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{MSX}
04-11-2004, 07:21 PM
hi! :P
I've some time to spend so i'll tell you about a game i'd like to do. Basically i really like turn based games. Some examples:

X-Com (the best!)
Heroes of might and magic
Incubation
Space Crusade (aka Star Quest)

Now, take that kind of game and mix it with a bit of Magic The Gatering and Starcraft and you get what i mean :P

Basically you have a map of square (or exagons) and some units. Units have action point to spend in moving, attacking or using abilities or items.
Units can be enhanced with equipment, such as weapons and armors.

I think it would be good to have also some "action" that players can play, like the interrupts of Magic.

All could come with simple 3d graphic and some effects

That's it :P What do you think ?:P

cairnswm
04-11-2004, 07:26 PM
Cool - when do you start? :)

1. Why does it have to be 3D - what about good old isometric 2D?
2. I'm thinking something similar for a sport game but the 'interupts' only happen at certain times in the game.

{MSX}
04-11-2004, 08:02 PM
Cool - when do you start? :)
When i'll find some fellow :P
Also, i'm working on a car game now..


1. Why does it have to be 3D - what about good old isometric 2D?

Simply becouse usually 3D animated character are easyer to draw :P
Also, nice effects like spells and explosions could be better..

Here an example of a possible "essential" style (taken from an old work of mine):

http://www.lugato.net/msx/screen1.png



2. I'm thinking something similar for a sport game but the 'interupts' only happen at certain times in the game.

Don't count on me.. Sport games never attracted me :P

WILL
05-11-2004, 01:22 AM
I loved X-Com another game with the squad/turn + movement points)-based gameplay would be awesome! If the game were to be 100% the same gameplay, but with swords, arrows, magic(different spells), etc... that would be really cool. Storming castles would be really interesting... Towers, etc... the level design would be something. What would you do for the 'World' portion of the game? You could make it like Warlords Battlecry III or kind of like Command & Conqour Red Alert(where you can choose multiple paths). Then again there is good ole Master of Magic and make it into a empire building type game.




1. Why does it have to be 3D - what about good old isometric 2D?

Simply becouse usually 3D animated character are easyer to draw :P
Also, nice effects like spells and explosions could be better..

Here an example of a possible "essential" style (taken from an old work of mine):

http://www.lugato.net/msx/screen1.png

Hmm... why not make the tiles for the isometric flooring 2D and the characters 3D OR just makes 3D pre-rendered sprites? You can still use 3D for the particle effects.

I would strongly suggest using OpenGL, though for multi-platform availability(more potential players).

cairnswm
05-11-2004, 04:31 AM
Aaahhh - Cross Platform 2D = SDL :)

WILL
05-11-2004, 08:51 AM
Yes, and in case others don't know you can make use of OpenGL with SDL using JEDI-SDL.

{MSX}
05-11-2004, 12:49 PM
Hmm... why not make the tiles for the isometric flooring 2D and the characters 3D OR just makes 3D pre-rendered sprites? You can still use 3D for the particle effects.


I'm not good enought in drawing to make such sprites.. You know, programmer art :P
If anyone is able to do that we could try :P

It would be great with Pixel Art, like in the guide posted in the other thread :P
it must be hard to do animation in pixel art anyway

WILL
06-11-2004, 12:07 AM
I had an excellent article on pixel art some time ago, lemme see if I can find it over the weekend.

But, like I said you can do pre-rendered 3D sprites. You render a frame for the ground(for tiles), characters(for the units graphics) and/or whatever else you want/don't want and save it as a sprite/tile for use in the game. ala Donkey Kong Country (they were the first to put this into practice)


EDIT: Found the site. Here it is: http://tsugumo.swoo.net/tutorial/

{MSX}
29-12-2004, 10:53 AM
I 'm back posting on this thread :P
i'd like to start this project. I'm not saying that i'm doing it, but that i'd like to get a bit deeper with analisis :D
Is anyone interested in talking about it and brainstorming a bit ?

Some question i was thinking about:

Is it better to do a single player offline game (UFO style), on online multiplayer only game, or both ? I think doing both will generate too much work becouse the two mode would be tecnically quite different (for example, the online game would store player attributes on server, with an account meccanism, while the offline would act totally different). Given that, would it be better online or singleplayer ?
I'd like the idea of a multiplayer game, with elements like Magic, for example selling or changing objects (units, items, etc). Each player could have it's own collection of objects (that persists with his account) and use them as he wish in matches.
But this could be far harder to do than the singleplayer, i think.
The singleplayer would instead require a "world gestion" part of the game, like UFO, to make the game more various. The idea of WILL of a UFO setted in a fantasy world could be nice.

A thing that always scares me is graphic :P The problem is that good artists are hard to find. That's why i would choose a simple 3d graphic, so that we can do it by ourself. If you look at this game (http://www.jjsoftgames.com/english/hopmon/), you'll see how some extremely easy models (mostly primitives) can create nice and colorful settings and gfx if well used. I've used this idea for this demo (http://www.lugato.net/msx/zip/thegame.zip), and i think it can work good.
I've already a lot of tested code to be used for this.

So what's your opinions and ideas ?

Traveler
29-12-2004, 11:59 AM
My advice would be to start with single player and, depending on how that is going, incorporate multiplayer later on. I'm not sure how much free time you have available, but I think multiplayer will take far, far longer.
Perhaps Sly can tell you more about the details of developing multiplayer games, but I wouldn't be surprised if its a lot more complex. Not only technically but also from a design point of view.

Sly
30-12-2004, 02:13 AM
Start with single player, for sure. Multiplayer, especially online multiplayer, raises a whole slew of issues that just do not occur in single player.

- Keeping all clients in sync. Each client should only know the parts of the game state that are relevant to it.
- Coping with lost, duplicated or out-of-order data packets.
- Coping with clients dropping out.
- Coping with the server dropping out. Do you terminate the game or does another client take over, ie. host migration.
- Dealing with network latency. This may be such an issue in a turn-based game. In a real-time game, latency can be a killer.

...and this is just the beginning of it all.

Having said that, most games that support single player and multiplayer provide single player as a one player multiplayer game. That is, the single player client is the same as a multiplayer client. The server is still there an operating as normal in the background.

WILL
30-12-2004, 04:22 AM
I like my idea too. :lol:

Seriously though... I'd have to agree with Traveler and Sly on multi-player vs. single-player. A happy medium might be to start with single player, but consider and try to leave parts open to multiplayer code later on. It might mean a small bit of work in the interm, but could save you a ton of work, and more importantly the hastle, later on.


:idea: For the graphics, why not do what Rare had done with Donkey Kong Country on the SNES? They 'pre-rendered' the 3D graphics and made sprites out of the 3D graphics from your modeling software(3ds max, light wave, deled, etc) done durring development. It gives the full appearance of true 3D, yet saving you time on hacking away at the 3D engine's code for speed and reducing the loss of resources by just working with the 2D sprites.

A lot of computer games in the late 90s did this and with excellent results, it's worth considering.


The idea of a Fantasy RPG played like an X-COM/UFO type 'squad game' is rather exciting. Especially with the prospect of casting magic on top of that. I doubt that there is a game like that in existance right now. This would seem to be a rather unique idea. ;)


Lastly be sure to checkout the Library section for tutorials that may help There are some isometric programming tutorials and some graphics type tutorails that may compliment it aswell.

{MSX}
30-12-2004, 07:46 AM
Seriously though... I'd have to agree with Traveler and Sly on multi-player vs. single-player. A happy medium might be to start with single player, but consider and try to leave parts open to multiplayer code later on. It might mean a small bit of work in the interm, but could save you a ton of work, and more importantly the hastle, later on.


Ok, that's probably the best way to go.



:idea: For the graphics, why not do what Rare had done with Donkey Kong Country on the SNES? They 'pre-rendered' the 3D graphics and made sprites out of the 3D graphics from your modeling software(3ds max, light wave, deled, etc) done durring development. It gives the full appearance of true 3D, yet saving you time on hacking away at the 3D engine's code for speed and reducing the loss of resources by just working with the 2D sprites.

Well a lot of games did this in fact. Starcraft and Diablo are also examples.
I've also used this tecnique in "Nardo and the broken astronav" and in lots of unfinished games, but i didn't was very satisfied, becouse it have some drawbacks. For example if you want to change the angle of the camera you have to re-render everything. Also, it is difficoult to have elements changing in a model (for example, the same warrior with different weapons or armor). Lastly i found that working with it is annoing.. For example if you have to change a little on a model to get it better, you have to render all the model again. If you have to do it multiple times to get the right results, it's going to take a lot of time.
Over that, you can't have in game camera (rotating and zooming) with 2d :P



The idea of a Fantasy RPG played like an X-COM/UFO type 'squad game' is rather exciting. Especially with the prospect of casting magic on top of that. I doubt that there is a game like that in existance right now. This would seem to be a rather unique idea.


Yes :)
But i was thinking this: in UFO you control a small "task force" of about 6-8 characters. Instead in a castle siege or in a field battle, you would want to use a whole army :P Will we have a medioeval "task force" ? :P
Ok, i think that this little discrepance can be ignored in this days.. Commercial games do it too :lol:

Traveler
30-12-2004, 09:18 AM
My opinion of graphics in games is pretty simple. If it doesn't look right don't use it. Pre-rendered graphics in games usually look a lot better than their 3D counterparts. Granted, there are a few drawbacks with prerendered sprites. Rotating, is one of them, zooming, to an extend as well (although Settlers 4 proved otherwise). But then again, do you really need rotating? I hardly ever use it in for example Warcraft 3.
I suppose it depends on the game, but in a turn based game, I doubt it. If I had to choose I would go for better/nicer graphics.


Lastly i found that working with it is annoing.. For example if you have to change a little on a model to get it better, you have to render all the model again. If you have to do it multiple times to get the right results, it's going to take a lot of time.

This is of course true, but for a 3d character, things don't get much easier either. Although you don't have to render it for a specific camera angle, you do need to export the motions. Not an easy task either.

Also, the use of multiple weapons per character seems easier to do in 2d than 3D. If I'm not mistaken, Diablo used a technique where multiple sprites where drawn on top of eachother.
My experience with 3D isn't that much, but I can't think of a way how to do it in 3D, besides changing the model with another or have it use other textures.

{MSX}
30-12-2004, 09:44 AM
Pre-rendered graphics in games usually look a lot better than their 3D counterparts.

Wait a minute! If i have a model, a pre-rendered version look exacly like the 3d rendered one (apart from shadows and the like maybe). You are assuming that the pre-rendered model is better than the rendered one. You indeed have more freedom with poligons, but who draws the better models ? :P You'll need an artist for that.
While a simple low poly model can still look nice in 3d, it would probably be ugly in 2d.



Also, the use of multiple weapons per character seems easier to do in 2d than 3D. If I'm not mistaken, Diablo used a technique where multiple sprites where drawn on top of eachother.


Umm i'm not sure it's easier in 2d. First, you have to do a render cycle for each weapon for each animation. For example 8 direction, 4 animation (walk, attack1, attack2, hit, for example, but they can be more), about 8 frame per animation, gives you 256 frame.
Then, what if two characters have different heights? you should adjust the offset of the weapon for each character and possibly for each animation.

Also, this assumes that every character has the same animation set. If you have different animation, you have still more work.
Instead with 3D you draw a single weapon model, and then just attack it to the hand of the models with some easy mechanism.

Traveler
30-12-2004, 11:46 AM
You are assuming that the pre-rendered model is better than the rendered one. You indeed have more freedom with poligons, but who draws the better models ?

The extra freedom with poly's is exactly why its easier. Take hands for example. With prerendered, you can shape them far better then when you would do for a 3d game model.
With the latter people go to great lengths to make the textures extra detailed to make the model look better. This is less of a necessity with pre rendered models, because the extra polys already take care of (all) the details.

I understand what you are trying to say though. For the past 3 years I've been doing 3D graphics, and although I am getting better at it, I still find it quite difficult at times. It's just that I think it is a misunderstanding to think that (high res) pre rendered graphics are harder than low-res 3d models. (When you want to have them look just as good or nearly as good as pre rendered)


While a simple low poly model can still look nice in 3d, it would probably be ugly in 2d.

Actually a low poly model will always look better in 2d than it would in 3d. You have after all the benefits of shading, lighting and antialiasing.

WILL
31-12-2004, 02:24 AM
The idea of 'pre-rendering' is that you have rendered the 3d into a 2d the way you want it to look before hand. Yes, some technical limitations arize, but the concept allows you to 'cheat' a little here and there. Because thats pretty much what it is. :)

Ultimately, it's up to you got you want your game to look. Do you want to make a 3D game or do you want to make a 2D game?

Since you are limited in your ability to produce high-quality 3D graphics, I'd suggest trying to counter this with the advantage of pre-rendering your 3D models into 2D sprites, its more work for the 'posing process', but it's the trade-off to counter the lack of 3D artistic skill and programming load of a 3D engine(time to code and CPU/video card juice required).


Development is always a balance of compromize... you sacrafice memory size for speed or vice versa... it's a yin and yang situation... It's the way of the programmer. :rambo:

K4Z
25-02-2005, 01:10 PM
This looks like an interesting topic, but it seems to have died, due to an all to common problem, worrying too much about the graphics.

{MSX}, have you already started on this game?

If not, here's some of my opinions:

I would suggest 2d, Iso, or even squared top down tiles.
Being turn based, 1 on 1 multiplayer is rather simple, since you need not worry about lag, etc.
Single player is a bit harder, in my opinion, cos you have to create AI.

Anyone still interested in breathing life into this idea?
I can help with coding, 3d and 2d graphics.

{MSX}
01-03-2005, 06:18 PM
This looks like an interesting topic, but it seems to have died, due to an all to common problem, worrying too much about the graphics.

{MSX}, have you already started on this game?

If not, here's some of my opinions:

I would suggest 2d, Iso, or even squared top down tiles.
Being turn based, 1 on 1 multiplayer is rather simple, since you need not worry about lag, etc.
Single player is a bit harder, in my opinion, cos you have to create AI.

Anyone still interested in breathing life into this idea?
I can help with coding, 3d and 2d graphics.

Hi :D
I've not started this project yet, even if this could happend on 16th March :)
About your considerations:
i'm still more attracted by 3D graphic. I've also done some "example" models for a fantasy-style game. They look simple and cartoonish and i'm very proud of them :P :mrgreen:
Here they are:
http://www.lugato.net/shot1.png
http://www.lugato.net/shot2.png
http://www.lugato.net/shot3.png
I've lot of code ready for the engine (exporting models, loading models, loading textures, rendering, etc. (see FunkyCars engine).
Btw, K4Z what do you use for 3d? Any experience (or wish to make it) in Blender? Any screenshot ? :P


About multiplayer, i think a simple 1vs1 is good, but i would want also a "container": something like a place where players meets and create/join games (like battle.net and the like), maybe with a mechanism for trading items, units, etc.
Problems with this implementation are many :) Syncronization, clients dropping, cheating, account mantaining etc. etc, without considering the it would require a server :P (ok, this is not a real problem anyway..)
This multiplayer system can possibly be as hard as single player AI to implement :P
But the question is: what will be more fun to play ? :P

Also, we should think about the gameplay.. for example, if using a rigid system (with fixed class of weapons, damages, etc, like UFO) or a flexible one, where each object can do about whatever (like in Magic the gathering, where a card can have almost any effect in game).

Bye :)

cairnswm
02-03-2005, 04:59 AM
I've been looking for an online project to get involved in for a while. I'd be prepared to do the Online get together, domain for you. I dont do 3D stuff - I still believe there is a lot of potential in the good old 2D stuff.

I love those models - what did you do them in?

Can we get the first PGDev tesm together? :P

K4Z
02-03-2005, 09:40 AM
Firstly, those 3d models are bl**dy awesome. So low poly, and cartoony, but look soo cool. With that style you could pump out soo many models pretty quickly I'd think.

Lol, I love em :D .

Ok, I mostly use Lightwave for modeling,animating,render,etc. And Milkshape for making UT models. I posted my current LW work in the Introduce yourself thread (page 7), I'll post some updates and other stuff when I can get back to my own pc. I've used blender a hand full of times, but still need more time with it before I'm comfortable.

For the past few years I've done a lot of work with a small Online (and offline) RPG. I've just recently (3 months ago) started work on a small server for it. Players connect, enter a chat room, join games, etc similar to battle.net. So I have a bit of experience with Multiplayer Online stuff. Umm, I've done a little work with AI: puzzels, RPG monster battles, platform game bot pathfinding, etc. And I'd have to say implementing multiplayer is a easier than AI, but that depends an how advanced the game will be.

Bit by bit I've been working on small engine for an AdvancedWars (2) clone. One of my favourite Trun-Based tactics games. If you've never played it, the game (on the gameboy) has pretty poor graphics and uses a straight topdown squared map, but the game is very stratigic. And is about gaing the advantage in combat by moving through trees and mountainous terrain to gain more defence, etc.

Sadly I've never played X-COM/UFO, so i'm not too sure of the game play.
Could I hear some more of your thoughts on the setting, gameplay, story,etc.
Are you thinking total 3d or 3d rendered sprites? 3d tile based? Tactical like FF Tactics, ogre tactics? or just a hack and slash?

I've been wanting to make turn based game for ages, and I have heaps of ideas.
I'd love for you to start a a small Dev team for this.
I think it should be kept extremely simply (at first), don't worry too much about simple things like graphics, those can be change later. But yeah, i'm loving those 3d models :D .
So yeah, waiting for your reply...

Sly
02-03-2005, 09:52 AM
i'm still more attracted by 3D graphic. I've also done some "example" models for a fantasy-style game. They look simple and cartoonish and i'm very proud of them :P :mrgreen:
Those models rock. :)

{MSX}
02-03-2005, 04:17 PM
Firstly, those 3d models are bl**dy awesome. So low poly, and cartoony, but look soo cool. With that style you could pump out soo many models pretty quickly I'd think.

Lol, I love em Very Happy .

Ok, I mostly use Lightwave for modeling,animating,render,etc. And Milkshape for making UT models. I posted my current LW work in the Introduce yourself thread (page 7), I'll post some updates and other stuff when I can get back to my own pc. I've used blender a hand full of times, but still need more time with it before I'm comfortable.


