Ye Olde Blah

Look! First topic in here! What a loner...

Just thought I'd show off the portraits Wyndigo drew...

(http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~clark4/m.gif)
(http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~clark4/c.gif)
(http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~clark4/p.gif)

To anyone who has ever made an item and stats system: did u find it as time-consuming as I am finding it?? So much tedious work, but the results should be good.

Yep, easy as piss, but takes longer than other things to do.

I have to say I sure like those! Did they take long to do?

wow those are really nice. I like'em :)

Nice...

Not sure how long they took to do, but Wyndigos already sent me more! Not gonna show them tho, that would be spoiling things...  :lol:

About half an hour for each of them.  :D

Nice work Wyndigo, they are damn well cool.

I'm a pixel artist myself and would like to get into portraits aswell, do you think you could give Wyndigo my contact, UbeltaterSchatten@Hotmail.com so we could talk? I love his work. :-D

McPhisto:
I spend all my work on the engine, I've never really gotten a chance to get to the item/status system. But I'l tell you this, when you choose to make an exp/level system don't make it linear. ie. 100 exp to lvl 2, 200 exp to lvl 3 etc. make it geometric/exponential, f(x) = b^(delta)x. :-)

(I just remembered this is a shining forum, so it depends on the battle style you're making, but the way I recommended is for MMORPGs more-so.)

Yeh, a lot of rpgs have exponential exp dont they. I'm not too sure if i'll put that into Shining Valour tho - while i like the idea, i also want to keep the Shining simplicity of levelling up intact :).
Sure, I'll make sure Wyndigo gets your email. So would you want to help out on SV as well?  :D

great game... too bad it runs slow when moving and extremely slow when battling... so i didnt get far(don't mind this pc im using is a p2 500mhz 64mb ram with all kinds of viruses and spywares)... But i'll be sure to try it out again when i buy another pc(the light company will send the money in 4 weeks). Don't drop this project it is getting very good. And keep the engine to make possible sequels, and by keep i mean make it very customisable. Good work.

Cheers moth :).
Yeh, sorry about the rather large system requirements - do u find it's mainly the scrolling that slows it down? Not sure what I can really do about that Im afraid. :(
I've remade the engine completely, so it can handle adding new stuff in.

McPhisto:
Ah, so you're the creator of Shining Valour. :-) Well, I must say I'm quite impressed with your most recent demo and it works lovely on my laptop. Unfortunately I'm much to busy to work on the project with you but if you have anymore questions I'll try to answer them. :-)

Also, just a quick question I have for you, what language? And does it use API, DirectX or OpenGL?

I'm using Multimedia Fusion - it's a game-making tool. Very powerful if you know how to use it. Lots of people have been asking me this question lately...  :)

Its cause yours looks the best at the moment, original graphics that dont totaly suck.

too bad i can't see it... yet...

i don't think its the scrolling system, if i hold up down, then the character will keep walking even if i release it. so i had to play pressing it once... that was acceptable,(and not reading the stupid signs i though the mayor was my father so i wandered like that to the whole village... twice...)
until the battle started... so it's not the scrolling sys because the battle is WAY worst then walking around. Hell I can even see the text boxes moving! Formatting this pc or the new one, whatever will come first, i will then play your game nicely. I will see how this MMF looks like so maybe I can help you.

Hey McPhisto, who are you getting to do the rest of the graphics? Or are you doing them yourself?

Why Wyndi, I thought YOU were doing the rest of the graphics!  :shock:
No, not really...I'm redrawing various stuff as i go - mountains, forest, and other tile-type things. For sprites, ive got the services of someone from the MMF community...if he gets round to it :).
Which leaves a rather large gap: battle cut scene animations. Ill have to worry about this one when i get up to it...

while making the beta i guess you could use a stick man fighting... battle animations can be problem...

(http://img21.photobucket.com/albums/v62/Wyndigo/Stickman.gif) STICKMAAAN!!!
That's all I've got. Really. People standing still is all I can do. I can't do full body animations.

Crud waffers! I didn't log in!

Ah, those stickmen are brilliant! Thats it, SV is now going to be made up entirely of stick figures! It can be called Shining Stickmen...  :)

Darn! I should have kept my ideas to myself!! I was planning a SF Stick game... Even the maps will be poorly drawn.... J/K.

