Handheld RPG desperately needs an open source replacement + code monkey for hire
- Thread starter el_pango
- Start date
el_pango
Member
I'll just leave this here. 
(yes, I know I didn't quite do enough to hide the pop-in point, and I should be using the shape of the actual frustum to determine what should be drawn, and there aren't shadows under things, but meh, saving some work for later.)
Controls:
EDIT: it's far from perfect code, and I'm sure I'll find some way to slow it down when we start trying to add monsters and such, but as far as not being able to stay right at 50 FPS the whole time, I've been going through various JRPGs on my PS2, trying to figure out how they do what they do, and most of them seem to run at 30 FPS by design, so maybe for a handheld, 30 FPS is acceptable and I can stop worrying about performance so much...
forestdemo.pnd
(yes, I know I didn't quite do enough to hide the pop-in point, and I should be using the shape of the actual frustum to determine what should be drawn, and there aren't shadows under things, but meh, saving some work for later.)
Controls:
- L, R: rotate the camera
- D-Pad: move the look-at point
- A, B: move the camera up and down
- Start: quit application
EDIT: it's far from perfect code, and I'm sure I'll find some way to slow it down when we start trying to add monsters and such, but as far as not being able to stay right at 50 FPS the whole time, I've been going through various JRPGs on my PS2, trying to figure out how they do what they do, and most of them seem to run at 30 FPS by design, so maybe for a handheld, 30 FPS is acceptable and I can stop worrying about performance so much...
forestdemo.pnd
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fusion_power
Advanced Member
Hey, this looks interesting. Nice to see some more 3D stuff on the Pandora. I'm not sure where this could lead but it is a nice Start.
I guess analog nubs would fit much better for gaming controls, I guess this can be changed later. A little bit annoying is the graphics popup in the distance, maybe this can be better covered with the fog somehow (good old N64 style! ) Pandora should be powerful enough even for a much wider distance view, I'm not sure if there are reaons for this close limit of view.
However, the graphics already look nice for such an early state. May I recommend some possible improvements to the visual appearence? The "walls" could be a little bit more angled/sloped to make them more look like hill sides. And you can easily improve the transition between ground and hill sides with covering the bottom base of the hills with more grass. I did this by myself for some Tower Defense Graphics and it looked pretty nice. Of course there should be only grass on the wall texture where also the grass is set on the ground. If the bare dirt ground touches the walls, the wall texture should not have any grass on the bottom, instead a smoth transition of dirt.
This way, the scene can look much smoother without any additional polygons. ^^ Needs more wall textures but it is worth it I'm sure. Or just use always a grass ground near the hill sides so you only need the wall textures with the grass on the bottom.
EDIT: you wrote that you hate the distance fog. I guess the fog looks not that bad, a trick could be to always match the fog with the sky colour. So blue sky leads in more blueish fog colour (of course it tends to be more white near the ground of the horizon). In Dungeons, caves and so on the fog should be dark, in lava or hell or whatever environment it should be more on the redish side and in dense forests or swamps more greenish imho. Picking the right matching colours between sky, horizon and mist can do miracles here.
Nice to see some more 3D stuff on the Pandora. I'm not sure where this could lead but it is a nice Start.I guess analog nubs would fit much better for gaming controls, I guess this can be changed later. A little bit annoying is the graphics popup in the distance, maybe this can be better covered with the fog somehow (good old N64 style!
) Pandora should be powerful enough even for a much wider distance view, I'm not sure if there are reaons for this close limit of view.However, the graphics already look nice for such an early state. May I recommend some possible improvements to the visual appearence? The "walls" could be a little bit more angled/sloped to make them more look like hill sides. And you can easily improve the transition between ground and hill sides with covering the bottom base of the hills with more grass. I did this by myself for some Tower Defense Graphics and it looked pretty nice. Of course there should be only grass on the wall texture where also the grass is set on the ground. If the bare dirt ground touches the walls, the wall texture should not have any grass on the bottom, instead a smoth transition of dirt.
This way, the scene can look much smoother without any additional polygons. ^^ Needs more wall textures but it is worth it I'm sure. Or just use always a grass ground near the hill sides so you only need the wall textures with the grass on the bottom.
EDIT: you wrote that you hate the distance fog. I guess the fog looks not that bad, a trick could be to always match the fog with the sky colour. So blue sky leads in more blueish fog colour (of course it tends to be more white near the ground of the horizon). In Dungeons, caves and so on the fog should be dark, in lava or hell or whatever environment it should be more on the redish side and in dense forests or swamps more greenish imho. Picking the right matching colours between sky, horizon and mist can do miracles here.