Thank you :P In fact i've done them quite quickly. Also, they're interchangeable, so that you can make a set of caps, vest, etc, and then use them as you wish (in the case we want to make equipments in that way).
I didn't used textures for them. We could decide to completely texture them, to texture only some mesh (for example, the body armour) or to leave them this way (which is the simplest :P). Also, if some of you have a pale idea on how to do it, we could think of hacking up a cell rendering for complete cartoonish look :P
About blender, i found it very good for many reasons. It's interface is somehow weird at the beginning, but it's designed for heavy use and it works good. Also, you can write plugins and exporters in python (a language that i usually hate but in this case it does his job :P ). I've already written an exporter that i use in my engine and works very good.
Also blender is nice for texturing, it has good unwrapping tools to generate the texture "skeleton".



Sadly I've never played X-COM/UFO, so i'm not too sure of the game play.
Could I hear some more of your thoughts on the setting, gameplay, story,etc.
Are you thinking total 3d or 3d rendered sprites? 3d tile based? Tactical like FF Tactics, ogre tactics? or just a hack and slash?


Too bad you didn't try it :P It's a masterpiece of the genre.
My idea about the setting is to do something like a mix, like Final Fantasy. That is, fantasy but without dropping completely guns, robots, etc.

The game map would be something like a square-tiled map (flat) with stilized elements on it (trees, rocks, whatever).
The look i'd like to have is like the one of Hopmon, a great game that i adore for it's semplicity and good looking yet simple graphics (from which i inspired for my models).
http://www.jjsoftgames.com/images/hopmon_screen01.jpg
http://www.jjsoftgames.com/images/hopmon_screen02.jpg
http://www.jjsoftgames.com/images/hopmon_screen03.jpg
http://www.jjsoftgames.com/images/hopmon_screen04.jpg

About the game play, the basic functionality is based on action points. Each unit has its own AP, that are replenished at the beginning of the turn. They can be spent for moving, using items, attacking, etc. The max value can be influenced by many factors, for example wearing heavy items will decrease it. Apart from the AP, there are the classical RPG values, mainly strength, constitution, agility, magical power.
I would keep this basic part quite small, perhaps just this four values or few more to define units. Maybe some other "tag" for tecnical use (human, undead, mechanical, flying etc).

Then, each unit can be equipped with a weapon and an armour (if human), can wear some items (ready for use), and can carry a certain amount of items.

The weapon can certainly be used to attack, which will be the main way of dealing damages in the game.
Weapons could be defined by some values, such as precision, range, damage dealt, etc. The resolutions of attacks will involve some easy calculation considering weapon stats, target stats, etc. like all RPG (D&D).
Each unit can have one or more default attacks, that can be used "like a weapon". This default attack can be for example a (weak) punch for humans (that are meant to use weapon), but can be a (powerfull) bite for a wolf or a throwing spike for a living plant.
About items, what i'd like is that each object can be "activated" to accomplish an effect. For example, a "magic mushroom" can be used (eated) to restore some life points, while a magic scroll can be used to cast the relative spell.
The effect may be one-use only or repeatable. The items can need a certain level on some RPG values to be used, and the relative effect can be great or small depending on them (for examples, magical items may need a minimum value for "magic power" to be used).
Units can also have effects. They works exacly like the effects for items. So a Paladin can have the "ability" to heal a little his friends, another unit could have the ability to increase it's action points for a turn in exchange for some life points (a kind of berserk). This will add more variety to the unit definition beside RPG values.

The point in this model is that the effects can be whatever, with no predefined "classes" or such. Much like in Magic The Gathering. Hopefully, this will make the game "wide" (and expandable) and players will always have a chance to see something new in each match.
In the "battle.net" part of the game players will be able to buy/sell stuff with each other and/or with a general "market".
At the moment of entering the game, they will choose a portion of their stuff to put in play (like in real miniature games). Some rules of each match will set the power of each army that is put in play (so that the match will be equilibrated).

Ok, that's it. I think this model will not be hard to implement, yet it should provide a nice game play.
Of course, i'd like to know what you think about it :P



I've been wanting to make turn based game for ages, and I have heaps of ideas.
I'd love for you to start a a small Dev team for this.
I think it should be kept extremely simply (at first), don't worry too much about simple things like graphics, those can be change later. But yeah, i'm loving those 3d models Very Happy .
So yeah, waiting for your reply...


Well if we start, we are already three :P
A condition for me is that the game should be open source and should run on linux too (no problem for this, i'll make it work on it).

Sly
02-03-2005, 10:13 PM
The look i'd like to have is like the one of Hopmon, a great game that i adore for it's semplicity and good looking yet simple graphics (from which i inspired for my models).
Man, it's a small world. The guy who wrote Hopmon (James Saito) used to work here at Krome Studios. I was his boss. :)

WILL
02-03-2005, 10:33 PM
I like the idea! :) And if the graphics were like those posted by you, MSX then I'm sure it'll be great looking too. With a very likeable style theme.

If the game is true to the X-Com/UFO type of gameplay then I'd be most interested in palying it. ;) I may even want to beta test for you. Are you planning a 3D engine or a 2D one?

Oh for projectile weaponry don't forget the good 'ole bow and of course the cross bow! :) You know what you could do for the whole R&D/buy-sell side of the game? If you replace the X-Com organization with a King's kingdom and he has sages(or wizemen) and craftsman... you can have the research and development side of things from a medival startup to a cros-breed of whoever your enemy is and the whole fantasy side of things.

ie. Lets say your enemy is aliens(for the sake that they have evolved weaponry and if youwant ot include this this will be a explainable way how)... a bit primative, but enough that they can make their way to you planet to cause trouble. You can send a party of heroes to vanquish known enemy human kingdoms then as the game goes on... you eventually discover aliens. By this time you will have or should have a sizable empire going. You can then grow a party or parties of warriors/heroes that you can send you capture discover the aliens... and somehow capture them and their technology.

Maybe a way to interact with the aliens is to have them is to have a one-way trip in a crashing probe, since they only want to take over the planet, right? And the aliens comeout of it... your knights find these and have their wizemen examine them. This is where the R&D stuff comes in... but you already start with learning how to make advanced human tech stuff like cross-bows and muskets, etc... You can purchase arrows and swords for your armies, recruit basic trades like fighters, healers, mages and archers, but maybe also be able to research new classes through the R&D system. Same with armour and magic through sages.

Oooww... cool game! :) You know if youlike these ideas, maybe I can sign on as a story writter? ;) Do up some story bits for it...

cairnswm
03-03-2005, 04:32 AM
About multiplayer, i think a simple 1vs1 is good, but i would want also a "container": something like a place where players meets and create/join games (like battle.net and the like), maybe with a mechanism for trading items, units, etc.


What facilities do you have to implement this? Do you have an environment that you could run Delphi ISPAI DLLs or even a Delphi TCP Server?

The options are
Easiest: An ASP site that is accessed through HTTP calls. Then returns data as the output of the ASP sites (see my web live tutorials). Requires an IIS server.
Harder: A delphi TCP server. Accessed from clients using IdTCPClient. Requires a Windows server where you can run your own executables.

For my DogFight entry I'm going to do the ASP option. But thats because I have an ASP based web site, but cannot run executables.

K4Z
03-03-2005, 05:06 AM
Lets make a check list of what we've gone through, and still need to work out:

:arrow: The theme is medievil, warriors, knights, wizards, etc?, with robots and guns and stuff?
:arrow: Total 3d, characters, maps, effects?
:arrow: Square Tile, Flat maps.
:arrow: Multiplayer, connect to a server to play games, and trade items?
:arrow: Open source
:arrow: Portable


and some other stuff to decide:
:arrow: Render engine? OpenGl or a custom engine?
:arrow: Single Player? MultiPlayer with computer controlled players aswell?
:arrow: Is game data saved on a server or users pc?

--------------------------------

Here's some of my random ideas :

Players start by creating a profile, and start off with a little bit of money.
They can go to a sort of 'Market place or town/city', and can buy/hire characters. These characters are slaves/loyal soldiers/mercenaries/minions and they work/serve for you. And they usually start off low level. You can buy items and equipment for them to use in battle.
When you've got a small party of characters ready, you can then go fight with them. Train outside in a 'wilderness', fight in an arena, or challenge another player. When you win battles your characters will gain EXP and increase levels. Giving the RPG part to the game.
As well as buy/sell/trade items you can also trade your characters. So you can train a warrior/slave upto a high level and sell him to another player, for money, or for another character.
In single player there might be some sort of story that you progress through by doing quests and stuff. And random NPC adventurers will ask to join your party through the game, which will help you in battles.

-------

Players could have 'Land', not physically but just a number. This 'Land' determains the max amount of characters you can have.
Say, you start off with 40 acres, giving you a max of 2 characters. You fight another player, who has 60 acres. You win the battle against him and you gain a portion of his land, say he loses 10 acres and you gain 5 acres (the other 5 acres got razed in the battle and became worthless).
You could also be able to sell off your land, to other players. Or even raze/dig up your own land to find items and stuff.

Well thats just an idea.

{MSX}
03-03-2005, 09:28 AM
Harder: A delphi TCP server. Accessed from clients using IdTCPClient. Requires a Windows server where you can run your own executables.


Argh :P Why on earth should it require a windows server ?

There is no problem in doing a cross platform TCP server. I did once some times ago for a MUD i was designing. That's exacly what we need so i could probably copy some code from there.
This evening i'll search it.
A TCP server is way more performant and easy to develop then a web service IMHO.

About the server, we can initially host it by ourself (on my PC for example), then we could find an host when we have something completed (the same way you would do with a MUD).

cairnswm
03-03-2005, 10:01 AM
Ok TCP server it is. :)

I'd presume windows because I'm going to develop it in Delphi :) - Which as you know (I hope) is a Product that runs on the windows Platform ;)

And I dont have access to anything else...


I have got working TCP server and client components working already. I'll do some work on them and get a server up and running. We can define specific messages later.


PS. I'm also prepared to try get involved in AI stuff. At the moment I just want to avoid the Interface development stuff if you are going 3D.

{MSX}
03-03-2005, 10:12 AM
Lets make a check list of what we've gone through, and still need to work out:

:arrow: The theme is medievil, warriors, knights, wizards, etc?, with robots and guns and stuff?
:arrow: Total 3d, characters, maps, effects?
:arrow: Square Tile, Flat maps.
:arrow: Multiplayer, connect to a server to play games, and trade items?
:arrow: Open source
:arrow: Portable


ok for this



and some other stuff to decide:
:arrow: Render engine? OpenGl or a custom engine?
:arrow: Single Player? MultiPlayer with computer controlled players aswell?
:arrow: Is game data saved on a server or users pc?


Well if we want to implement multiplayer in this way, i'd drop single player.
About the data, i'll save all on server, and the "official" version of each running game will be the one on the server (this reduce possibility to cheat).




They can go to a sort of 'Market place or town/city', and can buy/hire characters. These characters are slaves/loyal soldiers/mercenaries/minions and they work/serve for you. And they usually start off low level. You can buy items and equipment for them to use in battle.
When you've got a small party of characters ready, you can then go fight with them. Train outside in a 'wilderness', fight in an arena, or challenge another player. When you win battles your characters will gain EXP and increase levels. Giving the RPG part to the game.


For this part of the game i was thinking of a managerial impostation, with no "movement" on a map or such. Much like soccer game where you handle your team before the actual match.
In your view it seems you have a map where you move to seach battles. I think it will better to keep the thing "virtual" and concentrate on the battle part.

{MSX}
03-03-2005, 10:14 AM
I have got working TCP server and client components working already. I'll do some work on them and get a server up and running. We can define specific messages later.


Ok.
Are you going to use pre-made components or sockets?

{MSX}
03-03-2005, 03:59 PM
At the moment I just want to avoid the Interface development stuff if you are going 3D.

In effect, this is a problem (it would be for 2d also anyway :P )
I've nothing ready for the GUI part of the game, which could easily need a lot of work. The game as i imagine has a lot of GUIs..

K4Z
04-03-2005, 12:24 AM
For this part of the game i was thinking of a managerial impostation, with no "movement" on a map or such. Much like soccer game where you handle your team before the actual match.
In your view it seems you have a map where you move to seach battles. I think it will better to keep the thing "virtual" and concentrate on the battle part.

Ah, no I was thinking just having a 2d picture, or buttons that you click to goto a town, etc, the only 3d part should be in the actuall battles. It would get to complex to have the entire game a 3d world.

About the rendering, what 3d library do you mostly use? I have a bit of experience with OpenGl, and a little more with GlXtreme.
I've just started experimenting with making a 3d Mapmaker in glXtreme, just using an array of 0's and 1's, 0 is a flat square, 1 is a raise square, trying to get a similar look to Hopmon.

{MSX}
04-03-2005, 07:54 AM
Ah, no I was thinking just having a 2d picture, or buttons that you click to goto a town, etc, the only 3d part should be in the actuall battles. It would get to complex to have the entire game a 3d world.

Ah, ok, i think this too.



About the rendering, what 3d library do you mostly use? I have a bit of experience with OpenGl, and a little more with GlXtreme.
I've just started experimenting with making a 3d Mapmaker in glXtreme, just using an array of 0's and 1's, 0 is a flat square, 1 is a raise square, trying to get a similar look to Hopmon.

I use JEDI-SDL, that is OpenGL for the 3D stuff.
You can see some works of mine here (http://www.lugato.net/msx/zip/thegame.zip) and here (http://funkycars.sf.net)

For the maps, we could possibly do something a little more advanced than hopmon, for example having different type of tiles (hopmon almost has only one tile).

One thing to decide is the size of the maps. I see two possibility
- big maps: this means that there are great spaces to move on, and possibly the presence of the "fog of war" covering the unseen parts.
- small maps: this means that the maps are small enought to start the "core" of the battle in one or two turns. No "fog of war" here.

I think the resulting game-play will be very different in the two way. I think the second is better for many reasons:
- it's easier to implement :P
- players will not get bored waiting for events.

Remember we are doing a turn based multiplayer game, where one player at turn sits without doing anything but waiting. We should avoid dead times. If they must wait for 10 turn to reach the other, with its movements covered by fog of war, they'll fall asleep. Also, i would keep the number of units in games small, maybe about five for player (this will be decided by players anyway).

The size i was thinking is about the size of the big maps of hopmon. Think that units with range weapons (bows etc), will shoot about 5 or 6 tiles far.

Before putting down the code, i think we should define better how the game should be and all the details and how to structure the code. You know, use cases, examples, etc etc :P Software engineering :mrgreen:

Bye

{MSX}
05-03-2005, 09:50 AM
If the game is true to the X-Com/UFO type of gameplay then I'd be most interested in palying it. ;) I may even want to beta test for you. Are you planning a 3D engine or a 2D one?


3D engine :P



Oh for projectile weaponry don't forget the good 'ole bow and of course the cross bow! :) You know what you could do for the whole R&D/buy-sell side of the game? If you replace the X-Com organization with a King's kingdom and he has sages(or wizemen) and craftsman... you can have the research and development side of things from a medival startup to a cros-breed of whoever your enemy is and the whole fantasy side of things.


This idea is good, but remember we are doing a multiplayer game.
So the whole thing of research and development will have no sense, since each match will be on it's own, much like Starcraft if you ever played it (you should :P )

Also, your proposal is like to require a hundred of programmers :P The gameplay i was thinking instead would be quite simple.

We must keep it simple :P The possibility for a project to reach the end of development is proportional to its simpleness :P
I don't want another project started and then abandoned..

WILL
05-03-2005, 11:27 AM
Hmm... well I'm with you on that. But how close to X-Com style gameplay are you thinking of? Just the combat portion of it? No character development? Or would you have that take place concurrently like you have in say.. Warlords BattleCry 3(if you played it) where you retail a record of your party and their stats and they go up in level according to how well they did in battle, etc.

I mean... that is one way to reduce the required programming, yet retain alot of replay-ability? You keep your surviving characters/heroes and grow them accordingly... how you equip them is a different issue though... depends on what kind of things you'll have outside of the actual combat side of the game. 'Off-line' shops and guilds? Or something else in mind...?

{MSX}
05-03-2005, 12:06 PM
Hmm... well I'm with you on that. But how close to X-Com style gameplay are you thinking of? Just the combat portion of it? No character development? Or would you have that take place concurrently like you have in say.. Warlords BattleCry 3(if you played it) where you retail a record of your party and their stats and they go up in level according to how well they did in battle, etc.


Well the X-Com gameplay will be only for combats.
The other part of the game will technically be a simple "create/join game" plus the "market" or something similar.
But your character and items will always be the same (unless you sell them or something similar), much like with Magic The Gathering, where you have your cards and choose which to use in each match.

A part from this, units could have "experience points" so that they will gain levels when they reach a certain amount of them. The higher the level, the better the unit will become.
Experience points and levels are mantained between games.



I mean... that is one way to reduce the required programming, yet retain alot of replay-ability? You keep your surviving characters/heroes and grow them accordingly... how you equip them is a different issue though... depends on what kind of things you'll have outside of the actual combat side of the game. 'Off-line' shops and guilds? Or something else in mind...?

Well you'll keep your equipments between games (maybe with some limitations). If you've a potion and you use it on a game, you'll have it back when you finish the match and start another.
Maybe this sound strange, but i'd like to make it something like Magic for the "trading" part.
I'd like this gameplay, the only issue is that it requires a big amount of characters and items to make it wide enought.

Another possibility is to limit usage of things.. for example: you use a potion and you loose it forever :P If you want another, you must buy it. Also swords and other equip will have a durability and get worst with time until it finally break.

What do you think ?

WILL
05-03-2005, 01:49 PM
Hmm... well I'm with you on that. But how close to X-Com style gameplay are you thinking of? Just the combat portion of it? No character development? Or would you have that take place concurrently like you have in say.. Warlords BattleCry 3(if you played it) where you retail a record of your party and their stats and they go up in level according to how well they did in battle, etc.


Well the X-Com gameplay will be only for combats.
The other part of the game will technically be a simple "create/join game" plus the "market" or something similar.
But your character and items will always be the same (unless you sell them or something similar), much like with Magic The Gathering, where you have your cards and choose which to use in each match.

A part from this, units could have "experience points" so that they will gain levels when they reach a certain amount of them. The higher the level, the better the unit will become.
Experience points and levels are mantained between games.

Yup that sounds like a great sort of system to me. You could use a sort of simplified ranking system like they use in X-Com where the more kills, etc you have the higher they 'promote' you. Each unit class having their own rank titles? That'd be neat keep your heroes/units unique... Naming system would be cool too. Name your characters so you can individually keep track of them. It'll allow you to hone your party and ultimately make it more fun to keep playing and playing to improve your characters/army/party as you play the game.




