The Clockwork Mansion

Hi again. Part of the reason why I joined the forums at this point was that I'm in the process of creating (most probably) a CRPG (or Computer Role-Playing Game), which I, at the beginning of development, had not the slightest idea what would compass. After reading a post written by Amber at the old forums about how she perceived a game revolving around Furrae would be, however, it hit me... it would've been a blast to see the world of Furrae in interactive 3D :D

As of now, much of the basic functionalities of the world editor is done (which is the most important part to start out with, IMHO), along with tidbits of code for things that perhaps will be used in the final game in one form or another. I will take care of the coding myself, but I'm going to need someone to create content for the game as well - which is where you guys may enter the picture ;)
Initially, this will be marked a non-profit project, but if luck has it, we might as well make some earnings from it (if we can get all copyright-holder's permissions, of course). Basically, it's just for the fun and experience of it.

Is this idea too far-fetched? I, for one, don't think so... the game engine will be made anyways, it's just a matter of what content to let it churn. Then again, it's still the matter of gathering a dev-team - which is why I would like to hear your opinions on this first, as fellow DMFA-readers ;)

I say go for it man, I would definitely go for it since my comp is incompatible for Second Life, would we e able to make our character at the beginning?

Well, I think that (near) total customization of the player character should be in order, but that's probably because I prefer the more open style of RPG's (like the 'Elder Scrolls' games by Bethesda). I haven't gathered too many ideas of how the game will be playing, at all - mostly it's all technical stuff, like how the different parts of the game engine will work together and such. The discussion of in-game features should (hopefully) not be that far up the road, though.

Ah I thought it be like one my favorite games...Out of Order...Grrrreeat game

It would be a nice idea..

Out of Order? Never heard of that one before I made a quick search for it on Wikipedia... guess I'll have to try it sometime, as I'm a sucker for most point-and-click adventure games ;)

Back on topic, though; here (http://www.home.no/t-k-g/game/shots/editor/) (<- clicky) are a few screenshots which portray some of the features currently working (to a degree) in the editor so far. Its stronger points at the moment are the ability to edit something from any distance, so long as it is loaded into the scene (for instance, all of the terrain editing shown in shot #2 was done from the actual viewpoint) - another one I'd say is the tile deformation routine, which forms the terrain tiles, based on the height points at each of its corners, by using bicubic interpolation. [/stunningly_boring_details]

I think I'll get some webspace for this project later today, where I will list everything that has been (or has yet to be) implemented into the engine. A link shall then be provided for the morbidly curious :B

it needs more lens flares..?

Very cool! :mowcookie

Maybe you could get people here to help if you need any.

Quote from: TKG on August 09, 2006, 12:02:49 AM
Hi again. Part of the reason why I joined the forums at this point was that I'm in the process of creating (most probably) a CRPG (or Computer Role-Playing Game), which I, at the beginning of development, had not the slightest idea what would compass. After reading a post written by Amber at the old forums about how she perceived a game revolving around Furrae would be, however, it hit me... it would've been a blast to see the world of Furrae in interactive 3D :D

This is going to sound rather negative, I apologise in advance.  It's something I can get rather passionate about :)

We've had this kind of conversation before, and I must admit that I can't get overly enthusiastic about the idea of a 3D Furrae.  Furrae as presented in DMFA is vibrant, colourful and let's face it, cute.  I've not yet seen a 3D engine which does that.  The closest I've seen is SL, and the models of Dan etc done in that look rather more creepy than endearing, IMHO.  If you've written a cartoon rendering engine that would help slightly, but you'll still lose all the amazing colouring effects that Amber has perfected in the strip.  And the facial expressions..

My personal preference would be a 2D adventure along the lines of Monkey Island, Simon the Sorcerer etc, since DMFA is 2D to begin with.  You'd need to do an immense amount of Amber-style artwork to do one of those, though.

Be that as it may, I'm still curious.  Which platforms is your engine targetting?

QuoteAs of now, much of the basic functionalities of the world editor is done (which is the most important part to start out with, IMHO), along with tidbits of code for things that perhaps will be used in the final game in one form or another. I will take care of the coding myself, but I'm going to need someone to create content for the game as well - which is where you guys may enter the picture ;)
Initially, this will be marked a non-profit project, but if luck has it, we might as well make some earnings from it (if we can get all copyright-holder's permissions, of course). Basically, it's just for the fun and experience of it.

Is this idea too far-fetched? I, for one, don't think so... the game engine will be made anyways, it's just a matter of what content to let it churn. Then again, it's still the matter of gathering a dev-team - which is why I would like to hear your opinions on this first, as fellow DMFA-readers ;)

Perhaps the reason I dislike 3D is because I've never really made the transition.  Far too much math involved.  I've written some pretty decent 2D engines though, and I know how to design Doom levels almost instinctively.  But I've never really been able to get my head around CSG.

Talking of which, is the engine portal-based or BSP or some other technique that's been invented since I realised I'd never be able to write my own engine?  It's Furrae, so you'll need to be able to have two rooms occupying the same space (Mab's cupboard, Abel's mirror trick etc).  Duke3D was able to do that.

Hey - I might be able to help with writing, though, probably textures too.  I've been trying to learn how Furrae works since I heard about it, and I think I have a pretty good grasp of it these days.

I can probably help on the audio side as well.

Good luck, and I'll try to help if I can.

You know, if a 3D Furrae thing fails, I could seriously see some adventure game, starring Dan, with a Simon the Sorcerer -ish feel to it if people got together and worked at it.

I imagine if were 3D, then it'd be with that cel-shaded kind of look, it's a lot more brighter.

I agree with RJ. If the game was mad in "normal" 3D, like Second Life, then it wouldn't look right for a world such as Furrae. As RJ said, it would either need to be cel shaded, or just 2D.

*coughfurraefightinggamecough* >_>

I was thinking cell shaded too, it can give a more cute/cartoon/anime look to things than the usual kinds of pixels and polygons. I'm into the idea though. Maybe for the character customization you could set it up to something like Phantasy Star Online. A different species would have different abilities, or at least a few basic classes. Then have a fur/skin color editor of some kind and different hair styles with some color choice as well.

And for Gareeku's *cough* statement, it's not in Furrae, but Ryanide of DA is making a kind of anthro fighting game. :januscat

I just know I'm likely going to annoy some people with this but ...

In all honesty, unless one is trying to portray a very realistic reality, there are only two kinds of 3D graphics that really work, in my opinion.

There's the stuff that's got high-res textures and high-poly models.  This works for realistic fantasy / medieval era games (such as Everquest II or Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time) and realistic modern / Sci-fi games (Half Life II, Red Orchestra) or there's cel-shaded graphics for cartoon games (I'll get to that in a moment).

I've never really seen graphics that work in between, they've looked utterly ugly.  In fact, I have to keep reminding myself frequently that 3D graphics can be pretty because so much of it is ugly these days.  I remind myself of things like Jet Set Radio and Klonoa, both of which were cel-shaded and really very pretty.

The only problem with cel-shaded graphics though is that they can lack detail.  If you consider most cel-shaded games, they're much ado about simple forms and flat colours, much like raytraced graphics.

I've recently been reminded by a number of games, Trickster Online included, how pretty 2D can be because in that case, it's as pretty as a painted picture and quite frequently, a painted picture is used for the backdrops and that provides a level of mixed vibrancy and detail that can't be found in 3D graphics yet, they're not far enough along.

If we did go with a 3D game of Furrae though without making it look horrible, I'd genuinely suggest going the cel-shaded route because whilst it might look a little basic, there is evidence that it can be pretty and it can fit the nessescary niche that it needs to, it can be as bright and colourful as DMFA.

----

Had to edit my line about realistic graphics, I forgot to add in Half-Life II the first time around and there's no way I can do that, considering it's one of my favourite games (and it's also responsible for one of my favourite comics, too).

A 3d engine that uses cell shaded raphics might  work for furra

(http://www.xiii-thegame.com/ss/PC_mp_021.jpg)

XIII managed to do a pretty good job of it

XIII's graphics weren't bad, but I can't say the same about the rest of the game.

Quote from: BillBuckner on August 09, 2006, 11:56:44 AM
XIII's graphics weren't bad, but I can't say the same about the rest of the game.

NO CLIFFHANGERS PLZ D: KTHX

But moving onto the proposed game...

QuoteOriginally posted by Amber Panyko:
If I had the finances and the godlike control of direction in a sense of gaming despite what anyone else said....


First off, I would avoid having the main character be a cast member of the comic.  It's distracting IMO, and confining.  Part of the fun of gameplay to me is having a character that one can customize and make into "you"...at least to some extent.

It'd more or less start with the option of you being an adventurer, or being a creature.  There'd be a selection of various default species. Canine, Feline, Bear, Avian, Ferret, Mouse, etc etc...along with some colour-options for some customizability.  If you chose creature there would likely be a split in type (Demon, Angel, Cubi) each with some special bonus powers.  Depending on what you choose, you start your story there.

A thing would also be a matter of choice. DO you want to be a good-guy or a bad-guy.
While you wouldn't be a character, you'd be able to interract with canon DMFA characters...and have them join your party depending on things.  If you are playing a good-character, you likely would be able to enlist characters like Dan or Mab. More evil characters could get Regina or Kria.  Then there'd be characters who might not join your team on their own but if another character is in your party would join sides.  A character like Pip will never join a party unless there is Mab, and Mab might likely not join a party unless particular events are in motion or someone like Dan is in team.

Since I claim there would be a dating-esque aspect, I'm of the type who would allow an option for the ability to pursue same-sex pairings...if only through an easily found special code that can make it unlocked in order to protect "ZE CHILDREN".  Though granted if someone tries to woo Wildy with a female character, its going to be a null as one aspect that would be considered is the characters have their own orientations.  And really when I imply dating-esque, there is more to it than just romance since certain characters you would need to build up ally points with.  One would need to gain Jyrras' trust bigtime (either having a teamate Jyrras already is friends with) or doing a lot of dialogues to get enough ally points to have him join party.

I think an issue when I use the term dating-sim is that people will think its a chance to Mary-Sue and hook up with their favorite DMFA character.   Mostly I mean its a way to have to actually earn your allies going to battle with you (and even the possibility of them turning on you)...though who's to say love can't spring anew.

I like being able to get items that when equipped show up on the character and are not just implied there. And I like spell systems.  I like characters with unique skills and particular quirks about them that makes them unique. (Example: If in battle Pip was to fall, Mab would use a revive item automatically. If there were no items, she'd panic, grab Pip and leave the fight)

Plotwise, it would likely end up with some big save-the-world thing. But considering the two sides and the two alignments, it could go a few ways. I'd try to avoid it being a "tour the world of Furrae so I can cram as much reference of familiar places as possible" meaning taking a hop-skip through SAIA isn't a guarantee.

But who knows. This is all mostly things I think would be nifty and what I'd want in a game for DMFA.  Well that and some other things, but I'm tired of typing.

Just out of interest... Did you ask Amber before you posted that? Since I'm guessing it was PM rather than in the forum?

... or did I miss something somewhere? :-)

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on August 09, 2006, 12:23:51 PM
Just out of interest... Did you ask Amber before you posted that? Since I'm guessing it was PM rather than in the forum?

... or did I miss something somewhere? :-)

I read it before llearchyboy, So I guess it isn't a PM but a actually forum post that was quoted.  :mowwink

Ah, well, in that case, it's ok. I'll just go back to lurking... :)

Nothing to see here, move along, move along...

nice idea, but...
Sadly you aren't the first one with a big DMFA game related project, and will not be the last for sure (well unless Amber goes "WOOHOO go crazy no more comics from me *swipe*"  :U ).

You probably heard the following somewhere else too, but that's not mine to know  :3
Many people take the making of a computer game lightly, start to do things in every direction without a real organisation or fixed concept and just "add as you progress" kinda developing. Those games are doomed way before they even start.
Speaking of start, a 3D game engine is all nice and shiny if it's a personnal project, though for a game these days, might more pick up one of the open source engines like quake3 instead of a one man project.
So much for advanced and polished game engine, that's already 5% of the work done.  :)  Because yes, depending on what you want to put in your game, the content will always take most of the time to make. And of course, before you even start to create the content, you have to come up with a development plan, content listing, story, feature list, then find slaves people to make all that content which you have to give them according to their skills, you'll have to coordinate them and do a loooot of other things too. For a well planned, rather basic, free RPG game in 3D, I'd say count 2-3 years at least of devoting yourself to it, given that you found the manpower to actually do something.  :)


that is all, good luck anyway  :mwaha

*Looks at screenshot 2*

Aww man, looks like Llearch already made it into the game. That lucky box.

I can't really comment much on the game idea right now, but at the moment, I wish you luck with it. :mowmeep

*whistles inocently*

I'm also seen here (http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/HowTo:Solve_The_1x1x1_Rubik%27s_Cube) ...

The DMFA verison of lost lake on SL - does have a role playing areas - but nobody ever comes :D but it is there :D considering how much time i spent building the place ><
http://www.furfire.org/misc/SecondLife

I'd for sure try a game (2D or 3D or 2/3rds view) based on Furrae. Go for it. You never get better if you don't try something first, esp. when You can get feedback from game testers.

Quote from: Gareeku on August 09, 2006, 07:34:39 AM
*coughfurraefightinggamecough* >_>

*coughfurraedatingsimgamecough* <_<

Quote from: KarlOmega1 on August 09, 2006, 03:49:24 PM

Quote from: Gareeku on August 09, 2006, 07:34:39 AM
*coughfurraefightinggamecough* >_>

*coughfurraedatingsimgamecough* <_<

:laugh In my life, those are synonymous!  :laugh




.... minus the Furrae part of course.

the Avatar game, from what i've seen of its screenshots, is also a 3D game with  that wacky way of making it look just like the show.... We could pick up a thing or two from that.

Thanks for the interest, all of you - I'll try to respond as best I can ;)

@Tapewolf: Just to clarify, the rendering engine (http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net) is not of my own work - that one should be credited Nikolaus Gebhardt (http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/author.html).  As for the cartoon rendering, Irrlicht can do that with shaders, although I'm not sure if my current video card can cope with it. I will probably buy a new card soon, though (along with some other sorely needed hardware upgrades).

Portal rendering is supported by native Irrlicht I think, although it's more likely that I'll just add something to that effect myself, as I don't use any of the built-in scene nodes that comes with it.

Glad to hear that you'd be willing to lend a hand on this project - you seem to have a lot of experience on these matters.

@All of you who suggested cel-shading: It's indeed possible that the game would look better (at least regarding the characters) by using the cel-shading technique - I guess it's mostly depending on how you implement it, and what settings you use. Absolutely something to consider, at any rate.

@Gornemant: Yeah, game creation can be an immensely time-consuming process, even if done right. However, with sufficient dedication, it may perhaps fare as well as the DMFA radio project, which is still going strong to this day (and hopefully beyond) ;)
I fully agree with the notion that it needs to be coordinated right down to the slightest detail to be successful in the end, but it all boils down to how much energy the individual team-members want to put in it.

@Aridas Soulfire: Maybe I should look into those 'shots for inspiration, then... thanks :)

As long as you put nudity in there somewhere, we'll be all good.

Quote from: Netami on August 09, 2006, 05:17:27 PM
As long as you put nudity in there somewhere, we'll be all good.

Define 'good'... <.<

Quote from: KarlOmega1 on August 09, 2006, 03:49:24 PM

Quote from: Gareeku on August 09, 2006, 07:34:39 AM
*coughfurraefightinggamecough* >_>

*coughfurraedatingsimgamecough* <_<

*coughstopbeingapervitsgettingonpeople'snervescough*

Hehe, Nurse RJ would be able to heal your wounds...

*grins and picks up the giant thermometer*

Nurse RJ and Doctor Ink?  Verily, I shudder to think.

Actually, I had to add soemthing positive to this because the kind of games mentioned wouldn't be too hard.

For example, perhaps not nessescarily a dating sim but a more Japanese adventure game in the ilk of Phoenix Wright might be a blast.  It doesn't require a very complex engine or a lot of art.  Simply make it an investigative game.  Furrae Noir would certainly tickle me pink.

Who wouldn't want to see one of the DMFA cast as a gumshoe?

The fighting option is also easy, all we'd need for that is the following ...

o Background artist.
o Music artist.
o Sprite / pixel artist.
o Designer / balancer.
o Coder / scripter.

I can already think of a few people to fill those roles, if we used one of the established engines such as MUGEN or KOF91 (or perhaps one of the more recent ones that I might not be aware of, suggestions?), then we could simply script the characters.  It's a relatively easy process.

In fact, these particular games would be much easier than creating a 3D World.  I like that idea but it's very ambitious, a lofty goal to be sure and perhaps when it comes to creating games for the DMFA community, we should start small, thinking small and then work our way up the ladder.  With this rationale, we might actually end up with a few games worthy of presenting to Amber.

Anyway, I just had to cite those because when it comes to those genrés, I see indie developers creating those kinds of games all the time.

(Edit: Whoops, couple of horrible typos there.)

I like the idea of making a DMFA based game, but I think you might want to steer clear of furrae specifically.  So far as I know, furrae in general is part of the game Furcadia (http://www.furcadia.com/), and would be copywrite as such.

:deal

It would be awful if your work was stymied by a C&D because of copywrite issues.  DMFA is copywrite too, but I think that Amber would be willing to grant her blessings to any game-making attempt.

The problem with making a game in a genre that everyone else has made a game for is that it's just downright boring. I don't know about you, but I think something remotely original in concept should be made of a project like this. I think someone was already trying to pull together a team for a fighting game (based on a picture that had come up at the time) and that fell apart fast.

I draw stuff for you if you whant. Like clothing ideas, battle items, etc.  Ill try hard.

This fighter pic? http://www.mabsland.com/ArtGroup/Fighter.jpg

Yeah, that was the one, I think. People talked on and on about making it a reality, I think... but nothing went anywhere, I think. I didn't pay attention long x_X

Nah, it was a bust.  Nothing really happend that i know of.

Quote from: BillBuckner on August 09, 2006, 11:56:44 AM
XIII's graphics weren't bad, but I can't say the same about the rest of the game.

Actualy I liked alot of XIII's game play, especialy the improvised weapons, and storyline

But I admit the god damn cliffhanger ticked me right off

I like the Idea of mixing dating game aspects with adventure gameing, and the ability to select creature types and species would be great,  I'sd also add the possibility of a pet to the game

you know like Pip is with Mab  maybe you could find your own drake (or mow or...) in the wild,  you'd have to earn it's trust with food, or toys (a mix of good, evil and nutreal pets with differnt likes as well as differnt speices likes would also be cool)  once you get it's trus you could start training it  to preform certain tasks on command and you could maybe have a little thing so you could customise your pet (clothing, accesories, and as well as enhancments)

Quote from: Gareeku on August 09, 2006, 07:41:27 PM

Quote from: KarlOmega1 on August 09, 2006, 03:49:24 PM

Quote from: Gareeku on August 09, 2006, 07:34:39 AM
*coughfurraefightinggamecough* >_>

*coughfurraedatingsimgamecough* <_<

*coughstopbeingapervitsgettingonpeople'snervescough*

*coughihavenonervesimaslimemonster,justkiddingcough*

I must remember to ask Nurse RJ to blast, uh, treat you all with her muffins. Yeah. :>

Quote from: thegayhare on August 10, 2006, 12:21:16 AM
...you could maybe have a little thing so you could customise your pet (clothing, accesories, and as well as enhancments)

Hmm. Sortof like Mab has a toy for Pip (Dan) ? :-)

When the fighting game was talked about, did it have any direction?  Did anyone lay down any fighting styles for the characters or suggest an engine?  I think that with all the talent we have around here (and we have plenty), it could happen providing we have that direction.  I think we'd just have to twist the arm of one of our fighting game afficianados in order to get that basic draft, that'd be a good start.