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Blue Protoman
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2010
- Messages
- 4,117
I'll look at that later.
Also, I haven't forgotten about eventually doing some writing. Being busy with various school things and not knowing in what format to start is hampering me a bit. But given that I have a four-day weekend (you can thank half of my ancestors for that), I'll see if I can whip up some intro text. Maybe I'll just style it all like a screenplay.
Also, I haven't forgotten about eventually doing some writing. Being busy with various school things and not knowing in what format to start is hampering me a bit. But given that I have a four-day weekend (you can thank half of my ancestors for that), I'll see if I can whip up some intro text. Maybe I'll just style it all like a screenplay.
el_pango
Member
Hi all,
I didn't die or give up yet, but I have been super busy with work.
Here's a list of what I feel needs to be done to reach milestone 1, and I'll come back and cross them off when they've been accomplished:
Graphics
[*]increase land texture to 128x256, allow more variety
[*]make 'standy-uppy' (volumetric?) grass models
Network
Mods, at this point, it might make sense to move this thread to 'development', since it's slowly morphed away from being a brainstorm and into a dev log.
I didn't die or give up yet, but I have been super busy with work.
Here's a list of what I feel needs to be done to reach milestone 1, and I'll come back and cross them off when they've been accomplished:
Graphics
- fade distant objects with alpha, remove distance fog
- blob shadows beneath trees, blob map telling engine where to draw them
- sun point sprite
- replace gradient sky with textured one
sky texture and clouds modulated by sun colour
- 'distant' scenery as part of sky
- stars at night
- sun colour automatically chosen by in-game time of day
[*]increase land texture to 128x256, allow more variety
- check in a .PSD or .XCF that can be used as a template for the land texture in new environments (i.e. snow stages, desert stages)
- slope bottom of wall tiles to make wall/floor edges look more natural
- wall tiles that go down instead of up (to form streambed)
- check in a .PSD or .XCF that can be used as a template to make a texture atlas for these
[*]make 'standy-uppy' (volumetric?) grass models
- two light ones, two dark ones (to be placed in shadows), each has a different number of frames, so that they get out of sync and look more natural
Network
- communicate position, action and movement to remote host
- spawn server locally, make local player connect to it
Mods, at this point, it might make sense to move this thread to 'development', since it's slowly morphed away from being a brainstorm and into a dev log.
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fusion_power
Advanced Member
wow, big list you have there, I wish you good luck and success.
Do you already have a plan how this game will work at the end? More like Zelda or more like Final Fantasy or maybe Diablo/Baldurs Gate style or something completely different?
Do you already have a plan how this game will work at the end? More like Zelda or more like Final Fantasy or maybe Diablo/Baldurs Gate style or something completely different?
el_pango
Member
More like Diablo or PSO, although not much thought has been given to how quests should work...
fusion_power
Advanced Member
I don't need quests at all (especialy not with a gazillion lines of Text). Just throw in a huge bunch of cool Items to find and loot and the Diablo "item hunting addict" is already perfect.
Just throw in a huge bunch of cool Items to find and loot and the Diablo "item hunting addict" is already perfect.
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DarkCheetah
Member
yeah...Diablo was like crack when it was popular! All that collecting to be had.I don't need quests at all (especialy not with a gazillion lines of Text).
fusion_power
Advanced Member
Yes, if you can catch this "just one more enemy, maybe he drops the über-Item" feeling, then you have already half the way done towards to make a good game. B)
I don't need quests at all (especialy not with a gazillion lines of Text).
I think you should make some quests. The player should get some information about the area which will be the next to visit.
Not much text or creativity. More like a verry smal story line which leads through the game. Something like: You seek a big treasure and in every area you visit you'll get some advice where an other treasure is (or other parts of one big treasure).
Verry important are good bossfights. Make dungeons with stronger monsters and some bosses.
Blue Protoman
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2010
- Messages
- 4,117
I can do a story! I'm just super busy! Please, get the engine running and I'll have more to work with. I'd honestly like to see this have a real story.
el_pango
Member
Hi all,
Just so you know, I didn't die in a tragic non-dairy creamer incident or give up on this. I did, however, become absurdly busy with work.
I will be committing version 0.0 (seriously, the code was mashed together in like three hours of real work) of the map editor tonight, along with some docs of how I think the maps need to go.
Just so you know, I didn't die in a tragic non-dairy creamer incident or give up on this. I did, however, become absurdly busy with work.
I will be committing version 0.0 (seriously, the code was mashed together in like three hours of real work) of the map editor tonight, along with some docs of how I think the maps need to go.
