Ye Olde Blah

Hi everyone,

It's been a long time since my last post. And not without good reason.

Writing AI is/was very time-consuming.
Continued posting about one particular thing seemed pointless (post 1: blah blah writing AI blah blah, post 2: blah more AI , post 3: blah blah some more AI) , well I think you get the picture :)  )  

But, I'm pretty sure I've covered all bases now :)
There are 23 (!!)  decisions an enemy can make (so far)
It still needs some tweaking though.

Anyway, very soon I'm starting to work on the editor.
The first four maps are drawn on paper, and I can finally get some work done on the townmaps that Gritzcolin made for me

I'll try to post some screenshots (regarding the second town, the first one goes up in smoke (demonic cackle) )

S'all for now peeps

Good to see you around again Peter! :D

Also, I'm glad to hear that progress has been steady despite the TSS downage ;). Keep up the good work :)

wow you're putting alot of work into this. Any chance of you perhaps releasing a demo or somthing?

Weeeeelll,
I sent the last version to Devlyn some time ago, unfortunately this version has no AI in it.
Devlyn told me that he would release this demo.

Now, I'm very close to completing the entire battle-mode (and that's WITH AI),
and I'm thinking that it would be better that Devlyn doesn't release the demo until I've sent the complete version to Devlyn.

However, this doesn't stop you from nagging Devlyn to release the demo which he has now.  :D  :lol:

This is sounding great - I'm eager to see this game in action!
What's the deal story-wise? It's after SFII, isnt it? How far along are u with that?

I agree with Peter.  Feel free to nag me!  :lol:

Please release the demo Dev, if you don't, I won't have any escape from my 14 starving children and 5 domineering wives!! For the sake of my sanity, please release the demo...and so on.  :(

Dev release it!

If you don't release it you will then be nagged with days of

Can we play it yet? Can we play it yet? Can we play it yet? Can we play it yet? Can we play it yet? Can we play it yet? Can we play it yet?Can we play it yet? Can we play it yet? Can we play it yet? Can we play it yet? Can we play it yet?Can we play it yet?Can we play it yet? v Can we play it yet? Can we play it yet?Can we play it yet? Can we play it yet?Can we play it yet?Can we play it yet?Can we play it yet?Can we play it yet?Can we play it yet?Can we play it yet?Can we play it yet?Can we play it yet?Can we play it yet?Can we play it yet?Can we play it yet?Can we play it yet?Can we play it yet?Can we play it yet?Can we play it yet?Can we play it yet?Can we play it yet?Can we play it yet?

and so forth :)

Allright, I'll put it up unofficially here, since I don't have the whole infrastructure to release it officially.

You can find it at www.shiningsource.net/Devlyn/dl/darkres.zip

I simply zipped up my installation, to easen your. Just extract the zip to your C: and it will make a directory called games/DARKRES which contains the game :).

It may not work everywhere, but hopefully it'll work with some at least :)

nice work, the battle system is pretty damn nifty, cant wait for it with the AI.

@ acebloke: Thanks for downloading

My editor is almost finished. Also, all the tiles for the tactical base are finished.

Now to insert the AI and complete the first town, and we're awaaaay for
the second demo (probably one week from now)  :D  :D

can't wait for the demo. Seems like a good project.

BTW, what language are you using?

I downloaded and tried to play but after it crashing my computer three times i gave up. I have it all unzipped in my c drive and such and i cant find what im doing wrong.

@ M07hm4n: I'm using DIV Games Studio now for about 3.5 years
I have programmed more games:

Subhunt,  
Kong Driver College,
FishDish,
Fishdish 2,
Cosmic Carnage,
Dumpy Dog,
Turkey Run
Zero Tolerance.

Go to www.div-arena.com and search for these games.

@ Sir Phill: Unfortunately the game only works if you are using Windows 95/98 or one of the earlier versions of Windows 2000

Also, you may experience trouble with the sound.
Please do as follows:

Run the SETUP.EXE that comes with the program and select NO SOUND
(FYI: the main program searches for a certain soundcard. If it cannot find
one that's is listed. it will crash)

erm... more FYI. when DIV for windows is released, these problems are gone (hopefully)

That's not exactly true Peter. I did manage to get it working under Windows XP here :).

I think I simply installed it to C:/games/DARK RESURRECTION and clicked the executable :).

@ Sir Phill: Unfortunately the game only works if you are using Windows 95/98 or one of the earlier versions of Windows 2000


Is there a software that would emulate Win 95or Win98 under Win XP???

Strange, it worked fine for me too under XP...

@ devlyn:  Win  XP ??  :?  

Is that with or without  DOSBOX?  :o

@ Zylokh: You could try DOSBOX (please try finding it on Google), or ask Devlyn for more info. :)

For those of you that have downloaded / or plan to download Dark Resurrection: Perhaps it is a good idea to specify your OS and tell if the game works (or not)


(btw devlyn, did you check your e-mail?? I mailed something that might be interesting for you :) )

Works fine on 2000, I wouldnt know if its an "early" version or not though.

There is a fine emulation mode(well if i can call something ms made 'fine'), and it worked for me in some cases.... Zyloch, first open the game folder and find it's executable(that shouldn't be hard...). After that, right click on it and select properties. I'm using win98 in this pc, so i'm not sure where stuff are, so you'll have to look for it yourself.

There should be a tab, Compatibility or Emulation. Click on it. Then it'll let you select an earlier version of windows. 95 or 98 should be fine. Select it and confirm the emulation, press 'ok'(A lot of people do this around here, i think its useless: clicking 'apply' then 'ok'... as 'ok' works as 'apply and close'). Now try to run it. Did it work?

If not there is something else you should be able to do, well I only used it for some Install files that XP don't let me install(some old ones get an error). Right click the exe, then Run as... or Execute as...
You will see a small window with some options. Uncheck the second one, should be one with huge text informing something about allowances and compatibility. Then try it again.

If AGAIN it didn't work, I'm not sure what else to do. Do you get an error message?

Please note that XP Home IS NOT like XP Pro. This steps I described above are for XP Pro. I think XP Home users don't need to do this, but these features may be present...

Sorry for my crappy english and translations(My XP is in Portuguese).

I hope it helps.

It worked on my PC (Win XP, that is).
I had a little trouble when moving May (maybe out of range) but otherwise, it seemed to work fine. The graphics and battle engine seemed to work fine.

Well,

I had a few problems with my editor (the grid-system is ..erm..  one grid short ...heheheh). Also, every tile that comes onscreen after the "renegade"-tile was moved up 1 tile  :x

 :x  :x  :x  BUGS,.... I HATE THEM :x  :x  :x

I'm pretty sure I solved it now  :)

And now for the good news:

The first tactical base is now officially working  :D
Also the first battle-map is done 45%

I may not have done as much as I wanted to, but look at it from this viewpoint:

When the bugs are gone, you'll appreciate your work more afterwards

(wow, that's deep   :wink: )

every game could be released in one day if there werent any bugs. I hate them too. Lets make an hate group against bugs everywhere. Lets crush them, KILL THEM! If you ever see a bug again, SET YOUR COMPUTER ON FIRE! YEAH!

I mailed Devlyn the first two maps today.

The first one is the tactical base (one of many layouts). This one's completed.

The second one is the first battlemap. This one is almost finished. (I'm still working on the "water"-tiles. )


Oh... and Moth... My PC is now extra crispy!  :P  :P

Can't wait to see a demo! Just don't go and burn your hd, we don't wanna wait longer for it.