I'm talking about viable characters, their stages, intros, endings, moves, combos and style of game.  Also, I'm looking at you, Gareeku.  If not, I could work with a friend of mine who knows nothing about DMFA, I could get him to read the archives and then I could talk with him about fighting game ideas.  I think that'd be the first step though.  Once we have that, it's the biggest step forward.

Admittedly, the hardest part is that this is going to be hell on the sprite animators.  They have to animate walking and jumping for every character, not to mention the moves and the super moves.  They might also have to animate certain set pieces for the background sets.  Do we have anyone nutty and dedicated enough here to do that?

Once that's done ... the easiest step is the backgrounds and the music.  I think that we have some truly talented artists here who could submit pieces for those and we'd just have to slap them into the game.  Finally, one of us (I'd be up for this) would have to learn or relearn the scripting code for a fighting engine of choice and actually put the whole thing together.

Anyway, I'm just thinking out loud.

*Is looked at * o.o

I'd be only too happy to dicuss fighting game ideas with you. I'll post some up when I get back from work later.

I figure that if anyone is apt enough for it, it's you.  I'd try but I admit to having a problem when it comes to silly ideas, often too silly to be balanced, which doesn't make me the best person to actually sort the design out.

I am, however, more than happy to discuss possible moves and abilities for different characters, stuff that would be relevant to them and them alone.

For example; I really want to see Jyrras in one of those drivable walker-mecha.  Much akin to Steve in Dark Cloud II or Waffle's methodus transporti in Tail Concerto.  Somehow, that just seems very right to me.

----

We should probably create a thread in the gaming subforum actually and start discussing ideas there in earnest, rather than hijacking this thread.

I think people kinda went into discussing what moves they'd all have and that might've been it. Like I said, I wasn't paying enough attention to remember so far back.

Quote from: Rowne on August 10, 2006, 03:30:47 AM
I'm talking about viable characters, their stages, intros, endings, moves, combos and style of game.  Also, I'm looking at you, Gareeku.  If not, I could work with a friend of mine who knows nothing about DMFA, I could get him to read the archives and then I could talk with him about fighting game ideas.  I think that'd be the first step though.  Once we have that, it's the biggest step forward.

Admittedly, the hardest part is that this is going to be hell on the sprite animators.  They have to animate walking and jumping for every character, not to mention the moves and the super moves.  They might also have to animate certain set pieces for the background sets.  Do we have anyone nutty and dedicated enough here to do that?

First I'll say that I really wanted a point-and-click adventure.  With fanfic writers like Gareeku we could put together a pretty decent storyline.  Maybe one based on Furrae Chronicles.. but I digress.

When you say 'fighting game' are you thinking in terms of 'One Must Fall' or something like that?  I've never really liked those, so I'm not entirely sure what is required of them, however it should be pretty simple to achieve.
At a guess all you'd really need would be a projector loop, a script system to control it and some kind of hotspot-based collision detection.  If the characters have to be able to move around and jump onto things it gets harder, but for a track-based adventure or something like OMF (as I remember it) the physics are mostly handled by the animation strips.

Am I missing anything?

On copyright: Furrae in general are used all over the place and are not copyrightable.  Particular characters, like Mickey Mouse, Dan, Mab, etc. are very much copyrighted.  Make your own.

Note that Amber does not hold all the copyrights, which is why there are messages like "Somename (C) their player" all over the place.  This means that Amber has asked for and received permission from the copyright holder.  It does not mean that anyone can slap a note like that on their copyright violation to turn everything all right.

if I remember correctly, on the last talk we've had on the subject  we've discarded the idea of a 3d game not only because a 2D game would give a better DMFA feel, but also because we woudn't get half as many artists at our disposal as if we were going to do 2d.

on the other hand, I doubt  that if it was to be a fighting game a 2d game would be an easier idea.
there is a reason why 2d fighting games are aways reusing their sprites while 3d fighting games come up with fresh new visuals for every character every game.

besides, I really don't see DMFA as a traditional fighting game, with special moves, super bar and such. I think the only way to do a DMFA fighting game is along the roots of Super Smash Bros.

Quote from: KarlOmega1 on August 10, 2006, 12:30:22 AM

Quote from: Gareeku on August 09, 2006, 07:41:27 PM

Quote from: KarlOmega1 on August 09, 2006, 03:49:24 PM

Quote from: Gareeku on August 09, 2006, 07:34:39 AM
*coughfurraefightinggamecough* >_>

*coughfurraedatingsimgamecough* <_<

*coughstopbeingapervitsgettingonpeople'snervescough*

*coughihavenonervesimaslimemonster,justkiddingcough*

*coughohcrapguystheressomethingstuckundermyspacebarcough*

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on August 10, 2006, 06:02:02 AM
I think people kinda went into discussing what moves they'd all have and that might've been it. Like I said, I wasn't paying enough attention to remember so far back.

We weren't actually trying to "make it a reality".  The stated goal was to make a fictional walkthrough/movelist... and that flopped.

I'm still working on scripts, though. (Three and counting!)

like I said, I can't remember that far back.

Aridas: I can imagine.  That's why I said we'd need to elect a balancer right off the bat though, someone who can take silly ideas and work them into the game as moves, balancing them with other moves, lessening or strengthening things as nessescary or dismissing things that just won't work.

Without that, it's just a bunch of people shouting game ideas and what we'd end up with is Marvel vs Capcom 2, whilst that was a fun game to play, it was horribly unbalanced in its grandiose silly.

I think that if we had a more structured approach, this could be doable.  It just takes someone who knows fighting games inside and out to write all these ideas up in a way that leaves no fighter really underpowered or overpowered.

Tapewolf: I was actually thinking more along the lines of Guilty Gear, one of the more recent Asian 2D fighters, especially those that graced the Dreamcast.  The Dreamcast was the golden age of fighters, wot with all its Capcom games and the games from all the other companies that put in the effort.  I think I have every Dreamcast fighter in my collection and I still play them every now and then.

One Must Fall wouldn't work in this case I don't think.  It was a good game but it felt a bit too disjointed for what I'm thinking of, the reason for that is that everyone was in giant robots.  I wasn't thinking of putting everyone in giant robots this time.  When I was speaking of Jyrras, I was thinking of just him because he's so short.

For an example of how a mecha can work in a normal fighter, check out the police Dogs in Waku Waku 7.

As for what the fighter game would need, there are already pre-existing engines out there that can easily create the kinds of games we need.  For past-masterish examples, look up MUGEN and KOF91.  There're no doubt better versions of these available now but the awesome thing with both is that one could script their own fighters, their own backgrounds, title screen, intros, everything ... in fact one could build their own unique game from the ground up.

It's kind of like RPG Maker for 2D fighting games, except it's much, much more advanced.

As far as adventure games go, that's not a bad idea.  It's not a bad idea because there are engines for those too, good engines.  Especially the free Sierra-ish engine that's available.  AGS I think?  Anyway, with that engine, a good approach, a primary developer, someone writing up the story, a couple of artists and people suggesting ideas and puzzles, this could also take shape.  All it would really take is direction.

The reason I keep suggesting that we use existing engines instead of creating our own is because creating unique engines is the number one way that a game gets stuck in development hell.  That's what happened with Antilia (a furry MMO), apparently now they've switched to Ogre3D and they're making some progress.  However, by using an engine it's much easier and quicker to put a game together.  Dark Messiah of Might and Magic might've taken years longer had they decided to code their own engine instead of using Source.

Besides, I'm not sure we have the assets and the resources to code our own engine.  ... do we?

When it comes to Free or at least freely usable engines though, I already know of plenty and what I don't know of, I know where to look.

Sorry, I'm just sounding off and trying to be as helpful as I can here.

Stig: I don't think anything's a violation of copyright anyway unless it's being sold provided that a text or a notice is included saying what was created by who, listing which characters belong to which people and all.  It would also go down better if it were provided by Amber so if we did create a game worthy of sharing freely with the public, I'd say that we should give it to Amber and she could decide what to do with it, since she does have the creative rights to Furrae after all, if not all the copyrights.

The only reason I'd be worried is if we tried charging for any game, I don't think that'd go down well at all but I don't see a reason to do this.  I think most of us would be in game development in order to create something new under the DMFA banner, a labour of love then.  I don't think anyone would really be in it for the cash and with the uncertain nature of coyprights, I'm not sure that that would be wise.

The best system for pay anyway would be to setup a donation system that passes money along to Amber.  So folks could grab the game, play it and then donate a bit.  Perhaps we could even use this as a drive to help Dave.

Again, just hammering out thoughts.

Jack: Our sprites wouldn't have to be professional quality, nor would they have to have the animation count of a professional game.  I think that the reason sprites get reused a lot (and this is only in existing franchises) is because they're a known symbol.  Stick Ryu in something and it's likely going to sell no matter what it is.  That's pretty much how Marvel versus Capcom worked and this idea of reusing things over and over is primarily the forte of Capcom, who've made a lot of 2D fighters.

There are a lot of fighters out there and fighter franchises which don't recycle things like Capcom do, unfortunately these examples are less mainstream.  There are however examples of 3D fighting games reusing stuff too, like Tekken I believe, which seems to fall prey to this.  It's more of a matter of using characters that will make a game sell, I don't think it's because sprite animation is all that much more difficult.

Take a look at the sprite that Gareeku uses as his avatar, that level of quality and animation would do just fine and if we included a lot of variation and characters, we wouldn't have to worry too much about quality.  If you take a look at a place like Home of the Underdogs, there are a lot of fighters there.  Some of which have reached critical acclaim amongst fighting fans.  In fact the Japanese freeware scene has been releasing a lot of unique 2D fighters and shmups lately but I digress.

Anyway, if you look at the Underdogs, there are a lot of fighters there that don't have the greatest graphics but what they do have is a lot of variety, well balanced characters and good fighting mechanics.

In fact, if you're going to compare this effort with anything, I'd say that the homebrew fighters found on such sites are probably the best comparisons to make and I'd really suggest taking a look at those to understand basically where I'm coming from.  It's because of those that I'm sure that this can't be too hard.  If Japanese freeware developers can manage one every few months (some of these teams consisting of only one or two people), how hard can it be?

As for the kind of fighting game, I could see DMFA as a purist game but not as something along the lines of Street Fighter.  Again, I could see it being more like Guilty Gear, Waku Waku 7 or some of the more zany 2D fighters rather than Street Fighter, which despite its eccentricities, is very mainstream.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't do a SSMB game, it's just that I imagine that would take even more resources because it would be a 3D game, wouldn't it?  That would require modelling and skinning and that's far more difficult than making the homebrew fighters I'm thinking of.  The forum is big enough for multiple projects, so I could see both projects coming about if they had the support.

Again, all they need is focus and direction.

Bill: *coughgrabakeyboardcleanercough.*

----

Sorry that was so long, folks.  I just had a lot on my mind that I wanted to get out and into a post and I admit that I can be most ramblesome and blathersome when I'm doing so so I hope you can forgive me for that.

Quote from: Caswin on August 10, 2006, 12:52:39 PM
I'm still working on scripts, though. (Three and counting!)

Scripting the comic?

Have a look at the radio play stuff. I wrote up the full scripts for that....

Just to interject quickly again ...

I found a nice site with a couple of engine links (http://www.gamehippo.com/gamedev/tools.shtml), such as AGS and KOF91.

Also, it looks like the KOF91 engine went open source, didn't know that.  That's rather nifty.

Quote from: Rowne on August 10, 2006, 06:01:14 PM
As far as adventure games go, that's not a bad idea.  It's not a bad idea because there are engines for those too, good engines.  Especially the free Sierra-ish engine that's available.  AGS I think?  Anyway, with that engine, a good approach, a primary developer, someone writing up the story, a couple of artists and people suggesting ideas and puzzles, this could also take shape.  All it would really take is direction.

I think we certainly have the writing talent.  I've always had a problem with puzzles, though.  The real killer for this kind of thing is the art (and time).

QuoteBesides, I'm not sure we have the assets and the resources to code our own engine.  ... do we?

Depends on the complexity and the technology.  Don't forget that I have written a few 2D engines myself.  ( http://rotj.it-he.org )
..this is a tile-based adventure game.  Work has slowed to a trickle on that one, and I'm blaming the DMFA Radio Project, but I haven't forgotten it.  Indeed, I've asked a few forumites to do in-game portraits for me.  God, I must update that page, maybe add some of Shadrok's work to the screenshots.  Doesn't look like I'll have sufficient portraits for an August demo though.

One idea I had to quickly get a simple fight engine working would be to strip out the tile processor and most of the game logic, just using it as a projector and script engine.  If it was to be a SCUMM-type game it would probably be better to use AGS or one of the others such engines.

QuoteTake a look at the sprite that Gareeku uses as his avatar, that level of quality and animation would do just fine and if we included a lot of variation and characters, we wouldn't have to worry too much about quality.

I don't know where the original animation came from.  Shadrok did the wolf conversion on it though.

Ah, I didn't know you'd done an engine.  That's neat!

The only point I was trying to make though was that if we were going with a specific type of game (SCUMM or 2D fighter), it means that our assets could be used to build the game itself (to script the moves, puzzles, et cetera) rather than spending time on building the engine.

If however you want to build an engine, then that's awesome.  I just didn't want to suggest that anyone should have to because we have other options should no one wish to.

As for Gareeku's avatar, I actually blame that for this idea, to be honest.  It's a nice example of what we could have in a game.  It's a truly wonderful job on Shadrok's part.  Also, we don't really need to create new animations, what we could do (and others have done this in the past) is hijack characters from other fighting games, meld things together and change them to suit our needs, rather than building from the ground up.

The art is definitely the hardest part though, no doubt about it.  That's the part that worries me because it's going to take a hell of a lot of effort and loads of dedication and I'd feel bad subjecting any artist to that.  If anyone actually wanted to do it though, then that's groovy.

It's just that unlike for the code, we have no other options than to subject an artist to a lot of work to get a project like this done.

The original version of the sprite in my avatar is a Ryu sprite from the game "Namco X Capcom".

As far as coding and stuff goes, I know nothing of it. I would like to be able to help out in some shape or form though.

Also, while I agree with your view that a Furrae fighting game should be something like the Guilty Gear series, I was thinking of almost mixing it up a little bit. For example, take beings. They won't have the strength of a creature, so more than likely they would use a weapon, like in the Samurai Shodown series or, as mentioned, the Guilty Gear series. Above all, the game will need to be balanced. I don't like games which have characters that are distinctly "better", which is one of the only gripes i had with Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (which is a truely WONDERFUL fighting game, by the way).

One more thing: Merlitz/Blaze/any other flame-weilding character = Kyo Kusanagi and Iori Yagami from the King of Fighters series (is you don't know what i'm talking about, google it or something). I've actually noticed that fighting games made by SNK use a lot of "energy attacks" that i would expect magic users in Furrae to use.  Obviously there are some characters that i would not expect characters from Furrae to be like, but the same can be said for Capcom, Sammy etc.

And now I'm just talking rubbish... *sits in the corner*

So many iders

Talking rubbish, Gar?  Pish.  It all sounded pretty good to me, especially the Samurai Showdown call for beings.

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on August 10, 2006, 06:14:58 PM

Quote from: Caswin on August 10, 2006, 12:52:39 PM
I'm still working on scripts, though. (Three and counting!)

Scripting the comic?

Have a look at the radio play stuff. I wrote up the full scripts for that....

Scripting fighting campaigns.  Currently kind of stalled.

QuoteJack: Our sprites wouldn't have to be professional quality, nor would they have to have the animation count of a professional game.  I think that the reason sprites get reused a lot (and this is only in existing franchises) is because they're a known symbol.  Stick Ryu in something and it's likely going to sell no matter what it is.  That's pretty much how Marvel versus Capcom worked and this idea of reusing things over and over is primarily the forte of Capcom, who've made a lot of 2D fighters.

There are a lot of fighters out there and fighter franchises which don't recycle things like Capcom do, unfortunately these examples are less mainstream.  There are however examples of 3D fighting games reusing stuff too, like Tekken I believe, which seems to fall prey to this.  It's more of a matter of using characters that will make a game sell, I don't think it's because sprite animation is all that much more difficult.

Take a look at the sprite that Gareeku uses as his avatar, that level of quality and animation would do just fine and if we included a lot of variation and characters, we wouldn't have to worry too much about quality.  If you take a look at a place like Home of the Underdogs, there are a lot of fighters there.  Some of which have reached critical acclaim amongst fighting fans.  In fact the Japanese freeware scene has been releasing a lot of unique 2D fighters and shmups lately but I digress.

Anyway, if you look at the Underdogs, there are a lot of fighters there that don't have the greatest graphics but what they do have is a lot of variety, well balanced characters and good fighting mechanics.

In fact, if you're going to compare this effort with anything, I'd say that the homebrew fighters found on such sites are probably the best comparisons to make and I'd really suggest taking a look at those to understand basically where I'm coming from.  It's because of those that I'm sure that this can't be too hard.  If Japanese freeware developers can manage one every few months (some of these teams consisting of only one or two people), how hard can it be?

As for the kind of fighting game, I could see DMFA as a purist game but not as something along the lines of Street Fighter.  Again, I could see it being more like Guilty Gear, Waku Waku 7 or some of the more zany 2D fighters rather than Street Fighter, which despite its eccentricities, is very mainstream.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't do a SSMB game, it's just that I imagine that would take even more resources because it would be a 3D game, wouldn't it?  That would require modelling and skinning and that's far more difficult than making the homebrew fighters I'm thinking of.  The forum is big enough for multiple projects, so I could see both projects coming about if they had the support.

Again, all they need is focus and direction.

namco doesn't reuse tekken's models only their designs I haven't seen any 3d fighter series that reuses models between sequels. on the other hand, the street fighter series had only 4 sets os sprites during its whole existance, SF1, SF2,SF3 and SFA, the derivates only using recycled sprites from the previous game.

The concept of 2d being actually easier for making a game is valid for many genres, but not fighting. doing animations for a fighting game that doesn't look like cheap 70's cartoons takes a lot of work, while animating a 3d model requires you only to create the model itself and then just editing angles.

JP's idea is valid, but OMF is a bad example. Killer Instinct, on the other hand is easily one of the most beautiful fighting games ever made. However I don't see how KI-style graphics can fit into DMFA, and I don't think pre-rendered cell-shaded characters will look too good.

Quote from: thegayhare on August 10, 2006, 12:21:16 AM
I like the Idea of mixing dating game aspects with adventure gameing, and the ability to select creature types and species would be great,  I'sd also add the possibility of a pet to the game

you know like Pip is with Mab  maybe you could find your own drake (or mow or...) in the wild,  you'd have to earn it's trust with food, or toys (a mix of good, evil and nutreal pets with differnt likes as well as differnt speices likes would also be cool)  once you get it's trus you could start training it  to preform certain tasks on command and you could maybe have a little thing so you could customise your pet (clothing, accesories, and as well as enhancments)

Hmmm... surely something I would like to see as well :)

Quote from: Rowne on August 10, 2006, 06:01:14 PM
The reason I keep suggesting that we use existing engines instead of creating our own is because creating unique engines is the number one way that a game gets stuck in development hell.  That's what happened with Antilia (a furry MMO), apparently now they've switched to Ogre3D and they're making some progress.  However, by using an engine it's much easier and quicker to put a game together.  Dark Messiah of Might and Magic might've taken years longer had they decided to code their own engine instead of using Source.

Programming a game engine does take time, granted, but for me that's where the fun lies. As long as I can rely on a good graphics and physics engine to drive it, I'm all game ;)
As for (ex-Enygma Arts) RightBrainGames, they seem to have gotten their world builder in order now, at least. Maybe something good will come of it after all.

Quote
Besides, I'm not sure we have the assets and the resources to code our own engine.  ... do we?