I mean... that is one way to reduce the required programming, yet retain alot of replay-ability? You keep your surviving characters/heroes and grow them accordingly... how you equip them is a different issue though... depends on what kind of things you'll have outside of the actual combat side of the game. 'Off-line' shops and guilds? Or something else in mind...?

Well you'll keep your equipments between games (maybe with some limitations). If you've a potion and you use it on a game, you'll have it back when you finish the match and start another.
Maybe this sound strange, but i'd like to make it something like Magic for the "trading" part.
I'd like this gameplay, the only issue is that it requires a big amount of characters and items to make it wide enought.

Another possibility is to limit usage of things.. for example: you use a potion and you loose it forever :P If you want another, you must buy it. Also swords and other equip will have a durability and get worst with time until it finally break.

What do you think ?

I think that perishable items should be just that... use them and they are gone... This includes potions, one time use scrolls, staff charges, arrows(this fits with a squad-type combat game as you can purchase different types and even magic) Spells well thats up to you how you want to have your spell system... MP or per charge usage. Weapons having a integrity or damage value it kinda cool. Works well for so many other games; Diablo 1/2, Sierra's Betral at Krondor, and others. Plus it adds a touch of 'character' to your party... how battle weary they are, etc... recouperating costs, etc.

I think that you should be able to hire new bottom level(Level 1) characters and then as you go into combat you can pick a party to do battle out of all of your lot of retainers(or army/guild, etc) and those that gain experience in battle go up in level and develop as individual 'heroes'. Make a character generator and get random stats as you would when hiring a new 'Soldier' in X-Com... You can have a non-multiplayer guild and shop that you visit to hire and purchase people and weapons/armour/items, etc... but you gain no gold so to continue to equip and build your army you have to battle other players armies... you start out with some money when you create a 'new party' or profile, just enough to make a starting party. Maybe the server options will allow you to find beginner games only when you start out? It might help to fix that experience gap issue... or set points level maximums for some games the player sets up...?

{MSX}
05-03-2005, 03:14 PM
Yup that sounds like a great sort of system to me. You could use a sort of simplified ranking system like they use in X-Com where the more kills, etc you have the higher they 'promote' you. Each unit class having their own rank titles? That'd be neat keep your heroes/units unique... Naming system would be cool too. Name your characters so you can individually keep track of them. It'll allow you to hone your party and ultimately make it more fun to keep playing and playing to improve your characters/army/party as you play the game.


For the names, no problem :P Everyone will be able to call his characters "Eriken" and then use them as cannon fodder :mrgreen:

About the ranking, it depends on how we distinguish between "types" of characters.
My original idea was that there are two types of characters: men and creatures.
- Men are all equals. The differ only for random stats. Then, you equip them with different things (which make them really different).
- Creatures are all differents. A dog, a wolf, a goblin, a ghost, etc. They don't use items.
You can then have a party of men and creatures mixed as you like..

This would be easy to implement.. For example, you could use the same animation set for each man, that is very good :P
The only problem is that it is a little limitative and rigid.

We could expand it in some ways.. for example different classes of mans:
humans, dwarfs, undead, etc.

This needs a bit of brainstorming i think :)
Only, since this is main point of the game, it must be easy to build.. we should be able to create lots of characters and items..
We cannot have a complete set of animations for each type of character.. It will take too work to do one..

Anyway i'm not very happy with this solution.. any hint ? :P

Ah just to be clear, for animations i mean 3d model animations that will be used in the 3d combat scene. These are not connected to the gameplay.

Example of animation i can think:

for man:
:arrow: stand
:arrow: walk
:arrow: hit
:arrow: dead
:arrow: attack generic
:arrow: attack_sword (attack with something like a sword, axe, or such)
:arrow: attack_bow (attack with bows and the like)
:arrow: attack_spear (some kind of attack with spears, alabards, tridents, etc)
:arrow: use object
:arrow: cast spell
:arrow: throw something

for creatures:
:arrow: stand
:arrow: walk
:arrow: hit
:arrow: dead
:arrow: custom attack



I think that perishable items should be just that... use them and they are gone... This includes potions, one time use scrolls, staff charges, arrows(this fits with a squad-type combat game as you can purchase different types and even magic)


Ok, that could be good. Only, i fear that people will be tempted to choose only non-perishables to avoid the continue expense of replenishing. Who will use a bow if it always require to buy arrows? It's better a nice sword :P
We could possibly make arrows and the like very cheap.



I think that you should be able to hire new bottom level(Level 1) characters and then as you go into combat you can pick a party to do battle out of all of your lot of retainers(or army/guild, etc) and those that gain experience in battle go up in level and develop as individual 'heroes'. Make a character generator and get random stats as you would when hiring a new 'Soldier' in X-Com... You can have a non-multiplayer guild and shop that you visit to hire and purchase people and weapons/armour/items, etc... but you gain no gold so to continue to equip and build your army you have to battle other players armies... you start out with some money when you create a 'new party' or profile, just enough to make a starting party. Maybe the server options will allow you to find beginner games only when you start out? It might help to fix that experience gap issue... or set points level maximums for some games the player sets up...?

Yes, that's about what i think :P

For the match, to keep opponents balanced, i've thought to use a tecnique like Warhammer: each characted and item has a value based on its power. When you build an army, you sums all values and get the army value.
When players will create a game, they can set a max value for entrants.
For example i can create a game for armies of no more than 200 points.

WILL
06-03-2005, 01:24 AM
Yup that sounds like a great sort of system to me. You could use a sort of simplified ranking system like they use in X-Com where the more kills, etc you have the higher they 'promote' you. Each unit class having their own rank titles? That'd be neat keep your heroes/units unique... Naming system would be cool too. Name your characters so you can individually keep track of them. It'll allow you to hone your party and ultimately make it more fun to keep playing and playing to improve your characters/army/party as you play the game.


For the names, no problem :P Everyone will be able to call his characters "Eriken" and then use them as cannon fodder :mrgreen:

About the ranking, it depends on how we distinguish between "types" of characters.
My original idea was that there are two types of characters: men and creatures.
- Men are all equals. The differ only for random stats. Then, you equip them with different things (which make them really different).
- Creatures are all differents. A dog, a wolf, a goblin, a ghost, etc. They don't use items.
You can then have a party of men and creatures mixed as you like..

This would be easy to implement.. For example, you could use the same animation set for each man, that is very good :P
The only problem is that it is a little limitative and rigid.

We could expand it in some ways.. for example different classes of mans:
humans, dwarfs, undead, etc.

I think what you are trying to bring up here is different races. I think that races are a great idea... esp. if you could mix and match races available for hire... OR it is somehow randomly factored into it, but with a ballance... Maybe you pick your Kindom's Default Race and have a mild selection from that...

As for creatures as upposed to 'men' I've never been too keen on the usage of animals in RPGs... Mind you maybe using a dragon or some other summoned monster might be different. But then we're getting into spells that summon temporary NPCs for the battle rather than characters that you keep for later.


This needs a bit of brainstorming i think :)
Only, since this is main point of the game, it must be easy to build.. we should be able to create lots of characters and items..
We cannot have a complete set of animations for each type of character.. It will take too work to do one..

Anyway i'm not very happy with this solution.. any hint ? :P

Ah just to be clear, for animations i mean 3d model animations that will be used in the 3d combat scene. These are not connected to the gameplay.

Example of animation i can think:

for man:
:arrow: stand
:arrow: walk
:arrow: hit
:arrow: dead
:arrow: attack generic
:arrow: attack_sword (attack with something like a sword, axe, or such)
:arrow: attack_bow (attack with bows and the like)
:arrow: attack_spear (some kind of attack with spears, alabards, tridents, etc)
:arrow: use object
:arrow: cast spell
:arrow: throw something

for creatures:
:arrow: stand
:arrow: walk
:arrow: hit
:arrow: dead
:arrow: custom attack

In the game Dungeon Seige there is a way that they use 3D objects/models so that when you change say.. to a different helmet from the one you have on, it'll change your characters appearance seemingly my merging a different model or 'hat model' on oyur character's head.. same with the shirt/pants, boots, gloves, items/weapons in hands, etc... If you could learn this technique and how to do it nice and smoothly I think it'll offer you the solution you need for all these massive amounts of combinations, rather than trying to model each and every type of combo you can think of yourself. Plus it'll allow you to make different styles for your A) Characters; Different body colors, heads(hair no hair, elven ears, beards, scars, etc), body type, hands, etc. and B) Items Different styles of helmets and armour + items to give that sort of 'bling' factor. ;)

Now combine the body parts to the character generator when you hire new men/women to your army and you get a pretty cool in-depth way to create unique armies with individual personalities for each. Merging these modeled parts into your character object will allow this, plus save your butt from a huge pain-staking process.




I think that perishable items should be just that... use them and they are gone... This includes potions, one time use scrolls, staff charges, arrows(this fits with a squad-type combat game as you can purchase different types and even magic)


Ok, that could be good. Only, i fear that people will be tempted to choose only non-perishables to avoid the continue expense of replenishing. Who will use a bow if it always require to buy arrows? It's better a nice sword :P
We could possibly make arrows and the like very cheap.

Well thats good in a way.. because if the guy doesn't buy and archers or anything then you can just use yours you mow his ass down before he can reach you because he didn't ballance his forces out very well. It plays into tactics and techniques with resource management. So it's good! :) But yes, you must of course balance he costs of different weapons, ammos and the like. But as you get more powerful arrows or swords and armour, you'll need to raise the amount it's worth.




I think that you should be able to hire new bottom level(Level 1) characters and then as you go into combat you can pick a party to do battle out of all of your lot of retainers(or army/guild, etc) and those that gain experience in battle go up in level and develop as individual 'heroes'. Make a character generator and get random stats as you would when hiring a new 'Soldier' in X-Com... You can have a non-multiplayer guild and shop that you visit to hire and purchase people and weapons/armour/items, etc... but you gain no gold so to continue to equip and build your army you have to battle other players armies... you start out with some money when you create a 'new party' or profile, just enough to make a starting party. Maybe the server options will allow you to find beginner games only when you start out? It might help to fix that experience gap issue... or set points level maximums for some games the player sets up...?

Yes, that's about what i think :P

For the match, to keep opponents balanced, i've thought to use a tecnique like Warhammer: each characted and item has a value based on its power. When you build an army, you sums all values and get the army value.
When players will create a game, they can set a max value for entrants.
For example i can create a game for armies of no more than 200 points.

Yeah... thats an excellent idea on that. Each item has a 'Army Points' value to it.. and you can only take into combat the amount that you set... this may include your men/women aswell. Depending on the level of the characters thats how much they are worth too. Keep in mind that though each member of your army will have their equiped weapons there should be also a sort of cache of weapons and items that your 'kingdom' or army will have in surplus before you give them you your people (ala. the Squad Game style of play, only in X-Com the items were annoyingly reset each time you sent them back out which made it annoying to try to match weapons with the member's individual tallents)

Well this idea is coming along nicely... I'd never have thought that I'd see the day when another Squad Game, nor a Fantasy/RPG tyle squad game would come to pass in this era of computer games. :)

{MSX}
06-03-2005, 10:18 AM
I think what you are trying to bring up here is different races. I think that races are a great idea... esp. if you could mix and match races available for hire... OR it is somehow randomly factored into it, but with a ballance... Maybe you pick your Kindom's Default Race and have a mild selection from that...

As for creatures as upposed to 'men' I've never been too keen on the usage of animals in RPGs... Mind you maybe using a dragon or some other summoned monster might be different. But then we're getting into spells that summon temporary NPCs for the battle rather than characters that you keep for later.


Ah why not animals and monsters? :P I think it whould be a nice idea..
It will give us a lot of freedom in doing characters. And what about robots and veichles ?
I think the freedom is better than a "pure fantasy" setting.. Also becouse our graphical appearence will be quite limited, and we are not going to achieve a nice fantasy theme anyway.
If we remove characters, all the game will be based only on men (except for summoning). I think it would be much more vary with them.



In the game Dungeon Seige there is a way that they use 3D objects/models so that when you change say.. to a different helmet from the one you have on, it'll change your characters appearance seemingly my merging a different model or 'hat model' on oyur character's head.. same with the shirt/pants, boots, gloves, items/weapons in hands, etc... If you could learn this technique and how to do it nice and smoothly I think it'll offer you the solution you need for all these massive amounts of combinations, rather than trying to model each and every type of combo you can think of yourself. Plus it'll allow you to make different styles for your A) Characters; Different body colors, heads(hair no hair, elven ears, beards, scars, etc), body type, hands, etc. and B) Items Different styles of helmets and armour + items to give that sort of 'bling' factor. ;)


Ok, this was already in my mind.. if you look at my models, you see that bodys are always the same, with different clothes.
Over this, we could add little differences on "naked characters" such as skin color, eyes, etc just as you said.
In this way all (man) units will share the same animation set (good thing).
But as soon as you add another race (where the naked character is different), you'll need another set.
For example, if you have a "dwarf" model, it will be different from a man, and will require different animations (being shorter much of them will not work good).
Also, we must care that an equip (hat, armor, etc) will look good on all type of character. Think of a robe that works for a dwarf and a giant :)



Well thats good in a way.. because if the guy doesn't buy and archers or anything then you can just use yours you mow his ass down before he can reach you because he didn't ballance his forces out very well. It plays into tactics and techniques with resource management. So it's good! :) But yes, you must of course balance he costs of different weapons, ammos and the like. But as you get more powerful arrows or swords and armour, you'll need to raise the amount it's worth.

Ok, you're right :P I didn't tought of the strategic part. :)



Yeah... thats an excellent idea on that. Each item has a 'Army Points' value to it.. and you can only take into combat the amount that you set... this may include your men/women aswell. Depending on the level of the characters thats how much they are worth too. Keep in mind that though each member of your army will have their equiped weapons there should be also a sort of cache of weapons and items that your 'kingdom' or army will have in surplus before you give them you your people (ala. the Squad Game style of play, only in X-Com the items were annoyingly reset each time you sent them back out which made it annoying to try to match weapons with the member's individual tallents)


Eheheh you're right :P Maybe we could set up something to give the possibility to build and save armies. For example, i build (in the managerial part) an army of 100 points and save it. Then for each match less than 100 points i enter, i can automatically choose that army..



Well this idea is coming along nicely... I'd never have thought that I'd see the day when another Squad Game, nor a Fantasy/RPG tyle squad game would come to pass in this era of computer games. :)

Well there is a lot of work before that :P

I've started to work on some aspects of the game..
I'm working on a GUI implementation (that i needed also for other games :P) and it works nicely except that it don't look any "fantasy" :P
Anyone good in drawing nice fantasy interfaces ? :mrgreen:

K4Z
07-03-2005, 02:38 AM
Hey everyone, I've been away for a few days, I'll try and catch up with all the new posts.

About maps, I generally like big maps - huge maps, but in turn based games it would be better to keep them rather small, esp. being multiplayer. We should also release a mapmaker for people to be able to make thier own maps, and upload them to the server for everyone else to play on. The maps will be more advanced than hopmon, mabye having some tiles (difficult terrain) that need more action points to move across. I obt for no fog of war, have everything visible like FF Tactics.

Here some ideas I have for working with characters:

- You click to go to a 'Character Managment' screen, select one of your characters and equip, heal, etc, and prepare all your characters.
- You exit that screen and click on a 'guild' and select a character to be trained at the guild for a few days (this would cost money), and that character would be unavailable for use for half an hour or so (server time). The guild will train and raise that characters level a little bit, having a max level that the guild will train to. (training is automatic you don't actually see anything, and can only train one character at a time) You click on the giuld later to pick up your character.
- You challenge another player to a fight, either by a search option for players with lower level characters, or by choosing from a list of all active players. You select a map and a total character points, etc. Then you goto the actuall 3d map, and select from a list of your characters to deploy on the map. Once both players have deployed, the battle starts.

---------

Instead of building and saving 'armies' (armies consisting of hundreds of men) you just work with a small amount of men. Say, an average player would only have 5 or 6 characters. Once you start a battle with someone, you select which characters you want to put in the battle.

About character deaths, I was thinking something like in a battle, if your level 4 warrior on 2/10 hp and is hit for 7 damage from a level 8 orc, your warrior would be K.O'd, and can be revived after the battle (or during, with a spell, etc). But if the warrior is hit for a huge amount of damage like 100 damage from a level 30 wizard, your warrior would be killed and lost for ever. (or mabye using a ressurection scroll to revive him, which would cost an enormous amount to buy.)


Hey have you made anymore 3d models? :D

WILL
07-03-2005, 05:03 AM
Hey everyone, I've been away for a few days, I'll try and catch up with all the new posts.

About maps, I generally like big maps - huge maps, but in turn based games it would be better to keep them rather small, esp. being multiplayer. We should also release a mapmaker for people to be able to make thier own maps, and upload them to the server for everyone else to play on. The maps will be more advanced than hopmon, mabye having some tiles (difficult terrain) that need more action points to move across. I obt for no fog of war, have everything visible like FF Tactics.

Hmm... I think you missed what type of game {MSX} is trying to make. Have you ever played a squad game? ie. X-Com(aka UFO)... geez, I fail to have any others to refer too. It was a pretty niche genre.

But basically how it works is each character in your party/squad has individual MUs or Movement Units. And each action costs a specific amount of MU Actions include, turning left or right, walking in one of 8 directions(depends if you choose an insometric map or not), crouching, changing possitions of items, equipment, using a peice of equipment, throwing something from your hands, dropping something on the ground, etc I think you get the point. When using a weapon, you had types of attacks too. 'Aimed shots' cost more than 'Snap Shots' and 'auto-shots' even less. Of course this was with guns not bows/cross-bows/spears, etc

Now to fight you had to find the enemy characters(in the case of X-Com/UFO it was aliens) you did not see them on the map unless you had a line-of-sight eye contact with them. Some maps were dark(or dark areas, no lights, etc) and you had to light them up with glow sticks and such. (torches or flames for this game, no doubt?)

It seems rather involved and complex, but in reality it was very fun to play and had a sense of realistic combat. IT's never been used in an RPG or Fantasy themed game before though. It would be a first and quite fun if some of the ideas discussed here come to bear. ;)


Here some ideas I have for working with characters:

- You click to go to a 'Character Managment' screen, select one of your characters and equip, heal, etc, and prepare all your characters.
- You exit that screen and click on a 'guild' and select a character to be trained at the guild for a few days (this would cost money), and that character would be unavailable for use for half an hour or so (server time). The guild will train and raise that characters level a little bit, having a max level that the guild will train to. (training is automatic you don't actually see anything, and can only train one character at a time) You click on the giuld later to pick up your character.
- You challenge another player to a fight, either by a search option for players with lower level characters, or by choosing from a list of all active players. You select a map and a total character points, etc. Then you goto the actuall 3d map, and select from a list of your characters to deploy on the map. Once both players have deployed, the battle starts.

