Crashblock - Open Beta test.

[jasonf]

Hi Everyone, I just wanted to let you know that Crashblock is available for download and testing from www.crashblock.com/test

Currently, there is only the Windows version available for download, I'll update this thread when the Mac and Linux versions are uploaded. Much work was done on these this weekend.

Please, download the game and give it a blast. Any issues you find should be logged on http://forum.crashblock.com in the beta testing Thread.

I'd like as much feedback as possible. 8)

[Huehnerschaender]

It seems you have not handled the different language settings for floating point values. The game crashes at startup (although I don't think thats because it is named "CRASH"block :) )

http://www.postimage.org/aV1iCWiA.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=aV1iCWiA)


After clicking ok an error message appears which says:

Exception EConvertError in module bla bla bla.... "0.000000" is not a valid floating point value.

I have a german Windows XP here and I guess my system handles floating point values in inifiles or registry like 0,00000 and not 0.00000

[pstudio]

Crashes here as well. Danish Vista. I just heard some sound and then it crashed.

[jasonf]

Hmmm... This is interesting, I'll look into this as soon as I can tonight.

Technomage might be able to shed a little light on this.

[technomage]

You need to manually set the DecimalSeperator to '.' (and the ShortDateTimeFormat to 'dd/mm/yyyy') as the first thing you do in your app.

There are a few other locale settings you need to set, but those are the main ones. (Better get that done quick and upload it to IGF)

pstudio :
No testing has been done on Vista yet, so if there is any additional info you can provide if would help :)

[jasonf]

I have confirmation from someone running Vista on a 64bit machine that it runs without issue.. although, more Vista testing is more than welcome.. as there appear to be many aspects of Vista security and privileges.

[pstudio]

Running the game again I can say that I get the exact same error as Huehnerschaender.

We also use comma (,) instead of period (.) when seperating decimals. Crashblock is not the first game to not work because of this issue.

[jasonf]

Can you try this version?

It sets the locale settings to UK to match the internal formats used in the files..

http://www.crashblock.com/test/download/CrashBlock.exe

[pstudio]

It works fine with no problems at all now.

I probably have missed it, but is there a way to quickly drop the blocks?

Btw. when you've completed a level and Jenny is dancing there are two annoying white stripes.

[jasonf]

To quickly drop blocks, press Backspace (or whatever you define the key as) this will drop it immediately.

This is the second question about this today, I'm going to modify the help screens to make it a bit more obvious.

The two annoying white lines.. I think I know what you mean.. it's a small issue which I will fix for the next beta. For the time being though, I'm going to focus on program issues as they're a lot easier to download :)

Please let me know how you get on.

[jasonf]

I've packaged a new version which includes the locale issue.
it also fixes a few other problems which were discovered.

Please let me know how you get on.

[jdarling]

Haven't downloaded the latest version, but the previous version (the one from yesterday) ran just fine and my wife is a complete addict. She says you need a version for the WII so she doesn't have to switch back and forth for games. LOL

Good luck at IGF, your up against some stiff competition.

[jasonf]

Thanks matey. :)

The latest version fixes a few things but it's not a critical update. It's essentially an update so that people from Germany and Denmark (amongst others) don't have to download an additional patch if they've not previously downloaded. it does contain other fixes but nothing serious. There'll probably be another one tomorrow.

I'm really happy that your wife likes the game. I've found that women like the game more than men (mostly).. I don't know why, I tried to keep the game as neutral and kid friendly as possible (which is why there's no death in the game.. even when you're hit by a block, Jenny just falls.. She's not dead, she appears back at the top)

I'd love to get it working on the Wii, but I fear the costs to make that dream a reality would be prohibitive.

As people find bugs, I'll stomp on 'em :) keep the comments coming.

[pstudio]

I've found a bug in your game. Sometimes when Jenny climbs down from one block to another and then climbs down again she magically climbs down from air. I don't know really how to explain it, but I've managed to take a screenshot of it.

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/1113/crasgbugqk8.png (http://imageshack.us)
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/1113/crasgbugqk8.25ed483a94.jpg (http://g.imageshack.us/g.php?h=504&i=crasgbugqk8.png)

Also if I run from right to left on some blocks and there is a hole Jenny jumps over the hole, but if I run from left to right she starts climbing down :?

