me mine, mwahahahaha
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I've just realised that the "split point" doesn't have to be in the present day - it could be sometime in the past. What if the Cuban missile crisis resulted in a different outcome, and America got nuked to buggery? Hmm... Nooooo!
Don't do that, go the Gundam route, and just make the branch point unknown. |
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Phil Mellor |
Message #100379, posted by monkeyson2 at 20:48, 20/3/2007, in reply to message #100377 |
Please don't let them make me be a monkey butler
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Why not write the plot such that the player discovers what the different outcome in history was as the game develops?
And then wins the game by putting things right. |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #100382, posted by Phlamethrower at 21:24, 20/3/2007, in reply to message #100377 |
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I've just realised that the "split point" doesn't have to be in the present day - it could be sometime in the past. What if the Cuban missile crisis resulted in a different outcome, and America got nuked to buggery? Hmm... Nooooo!
Don't do that, go the Gundam route, and just make the branch point unknown.
I could do that, I guess. But I'm of the opinion that if in order to create a cohesive world and storyline, I'll need to have everything planned out.
For a post-apocalyptic storyline, you'll have to have some sense of when the apocalypse was. A couple of days ago? 30 years ago? 100 years ago? 1000 years ago?
This wouldn't be such a hard decision, but you've also got the cyberpunk element to take into account. For me, the draw of cyberpunk is the emrgence of cybertechnology into society. So there'll be people with implants and people without. The implants would, for the most part, provide better performance than the original body parts. This means they're rather advanced, technology-wise. But if you've just had an apocalypse, would there be enough technological knowhow around to bring about a cybernetics revolution? What reasons would people have for replacing natural body parts with man-made equivalents? And of course it's a bit hard to have a cyberpunk dystopia in a load of open fields, so there will also have to be a few large cities dotted around the place. Large cities need a lot of resources to exist (food, building materials, power, etc.) - so there must be some form of industrial backbone to the nation. A backbone that either survived the apocalypse or was rebuilt after it. (Or, if the apocalypse is ongoing, has just been destroyed and could act as the catalyst for the games storyline).
If the apocalypse was a very long time ago, then it's possible that it sent the world into a technological dark age, which it's only just recovered from. But if it's that long ago, the after-effects of the apocalypse (irradiated areas, zombies, etc.) which would make a post-apocalyptic game interesting aren't likely to be present. It might as well be a straight-out cyberpunk game.
Now do you see what the problem is? 
If I proceed without planning everything out, it would probably be OK for a game with a weak storyline. But could be very harmful for a game with a deep/big storyline.
On the other hand, if I do plan everything out, it will throw up some tricky questions, but at the end of it all I'll have a cohesive environment to base the game in, complete with a list of rules dictating what does/doesn't exist. This would result in a much more believable world (good for a survival-style game) and/or a much better storyline (good for a story-driven game).
Why not write the plot such that the player discovers what the different outcome in history was as the game develops?
And then wins the game by putting things right.  |
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VinceH |
Message #100388, posted by VincceH at 22:42, 20/3/2007, in reply to message #100372 |
Lowering the tone since the dawn of time
Posts: 1600
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Speaking as someone who hasn't even downloaded a copy of anything you've done on this game so far, I shall offer my opinion. Doesn't really matter. There isn't really much to download
Fair enough, then.
Just to clarify - this is still the top down view (GTA styleeeee) driving game that ISTR seeing screenshots of a while back? (Probably somewhere in this thread, but I can't be arsed to go back and check).
<dons thinking cap>
Oops, no, not that one - that's my drinking cap.
</>
<dons thinking cap>
Backstory, needs fleshing out:
1500 years ago, an alien race came to Earth. They saw the comparitively primitive human race as easy prey, and set about enslaving mankind, a versatile and able species, though weak and frail compared to other species - so they enhanced his abilities by genetically engineering him to be (a) stronger and (b) able to easily receive 'upgrades' to his 'programming' (USB6000 port in the left ear, or something). At the same time, they did bring many aspects of human civilisation forward - in the same way that, say, we've improved the lives of many farm animals. IYSWIM.
