Omnimaga

General Discussion => Art => Topic started by: Galandros on February 16, 2009, 07:23:56 am

Title: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: Galandros on February 16, 2009, 07:23:56 am
In 83 family screens, I wonder if you can make a good effect of climbing cliffs and mounts for, say, a RTS with some levels of height.

I haven't played too much games oncalc and I don't play GB since years ago. But I have been thinking in some effects made by height. But I want some other opinions.

Maybe my design and draw skills are limited. :( I have got to start practising and see if I have some skill. If you can help with something, I'm interested.
EDIT: you can show some screenshots of games to see if corresponds to my idea.
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: trevmeister66 on February 16, 2009, 09:57:21 am
I think if you wanted to do this you would have to make an isometric map. At least the games I've played on GB that sounded like that were isometric. It wouldn't be TOO hard to make the engine with xLIB/Celtic III, but I don't know what kind of speed you'll get out of it.
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: Galandros on February 16, 2009, 12:05:02 pm
I think if you wanted to do this you would have to make an isometric map. At least the games I've played on GB that sounded like that were isometric. It wouldn't be TOO hard to make the engine with xLIB/Celtic III, but I don't know what kind of speed you'll get out of it.
If I need, I will do in ASM. Hmmm... isometric, I see.
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: trevmeister66 on February 16, 2009, 12:57:40 pm
At least that would be my best guess at how to do this. a 2D map for an RTS with the ability to climb cliffs/mounts/etc wouldn't look as good, although you could do it. Isometric maps/characters/graphics/etc. would look a lot better, but would be a lot harder to draw, at least for me (I am teh suXXor at art).
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on February 16, 2009, 01:27:42 pm
I know you do ASM, but for BASIC programmers who rely on xLIB APP asm lib, if for example they want to do a map with variable height, if for example he has a cliff and a stair, but next to the cliff top there's another walk-onable tile, it could be complicated to make sure you can't walk from a tile to another. What I thought is that decimals could be used to define the floor height. For example if grass tile is tile 28 on an xLIB map, a low level floor could be 28.1, level 2 floor 28.2, level 3 floor 28.3, etc. To walk from a tile to another, the decimal difference would have to be .1 or 0, so basically if you got a slope or a stair to climb a cliff, the bottom tile would be 28.1, the middle stair/slope tile would be 28.2 and the top would be 28.3. I'm unsure if this would be slow and complicated to do, but maybe it could work

I am curious how it would be to make an isometric tilemapper, though
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: trevmeister66 on February 16, 2009, 01:37:27 pm
Yeah I remember on the old boards someone had made a isometric engine. I don't remember who, or whether it was ASM or BASIC+xLIB.
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on February 16, 2009, 01:39:49 pm
JFISH
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: metagross111 on February 16, 2009, 03:21:43 pm
sounds interesting. simulated height?
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: kalan_vod on February 16, 2009, 03:38:04 pm
It was Basic+xLib

http://www.unitedti.org/index.php?showtopic=4878&pid=111168&mode=threaded&show=&st=&

That link has all the pictures including his isometric mapper..
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: Galandros on February 16, 2009, 04:52:13 pm
Looks very nice. Very bad that he didn't release anything.