Btw. Great game.

[jasonf]

Oh Man pstudio, why'd ya have to go and mention THAT bug? :(

Good news is, I fixed it :D

It was one of the final issues with my environment state machine. A few tweaks here and there and I'm fairky confident that I've fixed it.

[cairnswm]

Bere are some comments on what I found good/bad/irritating in the game

1. I really like the menu system, but in the main menu some of the menu blocks actually move when mouse overed instead of just changing image, and many of the others actually have a different shape (just the corners maybe) as they change, I find this quite irritating
2. Help Menu - I wanted to go back and read the previous screen but the 'Back' button took me to the menu again! This was after I decided I didn;t want to read the help and wanted to go to the 'Menu' and couldn't find a way to do it.
3. The About menu has a 'Next' to go back to the Menu
(Maybe I was just looking for some consistency on the way buttons were used. I expect to go back a page, next to go forward a page, next at the last page to take me to the current menu etc)
4. There is no way to 'Cancel' a registration screen.
5. What does 'Quit to the OS of your choice' mean - can I quit CrashBlock and go into MacOS - on my windows PC - How?

In Game
6. Sometimes I found it difficult to position the blocks, if I moved 1 block left and called the crane, the crane moved two blocks. I'd suggest always positioning a specific block of the crane directly over the player.
7. A few times I suddenly died, I mean as in busy playing and there I am dropping in on the screen again and I have no idea why I died. It wasn't blocks dropping on me but something else and I still dont know what it was.
8. The blocks drop from the top - out of screen, but the crane is showing blocks on screen, why dont the blocks drop from where they are on the crane?

9. What is the difference between "Register your copy of the game" and "Unlock your copy of the game"?

10. Some of the text in the help screens needs some editing, there are occasionally spaces missing between words, and sometimes new lines where there shouldn't actually be any.

11. Alt-F4 does not close the game.

12. On the final splash screen there doesn't seem to be a timer to close the game - it waits for me to press close the game But I have already said Quit, and Confirmed it. So why must I do it again. (PS. Games that do this to me I dont buy - maybe a personal preference but I wont buy a game that expects me to press Quit 3 times before I am out). Part of my job as a system designer is to make sure people get what they want with as FEW clicks as possible....

13. I like the character animation, but found moving around the play area very sluggish. I think a faster moving character would be better (personal preference maybe?)

Well done and good luck at IGF :)

[jasonf]

Wow, this is the stuff :)

OK, I'll tackle these point by point. I'll raise issues in my task system.
If you find something irritating, I'm damn sure someone else will too.

1. The menu system graphics are sometimes 1/2 a pixel out, this is partly to do with an exporting issue in Xara. I've made some progress sorting this out. Did you use yesterday's build to test? There was a fix to the menu graphics which tried to minimize this issue.

2. Help menu, Agreed. There should be consistency.. next button should be next, previous should be previous and there does need to be a 3rd button to take you back to the main menu.

3. Same as 2, I'll probably use a new Main Menu button for this. There are other areas which would also benefit from this clarity.

4. Cancelling the registration screen.. Not really thought about this as an issue. But it wouldn't hurt anyone if I put a Back button on there.

5. I could be a bit cleverer about this and put Quit to Windows or Quit to Linux, it'll just be constants after all.

6. The positioning of blocks is something which I spent a long time trying to solve. The biggest problem is that some tetris shapes have an odd number of columns (when rotated) and others have an even number. it's the even numbered shapes which cause a problem as there's no way to center the shape over the player while snapping to the grid without biasing one side or the other, so I opted to bias on the direction the player was facing to allow for an extra element of tactics which the player could learn. Perhaps this needs to be better explained in the instructions. If I just biased in a single direction, I feel that I'd soon have people asking to bias on the other direction.

7. This is worrying.. I could do with more examples of this. If you're being killed doing normal things then I need to pay particular attention to this. I trust there were no bombs going off at the time? It's not the actual bomb blast that kills you, it's the particles which fly out from them. There is the possibility that you were catching the Del key, which forfeits a life to place you back at the top of the arena.