Backfired, there, and man was able to regain control of the planet and kick the aliens off - though by then man's numbers were diminished, and much basic learning and technical ability was gone. Man knew how to survive, and how to build what was needed to survive - basic machinery at best - but beyond that, the human race had been set back.
This gives you an excuse to enhance the player - he can find ways to access 'updates' that the aliens might have provided at some point for humans being sent off to particular places; this might include strength and fighting abilities for instance, for humans being sent to fight. It could even be a cute way to make an excuse for Instahealthtm - the staple diet of every game.
It's also a backstory which allows for a pseudo post-apocalyptic setting - there has been no formal apocalypse, but the reduced numbers and more survival based lifestyle, in small communities, that might be expected in a PA setting is there.
And, because of the enhancements, you also get a slightly cyberpunkish element, I think.
All would need properly fleshing out, of course.
So, the game. At the start, the player is doing his survival bit. When he's done a fair bit of that, he manages to find himself somewhere where he is able to get his first enhancement - which is where the real story kicks in. That enhancement perhaps gives him some knowledge about where some useful wojamacallit-thingumyjig can be found which could be beneficial to <delete as appropriate> himself / his particular group / the whole of mankind </> so he sets about obtaining it.
As he progresses further, he'll find that there are still aliens on Earth, perhaps having taken human form, or working behind the scenes, but ultimately trying to bring mankind down a peg or two so that they can again step in and take over - so his goal gradually changes from obtaining the wojamacallit-thingumyjig to defeating the evil-bastard aliens - or maybe the two goals are connected.
Things the aliens can do, which might set up various levels, might be to coerce people from a rival group/city/whatever into invading this one. Or draw the player into a trap - perhaps a small section of city entirely under their control. Trick him into entering a building, which unleashes hordes of some kind of monster into the city. And so on.
Full of cliches and wholly unoriginal. So perfect game fodder. |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #100393, posted by Phlamethrower at 07:47, 21/3/2007, in reply to message #100388 |
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Full of cliches and wholly unoriginal. So perfect game fodder. No aliens, please |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #100396, posted by Phlamethrower at 09:07, 21/3/2007, in reply to message #100393 |
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How about this for a basis:
* First, the ecosystem collapses. Global warming/deforestation/meteor strike/giant volcano/killer virus/whatever.
* This leaves large areas of the Earth uninhabitable, forcing people to band together in mega cities
* Then, increased political tension (terrorists/racial tension/old rivalries/etc.) leads to the outbreak of nuclear war. A few of the mega cities go under (particularly the capital cities), but the SAM sites at the other cities are successfully able to destroy all incoming missiles.
* Eventually the nukes stop (perhaps they realise they're on the brink of nuclear winter, or that none of the nukes are reaching their targets anymore, or all the missile sites have been destroyed).
* Without any centralised government in charge, the major corporations in the mega cities declare martial law. This allows the corporations to reach the tyrranical megacorp status, as seen in traditional cyberpunk.
* And then (presumably) something acts as a trigger to start the game off. Maybe the few remaining global communications satellites shut down, or the food/power supply for a city is destroyed, etc.
The only thing missing from the above scenario is the introduction of cybertechnology. Unless you have a stable, peaceful society, I doubt that cybertechnology will be developed for lifestyle reasons. This leaves two other possibilities - military and healthcare. Military cybertechnology would allow the development of super-soldiers, who would (presumably) take to the battlefield following the end of the nuclear war (just because the nukes have stopped, it doesn't mean the war has). The other alternative was healthcare reasons - perhaps the implants increase the survivability of the wilderness areas, or reduce the amount of organic food that people require (since there's likely to be little arable land left). Or they are used simply to replace damaged body parts to help keep the Earth's dwindling population in shape.