McPhisto, your game is great, don't ruin it by making it a stickmen one!!! hehe

I think i can do full body animations for you... Thats... when my computer is back. I may buy a new one this week(they approved my refund yay(the light company was held responsible for this inciddent))

U can draw cutscene animations? Cool, I'd love to see some!

Nooo I can draw STICKMEN animations... They may seem a little hard in their moving, but i'm improving...

Just wait my computer... Just wait... Even shining force II lags in this one!

Ah right, gotcha :). Well never mind then...

This battle engine is really giving me a lot of trouble...I hate the way it springs bugs at me, whenever I try to add something new.  :evil:
Have begun the long process of adding in all stats/damage/etc. information...then maybe i'll have to tackle the bad guy AI, again...

bugs sucks. they are an example of how dumb we can be... we just go on programming and never think about what may happen next... so... bugs all over the programs.

i'm sure you are doing that, and i have no idea if this is possible in MMF, or if it is already done on mmf, but you should create a small program that will allow you to add enemies/items/characters/stats real quick, by filling up some forms. That way when doing a sequel you can use the same battle engine and, hey, it'll be quicker.

That's why I've been remaking the battle engine from scratch - to make it adaptable, so adding different battles wouldn't be too much of a chore.
Umm, i tried adding in my item/stats menus into the battle engine, and it slowed down like crazy...so I'm making a streamlined item system for battles, which will be fine. The problem is stats - can anyone think of a way to present them that is streamlined/abbreviated? This game already has rather stupid computer requirements, and I'd rather not make it even higher  :? ...

Hi Mcphisto.

I may have a few useful tips for you.
 
Why don't you start with stats?
You can include a list with start-values for your characters, and a list with start-values for your monsters.

Now, when you start a new game, you copy the start-values into an array. This array (let's call it the work-array) will be your reference from now on.

And when you start a battle, you copy the start-values of the monsters you plan to use in a particular battle.

put these fields into your work-array:

name     (string)
class          (string)
race           (string)
current_hp  (variable)
max_hp      (variable)
current_mp (variable)
max_mp     (variable)
items[3]      (variable)
kills             (variable)
defeat         (variable)
experience   (variable)
attack          (variable)
defense        (variable)
agility           (variable)
movement    (variable)
 

Use these fields again for the start-values for your monsters, PLUS:

gold-value (variable)
monster_type (variable)
monster_number (variable)

(to name a few  :) )

I can hear you think: "what's the difference between monster_type and monster_number? "

Well, all the characters have their own number (bowie=1, sarah=2, peter=3, etc)
And all the monstertypes have their own number too. (arch_demon=1, demon_rat=2, etc)

Now let's say that you are in a battle:
It has four characters and 10 enemies

fighter[ 0]=bowie -> number = 1 / type = 0
fighter[ 1]=sarah -> number = 2 / type = 0
fighter[ 2]=peter -> number = 3 / type = 0
fighter[ 3]=claude -> number = 4 / type = 0

fighter[ 4]=arch_demon -> number = 5   / type = 1
fighter[ 5]=arch_demon -> number = 6   / type = 1
fighter[ 6]=arch_demon -> number = 7   / type = 1
fighter[ 7]=arch_demon -> number = 8   / type = 1
fighter[ 8]=demon_rat ->   number = 9   / type = 2
fighter[ 9]=demon_rat ->   number = 10  / type = 2
fighter[10]=demon_rat ->   number = 11 / type = 2
fighter[11]=demon_rat ->   number = 12 / type = 2
fighter[12]=demon_rat ->   number = 13 / type = 2
fighter[13]=demon_rat ->   number = 14 / type = 2

Notice that each fighter is unique? (meaning: each has its own set of numbers)

The stats for each fighter correspond with their place in the work-array

The fighter[xx]-part  is used to check the agility
The number-part is used to link with the work-array
the type-part is used to place a certain monster onscreen

A few more snippets

don't forget to put a flag into your program, to check if you're starting (flag_battle=0) or continuing a battle (flag_battle=1)

In case you plan to use a save option while a battle is underway  
make a difference between: saving at an inn (save_type=inn) or saving during a battle (save_type=battle)

So,

And, when you save, only save the complete work-array PLUS

amount_of_gold
last_visited_town
number_of_battle
save_type

Give all items, you plan to use, a number: (medical_herb=1, running_pimento=2,  etc etc)
 
Ummmm, I don't know if MMF accomodates for using constants?