8. I'm not sure I fully understand what you mean. The blocks drop from the crane. Holding down the right mouse button and moving the mouse up will let you see the crane. The blocks on screen are a ghosted preview of the crane's current position. Perhaps this is something which needs to be properly explained.

9. Interesting point. Noted. I'll try to make the terms used here uniform. Unlock and Purchase. Register is something else, we don't register.

10. I've made a little progress here. I will investigate further but if you could give specific examples, that would help.

11. Agreed, Alt+F4 should close the game.

12. Agreed, the user shouldn't have to click too many times to quit the game, or do anything for that matter. I actually hate quit-game splash screens, some are dreadful and put me off buying too, but they're a part of every shareware game I've seen. I'll make it a bit easier to close and put a timer on there. Once unlocked, that splash screen is no longer seen. There seems to be a tricky fine line between showing sales information and not annoying the customer to be found.

13. Perhaps I'm, just used to the speed which the main character moves. Was it the animation being sluggish or the whole game? The game should be running at 30fps and the animations should play at the same speed on all modern PC's. it was a design decision not to have an unrealistic movement speed and to give certain moves a small penalty to get people thinking about alternatives. I didn't want a Mario style system of movement, I wanted more of a flashback system. Flashback does have some moves which are fairly ponderous.
More experienced players should be able to move around the arena much faster than new players as they'll have discovered the subtle extra moves which can make the player leap about the level quite quickly. But if you can pinpoint an area you found to be particularly slow, I could try to speed it up. But I do have to balance the animation speeds for the moves. If it's too fast to climb up a block, then no-one will bother jumping. Also, the movement speed is closely related to the feeling of tension in the game. Changing it too much could completely alter the feel.

Thanks again for the comments, they are incredibly useful and the support, it is appreciated. I will be trying to get as many of these issues resolved for the next build.

Cheers 8)

[Huehnerschaender]

Again bad news. I just downloaded Crashblock again and now I get an EConvertError with dates. It says '2007/10/22' is not a valid date.

It still seems as if you do not check all region settings and change it properly.

But another question is: Why does it want to convert 10/22 ? We have the 17th today...

[jasonf]

Oh no, Sorry about this Huehnerchaender.

Region settings are the bane of my life! Dates are the worst.

Oh dear... quite why Delphi has global variables to handle this I don't know.. I should just be able to set a locale for the entire app and have done with it.. one thing .net got right.

Still, never mind. I'll fix this later on and re-upload.
the reason for this error was I was trying to unlock the game for everyone until Monday, when it would revert back to shareware mode. Possibly not the best decision in the world on retrospect, but I thought it would be a nice thing to do. But there's only so much clear thinking that goes on at 3am, obviously I was in greater need for sleep than I thought.

Monday is the day it goes on sale so obviously I didn't want it to remain unconditionally unlocked.

Thanks for testing this for me, I'll fix it as soon as I can as a matter of urgency.
I'll also have another think about how I can unlock the game for testers.

[Huehnerschaender]

ok, just drop a note if its up.

Downloading from your site is a pain in the ass.... 36 MB at 12kb/s is quite a bit of annoying :)

[jasonf]

Hmmm... it should be a lot faster than that. It's a hosted download, not hosted on my machine..

[Huehnerschaender]

Thats what I get when downloading it... and I have dl-bandwidth of 16000 kbit/sec

[jasonf]

That's it! I'm moving to Germany :D

[jasonf]

OK, I've uploaded a new version of the exe. I've tested this on my machine with the locale set to Germany, I managed to reproduce the error like that, so hopefully this should fix it. I've also included version information on the main menu.

http://www.crashblock.com/test/download/CrashBlock.exe

Sorry about the schoolboy error bug. :oops:

[cairnswm]

OK Downloaded new version (Temp registered version 1.0.0.3).

The Unlock and Register menu options were the ones that bugged me the most :) And they are gone now. Note that the next and back buttons dont have the problem at all.

