Main Discussion

[Jasiek]

I'll ask again . Is using an animated sprite as opposed to a sprite moved around via a script really necessary? this way you have a script for trees, grass, flowers etc. And you don't have to animate each sprite separately.
Imo, moving the vegetation would be a lot more cpu/gpu friendly with a script as opposed to an animated sprite ( 1 image vs 6 or more). Anyways, for what I meant about transparent sprites you could look at the grass tufts sprites littering the ground in my last demo. Apart from the edges of the grass that are transparent, the whole piece of grass is also a bit transparent (like in Beyond Good & Evil), so it looks a bit more smooth and fits the ground really nice. I know it's not "real", but for a game like LBA it makes it all look a lot more smooth.

[David]

Jasiek : Do you mean instead of having lots of animated sprites, having only one and changing its texture coordinates along the time ?
I think that should work fine for grass, but for water ?

I made this new demo, with both animated grass and water, and a bigger map.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/oyydkwznmg3/grass and water.rar

[Jasiek]

No, i don't mean changing it's texture coordinates , leave the texture alone. What I mean is to treat the grass sprite as a physical object, and move it in x,y,z and also have it camera oriented (for the grass). That's how the tree corona's in my demo (i'm getting boring with "my demo this, my demo that" by now...) and grass work.

[David]

well that means a different transformation for each object, specially when making objects always facing camera. It's excellent for few objects or group of complex objects (display list), but they are at least 10.000 individual transformation to compute here. If you push texture button in the demo, you'll see how quiet is the scene !
I keep that technic in mind for trees

[Jasiek]

Well it depends on how much of the grass sprites you want to put there. For a game like LBA 60 or so would be fine for a scene. It's not far-cry, you don't need to cover all of the grass with sprites. Having a small and delicate looking tuft of grass here and there, not higher then Twinsen's knees, or even ankle height would be fine. You want to accent the grass, not fill up the whole scene. Most of the lawns there are in cities anyway, neatly trimmed. There are some exceptions where higher looking grass might look ok. Imho with a script it's easier, because by modifying a certain value, you can change how the scene feels, windy or with just a slight breeze.

[David]

allright I'll put less grass, and see if I can make it face camera (billboarding)
Do you like water effect ?
And did you add stuff to pharmacy map ?

[Renesans]

:O I didn't know about this project until today (which isn't surprising since I rarerly visit this forum), and I must say I'm really impressed. Keep up the good work!

[Darkflame]

Personaly, Id love thick, dense, grass for outside areas :P , but thats a very low priority to do, and probably isnt nearly worth the effort.
Good looking light grass, however, is.

As for water, I liked the effect, but as I said on the video is a little two quick in terms of the animation. (might be just my eyes, but I find fast moving landscape sprites distracting in games...I prefer more gently moving things)

[David]

Is grass really necessary ? I mean, having a good gameplay, would you really care about having that grass or not ? What about having only trees ?
Jasiek, could you send me or post a model of the tree you use in your demo ? thanks

[Darkflame]

Its not necessary at all.
Its just a random thing for the engine that would be nice, but sure, its completely unnecessary and thus a low priority.

[Warwick]

Originally Posted by Darkflame

Its not necessary at all.
Its just a random thing for the engine that would be nice, but sure, its completely unnecessary and thus a low priority.

Make it a texture. Use multiple grass textures, and spread them randomly with each map load.. (The way Warcraft 3's Map editor does. Certain tile of Grass has atleast 5 different textures.. )

[Jasiek]

Originally Posted by david38

Jasiek, could you send me or post a model of the tree you use in your demo ? thanks

Here you go.

[David]

get ready !
Here is the brand new LSA V2, the new full 3D adventure ! One map, one character ... that's only a good beginning.
http://www.mediafire.com/?5na2tmnn3j3
It's so different from the first ... but comes from it.
Added source code and blender files. For twinsen mesh, ask Horadrim for use/modify it.

- I put really less grass as you all suggested, and sprites animation are much more slower (DarkFlame will !).
- Chasing camera could be better but works
- Collision detection works
- I have to remove shading from sky box.
- Above all : added timers !!
- No Linux support yet (because of accurate win32 timers "queryperformancetimer"...)

[Darkflame]

Not bad work at all

A few points, but you probably know them all already;

* Twinsens fixed to the ground-plane, thus his feat go though the ground when he walks upstairs.

* Twinsen should be a little bit faster I think.

* Camera is a bit annoying at the mo. Untill theres time to make a good camera system, purhapes just let the mouse rotate? (would be good for debuging landscapes I think).