A compauter is only as intelligent as its programmer and user so maybe you are threatening the wrong person..... :wink:

Here are some pics Peter sent me :D

http://www.shiningsource.net/Devlyn/dl/battlemap01.gif
This is the first map

http://www.shiningsource.net/Devlyn/dl/tactical_base_01.gif
...and this is the tactical base ;)

Enjoy :).

edit: corrected second pic :).

second pic produces an 404 error

First one looks cool and succeeds and recalling some good memories.

The first is really nice.  Makes me wanna start some SF1.

Well do you rather setting the computer or yourself on fire? ;)

Nice screenshots, despite that all the graphics were ripped... I hope that if the project is "finished" someday, you will change them :) Anyway, great maps. Can't wait to play them.

Maybe they could wear a blazer ! *hears a dud dum ching*

Second Pic is nice too, but what the hell is it supposed to be?  A gigantic house!? (Unless of course it's headquarters :D ) It would be better if both sets of graphics were ripped from the same game, too... :lol:

Are these done with SMEE?

@ Zylokh: erm.. no..I programmed my own editor.

However, in its current state this editor is waaaay too clunky for other people to use.  :cry:
But....I plan to work-on/rewrite it once the game is finished  :D

@ Moth: well, it looks like I have some explaining to do.

I'll start at the beginning (oh so convenient  :wink:  )

All maps are tiled (1 tile=24x24 pixels)

There is one base-map (this one is 828x828 pixels)
That means that I can put 1225 tiles on the base-map

I use the base-map for constructing all my maps for towns, dungeons etc.
The only thing I save from these maps is their data.

There's a file that contains all the data about the grid-positions
Another file contains the data about the tile-graphic,landeffect, etc

In DIV is a handy dandy command called : MAP_XPUT
With this command I can copy one graphic onto another

In DIV it's something like this:



Are you with me so far?  :lol:

Most of the tiles are cut(ted ?) from various bmps/gifs/jpgs from various sites. Lots of tiles are variations/combinations from other tiles.
(55% is original SF artwork, 45% is mine)

Now, the maps you see on this page are screen-grabs, taken from my editor, with a resolution of 1024x768.

Normally, the resolution for the game is 320x240, but with this res. you can't see much of the entire map, now do you?  :o

And now (finally) your question: are the graphics ripped?

erm.. some tiles are ripped. some are not. The screen-grabs you see most certainly are my own work.

I'm flattered that you can't tell the difference between the original tiles and
my own work.  :D

Now, I'm off for some coding.

Cya Peepz

Hi Everyone,

I mailed Devlyn the first townmap (designed by Gritzcolin) and a few screenshots.

It is now possible to control the main character and talk to people.
The textsystem (used for typing one letter at a time) also works perfectly.

Also working: entering a house. Note, that all houses have a roof, and that each roof is detachable once you enter a particular house. It also works the other way round: If you leave a house and the roof isn't there, then the roof will put itself back on.

Townspeople are able to walk around town. I've programmed it in such a way that it is impossible, for the main character as well as the townspeople, to walk through each other. :D :D

Code for the itemshop is almost complete, and is in for about 75%
I'll leave the deals-section blank for now, coz I'll have to program a battle in such a way, that the program will put items of fallen enemies in the item-shop in case all inventory-slots are full      

And now for something completely different:

I'd like your thoughts about this one:

Normally, if you buy an item, you get to choose the character to give the item TO. The program will now check for an empty spot to place the item in. If there's no space to put it in one of the four slots, it will say so, and you will have to find another character.  

Now what I want to do, is the following:
I want the program to perform a check, in case the item cannot be placed in one of the four slots, it will search automatically through all available characters and item-slots until it finds an empty slot. Then, the program will present you the empty-slot along with the character it belongs to.

Well, what do you think it?

If you buy the item for the character and its full it automatically searches for the next person with an open slot and asks you if you want to put it there or automatically puts it there? If its the first then it really sounds like a waste of time and programming. I mean why not just say "The inventory is full please select another character." Or somthing along those lines then bring up the scree? Course that may be a little harder to program :/

If its the second then yea sounds like a good idea.

:D  :D Seems I didn't make myself clear  :D  :D  

It's like "instead of searching manually through all characters , it's now done automatically

But, Sir Phill, thanks for the feedback  :)

Thats what i thought you meant. It sounds kinda neat but  i mean whats the point other then more to program? Maybe theres a certain character you want to have the item instead of somthing. It does soung cool BTW but just a tad pointless :)

O and nice tilesets they truley do look like SF tiles :)

Fresh Dark Resurrection screenshots can be found at:

http://www.shiningsource.net/Devlyn/dl/dr

I will add all future screenshots to this directory as well :)

That is looking really good.

Hi Peeps,

I've made some progress concerning the buying and selling of items.
A major bummer is, that I forgot that every character has a weapon.
Well, I know that everyone has a weapon, but thing is: a weapon occupies an item-slot.  :x
And that's exactly where the trouble starts.

The process that checks the contents of each slot doesn't know the difference between an item or a weapon. :evil:
You see, item-numbers range from 1 to 42, and weapon-numbers range from 1 to 85.

So, the process performs a check and it only returns the numbers from the weapons when it should detect an item.

Luckily, one thing I haven't done yet , is the implementation of the weapon-icons.
So, to cut a long story short:

First up: implement all weapon-icons
Second up: re-number all weapon-numbers (instead of 1 .. 85 -> 301 .. 385)
Third up: link all weapons with their respective graphics

The next update is when all of the above is finished :)

The old guy is very insightful...
Pics look nice.

The code for the item-shop is finally complete and all the goals I've set, are met :D :D
Everything is running well.
However, i keep thinking i'm missing something.

You see, there's only one opportunity where you can break off a visit (to the shop).
And that's at the beginning of the loop where you get to decide what to do

Lemme sho-yoo :)

action: BUY - SELL - REPAIR - DEALS
select action with the cursor keys.
press space to go to the chosen action
OR
press ALT to leave shop

So far so good, you think. Well... no. :(  
For instance: what to do if you bought the wrong item, or you discover that nobody has a free slot to put that item in? (teh horror) :?

An idea is:
I can program a separate "warehouse" function where all excess items are stored. (it's something like the caravan from SF2 )  

Another idea:
I'm thinking of putting multiple battles in DR.

(It's something like the last two battles of SF1. When you get to the last battle (nr 30), and then egress,you're forced to complete battle nr 29 again.)  

For instance:

battle 2 -----> battle 3 ----E2----> battle 4 ----E2----> battle 5
E2 means that you if you egress during battle 3 or 4 you're thrownback to battle 2

Think it's a bit too much or what?

Oh yeah, almost forgot. I'm busy with the "weapon shop"-part of the code. It's a lot easier coz I can re-use about 75% of the code of the item-section.
Also, i'm thinking of coding the "DEALS" part in advance.
I'll just put everything into an array, and if  the program receives an instruction to "put something in the itemshop"
it will search the array, and puts it in the first available spot. (Of course, the program will check all slots of all the characters FIRST)    

Neat huh? 8)

S'all for now peeps.  :)

PS.  I have a few more "off-days"this week, and if all goes well, then maybe (just maybe) next week you're in for a surprise (or two  :D  )

Hi !   I just found out about these projects.  It's nice to know that SF Fans are working on this.  I hope everything comes alive soon.

I'd like to know how you guys have ripped the graphics ?  is there any emulator that extracts the game sprites for you ?  or do you have to do it manually (print screen key) ?