14. Another comment on the menu screen. The tool tips look as though they should be the same level as the background, but the flying blocks go under the text. Just looks a little funny to me. (Also I think you should use a different wider/taller font for the tool tips - maybe a font size bigger and bold)

Ok - exact comments on text in help screens(10): (this may not be all - but are some iof the grammer/spelling/irritation issues I picked up when going through it again):
15. Page 1 of help: First two lines are one paragraph - should not have a new line after the first sentance. From what I can see there is a new line character after every fullstop. Makes it difficult to read as these aren't bullet points.

16. Page 3 - what is a "bombis" :) - you are missing a space there! What word is becuase - spelling error me thinks. "Be quick though,...." shouldhave the comma added.

17. Page 4, you have 2 full stops, either this should be one to indicate sentence end, or three to say "and then" - two just looks wrong :) The x2 block is over the text of "Stamped"

18. (Sorry lost count of page) - "It is a point worth noting that it is impossible to die from falling too far

(in Crashblock..."
Too many open lines. The brackets are a comment on the previous line and should be part of the same line - and there should be a full stop after the closing brace.

19. Next page, also is missing a final full stop.

20 Next Page - The second sentence should start with a capital letter. "Once again..."

21. First Blocks page - I dont like the way the first sentance is written. rather say how to do it. "Press the Return key to call the crane." reads better and is less confusing. (And isn't return dead and buried? - On all six of my keyboards here it is marked Enter)

22. "There are some items which can be re-used once they have been collected.
The Bomb and the Timeout."
Why are they re-used - how have I used them already. The first sentance should end with a colon as the next two items are the subjects to which you are referring.


On responsiveness:
On the first level, it takes almost 4 seconds to move from the one side of the arena to the other (without having to climb anything) - this to me just felt too long. One of the beauties of tetris was being able to play frantically, and I dont really feel that in CrashBlock. The game was not at all sluggish. The animation does look like it could do with a few more frames but I have seen a lot less smooth animations in other games so I amj not complaining about it.

Unexpected death. I have no idea how I died. I never placed any bombs and I got no feedback on why I had died. I'd suggest in at least the first few levels to put up a sign as the player falls down into the areana again that tells the player why he died. "You were squashed", "The bomb exploded to near you" etc. Then I'll be able to tell you why I died :)

Comment on your point 8 reply? Mouse Huh? The game plays with keyboard, why the mouse suddenly? :) - does that mean as the bricks stack I'll see more and more of the top layers of the background? Ok that sort of explains it :) Still feels to me that the brick image is where the brick should be falling from - maybe because I have never got to the point where I can see the top layers (And remember people playing for the first time will have the same experience.)

I am available to help a bit tomorrow night if you'd like to chat directly on MSN - william at cairnsgames dot co dot za

[Huehnerschaender]

Works now... I played some levels and I did not recognize any issues (I cannot say for sound because I played muted!)

The animations could be a bit smoother (more frames), but thats it. Cool game and nice implementation!

[pstudio]

Encountered a new bug:

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/4949/crashbug2nz6.png (http://imageshack.us)

As you can see on the screenshot the bomb block doesn't really stop Jenny. This happens when I climped up from the left side. Everything worked normal when I climbed up from the right side. I hope that it's useful information.

I also experieced a crash after completing the Stoney Temple levels. I just pressed next on the 'score' screen as usual, but the game crashed. When I started the game up I could see that the Ice level as unlocked.

[paul_nicholls]

Hi Jason :-)
I have downloaded and run the game (menus only), but not played it yet.

I have a question - is there anyway of running the game as a window instead of fullscreen (with desktop resolution change)? I would find this a very handy option :-)

keep up the excellent work, and good luck with the IGF competition :)

cheers,
Paul.

[jasonf]

@Paul. Yes, you can run in a window, but you need to have started the game first as I haven't put any command line switches in.
Go to the options screen, there's a video option. You can switch to windowed mode there.

On windows you have to restart the game because the SDL toggle fullscreen method doesn't always (or at all) work under Windows. It works under Linux though. Not tested it under Mac.

Do you think I need a command line switch for this?