* Animation of grass sprites seems about right for me but I think Warwicks suggestion;

Make it a texture. Use multiple grass textures, and spread them randomly with each map load.. (The way Warcraft 3's Map editor does. Certain tile of Grass has atleast 5 different textures.. )

Would be excellent for the grass tiles themselves.
Would get rid of the overly-repeated look it has at the moment, and it would be far less work then any "proper/high-tech" style grass.


But, aside from those points; Great work

[ChaosFish]

Smooth! Also I like that Twinsen model and his animation.

[Jasiek]

I haven't tried it yet. Will be gone for a day or so. When I'm back I'll finish and upload one f the citadel island scenes. I have a question though, will I be able, with your engine, to achive a relatively similar look as I had in the remake? Will the sprites and their position be customizable? Will I be able to set an LBA1-like camera? etc.

[David]

Darkflame and Warwick : you could take care of finding some grass sprites ? (Hep, only legal things here right ?)
Jasiek : normally yes !
BUT :
By now, maps scenes need to be flat where twinsen walks and material grid must be 64x64. I wish that you respect those two big limits, for lots of reasons.
And trust me, with those two limits I already had lots of headaches.
If there are objects out of the grid, it works, but they are not interactive, they are just displayed.
Sprites position could be set by Lua scripts
Did you pack texture with the tree ?

[ChaosFish]

You should try GRSites for free textures, it's a very useful site.

[Jasiek]

David, shit, I forgot. I'll pack it in two days, till then you'll just have to manage.
What's with the multiple grass textures? I'll be modelling the outside levels with the texture I have made for the remake. WoW uses heightmaps and texture blending. I don't think the same technique would be prudent in a game with each outside space modelled by hand exactly after LBA. Besides, blending a grass texture with a dirt texture produces a rather ugly and non-artsy transition between the two!

Also, I don't think realistic textures from an internet database will fit here. They'll just look ugh ugly. You need textures that will fit the overall artstyle. Don't worry, I'll soon provide you with all the outside textures I made for the remake. I just need to slice them out from a single file, and make them into nice squares that can be tiled properly. The art style has to be consistent.


EDIT:
Ran the demo looks ace ! Will I be able to put my own Twinsen in?

[Jareth]

I've played the demo, and I must say: Good work so far! Of course, there's still some work to do, but I'm impressed. Don't know, if you guys noticed, but the graphics have the LBA feeling.
Some more work and you have a LBA3
But seriously, very good work. Good luck

[David]

Yep, thanks to Jasiek and Horadrim for making amazing maps and characters
Hope they'll continue giving us good stuff, and also hope that other artists will get in the project.
Now I'm working on adding a path finding algorithm. Actually it's not mine, it's this one :
http://www.grinninglizard.com/MicroPather/

[Jasiek]

http://www.sendspace.com/file/jfo57d

Ok, so here's the Tree with the texture, and a level texture file I'll be using and modifying for separate texture (just to give you a taste of it ). You should see that the texture transitions with this kind of texture as opposed to texture blending are much nicer (with the grass and dirt transition).


Now, with the tree, the trunk is nice and round, so I recommend you leave the leaves passable and calculate the collision for the trunk only. Only the tree corona is supposed to move. The tree should be placed a bit below ground level so the roots sink to the ground a bit.

Also, the tree was designed to be viewed from the top, not a 3rd person perspective. So either I'll have to add some sort of an inner additional layer of leaves and branches, or your camera will have to be raised a bit (which I would strongly recommend. Making it closer to the character and a bit more smooth too - as in to lag just a bit after the character).

Although a "resident evil - type" camera is best. It's a stationary camera with a fixed position that has a pivot, so it follows the player from a single point, but it also has a limited range, so when the player leaves it, he comes into the range of a different camera. This approach is best from the level design point of view, because you can hide certain things (like the back walls of the pharmacy), and accent some things you want the player to notice.

[Darkflame]

Yes, I like that camera system too.
I think a following/active camera is best for certain situations or game types. (rapid movement, racing, an escape sequence BG&E-style etc).

But for LBAs majority jumping from fixed-perspective to fixed perspective is actualy quite good. LBA2 worked well.

The trick I think would be making an engine that -can- have specificaly set camera points if the player is in range, but also dosnt need them. (large landscape can use LBA2 style camera).
Manualy playing all the camera points in the game would get far too annoying

[Jasiek]

Yeah, I guess I'd agree. For interiors and places of interest a fixed camera would work best. And for the regular "walking" places a 3D one might be better.

[David]

chasing camera is really an interesting part, it can really change a lot the gameplay.
SO : It's too early to say how must be camera, depend how we orient that game.
But for now, get the patch for Artificial Inteligence !!!
replace original executable with this one, and you'll get some bots running around !