In your work-array, arrange your structure so you can accomodate for something like this:



I'm pretty sure you know what this means, but i'll tell you anyway (whahhaha) -> you have four slots for items (from 0 to 3)

Now, let's work on this a bit more:
Remember giving numbers to all the items?



If you plan to use an item in a battle, you will have to check if an item is present in a certain slot (> zero)

The biggest tip I can give you is:

make a flowchart, write everything down, with every possible event and write next to it, the requirements for making an event to work.    

Okaaaay, it's a lot to take in, I know, but if there's something that you don't understand, please feel free to ..erm... nag?  :lol:

Beautiful. That's the principle of a custom battle system on Rpg Maker(I used to be addicted to it), so I'm pretty sure how it is :)

Also this example is valid for almost all languages I know(the Basic ones at least). I'll be sure to use your info if I start a project on pure basic(www.purebasic.com), so I won't need to start thinking about it, I could probably come to the same results, but it'd take longer.

Before I continuing typing things about how i made my custom bsys in Rpg Maker and how i loved that piece of shit, I better stop right here..

Anyway, beautiful.

Hey, thanks for the help Peter. Sorry, i must have explained things badly - I already have most of that in the game, or that kind of thing, the problem I'm having is simply that the objects that the stats appear on (ie. pretty transparent blue boxes) slow the battle engine down like crazy...but not the walking around engine for some reason. This would be MMF's fault (or mine i spose). What I was after was a way of abbreviating how the stats in battle are displayed.
Still, reading thru your help, there are a number of things which I will keep in mind ;). Thanks!

Well, let me try to explain it with my knowledge in dark basic.

Are you checking what item is the character using, by looking ONE ON ONE?

In dark basic, I'd set some arrays just like Peter did, but with one extra one...







So when you check for a item:



Done. 2 Code lines making a item check and drawing the image.

Is MMF like this? I guess so this is kind of universal.

NOTE: type is used to make arrays look better... I can have Item(1).ImgPath, Item(1).Name, Item(1).Price... Or you can do like that: Item(1,1), Item(1,2)... i use the first one to not get lost in all the coding...

Did this help you?
( ) Yes
( ) No
( ) Contact Customer Support

*contacts customer support*
Ok, never mind, I've figured out what I have to do.
I must really be bad at explaining things. What I wanted had nothing to do with code, only the final appearance of the stat boxes within the actual game. But thanks anyway Peter & Moth :).

I actually had understood that, so you're probably not that bad at explaining.  :wink:   However, I had no idea how to solve it

Well I guess there's nothing more I can do then... You're on your own.

No worries, ive figured it all out :)
Hows your mmf learning goin moth?

Bad, since this computer is too god damn slow... I expect my new pc until next weekend(not this one, NEXT). Then I'll start the MMF learning.

OMG!  You guys make languages look both hard and easy at once!  Am I doomed to a life of game programming illiteracy!?

Hah, languages? You're in the wrong topic matey :). Round here (ie. this particular SF game) we use Multimedia Fusion, which is very probably easier to use than a real programming language. Instead of learning code, you learn your way around a sometimes mystifying interface...

Hm I guess what he meant is about those stupid tutorials we made...

"We use"? haha I guess you meant "I use" McPhisto. ;)

I just had a great idea. Go see my new topic.

Hah, yeh, I am all alone in using MMF  :cry:

SOON there will be a playable battle engine again...am thinking of having a beta test sorta thing. But first a Shakespeare essay must be written...let us to't pell mell - if not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell! And more of that...  :shock:

cant wait for ur battle engine! let me be the first beta tester!

ohhh sorry to off-topic but i needed to comment this... Thank you god for frying my computer! My computer had a Geforce2 with 32mb and 128mb ram ddr, a pentium 4 1,8ghz. Anyway, now it will get fixed this week, and I planned a major upgrade. A GeForce FX 256mb ram and 512 mb ddr :D isnt that great??? I wanted to upgrade more, but I'm not the one paying so i better stop now(it's my father, and he is angry)

Multimedia, eh?  Sounds like a visual editor kind of thing.  J/k.  I got your demo, McPhisto, and I have to say it was very good so far, though I got sidetracked with somethign else and couldnt even get into the first battle.  I found it supprising that its only your first demo.  Good job and keep it up!

Nice pics Wyndigo!