@PStudio,
Interesting bug.. I'll look into that. Thanks for the screen shot, it helps enormously. Looks like you're powering through the game too, you're on the Inca Temple level :D not bad. :clap:

@Everyone,
There is a new version uploaded. Just the Exe, the resource file hasn't changed at the moment. So if you want to get 1.0.0.4, go to http://www.crashblock.com/test/download/CrashBlock.exe

This release fixes the tooltip in front of the blocks on the menu and adds a few new things to speed up the player experience. I would like to know how people feel about this new version as it changes to the speed in which Jenny moves.

I've not had time to address any other issues tonight, I'll do more tomorrow.

[paul_nicholls]

Hi Jason,
I think a command line switch would be handy to save going through the video options the first time.

cheers,
Paul

[pstudio]

Ok I finished the game. I don't really now about the ending. I didn't bother starting all over again so I just quit the game with out regestering my score :?
I suggest that either you can save your progress (shouldn't really be necessary for this type of game), or you can quit and still get your score (The right way to do imho), without killing yourself 16 times.

The game balance works pretty well. I managed to finish the ice stages but just merely. Sometimes Jenny feels so slow ;) (but her speed shouldn't be increased any more)

Sometimes when I'm calling the crane it doesn't place the block like I expected it to. I get the bias positioning idea, but sometimes the crane doesn't stop at the right place. For instance the good old 4 blocks in a straight vertical line doesn't get positioned directly over Jenny, but right next to here. It's quite frustrating that the crane stops to early when you're in a hurry.

I will also like to mention that imo the coin animation is to fast. And in the score screen - either all the objects should be animated or non of the objects should be animated.
And a last thing. When you complete a level all the items that are 'free' in the level should be added to your score. I may be wrong, but I don't think you do that right now, and I can't see why I shouldn't get my extra life just because I collected my last star before the life.


Ps. I would love to see a GP2X version of this game :P

[jasonf]

Thanks PStudio and CairnsWM, (Sorry CairnsWM, I didn't get around to thanking you or replying to you last night even though you'd posted more comments)

I now have a massive task list of things to sort out. (and I thought it was nearly finished :lol:) (BTW: I'm using a free Project management system called Basecamp (http://www.basecamphq.com) )
I've included everything mentioned so far. Hopefully, I should have another version ready tonight with a lot of fixes.

@PStudio, what is the spec of your PC (in particular, memory)? The crash (sorry I missed that comment last night) sounds quite serious.. and I can see it really annoying someone who's tried to play the whole way through.
I think it's a fault with the music player as one of the things it does on that screen is loads the next level music. I'll put some armour around the call so that it doesn't bomb the game if it fails for any reason. Perhaps there's a newer version of SDL Mixer which addresses the issue.. as I ship the DLLs, I'll look into this.

Congratulations for completing the game, I'm very impressed, the ice level is quite challenging :D

Point noted about the high score when you beat the game. I'm going to change it so that you get to put your high score in after the congratulations screen. It's not right that you should have to die in order to put it in after frantically playing.. and the restarting is only for those who really want to push themselves. But I didn't want to just quit the game once they'd finished the ice level.

When you complete a level, I'm going to make it so that any uncollected items are attracted to the player. This will be a nice bit of positive feedback too.

[cairnswm]

I now have a massive task list of things to sort out. (and I thought it was nearly finished :lol:)

How many games you done - by now you should know they never are nearly finished :)

Sorry it took me so long before I gave comments. Thought I'd like to have some input before you take it to the IGF :) so climbed in and looked at it :)

BaseCamp is quite cool but I'd rather have something on a server of my own (ie Local) and am looking at WebCollab for the future.

[pstudio]

PStudio, what is the spec of your PC (in particular, memory)?
I played the game on my laptop with these specs:
Intel 1.86Ghz Dual Core
1 gig of ram (but according to windows only 150mb of it is available)
Built-in lame graphics (Mobile Intel(R) 945 Express Chipset Family)

[arthurprs]

i found a bug, the caracterer can "climb the air"

you can climb the left and right walls but you can continue climbing it to the air.

hope you understand :?

[jasonf]

The climbing in the air bug is well know to me :oops: I've got a task to fix it.
Originally, there was going to be an option to be lifted from one side to the other by climbing the walls and grabbing the chain. But I ditched the idea as it would only solve a very small number of problems compared to the extra effort it would take to write and explain.. adding to confusion and testing complications..

