Panjoust - A New Simple Platformer

[Masterfurbix]

Hmm... All my hoversigns are looking a bit bouncy. also, the Icicle breaking animation needs like one extra frame to make it look right.

Photoshop doesn't have ANY animated .gif support, so when I animate, I'm working blind. I don't think I'm going to be able to go back and fix it without redrawing each frame. Also the helisigns are about 7 frames each, for a total of more than 80 frames. Keeping them all the same while editing one set would be simply impossible.

I hate animating this nonsense :angry: but I guess it's a good learning experience.

EDIT: ah, also there is a large color switch in the icicle when the rock hits it.

Use this as the static image

 

[MarkoeZ]

Made a video of the raw catapult for Amigo Bandito, but thought i'd share it. SNIP

Youtube Link

Well i said it was raw might have expressed more that that was the case of the entire level. But for a first draft of the signs and ice breaking, i think it's looking pretty good allready. And although some changes are preferred, not everything has to have real world gravity and motion, and some things like animation speed can also be tweaked by the code.

You might want to experiment with other programs for animation. Not sure which ones right now, it's been a while for me.

 

[mcobit]

If you aim at pixel-graphics you might want to look at graphics gale.
http://www.humanbalance.net/gale/us/
One of the best Programs for animation I know.

 

[Masterfurbix]

Eh, I really REALLY don't have the time to learn a whole new program right now lol.

And the sprite based FBF has worked so far, I just need to get together a custom setup for dealing with sprites, IE - disable the stupid 'blur on accept' transformations.

And if you can edit the speed of specific animations, I would slow down the signs a bit.

 

[PokeParadox]

Eh, I really REALLY don't have the time to learn a whole new program right now lol.

And the sprite based FBF has worked so far, I just need to get together a custom setup for dealing with sprites, IE - disable the stupid 'blur on accept' transformations.

And if you can edit the speed of specific animations, I would slow down the signs a bit.

Use layers and alpha to "onionskin" the previous frame. Then you can make a direct visual comparison.

Well I have some good news and some bad news...
The good news is that I have got rotation caching working for those windmills! It does help with performance too. Memory use sits at about 80MBonce all 360 degrees have been processed.

The BAD news is it's only working if I make the windmill spin the other way, and also it breaks any game that uses rotation in PandoraPanic! So I can't currently commit it...
But hopefully soon I can work out the kinks and those Windmills will be one less thing to worry about in terms of things that sap performance in SDL.

 

[Masterfurbix]

The BAD news is it's only working if I make the windmill spin the other way.

That's not a problem, all we have to do is flip the image and it will look like it's turning the right direction.

 

[Dead1nside]

It's looking great. I love the windmills and the catapults.

 

[fusion_power]

Nice Video, good to see, how this project evolves and grows up. ^_^

Maybe, the catapult could have a higher base so the rotation can be more, it looks a little bit to "flat" at the moment but this is nothing dramatic.

Animations in Photoshop are possible, as long as you have a older version where you can switch to "Image Ready". But it is of course not the best solution.
http://www.j-learning.org/present_it/page/creating_animated_gifs_with_image_ready/
http://comers.citadel.edu/tutorials/gifTutorial.htm

Oh, because of the setting of the game, I think propellers onto the hover signs are to modern. Maybe Ballons holding the Signs in Place? or little Birds carrying them? "Magic Wings" maybe... :lol:

 

[Masterfurbix]

Yes, I use CS2 with Imageready onboard, but it handles animation quite poorly in my opinion. When you import to Imageready, it destroys the version in photoshop. even when you switch back to photoshop, it is optimized for imageready and can do silly things with the current palette. As if this wasn't unforgivable enough, it's prone to either apply an action to ALL frames at once or just to one, without any real consistency. I've used it a tad in the past, but it's a pain the ass and far more trouble than it's worth.

 

[fusion_power]

I've tried some gif Animations with the old Macromedia Flash 5 many years ago. Bu I'm sure there are better programms out there than this or Image Ready.

Oh, I've got anohter Idea for Panjoust:
[crazy idea]
How about a Level where you must walk with the Guy from the Birdie because the Enemies have captured the Gryf and you have to find him and free your buddy.
Could be classic Jump'n run and/or contain Puzzle Elements.
[/crazy idea]

 

[PokeParadox]

The BAD news is it's only working if I make the windmill spin the other way.

That's not a problem, all we have to do is flip the image and it will look like it's turning the right direction.