Thanks.

Have you guys planned to move to MSVC++ (with DirectX) for coding ?  I download the nice demo and noticed it's a DOS game.   I usually code games in Windoze environment.  The best is that is compatible in all windoze versions.

Methinks DOS games usually don't work on WinXP nor WinNT (some).

Any news from this project recently?

Yes, there is ,actually. :D

There is mucho progress. I was very busy with implementing the item-shop.
When the code was completed (finally :S ), I had this nagging feeling that something was not right.

You see, when buying an item, gold is deducted, then you must select the character, and then select an empty inventory-slot from that character.

Now, what to do when you discover that all the characters don't have one single empty inventory-spot to put that !@#$% item in?   :(

Two observations:

One: You've already paid for it, and there are no refunds (WTF) ???!!!  
Two: You cannot exit the itemshop because the program is still waiting until the item is assigned to an empty-slot. :(

Sooo, I had to reprogram it. And not only the BUY-section, also SELL,REPAIR and DEALS had to reprogrammed.
And,.. finally after two weeks of tinkering, testing, and what have you not,.....it's done!

Yes, it is now possible to toggle back and forth between all options.(using [SPACE] to select and [ALT] to de-select)    
I can now safely say that everything works "B-E-A-utiful" (the most importantly being that GOLD, used to buy an item, is deducted after you've assigned it to an empty slot).

So let's say that you've chosen to buy an angel-wing , and selected SARAH to give it to her (the angel-wing, that is.   :wink:  )
and at the last moment you've changed your mind, press [ALT] and go back to character-selection, select BOWIE (oh no, not him again :D ), and give the wing to him, all that is now possible.

And now I shall STFU about items, yes?

Okaaay, what's more to to tell....

Oh yeah,.. MAPS. No, not S.P.A.M. spelled backwards, but maps as in: battlemaps,townmaps,dungeonmaps.

There is one map, as part of the overworld, it's designed in such a way, that it can be used for 2 battles (maybe 3).
This map also contains a few spots that are perfect for an ambush (heh heh heh).

The map for the second town is almost complete. Only the linking to other maps needs to be done.
And finally, I have a few dungeon-maps. These are done for about 33 percent. Tiles for these maps are WIP.  

As for the tiles:

I was not happy with some of the tiles. They seemed to be ...umm... out of place.... in relation to other tiles.
And so I went back to the drawing-board. Suffice to say that I ended up with a lot more tiles than I anticipated.
But that can only be a good thing. yes? :)

I'm also busy with changing the appearance of the roofs.
Some of the roofs "have a bad relationship" with the house that's under it.
Also, some of the colo(u)rs don't mix with the environment.
They have a washed-out feeling, and look a bit blurry. So, I'll have to change that too.

Erm... did I mention that, when I'm finished with a tile-set (be it town/world/dungeon/other),
I'm going to donate these to the Shining Source. So, as Devlyn has put it, you don't have to re-invent the wheel. :D :D

And another thing i'm working on, is a mini-game called "Shining Memory".
It's a deck of 50 cards (that's 25 pairs, fact-fans)and it has the talking-icons (?!) as a theme.
It's one-player for now, but i'm thinking of making it two-player.

And... maybe more themes would be great too, whaddaya think?

I'm sure you all know how MEMORY works, so I'm not going to explain, ok? :)

Apart from implementing Shining Memory in Dark-Res , I'll make a stand-alone version for The Shining Source.

Well, that's it from me so far.

(Sorry for the lack of updates, but, as you can see, I've been quite busy) I'm ashamed of myself

I was halfway through posting an essay suggesting that when I read you'd already worked it out :P Good job I saved myself some embarrassment, there!

From the sounds of it the project's going really smoothly, so congratulations are due there :) Could it be we're finally going to get a finished SF fangame? :shock: I wonder what the developer of the first complete fangame should get? Maybe a visit from the metal pipe =P

Just general musings. Glad everything's going well, and keep up the good work :D

Thi is very good news! I'll be sure to post some of it on the front page to hype things a little :P.

Edit: actually I posted the whole story as a worklog entry instead. That's what the worklogs are for anyway :)

* drumroll * Shining Memory is almost finished...... Yay.

I've made some modifications in the stand-alone version.
There's a credit section (who did what). Aaaand there's a highscore-table.
Actually there are two highscore-tables.

You see, when playing the game, the program keeps track of the number of tries you took to finish it.
Also, there's a timer running (in secs only) to show you how long you took.

Now when the game is complete, it checks if you have, OR the best time OR the least number of tries.
In case of both, that's no problem. You just get to input your name (up to 15 characters) twice. Neat huh?

You can review the highscores at the main menu, and toggle between them.

There's also an option to adjust the number of seconds you need to look at the (turned) cards
(between 1 and 6 secs).

I hope I get to finish this "sucka" at the end of the week.

Booyah, Shining Memory is finished. I've sent it to Devlyn, so he can upload it.
Please note that it is a DOS-game, but with a screen-size of 320x240 it is possible to run it in XP.

And don't forget, when DIV-DX is released (DIV for Windows),
I will change the games (Dark Resurrection AND Shining Memory) to Windows.

And now an update for Dark Res.:

I am busy programming the intro.
So far, the text is complete and dumped into a TXT.file

Next up is the director-process. This process will "direct" a preset number of characters
and move them around the screen, showing the text at a certain time, move another character
..... ad infinitum et nauseum.

I've programmed it as described above, to save valuable space (in terms of memory).

It is an array that contains data about:

1) total number of characters to move around
2) type for each character (woman,cat,old man,dog,chicken (YES, chicken :D  ),boy,girl etc
3) x-coordinate for each character
4) y-coordinate for each character
5) startnumber of textline for each character
6) total number of textline for each character

In DIV it's going to be something like this:



For this thingamabob to work, I need to program some sort of "conversation"-editor that controls all of these things
All the data for a single conversation is put into a DAT.file. If I do it this way, then I can use it for all conversations
with a minimum of fuss. Next update will feature the definite code. Stay tuned

Hi All,

Just a very quick update.  :)
I fiddled with the code (the code mentioned in the previous post)
and i've added some actual code

 

Okaaay, what does this blurb do?  :roll:
I'll explain:

The gopher-type are character-processes in an ... erm.."automated" environment .  :oops:

If you want 5 different gophers, then you can call them like this:



The walkers are the actual processes you see onscreen, and the parameters are (x-coordinate,y-coordinate,direction the character is facing, type of character)

Ok. The gopher[] -waffle is a GLOBAL variable, and each time a variable is initialized, it's automatically set to 0 (zero). But when coupled with a call to a process (in this case, the walker  process), the variable is changed into the processnumber.

(are you still there?)

All processnumbers are always greater than zero. So, first you'll have to reset the whole caboodle



now call all the necessary processes, in the main loop, like this



Now let the director-program check how many gophers are walking around
like this:



Now comes the fun part (all the above was fun too, (well, at least I think it's fun  :lol:  ) but this is more fun  :lol: )

The director-program will check the position (x,y) and the direction of each gopher.




So, even if one gopher is not at the predetermined destination, the director will refuse to move to the next set of instructions in the DIRECT[p]-array

Simple huh?  (demonice cackle    :twisted: )

"But where's the data, needed to move these guys?", you may think.
Well, that comes in the form of a DAT-file . The data is entered via a  special editor that I programmed to handle all the things I mentioned earlier.  


