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I really hate starting new topics for questions of which could have been answered already. But here goes. I am speculating over the fluidity of the sprite motion. I am unsure of how much that has to do with the sprite artist or the game engine. The question on my mind is if sprites are limited to eight directions of turning i.e. north, north-east, east, south-east, etc. Or if the artists wants to painstakingly render up to 16 directional angles for every sprite's animation, will the engine allow us to do so? I have a great many questions concerning newer concepts, but I wanted to know this first. I am sorry if this is answered else where.
Brett Liquid Squid ProductionsŠ (url="http://"http://www.rsad.edu/~bthompso/")www.rsad.edu/~bthompso/(/url)
As Coldstone is tile based in it's control of movement, there are only eight directions you can travel. North, North East, East, South East, South, South West, West and North West.
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Ahh...I can't believe I overlooked the fact that Coldstone is tile-based. Thank you Necro for the reminder. Alright, next question. Not entirely sprite based as is character based. Are there going to be editable variables for actual speeds of how fast the characters (PC or NPC) can walk/run? Say if I have a thin man run fast, and a fat man run slow, is that a possibility. Probably another stupid question....
------------------ -Bratt99 Liquid Squid ProductionsŠ www.rsad.edu/~bthompso/index.html
Yeah, you can change the speeds of people.
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Ok...now for another stupid question (I'm chaulk full of 'em!) I'm also assuming then, since with experiance and gaining "levels" you are able to increase any variable with the PC, such as after gaining 11000 points you increase in speed or what-not. Or perhaps you decide to equip a big clunky suit of armor then it subtracts a certain number of points away from your speed, adding in that small little hint of realism. By the way, just tell me when to stop when you're sick of hearing my questions...
Yeah, you can do that too.
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Originally posted by Bratt99: **Probably another stupid question....
**
Don't be so hard on yourself, you've come up with some good questions, they ain't stupid.
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Has anyone asked yet about the actual sprite framerates, i.e. how fast the game engine runs through the pict sequences of the sprites? And if there is a way to change the frame speeds. Again, sorry if this has been addressed....Also, it'd be interesting seeing what other people can come up with for sprite or character related questions.
Originally posted by Bratt99: **Has anyone asked yet about the actual sprite framerates, i.e. how fast the game engine runs through the pict sequences of the sprites? And if there is a way to change the frame speeds. Again, sorry if this has been addressed....Also, it'd be interesting seeing what other people can come up with for sprite or character related questions.
well, I'd be thinking it would be limited to the amount of frames you'd want to put into the sprite...more frames= more work kinda thing you could most likely chug along at 30 fps I'm sure. (and please, correct me if I'm wrong)
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Originally posted by Bean *: **well, I'd be thinking it would be limited to the amount of frames you'd want to put into the sprite...more frames= more work kinda thing you could most likely chug along at 30 fps I'm sure. (and please, correct me if I'm wrong)
I think that's accurate.
I don't recall discussing this yet on the board, but was there any talk about the ability to allow users to change the hues of certain colors, say if you have a PC sprite with a brown jacket, and you wanted the user to change it to yellow, through hue manipulation, is that built in the game engine, or would the artist have to compile pict sequences for every color you wanted to have as options for the player? (Sorry if it's a little confusing. Here's an example: when editing Myth II you were able to change the hues of certain areas on the sprite, the areas predefined by the sprite maker. Is that possible with Coldstone?)
------------------ -Bratt99 Liquid Squid ProductionsŠ (url="http://"http://www.rsad.edu/~bthompso")www.rsad.edu/~bthompso(/url)
Originally posted by Bratt99: **I don't recall discussing this yet on the board, but was there any talk about the ability to allow users to change the hues of certain colors, say if you have a PC sprite with a brown jacket, and you wanted the user to change it to yellow, through hue manipulation, is that built in the game engine, or would the artist have to compile pict sequences for every color you wanted to have as options for the player? (Sorry if it's a little confusing. Here's an example: when editing Myth II you were able to change the hues of certain areas on the sprite, the areas predefined by the sprite maker. Is that possible with Coldstone?) **
Yeah I asked the exact same question a while ago and I used Myth II as the same example. They told me that "Coldstone is a RPG creating kit, not a graphics engine." Perhaps there has been a change since then?