Dev-C++, Irrlicht, Newton, OpenAL and RakNet are all tools and libraries I use for this sole purpose. All I need now is time... and a lot of it at that :P

---

Now, I'm not sure how many of you who have posted in this thread are actually interested in working on a project like this. Some of you seem more geared towards fighting games and SCUMM-like games and what not instead, which is why I ask ;)
So, I will question this: If you are indeed interested, what aspect of development are you willing/able to help out with? And how much time would you see yourself spending on it (per week, for instance)? That is all... for now.

I myself have spent a few hours today modelling a concept mesh of Dan's head, to see what the characters could look like in the game.


Now I'm not saying that this couldn't use some more tweaking before it could be considered usable in-game, but it's getting somewhere, isn't it? I hope it serves as a wee bit of inspiration, at least :)

Edit: Bonus points for those who can guess what picture I used for reference, heh...

Shiny. But as people said, it could probably use a less 3D looking, cartoon-style rendering... Not saying what you have there doesn't kick ass though :3

I keep thinking of Super Mario when I try to imagine how Furrae would look in a 3D game... :|

Anyway, I would have helped but I have no 3D programs or skills. All I have is Photoshop... :rolleyes

Quote from: TKG on August 11, 2006, 12:47:01 AM
Now, I'm not sure how many of you who have posted in this thread are actually interested in working on a project like this. Some of you seem more geared towards fighting games and SCUMM-like games and what not instead, which is why I ask ;)
So, I will question this: If you are indeed interested, what aspect of development are you willing/able to help out with? And how much time would you see yourself spending on it (per week, for instance)? That is all... for now.

I don't have time to manage a SCUMM game, and your mesh for Dan is pretty good - but I still think the number of 3D modellers here can be counted on one hand.  Shadrok is good, but I've only ever seen him do aircraft and other inorganic models, IIRC.

Personally, I can't help you much with the engine.  General program logic I could probably help with, but no 3D-related algorithms.  Assuming you program the game in a reasonably sensible manner (fopen instead of CreateFile etc) I can also port it to Linux.  If it doesn't run in Linux, which is where I spend most of my time.

If the world editor is reasonably straightforward I might be able to help you with that, although I've never done much collaborative work before, and I don't know what the operating principle of the Irrlicht environment is.

Beware - this was one of my Doom levels : http://it-he.org/doom.htm#smb
..the Doom community still cannot decide (http://it-he.org/doom.htm#smb2) whether it was good or bad.

I can also help with writing, world consistency etc, to say nothing of audio, and to some extent textures.  But I think it would be much better to make a game set in Furrae and leave most of the DMFA characters alone.  I'm sure some of the forumites would be happy to contribute characters.

Quote
I myself have spent a few hours today modelling a concept mesh of Dan's head, to see what the characters could look like in the game.

Behold the same thing from six slightly different angles. (http://www.home.no/t-k-g/game/shots/misc/) :P

Now I'm not saying that this couldn't use some more tweaking before it could be considered usable in-game, but it's getting somewhere, isn't it? I hope it serves as a wee bit of inspiration, at least :)

That's rather good.  Now lets see you do the feathers :twisted  I wouldn't have done Dan, though - it might be better to stick with invented characters. 

1. 3D could work i suppose, but there is the possibility that not everyone's computers may be able to keep up with the graphics, as the preview shows them to be quite good. Plus all the body motions for moves, moving forward, moving back, jumping ducking etc. need to be done too.

2. Seeing as its a game based on DMFA, it would be pretty stupid not to include any of the cast in it. the cast selected for the game should be the priority characters, and then people's invented characters should come next.

*SO reserves a spot for Gareeku* >_>

Quote from: Gareeku on August 11, 2006, 04:59:55 AM
2. Seeing as its a game based on DMFA, it would be pretty stupid not to include any of the cast in it. the cast selected for the game should be the priority characters, and then people's invented characters should come next.

Well it actually says 'based on Furrae' in the title, which to my mind means 'something set in the DMFA universe'.  In my experience Amber has a tendency to ignore requests for permission, which is the main reason I'm saying it should be further afield that Lost Lake.  Don't forget that most of the characters in the strip are contributed anyway and not actually hers.

We all know that a game only serves to show me fighting Gareeku, so we dont need to spend time talking anymore.

In fact, I already know the outcome of every fight, so we dont even need to make a game!  :3

It's based in the DMFA universe, yes. Therefore, one would presume there would be characters from DMFA. The only characters in the comic which aren't hers are aaryanna, merlitz and Azlan. Dan has been given to Mab by his creator, so him and all the other characters (sans cameos) are all Ambers, and we can ask permission from Azlan quite easily too.

Don't forget that this game is a fan-game. Therefore, its not going to onto the market (i don't think) and so, as long as we get permission, then the issue of copyright should not be a problem.

Personally, if i were a newcomer to the cmoic and i saw there was a Furrae game, i would be pretty disappointed if the cast was just made up of fan created characters.

Netami: Exactly. I'd kick your arse and win easily. :3

I assume that the DMFA cast would be NPCs?

But that wouldn't be as good. I'm pretty sure a lot of DMFA would want the opportunity to play as someone like Dan, Merlitz, Alzan, or even Mab, maybe. Not to be given that opportunity would get people irked, i think.

Quote from: Gareeku on August 11, 2006, 05:35:12 AM
It's based in the DMFA universe, yes. Therefore, one would presume there would be characters from DMFA. The only characters in the comic which aren't hers are aaryanna, merlitz and Azlan. Dan has been given to Mab by his creator, so him and all the other characters (sans cameos) are all Ambers, and we can ask permission from Azlan quite easily too.

There's also Jyrras, but he seems to have been adopted by Amber anyway.  No idea about Lorenda.  Wildy is around anyway.

QuoteDon't forget that this game is a fan-game. Therefore, its not going to onto the market (i don't think) and so, as long as we get permission, then the issue of copyright should not be a problem.

I just like to play it safe :)

QuoteBut that wouldn't be as good. I'm pretty sure a lot of DMFA would want the opportunity to play as someone like Dan, Merlitz, Azlan, or even Mab, maybe. Not to be given that opportunity would get people irked, i think.

Not being able to create your own character would irk a lot of people too.  But then I always was a fan of Warren Spector's games.

Deus Ex was quite cleverly designed so that it would draft in Tracer or Alex for one of the dialogues if Paul was dead, and it would do similar things for Maggie Chow and various other characters, so it's not impossible to do both.
Azlan and Mab should be blacklisted though, they're Fae and nearly all-powerful which would wreck the game  :rolleyes

as far as engine goes, how good the PC will have to be to run it it's up to how flexible and well-written the engine is made. if you take Tremor http://tremor.quakedev.com/ it's an engine that does amazing graphics yet is able to run on something as slow as a PII-300

so I'd say modifying an engine like tremor could be a quick start for a 3d game

Quote from: Jack McSlay on August 11, 2006, 06:28:35 AM
as far as engine goes, how good the PC will have to be to run it it's up to how flexible and well-written the engine is made. if you take Tremor http://tremor.quakedev.com/ it's an engine that does amazing graphics yet is able to run on something as slow as a PII-300

so I'd say modifying an engine like tremor could be a quick start for a 3d game

That looks like an indoor engine to me.  If the game was based entirely within SAIA that might be okay, but I'd prefer to be out in the open a little more, like in Ultima 9 or something.  Unless he's pulled off some kind of miracle, it's still based on CSG and won't be able to support hyperspatial geometry like Mab's cupboard.

I'd like to see what Irrlicht can do myself.

Jazz Jackrabbit 3, which was based off the Unreal engine, had a cool effect where the shop was a pretty small area, but when you stepped in, they did... something to make it so you ended up inside the (bigger) shop... while everything looked normal from either side, since the other characters and things moved around almost as if nothing was wrong. Too bad the game itself had plenty of graphical and technical bugs (being an unfinished, barely begun piece of work), and the lighting was horrendous. But hey, it's worth the mention since it relates to the subject. Even if it doesn't add anything of value >_>

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on August 11, 2006, 08:18:19 AM
Jazz Jackrabbit 3, which was based off the Unreal engine, had a cool effect where the shop was a pretty small area, but when you stepped in, they did... something to make it so you ended up inside the (bigger) shop...

It's done using portal mechanics.  I think Unreal is the only commercial engine since Duke3D and Descent which supports that effect - I wish it was done more often :(
That's exactly what I'd like to see for Mab's cupboard, but I don't know if Irrlicht supports it.  I know for sure that Quake does not which is one of the reasons I dislike it.

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 11, 2006, 04:55:08 AM
Personally, I can't help you much with the engine.  General program logic I could probably help with, but no 3D-related algorithms.  Assuming you program the game in a reasonably sensible manner (fopen instead of CreateFile etc) I can also port it to Linux.  If it doesn't run in Linux, which is where I spend most of my time.

If the world editor is reasonably straightforward I might be able to help you with that, although I've never done much collaborative work before, and I don't know what the operating principle of the Irrlicht environment is.

I might not need so much help with the actual coding, but I could use some guidance as for what works in Linux and what doesn't. Irrlicht's feature page (http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/features.html) states that it is platform independent, but I haven't had the opportunity to test this myself.

Quote
Beware - this was one of my Doom levels : http://it-he.org/doom.htm#smb
..the Doom community still cannot decide (http://it-he.org/doom.htm#smb2) whether it was good or bad.

Hehe, I read about it a while back on that very site. Not having played the WAD myself, all I can say is that it looks... pretty confusing :P

Quote
I can also help with writing, world consistency etc, to say nothing of audio, and to some extent textures.

Some contribution in these fields would help quite a lot, as it would make for a more believeable game-world. Maybe you could have a go at the world builder once it's done as well? I'm doing my best to make it as user-friendly as possible, but if you have ever tried the editor for Morrowind, using it should be a doddle ;)

---

In regards to all the discussion about whether the DMFA cast should be included in the game or not: Perhaps it could work so that you could create your own character in the beginning (with a lot of customization options available), and there are presets for each of the cast characters? In any case, playing as a main character obviously would need somewhat differing gameplay to go with it as well... which could make things a bit complicated. Personally, I like Amber's idea about having them as sidekicks better, as it would make the scripting much easier methinks :)

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 11, 2006, 08:26:41 AM

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on August 11, 2006, 08:18:19 AM
Jazz Jackrabbit 3, which was based off the Unreal engine, had a cool effect where the shop was a pretty small area, but when you stepped in, they did... something to make it so you ended up inside the (bigger) shop...

It's done using portal mechanics.  I think Unreal is the only commercial engine since Duke3D and Descent which supports that effect - I wish it was done more often :(
That's exactly what I'd like to see for Mab's cupboard, but I don't know if Irrlicht supports it.  I know for sure that Quake does not which is one of the reasons I dislike it.

Is this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyTC0rdFWdo) (<- linkage to YouTube video) anywhere close to what you're speaking about? If so, Irrlicht does indeed support it (not natively, but it's possible none-the-less) ;)

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 11, 2006, 05:58:47 AMThere's also Jyrras, but he seems to have been adopted by Amber anyway.  No idea about Lorenda.  Wildy is around anyway.

Lorenda is an original Amber character.  She was originally a feline Amazon in Furcadia, as I recall.

Quote from: TKG on August 11, 2006, 11:05:37 AM

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 11, 2006, 04:55:08 AM
Assuming you program the game in a reasonably sensible manner (fopen instead of CreateFile etc) I can also port it to Linux.  If it doesn't run in Linux, which is where I spend most of my time.

I might not need so much help with the actual coding, but I could use some guidance as for what works in Linux and what doesn't.

It looks like Irrlicht can handle nearly everything you need in a platform independent manner, even file I/O.  I don't see anything for keyboard/mouse input or audio systems, though.  If you use SDL for those, it should almost be a matter of just recompiling it.

Quote

Quote
Beware - this was one of my Doom levels : http://it-he.org/doom.htm#smb
..the Doom community still cannot decide (http://it-he.org/doom.htm#smb2) whether it was good or bad.

Hehe, I read about it a while back on that very site. Not having played the WAD myself, all I can say is that it looks... pretty confusing :P

It was designed to be strikingly different :twisted

Quote
Maybe you could have a go at the world builder once it's done as well? I'm doing my best to make it as user-friendly as possible, but if you have ever tried the editor for Morrowind, using it should be a doddle ;)

I'd love to.  I haven't played Morrowind, though - in fact I haven't played with any 3D worldbuilder since giving up on Quake, more-or-less.

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Personally, I like Amber's idea about having them as sidekicks better, as it would make the scripting much easier methinks :)

Yes.

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Quote from: Tapewolf on August 11, 2006, 08:26:41 AM
["Insides and outsides are different dimensions." -- Tom Baker]
It's done using portal mechanics.  I think Unreal is the only commercial engine since Duke3D and Descent which supports that effect - I wish it was done more often :(
That's exactly what I'd like to see for Mab's cupboard, but I don't know if Irrlicht supports it.  I know for sure that Quake does not which is one of the reasons I dislike it.

Is this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyTC0rdFWdo) (<- linkage to YouTube video) anywhere close to what you're speaking about? If so, Irrlicht does indeed support it (not natively, but it's possible none-the-less) ;)

I've never seen it done in a freestanding object before, or so seamlessly, but that's it, yes.  I never knew they actually finished Prey.
It's usually simpler to have the portal in a doorway or something, but yes.  You can have a hut in the middle of a field, and if you go inside, it has a corridor leading off to the distance.. that sort of thing.
One of the things I always wanted to do was change the portal linkages dynamically and have the player on a train.  They go from one car to another, when they turn around to go back, the door is leading to a third car instead of the first one.

**EDIT**

Here's an add-on for portal effects:
http://www.irrlicht3d.org/pivot/entry.php?id=267

**EDIT EDIT**
Scratch that, it will only work on DirectX.

as far as I know, the only recent engine which supports sectors and portals natively  is Crystal Space. and I'm not sure if it supports overlapping sectors, and even if they do, I highly doubt you could make a level using GTKRadiant or Blender and then export it directly and have it work.

if we're planning to add such kind of geometry I think the safest solution is to actually add portal mechanics half-life/prey style

or, depending on how the game will play we coult have simpler solutions. for example, if it's going go play like Ninja Gaiden / Zelda where we have scene changes/camera transitions while the player exits a room and enters another we can just teleport the player to another area.

and seriously... let's disconsider Unreal... UnrealEd is a true nightmare

Give me DMFA Dating RPG or give me DMFA fighters: MK edition!

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 11, 2006, 11:37:30 AM
**EDIT**

Here's an add-on for portal effects:
http://www.irrlicht3d.org/pivot/entry.php?id=267

**EDIT EDIT**
Scratch that, it will only work on DirectX.

His portals are drawn into the stencil buffer by using funcions that are exclusive to D3D - I would much rather use the render-to-texture function in Irrlicht instead, which would look just as well (and is in addition supported by all graphics drivers available to Irrlicht).

Quote from: Jack McSlay on August 11, 2006, 12:29:57 PM
and seriously... let's disconsider Unreal... UnrealEd is a true nightmare

I couldn't agree more... the engine itself is good and all, but the editor's interface is just terrible in my eyes. If it hasn't had a vast improvement since Unreal I, that is :P

---

Now, I would really like some more feedback on the style used in the concept model of Dan. Just how far is it from what you would want to see in-game (and we're still talking 3D here, FYI ;))? Or alternatively, what part(s) of it would you rather see different?

Keep in mind that I will add a morphing routine at a later development stage, so that the faces can be morphed beyond the recognizable, if one so desires. However, getting them to show all the expressions seen in the comic is probably not feasible though - we could instead use portraits that would pop up whenever there's a conversation going on, just like in many (if not most) Japanese CRPG's... although implementing this idea would require a whole lot more art to be drawn.

On a more positive note, there isn't so much character modelling needed as you may probably think; the base of Dan's head can be used for all other feline characters, just with different settings (think of how The Sims 2 handles this, for instance). The same can be done regarding the rest of their bodies as well, which drastically reduces the amount of modelling required. Creating buildings should also be just a matter of putting prefabricated parts together in the world builder. Simplifying things wherever possible, you might say ;)

And now for the current team status (not binding in any case, mind you):
* Character modeller(s) - TKG, Jack McSlay
* Generic modeller(s) - Aridas Soulfire, Jack McSlay (and Shadrok, perhaps?)
* Texture artist(s) - JP Morris, Jack McSlay
* 2D/sprite artist(s) - JP Morris, Jack McSlay
* World designer(s) - JP Morris, Aridas Soulfire, Tezkat, Jack McSlay
* Sound producer(s) - JP Morris, Aridas Soulfire, Jack McSlay
* Music composer(s) - TKG, Aridas Soulfire, Jack McSlay
* Story/script writer(s) - JP Morris, Gareeku, Jack McSlay, Aldoun, Damien Holtz, Seraline, TGH, James StarRunner
* Voice actor(s) - Tezkat, Gareeku, Jack McSlay, JP Morris, James StarRunner
* Quality assurance (which includes play-testing and the like) - to early yet to even consider

Note that I only listed the content creation aspects of this project, as I regard the game engine and world builder as separate projects. If you have any ideas/objections/thoughts to add, I would appreciate it muchly.

Whew...  I apologize for the long post - feel free to go 'tl;dr' on me as you see fit :P


Edit: Updated the team status list (if I missed something, please tell me and I'll have it fixed ASAP).

I could probably help a miniscule amount with sound and music, I think it would be fun. I'd apply as a generic modeller but I suck at that, I think. Maybe some other things depending on how easy they are..

<.< >.>

world designer sounds easy... And you can never have too many of those...

Quote from: Stig Hemmer on August 10, 2006, 07:25:59 AM
On copyright: Furrae in general are used all over the place and are not copyrightable.  Particular characters, like Mickey Mouse, Dan, Mab, etc. are very much copyrighted.  Make your own.

Note that Amber does not hold all the copyrights, which is why there are messages like "Somename (C) their player" all over the place.  This means that Amber has asked for and received permission from the copyright holder.  It does not mean that anyone can slap a note like that on their copyright violation to turn everything all right.

Just for the record... creating game based in Furrae would not necessarily constitute a derivative work of Amber's or anyone else's intellectual property. You cannot directly copyright characters or settings. Those little "Somename (c) their player" things you see are nods of respect to the creators of the characters, but they don't necessarily have legal significance. Indeed, when the only "published" instance of said characters is in an MMO, they may legally be the property of the game developers, not the players.

IP law is complicated and especially sticky in the post-DMCA world. But it's not likely to be a huge problem for a fan game like this one.

Quote from: TKG on August 11, 2006, 12:47:01 AM
So, I will question this: If you are indeed interested, what aspect of development are you willing/able to help out with? And how much time would you see yourself spending on it (per week, for instance)? That is all... for now.

Hmm... Tezkat could help with...

- Voice acting    :kittycool
- Game mechanics
- Level design/writing/storyboarding

Or just random advice/suggestions. I've put some thought into mechanics for DMFA-based RPGs (not for computer RPGs specifically, but the general design principles should translate). I also got more than my fill of 3D graphics programming when I had to code an OpenGL-based game engine for a course in university.  :mowdizzy I'm not likely to have much time to contribute to the code, but depending on your development schedule, I may be able to help with some of the funner stuff like AI and scripting engines.

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 11, 2006, 04:55:08 AM
I don't have time to manage a SCUMM game, and your mesh for Dan is pretty good - but I still think the number of 3D modellers here can be counted on one hand.  Shadrok is good, but I've only ever seen him do aircraft and other inorganic models, IIRC.

The paucity of 3D artists in our community may not be that big a deal...

With skeleton-based animation, you only have to animate things once and then have everyone else use the same bones for modelling. You can find plenty of animations out there for basic actions like walking, running, sitting, swinging swords, and so on.

Probably the best solution, actually, would be to offload all of that mesh stuff onto the character generation routines. With very few exceptions (animals, dragons, non-biped gryphons, mows...), all the inhabitants of Furrae belong to one of the character races--which are essentially the same humanoid model with slightly different heads, tails, and wings. Very few people would care if the oddball races like Mer and Insectis were removed. Mythos... well... taur support could be tricky, but you could just make a design decision not to include tauric Mythos or Cubi. Cubi wing tentacles could be a bit complicated to animate as well, but wings/tails/tentacles would work as attachments with their own animation systems.