Pfffff. This is an update, but it's not a quick one.  :P
Coming weekend I'll try to make everything work.

Bye all.

I've finally managed to get my editor (for cutscenes) up and running.
It has room for 5 different persons and each person can have up to 100 different instructions.
Also, there's an option to put some text onscreen.

Putting the editor together was really easy.
The conditions for checking -if everyone is at their designated position- was not THAT difficult either.

However, the total bummer was the saving of data.
Instead of saving the data NEXT to each other, it was saved ON TOP of each other.
So, save a set of instructions, and it gets deleted by saving the next set of instructions. Go figure :roll:

To make a long story short, it took me a full day to realize what I had done wrong (jeez what a klutz  :lol:  )  

When this editor is 100% complete, I can put some serious (and/or wacky) cutscenes together. :D

And now for some more bug-related malarkey.

There is (or rather "was") an irritating bug in the minigame "shining memory".    
When there are no cards left on the playing field, you're kicked out of the program.
Something to do with too much "writing instructions".

But that is solved now, and I've taken the liberty to modify some options.
Well, at least 'some' good has come out of it.

I'll mail the new version of the mini-game to Devlyn a.s.a.p.    Kthx

Stay tuned Peeps!

Right, Shining Memory has been uploaded (thanks Dev :D ),
my conversation-editor is 100% complete,
my intro is complete too,(have you seen the screenies?)

erm.. what next?

Oh yeah, I wanna have a front-end! (load game - copy game - delete game - new game - credits - intro)

Next up, is the extension for the item-shop.
Yes, I know, I already have an item-shop, but instead of cranking out new code for the weapon-shop
I'll make an extension. This way, I only have 25% more code instead of the projected 200%. Niiiiiiiiice. :D :D

When THAT is complete, I'll move on to the priest(options)

I'm not sure whether I'll succeed making the deadline for releasing the demo in july.
However I'm doing the best I can.

Finally an update!

Here goes: after a long vacation, I decided it was time to buy a new PC. Here are the specs.

RAM: 1024 MB
Intel Pentium 4 processor 3,4 Ghz
Ati Radeon 256 MB graphics card
DVD writer/re-writer
Canon scanner
Creative I-trigue 2.1 speaker set

It's "Da Bomb", yes?

And yes, it's has Windows XP. .... So here's the bad news: I CAN'T RUN DIV GAMES STUDIO, even in Windows 95/98 mode.
That sucks.

So, I was forced to wait for the end of the year, when (supposedly) DIV for Windows will be released.
Now, waiting for December, (when it's still july/august) is a long time. So, I thought "let's fool around with the code in Blitz", just to keep my mind into programming.

And then it hit me. (ouch!) Why not make a 3D version? I have Blitz, I have Maplet, I have Photoshop, and I have my eye on Gamespace 1.5 (and maybe Truespace )

Also on the cards are: Ultimate Unwrap, Quill3d, Terragen,Cartography Shop 4 and a few others

Right now, I am very proficient in Maplet: I can make levels,bridges,houses,stairs,ramps etc. in the blink of an eye.

Learning Gamespace light (which is exacty like Gamespace 1.5, except you can't make large models) comes slowly but surely.
(there's a huge amount of buttons 0_o !)

I can understand Blitz3D a lot better than a few months, except for "Types" and Collisions. I'm reading a lot of tutorials
on how Types work and the effects of collisions.

So.. yes.. Dark Resurrection goes 3D (erm.. finally?)

Not all work from the DIV version is lost though. I already have ported all the data over to Blitz, and it gives me
the chance to catch up on issues I really should have fixed a long time ago. (for instance: the maximum_damage still
was being worked on, the sound system still needed a few tweaks here and there,)

One big improvement is, that Blitz3d can play Mp3's, so I can use Devlyn MP3's (If he has them around somewhere, that is.)

Sorry if I can't show anything right now, but I will correct this (very) soon ok?

That's all guys, for now. :)

Types are similar to structs. Just a nice way of grouping information. The hardest part for me was understanding lists of types, because it's not implemented the best way. I couldn't understand it, so I wrote own list handler :P If you're interested I can post some samples :)

Ty,

That would awesome :D , any information about Types is greatly appreciated. I'm looking forward to it.

Thanks in advance :)

Well I am glad to hear you are willing to undergo such a task as making it 3-d. I emailed you Peter and again sorry for my absence.

Hi everyone,

Yesterday I finished constructing my very first map for DarkRes (bring out the champagne :D )

The map is made in Geoscape3D. I can save the map in Geo's own format so I can work on it later.
And I can export the map in quite a number of ways. As a mesh, or texture or heightmap, you name it.

For Blitz (and DarkRes) I've decided on the heightmap export and the texture export
Then, in Blitz I can load them with LoadTerrain (for the heightmap) and
LoadTexture (for ..erm.. loading the *cough* texture *cough* )  

If time permits, I'll try to make a few screenshots this weekend (don't hold your breath though)

Another reason to joyously hop around like a frog on crack, is that I managed to construct my first tree (oh boy :D )

I have this tree-editor (Yes, boys and girls, these really exist!) and is perfectly suited for this kind game.
The editor is very easy to work with.
Each tree is made of leaves,branches & bark and you really can make these trees anyway you like.

So yeah, I have a tree......., now what?

Well, put 'em in Blitz of course.

I've made a TYPE named Tree (how original :) )
It has 3 fields: x,y,entity

Now, to call a tree in B3D, I'll do this

And if you want 100 trees, you simply do this


Of course, I want loads of trees, although NOT in a random fashion.
The example mentioned above just goes to show that it is possible to call lots of trees in just a few lines.

Things to do for now:

1) Placement of trees,player,level

2) Working out the best TerrainDetail for the level

3) Working out how ScaleEntity works and how it affects other entities

4) Making a second map, and trying to think of a way to move between two maps (including a smooth screen-transition)

As you can see I have my work cut out for me :D :D

Well, that's all for now, peeps.

Hmm... just wondering. Do you happen to have any renderings of trees? I'm starting to get rather interested in them now ;).

Hi Devlyn,

click on this link, and everything shall be revealed

http://www.economicsoftsol.com/index.html

I have the tree-editor AND the map-editor.
There are a couple of images that show what you can do with it :)

Looking cool dude! I guess it's a good start for the project. I really wonder what you'll make of the sprites in due time :).

well,... there are no sprites involved actually. :D

I plan to do the characters in GameSpace 1.5 ( http://www.caligari.com/gamespace/default.asp )

SO, everything is in 3D.  8)

I already have GameSpace Light (which is actually GameSpace 1.5, except you can have models with a low poly-level)
but it's great for learning :D :D

GS 1.5 comes at a wallet-busting $ 299 ( yowzer  :( ) , so I really have to wait for the end of the year (that's when I get my pay (and a few financial extra's heheheheh :)  )

That's a painful price. Perhaps rearing the Electronic Mule is an alternative? :P

Bwahaha :)    Don't worry , I've been saving up lately, and I'm almost there.

I consider this as an investment though, as I have plans for a few other games ( an arcade game (FISHDISH 3D) , and a Strategic Sci-Fi Shmup called AIR SUPPORT ). So GameSpace will come in handy for those games as well.

And maybe, ..... just maybe.... if these games work out well, why not sell them?     :roll:  :wink:

Hmm... well, you can always give it a try and sell it. After all, you had to pay stuff to make it too ;).

Wahey, I finally have Gamespace 1.5  (and just for $ 199, instead of the usual $ 299 ) AND with the prospect of acquiring version 1.6 when it's released .