I'll try to get this one fixed tonight.

[pstudio]

I remembered one more thing. I don't know if it was just an error from SDL sides or yours, byu at one point when I was climbing up the left wall, Jenny kept on climbing after I released the left button. I had to press the right button twice before Jenny stopped climbing.

[jasonf]

Version 1.0.0.5 is ready.
Unfortunately, it's a full installer.
http://www.crashblock.com/test/download/CrashblockSetupWin.exe

Fixes:
On Level Complete, all non-collected objects fly towards Jenny.
Player can no longer climb into the sky
Coin on score screen is no longer animated.
Coin animation is slower in game.
Menu descriptions for Register and Unlock are now more sensible
Unlock screen now has Back button
Quit to OS of choice is now changed.
Included SDL 1.2.12 and SDL_Mixer 1.2.8.0 Hopefully this solves the random crash you had PStudio, the release notes did mention a memory leak which had been fixed.

I've still got lots to do, Tomorrow's job though.. must sleep now :)

[pstudio]

Ok - just played the whole game through once again. No crashes this time :)

I noticed some few more things that could be improved.

If we have Jenny in a position like this:



J
####
####

And I press right once, then Jenny will walk one block and start climbing down. I constantly expect Jenny to only walk one block which I think would be a general oppinion.

In the score screen, some of the items aren't aligned in a nice way (The apple and the coin for instance).

I still can't quit and save my amazing score. Btw. you should make an online score list.

I'm not sure but it seems I get to keep my hourglasses for the next level, but my bombs are cleared. If that is true I don't get it. Either I should keep both or none. Preferably none. I started the last level with 22 (I believe) hourglasses and I had no problems completing the level. And then I started over with 35 HGs which make me believe that I can just keep on playing the game until my arms fall of.

There are probably some more issues, but I'm to tired to remember them right now so I'm gonna go to bed instead.

[Huehnerschaender]

there is only one thing left that I really don't like in the game.

The jittering run-animation of Jenny. It really looks like she is misplaced in on or two of the animation frames...

[jasonf]

Either I've made the game too easy now, or you're just getting too good... Finished it again?. Cool.

Unfortunately, Jenny played the new version of the game through last night and she experienced the same crash as you did :( So I'm going to have to track it down and armour it up. I believe it's in one of the SDL Dlls (like it could never be in my code ;)) That's the first job tonight. Play game, find Bug, Hit it with a size 10 boot.

I can see why the Hourglass and Bombs situation could be a confusing issue.. I'll try to explain my thinking on this.

Bombs are only ever kept for a single level by design. They are very numerous and can be collected at any time during the level. If a player has too many bombs, then they could just flatten the entire level and make the game too easy, especially if they combine using a timeout to prevent the next block from falling. At the end of the game, on level 16, they'd have so many bombs that a counter of them would be pointless.

Hourglasses are awarded every 5000 points. They are earned as opposed to being hazards which just so happen to be collectable. The hourglasses which one collects in the early levels are supposed to be saved to help newer players during the second half of stage 3 and throughout stage 4.

Perhaps I should not allow a player to hold more than 5 bombs at any one time.. or I should reduce the rate in which hourglasses are awarded as the difficulty level increases. Perhaps the player can only collect bombs when they are not fizzing.. (currently the player gets a larger bonus for collecting fizzing bombs as they do for non-fizzing bombs due to the risk involved) bear in mind that not being able to collect bombs will result in their detonation and could completely destabilize the game's feel.

The simplest thing could be that it's too easy to collect hour glasses and their collection rate should reduce as the levels get harder. Bear in mind that you've probably become quite a good player by now and new players might feel vulnerable without hourglasses to help them.

Another thing I could do would be to award the player for hourglasses they've collected and lives remaining at the end of the game (before it loops back to level 1) the player would not lose their hour glasses as they'd need them. Levels 17 onwards are ridiculously hard and I believe it's impossible to complete the game a second time around. (gauntlet thrown... ;) anyone up to the challenge?) This would give a significant bonus to players who refrain from using their hourglasses and give a scoring ability unavailable to lesser able players.