Of course, there can't be cybertechnology without the resources to develop it, which is where the megacorps come in - with their billions of dollars of capital, they are (a) able to develop the technology, and (b) can use the technology as a bargaining chip to win the favour of the public and come to power. |
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VinceH |
Message #100397, posted by VincceH at 09:12, 21/3/2007, in reply to message #100393 |
Lowering the tone since the dawn of time
Posts: 1600
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Full of cliches and wholly unoriginal. So perfect game fodder. No aliens, please
Okay, aliens didn't stick their oar in. The blame for everything lay with 'the big companies' and crime lords; the companies grew too big and too powerful (shit, is this unoriginal!) for their own good, became more and more mixed up with the increasingly powerful crime lords, and together they tried to social engineer the human race into a situation where there was a massive class divide, with the plebs having fewer and fewer rights (and therefore becoming more and more enslaved to...), and the rich and powerful being above the law.
The divide became too great, though, and it was unsustainable. There were too many proles struggling for their day to day survival needs to make it a sustainable society. Disease ravaged built up areas. Crime and violence became the norm in the poorer areas, and when the more daring (and violent) criminals - street criminals, as opposed to the ones working for the crime lords - began venturing into the richer areas, those richer areas became cordoned off and, in time, more stringent and permanent barriers were put up. (Excuse to block off parts of the map, there).
The people outwith the rich bastard areas are therefore left to fend and survive for themselves, while the affluent seem unreachable and untouchable. Indeed, in time, the affluent are all but forgotten about by the poor, because they have only one thing in mind for each day: to survive until tomorrow.
The player's situation... he's in the poor area, he knows the history, and like everyone else, he's trying to survive.
But he has flashbacks of another life. He's out doing the survival thang one day, and as he finds himself in a particular location he gets a sense of dejavu. Following his instincts, he wanders into some place, perhaps a lab, where someone (dying) recognises him as someone else, and tells him to upgrade, perhaps handing him a data crystal or something. He then has to use a computer to plug into his usb6000tm port (still in his left ear, and which he has no memory of having installed - indeed, isn't sure how he could have had it installed given he's a poor blokey) and upload what's on the crystal into his grey matter.
Thus the game kicks in more or less as before - only this time it's not aliens, but the rich bastards still controlling things in a more subtle way, still trying to social engineer the people to make the world a better place (for them). |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #100400, posted by Phlamethrower at 09:52, 21/3/2007, in reply to message #100397 |
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But he has flashbacks of another life. He's out doing the survival thang one day, and as he finds himself in a particular location he gets a sense of dejavu. Following his instincts, he wanders into some place, perhaps a lab, where someone (dying) recognises him as someone else, and tells him to upgrade, perhaps handing him a data crystal or something. He then has to use a computer to plug into his usb6000tm port (still in his left ear, and which he has no memory of having installed - indeed, isn't sure how he could have had it installed given he's a poor blokey) and upload what's on the crystal into his grey matter. No crappy flashbacks leading to delusions of a destiny to fulfill, please |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #100404, posted by Phlamethrower at 10:15, 21/3/2007, in reply to message #100400 |
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(Continuing my idea...)
I suppose the next thing to introduce would be factions. Before, I've just had the notion of a generic "gang" system, where gang = criminal organisation. This would then rely on respect levels and a respect meter, in the same way as GTA 2. But the problem was that, until now, I didn't really have any ideas for who the "gangs" were, beyond near-identical criminal organisations/megacorps who just happen to hate each other.
So the basis for the new gangs comes from the idea that not everyone would have been interested in cybertechnology. Some of the megacorps may have pushed genetic engineering instead, some may have pushed more orthodox technology, others may have decided that the Earth is screwed and started work on a space programme. There would also be the non-megacorps - the terrorists, mutants, religious fanatics, military, hippies, etc. Maybe a couple of old countries managed to survive the nuclear war intact.
So now instead of a vague sense of different "gangs", I have some templates for very different gangs/factions, each with their own intrinsic political views, which can be used to fuel the conflicts between them.