Now I can finally make some models (characters,houses,wells,carts,pillars,.... anything you can think,really).
I'll start browsing GS and learn the tutorials, make some basic models, and improve on them, and see how they behave in Blitz.

Oh, and I've finally sussed the Addvertex and Addtriangle commands. I can use these to make some basic walls,fences and/or structures.

(I also have programmed a waterfall, AND it has?. erm.. moving water  (  0_o )  using only AddVertex and AddTriangle , EntityTexture and PositionTexture    )

Also 100% comprendre for:
INCLUDE , CURRENTDIR$,RETURN,POSITIONMESH,SCALEMESH,
POSITIONENTITY,SCALEENTITY,TURNENTITY,HIDEENTITY,SHOWENTITY,
ADDMESH,COPYMESH,FREEENTITY,CREATESURFACE,CREATETERRAIN
LOADMESH,LOADTERRAIN,LOADTEXTURE,COPYTEXTURE

(pfffffff)

More progress concerning the following software:  

Geoscape3D: 75%
Tree Editor:    90%
Blitz3D:          45%
PSP:              60%
Land Editor:   100%     (bring the champagne!)   :D
Blender:         1%        ( :oops:  )
Gamespace:   10%      (oooh, the buttons  :shock:  )

Sorry for not putting up the screenshots   :cry:  .
The maps weren't very good to look at, and progress on creating goodlooking maps comes in leaps and bounds.

Well, that's all peeps
I wish everyone a happy new year  :D

Happy New Year to you too!

So do I see it correctly that you're using 7 different programs to make the graphics for the game? O_O

Yes, it's quite a list,isn't it?   :lol:

Geoscape3D is used for making the environment (roads,mountains,rivers)  

The tree Editor is used for ...errrr.... making trees  

Blitz3D for programming the whole kaboodle.

Paint Shop Pro for editing/finishing textures (and converting colordepth of some textures to 8-Bit, when appropriate)    

Land Editor: mainly used as backup for Geoscape3D (there are some things even Geo can't do :D :D :D )  

Blender is the backup-proggie for Gamespace (for making VERY simple models, rocks and other road-side based fluff))  

Gamespace (my flagship :D ) is used for making character-models,enemy-models,houses,benches,lanterns,barrels,
chests, and anything else you can think of. :)

Sounds like major graphics galore to me ;). Nice going :D.

Actually, I might try and use Geoscape 3D for myself, as I'm still in need of battle backgrounds ;).

Hey Devlyn,

Why not try TERRAGEN for your backgrounds?

it's virtually free  :)

http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/


have fun with it.  :lol:

Indeed a sound idea! I'll be sure to give it a try.

Thanks a lot dude :D.

Hi everyone,

It's been a long time since I've posted something about Dark Res.
The project has come a long way since then. I've learned a lot more about Blitz3D, Geoscape3D, Cartography Shop, TreeMagik, Plantlife and

GameSpace.

progress so far:
- I know now everything about Types (finally :O ).

- Maps are made in Geoscape3D and exported as a texture and as a heightmap

- Maps are loaded in B3D and scaled 20 times its original size
   (imagine starting on one edge, walk to the    opposite edge:  this will take you 3 minutes, and that's in a straight line. 0_o  )

- All X.Objects have EntityAutoFade enabled.

- The game also has fog - combined with EntityAutoFade mentioned earlier, this makes for some smooth screen-build up

- The program is now able to read and write files to harddisk.
   These files are used to place objects on the map ( trees , bushes, grass, mushrooms, houses, wells, ruins etc etc).

- I've programmed an editor that can set up zones where the player can or cannot walk
  Each map has an accompanying file, which is automatically loaded, that will handle the placement of the zone.
  The program will read the file and places the values into a fixed DIM array. After that, the zone is placed according to those values
  in the array. This may sound like more work than there is to it, but it isn't. :D
  You see, when writing a file to harddisk you first need all   these values in memory, before writing them to disk.
  The editor keeps track of how   many zones there already are on one given map.
  So, there's no fear of overwriting existing data when adding new data.            

- There's a second editor that's used for my waypoint-system that's going to be used for NPC's
   In this editor you can set up a grid. The only thing you have to do, is to set the number of gridpoints and where those points must be.
   Each point (a custom type) that's created will have it's own unique ID-number, and 4 empty fields.
   It will check where the nearest points are and assigns the ID-numbers of these points to its own fields.

   Each NPC can now walk on the grid, and when it comes to a junction-point, it will check the 4 fields of that point,
   takes a random number between 1 and 4, takes the value from the corresponding field,
   and it will plot its new course to the point that has the same ID-number. Sounds easy huh ?

   the loop for each NPC will consist of a Select/Case structure, so the main loop only has to work through a section of the code for each NPC
   Also I'm programming everything in such a way , that it will only tackle the code for one NPC each loop .
   Before the main loop starts, I let the program search for a certain custom type

   ( example: IF (MODIFY.NPC <> NULL ) Then ....... )

   If the example above is true then I'll let the pointer  <cough> point <cough> to the first NPC type in the collection
   and at the end of the loop I move the pointer to the next NPC type in the same collection.
   If it comes up empty then I simply move the pointer again to the first one in the list.
   (with a lot of npc's, this saves a lot of processor-time)    

-  Cartography Shop is real easy to work with. Once you know how, you can have a decent model up and running in no time.
   To show you my progress with Cshop, here are a few screenies:

(http://www.shiningsource.net/Devlyn/dl/dr/screenshot.jpg)

(http://www.shiningsource.net/Devlyn/dl/dr/screenshot2.jpg)

(http://www.shiningsource.net/Devlyn/dl/dr/screenshot3.jpg)

(http://www.shiningsource.net/Devlyn/dl/dr/screenshot4.jpg)

(http://www.shiningsource.net/Devlyn/dl/dr/screenshot5.jpg)

(http://www.shiningsource.net/Devlyn/dl/dr/screenshot6.jpg)

(http://www.shiningsource.net/Devlyn/dl/dr/screenshot7.jpg)

(http://www.shiningsource.net/Devlyn/dl/dr/screenshot8.jpg)

(http://www.shiningsource.net/Devlyn/dl/dr/screenshot9.jpg)

You'll notice that buildings do not have doors/windows (yet).
This is because I need to figure out the exact scale of each building, in relation to the map it is placed on, and the surroundings on that map
Once that is out of the way, I can start adding doors and windows.
It is my intention to open doors automatically when the player is near it.  

Also a number of textures are just placeholders. I've noticed that some textures are a bit too real in relation to other textures that are a bit umm.. shall we say.... cartoony (?)     

 (yikes... my fingers are getting numb from all that typing)

- Gamespace is a tough nut to crack, but I'm getting there, albeit very slowly. :/
   (the video tutorials made by 3DBuzz are a great help though).
   From the first series on how to build a game-character, I'm halfway through lessons that tackle "adding arms and legs"
   (lessons 4 and 5 if I'm correct)

   Furthermore: I can set up reference panels, move & modify primitives, modify vertices-faces-lines, extrude geometry from a model,
   paint faces, use the UV-editor , to name a few.    :D

- TreeMagik and Plantlife are the icing on the cake (yum.. cake).
   You can have grass,mushrooms,weeds,trees,bushes,rocks and a few others in all shapes, sizes and colors.
   You can even mix a few of them up.

Okay, that's it from me so far. Hope you like the screenies.
See you soon with more screenshots.

OMG!