So... if character meshes are largely procedurally generated, the only 3D modelling left for content developers would be worldbuilding--landscape, buildings, furniture, and so on. Tons of people here have demonstrated the ability to do that in Second Life. Things like weapons are also easy to do. Clothing could be tricky depending on how pretty or customizable you wanted it to be, but you could get away with building a few basic clothing templates into the char gen and then offloading the rest to the texture/skinning folks. Armour is virtually nonexistent in Amber's Furrae anyway.

Quote from: TKG on August 11, 2006, 11:05:37 AM
Some contribution in these fields would help quite a lot, as it would make for a more believeable game-world. Maybe you could have a go at the world builder once it's done as well? I'm doing my best to make it as user-friendly as possible, but if you have ever tried the editor for Morrowind, using it should be a doddle ;)

Is that the kind of game you're going for? I never did get around to modding Morrowind, but I have spent time fiddling with the construction set for Oblivion.

Oblivion has such nifty NPC behaviour. I've wasted hours just following people around and eavesdropping on conversations. And you can record your own dialog!

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 11, 2006, 11:37:30 AM
I've never seen it done in a freestanding object before, or so seamlessly, but that's it, yes.  I never knew they actually finished Prey.

Prey shipped a month ago. And just in case you want a game with even more portal abuse (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWzmL05OlYA)...  :mowtongue

Quote from: TKG on August 11, 2006, 07:15:00 PM
Keep in mind that I will add a morphing routine at a later development stage, so that the faces can be morphed beyond the recognizable, if one so desires. However, getting them to show all the expressions seen in the comic is probably not feasible though - we could instead use portraits that would pop up whenever there's a conversation going on, just like in many (if not most) Japanese CRPG's... although implementing this idea would require a whole lot more art to be drawn.

With sufficiently simple and cartoonish models, you could get away with expressing emotions entirely through changing facial textures. Otherwise you'd need actual facial animation (the way Oblivion does it, for instance). The 2D art thing might not be very practical if you let worldbuilders create their own characters.

Quote
On a more positive note, there isn't so much character modelling needed as you may probably think; the base of Dan's head can be used for all other feline characters, just with different settings (think of how The Sims 2 handles this, for instance). The same can be done regarding the rest of their bodies as well, which drastically reduces the amount of modelling required. Creating buildings should also be just a matter of putting prefabricated parts together in the world builder. Simplifying things wherever possible, you might say

Yeah... I sorta mentioned that above. Prefab parts may actually be a bit limiting if there's a very small pool of modellers and level builders from which to draw (or if they're the same people!), though they do open up other interesting options (optimization of the AI's world representation, for instance).

*Signs up for voice acting (if needed), stories, character profiles and bios*

Quote from: TKG on August 11, 2006, 07:15:00 PM
Now, I would really like some more feedback on the style used in the concept model of Dan. Just how far is it from what you would want to see in-game (and we're still talking 3D here, FYI ;))? Or alternatively, what part(s) of it would you rather see different?

the shape of the head looks fine. I just think the eyes aren't too DMFA-stylish

QuoteAnd now for the current team status (not binding in any case, mind you):
* Character modeller(s) - I might take care of this if necessary
* Generic modeller(s) - Shadrok, perhaps? Haven't asked yet :)
* Texture artist(s) - JP Morris
* World designer(s) - JP Morris
* Sound producer(s) - JP Morris
* Music composer(s) - I could maybe throw in something here if needed
* Quality assurance (which includes play-testing and the like) - to early yet to even consider

Note that I only listed the content creation aspects of this project, as I regard the game engine and world builder as separate projects. If you have any ideas/objections/thoughts to add, I would appreciate it muchly.

Whew...  I apologize for the long post - feel free to go 'tl;dr' on me as you see fit :P

I could lend a hand on Texture, World modelling, character modelling, 2d art voice acting, weapon and character design, proggramming, story and maybe a few music - I often make up a buncha VG-like songs in my mind, but I still need to get a grip on a good sequencing software

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on August 11, 2006, 07:21:09 PM
I could probably help a miniscule amount with sound and music, I think it would be fun. I'd apply as a generic modeller but I suck at that, I think. Maybe some other things depending on how easy they are..

<.< >.>

world designer sounds easy... And you can never have too many of those...

That's probably something we could need plenty of, yes :)
I'll just assign you to all of the roles you mentioned for now, though.

Quote from: Tezkat on August 11, 2006, 07:35:12 PM
Hmm... Tezkat could help with...

- Voice acting    :kittycool
- Game mechanics
- Level design/writing/storyboarding

Or just random advice/suggestions. I've put some thought into mechanics for DMFA-based RPGs (not for computer RPGs specifically, but the general design principles should translate). I also got more than my fill of 3D graphics programming when I had to code an OpenGL-based game engine for a course in university.  :mowdizzy I'm not likely to have much time to contribute to the code, but depending on your development schedule, I may be able to help with some of the funner stuff like AI and scripting engines.

Alright, I'll just go ahead and put you on all of the above then, if you don't mind :)
You could always specialize later on, if we get enough people on the project.

Quote

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 11, 2006, 04:55:08 AM
I don't have time to manage a SCUMM game, and your mesh for Dan is pretty good - but I still think the number of 3D modellers here can be counted on one hand.  Shadrok is good, but I've only ever seen him do aircraft and other inorganic models, IIRC.

The paucity of 3D artists in our community may not be that big a deal...

With skeleton-based animation, you only have to animate things once and then have everyone else use the same bones for modelling. You can find plenty of animations out there for basic actions like walking, running, sitting, swinging swords, and so on.

Probably the best solution, actually, would be to offload all of that mesh stuff onto the character generation routines. With very few exceptions (animals, dragons, non-biped gryphons, mows...), all the inhabitants of Furrae belong to one of the character races--which are essentially the same humanoid model with slightly different heads, tails, and wings. Very few people would care if the oddball races like Mer and Insectis were removed. Mythos... well... taur support could be tricky, but you could just make a design decision not to include tauric Mythos or Cubi. Cubi wing tentacles could be a bit complicated to animate as well, but wings/tails/tentacles would work as attachments with their own animation systems.

Traditional animation systems would work well for this game, perhaps, but I still have plans for a target-based, physically driven animation system for my game engine.

On your second paragraph, that's almost exactly what I had in mind as well :)

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Clothing could be tricky depending on how pretty or customizable you wanted it to be, but you could get away with building a few basic clothing templates into the char gen and then offloading the rest to the texture/skinning folks. Armour is virtually nonexistent in Amber's Furrae anyway.

One nice way of doing clothing is to just extract the faces from the general purpose body mesh where the fabric will be covering, and just build on that. Slightly off-topic, perhaps, but I do intend to implement a simple form of cloth simulation for draped cloth and long hair, which could make the clothing more interesting.

Quote

Quote from: TKG on August 11, 2006, 11:05:37 AM
Some contribution in these fields would help quite a lot, as it would make for a more believeable game-world. Maybe you could have a go at the world builder once it's done as well? I'm doing my best to make it as user-friendly as possible, but if you have ever tried the editor for Morrowind, using it should be a doddle ;)

Is that the kind of game you're going for? I never did get around to modding Morrowind, but I have spent time fiddling with the construction set for Oblivion.

Oblivion has such nifty NPC behaviour. I've wasted hours just following people around and eavesdropping on conversations. And you can record your own dialog!

Yes, the game engine will be designed with free-form (or sandbox, if you prefer) games in mind.
I've actually never played Oblivion before, but my brothers used to a while back. I didn't see them using the construction set though, so I have no idea how it works compared to the Morrowind one. And yes, the NPC behaviour could be amusing at times :D

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With sufficiently simple and cartoonish models, you could get away with expressing emotions entirely through changing facial textures. Otherwise you'd need actual facial animation (the way Oblivion does it, for instance). The 2D art thing might not be very practical if you let worldbuilders create their own characters.

Using facial textures might perhaps work out, as long as it looks good from all angles. I could try it out on another instance of the concept mesh to see how well it fares.

Quote from: Gareeku on August 11, 2006, 07:40:08 PM
*Signs up for voice acting (if needed), stories, character profiles and bios*

You got it ;)

Quote from: Jack McSlay on August 11, 2006, 08:16:07 PM

Quote from: TKG on August 11, 2006, 07:15:00 PM
Now, I would really like some more feedback on the style used in the concept model of Dan. Just how far is it from what you would want to see in-game (and we're still talking 3D here, FYI ;))? Or alternatively, what part(s) of it would you rather see different?

the shape of the head looks fine. I just think the eyes aren't too DMFA-stylish

Hmm, well... they were designed from this wallpaper (http://www.missmab.com/Art/Images/DDR_Dan.jpg) (which is the one I used for reference to create the model, by the way), but I probably messed up somewhere :)

Quote
I could lend a hand on Texture, World modelling, character modelling, 2d art voice acting, weapon and character design, proggramming, story and maybe a few music - I often make up a buncha VG-like songs in my mind, but I still need to get a grip on a good sequencing software

Great - we're starting to get together a team already, albeit small still.

As for good sequencing software, I'm not sure what you'd consider good, but Fruity Loops works well enough for me at least *makes ready to dodge incoming rotten tomatoes* :P


Edit: The topic summary thing makes overseeing posts a walk in the park, it seems...

^_^ Seems like you guys are really getting into this! Just make sure you don't spread yourselves too thin on this though.

That's why I've shut up on the topic, they seem to have gone full steam ahead with a particular idea and more power too them because it's actually looking promising and I don't want to divide their attention.

Seriously, to the ladies and gents planning this, good luck and I hope something comes of it.  Oh and as a side-note, that was a very nifty model of Dan's head, it was close to what cel-shading is, the only suggestion I'd have is to shift the colouration from polygonal light-reflection to a more raytraced appearance.

Anyway, nothing more to add but I shall be reading!

While I wont be able to devote any major amount of time to this once school starts up again I'm willing to devote at least some time to helping out here. I'll be able to help out with anything done in writing, from bios to random tid-bits of text or old journal entries I can probably do it.

Quote from: TKG on August 11, 2006, 07:15:00 PM
And now for the current team status (not binding in any case, mind you):
* Character modeller(s) - TKG, Jack McSlay
* Generic modeller(s) - Aridas Soulfire (and Shadrok, perhaps?)
* Texture artist(s) - JP Morris, Jack McSlay
* 2D/sprite artist(s) - JP Morris, Jack McSlay
* World designer(s) - JP Morris, Aridas Soulfire, Tezkat, Jack McSlay
* Sound producer(s) - JP Morris, Aridas Soulfire
* Music composer(s) - TKG, Aridas Soulfire, Jack McSlay
* Story/script writer(s) - JP Morris, Gareeku, Jack McSlay
* Voice actor(s) - Tezkat, Gareeku, Jack McSlay

Okay, a couple of points with that list - the things you've got me down for are things I could do - I can't concentrate on all of them.

Art isn't really my strong point.  Where sprites are concerned I've only really worked on small ones (32x32) which would be okay for in-game icons, inventory symbols and so forth but not much else.
Likewise textures, although I'm a little more confident with those, particularly organic textures such as grass, wood and so forth.

World design is going to depend on the editor and how the world is actually assembled - So far I'm only really happy with toplogy-based systems like Doom, Duke3D and to a lesser extent Crystalspace.

The only things I can really make promises about are writing - editing and internal consistency checks at the very least, and hopefully some actual writing as well, although the Muse can be fussy as I'm sure we all know.

As for sound design, I already have an effects library which I assembled for my own game, some of these have been reused in the Radio Project, so that's not going to be a huge burden.  I can definitely contribute some music as well, maybe original, failing that some of the library stuff I wrote for my game and the Radio Project.  But we're some way off the point where that will be useful.

Add me to the voice actors - that's not going to be a significant problem either.  I don't know where or when we're going to be set, but I have done the voicing for Merlitz and Dark Pegasus in the Radio Project plus a few minor characters.

http://www.jpmorris.force9.co.uk/music/dmfa/zipit.wav.mp3 - Pegasus
http://dmfa.it-he.org/dmfa/merl_266b.wav.mp3 - Merl

This is just some of what Tezkat can do:
http://www.jpmorris.force9.co.uk/music/dmfa/Tezkat_-_Dr._Ink_525-527.mp3 - Ink
http://dmfa.it-he.org/dmfa/dmfa_269.wav.mp3 - Jyrras (also with Jack McSlay as Pyroduck)

One important thing we need to thrash out is where the game is going to be set.  Amber hasn't so far shown us a map of Furrae.  If we just go off and put Lost Lake here, Zinvfth there and so forth, we're going to end up with something almost - but not quite - entirely unlike DMFA.

Again I refer to the notion of setting the game in a part of the world which Amber has not defined - links to SAIA and Lost Lake or Zinfvth could be added magically or by mass-transit (i.e. changing map).  If we set the thing in Ha-Khun or one of our other invented locations we have a lot more freedom to place things.

I'm happy to keep discussing this, although to be honest it's kind of academic until the engine/worldbuilder is running to a point at which we can poke it around and see what it can do.

Quote from: TKG on August 11, 2006, 07:15:00 PM

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 11, 2006, 11:37:30 AM
* Generic modeller(s) - Aridas Soulfire (and Shadrok, perhaps?)

I said I suck at that and probably wouldn't do it, but maybe if there's a description of what these kind of jobs would possibly be, I might actually try.

Quote from: RJ on August 11, 2006, 11:22:26 PM
^_^ Seems like you guys are really getting into this! Just make sure you don't spread yourselves too thin on this though.

We already have some overlapping qualities in our team, so that can hopefully be avoided :)

Quote from: Rowne on August 11, 2006, 11:25:27 PM
Seriously, to the ladies and gents planning this, good luck and I hope something comes of it.  Oh and as a side-note, that was a very nifty model of Dan's head, it was close to what cel-shading is, the only suggestion I'd have is to shift the colouration from polygonal light-reflection to a more raytraced appearance.

Thanks, pulling together a project of this scale isn't going to be neither easy nor quick, but I'll do my best (and I'm sure others will too). As long as it is fun to do (for the most part), and we don't push ourselves too hard, I don't see any real obstacles along the path.
I'm not known to all the different cartoon-rendering shaders that exist, but I'll try a bunch of them and see what looks best. The shots I made of his head are taken directly from the modeller (not inside the game), and the cel-shader is just put together by mixing two falloff-materials together... I'm pretty sure I could make it look better in-game, perhaps not so much with my current video card, though :P

Quote from: Aldoun on August 12, 2006, 05:42:00 AM
While I wont be able to devote any major amount of time to this once school starts up again I'm willing to devote at least some time to helping out here. I'll be able to help out with anything done in writing, from bios to random tid-bits of text or old journal entries I can probably do it.

Every bit of effort helps, so you're more than welcome ;)

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 12, 2006, 06:11:07 AM

Quote from: TKG on August 11, 2006, 07:15:00 PM
And now for the current team status (not binding in any case, mind you):
* Character modeller(s) - TKG, Jack McSlay
* Generic modeller(s) - Aridas Soulfire (and Shadrok, perhaps?)
* Texture artist(s) - JP Morris, Jack McSlay
* 2D/sprite artist(s) - JP Morris, Jack McSlay
* World designer(s) - JP Morris, Aridas Soulfire, Tezkat, Jack McSlay
* Sound producer(s) - JP Morris, Aridas Soulfire
* Music composer(s) - TKG, Aridas Soulfire, Jack McSlay
* Story/script writer(s) - JP Morris, Gareeku, Jack McSlay
* Voice actor(s) - Tezkat, Gareeku, Jack McSlay

Okay, a couple of points with that list - the things you've got me down for are things I could do - I can't concentrate on all of them.

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on August 12, 2006, 06:52:22 AM

Quote from: TKG on August 11, 2006, 07:15:00 PM
* Generic modeller(s) - Aridas Soulfire (and Shadrok, perhaps?)

I said I suck at that and probably wouldn't do it, but maybe if there's a description of what these kind of jobs would possibly be, I might actually try.

Note that this list shows what you are able to do (even in the slightest degree) or have shown some interest in, not necessarily what you're going to end up doing... maybe I should make it a point-based list instead, where you could be assigned points (on a scale of 1-3) for each role according to how much you most likely are going to contribute at the various aspects of development. That way we can have an overview on how to distribute the workload throughout the team. It won't be carved in stone though, so changes can always be made underway.

And Aridas, generic modelling can be anything from modelling a chair or a table, to create weaponry and wands and such... quite a broad field there, but when we get ourselves more organized, I'll try to create a system where various jobs can be up for grabs (if two people wants to do the same thing, there's nothing in the way of using both models in the game, so that shouldn't be a problem).

Quote
Art isn't really my strong point.  Where sprites are concerned I've only really worked on small ones (32x32) which would be okay for in-game icons, inventory symbols and so forth but not much else.

(snip)

Add me to the voice actors - that's not going to be a significant problem either.  I don't know where or when we're going to be set, but I have done the voicing for Merlitz and Dark Pegasus in the Radio Project plus a few minor characters.

I'll keep that in mind, then.

Quote
One important thing we need to thrash out is where the game is going to be set.  Amber hasn't so far shown us a map of Furrae.  If we just go off and put Lost Lake here, Zinvfth there and so forth, we're going to end up with something almost - but not quite - entirely unlike DMFA.

Again I refer to the notion of setting the game in a part of the world which Amber has not defined - links to SAIA and Lost Lake or Zinfvth could be added magically or by mass-transit (i.e. changing map).  If we set the thing in Ha-Khun or one of our other invented locations we have a lot more freedom to place things.

I'm all for the freedom to do things as we like, though I guess I'll leave the exact details of where to go with it for you world-planners to discuss ;)

Quote
I'm happy to keep discussing this, although to be honest it's kind of academic until the engine/worldbuilder is running to a point at which we can poke it around and see what it can do.

In not too long I'm going to put up a feature list of its current functionalities, as well as the ones that are currently in progress or at the planning stage. I was supposed to do this yesterday, but I didn't get around to it. Hopefully it will give some insight into the matter :)

I'd love to provide what little I can, if I'm wanted. :3

as for my role I think i'd actually sign initially for all of them, and then I'd focus on the areas that have a higher demand due to the lack of personal.

but I'd like to have a lock on script/story and voice acting for now

Quote from: Damien Holtz on August 12, 2006, 08:33:17 AM
I'd love to provide what little I can, if I'm wanted. :3

I don't see a reason why not ;)
What position(s) would you like to be put up on?

Quote from: Jack McSlay on August 12, 2006, 09:56:46 AM
as for my role I think i'd actually sign initially for all of them, and then I'd focus on the areas that have a higher demand due to the lack of personal.

but I'd like to have a lock on script/story and voice acting for now

No problem - I'll keep that in mind as I update the list.

---

I recently uploaded the project details onto my website, which explains the current and planned functionalities of both the game engine and the world builder (albeit in a quite technical manner). Most features on that list are actually completed, more or less - the status of the ones that either are still in progress or haven't got off the "drawing board" yet can be seen in the parenthesis behind them.

This is not the complete list of features by a long shot, as many of them still exist only as vague ideas - for example, there is no mention of any AI system, which obviously will be a crucial part of the game logic. These will be added later on as I get to them. Also note that I've not yet settled on exactly how to handle the different files that will be used by the engine either, so I excluded that part as well.

-> Here <- (http://www.home.no/t-k-g/game/project_details.txt) is a link to the actual document (you should probably skip to the bottom part of it for the more interesting stuff ;))

The different element editors makes out the biggest bulk of what's mainly left to code if one were to consider the world builder as fully usable. Granted, if I'm continuing to make steady progress, it should be done in perhaps a couple of weeks or so, give or take a few days. The game engine itself, however, is going to take much longer than that... not that we are in absolute need of a version 1.0 to run some playtesting in it, anyhow :P

and I found this topic just now!?!?

I can't do much to help, just wish y'all the best of luck with this!

Quote from: TKG on August 12, 2006, 07:02:05 PM

Quote from: Damien Holtz on August 12, 2006, 08:33:17 AM
I'd love to provide what little I can, if I'm wanted. :3

I don't see a reason why not ;)
What position(s) would you like to be put up on?

Well, if I'm to be honest, I don't have very much experience with anything concerning this type of thing. I'm told I'm talented at writing, I suppose I could do dialogue/script or something, if it's needed (or help, if anyone's already on that). :U

What type of game is it gonna be? RPG or something? Or have you said that already and I'm just too stupid to see it? :)

Quote from: Damien Holtz on August 13, 2006, 03:23:40 PM

Quote from: TKG on August 12, 2006, 07:02:05 PM

Quote from: Damien Holtz on August 12, 2006, 08:33:17 AM
I'd love to provide what little I can, if I'm wanted. :3

I don't see a reason why not ;)
What position(s) would you like to be put up on?

Well, if I'm to be honest, I don't have very much experience with anything concerning this type of thing. I'm told I'm talented at writing, I suppose I could do dialogue/script or something, if it's needed (or help, if anyone's already on that). :U

What type of game is it gonna be? RPG or something? Or have you said that already and I'm just too stupid to see it? :)

That decision hasn't really been made yet (the genre of the game has hardly been discussed at all), but it will surely be a 3D game in any case, seeing as it is supposed to run in my homebrew game engine (when I eventually get it done). As long as it doesn't end up as a shooter, I'm fine with it, but I would definitely vote for it to be of the sandbox-type of RPGs myself - I just love that freedom to do whatever you please in those kind of games ;)

I'll help with the writing-type stuff too, if you need me. :)

Aight, so can I help with the script things?  :B

Quote from: Damien Holtz on August 14, 2006, 05:27:33 AM
Aight, so can I help with the script things?  :B

We haven't settled on a script language yet, but..  oh, you meant storyboarding. :twisted

As for the game type, I would go for RPG because they are so flexible.  Something like Deus Ex, Arx Fatalis or to some extent Ultima 9 can be played more-or-less freestyle.  If you want to go around solving puzzles, you can.  If you want to kill people or monsters, you can do that too, which should keep Gareeku happy.  In many cases it is possible to solve puzzles by killing people and stealing their keys etc (in U7 this was not intended).  And running away from the guards is such fun!

TKG, one of the things which is concerning me a little is the AI system.  Do you have a library to assist with that?  In particular, the game will need a system to plot a route from one location to another in 3D space.  With 2D games, the A-star algorithm is usually used.  Does Irrlicht provide for this too, or do you know how this is going to work?

It will be necessary both for NPC schedules and for making guards/monsters attack the player..

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 14, 2006, 05:45:46 AMIf you want to kill people or monsters, you can do that too, which should keep Gareeku happy.

Er, excuse me? I can do puzzles, you know. I'm not all "LOL I wanna fight". :redrum

Quote from: Gareeku on August 14, 2006, 05:55:26 AM

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 14, 2006, 05:45:46 AMIf you want to kill people or monsters, you can do that too, which should keep Gareeku happy.

Er, excuse me? I can do puzzles, you know. I'm not all "LOL I wanna fight". :redrum

Fine, you wanted a beat-em-up, so I assumed that's what you wanted most...

Gareeku's a bad liar. Just blow stuff up.

Beat 'em ups are just my favourite genres. It doesn't mean that I can't play any other genre of game.

*Blows Netami up*

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 14, 2006, 05:45:46 AMTKG, one of the things which is concerning me a little is the AI system.  Do you have a library to assist with that?  In particular, the game will need a system to plot a route from one location to another in 3D space.  With 2D games, the A-star algorithm is usually used.  Does Irrlicht provide for this too, or do you know how this is going to work?

It will be necessary both for NPC schedules and for making guards/monsters attack the player..

*cough*waypoints*cough*

Quote from: Jack McSlay on August 14, 2006, 06:08:43 AM

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 14, 2006, 05:45:46 AMIt will be necessary both for NPC schedules and for making guards/monsters attack the player..

*cough*waypoints*cough*

Yes, but you need some kind of routing engine to guide the object between the waypoints.

(Curses.. I don't have a screenshot of JCD blowing things up spectacularly)

**EDIT**
Better late than never:

(http://www.jpmorris.force9.co.uk/stuff/bang.jpg)
J.C. 'Groo' Denton sneaks some bombs into the stealth training course
They never found all the bits of the instructors

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 14, 2006, 05:45:46 AM

Quote from: Damien Holtz on August 14, 2006, 05:27:33 AM
Aight, so can I help with the script things?  :B

We haven't settled on a script language yet, but..  oh, you meant storyboarding. :twisted

That's what it's called then?

Damn you Tapewolf! You win this time!

*cough*

Yes, RPG would work best methinks.

other than that, I got nothing. *shuts up* :U

Quote from: Damien Holtz on August 14, 2006, 06:42:40 AM

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 14, 2006, 05:45:46 AM

Quote from: Damien Holtz on August 14, 2006, 05:27:33 AM
Aight, so can I help with the script things?  :B

We haven't settled on a script language yet, but..  oh, you meant storyboarding. :twisted

That's what it's called then?

Script means two things.  The storyline, and the system used to make the world actually work.  Here's a fragment of control script from my game:


#
# Hurt
#

function guard_hurt

# Safety check
if_not_exists current
        return
endif

# Show the blood
let splatvictim = current
call splat_blood

# Was it the player?
let suspect = current.enemy
let victim = current
call justice_assault
end


..I knew what you meant of course, but I decided it was about time to nip it in the bud before it gets really confusing. :)

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 14, 2006, 06:18:37 AMYes, but you need some kind of routing engine to guide the object between the waypoints.

(Curses.. I don't have a screenshot of JCD blowing things up spectacularly)

dunno, to my see, you can implementing a waypoint engine withour much problems after you have 3 things - find radius function, trace line function and invisible walls.

after that it's just find nearest waypoint->go to nearest waypoint->find next waypoint->go to next waypoint

Quote from: Jack McSlay on August 14, 2006, 07:05:29 AM

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 14, 2006, 06:18:37 AMYes, but you need some kind of routing engine to guide the object between the waypoints.

dunno, to my see, you can implementing a waypoint engine withour much problems after you have 3 things - find radius function, trace line function and invisible walls.

after that it's just find nearest waypoint->go to nearest waypoint->find next waypoint->go to next waypoint

Surely that will only work if there are no obstructions between the waypoints.  If people and other objects are solid, you'll need a way to route around them.
If the player is being persued through the town, they would just need to get a tree or well or house between them and the guards and their pursuers would be totally stuck.  If you used A-star (and I don't know if it can work in 3D-space) they would be able to route their way around the tree as a real guard would.

**EDIT**
Let's just clarify that - the guards won't use waypoints to chase the player, obviously, but the same problem applies to scheduled waypoints.  Other people might get in the way, the player might have left a chest or something in their path.

I know what scripting means, you insolent-- *is brutally savaged by a passing mow*

Anywayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

I'm bored, and so tired of slamming my head into the desk! :< Anything at all I can do?

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 14, 2006, 07:16:22 AM

Quote from: Jack McSlay on August 14, 2006, 07:05:29 AM

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 14, 2006, 06:18:37 AMYes, but you need some kind of routing engine to guide the object between the waypoints.

dunno, to my see, you can implementing a waypoint engine withour much problems after you have 3 things - find radius function, trace line function and invisible walls.

after that it's just find nearest waypoint->go to nearest waypoint->find next waypoint->go to next waypoint

Surely that will only work if there are no obstructions between the waypoints.  If people and other objects are solid, you'll need a way to route around them.
If the player is being persued through the town, they would just need to get a tree or well or house between them and the guards and their pursuers would be totally stuck.  If you used A-star (and I don't know if it can work in 3D-space) they would be able to route their way around the tree as a real guard would.

**EDIT**
Let's just clarify that - the guards won't use waypoints to chase the player, obviously, but the same problem applies to scheduled waypoints.  Other people might get in the way, the player might have left a chest or something in their path.

an static object such as a tree or well should only be a problem if the waypoints are poorly placed, and I don't see a big problem with other entities as long as you tell the guard to keep looking for them. if you use a findradius type of function then it's not too hard for the guard to know when to dodge an object that's in the way

Quote from: TKG on August 11, 2006, 09:29:06 PM

Quote from: Jack McSlay on August 11, 2006, 08:16:07 PM
the shape of the head looks fine. I just think the eyes aren't too DMFA-stylish

Hmm, well... they were designed from this wallpaper (http://www.missmab.com/Art/Images/DDR_Dan.jpg) (which is the one I used for reference to create the model, by the way), but I probably messed up somewhere :)

Well... if you're trying to draw DMFA style eyes, there are two very distinctive features of the way Amber draws them. She rarely draws black pupils; her eyes are mostly pure iris colour (though sometimes with a bit of internal shading that hints at a pupil). Next, rather than adding little dots to represent light reflection, she has a huge patch of white cutting into the iris from the outside--giving it a crescent shape--with a handful of softer highlights on the iris itself. If you include both of those features, your eyes will look very DMFAish regardless of the shape. (I tried to reproduce this effect in my mow suit avatar, which I drew during my "study Amber's style" phase last summer.  :mowcookie)


Incidentally, the hairstyle is wrong as well. You can't really see it in the DDR pic, but the characteristic Dan hair has the left "bang" pulled all the way back under his ear into his ponytail. Also, the reflection highlights on the eyes are pointing in different directions, which looks kinda weird.


Accuracy issues aside, however, it's a nice model.  :mowdan

Quote from: Rowne on August 11, 2006, 11:25:27 PM
Oh and as a side-note, that was a very nifty model of Dan's head, it was close to what cel-shading is, the only suggestion I'd have is to shift the colouration from polygonal light-reflection to a more raytraced appearance.

More raytraced? Hmm... I don't think a photorealistic rendering style would be very appropriate for DMFA characters. Without some very sophisticated fur texturing, that would just end up looking like claymation. I also disagree with the folks that say cel shading is the way to go, mind you. Most realtime cell shaders don't look all that good, are horrible resource hogs, and would probably wind up looking too hard and flat to capture the feel of a comic like DMFA. We're not trying to reproduce a cartoon. We're trying to reproduce "cute" comic strip.

What I think we should go for is a cute 3D style similar similar to some of the more anime-ish console RPGs. I personally thought that the shading on the face turned out quite nicely in the sample image. The material settings on the hair could use some tweaking though--it looks far too plastic. We should probably do a lot of the shading and highlighting for hair in texture to preserve the stylistic feel of Amber's art. We could even go all the way to fully hand textured character shading like in Kingdom Hearts, but we'd need some pretty talented skinners to pull that off.

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 14, 2006, 07:16:22 AM
Surely that will only work if there are no obstructions between the waypoints.  If people and other objects are solid, you'll need a way to route around them.
If the player is being persued through the town, they would just need to get a tree or well or house between them and the guards and their pursuers would be totally stuck.  If you used A-star (and I don't know if it can work in 3D-space) they would be able to route their way around the tree as a real guard would.

A* works fine in 3D so long as you have an appropriate world representation. Most modern RPG and FPS games have the worldbuilders lay a network of pathnodes (waypoints, if you prefer, though that might carry a different connotation depending on your background) on top of their maps for the bots to use. The pathnodes are the network used for the A* search, and they can be quite finely grained webs (sometimes with nodes placed every few meters, though that of course depends on the size and complexity of the map). An interesting consequence of that design strategy, by the way, is that it offloads much of the task of making bots appear smart to the level designers. (There are human factors issues there, too; experienced FPS mapmakers can do that in their sleep, but our other worldbuilders might find it confusing.) There are also ways of autogenerating pathnodes--some better than others.

Quote
**EDIT**
Let's just clarify that - the guards won't use waypoints to chase the player, obviously, but the same problem applies to scheduled waypoints.  Other people might get in the way, the player might have left a chest or something in their path.

I don't see why mobs would need completely new movement strategies for chasing players. You want the AI to know the routes around static obstacles ahead of time anyway. I suppose you could give it access to world geometry for internode routing (navigating dynamic obstacles, taking cover, etc.) or path smoothing, though...

Quote from: Tezkat on August 14, 2006, 10:01:43 AM

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 14, 2006, 07:16:22 AM
Surely that will only work if there are no obstructions between the waypoints.  If people and other objects are solid, you'll need a way to route around them.
If the player is being persued through the town, they would just need to get a tree or well or house between them and the guards and their pursuers would be totally stuck.  If you used A-star (and I don't know if it can work in 3D-space) they would be able to route their way around the tree as a real guard would.

A* works fine in 3D so long as you have an appropriate world representation. Most modern RPG and FPS games have the worldbuilders lay a network of pathnodes (waypoints, if you prefer, though that might carry a different connotation depending on your background) on top of their maps for the bots to use. The pathnodes are the network used for the A* search, and they can be quite finely grained webs (sometimes with nodes placed every few meters, though that of course depends on the size and complexity of the map).

I was playing with that idea in my head when I was doing this kind of thing for IRE.  Yes, I can see that would work quite nicely.  I still say you need A* to deal with dynamic objects and concave traps. 

QuoteI don't see why mobs would need completely new movement strategies for chasing players. You want the AI to know the routes around static obstacles ahead of time anyway. I suppose you could give it access to world geometry for internode routing (navigating dynamic obstacles, taking cover, etc.) or path smoothing, though...

Perhaps I've spent too much time trapping NPCs using crates and stuff in Deus Ex - or even Ultima 7, come to that - I expect them to be able to dodge obstacles I place in their path.

U7 and Exult use A* - it allows the NPCs to work around pretty much any obstacle short of a completely enclosed trap.  I spent ages trying to work out how it was done, until a friend of mine wrote an A* implementation and it solved pretty much all the issues in IRE.

**EDIT**
To clarify, IRE works by taking a snapshot of the area surrounding the NPC, scanning the map and creating a 64x64 grid of all impassable tiles in the area (this is easy since IRE is tilebased) all the routing calculations are performed on this.  It's quite efficient.  I can see you would have to do some kind of dynamic node stuff to make [the proposed 3D engine] support dynamic obstructions though.

Well... almost all games these days use some variant of A* for pathing. Most just have the mobs check for dynamic obstacles to the next node and then look for a new route if blocked (or wait for the obstacle to get out of the way). That's where the level designer bot smarts I mentioned earlier comes into play. You regularly see mobs queued up on staircases where the designers only thought to include one path down, for instance.

It's certainly possible to give mobs some local freedom in negotiating dynamic obstacles (jumping over, squeezing around, blowing up, etc.), but that can get expensive very quickly in messy or crowded environments. I wouldn't recommend going that route without a game engine that was heavily optimized for translating world geometry into AI-friendly representations.

Hm, it might not be raytracing I'm thinking of then.  It's a particular art style that's used for very stylized logos where they have smooth, glassy fades.  It looks a lot like cel-shading but considering how much I've seen of it, it looks like it might be easier to create.

I just can't think what it might be called right now.  It's a very basic form anyway, devoid of a lot of detail, which might just work for this.

If you need any help with quest Ideas(Maybe to get points with her mabs might send you on a porupine huggin quest) , events possible weapons (a great joke weapon might be the mighty spork of Daniel Ti'Fiona), or enemies I'd be happy to help.  I can't actualy do anything technical but I've got lots of Ideas.

Or the loincloth of death? :-)

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on August 14, 2006, 02:44:01 PM
Or the loincloth of death? :-)

Now look what you've made me do.
(http://www.jpmorris.force9.co.uk/stuff/jav23.png)
Here's one I made (12 years) earlier

I wanna know what that Jacket of Blasphemy Beyond the Dreams of Mere Mortals is like. Sounds like fun.  >:3

Quote from: Seraline on August 14, 2006, 03:13:01 PM
I wanna know what that Jacket of Blasphemy Beyond the Dreams of Mere Mortals is like. Sounds like fun.  >:3

Ah.. 'Javelin' was a silly game I made back in college ('college' in the UK is a 2-year intermediate step between school and University).
At its most basic level the plot was thus: you crashed an experimental aircraft on 'Sheep Island' and in order to escape, make a deal with this weird tribe - you have to find these weird diabolical clothes and return them to the leader so that he fixes the aircraft with his magic.
I had a passing interest in Satanism at the time (it was just a phase, nothing serious) so you had to journey into Hell to retrieve some of them.

There were a few in Heaven as well.  Heaven had these really freaky angels (Hell had fluffy bunnies in it, IIRC) and the platforms were made up of clouds.
The clouds were my brother's idea - he said "you can't be good all the time", and so the player would slowly sink through the clouds if they didn't keep jumping back up again.  If they fell through them, they wound up back in Hell and had to escape again (long drops didn't kill the player)

The clothes were actually inspired by and copied from my art teacher at school - he had no dress sense whatsoever and his clothes were grotesquely lurid colours.  I tried to make the clothes in the game as authentic as possible.
I think the jacket was green - if anyone's interested I'll try to compile a screenshot of all the clothes.
This thread was supposed to be about TKG's game though - yeah, I really suck at keeping on-topic.

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 14, 2006, 03:32:19 PM

Quote from: Seraline on August 14, 2006, 03:13:01 PM
I wanna know what that Jacket of Blasphemy Beyond the Dreams of Mere Mortals is like. Sounds like fun.  >:3

I had a passing interest in Satanism at the time (it was just a phase, nothing serious) so you had to journey into Hell to retrieve some of them.

I MUST ask... "Satanism" as in REAL "Satanism" which is the worship of one's self with creating situations of which you gain power by making those around you lose power (like socially between people, especially if you make people afraid of you, it gives you power over them).

... or the other "Satanism" which is taken out of context and has to do with the Christian devil and worshiping the Christian devil? (I say Chrisitian devil because true "Satanism" has no belief in such a thing and is a Chrsitain religion creation --- which I will not get into on this board)

Satanism and Devil Worshiping  are two seperate and distinct belief systems.

not to be nit-picky or anything, just helps me to understand where you are coming from  :3

Quote from: fesworks on August 14, 2006, 03:49:25 PM

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 14, 2006, 03:32:19 PM
I had a passing interest in Satanism at the time (it was just a phase, nothing serious) so you had to journey into Hell to retrieve some of them.

I MUST ask... "Satanism" as in REAL "Satanism"...
... or the other "Satanism" which is taken out of context and has to do with the Christian devil and worshipping the Christian devil

The latter - 'Backing the loser' as it were.  Not that I ever believed in it, but I've always been fascinated by the unconventional.

Here's a picture of the editor, mostly for Seraline's benefit since it was the only shot I could get with all the clothes onscreen.

http://www.jpmorris.force9.co.uk/stuff/jav23ed.png
..as you can see, the devils are coin-operated.

Wrenching the subject back on-topic, the rooms are all interconnected.  This one is actually part of a loop where by going out of the left-hand side of the room and back, you would end up in a different location every time.
This is the kind of thing I've always wanted to do in a 3D game, hence my interest in portal mechanics for TKG's proposed engine.

Well i certainly think a collaborative effort would be truely awesome to develop a game like this.

We're looking for something similar to this, right?

http://www.antisphere.com/Research/Cartoon.php

Quote from: Seraline on August 14, 2006, 04:31:18 AM
I'll help with the writing-type stuff too, if you need me. :)

I'm sure there's going to be a lot of textual matter needed for this game eventually, so that would be most welcome.

Quote from: Damien Holtz on August 14, 2006, 05:27:33 AM
Aight, so can I help with the script things?  :B

Sure thing... same reasoning as above :)

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 14, 2006, 05:45:46 AM
TKG, one of the things which is concerning me a little is the AI system.  Do you have a library to assist with that?  In particular, the game will need a system to plot a route from one location to another in 3D space.  With 2D games, the A-star algorithm is usually used.  Does Irrlicht provide for this too, or do you know how this is going to work?

It will be necessary both for NPC schedules and for making guards/monsters attack the player..

I do not have a library for that, but I have dabbled a bit with AI systems in 3D-cases before, so I have a slight clue as for how to implement it. Morrowind uses the A*-algorithm as far as I know, and it works fairly well (there were a few smaller bugs in there, though). I will probably (read that as definitely) encounter a few problems along the way, in which case I could need some assistance... we shall see :D

Quote from: Tezkat on August 14, 2006, 10:01:43 AM

Quote from: TKG on August 11, 2006, 09:29:06 PM

Quote from: Jack McSlay on August 11, 2006, 08:16:07 PM
the shape of the head looks fine. I just think the eyes aren't too DMFA-stylish

Hmm, well... they were designed from this wallpaper (http://www.missmab.com/Art/Images/DDR_Dan.jpg) (which is the one I used for reference to create the model, by the way), but I probably messed up somewhere :)

Well... if you're trying to draw DMFA style eyes, there are two very distinctive features of the way Amber draws them. (snip)

Incidentally, the hairstyle is wrong as well. You can't really see it in the DDR pic, but the characteristic Dan hair has the left "bang" pulled all the way back under his ear into his ponytail. Also, the reflection highlights on the eyes are pointing in different directions, which looks kinda weird.

Accuracy issues aside, however, it's a nice model.  :mowdan

I will keep that in mind when I start tweaking the mesh to be used in-game. I absolutely need to find an easier way to create hair though, as it was quite a demanding task to piece it together the traditional way - maybe using NURBS could help a bit in that regard.
Oh, and thanks ;)

Quote
What I think we should go for is a cute 3D style similar similar to some of the more anime-ish console RPGs. I personally thought that the shading on the face turned out quite nicely in the sample image. The material settings on the hair could use some tweaking though--it looks far too plastic. We should probably do a lot of the shading and highlighting for hair in texture to preserve the stylistic feel of Amber's art. We could even go all the way to fully hand textured character shading like in Kingdom Hearts, but we'd need some pretty talented skinners to pull that off.

Actually, I was thinking somewhere in those lines myself. Final Fantasy VII uses only coloured surfaces instead of textures (for the most part), but I thought it looked cool back when it came out, and in fact, I still do to this day. Perhaps we could use both techniques together to some extent? The renderings I made earlier actually showcase this, and while it could use some tweaking to make more desirable, it doesn't look hair-tearingly bad IMHO.

Quote from: thegayhare on August 14, 2006, 02:21:49 PM
If you need any help with quest Ideas(Maybe to get points with her mabs might send you on a porupine huggin quest) , events possible weapons (a great joke weapon might be the mighty spork of Daniel Ti'Fiona), or enemies I'd be happy to help.  I can't actualy do anything technical but I've got lots of Ideas.

Sounds pretty fun, TGH - we should have at least some of the humoristic qualities of DMFA in this game, after all :)

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on August 14, 2006, 06:45:21 PM
We're looking for something similar to this, right?

http://www.antisphere.com/Research/Cartoon.php

Somewhat, I guess... although it looks a bit too flat in my opinion. Now, if we were to add some shading to that... ;)

---

On another note, the world builder is coming along nicely. I'm now almost done with the connector tool, which will (as the name implies) connect tiles of the same type together, which can be anything from dirt roads to dense foliage. The editor has still some way to go before it can be used properly, but that shouldn't stop you from starting to work out some ideas as for what features you would like to see in-game, what different locations one will be able to visit and so forth... it will make the actual designing of the game much easier if we know all that stuff beforehand ;)

Hmmm... a concept map of the entire world would be a nice start, but that's probably too much to pull off this early in development - how about some descriptions for the different areas that can be encountered? We could also use some material from the various fan-created sagas, as has already been suggested. What do you all think?

Wow, that's a lot of input so far. I didn't read even close to the whole thing, but I gather that the kind of game hasn't been finalized yet. Something like that would have to be nailed down before many people could get to work on this. True, I'm fond of RPG's, but it seems to best choice for getting most people involved. Mostly, I think we just need the enthusiasm to last. We've have ideas like this fall through before...

Quote from: James StarRunner on August 15, 2006, 10:35:10 PM
Wow, that's a lot of input so far. I didn't read even close to the whole thing, but I gather that the kind of game hasn't been finalized yet. Something like that would have to be nailed down before many people could get to work on this. True, I'm fond of RPG's, but it seems to best choice for getting most people involved. Mostly, I think we just need the enthusiasm to last. We've have ideas like this fall through before...

That's what I think, too. I'm not sure how I could help, even though I'd like to...

Looks promising.  :mowsmile
Well, it already got farther than the other attempts so far. :rolleyes

So, what game-genre?
Something like FF7?

Worldmap..
Hmm, we need: Lost Lake, Abels hometown, the mall, Kingdom of H-Anne<sp?>,Twinks territory, a beach, Jyrras's lab,
some generic woods and grassy plains, uhm.. on  separate planes: SAIA, Fae-Kingdom...

Those are what I can think of from the top of my head right now. :mowwink

Quote from: Tiger_T on August 16, 2006, 02:44:38 PM
So, what game-genre?
Something like FF7?

Barely heard of it.  The engine can be fine-tuned when things are a bit more concrete - right now I'm not sure if we're looking at third-person or first-person.

Quote
Worldmap..
Hmm, we need: Lost Lake, Abels hometown, the mall, Kingdom of H-Anne<sp?>,Twinks territory, a beach, Jyrras's lab,
some generic woods and grassy plains, uhm.. on  separate planes: SAIA, Fae-Kingdom...

I think that's jumping the gun a little.  We don't know where those places are relative to each other and we probably won't until Amber shares a map of the world with us.
Hence I suggested we stick with fan-locations for the main part.
SAIA can generally only be reached magically so we don't need to know where it is to have it in the game, likewise the Fae Kingdom.

Lost Lake we can kind of guess at, the city the guys are in now (what's it called?) is within walking distance, although we'll probably put it in the wrong direction from where Amber thinks it is.  From there on we could have a railway station, airport (http://www.missmab.com/Comics/Vol_263.php) or some other form of mass-transit to connect to other locations.

Concerning fan-locations, I've begun typing up descriptions of at least some of the places that make an appearence in my own saga. I'll possibly include a few ideas of how they can be used.

One thing we can do even early on is to establish some guidelines to how different things might be written up. Things like descriptions of areas, items and characters as well as other things and ideas. A list of fan-locations that people think might be useful, as well as areas people might come up with specificly for this, might be a good thing too. I'm tossing around a mere handful ideas here but I'm wondering what you folks think of them.

Quoteright now I'm not sure if we're looking at third-person or first-person.

I'd definitely go for third person. With chibi characters á la Pokémon!

Hahah, jk... erm...

but IMO a third person game is much more flexible than first person. I don't recall ever playing a first person game that wasn't a shooter or a point-and-click game (Shadowgate, anyone?).

On a completely different note, jackals are cool.

Ever played The Neverhood?

Sure, it mostly wasn't first person, but there were a few parts...

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on August 16, 2006, 05:46:35 PM
Ever played The Neverhood?

Sure, it mostly wasn't first person, but there were a few parts...

QuoteI don't recall ever playing a first person game that wasn't a shooter or a point-and-click game (Shadowgate, anyone?).

:U

Ohh you know what might be cool to put in?
The porcupine ballad I wrote for mabs...

when Mab sends you off on a porcupine quest... Either for you to huggle,  or get her some special porcupine hugging armor for her,  there could be a bard nearby singing the song.

I'll go threw the archive tonight and try and come up with quest hooks, items and enemies...

*giggles*

Ohh How about a quest ferrying messages back between Biggs and Wildy...
Evil chars could get this from Biggs,  Good chars could get it from wildy.

Quote from: Damien Holtz on August 16, 2006, 05:05:15 PM
but IMO a third person game is much more flexible than first person. I don't recall ever playing a first person game that wasn't a shooter or a point-and-click game

Does that mean you never played Deus Ex, System Shock or Ultima Underworld?   D:

Quote from: Tiger_T on August 16, 2006, 02:44:38 PM
Well, it already got farther than the other attempts so far. :rolleyes

If you don't count my RPG based on forum members, which kinda got cut short with a lack of all that talking to the people who were going to be/I wanted to be characters in. I had a good part of the map figured out, and the more important elements of the plot were sorted out, but those sorta got irrelevant over time... Like Janus trying to take over the world with shonen-ai. Had I gotten some help though, I probably could've had it finished JUST before that sort of thing went out of style on the forum...

Er... Anyway... We shouldn't go to gaga with all these supposed quests and characters and locations until we're sure we've got something going. It could make the whole thing fall apart if we don't sort out the important things first.. I mean, we're still stuck on the "what exactly is this going to be" stage, so I think once we've got SOMETHING we can work with, we should see what's possible with it, and what's best to use with what tools we have at hand...

Quote from: James StarRunner on August 15, 2006, 10:35:10 PM
Wow, that's a lot of input so far. I didn't read even close to the whole thing, but I gather that the kind of game hasn't been finalized yet. Something like that would have to be nailed down before many people could get to work on this. True, I'm fond of RPG's, but it seems to best choice for getting most people involved. Mostly, I think we just need the enthusiasm to last. We've have ideas like this fall through before...

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on August 16, 2006, 08:20:51 PM
We shouldn't go to gaga with all these supposed quests and characters and locations until we're sure we've got something going. It could make the whole thing fall apart if we don't sort out the important things first.. I mean, we're still stuck on the "what exactly is this going to be" stage, so I think once we've got SOMETHING we can work with, we should see what's possible with it, and what's best to use with what tools we have at hand...

Which reminds me... I think we'll have to structurize our team furthermore to make such decisions easier. It doesn't help a whole lot if seven people comes up with twelve different game ideas, after all.
This essentially means that we must have a project lead (of about 2-4 people), as well as one person in charge of each of the different departments (artists, writers and the like). The project lead should consist of people who can take responsibility for the progression of the project at a whole - as in, they have the final say on what goes into the project and what goes right out the window.
Note that just because they've got the final say on things doesn't mean that other team-members suddenly can't discuss them on an equal level, though ;)

The task of maintaining the enthusiasm throughout the team may perhaps be in the hands of the project lead when bottlenecks emerge - hopefully our love for Furrae and its inhabitants can help us in this regard :)

*tumultuous applause, etc.* Well said TKG. Well said. :U

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 16, 2006, 07:03:18 PMDoes that mean you never played Deus Ex, System Shock or Ultima Underworld?   D:

QuoteI don't recall ever playing a first person game that wasn't a shooter or a point-and-click game.

Jeez. How many times am I gonna have to quote myself? =P

Edit: Whoops! Double post! Sooorrryyyy D:

I don't think it's possible for them to NOT be that way, or you wouldn't be doing anything.

Some progress status on the world builder: The connector tool is done, along with a few of the various editing tools. Also created a pretty nice (but yet incomplete) satellite system for moving various celestial bodies around, which of course alters the scene lighting dramatically. The editor itself is becoming increasingly easier to use for every day that passes, which is indeed a good sign, although it's still kind of clunky :)

I really should get around to set up some sort of project page, and perhaps even a forum if I manage to, so that everything regarding the game can be discussed there instead. Some day... :P

as for the story of the game and such. I've said in the previous topic about it and I'll say again...

I'd really prefer not to make a DMFA game, but a Furrae game. If we make the game based on characters from the DMFA storyline, we would likely either get stuck trying to stay true to the comic's storyline - which tends to curse a lot of games based on third party franchises - or we could end up making a game that would be in total disagreement with the comic itself. To the point nobody apparently shown any story ideas so far.
Meanwhile I have previously thought up a story that would be interesting enough yet not focused on the DMFA storyline itself.

It would pass several years before DMFA itself, many years before Edward Ti'Fiona would be born. Then it would show up Dark Pegasus joining the Dark God to gain power. And then the main character would be an ancestor of Dan (the name Malcolm Ti'Fiona keeps floating on my head) which would get a party of heroes and then fight DP and the Dark God (the name Tardis for the Dark God keeps floating on my head as well)

That's way too cliche.

If we're going to turn down story ideas right from the basic concept of the story, we're better just to give up doing it, because I haven't see any RPGs that aren't about

- there is a war going on or
- someone wants revenge or
- an evil god is awakening or
- someone wants the glory of becoming a great warrior

like, compare the story of Chrono Trigger and Skies of Arcadia, both are on the "an evil god is awakening" model but Chrono Trigger is far from clichéd, while Skies of Arcadia is the materialization of clichés

Quote from: Jack McSlay on August 19, 2006, 07:00:39 AM
If we're going to turn down story ideas right from the basic concept of the story, we're better just to give up doing it, because I haven't see any RPGs that aren't about

- there is a war going on or
- someone wants revenge or
- an evil god is awakening or
- someone wants the glory of becoming a great warrior

like, compare the story of Chrono Trigger and Skies of Arcadia, both are on the "an evil god is awakening" model but Chrono Trigger is far from clichéd, while Skies of Arcadia is the materialization of clichés

Well, I'm perfectly happy with the 'Evil God awakening' theme.  Look, we're in Furrae, right?  Besides the Dark God, there are Fae and Triwing 'cubi, both of which are powerful enough to be considered minor deities.  And that's ignoring people who worship some of the more power tentacle Mythos like the SAIA Librarian.

So, rather than just saying 'No' let's try to fix it.  My personal inclination would be to put it slightly in the future relative to DMFA.  Dark Pegasus I like, although admittedly I'm a little biased there.  I do not see why someone would not negate the curse preventing his return - the Dark God after all has other agents than just Pegasus (unless he's an idiot who doesn't deserve the chance to return).

So why doesn't Dan come back to sort him out?  Because he's frantically studying for an end-of-decade exam at SAIA and so it falls to someone else, i.e. you.

Be that as it may, I'm of the inclination that the player's first mission should be something akin to buying some soup from the local store.  The plot itself should be gradually introduced.

Any comments?

Quote from: Tapewolf on August 19, 2006, 07:18:23 AM
Be that as it may, I'm of the inclination that the player's first mission should be something akin to buying some soup from the local store.

But the store is out of soup and you have to go to Mt. Ominous Plothook to get it? (http://www.dragon-tails.com/archive.php?date=2006-01-22)

I just think we should go about the plot while AVOIDING all the cliches while still delivering the plot. It's possible. And hell, maybe try tossing in some DMFA-type zany into it.

there was something in the first Discworld computer game that might work well as a joke against the cliche.

I the game you had to get a sword for rincewind, one that glinted in the light and goes Ting,  well you find a sword but it goes Tong instead so you go to some dwarves and they say they'll tune it for you.

"Wait you'll do it?  Your not going to make me run all over the disc to get you some silly nonsensical item first?"
"Well okay if you insis you could go get me a glass of reanual wine"
"Damn it"

If we're going to go with the dark god theme and all, I think we should definently ask for permission to include dark pegasus as a villen character. (a minor one, though)

There are very few original plots left in this world, and, while I respect the level of creativity that us DMFA forumers posses, I don't think any of us are on the level to discover what few there are remaining.  In fact, I think I would find a tongue in cheek Furrae adventure to be much more entertaining than anything more serious trying to avoid all of the fantasy cliches.  Never mind the fact that cliches are cliches for a reason, that being that they are really very good elements, when done right.

Has this simply gone and died, forgotten and alone, or are people simply lacking in progress to post, or simply lazy?

You'd have to ask TKG that, since he is working on the engine and thus the critical path for the project at the moment

Hi. Sorry for not being all that active here as of late, but I tend to go into 'lurking mode' for some while when I have much work to do. Additionally, being terribly slow when it comes to typing in English doesn't really help much either :P

The editor will soon be ready for tryouts, although there's still quite the heap of bugs present... many of them will be squished until it gets that far, but I'm pretty sure there are plenty more that I'm oblivious about. Also, it has yet only been tested under Windows XP, so I'm interested to see how well it runs on other operating systems (if it does at all, heh).

On another note, does anyone have any good experiences with free webhosts? The one I use (home.no) is only intended for very small file storage and has no PHP/MySQL support. I was thinking of using the e107-software (http://e107.org/news.php) for managing the project, which requires all of the above (or at least the latter two). Any ideas as to which one to go for?

I still say we make either a fighting game or a Dating sim game...the fighting one could be similair either to street fighter or Super Smash Bros.........

Quote from: TKG on September 11, 2006, 11:19:14 PM
On another note, does anyone have any good experiences with free webhosts? The one I use (home.no) is only intended for very small file storage and has no PHP/MySQL support. I was thinking of using the e107-software (http://e107.org/news.php) for managing the project, which requires all of the above (or at least the latter two). Any ideas as to which one to go for?

What kind of license are you thinking of for the software?  There's always SourceForge if you're going to release the code.

There's always the next best thing, you can get cheap hosting from a ton of different companies (around $5-10 US a month, depending on who you use) and they usually give a fair amount of transfer and storage, PHP and SQL support, and even free email and domain name registration on some of them.  You just need to find someone who's willing to pay the hosting costs, if you go that route.

Quote from: Tapewolf on September 12, 2006, 07:11:39 AM
What kind of license are you thinking of for the software?  There's always SourceForge if you're going to release the code.

Quote from: Reese Tora on September 12, 2006, 12:35:29 PM
There's always the next best thing, you can get cheap hosting from a ton of different companies (around $5-10 US a month, depending on who you use) and they usually give a fair amount of transfer and storage, PHP and SQL support, and even free email and domain name registration on some of them.  You just need to find someone who's willing to pay the hosting costs, if you go that route.

Thanks for the tips, guys. I'm not sure under what license to put the editor/game engine projects yet, which pretty much rules SourceForge out for the time being. Although I could live with paying a few $ a month for some cheap webhosting, I'd rather use one of the free options that are available - the Furrae game-project is a non-profit endeavour after all ;)

I just searched around on several indiegaming forums earlier today, and found some software called Basecamp (http://www.basecamphq.com) - they have a free solution (which is also the most limiting, of course) that can keep track of one project. The free plan doesn't allow file sharing, however, so we would have to use other means for that (opening a webhosting account to use solely for the purpose of storing and sharing files would probably do just as well).

We could try to set up a free account over at Basecamp just to see how the system works... although that would require having a name for our workgroup. Hmm....

Now, how about... 'TeamFurrae'? Or perhaps 'LostLakeLtd' (or 'Inc', although 'triple L' would sound a bit more fun)? Heh, I'm pretty sure you guys outdo me greatly in the naming department, so let's hear it ;)

LostIncLake?

That way it abbreviates to lil.... "this is our lil game..." :-)

Yeesh, how did I only just notice this? Well, DMFA would make a great game. The style of writing that makes it so popular would translate well to game dialogue, but the real gameplay value that I think people would focus on would be the world of Furrae. I saw people talking about open ended gameplay earlier, and that's really awesome but hard to do. I guess your character's story would rely on who you talk to, who you choose to help and who to hinder, etc. The stuff I saw earlier about allying yourself with various characters would be one way of progressing the plot; hang out with Jyrras a lot and you get involved with the creature council, hang out with Alexi and it's all about saving lost lake from twinks, stuff like that. Just thinking aloud here.

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on September 12, 2006, 06:41:52 PM
LostIncLake?

That way it abbreviates to lil.... "this is our lil game..." :-)

Rearranging words in a name just for the sake of having a clever abbreviation is perhaps not the way to go, but it's a cute thought none-the-less :P
I'm all ears for more suggestions, though. Having a name that we can stick with should hopefully be found sooner rather than later, as I'm not so sure if it can be changed once the Basecamp account has been created.