Well, I am pretty familiar with the program I use, so it was more a case of making an effort to create something as close as I could to true Shininess...and since that demo I've learnt a lot more, so the next release should be a lot better.

AN UPDATE

Ok, I haven't really been around for a while. This is partly due to the fact that myself and a few others went tramping in the Tararura mountain range in NZ, and managed to get lost. We ended up following the wrong ridge, and had to spend the night on the side of it. Awesome fun! Very lucky it wasn't windy and rainy...
After a few days of walking for about 14 hours each day, we got out...very sore!!!! But great fun! :P Next time I think I'll actually believe my compass...

(http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~clark4/tgs.jpg)
(Creator of SV in a typical Tararua scene)

But anyway, onto Shining Valour...
Still working away at the battle engine. Counters, critical hits, and dodging are all implemented. I am not including double attacks - instead I am putting in a modified/simplified version of SF III's special moves. Characters can all die, and also level up. Stats and items are all in place.
Things left to do on the battle engine:
Fix AI. How I hate it, but it has to be done. Grrr...
Stick item/stats screens into the battle engine. At the mo they're only in the walkabout levels.
Try and make it run faster? It seems to chug a bit on my comp, and thats a P1800...  :shock:
Gfx, sound, music etc...will worry about this much later.

What would people prefer: do you want me to release a battle engine demo when im done with it, or would u rather i waited until I've finished Chapter One b4 I released anything? Cheers.

depends on the amount of time you waste with creating a battle demo - if you have one anyway for your personal testing purposes a battle demo would be cool elsewise I guess we can wait ... well at least we can try...

Coz Im lazy, here's the message I posted at SFC forums: ;)

Here's a little battle demo for people to try out:

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~clark4/svb1.zip

Now, it's extremely buggy, unpolished, and incomplete. I just thought I should prove I'm still chipping away at this thing . If you could report on bugs, that'd be great. Just post em in this thread. Please don't mention the graphics or sound - practically none of the gfx are going to make it into the final version, and I have other things to worry about at this stage.

Cheers!

Haven't had the chance to download the demo yet but I read about all dat of MMF.  Maybe u guys could move to a programming language... I think MMF works slow in <= P2 Machines :(  You always get good FPS when programming in a pg language (provided the graphical functions are optimized).

 :roll:

Thanks for the suggestion, but I dont think I'll be learning a programming language anytime soon. For one thing, all the time that could be spent making the game will be spent learning stuff, when MMF serves my purposes quite nicely. As for speed...well, I could always lower the resolution to 320x240 or whatever, down from the current 520x340. That'd make it go oodles faster, but won't look as cool and will need extensive reworking.

May I ask why you are so keen on projects changing the development engine (as you posted nearly the same at Dark Ressurection foum)? No offense included - I'm just wondering if there is a special reason for that - I mean there a tons of slow C++ programs..... (i fear including sf:ta my own sf project)

Just wanted to say that I put it up the news page :).

Cool, cheers Dev :).
Does anyone think I should change the resolution to 320x240? It'd run a lot faster then, but won't look as good. Let me know what u think.

I vote against lowering the resolution - it looks good the way it is

"i Concur".  It looks fine, besides, it wasn't slow on my comp  :D  8) .

It is really awesome.
I mean it. I could spot no bug, and I completed the batle easily. The graphics are fine, the icons look good. Maybe the animated scenes are a little bit too slow, but it's probably because I'm used to those.
The only thing I could spot is that, during the animated scenes, the shadow of the characters does not move. If a character moves (like the hero) or dies, its shadow remains static.

Keep up the good work: Items, spells are to be implemented.
G.

You spotted no bugs??? Wow, that's certainly a first, and probably the last, time that that will happen :P.
The shadows dont move coz none of those gfx - except the Miles figure - will be in the final thing. I'm not worrying about gfx at this stage.
Items are there, but only in the walkabout bits for now - putting them into the battles will be the next thing to do.

Thanks for all the comments people. I'll keep the resolution as it is for now, and try to speed it up in other ways. Out of curiosity, what's everyones computer speeds, and how did the game run? Cheers. :)

I ran the game just now, and really liked it. A few pointers from me, though;

1. The town sections ran fine, but going into battle the game really chugged, which I suspect is due to the transparent flashing squares which are used to indicate your movement range. They really slowed the game down, because it ran fine when checking movement with Control etc., so I assume the squares were slowing it down. The battle sequences were a little sluggish too.