Hi Peeps,

Here are some more screenshots from a model of a castle I'm working on. This model is actually made up from 5 different segments ( tower , wall & entrance , closed wall , wall & ramp , wall & stockade ).

(http://www.shiningsource.net/Devlyn/dl/dr/screenshot16.jpg)

(http://www.shiningsource.net/Devlyn/dl/dr/screenshot14.jpg)

(http://www.shiningsource.net/Devlyn/dl/dr/screenshot15.jpg)

With these segments I can make different types of castles in all sorts of shapes and sizes.
And when I create even more segments, the possibilities are unlimited (grin).

In an earlier post I mentioned following video tutorials for GameSpace.
Well, everything went ok and I've completed the first series. Below you can find the result :D :D

This one has its faces not painted and has one garbeled texture

(http://www.shiningsource.net/Devlyn/dl/dr/char2.jpg)

This one has its faces painted

(http://www.shiningsource.net/Devlyn/dl/dr/char3.jpg)

Please note that this model only 50% complete.
Next up is: Skinning , Rigging , Animation , Exporting to MD2 (pffff)

So, there is still a lot to do.
Soon I will post screenies about the different maps I've made so far.

S'all for now

LLAP      [/url]

I'd like to point out that using blender would save you time, money, and resources. Plus, it'll look better.

Hi Peeps,

Everything is going well with Dark Resurrection. I have lots of experience with Cartography Shop. It's really a great program to work with, once you get used it. :D

Gamespace is going well too. I'm busy watching the video-tuts for skinning and rigging.
It LOOKS easy, now to do myself  :(    

So far I have:

11 multitextured maps (for outside locations: hills, mountains, cliff, rivers, etc)
4 maps (inside locations: inn's , houses, churches, storage rooms )  
15 different pieces of furniture ( chests, barrels, tables, chairs, vases, pots, cupboards)
3 different house types
11 tree-types
3 grass-types  :roll:
2 rock formations   :roll:  
6 weed formations  :roll:
1 windmill
1 cave-entrance  :roll:

a double layered skybox (both have the same dimensions, but you can only see one of them , the other one is hidden and is used for switching textures, then the hidden skybox slowly fades in, while at the same time the visible skybox is slowly fading out.) It can be used up to 5 different transitions right now  

a multilayered (and lightmapped) sewersystem that consists of a number of modules. I'm using modules because copying/building is faster than a loading a complete level, and lightmapping it afterwards. (btw: All sewerparts are loaded at the start of the game).

I already sent Devlyn a couple of new screenies. So when he puts them up ,I'll make a link.
Very soon I'll send some other screenies of the outside world.

That's it so far , next time I will post some ideas about how the game will look and play.

New screens look excellent, especially the indoor shots.

Hi All,

It's time for a (not so) small update.

Progress so far:

18 maps ( outside-environment )

2 battlemaps ( also outside )

1 enormous lightmapped sewer-system ( 10148 poly's  )  

Waterplanes now have an animated texture (instead of moving the texture)

Also added Lavaplane, it has one texture for now, trying to add waves by moving the vertices of the plane  

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Foliage-system:

a function where 2D-Bushes are created by placing 2 double-sided sets of 2 polygons in the form of an X
these are brushed with a masked picture of foliage.

Some maps are already filled with these 2D-Bushes and, along with numerous trees, tris-rendering goes up to 70000 (that's seventy thousand),

but after enabling AUTOFADE it drops to 10000, which is more manageable :) .

The bushes' positions and types are loaded from disk in batches of 200 into a
dimmed array . I've made a separate function for this, so I can call it as many times as I want.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reprogrammed Camera-System:

I was fed up with the old one, basically.
The camera always got stuck in walls and\or scenery, and as a result it jumped all over the place.

Now with the new one, these problems are a thing of the past. It basically consists of a basepivot and two camerapivots which are parented to the

basepivot.

The first camerapivot is put 20 pixels in front of the basepivot, and the second one is put 20 pixels behind it
The camera looks at the first camerapivot and moves to the second.

To be honest, I don't know how I did it, but for some reason the camera does not go through walls, even with collision-detection disabled , just

like the camerapivots. Consider this as an added bonus :D

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've started programming a custom type which checks the distance between itself and the player.
If the player is within a certain distance. it will send a signal to the main process to change maps.

For this to work, each map will have its own unique ID-number.
Some maps have 2 or more exits, so, depending which exit you take, the main process needs to know where you're coming from.

I'll also need a few GLOBALS: Previous_Map , Current_Map , Next_Map , New_Map.

Main process is "stuck in a loop" until New_Map is true.
If this condition is met then Previous_Map is filled with the contents of Current_Map.
And Current_Map is filled with the contents of Next_Map.
Reset New_Map to false.

Place the player on the new map according to the information in Previous_Map.  

ad infinitum et nauseum :D  

The custom type may need a model of some sort, to inform the player that a certain dwelling can be entered.
I'm thinking of a simple cylinder or a cone turned upside down (think GTA)    

Also, between maps the screen turns black, so I may need a screen which informs the player that a new scene is loaded.
A generic loading screen would be nice, or a screen based on the latest information from the backbuffer to be put in
the texturebuffer. It's just an idea. :)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've made a new bridge-model.

Picture the Golden Gate Bridge, and you're halfway there.
Replace the steel and iron with wood and rope and ... voil?  :D

I've used a texture that's half 0,0,0-colored and half textured.
It's used for the part that you walk on.
You can see the environment right through the cracks.  :D

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Right!

Now for some more ideas.

idea 1:

There will be 2 types of battles.
The first is your normal run-of-the-mill Shining Force battle. No surprises there :D
The second is a bit different.

Imagine this:

You're walking from one town to the next. Then you stumble across a monster.
Because these monsters are always visible, you can do one of to things
a) walk up to the monster, and if you get into a certain range, the monster will attack you
b) avoid the encounter and continue your journey.

When choosing a), you get Experience , Gold and Items that are hard to come by.
Also, clearing all monsters on the map , and entering a village or town, will respawn the monsters.
Leaving AND re-entering the map will reset all monsters.
( For those of you who have played GRANDIA on the Saturn or PS1 will know what I mean  :D  )

Now for the tricky part: the feature DIMINISHING RETURNS , meaning: defeating the same monster over and over again, results in less EXP/Gold

each time.

QUESTION: What do you say if I re-evaluate the monsterlevels according to the highest level of the character in the group?  
This (hopefully) throws "Diminishing Returns" out the window ?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

idea 2:

It's ALWAYS the last one!

Played Cold Fear lately? or GTA San Andreas?
In case of Cold Fear:  when standing in a corridor: you see four doors, no matter which door you choose, the first 3 doors are always closed.

In case of GTA SA: remember the showroom missions, where you have to get a car off the ship. On the ship are 3 containers. No matter which

container you choose, the first two containers are always empty.

I'm sure you get the picture by now :D

How about a number of situations where these conundrums crop up?
Imagine a sewer-system where you have 3 corridors....oooh........... which one shall I take ?  :D :D

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

errmm.. I have a few more, but these need to be worked on. So I'll take a rain-check ok?

Next set of screenies will come very soon.

Bye All

Personally I don't really like Diminishing Returns style of play. If you have a poorly balanced character it can make the game really hard, and also it's not a very encouraging method I guess.

Nice to hear about all the progress though :D.

Thanks Dev,  :)

I guess I'll skip the "diminishing returns" part then  (back to the drawing board  :lol:   )

And now that I have your attention....interested in more B.A.B.S.  backgrounds ?