Again, --not to pick on you, I think you just don't understand the genre or have played anything like it before. But the maps are usually auto-generated ratehr than pre-generated. The idea being that you have to explore the map a bit to find your enemy. It's a sort of gurella warfare style of play... Now you could mix it up by having a mor open style of maps... and maybe sets of pre-made 'known' maps and having it as a gameplay option when you create a game for others to join. I mean... thats an idea, but some parts will need to be at least semi-hidden. For the sake of having a save starting point. ...Well save until the game progresses farther along. :) Unlike most multiplayer games where you have head-to-head match-ups like these I think each 'game' would tend to be rather quick. Maybe another option for gameplay that sets you up for 'waves' of combat... you get 3 'waves' or 'parties' ready and whoever wins at least say... 2 out of 3 wins the whole match.


You could break up playing the game like this:

Movement Units(MUs): Each characcter has a max number of MUs that allow you to preform actions that require a set amount. If you don't have enough MUs, you cannot perform the action until the next Turn. (X-Com had settings that reserved MUs for actions like 'Snap Shot', 'Aimed Shot', 'Crouching', etc... and unless you were perfroming that action it would not allow you to do anything else unless you had enough left to perform whatever you toggled your characters to reserve MUs for)

A Turn: Each player's characcters reset their amount of allowed MUs and can play them out on their own time. The enemy will only perform actions(auto attacks) when his characters have enough MUs to do so and they spot YOUR characters. You can do the same by leaving your characters 'postured' with enough MUs to react to an enemy character stepping into YOUR character's line-of-sight.

A Round: After all of one player's characters have been killed or retreated(how this will be handled has to be addressed as in X-Com you had to load into the transport and 'Take Off', whatever was IN the ship you got back, everything else was lost) the Round is awarded to the player that won. Items if the losing opponent retreated then what he managed to take away is his. The rest goes to the winner. (Hey, maybe you can come up with a Prisioner system so unconcious characters from your opponent can be captured? :))

A Match: At most an odd number of Rounds played until one or the other wins the majority of Rounds. Whoever does this wins the Match. There could be some kind of XP bonus for winning matches... Ability to up one character's stats? Like a promotion? It's an idea...


Well those are my thoughts, ideas for the moment. If this is not goingto be a squad game then {MSX} please tell me now so I don't sound like a sow. :lol: From your posts it clearly meant to me that it was.

Personally, I'd rather it be a Squad Game rather than another FF Tactics clone. :p I did not like that game what-so-ever. Like a cheap version of a real RPG.

K4Z
07-03-2005, 08:03 AM
er, yes I understand what type of game {MSX} is making. I have played many squad based games.

I'm just throwing around some ideas for originality, instead of another X-Com.

I prefer games that have user made maps instead of boring randomly generated maps.


small maps: this means that the maps are small enought to start the "core" of the battle in one or two turns. No "fog of war" here.

Remember we are doing a turn based multiplayer game, where one player at turn sits without doing anything but waiting. We should avoid dead times. If they must wait for 10 turn to reach the other, with its movements covered by fog of war, they'll fall asleep. Also, i would keep the number of units in games small, maybe about five for player (this will be decided by players anyway).

I'm just reinforcing some of {MSX}'s ideas.

Going by some of the posts it sounded like people wanted a hint of RPG to the game. Mabye similar to fallout. But kept simple with a 2d interface, with battles in 3d.


Here some ideas I have for working with characters:

- You click to go to a 'Character Managment' screen, select one of your characters and equip, heal, etc, and prepare all your characters.
- You exit that screen and click on a 'guild' and select a character to be trained at the guild for a few days (this would cost money), and that character would be unavailable for use for half an hour or so (server time). The guild will train and raise that characters level a little bit, having a max level that the guild will train to. (training is automatic you don't actually see anything, and can only train one character at a time) You click on the giuld later to pick up your character.
- You challenge another player to a fight, either by a search option for players with lower level characters, or by choosing from a list of all active players. You select a map and a total character points, etc. Then you goto the actuall 3d map, and select from a list of your characters to deploy on the map. Once both players have deployed, the battle starts.

And it also sounds like the game won't entirely be nothing but fighting other players, so that was some ideas about outside of the actual fighting.

{MSX}
07-03-2005, 08:55 AM
Ok, some quick answare before my boss came in :P

First, i've never played FF Tactics. The game i envise will have the battle system like UFO, as WILL is describing, so i think squad game is the right "genre".
About the maps, we could have pre-made or randomized, it doesn't make all this difference. The important things are others :P
:arrow: Dimension and characteristics of the map. We all agree on this i think. Flat, square tiles, blocking features, etc. About difficoult tiles, i think they can be done. For example, they could require twice as much AP (or MU) as normal tiles..
:arrow: Fog of war or not.
About fog of war, WILL think it's a good thing. I have some doubt about fog, expecially becouse of the multiplayer nature of the game. Anyway, instead of fog, i'll use "view fields", in which only tiles visible by your characters are really visible.
I fear that players will feel bored don't seeing anything on the game. If we do this, we must ensure that the parties will get near quite quicly, to avoid dead times. Also, it will increase a little the complexity of the game, and could be source of cheating (maps revealer are avaiable for almost all games with fog :P )
It is true that "view fields" give a whole lot of tactical possibility to the game, but it will also slow the gameplay down.
It would be nice to try out both modes to see how they would work before choosing :P

I don't like very much the idea of multiple rounds. I don't think games will be so quick, and it would add even more things for the server to remember. It should keep track of rounds (more states to keep in mind), and it would add complexity.
If players wants to play at "best of three", the will be able to do that simply by creating more games :P

About guild training, i think it's better if a character get trained in games instead than in offgame facilities.

Ah, when i speak of army i don't mean 1000s of peole, I mean 4 or 5, the ones you use in a game :P Army is probably a misunderstanding word, i should have said maybe "party"

It could be helpful to choose some words to define things, to avoid misunderstandings:

character, unit: a man or creature you control in the game
item: all objects avaiable in the game: swords, armors, potions, etc.
party: the groups of characters you use on a game
game: the actual combat
possessions: all characters and items a disposal for a player
offgame: the "manadgement" session, where you manage your possessions, sell/buy, join games, chat.
ap, mu: action points, movement units (sinonyms): the points to be spent for moving, fighting, and all other activities of characters.

Btw i've made other models, more sci-fi than fantasy: a bat, a drone-robot, and a one-wheel scooter :P They're simpler than the others, in truth i've made this one before those already posted, i've just retouched them. I'll post them this evening :P

One thing i'd like to know from you guys is: is it a problem if the setting will not be strict fantasy but something more free, so that we can put lots of things inside ?
What i'd like to have a database of as many items and units as possible.

Actually, my boss is late for work :P

K4Z
08-03-2005, 02:20 AM
I like the idea of having robots and the like aswell, since knights and wizards aren't everyones cup of tea.

I just threw out the idea of training because it might make leveling up lower characters a bit harder. A Level 1 character would posibly die a lot quicker in combat, and in most games if a character is killed, or KO'd, they don't recieve any exp.
Or you could make it that just getting a sucessfull hit on an opponent gains a bit of exp.

I just use FF tactics as an example cos it's just a typical Tactics game. Most maps are small, like 10x10 tiles, whole map is visible. Each character has a move distance, and once they move you choose a facing, up down left right. Then you attack, say with a bow, can fire so many tiles in a straight line. If you attack someone from the side or behind, you do more damage. So you have to position your characters in the right place, offensively and defensively. Making the game rather stratigical.
Though I'm aware x-com is different, the Tactical genre has a lot of ideas that could make fore a more original and fun game when mixed together.


I've been experimenting with Blender (a pretty old copy, like 3 years old). Mabye I can export from Lightwave to Blender. BTW, I really like the non textured style, I know we probably won't get the same quality, but FF7 pulls of this style off really well.

cairnswm
08-03-2005, 04:18 AM
I will join in these discussions next week again. At the momnent I am concentrating on my Dogfight competition entry.

WILL
08-03-2005, 07:43 AM
Personally I'd like to see how it would fair as a fantasy alone squad game. The idea is interesting. :) However {MSX}'s Squad Game 2, could be a mix? :) You could work it in, but you reall have to have some convincing way for it to work. I mean... in FF6 it worked sort of because they were just gettingback alot of 'lost' tech from older days, but only a select few had it or it was a thing of the Empire that ran almost everything(like a superpower so only they had the big toys). Such would have to be true in this game unless you came up with something else. Why use an archer when you an just recruit a guy with a Missile Launcher. :p It's a hard mix.

K4Z: I kind like the idea of awarding XP points towards successful hits. The character it kind of learning that way too so it makes sense. But if they are unconcious, but you still win they should get something for any attacks/kills the got before they passed out.

Thats another thought.. What about characters that sustain wounds or have to heal? Is there going to be a per-game penalty for that or just chop that feature due to incompatability of the game-style?

As for the, I think I'll call it 'Ray Traced Look' of the models made by {MSX}, I like it alot. AndI think that if you stick to it it'll make for an amazing feel to the game. Not to say that you should not have grass or wall texture, but just the characters, unit, creatures, etc. :) Keeping them small and almost cutesy, but cool it a way to go with it maybe.

Will be interesting to see how you plan to handle camera view options, lighting. Esp. dark/night-time maps. Can you say cool torch glow? ;)

{MSX}
08-03-2005, 08:29 AM
Personally I'd like to see how it would fair as a fantasy alone squad game. The idea is interesting. :) However {MSX}'s Squad Game 2, could be a mix? :) You could work it in, but you reall have to have some convincing way for it to work. I mean... in FF6 it worked sort of because they were just gettingback alot of 'lost' tech from older days, but only a select few had it or it was a thing of the Empire that ran almost everything(like a superpower so only they had the big toys). Such would have to be true in this game unless you came up with something else. Why use an archer when you an just recruit a guy with a Missile Launcher. :p It's a hard mix.


Well you always can find an excuse for that :P
Anyway, we can choose this later eventually.



K4Z: I kind like the idea of awarding XP points towards successful hits. The character it kind of learning that way too so it makes sense. But if they are unconcious, but you still win they should get something for any attacks/kills the got before they passed out.


ok for that.



Thats another thought.. What about characters that sustain wounds or have to heal? Is there going to be a per-game penalty for that or just chop that feature due to incompatability of the game-style?


Umm i don't think this would add much to the game.. Maybe we could think of adding it later ?



As for the, I think I'll call it 'Ray Traced Look' of the models made by {MSX}, I like it alot. AndI think that if you stick to it it'll make for an amazing feel to the game. Not to say that you should not have grass or wall texture, but just the characters, unit, creatures, etc. :) Keeping them small and almost cutesy, but cool it a way to go with it maybe.


Eheh ok :P I just hope we can create enought contents with this style :P
For the map, i think it should instead be textured.
Yesterday i modeled a nice Vampire :)



Will be interesting to see how you plan to handle camera view options, lighting. Esp. dark/night-time maps. Can you say cool torch glow? ;)

I dunno :P We have to think about it. How do we put in night/day? Dark areas? Light sources?
For this, i'm to keep it simple (stupid :P)

For the camera movements, i think they will be as usual, some zoom and rotation, with automatic centering on units and the like.

For K4Z: what about downloading a newer version of Blender ? :P I't about 10 MB and it's free :)
If you're interested i can send you the "template" guy.

Btw, i'm thinking of a thing: is better to do animations in blender and then export them or to create a little tool to animate the models? The problem is that blender let you do only one animation, so it's a problem to do multiple actions (walk, hit, etc). I've already done some little tools to animate times ago.

Also, i'm almost done with a working GUI, if anyone is interested in trying it out let me know :P

K4Z
09-03-2005, 02:07 AM
It will be interesting to see how the fantasy and sci-fi will come together.
A huge battlemech with a plasma launcher would easily kill a little man with a bow. However this could be ballanced by making the obviousily weaker characters cheap to buy/hire, and cheaper to buy equipment for. Also with a lower points value as discussed before, like 1 battlemech would equal 5 bowmen, etc. (lol, good luck bowmen :D)
But this, like most games, will take a bit of experimenting to get the right ballance.

Ok, i've just started to download the newer blender.

Send the template to kas6666@hotmail.com. I'd like to test out the gui aswell.

{MSX}
09-03-2005, 05:20 PM
It will be interesting to see how the fantasy and sci-fi will come together.
A huge battlemech with a plasma launcher would easily kill a little man with a bow. However this could be ballanced by making the obviousily weaker characters cheap to buy/hire, and cheaper to buy equipment for. Also with a lower points value as discussed before, like 1 battlemech would equal 5 bowmen, etc. (lol, good luck bowmen :D)

LOL :mrgreen:



Ok, i've just started to download the newer blender.

Send the template to kas6666@hotmail.com. I'd like to test out the gui aswell.

Well done :P

Instead of sending it to you, i'll publish it so anyone can see it.
I've made a zip with everything: sources, models, analisy, docs, etc.
You should be able to compile src given that you have JEDI-SDL.
Don't be scared by the num of units, most of them are not used in the gui demo (are generic src i use for every project).
Also, i like to keep units small and have many of them :P

download (http://www.lugato.net/turn.zip)
(linux and windows executable included)

Here are new models i forgot to publish last day :P

The mighty one wheel scouter
http://www.lugato.net/shot4.png
The trashcan-robot :P
http://www.lugato.net/shot5.png
A simple bat (need more details, maybe)
http://www.lugato.net/shot6.png
A vampire!
http://www.lugato.net/shot7.png

K4Z
10-03-2005, 03:05 AM
HaHa, those models are awesome. Now I goto just spend some time understanding blender a little better. I can import/export to/from blender and lightwave really easily, so I could whip up some models in lightwave pretty quick and import to blender for you to work with.


However I could not get the Gui demo to run. Under XP and 98, turn.exe just runs and closes, outputting exceptions in the dos box. After a bit a mucking around I got the source to compile under Delphi7, but once run it spews out a heap of exceptions, and cannot find car0.png (although the path is correct), and closes.
I will try it out under Mandrake later tonight, may just be a compatibility issue?

{MSX}
10-03-2005, 08:11 AM
HaHa, those models are awesome. Now I goto just spend some time understanding blender a little better. I can import/export to/from blender and lightwave really easily, so I could whip up some models in lightwave pretty quick and import to blender for you to work with.


Ok! To learn Blender, i suggest the official documentation, that unusually is very readable and easy to follow.
Blender has an interface on its own, but it's good for heavy use :P



However I could not get the Gui demo to run. Under XP and 98, turn.exe just runs and closes, outputting exceptions in the dos box. After a bit a mucking around I got the source to compile under Delphi7, but once run it spews out a heap of exceptions, and cannot find car0.png (although the path is correct), and closes.
I will try it out under Mandrake later tonight, may just be a compatibility issue?

Probably that's becouse of FPC. It's executables have some problems with certain opengl drivers, i've noticed.
The one you compiled with delphi was good, you just have to move from /turn/src/ to /turn/, becouse it must reside in the same directory of "media" (you can set delphi exe output directory).

bye!

K4Z
11-03-2005, 12:42 AM
you just have to move from /turn/src/ to /turn/

Yeah, I had done that. But I traced the problem to the libpng1.dll, causing all kinds of exceptions. So, I converted all the png's in the media directory to bmp's, and changed the source to load bitmaps instead. And now it compiles and runs perfectly, under all OS's, and compiles under Delphi7 and FPC.

(I'm still trying to get it to load png's, bmp's aren't my favourite format to use :( )

:D So yeah, pretty awesome so far. Nice code, and incredibly easy to work with, creating new windows, edit boxes and buttons.

Good job {MSX} 8)


I've started modeling some weapons in Blender, like bows, swords, axes, etc. Although horribly different to all the 3d packages I've used before, I'm starting to really like Blender :D .
BTW, how do I use the export.py script?

WILL
11-03-2005, 04:58 AM
For some free models try this thread: http://www.pgd.netstarweb.com/viewtopic.php?t=1656 ;)

You know... that lighting issue would e difficult in a way... in a spirted engine, you'd simply have to darken each sprite depending on how dark that spot was. But for a textured map, you may have to either be a bit more restrictive with the camera, or maybe perform some kind of darkening or alpha effects on less than fully visible character models.

Might have to read up on lighting a bit more to get this system perfected.

{MSX}
11-03-2005, 12:41 PM
you just have to move from /turn/src/ to /turn/

Yeah, I had done that. But I traced the problem to the libpng1.dll, causing all kinds of exceptions. So, I converted all the png's in the media directory to bmp's, and changed the source to load bitmaps instead. And now it compiles and runs perfectly, under all OS's, and compiles under Delphi7 and FPC.

(I'm still trying to get it to load png's, bmp's aren't my favourite format to use :( )

:D So yeah, pretty awesome so far. Nice code, and incredibly easy to work with, creating new windows, edit boxes and buttons.

Good job {MSX} 8)



Thanks :P I hope you can make it work with PNG since i hate BMP :P
Maybe the problem could be a broken/old version of the dll? (shooting in the dark).

Are you interested in writing some code for the game too ?



I've started modeling some weapons in Blender, like bows, swords, axes, etc. Although horribly different to all the 3d packages I've used before, I'm starting to really like Blender :D .
BTW, how do I use the export.py script?

Well the export is a little experimental (it's a dirty copy of the one i use for funkycars). Anyway, it works like this:
- In blender, create a new text-type window and load the script.
- Remember to set the PATH variable on the beginning according to your system (and remember to double the slashes on win: 'c:\\dir\\dir')
-Then you can run it with the apposite command. It should create a set of file:
-one for the scene ( <scenename>.model )
-one for each mesh ( <meshname>.mesh )

Currently it doesn't export a whole model (it just creates a list of mesh), nor it handles animations (i don't think i'll do them in blender)

There are a number of things to keep in mind while modeling things that you want to export. Maybe i'll write some hints later. Mainly, remember that two objects can share the same mesh, so when you have to have a "reference" copy to a mesh, use ALT-D instead of SHIFT-D to duplicate.