Also, I'm leaning towards having a pre-game segment (i.e. like the bits at the start of Half-Life 1/2, Doom 3, etc. where you can wander around in safety before all the nasty aliens arrive). This would help to provide a bit more depth to the game, and would be beneficial if I follow the "survival game" route - the player can start off as an average joe in a city, only for something big and disasterous to happen 10-15 minutes in, kicking off the survival game. (side-thought: Hmm, survival game. Battle Royale. Hmm.) This would be a much better start to the game than just dumping the player in the middle of the action and saying "Yeah, something bad has just happened. Sucks to be you." |
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Richard Goodwin |
Message #100405, posted by rich at 10:53, 21/3/2007, in reply to message #100404 |
Dictator for life
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This would be a much better start to the game than just dumping the player in the middle of the action and saying "Yeah, something bad has just happened. Sucks to be you." ^This. Although I like the wording of "Yeah, something bad has just happened. Sucks to be you."
I also like the idea mentioned earlier of some kind of quest that turns out to be not the quest you actually need to be on - you spend a portion of the game working towards some goal, only for the rug to be pulled and it turns out you need to do something else.
________
Cheers,
Rich.
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richard cheng |
Message #100407, posted by richcheng at 12:33, 21/3/2007, in reply to message #100405 |
Posts: 655
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I'm not too bothered, so long as it has cockneys in it.  |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #100408, posted by Phlamethrower at 12:41, 21/3/2007, in reply to message #100407 |
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I'm not too bothered, so long as it has cockneys in it. Well, I guess London could be one of the cities that survived. But only if you do the voice acting for them |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #101165, posted by Phlamethrower at 11:39, 8/4/2007, in reply to message #100408 |
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I had a dream last night! I'm sure you all know what this means
The respect system
Basically, the dream was somewhat inspired by STALKER (as have been a couple of other dreams I've had recently - so perhaps the game wasn't so bad after all). I was the leader of a group of people in the middle of a post-apocalyptic wasteland. There were some strange mutant things out to kill us, and our job was basically to survive. But to cut to the chase - I was only the leader because the people respected me. (Actually, I think there were several people in charge, and we were all following the same agenda. People would listen to whichever one of us was around at the time).
So when I woke up, this obviously got me thinking about the respect system. The more people respect you, the more willing they are to take orders from you, and follow you around. If you've shown the ability to survive in a harsh, post-apocalyptic wasteland, then people will want to follow your lead, so that they themselves don't get killed by the radiation, killer mutants, or roaming bandits. Eventually, if you build up enough followers, the game has the potential to transform from a singleplayer action game to an RTS, where your followers have enough respect for you that they'll build fortifications where you tell them to, and go off to die in battle when you tell them to. This RTS aspect would also go well with the Mad Max-style survival game, because then you'd be free to choose whether you want to live life as a loner or try and help everyone around you defend themselves from the dangers of the new Earth.
But then the implementation issues hit me. I won't have enough RAM to track the respect of everyone vs. everyone else, so I'm going to have to simplify it. In GTA 2, criminal gangs (factions) as a whole could respect you - not individuals in those factions. In GTA:SA, there was only really one faction you could gain respect from, but they introduced the ability for you to form gangs with members of that faction. The more respect they had for you, the larger the gang could be - essentially the same idea that my dream lead me to.
So if each individual had an allegiance to a faction (or to multiple gangs - perhaps using a sliding scale, so you could be 80% police but 20% bandit), and if each faction had a respect for the player (and any other key NPCs?), then the game can work out whether each individual will want to follow your lead. And similarly, whether each individual would want to shoot you, or offer you work.
That would be a good way of handling player respect, but what about NPC respect? There will be gangs of NPCs roaming around - will they have a leader, or will each member operate autonomously? I suppose the simple answer to this would be "Yes, they do have a leader", because that way the same system can be used for player-led gangs as NPC led gangs. But the question is how to represent that leader - does each ped have a 'leader' attribute, that contains the ID of the leader ped for that gang? Or is there a list of gangs stored somewhere, where each gang has a list of its members?
