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This raises an unrelated question... With my mad ill new Bryce 5, what am I supposed to do about the old models? I mean, I have to render the 200x200 and 600x400 pictures again, and I can't, because I don't think the old models are compatible with the new ones. Or maybe they are. Or maybe I should make 'em again. Oh well.
Either way, it should drastically increase the average plug-in size, but hey, bigger is ALWAYS better!
-Lequis
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(quote)Originally posted by Lequis MX: **...but hey, bigger is ALWAYS better!:p
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Originally posted by Frandall: **There is no longer a separate pict for shipyard and comm pict, they both use the same image.
Cookie @ ATMOS
**
They both refer to the same resource automatically and inflexably? Or did the nova team just past the same image into two different resource slots?
I must say if it is the former then that's somewhat dissapointing and not easily described as a step forward. (Note: The rest of the post proceeds along a line of thought assuming that the real situation is identical to the former possibility suggested. If it proves to be not the former than the rest of this post is irrelavent.) It might have been nice if scenario developers had been allowed to keep the ability to make the choice about seperate comm picts for their plugins.
Were they absconded with in ev3 to reduce file size and render time for the nova scenario? I know the filesize is quite large and the development team justifiably exhausted (And everyone braying about the release date), but I'm not sure those things would be sufficient reason for seperate comm pics to be forever ripped out of any future nova plugins. An ideal compromise might have been to have the game automatically use the shipyard graphic as the comm graphic unless a seperate comm graphic in the appropriate slot was provided. (Or was it a problem relating to the rsrc ID numbering scheme?)
Note: I'm not trying to rub anyone the wrong way here, I'm mildly surprised and curious, that is all. It was not my intent to phrase this post in such a way as to give injury to ATMOS, Ambrosia etc etc.
(This message has been edited by SD (edited 01-10-2002).)
Originally posted by SD: They both refer to the same resource automatically and inflexably?
This is the case. It might not be a step forward, but it saves a fair amount of room. The 200x200 images take up over more than 4Mb of hard drive space. In hindsight, it might have been better to retain the ability (and merely not implemented it in the scenario), but at the end of the day, none of us are perfect.
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Originally posted by Frandall: **This is the case. It might not be a step forward, but it saves a fair amount of room. The 200x200 images take up over more than 4Mb of hard drive space. In hindsight, it might have been better to retain the ability (and merely not implemented it in the scenario), but at the end of the day, none of us are perfect.
Yes. It makes me sad, because it seems like an instance where the game wasn't designed with plugin makers situated prominently in mind, with brevity of the initial download being given unfortunate preference- a small, (20 minutes less dl time)short term benefit which is accompanied by a perpetual loss to plugin makers. For example, some plugins might have used pilot headshots in comm dialogs, which is now impractical. Perhaps an accomidation could be made in an update to EVN (It is hoped that one update might occur-- even if the dev team needs to take a few months rest before it does-- for the sake of good practice by Ambrosia in terms of not abandoning post release products.)
Well then, what if you used the MovieFile field in the ship resource to designate a movie file to 'display in place of the ship picture in the shipyard dialog' (EVN Bible) but you also provided a normal rsrc based picture for the shipyard dialog? Would the comm dialog also display the quicktime movie, or is there a cheerful possibility that the comm dialog would display the rsrc picture instead of the movie file? If such were the case, then seperate comm pics would still be possible.
(This message has been edited by SD (edited 01-12-2002).)
Originally posted by Frandall: The 200x200 images take up over more than 4Mb of hard drive space.
Kidglove maintains in this thread that the entire EVN folder is about 168MB. This implies space savings of what, 2.3%?
Originally posted by SD: For example, some plugins might have used pilot headshots in comm dialogs, which is now impractical. You snooze, you loose.
Firstly, this idea has been floating around for longer than you can imagine. Nobody ever bothered to implement it, with the single exception being the headshot of Lars Sřrenson you can see when you hail the Damocles in Femme Fatale.
Secondly...
From the pre-release EV Nova Bible, përs section: HailPict: ID of a PICT resource to be displayed in the communications dialog instead of the standard picture for this person's ship type
...which means it's still quite possible (better yet, easier!) to use the implementation Martin Turner did in FF.
-reg
------------------ "Oh crap. I'm going to hell - I put the Bible next to Mein Kampf again." -Her Holiness, Pope Jenne "Kirby" Hubbs
(This message has been edited by Regulus (edited 01-12-2002).)
Frandall: What is the maximum amount of sprite frames Nova will support? I'm guessing around sixty or so?
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It's at least 72, as it is stated in the Nova bible(in the 'shŠn' section) that large ships can have twice as much as the usual 36 frames to make their animation smoother. However, I think it's quite a bit more than that.
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Originally posted by SD: Yes. It makes me sad, because it seems like an instance where the game wasn't designed with plugin makers situated prominently in mind, with brevity of the initial download being given unfortunate preference- a small, (20 minutes less dl time)short term benefit which is accompanied by a perpetual loss to plugin makers. For example, some plugins might have used pilot headshots in comm dialogs, which is now impractical. Perhaps an accomidation could be made in an update to EVN (It is hoped that one update might occur-- even if the dev team needs to take a few months rest before it does-- for the sake of good practice by Ambrosia in terms of not abandoning post release products.)