I'll work on the exporter to make it a little more fault tolerant and usable.. Why don't you post your models in the while ? :P

{MSX}
11-03-2005, 03:53 PM
Here's the new export.py that should work:


#!BPY

"""
Name&#58; Export to XML
Blender&#58; 228
Group&#58; 'Export'
Tip&#58; 'Export MSX.'
"""

# Exporter by &#123;MSX&#125;
# Released under GPL

import Blender
import sys
from string import *

PATH = "c&#58;\\enter\\your\\path\\"




def dumpFace&#40;fi, num, a,b,c, auv, buv, cuv&#41;&#58;
fi.write&#40;" <FACE id=\""+`num`+"\">\n"&#41;
fi.write&#40;" <A>"+`a` + "</A>\n"&#41;
fi.write&#40;" <AU>"+`auv&#91;0&#93;` + "</AU>\n"&#41;
fi.write&#40;" <AV>"+`-auv&#91;1&#93;` + "</AV>\n"&#41;
fi.write&#40;" <B>" + `b` + "</B>\n"&#41;
fi.write&#40;" <BU>"+`buv&#91;0&#93;` + "</BU>\n"&#41;
fi.write&#40;" <BV>"+`-buv&#91;1&#93;` + "</BV>\n"&#41;
fi.write&#40;" <C>" + `c` + "</C>\n"&#41;
fi.write&#40;" <CU>"+`cuv&#91;0&#93;` + "</CU>\n"&#41;
fi.write&#40;" <CV>"+`-cuv&#91;1&#93;` + "</CV>\n"&#41;
fi.write&#40;" </FACE>\n"&#41;


# dumpMesh -- the object dumper f&#58; File, o&#58; NMesh
def dumpMesh&#40;o&#41;&#58;
if o.block_type == 'NMesh' &#58;
filename = lower&#40;o.name&#41; + '.mesh'
print&#40;'Exporting ' + filename + ' mesh'&#41;
fmesh = open&#40;PATH+filename, 'w'&#41;
fmesh.write&#40;"<MESH>\n"&#41;
mesh = Blender.NMesh.GetRaw&#40;o.name&#41;
# add face UV if it doesn't have
mesh.hasFaceUV&#40;1&#41;
# header
fmesh.write&#40;"<NAME>" + lower&#40;o.name&#41; + "</NAME>\n"&#41;

# Vertex Coordinate header
fmesh.write&#40;"<POINTCOUNT>" + `len&#40;mesh.verts&#41;` + "</POINTCOUNT>\n"&#41;

# Verticies
fmesh.write&#40;"<POINTS>\n"&#41;
i = 0
for vert in mesh.verts&#58;
fmesh.write&#40;" <VERTEX id=\""+`i`+"\">\n"&#41;
fmesh.write&#40;" <X>"+`-vert.co&#91;0&#93;` + "</X>\n"&#41;
fmesh.write&#40;" <Y>" + `vert.co&#91;2&#93;` + "</Y>\n"&#41;
fmesh.write&#40;" <Z>" + `vert.co&#91;1&#93;` + "</Z>\n"&#41;
fmesh.write&#40;" <NX>"+`vert.no&#91;0&#93;` + "</NX>\n"&#41;
fmesh.write&#40;" <NY>" + `vert.no&#91;2&#93;` + "</NY>\n"&#41;
fmesh.write&#40;" <NZ>" + `vert.no&#91;1&#93;` + "</NZ>\n"&#41;
fmesh.write&#40;" </VERTEX>\n"&#41;
i = i + 1
fmesh.write&#40;"</POINTS>\n"&#41;

# faces
faces = len&#40;mesh.faces&#41;
i=0
data = ""
colordata = ""
fmesh.write&#40;"<FACES>\n"&#41;
for face in mesh.faces&#58;
if len&#40;face.v&#41; < 3&#58;
# discard
faces = faces - 1
print 'Face discarded'
elif len&#40;face.v&#41; == 3&#58;
# Already a triangle, add it to the data, do not change the count
# reset face uv if it doesn't have
if len&#40;face.uv&#41; == 0&#58;
face.uv = &#91;&#40;0,0&#41;,&#40;0,1&#41;,&#40;1,0&#41;&#93;
dumpFace&#40;fmesh, i, face.v&#91;0&#93;.index, face.v&#91;1&#93;.index, face.v&#91;2&#93;.index, face.uv&#91;0&#93;, face.uv&#91;1&#93;, face.uv&#91;2&#93;&#41;
i=i+1
else&#58;
# this one is a quad
# Break it up into two triangles
# Hence one additional face

# reset face uv if it doesn't have
if len&#40;face.uv&#41; == 0&#58;
face.uv = &#91;&#40;0,0&#41;,&#40;0,1&#41;,&#40;1,0&#41;, &#40;1,1&#41;&#93;

faces = faces + 1
dumpFace&#40;fmesh, i, face.v&#91;0&#93;.index, face.v&#91;1&#93;.index, face.v&#91;3&#93;.index, face.uv&#91;0&#93;, face.uv&#91;1&#93;, face.uv&#91;3&#93;&#41;
i=i+1
dumpFace&#40;fmesh, i, face.v&#91;1&#93;.index, face.v&#91;2&#93;.index, face.v&#91;3&#93;.index, face.uv&#91;1&#93;, face.uv&#91;2&#93;, face.uv&#91;3&#93;&#41;
i=i+1
fmesh.write&#40;"</FACES>\n"&#41;
# Now I can write the the correct face count
fmesh.write&#40;"<FACECOUNT>" + `faces` + "</FACECOUNT>\n"&#41;
fmesh.write&#40;"</MESH>\n"&#41;
# Close the file
fmesh.close&#40;&#41;;


def findTexture&#40;mesh&#41;&#58;
for face in mesh.faces&#58;
if face.image&#58;
s = split&#40;face.image.filename, "/"&#41;
s1 = split&#40;s&#91;len&#40;s&#41;-1&#93;,"."&#41;
return s1&#91;0&#93;
return "none"


def DumpObject&#40;f, ob&#41;&#58;
textu = findTexture&#40;ob.data&#41;
meshname = lower&#40;ob.data.name&#41;
print "Dumping mesh "+meshname+" texture&#58; "+textu
dumpMesh&#40;ob.data&#41;
f.write&#40;" <BLOCK>\n"&#41;
f.write&#40;" <MESH>"+meshname+"</MESH>\n"&#41;
f.write&#40;" <TEXTURE>"+textu+"</TEXTURE>\n"&#41;
f.write&#40;" <POS>\n"&#41;
f.write&#40;" <X>"+`-ob.LocX-ob.dLocX`+"</X>\n"&#41;
f.write&#40;" <Y>"+`ob.LocZ+ob.dLocZ`+"</Y>\n"&#41;
f.write&#40;" <Z>"+`ob.LocY+ob.dLocY`+"</Z>\n"&#41;
f.write&#40;" </POS>\n"&#41;
f.write&#40;" <ROT>\n"&#41;
f.write&#40;" <X>"+`ob.RotX+ob.dRotX`+"</X>\n"&#41;
f.write&#40;" <Y>"+`ob.RotY+ob.dRotY`+"</Y>\n"&#41;
f.write&#40;" <Z>"+`-ob.RotZ-ob.dRotZ`+"</Z>\n"&#41;
f.write&#40;" </ROT>\n"&#41;
f.write&#40;" </BLOCK>\n"&#41;

def DumpModel&#40;f, scene&#41;&#58;
f.write&#40;"<MODEL>\n"&#41;
f.write&#40;" <NAME>"+lower&#40;scene.name&#41;+"</NAME>\n"&#41;
f.write&#40;" <MESHES>\n"&#41;

# Go through the objects and export them
for ob in scene.getChildren&#40;&#41;&#58;
print &#40;ob.getType&#40;&#41;&#41;
if ob.getType&#40;&#41;=='Mesh'&#58;
DumpObject&#40;f, ob&#41;
f.write&#40;" </MESHES>\n"&#41;
f.write&#40;"</MODEL>\n"&#41;


scene = Blender.Scene.getCurrent&#40;&#41;
filename = lower&#40;scene.name&#41; + '.model'
print&#40;'Exporting ' + filename + ' model'&#41;
fout = open&#40;PATH+filename, 'w'&#41;
DumpModel&#40;fout, scene&#41;
fout.close&#40;&#41;;
print&#40;'Model exported!'&#41;



Remember that it doesn't give any feedback when it runs correctly (you just find the files where you asked them).
Maybe i could add a blender GUI in future :)

K4Z
13-03-2005, 03:10 AM
Maybe the problem could be a broken/old version of the dll? (shooting in the dark).
It's weird the same dll works with other projects to load png's though. I dunno. I'll get hold of an older copy then.


Are you interested in writing some code for the game too ?
I'm still pretty new to the 3D GameDev scene, but sure, I'd like to help with coding were I can. I've been learning a lot from your Funky Cars demo, :D It's awesome.

Here's a render of a couple of weapons I've just finished.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Render_one0001.bmp
In this pic there's a short bow, a long bow, and two different katana's.
The models, and the render, were made in Lightwave. Probly a little hard to see them exactly(from the smoothing, shadows, and AntiAliasing), so I'll do one up with one of your models holding them in Blender.

K4Z
13-03-2005, 03:15 AM
That new export script works better now. I've been experimenting with it a little bit, and I (sort of) managed to replace the car with the bat model in the gui example.

{MSX}
15-03-2005, 08:11 AM
Well done :P Your weapons look nice! Are there low poly? I couldn't tell from the screenshots.

I've currently developed some more of the gui system, with a login screen and a prototype of the "offgame" section.
I'm posting something this evening.

About the code, you could maybe start with some improvements to the GUI, if you understood how it works.
I'll find you something to do :D

I've almost decided to create a custom editor for animations. Using blender for that is overkill, and the exportation is also difficoult..

I'll post back this evening :P

bye!

K4Z
15-03-2005, 12:40 PM
The models are fairly low poly, I can always lower the poly count if need be. Gimme an hour and I'll post more pics.


About the code, you could maybe start with some improvements to the GUI, if you understood how it works.
I'll find you something to do

I've gone through the code several times, and I understand most of it pretty well now. There's not too much to improve though, I'll wait for your update.

K4Z
15-03-2005, 01:49 PM
The swords are about 40-50 polys, but the bows are about 200 polys though, I think I'll cut 'em down a bit :lol: .

Here's a quick render of the warrior holding a sword and a bow, just to see if it fits ok.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Warrior_one.jpg

{MSX}
15-03-2005, 06:22 PM
The swords are about 40-50 polys, but the bows are about 200 polys though, I think I'll cut 'em down a bit :lol: .

Here's a quick render of the warrior holding a sword and a bow, just to see if it fits ok.


It looks nice indeed! :)

Here's some screenshots too :)
I've made some interface prototypes.

The login screen:
http://www.lugato.net/screenshots/login.png

and the main screen:
http://www.lugato.net/screenshots/chat.png

Of course there's nothing definitive here, but it's kind of what i'd like it to be.
If you look at the main interface, you'll see that the functionality are on the right buttons. I'd like that selecting a button will change the main content to the relevant part (for example, the chat part is currently shown).
In this case, what is needed is some kind of "multi layer" widget that can show different contents. The whole should work much like a "notebook" component.
If you want, you could start making this widget :)
Here's some guidelines, in the case you're interested.

You should derive TUiLayered from TUiContainer, so that each children of TUiLayered are TUiContainer, each representing a "layer" (or a page as in a notebook). A property "ActiveLayer" should point to the currently active layer (by index). It should be obviously changeable. The DoMouse* procedure should be overridden to only send events to the active child. The WidgetByPos should also be changed the same way.
You can override the Add method to raise an error if the passed widget is not (exacly) a TUiContainer (to avoid mess :P).
The guidrawerunit should not need modifications.
You can put the code on a separate unit if you prefer.

The latest version of guiunit is here (http://www.lugato.net/guiunit.pas). Download it before coding :P

Of course feedback on the screenshots (and on the code too :D) is welcome :P

Ah, here's the login screen with an alternative style :mrgreen:
http://www.lugato.net/screenshots/login2.png

WILL
16-03-2005, 12:09 AM
Wow, nice GUI. Is that Final Fantasy wallpaper? :)

I think the coloring for the first style is nicer, not so nice for the 2nd (No pink! :P). You gotta keep that cursor, it's just too cool. ;)

K4Z
16-03-2005, 03:25 AM
One small thing I was thinking of adding to the GUI were Visible and Enabled properties.

The big and little chat TUiEdit's, would be a child of a TUiWindow. Same set up for the Buy,Sell, etc. Then simply, when you click on Buy, it would just change the visibility of the Chat window to false, and show the Buy window. So your just showing and hiding Windows.

(A visibility of false would also make it disabled)

...If that all makes sense.

But yeah, I understand what your saying, some sort of multi layered window, or panel, like a TNotebook component.

The interface graphics look cool, perhaps creating multiple GUI styles, or skins, that the user can change between.

I goto catch up on some study today, but I'll try and get a start on a Notebook style widget.

cairnswm
16-03-2005, 05:31 AM
I'll get started on some networking stuff soon. I currently have two components ready - both TCP based (Indy TCP Client/Server, and SDL_Net TCP).

Doing development on my Dogfight entry I found that my game loop never gave the indy threads time to recieve messages. Using SDL_Net the recieving of messages happens as part of the game loop and therefore works fine.

{MSX}
16-03-2005, 08:11 AM
One small thing I was thinking of adding to the GUI were Visible and Enabled properties.

The big and little chat TUiEdit's, would be a child of a TUiWindow. Same set up for the Buy,Sell, etc. Then simply, when you click on Buy, it would just change the visibility of the Chat window to false, and show the Buy window. So your just showing and hiding Windows.

(A visibility of false would also make it disabled)

...If that all makes sense.


Yes, that's a solution too, but i think it's harder to implement than a simple layered widget.
Also, i think the controls shoud stay on the desktop as in the shots, not in windows (as you stated above), since windows are draggable around and that's not what player probably want. Maybe you meant TUiContainer ?
Effectively, a Visible attribute could be useful in future too.. It just take some work to adjust event dispatcher methods..
An enabled attribute also could be useful in future, effectively. We can't say how complex our gui will be (for example the market or army manadgement section), there can be the need for a disabled button :)

Umm maybe you're right, we could eventually add this two attribute and forget the layered component. :wink:

For cairnswm: ok, i'll take a look on how SDL_Net works. If it's TCP it should be good.

cairnswm
16-03-2005, 09:38 AM
I have classes already to manage both the server and the clients. I will send them to you later. (They are in my Run-A-War source file anyway)

K4Z
16-03-2005, 02:46 PM
Yeah I kinda ment TUiContainer, or a modified window without drag, mabye like a TPanel or something. So you can just change the visiblity of the panels to quickly show and hide multiple components. That probably would of been easier to make, but I've already started on a TUiLayered widget. I've tried to keep all other units unchanged, But I think I'll have to slightly modify the DrawWidget function, since it wants to draw the button graphics where the TUiLayered is (Wants to draw it as a TUiContainer). Which I think the TUiLayered widget should been unseen, only it's children should be drawn.

Another thing that should be added, is to give the widgets a Name property. This would make it easier to identify a specific widget. To make it easier to change the properties after the widget is created and initially set up. Basically creating a GetWidgetByName function to easily find, and modify a required widget.
eg something like: GetWidgetByName('ButtonOne').visible := false;

The TUiLayered component is about 80% done, should be finished by tomorrow. Might even start on a TCheckBox type component next.

I'm off to bed now.

Welcome back to the thread cairnswm :P , just had a quick game of Run-A-War, very nice!

{MSX}
16-03-2005, 04:06 PM
Yeah I kinda ment TUiContainer, or a modified window without drag, mabye like a TPanel or something. So you can just change the visiblity of the panels to quickly show and hide multiple components. That probably would of been easier to make, but I've already started on a TUiLayered widget. I've tried to keep all other units unchanged, But I think I'll have to slightly modify the DrawWidget function, since it wants to draw the button graphics where the TUiLayered is (Wants to draw it as a TUiContainer). Which I think the TUiLayered widget should been unseen, only it's children should be drawn.


You're right. :)

Also, i'm not sure that the drawgui is a nice way of dealing with drawing.

The problem is: i definely want to keep logic and drawing separated.
The two ways of doing so are: create a separated drawing facility (like it is now) and create widgets with abstract "draw" method, that will be derived in graphic-specific classes (implementing the draw).
I've used this second option in my engine (if you look for the TMesh and TGlMesh classes on MeshUnit and GlMeshUnit you can take a look).
Now i'm not so sure that the drawgui system is the right way..

What do you think K4Z ? Maybe deriving each widget would be better instead.



Another thing that should be added, is to give the widgets a Name property. This would make it easier to identify a specific widget. To make it easier to change the properties after the widget is created and initially set up. Basically creating a GetWidgetByName function to easily find, and modify a required widget.
eg something like: GetWidgetByName('ButtonOne').visible := false;

The TUiLayered component is about 80% done, should be finished by tomorrow. Might even start on a TCheckBox type component next.


Ok :P Only, we should decide about the drawing (as i wrote above), to avoid correcting a great number of widgets :mrgreen:
Feel free to add the Name property (it should be little work, shouldn't it?) and also the Visible and Enabled.
Of course do what you feel :P Just tell me when you're done so that i can work on it again (a manual CVS :D )

Well even if we don't finish the game, we will still be releasing a nice open source gui system :P



Welcome back to the thread cairnswm :P , just had a quick game of Run-A-War, very nice!

Yes, that was nice :P
I looked your code for runawar, i just didn't get some things:
- to receive something you have to call the Recieve method ? doesn't this block the game ?
- do you use fixed size messages ?

For the rest, it should do the work for us. I'll check if it compiles in linux (probably need only little fixes).

Ah, what licence does your code has ? Mine is GPL, and so i'd like this turn based game to be :P

Bye :P

cairnswm
16-03-2005, 06:26 PM
My code is licensed - Free - use for anything - include if you can sell it as your own :)

The way the SDL_Net code is structured is that there is a check to see if there is data waiting. If there is any data only then do you actually read data. This means it does not stop the system running while the checks are done.

I found with Indy is that it requires time for the threads to get data so in a game it wasn't working.

I use a standard length record. Within the record is a case structure that means the Record can be read as different types of messages. This was the easiest way to manage it. It would be possible to use a two message structre where the first identifies the next message type and then lets you read the next message based on the firsts indicator - I think the first method is more effcient.


The work I do on the project can be under any license you want but if we use the underlying S2DL code it will remain as freely available. I would liek to add UDP support to my S2DLNet classes and will work on this soon. The classes will have the same interfaces as the existing classes.

K4Z
17-03-2005, 05:02 AM
One thing I don't really like is passing a TUiWidget as a parameter to DrawWidget(). I prefer not to pass an entire structure to functions as it is rather slow, especially for time critical operations like rendering. But thats just a thing to keep in mind for later.

Most of the time I like to keep rendering seperate from logic, but it would make it easier to combine together.
However, may be better to set up like TMesh is.

I've come into some small problems implementing the TUiLayered widget, but I should have it fully completed by tonight. Anyway, I've started to add Name, Visible and Enabled properties.


Well even if we don't finish the game, we will still be releasing a nice open source gui system
Haha, thats it isn't it, the game might blow, but the GUI will be awesome. :P . I've never done a complete Gui like this one before, I always hardcode a very simple and custom Gui from scratch for each game I make. This one is turning out to be very easy to implement to new and existing projects.

Thats all for now.

cairnswm
17-03-2005, 05:38 AM
My plan is to get a basic server running that enables login and chat. Once that is working we can discuss how to go forward.

{MSX}
17-03-2005, 11:38 AM
One thing I don't really like is passing a TUiWidget as a parameter to DrawWidget(). I prefer not to pass an entire structure to functions as it is rather slow, especially for time critical operations like rendering. But thats just a thing to keep in mind for later.


Umm i don't think it's as you say. AFAIK, when you pass an object to a procedure, you're really only passing a pointer, so that should be almost top speed :P



Most of the time I like to keep rendering seperate from logic, but it would make it easier to combine together.
However, may be better to set up like TMesh is.


Ok, i'll have a try with extending classes.



I've come into some small problems implementing the TUiLayered widget, but I should have it fully completed by tonight. Anyway, I've started to add Name, Visible and Enabled properties.


Ok, let me know when you're finished :P



Well even if we don't finish the game, we will still be releasing a nice open source gui system
Haha, thats it isn't it, the game might blow, but the GUI will be awesome. :P . I've never done a complete Gui like this one before, I always hardcode a very simple and custom Gui from scratch for each game I make. This one is turning out to be very easy to implement to new and existing projects.


Nice to hear that :)

{MSX}
17-03-2005, 05:53 PM
My plan is to get a basic server running that enables login and chat. Once that is working we can discuss how to go forward.

Are you working on the initial sources ?
How do you plan to interface your code ?
Maybe for the network part it's better to have a simple generic message transmission and then build chat and the rest on top of it.

Also note that the server will be separated from the game, it will not have windows, opengl and the like and will not be real time.

BTW I've worked on this too this evening so maybe there's no need to work it.
Tomorrow i'll release a new version.

cairnswm
18-03-2005, 04:25 AM
What do you mean not real time?

I already have the generic netowking code working. Its nice and simple, broken into neat classes etc. I just need to neaten it, document and write the chat and login processes on top of it.

{MSX}
18-03-2005, 08:12 AM
What do you mean not real time?


This means that, since the game is turn based, there is no need for the server to be real time like a Quake server probably would. It can just sits and wait for messages, process each message and then sits again, much like a web server would do :)
Processing message will involve chat messages and game actions, that will be parsed immediately.

For K4Z what about the layered widget? if you find too many problems don't worry too much :P We can always drop it and use the visible property..

cairnswm
18-03-2005, 09:15 AM
It its offline like that I think WebServices would make more sense than a TCP/UDP server.

With a web service - the client sends a message to the server. The server would then store the message and/or the processing of the message in a database. This information can then be accessed from other clients when needed also through WebService calls.

If its chat then maybe we need a web service layer to manage game data and a seperate server (TCP socket based) for the chatting.

I am busy developing a full system using Web Services in this way as a project at work. We have implemented full Session management, and data modules for the system

{MSX}
18-03-2005, 09:52 AM
With a web service - the client sends a message to the server. The server would then store the message and/or the processing of the message in a database. This information can then be accessed from other clients when needed also through WebService calls.


Well i think a web service is overkill for what we need.. A simple TCP server does the work and we already have it almost running :)

cairnswm
18-03-2005, 10:11 AM
LOL :D

Creating a web service is one tenth the amount of work it takes to create a basic TCP server :)

A web service literally takes about 10 minutes to create and consume.

K4Z
18-03-2005, 01:47 PM
Sorry for the delay, couldn't get on the net last night.

Ok then, I've finished the TUiLayered widget, still needs exstensive testing, but seem to be working alright. (yay).

I've added a Name, Visible and Enable properties to TUiWidget, and updated the Draw, WidgetByPos, etc, etc to support the 3 properties.

---
I've made a function in TUiContainer called WidgetByName, that will return a requested widget. It searched all children, and childrens children for the widget to return, so you need to call WidgetByPos from the desktop.

e.g:
Desktop.WidgetByName('Button1')).Left := 5;
Will of course change 'Buttons1's left to 5;

Um ok, I'll give a quick run down on how TUiLayered is set up and works (Should be easy to follow the source). There's actually another widget called TUiPage that works with the TUiLayered. Basically the TUiLayered ONLY contains TUiPages, and those pages contain other widgets. TUiLayered has a PIndexName thats holds a string to the name of a page. TUiLayered does not get drawn, only it's children (the TUiPage and it's children). However, if you don't want the Page to be drawn, only it's children, there's a DrawBack property to hide it. (Note: setting visible to false will make all children of that component invisible.)
So...after adding pages to the layer, and components to the pages, use:

TUiLayered(Desktop.WidgetByName('Layered1')).PInde xName := 'Page1';

To change the Layered page. (phew).
---

Do you know of a place that I can easily host the source, so u can download it?

---

While updating DrawWidget, I added suport for TLabel. It draws the text, but not the interface graphics now.

I guess thats it...

{MSX}
18-03-2005, 02:17 PM
well done K4Z :P
I don't know where you can upload them..you can send me by PM or mail at nicola dot lugato at gmail dot com, and i'll upload them.

Thanks for this help! Looking forward to see it :)

K4Z
18-03-2005, 03:07 PM
Ok, emailed you.

{MSX}
18-03-2005, 04:02 PM
Ok, emailed you.
Ok, received it :P All seems ok :)

Just some questions:

On the layered, you prevent mouse signals to arrive to wrong page just by bringing the right one above the others, am i right ? Or there is something else i didn't saw ?

Why you choosed to default the name to such Edit1, Window1 etc? wasn't better to leave it empty?

i'm mergin the code now :P This evening i'll release something :P

bye!

K4Z
18-03-2005, 05:05 PM
ah yeah. its 3am right now been up a few day straight, ill' try and make an understandable post...
My post before was actually 3 times longer than that but my pc kinda died half way through typing it and had to retype it, atleast the parts i remembered.

umm, the other day when i first made the tuilayeredd it was very very different. how it was, was that it had a sepereate property called Pages, tht was a Tlist, a TWidgetlist. (seperate from the children of tuicontainer).
and had an Activepage property. so basically, all the pages were in an Pages:Tuiwidgetlist, and when you changed page it just copied the requested page to the ActivePage property, and handled drawing and input from there. But this had a heap of problems, one being pages got all out of order and mixed up.

soooo... after I almost gave up (cos I had some trouble adating it to your code) and added the name property, I figuered out a more completely simple way to make it, with out too much trouble, and only only having to change some tiny bits to some of your functions to make it work. and I had started again, this one only took a few hours to complete and implement.

So yeah, to keep things really really simple, When you change page it just moves the requested page to the front. And it only draws and sends input to the first one.
With the WidgetByName function, it doesn't matter what order the children pages are in now.


I thought it would be better to give default names, to prevent possible future errors. Oh and also, I might make a function to detect if two widgets have the same name, cos WidgetbyName will return the first one it finds, which may not be the one you wanted.


I should goto bed now.

{MSX}
19-03-2005, 05:05 PM
Sorry for the delay :P i couldn't do this yesterday:P
I've uploaded a new version here (http://www.lugato.net/turn-0.1.zip).
This have the basic client-server functionality working.
You should be able to connect to the server, do a (fake) login and chat.
The TUiList control for the chat is a little experimental, so be careful :P

For K4Z: I've used the code you gave me. That worked almost without touching it (apart for the guidrawer that i completely rewrote).
I've read your hint about loading the gui from a file :P Nice idea. We should think about it, the code for generating it it's already growing too much :P
Two notes:
- Don't use negative Top and Left.. They can be good to place your widget but that's wrong: they wont mouse messages when outside the parent.
Also, my original idea was to clip all the children on the parent "clientarea" (using a stencil buffer maybe). This has surely to be done for strings :P
- I thought about the TUiPage, and i noticed it offers nothing more than TUiContainer but the DrawBack, that i don't think it's coming useful.. Maybe we could drop it for simplicity and attach directly TUiContainer to TUiLayered ?

If you like to work on the sources more, feel free to do it :P

For cairnswm sorry i forgot to reply to your last message :P Well web service maybe can be build in little time but i think they'll require more work to suit our needs. For example, if i'm not wrong, you can't easily push content to the client with a web service. Also i don't think working with sessions would have been easy.
And i don't know how much of the whole system would work with freepascal and kylix.

Instead i've used your S2DLNet unit to create some classes. Now this demo works with a single threaded server that seems to do his job good. :)

About the program, there is a server.exe included, but i wasn't able to make it run with windows (it runs ok in linux), strangely it complains it cannot open the socket. If some of you can find the problem, let me know.
The game port is 50401.

Let me know :P

PS Maybe for a mistake the server.exe included will open on the wrong port, so you'll need to recompile it anyway. I'll correct this later

K4Z
20-03-2005, 05:10 AM
Downloading the new version now.
I just started on a TUiList component, but I'll give yours a good test. Also started on a TUiMemo, a more advanced Edit.


Don't use negative Top and Left.. They can be good to place your widget but that's wrong: they wont mouse messages when outside the parent.
Yeah, I figured for the Lables it'd be ok, I was just gettin a bit too picking on were to position the labels. But I'll keep it in mind.


I thought about the TUiPage, and i noticed it offers nothing more than TUiContainer but the DrawBack, that i don't think it's coming useful.. Maybe we could drop it for simplicity and attach directly TUiContainer to TUiLayered ?

Yeah, originally it just contained TUiContainers, but then I wanted to add a DrawBack property, and didn't want to change TUiContainer. So you can make the pages hidden, so it won't draw the box around it all the time. I also had other plans for TUiPage, but to keep it simple I left them out.

ok, i'll go through the code and get back to you later tonight.

K4Z
20-03-2005, 09:48 AM
I had a quick look at the source, it's far more efficient now :) .

I can't really find whats wrong with the server under windows, no idea why it's not opening a socket. SDLNet_TCP_Open() seems to be returning nil. I threw a SDLNet_Init() right at the start of the program and it seems to work now. However I still couldn't make a connection to it. Tried multiple ports, and Pc's.

Oh well, I'll do some more work on the Gui. I'll email you tomorrow with all the Blender models I've created aswell.

{MSX}
20-03-2005, 12:25 PM
I can't really find whats wrong with the server under windows, no idea why it's not opening a socket. SDLNet_TCP_Open() seems to be returning nil. I threw a SDLNet_Init() right at the start of the program and it seems to work now. However I still couldn't make a connection to it. Tried multiple ports, and Pc's.

That's strange.. i'll do some more test.
Did you try to connect to my pc? That's the default server (msx.no-ip.org), i'll keep the server up while online.. I'd like to see if remote connections works ok.



Oh well, I'll do some more work on the Gui. I'll email you tomorrow with all the Blender models I've created aswell.

Ok :P I'm waiting for it.
I think i'll work on the game creation. I'd also like to create a TUiImage widget, that's going to be very useful :P

Bye :P

{MSX}
21-03-2005, 08:32 AM
That's strange.. i'll do some more test.
Did you try to connect to my pc? That's the default server (msx.no-ip.org), i'll keep the server up while online.. I'd like to see if remote connections works ok.


Ok, solve: i just had to add SDLNet_Init to the code of both client and server.
This probably was not necessary on Linux but it is on Windows.
Added it on the initialization section of networkunit.pas.

Also, i've started working on the gui loader.

K4Z
21-03-2005, 08:43 AM
Ok cool, I goto go out, I'll email you with models when I get home.
Laterz.


[Edit]
Emailed You

I still cannot get a connection to the server, but I will keep trying.

K4Z
22-03-2005, 02:58 AM
I got the server to work now, just a small problem with my LAN not wanting to work, for some reason it also wouldn't let me use Localhost or 127.0.0.1. So yeah, works perfectly now, tested with 30 connections, no problems.

-----

I've expanded your TUiList widget and added in MouseEvents to handle selecting Items. You should be able to follow it easily, but here's a little explanation anyway. OnMouseUp simply processes the offset of the selected line and holds that number in fIndex. The TGuiDrawer.DrawList has been only slightly modified to draw a bar on the line, behind the selected text. (Need to add a new Interface graphic, or mabye just a flat rectangle). TUiList.Text will return the selected text.

I added a property called 'Simple', use this if you don't want (or need) anything selected, like for the lstRecvText.
Just throw a ChatList.Simple:=true; in the setup to act like the original, remove it so you can select stuff.

If I get real ambitious, I might add MultiLine selecting. But that's if we really need it :).

I might add a scrollbar to the widget aswell.

Also, what about modifying the DrawString function to pass a color? Or even pass boolean for black or white, to make widgets text highlighted, like when you select stuff in the TUiList?


For fun, I also added a 'Mask' property to TUiEdit, for password masking.
Whack a PassEdit.Mask:=true; in the PassEdit's setup.

[ I emailed you the updated source, not much was actually changed, just had to add in the MouseEvents, mostly ]

Might work on a TUiCheckBox and TUiRadioButton next :) .

Laterz.

{MSX}
22-03-2005, 08:02 AM
I got the server to work now, just a small problem with my LAN not wanting to work, for some reason it also wouldn't let me use Localhost or 127.0.0.1. So yeah, works perfectly now, tested with 30 connections, no problems.


Good :P



I've expanded your TUiList widget and added in MouseEvents to handle selecting Items. You should be able to follow it easily, but here's a little explanation anyway. OnMouseUp simply processes the offset of the selected line and holds that number in fIndex. The TGuiDrawer.DrawList has been only slightly modified to draw a bar on the line, behind the selected text. (Need to add a new Interface graphic, or mabye just a flat rectangle). TUiList.Text will return the selected text.

I added a property called 'Simple', use this if you don't want (or need) anything selected, like for the lstRecvText.
Just throw a ChatList.Simple:=true; in the setup to act like the original, remove it so you can select stuff.

If I get real ambitious, I might add MultiLine selecting. But that's if we really need it :).

I might add a scrollbar to the widget aswell.



Very well :P
For the drawer, i think a simple rectangle will be ok, just user DrawRectangle.
The TUiList.Text property return a string ? I think it would be better to return the index instead.. Also becouse one could need to use the TStringList.Objects as well. A Selected:integer would be nice.. :P
About the simple property, that's ok :P
I don't think we'll need the MultiLine.. I'm for keeping it simple, adding unnecessary features will just grow the code too much.

About scrollbars instead, we are really going to need them. I was wandering how to implement them. Only to the TUiList or as a generic feature for whatever widget? I think we could do it only for TUiList, as we are going to need it almost only there, and a generalized implementation look too much hard..



Also, what about modifying the DrawString function to pass a color? Or even pass boolean for black or white, to make widgets text highlighted, like when you select stuff in the TUiList?


That's ok, maybe we could just remove the glColor3f(0,0,0) from the beginning of the procedure to let the caller set whatever color he wants.



For fun, I also added a 'Mask' property to TUiEdit, for password masking.
Whack a PassEdit.Mask:=true; in the PassEdit's setup.


Ok, this is going to be useful for the login screen :P



Might work on a TUiCheckBox and TUiRadioButton next :)


Well i don't know, do you think they're going to be useful? I don't see an immediate need for them.
Maybe we'll better keep it simple :P

I've worked on other features:

- Modal windows: now we have modal windows working :P Just use TUiDesktop.addModal()
- Widget loading: now the widgets can be loaded by xml files, such as Login.ui.

Now i was going into the real game part. I'm working on the game creation logic.

Ok, so i'll merge your code with mine and i'll send you back so you can see the new things.
Bye :P

Ah, i've started using the TUiPage as a stand alone widget too. It works perfectly as a panel :P

K4Z
22-03-2005, 11:02 AM
Yeah, the SelIndex:Integer property returns the the Index.
And SelText:String will quickly return the String using the index, so you don't have to worry about getting the selected text yourself.

Multiline's out then.

I'm not quite sure how to implement the scroll bar exactly. I was thinking of making a seperate TUiScroll derived from TUiWidget, that could be attached to a (any) widget. But that might be a little hard to set up, and a bit overkill for what we need.
I'll just code the scrollbar straight into the TUiList.


Well i don't know, do you think they're going to be useful? I don't see an immediate need for them.
Maybe we'll better keep it simple
Lol too late, pretty much finished the TUiCheckBox already. Just goto smooth it all out and I'll add it to your updated source with the .ui loader. At first I didn't think we would need them, but I don't know, most games I created have used (or really needed) them. CheckBoxes might be usefull for changing settings and stuff. But hey, they may come in handy for other projects that you might use with your GUI.

lol, I think I might might rip my custom GUIs outta all my games and use your system :P .



- Modal windows: now we have modal windows working Just use TUiDesktop.addModal()
- Widget loading: now the widgets can be loaded by xml files, such as Login.ui.

Sounds good, the GUI's getting more advanced, but still simple to use.


Now i was going into the real game part. I'm working on the game creation logic.
Awesome, time to give this baby life :wink: .


Ah, i've started using the TUiPage as a stand alone widget too. It works perfectly as a panel
Haha, I knew it'd come in handy elsewhere.

cairnswm
22-03-2005, 07:27 PM
Looks like its a bit late for me to get involved :(

As you are using my S2DL stuff anyway I'll let you know when I get UDP messages working as well.

Keep using the forum - its great to see something develop.

K4Z
24-03-2005, 02:10 AM
Last few days me and MSX have just been emailing each other, so here's some stuff discussed in an email (It's pretty long, but we got a lot sorted out):

[From MSX to KAS (24 March)]

> I kept the positioning in mind while modeling, having (0,0,0) in the
> center of the staves, and on the handles of the swords, so I got them
> correct to how you wanted them right?

Yes, for the position. For the orientation, they should be oriented
like if they were held by the images on the old screenshots. Probably
you did this too afais :P

> You should be able to import (append) the weapons into your character
> blender scenes, and just move them (using the front view) into the
> hand. Although I modeled them all in Lightwave, I had them positioned
> and scaled to fit right into the hand of your characters.