I have Lava- and Sewers-Backgrounds at "Bargain Bin" -prices   :wink:
Just mail me if you them yes?  :)

And now for something completely different...Updates:

Yessiree Bob,

I have programmed the entire main loop.

First part: loading of textures, models, sounds, type initializations, declaring constants , globals , collisions

Second part: entering attract mode - where an AVI can be played - ( to be implemented in the future) when AVI is finished: go to....

Third part: Main Menu - select New Game , Load Game , Options , Credits , Quit Game

Fourth Part: Game Loop - area where a map is loaded, including textures, all sorts of types , models

The main loop is constantly waiting to initiate a "jump" to another map.
It also checks from which map you came from. (this way a map can have more than 1 entry-point

The map-checkers, as I call them, work perfectly too :)
These are holding the values of the maps they are linked to.

The time from jumping from one map to another is kept to a minimum. Currently it is around 1 second (no kidding.. 8)   ). In the future it may be a bit more, depending on how many models, items etc. populate the map. I'll try my best to keep this to a minimum though.

Currently working on a Fade-Function to use between maps.
A fade-off function just before leaving a map, and a fade-on function
just before entering the new map. ( thinking of using SetGamma and UpdateGamma , these should do just fine IMO )

More news as it happens ok?   :D

Babs is currently in a bit of a quiet state from my side, due to some rl matters I really have to handle these days, but I heartily welcome any new backgrounds! :D

I might mail you about them even :)

I still have to create a 'main loop' thing in BABS actually, but it sounds pretty spiffy! :D
Btw. do you still have access to the worklogs? It might be fun to store the updates there as well...?

Happy New Year Everyone!  :D

It's a good time for an small update.

Dark Resurrection is going very well.
There are a lot of things happening, so I'll start at the beginning.

SCREEN TEXT:
------------------
I've programmed my own text-system for Dark Res.
You see, most textdemo's are for 2D and Frontbuffer only. Others are 3D, but write the sentence in one go.

And here lies the problem:
Since the game is 3D , it requires to use the BackBuffer and the FLIP command. If I THEN show text onscreen, it flashes like h*ll.

example:

loop 01 H
loop 02  _A
loop 03 H_P
loop 04 _A_P
loop 05 H_P_Y
loop 06 _A_P_ N
loop 07 H_P_Y _E
loop 08 _A_P_ N_W
loop 09 H_P_Y _E_ Y
loop 10 _A_P_ N_W _E
loop 11 H_P_Y _E_ Y_A
loop 12 _A_P_ N_W _E_R    

Doesn't look good, now does it? :D
However, I've found a way around it.
I've made a custom TYPE, which is as follows:
 


Writing of the complete sentence is as follows
 


It works great.  
I can pass a text-dump to the aforementioned custom type anytime I want, and the function does the rest :D
( I know the variable-names are a bit large, but at least it's readable.)
Currently I'm busy expanding the code, so i can use it for text, written during cinematic battles.
Something like this

where <charactername$>  ,  <monstername$> and <int( FINAL_DAMAGE )> are variables and\or variablenames depending on who does
the attacking , who is taking damage and how much damage is done.  


GAMESTYLE:
---------------
I've finally decided on the style the game. It will be modeled after ............wait for it..............Shining Force III (no surprises there :D )
There are elements of nearly all SF-games in Dark Resurrection

For instance:
- The story starts in URANBATOL (the last town in the first Shining Force game)
- all the data in the game is from Shining Force II (succesfully ported from old DIV-Code)
- Some monsters-models and character-models are from Shining Force III and Shining The Holy Ark
- Some game-dynamics are from Shining Force CD
- Mechanical vehicles/monstrosities range from SF1 (ooooh..... major spoiler ) to Holy Ark ( Yes guys,... there will be flying ) :D
- Towns / Places of interest from SFI , SFII , SFIII

PROGRAMMING:
-------------------
As I wrote earlier , Dark Resurrection was originally programmed in DIV Games Studio , a very powerful 2D computer-programming language for DOS.
Then I bought a new PC with Windows XP. Ouch,....DIV is in DOS ,.... XP does not like DOS, .......DIV does not run in XP.   :(
Sooo, I was forced to switch to another language. I choose you Pikachu,... erm........... I mean Blitz3D ;)

Looking back, my decision to switch languages (albeit a forced one) looks like a good one . Every day I'm getting better at B3D ( oh really? YES really ).
And it is with great sadness to announce that DIV is now officially dead.
Yup, even the DIV-arena site, where you could download my other games, is gone the way of the dodo. And with that the hope of a DIV-windows version.

DIV is dead
Long live DIV

/* 2 minutes of silence */

Great. Now that that's out the way, let's focus on Blitz.
Making custom types is really easy, when you know how. Even making types interact with each other is now possible.
I've even made an editor for placing objects such as Chairs, Tables, Stools, Cupboards , Crates , Doors, Treasurechests, Trees, Beds. You name it, really.

All the objectdata (such as OBJECT_TYPE , OBJECT_CONTENT , OBJECT_POSITION , OBJECT_SEARCHABLE , OBJECT_ROTATION )  is written into a DAT.file
When a map is loaded, the program will open the DAT.file, read the contents , and places objects accordingly, very very fast.   0_o  
(The latest test has 500+ objects placed at a speed of 0.351 secs)

Gamedynamics-wise, you can search a cupboard  so its OBJECT_SEARCHABLE field is 1 . You can't search a bed so its OBJECT_SEARCHABLE field = 0
Now, if a cupboard object is searchable, does it have contents (let's say.. a herb) defined by its OBJECT_CONTENT field .

The word "HERB" is an earlier defined CONSTANT and it has the number 2 .
Therefore, I can write the following code

Of course you can take a herb out of the cupboard only once. So, you will have to flag it the moment it is searched (the cupboard....not the herb :D )
So, when you make an enormous list with info about all the objects and its -earlier mentioned- fields , what you're doing, in fact,
is cross-checking and editing a shopping-list the moment you search an object.

Every object has a number, which is always unique. When you have three identical treasurechests next to each other,
each of them is unique because each one has a different number. This number is used for cross-checking with the shopping_list.

The shopping-list is always updated, but only SAVED when you actually SAVE THE GAME.    

GRAPHICS:
-------------
I have made a lot of models lately (see PROGRAMMING: )
The Treasure-Chest and the Door are particularly noteworthy.

The TreasureChest actually consists of two parts: The first one is the actual chest, and the second one is the lid.
Now, in the game, when the player is near a chest and trying to search it, the lid moves upwards in a circular motion, and the contents wil rise slowly out of it.
(along with dozens of falling particles :D )

The Door is.... just a door. Except that I have programmed it to open when the player is within a certain distance.
And when the door is in an "opened-state" and the player is out of range, it will close itself. Neat huh?

More moving things are: falling leaves , flying butterflies, smoke particles, chickens (honest  :D )

I plan to model all my towns in MAPLET.
The Uranbatol-Map is a good example. Because the first battle takes place here, and because all battles are gridbased, and because MAPLET is gridbased. :)

( Creating a town is very simple. You CARVE an enormous box with invisible walls, and then FILL it with boxes. Next you CARVE the "innards" of a box, and
you have the walls of a house, and then you CARVE the space from a wall where the door should be.)

A 2x2 grid-square in MAPLET is nearly the size of 1 square on the battle-grid . So it's relatively easy to scale maps/objects until they are the right size.

