I decided to start my RPG game in DelphiX and Im very happy

[Karaman]

Hi 2 all

I am making a RPG Final Fantasy Style Tile Based
the project has no name yet ))

You can check some demo at

http://www.plovdivart.com/karaman/dnd.zip

Project has one GameEngine.Pas file which is not include, but will be when the game is finished, because I want it to become popular like FF4,5,6 series

Now It has support for Map Tiles (Solid with up to 10 Z levels (4 is Player))
And Doors (They open and close)
Right now I am developing Exits (to jump from map to map)
but am too hungry so may be tommorow

UNFORTUNATELY

I am NOT using my own graphics, but I dont care, I am very bad at drawing, or very slow
you can see my manga pics at

http://www.plovdivart.com/karaman/

And finally for this post
chose Load then load the only map from level/inn.map [/url]

[Traveler]

It's looking good

Did notice some things you might want to look into:
- when you click on picture at the main page the two buttons disappear
- when you start walking towards to top of the room the scrolling is very smooth(fps 200) at the beginning, but when you reach the top scrolling is a lot slower(fps 80).
- I was able to walk on top of the pile of firewood and the oven, it looked a bit strange...

Keep on working,... it sure is a nice start!

Btw,.. where did you get those tiles from?

[iLLUNis]

reminds me of Ultima times......nice

[Karaman]

Yeah, There are some bugs, may be because I didnot read the help of DelphiXGUI,

for the speed: I tried various tricks with TDXDRaw options and managed to get it work at my system display 85FPS, When you are pressing SHIFT while walking the knight ( Falcir ) moves at grater speed and the FPS move a little bit higher I dont know why it is so BTW

Hmm, may be because I am using 24 bit graphics and not 256 ones

The game is still at planning mode, too many things are just experimental

for the strange walking, well, I try it to look not from above but from an angle, hope it is not very confusing but otherwise I will have to recut the tiles i am using and it is very tiring job, I made a delphi prg which reads the tile file and then cuts it into small pieces of 32x32 to be used with the game editor.

This night I decided to try MASKed terrain,
the terrain has two tiles - 1 visual with all graphics as a simple picture
the other tile will be black and white only
black - solid
white -walkable
then the player tile should have the same two tiles
and when one moves the player around it should check whether the
BITWISE adition of the two masks is equal to ZERO, if yes then we do not have overllaping of the walkable with not walkable parts (or the masked ones) but I am not finished it yet, only planning. I think this is the way they did it at the Baldur's Gate 2 Graphic engine, or it looks like it

and the tiles are to be found at:

http://www.molotov.nu/?page=graphics

[tronied]

I think we are using the same tilesets

Your demo shows what it would look like if I had done mine using DelphiX. Have you thought about an editor yet? If not... check mine out at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tronied. For mine I just used basic delphi components which has caused me to lose most of the advantages associated with using DirectX (i.e. Smooth walking, Different layers etc). Maybe at a later date I will start a new project like yours... but for now I am just experimenting with what is possible using my method.

By the way... feel free to use my tileset images. I got most of them off sites and edited them to suit how I wanted them displayed.

Also, I get a minimum of 135fps and max of about 230 for your rpg. You should start worrying when it gets below 30... not for the FR's i got.

[Ultra]

It looks good. I'm looking forward to see where it'll end.

I'm doing a similar project myself (actually it's my 20+ try ). It's still to early to show anything (or know if it'll be completed at all) however.

[Karaman]

I have an editor, but It is not finished yet
You can add tiles, view and edit tile states, load and save maps
but no undo so far :cry: :cry:

here is the updated game, editor included, bug with splashscreen fixed
added support for exits

!!!IMPORTANT: copy file *.dxg in the ./editor/*.dxg

http://www.plovdivart.com/karaman/dnd.zip

[cairnswm]

There is a feature in DXGui that whenever you click an object it is imediatly brought to front. I have been able to take this feature away by modifying the original DXDrawGUI component.

[tronied]

Just out of interest... you say you are using DelphiX. I too now have decided to start a new project and have got my grid all setup with the movement keys and collision detection pretty much to hand. However, I am only getting 60fps max and it wont go higher than that... even with a blank screen with nothing on it (DXDraw Component). How have you managed to get the high FR's on your game?

[Alimonster]

That sounds very much like v-sync. Your vertical monitor's refresh rate will be 60Hz, probably? The idea here is that the screen has to refresh itself at regular amount of times per-second. Therefore, it starts at the top-left of the screen and goes down the way, updating each line in turn.

Now, you have two options when drawing a scene - wait for the start of a retrace (when it'll be sitting at the screen top-left) or draw anyway, regardless of the current position. The first case will limit you to your monitor update speed (in this case, 60Hz), so you won't be able to get any higher. On the other hand, each frame will be displayed correctly, assuming you can get that speed. On the third hand , if your drawing code takes too long per frame and you just miss v-sync, your frame rate will alternate: 1/2 monitor speed, full monitor speed, 1/2 monitor speed, etc. E.g. 30FPS, 60FPS, 30FPS, 60FPS...

If you don't wait for a retrace then you might, for example, start drawing a new scene while the CRT gun (uh, I forget the correct term - think that's right) is half-way down the screen. This means that half of the old frame will be visible at the bottom, and half of your new frame will be visible at the top (at least for a little while) -- this is the "tearing" that you might have seen if you turn quickly in a 3d game without v-sync. You might notice the result if you're paying attention (my brother doesn't see this effect, which never ceases to amaze me!).

V-sync only makes a difference to your FPS in full-screen mode, not windowed mode AFAIK.

You can disable or enable v-sync in your graphics card setup (it'll probably be under control panel->display->settings->advanced, somewhere). It depends on what you want: only complete frames drawn, or pure FPS. I prefer the latter usually (it better represents the mouse input, coz with slower FPS your mouse isn't as well represented - it's sampled at the same rate but the screen updates don't show all the in-between stages).

Btw, 60Hz is a bit low for a monitor these days - you should try at least 75Hz if your monitor supports it. Your eyes will thank you! (control panel->display->settings->advanced->monitor, or thereabouts - if there's a refresh rate combo box, set it to "optimal", otherwise have a look around other tabs). That's separate from the v-sync option (which will be under your graphics card options).

There's probably a way to say whether to draw with v-sync enabled in DelphiX, but I've never used the thing so I can't be sure. If not then don't worry about it until your frame rate drops below the monitor refresh, or tell the end users to disable v-sync manually.

The above info has been dredged up in a moment of boredom. It's possible that most of the above is nonsense, so clarifications/corrections are, as always, welcome.

[Bonus question: how bored do you think I am at the moment? :|]