I suppose the best way would be to have a seperate gang list structure, because that way it's easier to count how many members there are in a gang, makes the selection of replacement leaders easier, etc. But it does mean I'll have to add some extra stuff to the load/save system
By expanding the gang system to support things other than pedestrians, it could be a way of saying "This car belongs to this gang", rather than "this car belongs to this faction" or "this car belongs to this individual".
And as usual it looks like a lot of the engine backend stuff comes down to juggling data structures, which makes me wonder whether we have a better language available to write it in than C. |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #101200, posted by Phlamethrower at 23:28, 9/4/2007, in reply to message #101165 |
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The big push
OK, I think this project has gone on long enough. It's time to see if I can end it...
In a month or two, things will hopefully have calmed down at work, so I'll have a normal amount of free time on my hands. Unless I get chucked straight into another busy project, I could be looking at around 8 or 9 months of "easy" time. And my aim is to use that time to get this game finished (or at least a lot closer to finished than it is now). This also (hopefully) means I won't be distracted by any other projects during that time, which (luckily) also means that once it's all over I'll be free to be distracted by other stuff for as long as I want.
There's still a month or two to go until I can start coding in earnest, so I'll be trying to use that time to fill in the missing bits of the design, and to make the annoying decisions about which bits of code to rewrite and which bits to leave as-is
I'll also have to try and settle on a graphical style, since I suspect the time spent inbetween coding will be spent drawing hundreds and hundreds of sprites. Or trying to convince other people to draw them for me |
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John Hoare |
Message #101204, posted by moss at 03:03, 10/4/2007, in reply to message #101200 |
Posts: 9348
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The big push 
Actually, this is exciting
... |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #101360, posted by Phlamethrower at 16:11, 14/4/2007, in reply to message #101204 |
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A potentially useful use of my time, there.
I'm investigating whether it's feasible to design cars in !Draw, then use a simple exporter to convert them to sprites. The assumptions/plus points are that:
a) It's easier to mess around with the overall shape of the car in !Draw than in !Paint
b) Shading is easier in !Draw because I can use graduated fills (OK, !Draw doesn't actually support graduated fills, but I can interpolate two polygons instead)
c) Instead of spending ages trying to draw doors in different rotations, I only need to grab the door object and rotate it
d) !Draw has an undo buffer
The downsides are that:
a) Getting a scale factor that works for exporting and editing is likely to be a bit tricky. The screenshot currently shows a cm grid, when really it needs to be something that scales nicely with 45dpi.
b) !Draw doesn't support graduated fills, so some time will be spent messing around with interpolation
c) The cars may end up lacking some of the finer details, because I'm likely to use plain black lines rather than ones which change colour
d) I probably won't be able to do damage deltas in !Draw, so will still have to resort to !Paint for that
e) Getting the exporter to map colours to the custom palette properly may be a bit tricky. There may also be a bit of manual work required to get it to detect the markers around the cars properly.
f) !Draw doesn't seem to place lines in exactly the right places when images are scaled down; either that or my scale factor is off by some annoyingly small margin.
g) !Draw's undo buffer is too small. I can undo one scale change of the car, but not two!
h) There's no guarantee that it'll be faster (or easier) than making cars just using !Paint
[Edited by Phlamethrower at 17:24, 14/4/2007] |
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Richard Goodwin |
Message #101362, posted by rich at 17:04, 14/4/2007, in reply to message #101360 |
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Sounds a bit like you need ArtWorks
________
Cheers,
Rich.
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #101365, posted by Phlamethrower at 18:14, 14/4/2007, in reply to message #101362 |
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Now redrawn at the proper scale, and coloured.