Me wonders what can be made. And what I can make before sleeping. Me slaps myself. Back to study, sheessh.
I have thinking for lonely moments. An isometric mapper with cool height effects...
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: TIfanx1999 on February 16, 2009, 08:47:14 pm
I think Kv was working on one for PC at Maxcoderz too, and someone downsized the tiles to calc. sized.
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: necro on February 17, 2009, 01:09:53 am
of all the interesting game mechanics, I would stay away from this one on calc as adding aditional dimmensions would multiply the amount memory and processing required to do checks and collisions unless you relegated it to just 2 or 3 levels of depth.  Another mechanic that would probably be interesting but hard to do is shadows in games (stealth rpg for instance), though perhaps not as hard.
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: Galandros on February 17, 2009, 09:54:28 am
of all the interesting game mechanics, I would stay away from this one on calc as adding aditional dimmensions would multiply the amount memory and processing required to do checks and collisions unless you relegated it to just 2 or 3 levels of depth.  Another mechanic that would probably be interesting but hard to do is shadows in games (stealth rpg for instance), though perhaps not as hard.
But with a good engine maybe you could open new games like Megaman Chip Battles, style of Final Fantasy Tactics and others that use isometric maps. Also, the graphics can look very good and refreshing to the actual productions. We have Mode7 in z80, why not an isometric map too?
Oh, shadows... Golden Sun had great maps with darkness in certain caves. It was cool.
Shadows seem to be great too. Make a RPG that you are a assassin. :p
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: trevmeister66 on February 17, 2009, 11:03:12 am
I think shadows would be pretty difficult, or at least memory consuming, unless you just hard coded the shadows into your sprites, but for some reason that doesn't seem like it would have the same effect. It would be cool if there was an rpg/game that had a day time cycle and as you kept playing, the sun would move across the sky, thus changing the direction of the shadows.
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: kalan_vod on February 18, 2009, 11:53:20 pm
All I can say is, that JFish did it...It would be difficult, but would be really nice!
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: metagross111 on February 19, 2009, 12:10:25 am
i really am at a loss at what this convo is about with teh screenshot
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on February 19, 2009, 02:22:51 am
I also remember on MaxCoderz Cyan was working on a Final Fantasy Tactic game for the TI-83+ back in 2003, but he never finished it. Battles were gonna be all isometric like the original
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: trevmeister66 on February 21, 2009, 12:17:17 pm
Heh well suprisingly this morning when I got up, I fired up my old computer to see if I had any old games or files, and I found a isometric program that somebody had made. here's a ss:

(http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/8331ea39ce.gif)

Here's a link to the files:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/wznmwnigjnb/ISOA.zip
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on February 21, 2009, 07:16:44 pm
wow nice, I wonder how fast it would run with hills and stuff.

Btw, does that "somebody" would be someone who would join the community? o.o
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: trevmeister66 on February 21, 2009, 07:18:54 pm
wow nice, I wonder how fast it would run with hills and stuff.

Btw, does that "somebody" would be someone who would join the community? o.o
Lol I don't know who made it. It was from someone on the boards back before I left.. I don't remember who it was
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on February 21, 2009, 08:55:20 pm
oh I thought you meant someone in real life. Then it is JFISH
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: nitacku on February 22, 2009, 01:32:46 am
it could be dj, but then again, maybe JFISH stole that code :P
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on February 22, 2009, 03:49:13 am
lol no way, i didn,t saw any isometric tilemapper in BASIC before (read: at the time JFISH joined and worked on one), not to mention that I never attempted one myself
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: trevmeister66 on February 22, 2009, 09:48:52 am
I don't think it was JFISH though.. I remember him working on his RPG (what ever happened to it anyway?). No I'm certain this was someone else.. but I can't remember who.
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: kalan_vod on February 22, 2009, 01:45:17 pm
I remember JFish and ElfPrince had one, but JFish was the only one that used xLIB..
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: TIfanx1999 on February 22, 2009, 02:30:56 pm
Now that I think about it, I seem to remember one on UTI a while back also. O_o
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on February 22, 2009, 04:40:56 pm
The only isometric tilemappers I remember so far are Cyan on MaxCoderz, but that was like 5 years ago so all posts are gone since their old board was hacked, then JFISH project from 2006 (there was also an awesome movie sequences ala FFTOM)
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: Galandros on February 25, 2009, 07:22:55 pm
In Revsoft group I found an isometric engine in ASM.
"tiles" were 16 wide and 8 high in pixels.

 But I am wondering what is the better way to do the isometric map? A balanced with visual and fitting enough in the screen.
The screen sometimes can be so small. :/ I hadn't patient to draw on calculator some maps...
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: kalan_vod on February 25, 2009, 09:40:20 pm
Link to the isometric engine?
Title: Re: Drawing cliffs and mounts possibility
Post by: Galandros on February 26, 2009, 05:33:52 pm
Link to the isometric engine?
It was late so I didn't have time to post the link. I intended and I think I generally do... Enough excuses:
http://group.revsoft.org/iso.zip

It is very easy to understand (to who knows ASM, of course) and has a picture with tilemaps.

Anyway I made a screenshot for others to see:
(http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/9854/isoenginerevsoft.gif) (http://imageshack.us)