2. When characters had ended their go, the camera went really jittery when it centered on the next character. I think what happened was it flicked between the current character and the last character, and it looked like a particularly violent earthquake. I thought it was only after attacking, but it's after every turn, and you have to press Control to break out of it. Looks like that's just me as well, though :P

That's about it though. Apart from that I was really impressed - the graphics, particularly the battle animations, are crisp and well-drawn, and that's coming from someone whose battle sprites are rightly famed throughout the Shining fangame world :P My PC's a PIII 800MHz with 256MB of RAM, just remembered to put that. Keep up the good work!

Thanks Newts, those are some helpful comments.
Good point about those flashing squares. They could certainly be a slowing down factor :P. No idea why the camera goes mental bewteen people's turns tho, it doesn't do that for me. Strange...
Im making this game with a P1800, and for me it runs a bit slower than it should. Now, I can turn on option that will keep the speed as it should, while sacrificing smoothness. Things will skip frames in order to keep the speed up. I'll see how that looks, but first I'll try and make the movement squares faster...
Those battle animations are outa here when it comes time for the graphical overhaul, but im glad u like em - they're the best I can do...:P

All right, I'll run the demo again and look for bugs...

Ty's not around at the moment, but I think I know how the range squares work in Shining Online. Basically, there's a tile of interlaced transparent and non-transparent pixels which is placed over any tile you can move to. The transparent ones stay the same [obviously], and the others just cycle from grey to white and back again. No messy transparencies involved ;)

Not sure about the camera problem, but all I'll say is it's a good job I don't suffer from motion sickness any more :P

It looks great. The fades fit really nicely, and i like the character sprites/portraits and even the battle animations. :P
The battle animations though were pretty slow in my machine (2Ghz but running at around 500Mhz), and the attack animations repeated around three times everytime i attacked though i'm not sure if this was intentional or not, because it looked pretty good sometimes, like having the girl attack with the knife three times gave the impression of stabbing the opponent, which i enjoyed ;) . Although if i were to guess i'd say maybe the engine was running slow and the animation repeated until the engine finished its task.
I never got to finish the battle because a quake ensued ;) . I actually made a .gif of it to show you:
http://gallery.cybertarp.com/albums/userpics/12269/quake.gif

One thing i noticed that might have caused the quake was that after i attacked a soldier the white box used to select the target remained in the soldier. After that, whenever the white box was used it flicked between the soldier and the character whose turn it was.

That's the same thing that happened to me, and I had the triple knife attack too, very vicious ;) I enjoyed that one :P Nice to have a visual representation of the "quake" though, I'd never be able to describe it :P

Wow, trippy! And what is the Heal icon doing there? What a naughty little cherub-type thing :).
I think it used to do the quake thing for me, but it doesn't seem to now. I'll look into it tho - it does seem to be the turn selector thing that is the trouble.
The attack animations are deliberate, but temporary. Sorry, I made it repeat coz i was thinking of having many frames of animation, then realised how much work that would be! But again, it's all temporary.

I had no quake...
What's wrong with my computer?

I dont have it either...strange. Oh well, I'll see what I can do about it all.

Hey guys,
Yeh, so, how about that lack of progress...  :x
Sorry, nothing's been done for ages - the usual things like uni, work, life etc. kinda got in the way, and I find that if I go away from something for a while, it's hard to get back into it. Also, i've been working on a resource for an educational NZ website - getting paid! Amazing!
Anyway, right now i feel really put off by where SV is at the moment. I've dug myself various holes (as usual) which I simply can't be arsed redoing. Now, there are a few options:
-Try and continue. Or not...
-Wait till I've learnt more about Jamagic, which can do stuff in 3D, then make a 3D SF
-Use the existing engine of SV and make little things, such as a 2-player battle engine, or a mini-adventure which would have a few battles

So, any ideas? :P

p.s Would anyone like me to post what I've done on SV so far? it really won't be much, but then people will at least get to see something...

Try and continue...
I think SV is one of the best fangames so far, so I wouldn't like it stopped...
Still, you do what you want.

I agree with Zylokh. Your project is one of them with the most potential. Even if you don't manage to finish it somehow, every new addition to the current concept is exceedingly valuable as it increases the playability of your existing work even more.

If you like me to help out by tracking a song or two, feel free to ask ;).