The issue with Jenny hopping off blocks with only the slightest persuasion is the result of an earlier bug fix. I am aware of this problem but it's nicer than the bug was ;).. I will try to make some progress on this tonight too.

Have you tested 1.0.0.5? I'd like feedback on the new end of level, collect everything action. Does it make the game too easy?

I can't seem to get Alt+F4 working, even with the latest SDL.dll (which reports to have fixed the problem)has anyone else managed to get this working? I am trapping the SDL_QuitEv event, but it's just not getting activated.

[jasonf]

I agree about the animations, the Run looks particularly choppy.

I plan to completely replace all of the animations in the near future for 1.1.0.0 I'm also going to try to use alpha channel transparency so that Jenny looks more natural when composed within the scene.

I still have the raw animation though and I could put something together before hand. I might try to do that this weekend. It takes a while to put the animations together.

[paul_nicholls]

I agree about the animations, the Run looks particularly choppy.

I plan to completely replace all of the animations in the near future for 1.1.0.0 I'm also going to try to use alpha channel transparency so that Jenny looks more natural when composed within the scene.

I still have the raw animation though and I could put something together before hand. I might try to do that this weekend. It takes a while to put the animations together.

Hi Jason :-)
I'm curious, what tools do you use to do the animations of Jenny?
I want to try and make some animations for the main character of my 4E6 competition entry and don't know where to start.

Are they tools that you can share any of?

cheers,
Paul.

[Huehnerschaender]

Hi Paul,

for 2D games I can recommend Poser. I do all my character/monster animations with it and I am very satisfied with it. Only limitation is the availability of the 3D models you need. But there are so many avaiable that you will always find something that is similar to what you want.

Of course, using poser will cost a little bit of license fee for the software and for the models (which are partially very cheap!). There is an alternative called DAZ-Studio, which is free! Since I own a license of Poser I never looked in DAZ-Studio, so I cannot tell you if it can do all the things Poser can do.

Here is small video of my latest animations I did for my project Valgards fate. This project is meant to be done in birdview, combining 2D sprites (character and beastiary) in a 3D world. But the animations could be done from any view too of course.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZDVhChhaRA

Hope that helps. If there are more questions, lets open a new thread since its a bit offtopic here.

Greetings,
Dirk

[jasonf]

Huehnerschaender, you got your Anim Fu up to a pretty decent level, I'm impressed 8)

The *Original* test graphics for Crashblock were done using the Free Fairy which comes with DazStudio, they were just posed by hand frames which I then cut out and stitched onto a single image for the game.

The process I used for Crashblock was this:

1. Record a load of video for the various movements. Recorded on a camera & tripod from a fixed distance away (in a park)
2. Using Vid2Photo, extract the frames into jpegs (http://www.pixelchain.com/video2photo/)
3. Using Xara Xtreme, import each frame and remove the background (by patiently and carefully cutting out Jenny from each image) then resize to the correct scale and place in sequential order onto a single image. Xara Xtreme seemed to handle having many photos on the same drawing page with no problems at all.

4. Using my own tool, define the frames on each image along with offsets

It's not a quick process and I'd love to speed it up. However, the only way I can think of speeding it up is to use a green-screen rig and make png's with alpha. This saves the cutting-out time (which was substantial)

The next set of animations will be done using a backlit green screen. (which was my original plan.. but resources were limited)
I just need some decent tools for converting the green into alpha. any suggestions that aren't going to break the bank?

[cairnswm]

The next set of animations will be done using a backlit green screen. (which was my original plan.. but resources were limited)
I just need some decent tools for converting the green into alpha. any suggestions that aren't going to break the bank?

Thats exactly what I use The Gimp for :)

With the Gimp you have a colour selector button, and you gcan set its exactness, so it is easy to select all (Green and nearly Green), and thenyou can cut this color out :) (And if you have enabled an alpha channel all cut out bits become transaparent :) )

[jasonf]

I've uploaded a new version. It's another full install I'm aftraid. But, feel safe in the knowledge that no matter how long it takes to download, on my rural (and they call it broadband :roll: ) connection, it takes far longer to upload :lol:

This fixes the hopping off blocks problem and addresses the issues CairnsWM found in the help screens. (I hope)

It's 4AM, I'm off to bed.