During the development, we generally tried to keep plugin designers in mind, but we are far from perfect, and at the end of the day, we are going to miss a few things and we are going to make one or two mistakes. And let's face it, allowing comm dialogs to have separate picts is a fairly small addition to the game in terms of game-play, and you can give pers individual picts if you want. But yeah, add it to the pile of things that 'would be nice to implement'. There are about 50 or so of them.
I honestly don't know. When Nova comes out, have a crack and see what happens...
Originally posted by Regulus: Kidglove maintains in this thread that the entire EVN folder is about 168MB. This implies space savings of what, 2.3%?
Actually, that number is well out of date, and the space saving would now be a smaller saving percentage. However, having said that, if you save 2% here, 3% there, 1% over there, 4% here, you quickly get a whole lot of saving.
Another point in our defence, at the time the decision was made, the uncompressed size of Nova would have been in the range 25-30Mb, so the space savings would have been much larger.
Originally posted by Captain Skyblade: Frandall: What is the maximum amount of sprite frames Nova will support? I'm guessing around sixty or so?
I don't think there is one, but the more frames you have, the more RAM Nova will require. Before too long the memory requirements can become prohibitive.
Originally posted by Frandall: **I don't think there is one, but the more frames you have, the more RAM Nova will require. Before too long the memory requirements can become prohibitive.
So I thought. Most of the plugin developers will likely keep small spaceship sprites at 36 or so frames, but I'd certainly take larger warships up to maybe 60. Jerky sprites can get quite annoying...
Thanks for the clarification.
Originally posted by Captain Skyblade: **So I thought. Most of the plugin developers will likely keep small spaceship sprites at 36 or so frames, but I'd certainly take larger warships up to maybe 60. Jerky sprites can get quite annoying...
So if you gave some ships less frames then others, the other ships(ships with more frames) would have more chance of hitting the the other ship in a situation such as the Monty Python, right?
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Originally posted by Azdara Ace: So if you gave some ships less frames then others, the other ships(ships with more frames) would have more chance of hitting the the other ship in a situation such as the Monty Python, right?
No, I don't think you understand what is going on. Every ship you see onscreen is actually a series of pictures at different angles. If a ship has 36 frames, eah of its individual pictures is rotated ten degrees more than the last. So essentially, the more frames, the smoother the animation when the ship turns. However, smaller ships don't need as many frames to appear smooth as larger ships, because they tend to turn faster, and have less stuff onscreen to rotate.
So a ship with more frames will animate smoother, and have no other effect.
Originally posted by Frandall: **No, I don't think you understand what is going on. Every ship you see onscreen is actually a series of pictures at different angles. If a ship has 36 frames, eah of its individual pictures is rotated ten degrees more than the last. So essentially, the more frames, the smoother the animation when the ship turns. However, smaller ships don't need as many frames to appear smooth as larger ships, because they tend to turn faster, and have less stuff onscreen to rotate. **
Yeah, I understand how it will be smoother. So will weapons still have only 36 frames? What I'm saying is is that the more directions a ship is facing(the more frames), the more points a ship can fire towards(unless the weapons still have but 36 frames, I guess, or maybe I'm missing something ). One problem in EV was that using the Monty Python and autopilot, your ship couldn't always point exactly at the enemy ship, because it only has 36 frames, which allows for around 5 degrees of error at most. If there are more frames, doesn't that mean that autopilot would be a fraction more accurate than before?
Or maybe we're misunderstanding each other. Oh well, it doesn't really matter.
(This message has been edited by Azdara Ace (edited 01-14-2002).)
(quote)Originally posted by Azdara Ace: **Yeah, I understand how it will be smoother. So will weapons still have only 36 frames? What I'm saying is is that the more directions a ship is facing(the more frames), the more points a ship can fire towards(unless the weapons still have but 36 frames, I guess, or maybe I'm missing something:)
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The number of frames in the animation has exactly zero effect on the precision with which a given ship type can maneuver. Just because there's no sprite rendered at 17.3658558 degrees doesn't mean that your ship can't have that exact heading. . mcb
------------------ "If it's not on fire, it's a software problem."
Originally posted by mburch: **The number of frames in the animation has exactly zero effect on the precision with which a given ship type can maneuver. Just because there's no sprite rendered at 17.3658558 degrees doesn't mean that your ship can't have that exact heading. . mcb **
So it wouldn't go to 20 degrees instead? How does that work? Ohhhh, when you say heading, do you mean that the ship can be flying at that angle or pointing at that angle? I would think that you could fly at any angle but only point every 10 degrees(using 36 frames total, that is).
Ey. I just remembered... How are the extra graphics supposed to work? Like the advanced sprite stuff?
This is going to be a big issue, I assume, and as well, I'm having a hard time visualizing all this rendering with my 350mhz G3.
Hm. :frown: