Print Page - Not Going Overboard...

General Discussion => Art => Topic started by: arti on June 25, 2005, 01:56:00 am

Title: Not Going Overboard...
Post by: arti on June 25, 2005, 01:56:00 am

I recently began to work again on After Apocalypse (RPG). I've done some rough programming, and now I'm working hard on the graphics.

My only problem is that there will be way too many graphics.

I saw and played so many good RPG's that don't have 1000 tiles, and still have diversity - what's their secret?

Title: Not Going Overboard...
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on June 25, 2005, 09:46:00 am

Maybe their tiles are good? %)

Well in reuben I used like 500 tiles I think, its because trees and walls borders are different than the middle of them, unlike the old NES games, in other words the tiles are too complex. I dunno what is the secret of RPGs with only a few tiles, maybe they use them in a special way

Title: Not Going Overboard...
Post by: dysfunction on June 25, 2005, 09:48:00 am

It's all in good tile design. Not that diverse tiles are bad, and actually you might be surprised at how many tiles these good rpgs you've played had. I'm certainly not an authority on conserving tiles (Aura will probably have a few THOUSAND).

Title: Not Going Overboard...
Post by: mdjenkins86 on June 26, 2005, 07:51:00 am

TSOD doesn't use that many tiles at all, only around 350 at most. I instead use bigger sprites when needed. Because the mapper can draw invisible sprites, this isn't a problem...so I may actually have 1 sprite on the whole screen. Because collision detection is a binary system...that is a 0 or a 1...I can create beautiful maps with only 10 sprites on the screen and not have to conpensate. My mapper is intellegent :)

My collion detection is a cheating bastard that looks smart but really isn't. :)

Wow 1000 sprites. I could construct an entire universe with 1000 sprites.

Another reason why you guys have so many sprites is probably because you use 8x8 or 16x16 sprites.

I use 20x20 sprites...but the resoultion on the 89 looks much finner so the sprites are much sharper. :)

Title: Not Going Overboard...
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on June 26, 2005, 07:59:00 am

I use 8x8 sprites. In fact what I do is that I make many different sprites that can be merged together in differnt ways, like the tree in reuben quest so the map doesnt look tiled, just take a look at the trees in those screenshots:
user posted image

also as you can see the delimitation between water and land isnt always horizontal or vertical but also diagonal as well, not to mention that In reuben quest 2 there is variable water depth so there are areas in gray and deeper areas in black, also with diagonal delimitation. Basically I have 15 8x8 water tiles in Reuben Quest: The Lost Mirror.

Title: Not Going Overboard...
Post by: mdjenkins86 on June 26, 2005, 08:02:00 am

I agree, TSOD looks very tiled. I am very impressed with the way you put things together... Your mapper must be BOSS

Title: Not Going Overboard...
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on June 26, 2005, 08:07:00 am

well making maps was easy because I made myself a small map editor. Basically all those tiles have a number ID ranging from 1 to 96 (due to some compatibility problem between OmnicaLC and xLIB sprite 0 didnt looked right) so I just have to make my 12x8 matrix made of sprite ID and xLIB will display it graphically and instantly. Of coursew in reuben there was some additional manipulation to do because I used a very old version of xLIB and I had two layer to display due to grayscale

making that kind of complex sprites is a pain tho :crazy:

Title: Not Going Overboard...
Post by: mdjenkins86 on June 26, 2005, 08:23:00 am

Yeah, I know thats why I just try to keep it simple...
Our mappers are similar in a way. Mine scans in a matrix size 1x40 and draws each line at incredible speeds.

Title: Not Going Overboard...
Post by: dysfunction on June 27, 2005, 02:51:00 pm

I'm actually using pics for Aura, so I only need a simple string for collision detection. I don't have to store any tiles that aren't collision-able, cutting down mem, and since I use pics, I can have an unlimited variety of sprites of any size (rangin from 16x16 up to 64x64- or even bigger now that I will probably have pixel, or possibly nibbel-scrolling). Mdjenkins- you said that you could construct a whole world with 1000 sprites? Well, I am constructing more than one. Imagine being able to travel to countless worlds, all with different customs, quests, and completely different architecture. All battles will be animated- indeed, they will be real-time- so of course I will need up to a whole pic's worth (8 sprites) for each type of enemy. My main character sprites are 16x24, but of course monsters will vary in dimension.

Title: Not Going Overboard...
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on July 04, 2005, 02:47:00 pm

are you still thinking about adding that scrolling?

Title: Not Going Overboard...
Post by: dysfunction on July 05, 2005, 05:17:00 am

Yes, I'm pretty sure I'm at least going to do nibble-scrolling, but I haven't tested the speed yet. I'm also considering making just the character sprite in 3-level grey so it will stand out more, though this will mean a little more work for masking.

Title: Not Going Overboard...
Post by: mdjenkins86 on July 05, 2005, 12:04:00 pm

this scrolling thing is killing me. Does anybody know if its possible to plot pictures on negatives in C. Can I plot pic on to (-54125+160,-300). If this is possible, I could write this in one day.

Title: Not Going Overboard...
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on July 05, 2005, 12:18:00 pm

QuoteBegin-dysfunction+July 5, 2005, 12:17-->

QUOTE (dysfunction @ July 5, 2005, 12:17)

First just display your sprite, masked and all that stuff, then once everything is done now you can start switching checkered patterns to have the grayscale character. Once you need to move you just overwrite the whole display with the map. In other words same thing you do right now but with one more step, I am wondering if it would run fast enough tho

Title: Not Going Overboard...
Post by: crzyrbl on July 14, 2005, 08:28:00 am

if you want to lower your tile count, use less diagonals

Title: Not Going Overboard...
Post by: CDI on July 14, 2005, 11:57:00 am

well... the problem I always came to is the tiles for diffrent rooms... so I had a program draw the pic, then save it, then use xLIB w00t!

Title: Not Going Overboard...
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on July 15, 2005, 02:40:00 am

I like xLIB. If I remember correctly if you try to call a tile from picture 1 for example that is higher than 96 it will display the tile on the next picture. I think it works in tile maps but I dunno for sprites. Just be carefuly with xLIB because there is no error check so it can crash if you do a mistake