Enjoy.

[paul_nicholls]

Hi Paul,

for 2D games I can recommend Poser. I do all my character/monster animations with it and I am very satisfied with it. Only limitation is the availability of the 3D models you need. But there are so many avaiable that you will always find something that is similar to what you want.

Of course, using poser will cost a little bit of license fee for the software and for the models (which are partially very cheap!). There is an alternative called DAZ-Studio, which is free! Since I own a license of Poser I never looked in DAZ-Studio, so I cannot tell you if it can do all the things Poser can do.

Here is small video of my latest animations I did for my project Valgards fate. This project is meant to be done in birdview, combining 2D sprites (character and beastiary) in a 3D world. But the animations could be done from any view too of course.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZDVhChhaRA

Hope that helps. If there are more questions, lets open a new thread since its a bit offtopic here.

Greetings,
Dirk

Hi Dirk :-)
I do have a completely free version of Poser 5 (from http://www.contentparadise.com) I have just re-installed, but I haven't tried doing animations, etc. yet

I also have DAZ-Studio which I will re-install as well.

cheers,
Paul

[paul_nicholls]

The next set of animations will be done using a backlit green screen. (which was my original plan.. but resources were limited)
I just need some decent tools for converting the green into alpha. any suggestions that aren't going to break the bank?

Thats exactly what I use The Gimp for :)

With the Gimp you have a colour selector button, and you gcan set its exactness, so it is easy to select all (Green and nearly Green), and thenyou can cut this color out :) (And if you have enabled an alpha channel all cut out bits become transaparent :) )

Personally, I use Paint.NET (totally free) which works very well for doing selections of same or similar colours for deletion, etc. to make alpha channels when saving as PNG files.

cheers,
Paul

[cairnswm]

Paint.Net is too slow on my Celeron 2.4 512MB onboard Grpahics card machine. So I use the Gimp instead :)

[jasonf]

There is a new version uploaded. 1.0.0.7

It's open until the end of the month.

http://www.crashblock.com/test/download/CrashblockSetupWin-FinalBeta.exe

Unless there are other issues which crop up, this will be the last beta version (famous last words perhaps) I still have a handful of issues which will be dealt with in due course, but nothing which prevents it from going live. These issues will be included in the first update for the game, which should also include some nice extra features.

I'd just like to thank everyone who took part in this round of testing. It has made a real difference and it means a lot to me.

[paul_nicholls]

There is a new version uploaded. 1.0.0.7

It's open until the end of the month.

http://www.crashblock.com/test/download/CrashblockSetupWin-FinalBeta.exe

Unless there are other issues which crop up, this will be the last beta version (famous last words perhaps) I still have a handful of issues which will be dealt with in due course, but nothing which prevents it from going live. These issues will be included in the first update for the game, which should also include some nice extra features.

I'd just like to thank everyone who took part in this round of testing. It has made a real difference and it means a lot to me.

Hi Jason,
An excellent game! Loads of fun :)

I noticed one thing:

I was playing a game (the latest version), I paused it and then alt-tab switched to read the pdf instructions because I was trapped (with no bombs) and didn't know what to do then.

I then switched back to the game and decided to press exit at the continue or exit screen.

I got a crash with something about no debugger available or something.

cheers,
Paul

[jasonf]

Hi Paul,

Have you tried this in the retail version 1.0.1.3?
www.crashblock.com

I'm aware of people playing the retail version from end to end with no problems.
I think the error could have been a glitch introduced into the beta by accident.

[paul_nicholls]

Hi Paul,

Have you tried this in the retail version 1.0.1.3?
www.crashblock.com

I'm aware of people playing the retail version from end to end with no problems.
I think the error could have been a glitch introduced into the beta by accident.

No I haven't tried the retail version yet...

I think it was such a neat idea to use your wife? as the character in the game :)

cheers,
Paul.

[jasonf]

Thanks Paul 8)
Yeah, She's my wife :D
She had so much fun doing it too, I'm going to use her in my next game too (Just need to think about what sort of game to do though:think: )