> Ok then, all weapons will primarily be held the same. We won't worry
> too much if the weapons stick into other character models? I'm cool
> with that, I'll keep most weapons small anyway so it won't hapen too
> much.

> So yeah, all stand and walk animations will be the same then, but
> different attack animations (Sword_Stab, Spear_Jap, Bow_Shoot, etc).
> Thats cool, we should only do the animations that we really need.

Good :P Then we agree on these points, and if something goes wrong we
can still change our mind later.

> About animation, I've been thinking about it a lot. The models are set
> up pretty simple. Since the hands, feet and head are different meshes,
> we probably don't need to use Bones. We could just KeyFrame the hands
> and feet moving. Like they did in old FPS's - move the mesh around,
> save the frame, move the mesh, save the frame, all in one animation
> file. This might take a little longer to animate, but might be easier
> to work with.
> But ofcourse, the prefered way these days is to use bones, just
> attaching bone animations to a mesh. Maybe we could use an existing
> file format used for games, or do you want to create a custom format?

Well, considering how simple the models are i think bones are really
not needed :)
About existing file formats, i know of no-one.. What do you suggest ?
Are there animation tools avaiable for this formats?

> >I once wrote a simple tool to animate a hierarchical tree of mesh. I
> >could resort it somehow. What do you think ?
>
> I'd like to see it, sounds like what we need.

Ok, here's a screenshot. It used my old Gui implementation (not as
good as the one we are working on :P ).
If we decide to use this we maybe need to rewrite a big part of it anyway.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/shotEdit.jpg

> >Anyway this could be kept for later.. Firstly we could have something
> >with static models that work and then add animations..
>
> Lol, yeah, we should just leave animation for now. Just have the
> characters slide along the ground, standing still :p
> Better to get the game up and running then build onto it.

Yeah :P

> Woah, ok then - Maps. I've thought a lot about how we could do the maps.
> Here's some of my thoughts (I'll build onto your ideas):
>
> The map, at it's basics, will be a (dynamic) array of TMapTile (see below).
> It would also contain -
>
> - Dimensions (x,y in tiles)
> - Max number of characters, per player.
> - Deployment Zones.

Ok, but i think the character number would better be defined
elsewhere, for example in the game definition, becouse players could
want to play small maps with lots of characters :P
In fact i initially thought that the character number was "included"
in the MaxPoint for the game, (so that you can put as many chara as
you can with the given MaxPoint, obviously considering also
equipments), but we could also use a separated value (maybe it
balances better the game?)


> The TMapTile will contain:
>
> - Tile texture. Basic grass, rock, water textures.
> - Tile movement (Consume Action points)
> - Static Mesh. (See below)
>
> Now, the map could only be one flat leveled plane. Each tile could
> contian a 'Static Mesh'. (Something like what you explained) These
> Static Meshes are: Grass, Barrels, Rocks, Trees, etc etc. Static
> meshes would be held in seperate model files and just loaded and
> positioned in the right place.
> When you place a static mesh, you can change the tile movement acordingly.
>
> Ok, Now for walls.
> To make walls you would just simply set the Movement of the tile to
> 0(or whatever), so they cannot enter the tile, and assign a static
> mesh of a wall. Using a static mesh you can also have different types
> of walls.
>
> Static meshes would also have their own Textures.
> They would also need a Facing property to rotate the meshes the
> correct direction.

Umm this sound interesting :P
So you would "unify" objects and walls. I like unifing things :P

In this way walls are just a kind of "object".

> I've inclued some example images (just modeled up in lightwave):

Nice, i wanted to do that too but i was too lazy :P

>Image one with a Raised tile doesn't look very good.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/mapdemo1.jpg

>Image two uses the same Raised tile idea, but uses a skinier wall. a
>bit better but still doesn't look very good.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/mapdemo2.jpg
>Image three uses a Static Mesh on a single tile. The mesh is a model
>of a castle wall.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/mapdemo3.jpg
> Image four uses a Static Mesh on multiple tiles to form a wall. Which
> (once textured) looks a lot better.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/mapdemo4.jpg
Indeed it looks good!

> Instead of giving each tile a Static Mesh, might be better to just
> give the Map a list of Static Meshes, with x,y co-ordinates. This
> would cut out a lot of memory,cos not all tiles would contain a mesh,
> and be able to position multiple meshes on a single tile. (Like a
> wall, and grass on the same tile)

Well if you intend X, Y as tile coordinates i agree. (i don't think
you meant them as "opengl unit" coordinate (so that you can have
object at different offsets) )

Anyway, i don't see a problem for having static meshes for each tiles.
It's not a great loose of memory (since it's really just a pointer if
the tile is empty and we'll have relatively small maps.. even a
100x100 map will consume very little memory).
Also it will be more helpful to have static meshes on tiles when it
comes to see if a tile has something on it (which will be quite
often). Having a separate list will require continue searches to
lookup a given X,Y tile.
We can also use a per-tile List to add multiple objects (as it will be
for (dropped) Items, i think).

Another thing is: instead of "static mesh" (which i assume you think
as TMesh classes) we should design a "MapElement" class to keep game
logic in it (in addition to mesh and texture). In this way we can make
map elements part of the gameplay (for example with a spell that burns
a tree, etc). We just have to add the relevant data to the class (for
example a typology for objects, how much it obstrude the sight (if we
make sight that way), some flags etc. (just some random ideas).

So now we have 3 classes of entity in the game:
- Characters
- Items (equipments, weapons etc)
- Map elements

Ok, i think we have defined quite well how the maps will look like.

If you have nothing in contrary, i'd post some of this mails we are
exchanging on the forum so others can read too (as cairnswm wrote).

Just to made the point, what are you working on now? (and what do you
want to do next)
I'm almost done with "game list" on the Chat status, it remains to
design the "game preparation" status, which will consist of a
"game-only" chat and some "party" info (much like in battlenet for
StarCraft).

That's all :P

K4Z
25-03-2005, 02:39 PM
I've been working on some more futurisic models, so here's a few of the (almost) finished looking tanks. (They still need color)

This was the first tank I made for the game, trying to keep a very low poly count.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Tank_One_One.jpg

Well, it looks like a tank, but I thought that it doesn't really fit in with the current style of the models.



So I started again, with a more whacky shape, trying for a cartoony sorta look.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Tank_Two_One.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Tank_Two_Two.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Tank_Two_Three.bmp

Well what do ya think?

{MSX}
25-03-2005, 07:29 PM
Eheh very nice both the models :)
The first looks really cool as tank.. that could be useful for other games maybe!

I've uploaded a new version.
http://www.lugato.net/turn-0.2.zip

I'll post some update later!

bye :)

{MSX}
31-03-2005, 09:06 PM
Ok, development is going on and i've some new screenshots for you :P

This shows the editor with the new gui.. Used with the blender exporter makes it quite easy to build some nice models..
http://www.lugato.net/shot8.png
I and K4Z discussed how the model and animation will be structured and we arrived to a good system that is nice enought and is very easy.

Here's some other model in the real game (nothing but placed by now :P)
http://www.lugato.net/shot9.png

I'll now work more on the game handling, creating and joining them and on the maps.

Bye!

WILL
31-03-2005, 09:33 PM
Lookin' pretty good so far, though I'd give the Viking dude some pants or something. ;)

savage
31-03-2005, 09:57 PM
He doesn't need pants, he should be proud of his nakedness!

K4Z
01-04-2005, 09:12 AM
Wow, haven't had much time all week to do much, but here's a shot of a tank I've just started.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Tank_Three_One.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Tank_Three_Two.jpg

This tank is really low poly, 'cept for the quad missile launchers on top, which I might cut out a heap of polys by replacing some detail with textures.

And here's a shot of the tank imported into the model editor.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Tank_Three_Editor.jpg

That's it for now.

{MSX}
01-04-2005, 01:16 PM
Wow, haven't had much time all week to do much, but here's a shot of a tank I've just started.

This tank is really low poly, 'cept for the quad missile launchers on top, which I might cut out a heap of polys by replacing some detail with textures.

And here's a shot of the tank imported into the model editor.

That's it for now.

Wow, very nice! that tank looks really deadly :) I wonder how many army point it will cost :D

Btw it looks too smooth in the model editor.. How did you exported the model from blender? Try setting the "set solid" (in ] (you can see the button in the lower left corner in this screenshot (http://www.marginal.dsl.pipex.com/x-planescenery/imgs/Blender_screenshot.jpg)).[/size]

If it's still too smooth it may be a problem with the editor.

K4Z
02-04-2005, 05:02 AM
Hmm, It was already set to solid. I'm I just using the old export script or something?


With that tank, and all my other models I've made for far, it has two changable weapons: the 4 quad missle launchers and the front spikes, that could be changed with a cannon or gattling gun, for example (which I've already modeled).
This could be used for in game customising, just like buying a sword and shield for an orc, you could buy weapons for the tanks, and other vehicles aswell.

Haha, and yes I guess that tank would cost a heap of Army points. But I was thinking for that particular model of tank, It would be rather slow, and would be week against troop type characters.

{MSX}
03-04-2005, 09:36 PM
Hmm, It was already set to solid. I'm I just using the old export script or something?

Umm it shouldn't be the script.. i'll try and see why it get out so smooth.
Can you send me the model of this tank ?



With that tank, and all my other models I've made for far, it has two changable weapons: the 4 quad missle launchers and the front spikes, that could be changed with a cannon or gattling gun, for example (which I've already modeled).
This could be used for in game customising, just like buying a sword and shield for an orc, you could buy weapons for the tanks, and other vehicles aswell.

Very well. :) It would be great to have changeable weapons for tanks :P



Haha, and yes I guess that tank would cost a heap of Army points. But I was thinking for that particular model of tank, It would be rather slow, and would be week against troop type characters.

Well i've had some idea about putting this units in the game.. I'll post tomorrow, now i'm almost falling asleep and tomorrow i have to wake up at 6:30 :shock:
I've uploaded the latest version at http://www.lugato.net/turn.zip
It features improvement on the editor and some more work on the game itself.

bye!

K4Z
04-04-2005, 10:12 AM
Ok, emailed you the tank.

Here's a peak at another model.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Copter_One.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Copter_Two.jpg

Well, It's a robotic copter. This is the 'heavy' version, I've made others that are smaller and cartoonier.

I just goto finish off the last of my assignments today, so tomorrow I'll send you all the the new models, and make up a heap of screenshots for everyone to see.

Laterz.

{MSX}
04-04-2005, 04:58 PM
Eheh that's a great copter :) I like your models!

I've tried your tank in the editor and effectively it looks too much as if it were "smooth". I'm tring to figure out why.. Anyone knows if it could be becouse of some opengl setting ?

K4Z
06-04-2005, 10:36 AM
Ah sorry, haven't gotten round to making any shots yet.

---

But one thing i've noticed is that using XML, the file size for all the meshes get pretty huge. Just 3 of my tanks came to 1.2 meg :shock: .
I experimented compressing with zLib, and I got those 1.2 meg of meshes down to 77kb :D lol.

So what do you think?

It's easy make the game and editor reconise a compressed file, so we can make them support both compressed and uncompessed files.

{MSX}
06-04-2005, 05:02 PM
But one thing i've noticed is that using XML, the file size for all the meshes get pretty huge. Just 3 of my tanks came to 1.2 meg :shock: .
I experimented compressing with zLib, and I got those 1.2 meg of meshes down to 77kb :D lol.

So what do you think?

It's easy make the game and editor reconise a compressed file, so we can make them support both compressed and uncompessed files.

Ehehe effectively, you're right.. The XML format is very nice to work with but it's really expensive..
Reading compressed file with pascal should not be a problem.. we just need to find the right (open source) library :) ..
I've spotted this site: http://www.dellapasqua.com/delphizlib/
It has nice stream compressor/decompressor that can be used to encapsulate normal stream. This will result in very little impact on the source (you still read from a stream).
The problem is exporting with python.. i don't know if/how you can compress a file there..

If you feel you could investigate in both part :)

JSoftware
06-04-2005, 05:10 PM
I've tried your tank in the editor and effectively it looks too much as if it were "smooth". I'm tring to figure out why.. Anyone knows if it could be becouse of some opengl setting ?

Opengl standard lighting?

K4Z
07-04-2005, 05:18 AM
I've been using that zLib library for a while now, really easy to use, and fast too.

I wrote a small program that searches in a directory and compresses all uncompressed files. In this case I made it search for all xml files (meshes, gui's, etc) and automatically compress them.

So when creating meshes you'd just work with them normally, and when you make a release you run the program, and it'll compress all the files.

It could also be used to compress textures and stuff aswell.

Not sure if the library could be some how ported to python.
Or even get the bpython script to run a program written in delphi to compress the file after it's been made?

K4Z
10-04-2005, 03:35 PM
wow, I've barely been at my pc all week, but here's some renderings I ment to of posted the other day...

(A bunch of tanks and other vehicles, each one is about 200 poly's, and I've tried to keep the mesh count to 4 or 5)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Tank_Four_One.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Tank_Four_Two.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Tank_Five_One.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Tank_Five_Two.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Tank_Six_One.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Tank_Six_Two.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/MiniTank_One_One.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/MiniTank_One_Two.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Copter_Two_One.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Copter_Two_Two.jpg

(Here's a weapon for vehicles. A Gattling Cannon)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Gattling_One.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Gattling_Two.jpg

(So the first tank equipt with dual Gattling Cannons would look a little something like this :) )
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Tank_Four_Three.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Tank_Four_Four.jpg

(Who needs guns and cannons when you can hurl giant boulders? :P )
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Catapult_One.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Catapult_Two.jpg

---

(Oh and here's a monster type thingy, still needs a bit of work)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Monster_One_One.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Monster_One_Two.jpg


Well thats most of the more better/finished looking models.

what do you think so far?

(I've also made a bunch of scenery - cartoon looking trees and stuff, but pretty borring to bother making any renderings )

{MSX}
11-04-2005, 09:00 AM
Well you're a great modeler if you ask me :P
Very nice, very low poly and good looking!
Btw i love that monster :) Have you drawed other non-scifi characters too ?
Well i'd like to see the scenario stuff too :P

I've spent the weekend on my other project so i didn't worked on this one.
Anyway the off-game logic is almost completed and i've been working on the map. The tiles are already working and also scrollable.

As soon as i have the complete "navigation" of the program i'll post it so we can start to think of the gameplay itself.

K4Z
11-04-2005, 11:49 AM
I've mostly modeled furturistic vehicles so far. I've got a bunch of half started fantasy characters - wierd monster looking things, goblins, a dwarf, a rat man, gargoyle, skeleton, minator - just to name a few.
And crap loads of weapons, for men and vehicles.

I'll try and not get too many done until the game is more playable, and the editor has animation, cos I suspect that I might have to modify and fix up the models for them to work properly.

Umm scenery. Well, here's one of the typical tree's I've made.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Tree_Two.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Tree_One.jpg


Have you got some sort of tile width marked out for the map? So it will be easier to position and size the models. Mabye drawing a wireframe rectangle in the Editor, so you can see if a model is too big and outside the tile width?

---

I've also started porting your XML export script to LScript for Lightwave. It sort of works, but it exports all the meshes and layers as one big model file.
(I'm still trying to figure out how to use layers with Lscript, all the reference info I've found on lscript is for version 8, but i've got version 7 and nothing seems to work :? )
Ah, It's not that important, but if I get it working properly I'll be able to pump out models for the game really fast.

Traveler
11-04-2005, 12:34 PM
Those models are great. I can't wait to see what they look like with textures on them.

I wonder though why you've made such a spikey tree. I'm guessing those spikes are eating up a lot of polies. Why not use a transparency map? You'll have much better results that way.

Anyway, keep em coming!

{MSX}
11-04-2005, 01:54 PM
I've mostly modeled furturistic vehicles so far. I've got a bunch of half started fantasy characters - wierd monster looking things, goblins, a dwarf, a rat man, gargoyle, skeleton, minator - just to name a few.


:shock:
That's just "a few" ? :) Looks like i've solved my problems with graphics :P



Have you got some sort of tile width marked out for the map? So it will be easier to position and size the models. Mabye drawing a wireframe rectangle in the Editor, so you can see if a model is too big and outside the tile width?


Ok, i'll make a reference on the editor. If i remember correctly the tiles are 4 units in length (i must check this, i could be mistaking).




I've also started porting your XML export script to LScript for Lightwave. It sort of works, but it exports all the meshes and layers as one big model file.
(I'm still trying to figure out how to use layers with Lscript, all the reference info I've found on lscript is for version 8, but i've got version 7 and nothing seems to work :? )
Ah, It's not that important, but if I get it working properly I'll be able to pump out models for the game really fast.

I've never used Lightwave so i can't help you :)
Anyway that could be useful.. i think there lots of Lightwave users out there too.

Bye bye! I'm posting updates soon.

K4Z
11-04-2005, 03:49 PM
lol, yeah that spikey tree is about 130 polys :oops: . We havn't gotten to a set style for scenery yet, thats just one type I've made. Others are really low poly and have texture.
I've also made a couple types of walls (a single tile mesh that can be 'tiled' to form a wall, with end peices and corners), but I gotto fix em up to match the tile widths.

---

Traveler, do you know much about LScript? for lightwave 7.0? or any good sites?

Is there a way to get point and poly data from seperate layers instead of the entire model?

I've tried scripting for Modeler, and Layout to get the seperate meshes, layers, but cannot seem to get anything to work.

I just cannot find much info on lscript for lw7.

I dunno, it's not a must have, but would be nice to export from lightwave straight into Xml for the model editor. At the moment I just import into belnder to run the python script.

Might just make a .lwo to XML convertor in delphi.

{MSX}
11-04-2005, 06:13 PM
Ok, i've uploaded a new release, with the changes on the editor that you asked.
Now you can show/hide a floor tile and also place a "reference model" to compare the sizes in realtime.

The game itself has also some improvements: you can create and start a game to see a very alpha stage of the game itself: it contains three models and the tiles, and the map can be scrolled around.

I'll be working on animations so that you can continue modelling :)

Bye :P

Traveler
11-04-2005, 07:37 PM
Traveler, do you know much about LScript? for lightwave 7.0? or any good sites?


I'm afraid I don't know a single thing about lscript. You could try newteks forum at vbulletin.newtek.com (http://vbulletin.newtek.com). There are some very experienced people over there that may be able to help you out.

You could also try to export the model to obj format. After that its fairly easy to write your own export to an xml format.

K4Z
13-04-2005, 03:07 PM
I've done a heap of new models, and gone through the update (ooh i see you've cleaned it up a bit).

Well umm, I've made some new scenery, themed scenery actually. Like Castle stuff, futuristic stuff (like maps that look like they're in a spaceship, starcraft style), etc, etc.

The scenery is made up like a construction kit :) , like pieces of lego you put together to make all kinds of cool things. Here's a early example I made to use as a template.

(Take a handfull a wall blocks, a couple tower blocks, mabye some corners or end pieces)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Castle1_Wall.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Castle1_TowerSmall.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Castle1_CornerOut.jpg

(Connect em up and there you go, a simple little fort)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Castle_One.jpg


(...and with a little experimenting, take the palm of your hand, and mash it into the game)


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/screenshot_castle.jpg

Haha

Well, it kinda works. Once again it looks like the smoothing problem has struck again. The wall blocks don't look like they are sitting correctly. It's ment to look like one complete wall. I don't really know that much about OpenGL, but is there a way to make them more flat looking?
Did you manage to find a way to fix the Tank model from looking so smooth?

Thats it for now.

(One day I *might* add some color, or even textures to these screenshots HA! :lol: )

{MSX}
13-04-2005, 03:51 PM
Eheheh that screenshots look too cool! We've a nice castle, and we can easily build rooms etc. in that way. Looking forward for it! :)

About the smooth issue, i've found what it is: it's about normals. It seems that in blender even if you set the solid (flat) style, it still has smooth normals, so i think it probably uses face normal instead of vertex normals when rendering. So it should suffice to do the same on our program..
Also, one can change the default OpenGl shading model with glShadeModel(GL_FLAT); but this gives ugly results: it works by using the normal of a vertex for all vertex of a given triangle...
I'll try to correct the program (and the exporter) ASAP, in the meanwhile if you want to see how it whould be you can throw glShadeModel(GL_FLAT); somewhere in the code and look how it behaves.

Also, i've worked on the animation, in particular on Poses (which are the hard part). Soon we will be able to define poses in the editor.
I was thinking to add a menu where you can select on which pose to work, the first being the "static" pose. Such as:
-Static
-Walk1
-Walk2
-Hit1
etc
So that you work on the pose you've selected.
Alternatively i thought of a mode switch between pose editing and model editing (handy when to add anim editing).

{MSX}
13-04-2005, 04:29 PM
ok, i've solved the issue of the smooth, here's the result: the tank model with flat shade.
http://www.lugato.net/shot10.png

As i was thinking, blender has a per-face magic flag (smooth) that tells if the face is to be rendered smooth or flat. If flat, the face normal is used for all vertices, if smooth each vertex normal is used.
So in the .mesh format i've added 4 new tags, three for face normals and one for smooth flag. When drawing the mesh, i use the flag to draw correctly.

Here's how the face tag looks now:


<FACE id="1">
<A>1</A>
<AU>0</AU>
<AV>-1</AV>
<B>2</B>
<BU>1</BU>
<BV>0</BV>
<C>3</C>
<CU>1</CU>
<CV>-1</CV>
<NX>0.0</NX>
<NY>-1.0</NY>
<NZ>0.0</NZ>
<SMOOTH>0</SMOOTH>
</FACE>

I'll post a new release soon (possibly with other news).[/img]

K4Z
13-04-2005, 04:30 PM
Hmm, your right. It's all wierd lookin.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/screenshot_flat.jpg

Ok, the animation sounds good.

(sheeesh, it's 3am, last time I looked at my clock it was 5pm, I'm going to bed. Ow I missed dinner :cry: )

K4Z
13-04-2005, 04:32 PM
ooh, u got a post in just before me.


Ah, thats how the tanks' ment too look. Good job!!

K4Z
14-04-2005, 12:49 PM
More models, yay.

Here's a skeleton :)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Skeleton_One_One.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Skeleton_One_Two.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Skeleton_One_Three.jpg

I've tried to keep the same style as the men. It took all my will power too keep it low poly, and not to go crazy with detail :lol: .

Though I don't really like the feet, they don't look right.

{MSX}
14-04-2005, 01:28 PM
Wow i'm really out of words.. It looks awsome! I've tried to model a skeleton too some times ago.. well i'll better keep the results for myself :)
For the skeleton it's normal to use more polys than for other models :P
I don't know if you already do this, but you could try to delete invisible faces, such as for example the finger termination that is inside the "palm" (there should be one or two triangles closing the finger "cylinder").

For the feet, they're a little strange :P I'd make finger shorter and the central bone longer.. (feet's finger are really small.. mine, at least :D)

I'm at good point with poses.. it now only needs save/load and it should be done.

I don't know whether to save them in the model or as a separate file.. Must think hard on this i guess.

Btw we should also decide something on how to save models on the "media" folder.. maybe we should make a subfolder for each model? in this way we well need a copy of all meshes that are shared betwheen models (very few i think..)

K4Z
14-04-2005, 03:47 PM
Yeah, I already delete faces that aren't seen, it cuts out heaps of polys.

For the feet, you're right, the proportions of the bone lengths are wrong. As I modeled the skeleton, I had the Template Man model wireframed in a background layer, so the skeleton is set up as it would be if the man model really did have a skeleton.
Like this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/skeleton_real.jpg

The feet are harder to make bones for, cos the feet are stumpy, and tall.
I'll fix the feet right up then.

---

I'm not sure whether to save it in the model file or seperate either. Both have there advantages, and disadvantages.

Ok now. So far, for the game, I see 2 promanent types of 'characters', (I'll call them) Troops [Men, monsters, animals, etc] and Vehicles [Tanks, copters, catapult, etc].
And 5 types of Models: Troops, Troop Weapons, Vehicles, Vehicle Weapons and Scenery.
So, we should set up sub-directories for each type of model. I don't think we need sub directories for each model, just each type. That would make it easier to share meshes, I started making a dwarf model, and instead of making another hand, foot, eye, etc meshes, I just use the same meshes that the viking uses.

When giving a node a mesh, you could set up a new Edit box that holds the name of the subdirectory in the media folder, so it can easily find the requested mesh.

Mabye another directory for textures aswell.

{MSX}
14-04-2005, 05:41 PM
I'm not sure whether to save it in the model file or seperate either. Both have there advantages, and disadvantages.

I've choosen to save in the same file.. working with multiple files would have probably get us mad.. It's always possible to create an exporter to copy the poses on another models (just a single copy/paste in xml anyway :P)



Ok now. So far, for the game, I see 2 promanent types of 'characters', (I'll call them) Troops [Men, monsters, animals, etc] and Vehicles [Tanks, copters, catapult, etc].
And 5 types of Models: Troops, Troop Weapons, Vehicles, Vehicle Weapons and Scenery.
So, we should set up sub-directories for each type of model. I don't think we need sub directories for each model, just each type. That would make it easier to share meshes, I started making a dwarf model, and instead of making another hand, foot, eye, etc meshes, I just use the same meshes that the viking uses.

When giving a node a mesh, you could set up a new Edit box that holds the name of the subdirectory in the media folder, so it can easily find the requested mesh.


Umm i'm not completely sure.. if you think about vehicles, they'll hardly share lots of meshes.. whereas troops will share many..
I'll think on this some more, by now i'd let it like this..

I'm done with the poses.. now models can be put in different poses that are saved/loaded along with it. I'm really satisfied with the result! If i find the needed strength i'll post some shots :)
Now i was starting with the animation mode.. The nightmare is to develop a "multi-tracker" widget to handle all keys in the animation :P
I think i'm going to have grey hair before finishing it :)

savage
14-04-2005, 05:53 PM
this 2 man team seems to be getting loads of stuff done. Can't wait to see this stuff in action.

{MSX}
14-04-2005, 08:18 PM
The viking doing some poses :D
(screenshot collage from the editor)

http://www.lugato.net/shot11.png

PerIvar
15-04-2005, 08:43 AM
this 2 man team seems to be getting loads of stuff done. Can't wait to see this stuff in action.

Yeah :D Good job guys!

Cant wait to see some ingame action!! :)

K4Z
15-04-2005, 01:34 PM
The viking doing some poses
Haha! Awesome!

Sorting the models into directories isn't just for easy sharing, It'll just give some organisition to all the files, already if I export all the models I've made so far, it would give me over 120 files. It would also help when trying to find a specific file or mesh.

---

I'm pretty happy with the way this project is turning out, and the speed and consistency of development. So far {MSX} and I have disscussed and fixed up most of the loose ends before starting on the gameplay: Gui, GameStates, Models, Animation, Server, etc, etc, etc. It's all come together as a nice system, heck, with this project it could be turned into any type of game, RTS, FPS, Car racing, etc, not just a Turn Based Game.

It looks like {MSX} will have model animation 100% done anyday now, and I'm knee deep in models, so keep watching everybody :) .

WILL
15-04-2005, 08:55 PM
Wow, very nice guys. This is one of the fastest projects I've seen as far as graphics development goes. :)

But how much of the game engine is developed so far?

{MSX}
16-04-2005, 08:19 AM
But how much of the game engine is developed so far?

Well the game engine is not very developed. Before that you must do all things that are required, which is what i'm doing by now. I could say that the requirements are almost done, and most of all they're very modular and reusable. I was also thinking to release them separately for others to use :)

For the game itself, we have basic network communication and the chat working. There is already a skeleton for all game states that is "navigable" (you can create game, start them, etc).. I've made a skeleton for the map system too and you can already see the map and scroll it around.
There is nothing ready for the character stats, spells, and the like by now.

Thanks everybody for the support :D

K4Z
16-04-2005, 08:26 AM
Well, a lot has been done so far, but we still have heaps more to go.
We sometimes discuss stuff by email, so there's a little bit of development that you haven't seen.

There's not much done on the actual Game yet, but I suspect over the next few weeks the gameplay will start to develop more.

Here's a quick summory on whats been done so far:

The base of {MSX}'s awesome GUI is complete, we will add more widgets as we need them for the game and editor.

The model editor is well under way, and {MSX} is working on model animation.

The base of the server has been started, logging on, chatting, new game creation, etc.

I guess I have been consentrating more on the models while {MSX} does the coding. I've got a bunch of models done, as you can see.

The very basics of the game has been started though, loading models, drawing them to screen, moving and rotating the camera.

After the animation, the next major aspect I think would be Maps. Then we could start on the actual game play.

So, yeah, keep giving us feedback everyone!

{MSX}
17-04-2005, 01:12 PM
I've released the new version of the editor with animations.
Usage should be quite easy. You can load the default model (viking_weapon) that has already some test animations.

You can find it here: http://www.lugato.net/turn.zip

Bye :P

K4Z
17-04-2005, 06:37 PM
ooh thats sound awesome. My models are going to be happy with that, Ha :D .

I got an assignment I totaly forgot about due tomorrow that i need to finish, might be wednesday or thursday before I get back to you.

laterz

K4Z
20-04-2005, 05:04 AM
I've had a quick play with the editor, haven't looked at the code yet.
Nice and simple, and you can make some good animation loops really quickly :D I love the multi tracker, able to easily tweek and pinpoint the exact frame you need.

Though, I think 1000 frames is a bit too much.

I'll get a few shots of my models in the editor up sometime tonight.

{MSX}
20-04-2005, 06:50 AM
I've had a quick play with the editor, haven't looked at the code yet.
Nice and simple, and you can make some good animation loops really quickly :D I love the multi tracker, able to easily tweek and pinpoint the exact frame you need.


Thanks :P



Though, I think 1000 frames is a bit too much.


In fact they're 100. Only the animation track shows 1000 becouse when animation is build the current position is a float betwheen 0 and 1. Using 100 on the animation track was a little too steppy, with 1000 it's smoother.

Also, animations don't know the times they take, in the game you will be able to give the same animation different durations (ie 1 second, 10 seconds, etc).

Waiting for your shots :P

K4Z
28-04-2005, 02:50 PM
Sorry I haven't replied for a while, but my computer has died. I think it's the CPU, I have replacements for everything, 'cept the same socket of cpu. :cry:

I got a lot of work done too. As soon as I can/allowed to plug my HDDs into my mums pc, I can get some more work done, and show you what I've been upto.

*sigh*, stupid computer

{MSX}
01-05-2005, 11:31 AM
Sorry I haven't replied for a while, but my computer has died. I think it's the CPU, I have replacements for everything, 'cept the same socket of cpu. :cry:

I got a lot of work done too. As soon as I can/allowed to plug my HDDs into my mums pc, I can get some more work done, and show you what I've been upto.

*sigh*, stupid computer

Ehehe damned computers :P
Good to hear that you have lots of work done!

Instead i didn't code too much this days.. A friend of mine gave me a game called EtherLords II witch, guess what, is a turn based fantasy game :P The combat portion of the game is almost identical to Magic The Gathering.
Needless to say, i've spent all my free time playing with it :P

Anyway i've also worked on the game a little.. I've still some weird bugs on the network code that needs to be cleaned. Expect more news soon (i've already almost finished Etherlords II :P)

{MSX}
11-06-2005, 07:21 PM
Hi :P
We didn't post anything lately, but the development is going on :)
I'm very happy with the engine, making TheSheepKiller was very useful for the development. Now i'm working a little on the game itself, map definitions, rules, items, etc.

Here's some more screenshots, that are as always more interesting :P

Here's a robot that i've designed some days ago:
http://www.lugato.net/screenshots/shot12.png

Here's a wonderful Orc by K4Z:
http://www.lugato.net/screenshots/orc3.jpg

And lastly the beginning of a Minator, always by K4Z (btw isn't that a minotaur?):
http://www.lugato.net/screenshots/Minator1.jpg

More news soon :)

cairnswm
11-06-2005, 08:09 PM
I think your models are really nice!

savage
11-06-2005, 09:04 PM
Looking good MSX. Would I be right in saying that the robot will be used in the 4 Elements contest ;)

K4Z
12-06-2005, 03:14 AM
I've done some more on the minotaur, and I think it's completed. Just goto send it to Blender and fix some little things and it's ready.

And here's a bunch of shots :D :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Minotaur.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Minotaur2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Minotaur5.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Minotaur4.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Minotaur3.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Minotaur3_1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/minotaurRender1.jpg


Although he's a more complicated design than I've made with all the other models, he really didn't take that long to model, mabye an hour and a half all up.

The legs may look a little off at first, but he's ment to have goat like legs. Which is a little hard to do when the Model style is to have no legs, just feet.

Another thing that was a bit of a challenge was his muscles. Modeling low poly muscles is harder than it looks :lol: . I wasn't that happy with his body, but once I added in the feet and hands, it all came together better.

If I could be bothered, I'd UV map his skin and draw on glyphs and tatoos.

This is my favourite model I've made for the turn based game so far, as you can probably tell :D . and it came out a lot better than I had thought it would.

Let me know what you think, Laters!

{MSX}
12-06-2005, 08:31 AM
This is my favourite model I've made for the turn based game so far, as you can probably tell :D . and it came out a lot better than I had thought it would.


You're getting better quite fast :P This looks really like a strong minotaur :P

The muscles are perfect and the legs too gives the idea of the "backward knee". You also did a great jobs in keeping with the style of the game.

Btw the engine supports texturing of meshes, even if we don't use it too much, so if you want to add a texture for tatoo (or for anything else), it will work on the game.

Bye!

savage
12-06-2005, 09:59 AM
Let me know what you think

It's all looking great. This definately shows that you have your heart in it.

WILL
12-06-2005, 07:02 PM
Wow... you guys are getting some sick characters churned out for this game! MSX, didn't you say that you couldn't model to save your life before when you first started this topic? ;)

You guys(Kaz and MSX) seem to make a great team. I hope to see mor of your projects for some time to come. Maybe hook up with a good musician and the team will be complete.

K4Z
13-06-2005, 01:35 AM
Thanks for the support guys.

I've done some experimenting, and I tried putting The Minotaur's body on the Orc, and it makes the Orc look a lot better :P
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/NewOrc2.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/NewOrc1.jpg

I think I'll use the Minotaurs body for all the big muscular characters for now on.

And I've started putting tatoos on the Minotaur aswell :)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/MinotaurTatoo1.jpg

EDIT:
More shots :D :D :
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/MinotaurTatoo2.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/MinotaurTatoo3.jpg

Robert Kosek
13-06-2005, 03:57 PM
WOW! Looking good guys!

Goes to show all the folks who underestimate the power of pascal... :D

K4Z
19-06-2005, 03:14 PM
Here's a shot of the Minotaur in {MSX}'s Model Editor:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/MinotaurEditor.jpg

I'm still trying to get the textures to work. I don't really understand how Blender works with (UV) textures. And the model editor doesn't seem to like my .png's, I think it's got something to do with the transparency channel that paint shop generates, I've had it working before, just got to fiddle with it a bit :?

Oh, and I've found a folder filled with a bunch of half finished models I started ages ago and forgot about.
So I've started working again on a Gargoyle:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Gargoyle1.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Gargoyle2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Gargoyle3.jpg

savage
19-06-2005, 05:38 PM
Any chance of showing some small Gif files animations of the gargoyle in action?

K4Z
22-06-2005, 01:02 AM
Yeah sure, here's a quick and simple animation of the Gargoyle.

Right here (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Gargoyle.swf).

(As a .gif it's 3 meg, but I've converted to a 250k .swf)
(Might wanna RightClick->Save As if it doesn't work)

Laterz!

K4Z
22-07-2005, 12:49 AM
Wow, it's been a month since we've shown any updates, but work is still getting done.

So, here's a few shots of some new models in the model editor :) :

A WW2 Trooper and conscript:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Trooper.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Conscript.jpg
Ghost, Dwarf:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Ghost.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Dwarf.jpg
Tropical Tree, Simple Plant:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/TropicalTree1.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/Plant1.jpg
And a bunch of Alien type plants:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/XenoPlant1.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/XenoPlant3.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/XenoPlant4.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/XenoTree1.jpg
A Guard Tower:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/GuardTower_1.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/GuardTower_2.jpg

And if you haven't already, check out {MSX}'s blog at http://msx80.blogspot.com/, as some updates are posted there.

Laterz!

WiZz
22-07-2005, 06:51 AM
Nice models :)

WILL
23-07-2005, 08:47 PM
Wow, you guys are really getting good with your game models! This game is going to be a marvel once released. :)

{MSX}
30-08-2005, 09:51 AM
To keep you up to date, here's a new screenshot from the almost-quite-maybe working version of the map editor :P
Tiles are not yet handled by now.. Just grass!
http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/9391/mapeditor27ji.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
I hope you like it!
Bye :P

Traveler
30-08-2005, 10:20 AM
Thats awesome!
Looking forward to a demo :)