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Originally posted by Kireck L: **Perhaps there has been a change since then?
Don't count on it.
Saphfire
Originally posted by Bratt99: **I don't recall discussing this yet on the board, but was there any talk about the ability to allow users to change the hues of certain colors... **
Probably not. Similar things have been discussed. Such as Day and Night questions. They just want to change the hue of the tiles to a dark blue.
It has been stated that, probably, you could overlay a sprite with a semi-transparent png image. Although I'm not sure if layers are supported with sprites. It has also been speculated that this might suck up a ton of ram. But for something as small as a character sprite, I wouldn't worry.
Or you could make a sprite that is fully transparent except for a small area that the jacket occupies.
Did that make any sense? If not, don't feel afraid to ask for more detail.
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Made entire sense. Interesting idea as well, I'm surprised I didn't remember reading that conversation. Just trying to see how much we can allow the player to decide their own character, which might just add a little more to the gameplay and the graphical elements of the game. Thanks.
Because Coldstone can't make multiplayer games, i don't really think it would be necessary for the user to be able to select diffent coloured clothing for his character. That amount of individuality is useually reserved for games with multiple players to distinguish between users, so don't sweat it if you can't do hue selection in-game. It would be cool for adding a bit of variety in monsters the player fights tho... oh well. we'll just have to model the monsteres/player with hue variations, or use another program (something like Graphic Converter) to change the hues after rendering.
Also, I think that the estimate of thirty frames per second for sprites is a bit high. I can count only about 5 diffent sprites used in the blocking motion the sourcer guy uses in PoG Trinity, and it takes about a second. For comparision, Myth 2 uses about that many frames for an attack animation (1-2 sec), a bit less/more for things like cheering, picking up artifacts, etc. Consider that PoG is 150mb, and that is only for some simple animations. If you want to do 30 fps, good luck fitting all the animations into an attractive download size. (of coarse, this might be all wrong, I hope somebody who worked on animating the game can answer your fps question.)
I've got a question; would it be possible to have a character leave footprints? This could be useful in hunting down monsters, or just something to give more snaz to the graphics.
One more thing; are land bridges possible? Say the player passes under a bringe that goes across up above him, then he goes up some stairs and crosses that bridge, going over the path he was just on. (that's the best i can describe it without drawing a diagram, sorry if it's unclear).
Originally posted by 1234321: **I've got a question; would it be possible to have a character leave footprints? This could be useful in hunting down monsters, or just something to give more snaz to the graphics.
One more thing; are land bridges possible? Say the player passes under a bringe that goes across up above him, then he goes up some stairs and crosses that bridge, going over the path he was just on. (that's the best i can describe it without drawing a diagram, sorry if it's unclear).**
About the footprints--I think it might be possible, but it would require a good deal of engine trickery. They'd likely be cleared when you left the current maps, however.
As far as land-bridges go, the short answer is no. The longer answer is that instead of going 'under' you could teleport the player instead, from one side to the other. This sort of event triggering is fairly simple.
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Oh, I should clarify -- I meant that the game itself could run at 30 fps -- I doubt that it could animate 30 frames of a sprite in one second, nor would it be useful to do that.
thanks, Sanehatter. I guess it would be even better to teleport the player under the landbridge, because it would get frustrating trying to control a character you cant see.
Sorry about the misunderstanding, Glue + Bean.
I have just one more question: are particle systems posible? Things like snow and rain would be pretty cool, and could be done on a seperate layer, couldn't it? or would it be way too taxing on the processor/ram to be doable.
Originally posted by 1234321: I have just one more question: are particle systems posible? Things like snow and rain would be pretty cool, and could be done on a seperate layer, couldn't it? or would it be way too taxing on the processor/ram to be doable.
No particle systems. You'd have to prerender it and play that back.