Anyways, I guess it would be fair to set up a poll for the final decision if we can get enough suggestions in (maybe around ten or so?), so please keep them coming ;)

Quote from: Boogeyman on September 12, 2006, 09:13:12 PM
Yeesh, how did I only just notice this? Well, DMFA would make a great game. The style of writing that makes it so popular would translate well to game dialogue, but the real gameplay value that I think people would focus on would be the world of Furrae. I saw people talking about open ended gameplay earlier, and that's really awesome but hard to do. I guess your character's story would rely on who you talk to, who you choose to help and who to hinder, etc. The stuff I saw earlier about allying yourself with various characters would be one way of progressing the plot; hang out with Jyrras a lot and you get involved with the creature council, hang out with Alexi and it's all about saving lost lake from twinks, stuff like that. Just thinking aloud here.

I agree, this is the type of game I would like to to aim for - freedom to do whatever you want, but still abiding scripted events to some degree - much like how the Elder Scrolls games work. As you said, it's probably going to be quite a struggle to get that balance of freedom just right, of which depends greatly on the rigidness of the story. Having the game too open-ended would leave us with very little control over how the story would proceed - on the other hand, if we were trying to write it just as one would write a book, we would definitely be in for quite a ride :kruger

By leaving open ends here and there throughout the script, however, getting some decent gameplay in the end shouldn't be all that hard to accomplish.

Starting the poll now, although there are only five entries to choose from (it'll probably do just as well, though). The voting will end in three days, if we can get enough of them - please consider spending a few of your highly valued calories on this. Thanks ;)

Quote from: TKG on September 16, 2006, 04:40:44 PM
Starting the poll now, although there are only five entries to choose from (it'll probably do just as well, though). The voting will end in three days, if we can get enough of them - please consider spending a few of your highly valued calories on this. Thanks ;)

I should have mentioned this before, but I really think that having 'Inc' or 'Ltd' in the name is a bad idea unless it actually is a limited liability organisation or officially incorporated - neither of which are likely.

I'm actually stunned at how unpopular Team Furrae is, myself.  After all, if that was chosen, you'd have a slogan!

After all, new software can be buggy and crashy, right?  So ...

It looks like Team Furrae is booting up again!

Of course, it might be that it's only my code and bloated corporate software that happens to be buggy and unstable in its earliest versions.

Then there's always ...

Gotta patch 'em all!

Which would be apt if it became a big thing and you'd be releasing content patches.

So, there's that ...

And I'll stop now.

Quote from: Rowne on September 16, 2006, 05:32:31 PM
I'm actually stunned at how unpopular Team Furrae is, myself.

I had to toss a coin between that and 'CrossWorks'.

Quote from: Tapewolf on September 16, 2006, 05:00:36 PM
I should have mentioned this before, but I really think that having 'Inc' or 'Ltd' in the name is a bad idea unless it actually is a limited liability organisation or officially incorporated - neither of which are likely.

Well, it was put there mostly for fun (like it being a fictional company in Lost Lake, or like the fictional 'Monsters Inc.'), but I get your point... perhaps we could find something else to replace 'Inc.' with to make it feasible? Since I'm not very familiar with those kinds of terms I can't help much there, but you guys probably know a few? ;)

Lost In The Lake?
Little Invisible Lunatics?
Lonely Inattentive Lightbulbs?
Loquatious Inexcusable Lorakeets?


The possibilities are endless. :-)

Not fair, "Team Kickass" isn't in the list. >_>

*runs*

Neither is:

The Game
The Team
Us
Those Guys
Just A Few Lunatics
For Us, Real Reckoning, Yes
Fond Uncles, Ruined Rearrangment Yonder
...

Wow... all of a sudden we're teeming with suggestions here :P
Well, I don't think it would really be fair to add them now since the poll has seen a few votes already, as it isn't possible (to my knowledge) to withdraw one and put it elsewhere if one so desires.

This time again already?  I'm just curious, how are you planning on making this game?

I've seen this for awile now, but haven't kept up to date with it. Count me in for a voice-actor and possibly one to do some of the storyline. We still haven't decided on the genre of the game, have we?

Quote from: ShadesFox on September 16, 2006, 08:15:51 PM
This time again already?  I'm just curious, how are you planning on making this game?

It has been explained in detail elsewhere in this thread, but to recap:
- The game will be based on my own game-engine, which I also intend to use for other projects in the future
- To create the world that the game will revolve around there is a simple-to-use world builder tool (which will have its first official build ready tomorrow, if all goes well)
- We have gathered a team where all (or at least most) aspects of the game development has been covered
- Add some time, enthusiasm and determination for good measure ;)

Quote from: James StarRunner on September 16, 2006, 08:34:12 PM
I've seen this for awile now, but haven't kept up to date with it. Count me in for a voice-actor and possibly one to do some of the storyline. We still haven't decided on the genre of the game, have we?

Great, I'll add you to the team then - we could always use more voices and plotholes throughout the game :)

And I'm pretty sure we've settled for a free-form style of role-playing game much like the 'Elder Scrolls' games (which I seem to constantly refer to as examples, and I like to think that it is for a good reason). This type of game gives developers a lot of freedom to plan out events that are only limited by their creativity (in theory, anyways), as well as having a nearly unlimited replayability value.
Note that free-form games in general will be the main focus of the game-engine, so while all this seems aiming a bit too high for such a project, the main concern should really be about the content (models, graphics and such). This still means we'll have to work pretty hard to succeed, but we don't have the pressure from any governing company on us constantly, which is a serious plus in my book ;)

Ah, well if you need any more coders don't be afraid to give me a shout.

or maybe we should call the project team "Team Amber"...named after the one who created the comic...

Quote from: Reese Tora on September 12, 2006, 12:35:29 PMThere's always the next best thing, you can get cheap hosting from a ton of different companies (around $5-10 US a month, depending on who you use) and they usually give a fair amount of transfer and storage, PHP and SQL support, and even free email and domain name registration on some of them.  You just need to find someone who's willing to pay the hosting costs, if you go that route.

I could help on that, my site's ultimate goal is for games, so, I woudn't find it much trouble to create a section for it on my site.

Quote from: Tapewolf on September 16, 2006, 05:00:36 PM

Quote from: TKG on September 16, 2006, 04:40:44 PM
Starting the poll now, although there are only five entries to choose from (it'll probably do just as well, though). The voting will end in three days, if we can get enough of them - please consider spending a few of your highly valued calories on this. Thanks ;)

I should have mentioned this before, but I really think that having 'Inc' or 'Ltd' in the name is a bad idea unless it actually is a limited liability organisation or officially incorporated - neither of which are likely.

You would be surprised just how easy it is to incorporate... One of my history teachers in highschool had several corporations.

Quote from: ShadesFox on September 16, 2006, 09:37:49 PM
Ah, well if you need any more coders don't be afraid to give me a shout.

The coding part doesn't really belong to this particular project, but I'll keep it in mind.

Quote from: Jack McSlay on September 16, 2006, 11:46:06 PM
I could help on that, my site's ultimate goal is for games, so, I woudn't find it much trouble to create a section for it on my site.

I've decided to try out Basecamp for our project managing needs, which doesn't require any personal webspace to run. Eventually though, we are most likely going to create a page where information and media about the game can be displayed, but that won't be due anytime in the near future. Also, if we ever decide to go for 'e107' instead (if Basecamp doesn't fit our needs), I'll consider it. Thanks for your offer at any rate :)

---

Not to double post, I'll just modify this one.
I have now completed the first build, this one being v0.00a - version numbers with a letter at the end can be everything from barely unstable to highly combustible, so be warned :P

The download link can be found here (http://www.home.no/t-k-g/game/builds/wb_000a.zip). It uses OpenGL for graphics, although it may still require DirectX to start up... I'm not all too sure on that one. You can read the 'read me'-file for information on how to use it - it does not, however, list any of the "quirks" that are still present, so I will list them below (some may be added at a later time):

- You can not yet create files within the editor itself. Use your OS' file manager for that.
- When you are saving a project or a map, it doesn't really matter what the file ending is - watch out so that you don't overwrite any important files this way (you must click the 'OK' button to confirm, so there is no accidentally opening a file by doubleclicking).
- Some of the commands in the top menu are there just as placeholders - if they don't seem to do anything what-so-ever, it's very likely that they simply have no function yet ;)
- There is no real material system yet, so all objects use the first two textures in the 'Material' tab of the database window. Those two can be changed in whatever way you like, though (with the exception of their colour values and physics data, which isn't supported at this time).
- At the start, single-click somewhere on the screen, not on any GUI-elements, for the cursor to show up (exiting a window seem to have the same effect).
- When loading textures and meshes, only use resources that can be found in the sub-folders in the loaded project's folder... strange things may (or may not) happen otherwise.
- The meshes are of a custom format, so there's currently no feasible way to create them. This will change pretty soon, though.
- The edges on the terrain tiles may seem "broken" due to the normals not being smoothed across tile boundaries... since the meshes that makes up the tiles can be completely arbitrary, it's not quite as simple as it is with heightmaps. I haven't found a way to fix this yet, but it's ranking pretty high on my 'to-do' list.

Additionally, a few things to get you started:
- Select 'Load project' in the 'File' submenu at the top. Go to 'projects/Test project', click 'Test project.prj' and then the 'OK' button. This loads a preset database you can play around with.
- Add any texture you like somewhere underneath the project folder ('projects/Test project' in this case) to make them usable in the editor.
- The cell overview shows a map of 9x9 cells at a time. Clicking on any of the squares performs the command chosen in the buttons underneath. Also, to jump to any cell on the map (0 to 65535 in both axes), type the cell number in the boxes under the cell list and click the 'Center map on cell'-button. Use the 'Place camera' function to load the cells around any given position on the map.

I could surely list a great number of other things here as well, but I think I'll hit the bed now so you'll just have to explore around a little by yourselves :)
Please note that the editor is still abhorrently buggy, so expect errors to happen pretty often. Any bug reports (no matter how small) will be highly appreciated.

Everything you can do with the editor right now is so confusing to just... do. o.o

I like this idea you have there and I saw the pics of the characters. This game will be very popular you have a hit there. Just keep doing what are you doing right now don't stop I can't wait for this to come out........

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on September 17, 2006, 11:31:07 PM
Everything you can do with the editor right now is so confusing to just... do. o.o

You're probably right - I don't see things like this myself as the creator of it. I really should make the help file some time soon. Which reminds me...

---

For all of you who are experiencing problems using the editor: A report of some sort would help much in the improvement of it, as it would clarify issues that I may have completely overlooked.

If you're simply stuck, something like this would do great: "I tried to load a project file, but I can't find which file to load, as the browser is way too cluttered." or "I can't seem to modify the terrain the way it says in the 'read me'-file, as there is no terrain present!"

Or, if you know what to do and how to do it, but it's still rather cumbersome (and you perhaps know an easier way): "When loading project files, it would make better sense to have the browser be directed to the 'project'-folder automatically (instead of having to go there manually), seeing as this is where all projects are stored anyway." (this particular issue will be fixed by the next build, by the way).

Feedback like this would help immensely, as I don't really see the shortcomings of the editor myself. Much like artists when they ask for criticism on art boards, I gather :)

Quote from: ShiningShadow on September 18, 2006, 07:42:12 AM
I like this idea you have there and I saw the pics of the characters. This game will be very popular you have a hit there. Just keep doing what are you doing right now don't stop I can't wait for this to come out........

Thanks, we will indeed strive to make it a fun game to play (what would've been the point otherwise?) ;)
Just how popular it turns out to be will still remain questionable until we get far enough into the development process, though.

It won't run since it requires OpenAL.  I don't think I've ever seen a program that uses it before in my life, so I'll have to try it again later when I've got it.

Quote from: Tapewolf on September 18, 2006, 10:22:03 AM
It won't run since it requires OpenAL.  I don't think I've ever seen a program that uses it before in my life, so I'll have to try it again later when I've got it.

Hmmm... I should've thought of unlinking it before this release, since the editor doesn't make use of any sound yet (although it will eventually). OpenAL can still be downloaded here (http://www.openal.org/downloads.html), but if you want, I can compile a new version without the OpenAL-support.

This should really have been mentioned in the 'read me' now that I think about it :P

Quote from: TKG on September 18, 2006, 10:51:49 AM
Hmmm... I should've thought of unlinking it before this release, since the editor doesn't make use of any sound yet (although it will eventually). OpenAL can still be downloaded here (http://www.openal.org/downloads.html), but if you want, I can compile a new version without the OpenAL-support.

I've got it now, I just don't want to go back to Windows yet.  And yes, it might be an idea to drop 3D sound support in the editor until we actually need it.

Quote from: Tapewolf on September 18, 2006, 10:57:41 AM
I've got it now, I just don't want to go back to Windows yet.  And yes, it might be an idea to drop 3D sound support in the editor until we actually need it.

Isn't there a Linux version of it on that page as well (as 'OpenAL binary RPM')? Assuming Linux is what you currently use, that is :)

Anyways, an OpenAL-devoid build of the editor is now available here (http://www.home.no/t-k-g/game/builds/wb_000a.zip) with the same name as before - those of you who have downloaded the earlier version will only need to replace the 'World builder.exe'-file.

Assuming that a linux person uses redhat, or an RPM based distro, is, IME, a tough call.  Redhat (or deadrat) is a very "windows"-y linux. It's big, bloated, very much a large black box, and you can't screw with any of the pieces unless it's in certain restricted ways, and most of the ways are tightly controlled to stop you from being stupid.

As someone commented, unix doesn't stop you from doing stupid things because it means it would also stop you from doing some very clever things. For an example, figuring out how much memory is in use on a machine by counting the number of bytes in the virtual filesystem item that is a reference to the physical RAM... Or transferring data from one machine to another by means of writing chunks of it into the comments area of a database, then pulling it out over the net and reassembling it at the other end.

If you're interested, have a look at this (http://www.qef.com/html/docs/egregious.pdf) :-)

Okay, it seems that thanks to nVidia's totally sh_t drivers, my OpenGL subsystem is terminally screwed.  It's not just your program, because Truespace dies in exactly the same way.  I'll look to see if I can find a fix for that, but in the meantime, is there a way to tell Irrlicht not to touch the OpenGL backend on pain of death?

And yes, there's a linux version of OpenAL, but not a linux version of the worldbuilder, so it doesn't make much difference :P

Just when I'd gotten used to the idea of a 2D Furre, you people pull this on me? CRAZY! But it gives me a chance to not be an idiot like in the last thread.  :mowwink:
But I've learned my lesson. THIS time, I have low expectations!

I'm not into the whole "3D graphics creation process", so it would be pointless for me to try to use the WorldCreator. Good luck with that for those whom have knowlege greater than my own.

Also, w00t.

Okay.. I took the drastic step of running the Worldbuilder in WINE, since nVidia's Windows drivers are even less stable than their Linux ones.  It starts up, and lets you load files, but the main screen is pure blue.  Is this normal?

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on September 18, 2006, 12:51:29 PM
Assuming that a linux person uses redhat, or an RPM based distro, is, IME, a tough call.  Redhat (or deadrat) is a very "windows"-y linux. It's big, bloated, very much a large black box, and you can't screw with any of the pieces unless it's in certain restricted ways, and most of the ways are tightly controlled to stop you from being stupid.

Aha... good to know. I knew there were different versions of it, but they have been little than just names to me. Since I do plan to have the engine running on some version of Linux after all, I'd better do some research in the field.

Quote
If you're interested, have a look at this (http://www.qef.com/html/docs/egregious.pdf) :-)

Although I didn't exactly understand anything of the code, the concept itself was fascinating in its own ridiculous way :P

Quote from: Tapewolf on September 18, 2006, 04:04:44 PM
Okay.. I took the drastic step of running the Worldbuilder in WINE, since nVidia's Windows drivers are even less stable that their Linux ones.  It starts up, and lets you load files, but the main screen is pure blue.  Is this normal?

Yes, everything except for a few GUI-elements will be blue at start-up, because there simply is nothing to show in the scene yet. Try loading a project (files with a .prj-ending) and go to 'Tools->Cell overview' on the menu bar, then placing a few cells in the map window (the frame with 9x9 squares in it) by clicking on some of the squares. If you now select the 'Place camera' button and click somewhere in the vicinity of your cells on the map, you will be transported there and the cells around you loaded into the scene. Hope that helps a bit :)

Edit: Something I forgot to mention, though; whether you see anything also depends on if there are valid meshes and materials loaded into the object types used by the terrain tiles. If the terrain is completely white, it is a clear sign that the material assigned to its object type can't load the texture specified in its properties.
Load 'projects/Test project/Test project.prj' if you want a preset database where eight different object types have already been set up.

(http://www.jpmorris.force9.co.uk/stuff/dmfaedit1.jpg)
http://www.jpmorris.force9.co.uk/stuff/dmfaedit1.jpg

..I was a bit surprised that the example project and maps were empty, but there you go.  Pretty impressive, doubly so that it runs under WINE.  (Like RTCW, where the Windows version ran better under Linux than it did in Windows.  Native Linux builds are better, though)

Quote from: Tapewolf on September 18, 2006, 06:06:23 PM
..I was a bit surprised that the example project and maps were empty, but there you go.  Pretty impressive, doubly so that it runs under WINE.  (Like RTCW, where the Windows version ran better under Linux than it did in Windows.  Native Linux builds are better, though)

Great to hear that it works! I see you have discovered one of its many flaws (with the separated terrain and all), but I'm going to deal with that issue the same way the Morrowind CS does - namely having it join together when you smoothen it. The smoothing tool itself has yet to be created though.

Quote from: Tapewolf on September 18, 2006, 06:06:23 PM
*picture*
http://www.jpmorris.force9.co.uk/stuff/dmfaedit1.jpg

..I was a bit surprised that the example project and maps were empty, but there you go.  Pretty impressive, doubly so that it runs under WINE.  (Like RTCW, where the Windows version ran better under Linux than it did in Windows.  Native Linux builds are better, though)

What's that supposed to be,  the bottomless pit of light-blue despair?

Quote from: TKG on September 18, 2006, 05:27:53 PM
Although I didn't exactly understand anything of the code, the concept itself was fascinating in its own ridiculous way :P

I believe the idea is, if you understand the code, you probably should have been locked up years ago.

Or -are- locked up. :-)

-Some- of it is fairly easy to follow. Some of it is more difficult. Some of it is downright masochistic. :-)

I made it crash. Can I have a cookie?

Is there any way to move objects around yet, like trees?  It kind of sucks to have them floating in mid-air.  Dynamic positioning would be nice, but being able to type in the X,Y and Z coordinates would be okay for now.

By the way, it seems to confiscate the trees when you move from one cell to another.  This should be a higher priority than the lining-up-the-edges thing, IMHO

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on September 18, 2006, 06:38:26 PM
I believe the idea is, if you understand the code, you probably should have been locked up years ago.

Or -are- locked up. :-)

-Some- of it is fairly easy to follow. Some of it is more difficult. Some of it is downright masochistic. :-)

Hehe, I see... I should probably be well off in the clear, then.

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on September 18, 2006, 06:45:59 PM
I made it crash. Can I have a cookie?

If you tell me just what you did to cause that, then maybe >:3

Quote from: Tapewolf on September 18, 2006, 07:05:20 PM
Is there any way to move objects around yet, like trees?  It kind of sucks to have them floating in mid-air.  Dynamic positioning would be nice, but being able to type in the X,Y and Z coordinates would be okay for now.

Dynamic positioning is possible, but you must first select the object(s) by using the object selection tool, and then use the object positioning tool to drag them around. Previously you could choose in the toolbar what axes you wanted the object to move along, but the buttons were removed as I wanted them to be in the tool settings instead. Needless to say, I didn't get around to do that at the time, as I was focusing more on fixing the problems that currently existed in the terrain engine (if you think it's bad now, you should've seen it one week ago...).
Having keyboard input for positioning is a good idea - I'll think about adding it for the next release. A 'set object at camera' button could perhaps also come in handy.

Quote
By the way, it seems to confiscate the trees when you move from one cell to another.  This should be a higher priority than the lining-up-the-edges thing, IMHO

The object support is generally rather poor in this build - the cells do not even take them in account at all, which means that while the terrain and camera are displaced to prevent them from "drifting" too far off the origin, the objects aren't. I will probably have it fixed in the next couple of days or so.

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on September 18, 2006, 06:45:59 PM
I made it crash. Can I have a cookie?

:mowcookie

Hrm.  Played around with it a bit, did find the "edges not lining up" bug as mentioned already.  Couldn't there be a way to read the edge of the previously existing cells and have it automatically map to that height?

Also, is there any way of rotating the camera yet?  I didn't find a method for doing that...

And also, in the cell overview... it seems that it would make sense for the camera to be placed so that it looks at cells from bottom to top, not right to left.  It seems more intuitive that way... The camera is currently placed on the right side of the grid, not the bottom.

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on September 18, 2006, 06:45:59 PM
I made it crash. Can I have a cookie?

here have some  :mowcookie :mowcookie :mowcookie :mowcookie :mowcookie..........

Quote from: Lomgren on September 18, 2006, 11:20:05 PM
Hrm.  Played around with it a bit, did find the "edges not lining up" bug as mentioned already.  Couldn't there be a way to read the edge of the previously existing cells and have it automatically map to that height?

Yes, but that would make the cell loading somewhat slower - IMO it's slow enough as it is :)

Quote
Also, is there any way of rotating the camera yet?  I didn't find a method for doing that...

You switch between editing/roaming mode on either the space bar, or the rightmost button on the tool bar. While in roaming mode, you can fly around using ordinary FPS-controls.

Quote
And also, in the cell overview... it seems that it would make sense for the camera to be placed so that it looks at cells from bottom to top, not right to left.  It seems more intuitive that way... The camera is currently placed on the right side of the grid, not the bottom.

When you place the camera, it itself doesn't actually move at all - the terrain is just created/moved around it. I do like your idea though, which shouldn't be that hard to implement.

---

The poll has now concluded. As I forgot to set the timer on it, I'll just list the final results here:

Total votes: 23
- LostIncLake (LIL): 0 votes
- Lost Lake Inc. (LLI): 2 votes
- CrossWorks: 5 votes
- Lost Lake Ltd. (LLL): 6 votes
- Team Furrae: 10 votes

Team Furrae it is, then. I'll just go ahead and set up the Basecamp-account, so that we can move our 'base of operations' over there. Thanks to all of you who participated in the poll!

Now, as we're done with the voting and all... how do you go about to stop that thing? :P


Edit: Fixed typo.

Hit it. With a brick.

Oh, and about reproducing my bug, you have to act like you have no friggin idea what you're doing. Mess around with the cells and the camera and do weirdass things with the terrain editor's functions, basically. It should happen again soon.

Ok, I think we're ready to make some real progress here, which means that we'll need far more people over at Basecamp pretty soon. Releasing version 0.00b of the World Builder (http://www.home.no/t-k-g/game/builds/wb_000b.zip) here in the meantime ;)


Changes and additions since the previous version:

- When placing the camera in the cell overview, it will always be centered on the cell, facing straight downwards (there is one problem with it though, which you will certainly notice when you try to rotate the camera - will be fixed at some point).

- Objects can now go beyond cell borders and become the property of another cell. In other words, the objects should behave just as you would expect them to - perhaps with the exception of it being deleted if you move it into a non-existant cell.

- Three different modes have been added to the tile elevation tool (raise/lower, smoothen and flatten). Smoothening doesn't really work for anything else than joining "split terrain" as of yet. You'll find these in the tool settings for the tool.

- Axis modes have been added to the object positioning tool, which makes you able to move objects along 6 different axis sets (ZX, XY, YZ, X, Y and Z). These can also be found in the tool settings.

- You can now change the parameters for the video driver yourself by editing the 'config.xml'-file that can be found in the same directory as the executable.


I think I got down all of the most important changes/additions, but there are a few more minor fixes to it as well, of course.

As an end note, it would be great if those of you who haven't got your Basecamp account so far could send me a PM, so that I can set them up for you. This goes mainly for all the previous team applicants, but any new ones may hop on as well - it's certainly not too late yet ;)

I'm useless on programming and such, but this looks like fun and I'd be happy to lend my voice to the game, if needed. :)

I'll see if this works in Windows later, but under Linux, the OpenGL driver is twice as fast as the D3D9 driver (probably because it's being translated to OpenGL calls anyway).  This is good in a way, because when I first ran it I thought the performance had been crippled by some new feature :P

Map loading seems to be more straightforward and the demo map is good.  I'm still not clear how objects are edited once they're placed on the map, but I'll see if I can work it out tomorrow.

Aw, it crashes if I try to load my old map and go into cell overview :<

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on October 05, 2006, 07:35:43 PM
Aw, it crashes if I try to load my old map and go into cell overview :<

I believe it would, seeing as maps created in these two builds are not compatible with each other. The loading/saving routines aren't stable yet (meaning that they vary from build to build), but I plan to have them backwards-compatible by the time the editor hits v0.01. For now though, please do not create areas that you intend to keep :)

I don't intend to keep it. I just miss the random landscape.

(Rescuing this thread from the greater halls of oblivion :mwaha)

After much frustration with bugs having a tendency to pop up just before I settle on a release, version 0.00c is finally done. Follow this link (http://www.home.no/t-k-g/game/builds/wb_000c.zip) to download. New features are, in part:

• Terrain material painting tool. Hold or click the left mouse button to paint with the material specified in the tool settings. Eventually it will be possible to paint using different brush sizes, but for now it always assumes a brush size of one. Still abhorrently buggy, though - delete textures from the list at your own risk (although adding new textures should work just fine). Also, the blending looks downright awful at the moment :P
• New file browser. Only has basic functionality so far, but is still an improvement from the older one in that you can now create files, and that it has automatic file filtering.
• Connection type editor. Makes it possible to configure your own connection types, for use with the tile connection tool.
• Object material assignment. Can only be set in the object types at the moment - objects created prior to any changes to the material index list must be updated using the buttons at the right-hand side of the list.

But most notably, there's been a great number of bug fixes and speed enhancements, which indeed took up most of the development time spent since the last version was released. Regardless of these efforts, there should still be plenty of bugs frolicking abound... nasty little creatures, those :P

---

Anyhow, we should now start gearing a bit towards getting some actual game content into this project. For the first "bout", we'll need to create the various terrain tiles that will be encountered in-game (details on the tile specifications will be added to the project site eventually). However, we're currently in lack of modellers to do this... if you have some experience with modelling in any package (as long as it can export to any of the most widely known formats), please consider joining the team - just give me a PM or simply post in this thread if you're interested. Thanks :)

Hmm... the two new tile elevation modes seem difficult to use and understand... tile painting seems to be inaccurate and difficult to use properly, object position and rotation seems to be stiff and hard to use, well, particularly rotation. I'm hoping roads won't always turn at right angles.. I was hoping i'd be able to bend the roads more naturally. Lastly, I'm completely confused as to what useful purpose the tile rotation tool will be.

*tiptoes out*

I'll try this tonight.

Aridas, I'll just dissect your post and answer each part separately, if you don't mind:

Quote from: Aridas Soulfirethe two new tile elevation modes seem difficult to use and understand...

The second mode is the terrain smoothener, which currently doesn't work for anything else but fixing misaligned (or "split-at-the-seams") terrain. The third mode is the terrain leveller, which works by first pressing the left mouse button at the desired height on the landscape, and then, as you move the cursor (while still holding down the mouse button), the terrain under the brush is made level to that height.

Quotetile painting seems to be inaccurate and difficult to use properly,

Not sure what exactly you mean by that, but I guess it has to do with some of the blending bugs that are still present. Could you clarify, please?

Quoteobject position and rotation seems to be stiff and hard to use, well, particularly rotation.

I assume you haven't opened the tool settings for it (the rightmost button on the tool bar) and disabled the grid-snapping then (the button at the bottom). On another note, I really need to implement some sort of hint function soon...
Also, the rotation tool currently uses the wrong set of planes, which results in that the object will turn faster and more erratically the further into the distance you move the cursor. This will definitely be fixed in the next release.

QuoteI'm hoping roads won't always turn at right angles.. I was hoping i'd be able to bend the roads more naturally.

Just another splendid example of programmer's art right there :B
But really, the only limitation is that the tiles will have to join up correctly at the four cardinal directions - other than that, though, the road can be as simple/complex as you desire.

QuoteLastly, I'm completely confused as to what useful purpose the tile rotation tool will be.

It might perhaps be used in the future for making terrain tiles with distinguishable features seem less repeating, but right now there's not much useful you can do with it other than change the orientation of the road tiles.

Hope that helps :)

---

And I forgot to mention this earlier, but the trees that are used in the test map are of a rather superfluous nature, having much higher detail than what's really needed. Don't place too many of these, or your computer might slow down to a halt (especially if yours is as slow as mine...).

About painting, it's about mismatched, or "wrong" looking blending, or just something that looks nothing like what was probably intended (painting some mountains, i found the corners to sometimes end up as nothing but a square-ish gradient)

for positioning and rotating, I meant that it's awkward, and sometimes doesn't go when you move it. that may be a problem with the program itself, but I found it either hard to get something moving/rotating, or it went too fast once it was going.

as for the roads, that's what I said was going to be the problem. I don't think they'll end up looking too natural if they always seem to have to follow some set design. I was hoping i'd be able to avoid a system like that, or at least have a more complex tile system with more potential for how the roads/paths will move, not always quite straight and not always making a 45 degree turn. Back in the day I was playing with a map editor that the road had points where it could be moved, stretched, shrunk, and such, and you could add/remove points along the road... doing such would align the track with the next points. That'd probably be a hassle, but... It's all I can think of.

aaaaaaand, that's it for me.

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on November 23, 2006, 12:42:01 PM
About painting, it's about mismatched, or "wrong" looking blending, or just something that looks nothing like what was probably intended (painting some mountains, i found the corners to sometimes end up as nothing but a square-ish gradient)

Yeah, I'm aware of those ugly corners - for some reason the fade texture fails to load for those particular tiles. Not that I'm sure what exactly causes this to happen, though...

Quotefor positioning and rotating, I meant that it's awkward, and sometimes doesn't go when you move it. that may be a problem with the program itself, but I found it either hard to get something moving/rotating, or it went too fast once it was going.

Hmmm... strange. Could it be that the camera is facing too parallel to the axis set plane, perhaps? For instance, when the currently activated axis set is ZX, you should stay a bit above the selected object(s). Since there is no 3D visualization of the plane/axes yet, it can be a bit hard to know just where the plane goes.

Quoteas for the roads, that's what I said was going to be the problem. I don't think they'll end up looking too natural if they always seem to have to follow some set design. I was hoping i'd be able to avoid a system like that, or at least have a more complex tile system with more potential for how the roads/paths will move, not always quite straight and not always making a 45 degree turn. Back in the day I was playing with a map editor that the road had points where it could be moved, stretched, shrunk, and such, and you could add/remove points along the road... doing such would align the track with the next points. That'd probably be a hassle, but... It's all I can think of.

Well, as I said, as long as the tiles join up at the edges, it's all good - it doesn't really have to be in the centre of the edge, after all (this is only a requirement if you want it to work properly with the tile connection tool). It may still not be as flexible as the solution you mentioned, but you just gave me an idea; we don't necessarily have to use tiles for creating roads and such either - I had already planned a function for static objects which makes them "hug the terrain", so to speak, so the roads could just as well be separate objects put on top of the ground instead, somewhat like in Operation FlashPoint. How does that sound? :)

Quoteaaaaaaand, that's it for me.

Thanks for your help so far - feel free to report on any other issues you might encounter as well.

Bleh... I still wish for roads with path-like points that I can drag. Right now it seems it's either going to be roads reminiscent of 2D RPGs, or something harder that requires more work by everyone, apparently x_x

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on November 23, 2006, 04:18:58 PM
Bleh... I still wish for roads with path-like points that I can drag. Right now it seems it's either going to be roads reminiscent of 2D RPGs, or something harder that requires more work by everyone, apparently x_x

I will probably add in some sort of function later on for making rule-based object placement, but I'm not certain yet whether it will be completely dynamic or not, though.

Just a little update on the editor: I've been pretty hard at coding since I released the last version, but even still, the next release won't be due until January as I will be gone for most of the remainder of the year. I'm sure it can wait anyhow ;)

I should have mentioned this earlier, but we're obviously going to need a few concept artists, to be able to visualize the (more or less) zany ideas we come up with. Also, we're still looking for modellers... my "programmer's art" simply won't cut in the long run, you hear :P

As always, if you're interested in any of the positions above (or some other aspects of game development for that matter), please let me know. Thanks!

Unearthing this thread for another crude and unjustified attempt at drawing people into the project >:3

Hmmm... come to speak of it, is it considered bad practice to bump a thread periodically to prevent it from dropping to the next page (where it will hardly ever be seen)? The reason why I'm asking this is because some people may not actually be around to see the thread before it "gets buried deep down", so to speak - and I simply haven't come up with any better idea to make the aforementioned people know of this project without asking them directly, which I reckon would count as spamming of sorts... can someone please shed some light on this?


EDIT: Okay, I had a look at the forum rules again, and it is indeed considered bad. I guess I should've checked up on those first before even thinking of typing this post :B

However, to make up for this I'll just ask instead: For those of you who are currently enlisted over at Basecamp, what times would suit you the best if I were to set up a weekly schedule for project-related chats, and how often (every day of the week, just mon-wed-fri, etc.)? Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.

I'm flexible as long as there's some kind of advance notice like usual, or it stays constant. I can work it into anything.

Glad to hear it, Aridas.
Well, I was thinking that important chats could still be announced just like before, and that the regularly scheduled ones would come in addition to that (ruling out those that land on the same days as the more important chats, of course). The regular ones will act more like casual chats, without any specific theme or attendancy requirements (as if there ever was any :P), but still mostly concentrating on discussions about the project.

Quote from: TKG on January 12, 2007, 05:44:21 PM
However, to make up for this I'll just ask instead: For those of you who are currently enlisted over at Basecamp, what times would suit you the best if I were to set up a weekly schedule for project-related chats, and how often (every day of the week, just mon-wed-fri, etc.)? Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.

Since they tend to roll over midnight for me, Friday is probably most convenient here as I don't have to go to work the following morning.  How's work proceeding on the engine, by the way?

Quote from: Tapewolf on January 12, 2007, 07:22:24 PM
Since they tend to roll over midnight for me, Friday is probably most convenient here as I don't have to go to work the following morning.

I guess we don't really have to make the chats start as late in the evening as we did before - if it's okay for all parties, we could for instance just move them one or two hours earlier (18-19:00 GMT), since the session is likely to last a few hours anyways.

Quote
How's work proceeding on the engine, by the way?

It's going fairly well, I'd say. I'm now nearly done with the basic form of dynamic objects, where you just put together a few bones and joints, slap some meshes in there to align with the bones, and you have a fully working physical body in the scene. Simulating real-time vegetation/creature growths, cutting off limbs (on creatures) and branches (on trees), as well as visual heart-beating and breathing on characters are just a few ways I can think of to use it right now, but I'm sure there are others ;) </advertisement>

Actually, this reminds me of what I would like to discuss in the next chat session... on how realistic and detailed we want this game to be in the end (which of course in turn decides whether it will run on all machines, or any but the top-notch).

EDIT: And Aridas, the dynamical placement of roads you asked for earlier can be done with the exact same system - only linked to a static object instead. This is something I actually realized just a week ago or so, although it should've been quite obvious from the start, heh.

Woohoo! cutting off limbs! I'm all for that, as long as nobody gets hurt! >.>

Quote from: TKG on January 12, 2007, 05:44:21 PM
EDIT: Okay, I had a look at the forum rules again, and it is indeed considered bad. I guess I should've checked up on those first before even thinking of typing this post :B

We're flexible. If there's content actually going on, we're willing to let it slide. If you're the only one posting, we're less willing to turn a blind eye to it.

Since there's a whole bunch of people here interested, go ahead and bump. We kinda prefer it if you apply content, however, rather than just bumping.

"Here's the new version" is acceptable. "I haven't done anything for the last month and a half, and nobody asked after it, so I'm bumping it anyway" probably isn't. :-)

HTH, HAND...

Quote from: TKG on January 12, 2007, 08:05:38 PM
I guess we don't really have to make the chats start as late in the evening as we did before - if it's okay for all parties, we could for instance just move them one or two hours earlier (18-19:00 GMT), since the session is likely to last a few hours anyways.

Weekdays I'm often on the way home during that time so it's got to be 1900 or later..

Quote
Actually, this reminds me of what I would like to discuss in the next chat session... on how realistic and detailed we want this game to be in the end (which of course in turn decides whether it will run on all machines, or any but the top-notch).

This is my take: my machine will be SIX in April.  It comprises a 1GHz CPU with 1GB of memory and a graphics card (currently a GeForce 6200).  While I'm intending to upgrade to a 64-bit system for Linux, it's not a priority because that CPU still does everything I need so far and besides, changing the motherboard will destroy Windows utterly (and also invalidate my XP license into the bargain, I might add).

Obviously I have a vested interest in it running on this machine, at least for now.  I'm not exactly expecting it to run at 150fps but IMHO, if it runs at less than 10 there's a problem with the engine.

Perhaps we could work a little at both, no? Get it to look nice AND run smooth?

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on January 12, 2007, 08:10:47 PM
Woohoo! cutting off limbs! I'm all for that, as long as nobody gets hurt! >.>

'Tis but a scratch ....

i see the larger problem is actually the RPG "system" itself (like d20, GURPS, or various other systems that i can't think of right now)
Elder scrolls, particularly the latter two morrowind and oblivion had the "the more you use it, the more you learn"

the Fallout Series to me had the most unique system of all the "SPECIAL" system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPECIAL_System
it's a tad more easier to deal with.. also note that it's based on GURPS

(i used this to show people without a working knowledge of the larger RPG systems in use, such as myself)

as for setting, might i suggest something a little bit outside of DMFA's Canon?.. it might give you a bit of wriggle room, and creative license without Amber having to say that the RPG isn't canon.

i think the main problem for you is to decide whether it'll be 1st or 3rd person, or isometric.  (Elder Scrolls, Neverwinter nights, and fallout respectively.)

You're a bit late to make any suggestions for the setting, not that it mattered :P

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on January 15, 2007, 07:46:03 PM
You're a bit late to make any suggestions for the setting, not that it mattered :P

given it's 8 pages long, i'm not terribly surprised, i just couldn't be bothered reading it all, so i decided to put my two cents in regardless.  xD

Eh, actually we do most of the stuff behind the scenes now

<.< >.>

And you can only see most of it if you joooooin usssssss

Quote from: Aridas Soulfire on January 15, 2007, 07:57:22 PM
Eh, actually we do most of the stuff behind the scenes now

<.< >.>

And you can only see most of it if you joooooin usssssss

Join you in what capacity?  >:3

Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna
(...)
"Here's the new version" is acceptable. "I haven't done anything for the last month and a half, and nobody asked after it, so I'm bumping it anyway" probably isn't. :-)

Yeah, sounds reasonable. I guess I just need a whack with the 'common sense' stick every once in a while :P

Quote from: Tapewolf
Obviously I have a vested interest in it running on this machine, at least for now.  I'm not exactly expecting it to run at 150fps but IMHO, if it runs at less than 10 there's a problem with the engine.

You should definitely be able to set the detail level in the engine to make the graphics part less demanding, but I'm not sure yet how much hidden processing (i.e. stuff happening elsewhere in the world and such) there's going to be... it is, however, likely to be configurable to a degree as well.

Quote from: Turnsky
Join you in what capacity?  >:3

Well, we are still on the look-out for some modellers and concept artists, but other professions may also be welcome... feel free to ask if you're interested ;)