It's also not a problem that the artist should have to fix. The Engine is supposed to hangle angles properly
Incidentally I fixed that problem already.

I have a few more checks I need to look over before commiting to the Penjin repo, but basically I have something that works now.
Some of the niggles remaining are a minor memleak... obviously we can't have that and a weird jumping effect... which doesn't look right.
I also need to try and get it to abort a cache earlier since I'm sure there's a way to improve what I'm doing.

 

[MarkoeZ]

Hi all,

Unfortunately it looks like Dragons_Slayer is not going to have enough time to draw more enemies at this point. And although he might be joining again later, i'd really like to have some more enemies soon. Since the level graphics and objects are coming along nicely, that is the next thing that needs to be added.

Since my own drawing skills are worse than those of the average 6 year old, here is a shout out:

CHARACTER ARTIST WANTED!!!!

I have some rough ideas for enemies in my head, but, like with everything with this project, im open to any suggestions from artists themselves. I'll make it work if it fits in the game. So if any artist would like to be part of this project, please PM or post here with some samples that you made before (or rough schetches of something for panjoust itself ofcourse ; )

Cheers,

MarkoeZ

 

[Masterfurbix]

I'm no Edgar Degas when it comes to character sprites, but I will make my best effort to learn
I won't leave a bro in distress, you can count on me.

What the hell am I getting myself into?

EDIT:

This kinda looks like something dragon_slayer would make, I guess.

 

[mcobit]

See this as an idea, as Im not good at shading and stuff.
But I thought of a kind of boss, that protects a nest or something and is controlled by a person on the ground.
If anybody wants to take the idea and correct the graphics, please do so.

 

[MarkoeZ]

I'm no Edgar Degas when it comes to character sprites, but I will make my best effort to learn
I won't leave a bro in distress, you can count on me.

What the hell am I getting myself into?

EDIT:

This kinda looks like something dragon_slayer would make, I guess.

Well, i don't have a clue who Edgar Degas is (don't tell me here, im googling allready), but that looks much better than anything i can make allready!!

I'll put the new graphics in game tonight for a test and i'll make a small vid to show how it looks.


@ mcobit: Thanks for the sprite, looking just a bit too "coloury" (can't find the right word), but probably with some shading that will be better. If anyone is up for it: be my guest!!

 

[PokeParadox]

Just a small note that the rotation caching feature is now in the repo. So MarkoeZ you should update and see if everything is working ok for you.

 

[Masterfurbix]

Well, i don't have a clue who Edgar Degas is (don't tell me here, im googling allready)

Well, I'll tell you what google doesn't know. Ed is one of my favorite motion artists, he has some of the nicest life drawing I've ever seen. Definitely one of my favorite classical artists.

 

[MarkoeZ]

Just a small note that the rotation caching feature is now in the repo. So MarkoeZ you should update and see if everything is working ok for you.

LMAO!! Not only is rotation working fine, but also my highscore file is suddenly encrypted nicely i used some (read: a lot of ; ) code from PandoraPanic for the highscore loading and saving, and with the last framework update it just works! Was going to try that myself, but now i can just scratch off the TODO list. Thanks!

Amigo: implementing that porq right now

 

[MarkoeZ]

Whoops... mod, delete plz Edit: Ah, might as well use it.

Since almost everything of this project is open: The test video of spikey in Panjoust (low bandwith graphics/music)

Might not be the final graphics, but happily strolling around allready.

 

[PokeParadox]

Just a small note that the rotation caching feature is now in the repo. So MarkoeZ you should update and see if everything is working ok for you.

LMAO!! Not only is rotation working fine, but also my highscore file is suddenly encrypted nicely i used some (read: a lot of ; ) code from PandoraPanic for the highscore loading and saving, and with the last framework update it just works! Was going to try that myself, but now i can just scratch off the TODO list. Thanks!

Amigo: implementing that porq right now

Yeah, some how the encryption class was a bit broken and semi working... I fixed the logic and the limits and bingo. Working again.
And liking how the new enemy looks in the game.

Also the rotation stuff doesn't precache... If you want want the benefit, you should do a dummy render in the init() function

void StatePandJoust::init()
{
    for(int i = 359; i>=0; --i)
   {
      windmill.setRotation(i);
      windmill.render(NULL);
   }
}

This will set all angles and render each to NULL(ie discard the end result) but doing this will cause it to build up the cache.
Currently number of cached rotations expands to full amount, but I want to scale this depending on screen size, image size and platform... if possible.
Enjoy?