I've played with the line colours a bit, but it still feels very !Draw 
Also the graduated fills were tricky (as can be seen by the sticky-out bits of glass ). At the moment the doors aren't seperate either, so I'll have to redo those if I want to take this further.
Having said that though, it was very nice being able to draw a big polygon for the wheel hubs, then move the verticies to create the smaller one, then blend the two together. It would save a lot of time that would otherwise be spent in !Paint trying to remember which colours I'm meant to be using. And speaking of colours, I probably need to redo these ones to get them in the right range, and give more definition to the wheel hubs. This would also help hide the black lines at the edge a bit better.
[edit]
Bah, !Draw's rendering is too asymetrical for this to work.
[Edited by Phlamethrower at 19:31, 14/4/2007] |
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Phil Mellor |
Message #101366, posted by monkeyson2 at 20:03, 14/4/2007, in reply to message #101365 |
Please don't let them make me be a monkey butler
Posts: 12380
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That looks more like a bed |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #101367, posted by Phlamethrower at 20:17, 14/4/2007, in reply to message #101366 |
Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot stuff
Posts: 15100
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It was meant to be styled after some of the cars from Akira, but obviously I got it a bit wrong, since I was working from memory at the time |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #101393, posted by Phlamethrower at 20:09, 15/4/2007, in reply to message #101367 |
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Now this looks more like it...
I tried exporting at twice the size, then scaling it down using ChangeFSI. Result: !Draw's asymmetry mostly hidden, and softer, more natural lines. But of course there are downsides to doing this - palettisation will be harder, and the image will have blended with the background a bit at the edges. But by using my own scaling code I'll be able to make it take into account the different palette sections and avoid blending two of them together.
I think it's time I try writing the exporter |
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Michael Drake |
Message #101394, posted by tlsa at 20:45, 15/4/2007, in reply to message #101393 |
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I don't really get that car picture. Is the top the back and the bottom the front? If so, why is the roof made of glass like the windows? Why is it square instead of rectangular? Why is the front window not wider than the side ones? (Usually side windows are close to vertical and the front window is much less vertical.) What is the gray bit? Where's the rear window? (Although the rear window is often not visible from top down.)
I think I prefer the style I used for the Ellie car I made (attached). Although, I think your style could be made to look a lot better than that test image by reshaping the car proportions a bit. I also think your style is much better from the point of view of producing lots of graphics for the game. (Quicker and simpler.)
I think your glass / window colour would look better darker. |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #101395, posted by Phlamethrower at 21:26, 15/4/2007, in reply to message #101394 |
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Is the top the back and the bottom the front? Yes.
If so, why is the roof made of glass like the windows? Because I forgot that the roof of the car I was trying to copy wasn't made of glass
Why is it square instead of rectangular? Why is the front window not wider than the side ones? (Usually side windows are close to vertical and the front window is much less vertical.) Becasue I was just messing around with !Draw, instead of trying to get the proportions right.
What is the gray bit? The engine.
Where's the rear window? There isn't one 
Although, I think your style could be made to look a lot better than that test image by reshaping the car proportions a bit. Yes. Emphasis on "test image"
I also think your style is much better from the point of view of producing lots of graphics for the game. (Quicker and simpler.) Yes
I think your glass / window colour would look better darker. Emphasis on "test", etc |
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Jeffrey Lee |
Message #101398, posted by Phlamethrower at 22:59, 15/4/2007, in reply to message #101395 |
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The converter is kind of working, but needs a good palette as input in order to get good results. Also it's redirecting screen output to a sprite while running in a taskwindow, which isn't exactly an advisable action
I think the next version will have to take a slightly different approach:
* The drawfile will contain all the deltas
* Each delta will be labelled (with a text object!) so that it knows what name to give the sprite
* All the deltas will be stacked ontop of each other. This will allow the deltas to be subtracted properly - without the code having to guess the pixel alignment of the layers or deal with any effects sub-pixel alignment has on Draw.
* It will generate its own palette (although you will have to tell it what colours were used for the two recolour blocks) |
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