BTW: CameraMovement during battles is complete. Picture a Top-Down situation, and an Isometric situation. Now, my "BattleCam" sits somewhere in the middle.
The Camera points towards the cursor, and the cursor moves to the next character whose turn is up.
CameraMovement is always a bit slower than CursorMovement.
This is done on purpose, so you'll get a"rubberband effect" but the result is a very smooth CameraMovement. :D

CINEMATIC BATTLES:
-------------------------
This is still in the Planning-Stage.

Anyway, here goes: The idea is to "cut away" from the main battle , and then setup the cinematic battle. ( just like any SF-game )
In order for this to work, I need an array that "remembers" all the data for all characters and monsters.

The Shining Force has no more than 12 members per battle , and if you add the maximum number of monsters (around the 25 - 30 mark ),
this means an array of around 42 (=12+30) adresses . Each adress must (at least) hold the following info:

-01 Promotion
-02 Level
-03 Experience
-04 HitPoints
-05 MagicPoints
-06 HitPointsMax
-07 MagicPointsMax
-08 Attack
-09 Defence
-10 Agility
-11 Movement
-12 Weapon
-13 Ring
-14 Spell 1 Type
-15 Spell 1 Level
-16 Spell 2 Type
-17 Spell 2 Level
-18 Spell 3 Type
-19 Spell 3 Level
-20 Spell 4 Type
-21 Spell 4 Level
-22 Kills
-23 Defeat
-24 WeaponEquip
-25 RingEquip
-26 MentalStatus

That's an array of 42x26 . In theory this shouldn't be a problem (as stated earlier) blitz can shift 500 types in less than half a second.
Question is: Update the array every loop OR update only after ending a characters turn?
Well, I can only answer this question when the array is up and running. :/

In order to setup the Cinematic Battle the program needs the following info:

Who is attacking ?
Who is attacked  ?
Where is the battle taking place?

I'm thinking that another CUSTOM TYPE is in order, like this:

Type CINEMATIC
   field ATTACK
   field DEFEND[42]
   field SETTING
end Type

The reason I've typed DEFEND[42] is because some of the spells can affect more than 1 defender. and each character/monster has its own unique number. :D
Other thoughts are: "where to put the camera?", "where should it go? and "where should it point to?" .

Pfffff, some small update ;)

I promise to put up some more screenies in the very near future.

At least now you know that.................. DARK RESURRECTION....................... (insert METALLIC ECHO SOUND) is very much alive!   :D :D

Hi Folks,

Another week , another update. :)

Code for the itemshop is almost finished. Wahey!
You can buy & sell items and repair weapons.

To buy something:

1- select the item to buy
2- select the character
3- select the itemslot
4- place item in itemslot (provided you have enough gold, of course  :D )

To sell something:

1- select the character
2- select the item
3- computer asks for confirmation to actually sell it (for half the buying price )
4- item is removed from itemslot
additional: you can also sell UNequipped weapons.  8)  


To repair a weapon

1- select the character
2- computer checks if you pointed to an empty slot OR a slot where an item is placed OR a slot where a weapon was placed
3- computer then checks if weapon is mithril-based or not
4- computer then checks is weapon needs repairing
5- computer will ask player if he/she wants to repair it, in case it's nearly broken
6- computer checks if player has enough gold to pay for repairs

Because there are a lot of weapons that are mithril-based, and therefore susceptible to damage, and each weapon has a different repair-cost, I've  decided to add them all up and divide them by the number of mithril-weapons. This (roughly) translates to one-third of the buying-price.

When the game-development is at the stage of beta-testing , then I can always change this.

One more bit of information, I finally got rid of ALL text-commands. These are all replaced with text-functions that perform a DRAWIMAGE-statement.

Well, that's all for now.

Bye Folks  :D

Hi,

I've just been going back to various websites which I used for my Final Year Project research and noticed the very VERY cool model!! I am a huge Shining series fan (I made a vague Shining Force rip-off as my project) and couldn't help looking further into what was going on.

Your project looks like it has a huge amount of potential and was wondering whether you needed an extra programmer. I know you have absolutely no idea who I am but hopefully you could have a look at some of my work at some point to see how good my 'skills' are and how committed I am to any projects I have worked on in the past. I have mainly worked with DirectX in the past. Is Blitz3D easy to learn because obviously that would be an issue if you ever considered 'recruiting' me?

Don't worry...I'm not some crazy person even though this post may appear to be completely random...

Hi Mr Twiggles,

Blitz is easy to learn. You can download the demo from www.blitzbasic.com and see for yourself :)
There are quite a few code-samples to learn from.  

And you know what they say: Two heads are better than one    :D

I was wondering how good you are with Pathfinding-AI and Group-AI, because that's what I'm working on right now,
and it really takes an insane amount of time to understand the subject.

I'm interested in looking at some of your work. If you want, you can e-mail it to sodalee [COUGH] AT DSO.[COUGH] denhaag. [COUGH] nl

( delete the [COUGH] , and switch AT for a @   :D ) , or post a screenie :)

Sooo... if you're still interested, why not give Blitz a whirl , see how it turns out , and post a reply in this thread . Take your time, I'm not going anywhere :D

So is there any recent news on the status of this project of late? :newtsshocked:

 :)

Good question indeed :D

Hi everyone,

Dark Resurrection development is going a bit slow at the moment.
In my vacation I had enough time to brush up my knowledge of a number of programs:

1: ExGen - an explosion generator that works with animation strips. I now finally know what a deflector and an attractor means. :)
2: Geoscape3d - Each map now contains a built-in shadow. Very sweet :D :D
3: Gamespace - making models is now very fast. the problem was always that texturing models is an entire different kettle of fish.
But i'm happy to report that i've finally found a way to texture a model that suits me. The key is practice , practice and practice :D .

[start soapbox rant]

 If something doesn't work the first time , just keep at it folks.
Approach the problem from different angles , divide it in small parts , attack each part individually.
Learn from your mistakes
[end soapbox rant]  
   
4: Blitz3D

a) I am beginning to understand the wondrous world of: VERTEX MANIPULATION

b) Tests for Saving and Loading of data are going very well

c) Tests for Keyboard Input are going well too.
     I am considering joypad input, and see how that turns out.

d) Models I make in Gamespace are made up of one large collection with a number of children .
     Now, in Blitz I can load the Mesh and find all children within that Mesh , and treat each child as a separate entity, so I can manipulate it (move / turn / rotate / scale )  

e) How to work with collision detection for entities within types is my latest brain-cruncher. I've cracked it .....( the collision detection...NOT the brain  :D :D :D )
    Funny thing is: I don't  use collision detecton at all  :D . I use ENTITYPICK ( ENTITY , RANGE ) . This command returns the value of the first entity it touches ,within the specified    RANGE , I then search through the collections , and if the handle of the entity matches the returnvalue given by the entitypick command then I've found the right one.
   EASY HUH ? :D :D        
   
   Areas (related tot Gamespace AND Blitz3D) still to explore:

   Skeleton Placement ( Bones )
   Rigging
   Animation
   Exporting to B3D

f) Scott Latham offered to do the Battle-AI . I've sent him my decision flowchart and a few other things to help him.
     unfortunately Hotmail doesn't like big attachments, so i've looked into other possibilities ( websites that offer free storage for a limited amount of time )

So .... if someone has a better idea / solution ??!!!!! ( NUDGE NUDGE WINK WINK )

Err... I could set up a more permanent ftp server ;)

Heey Dev,

If you could do that, then that would be ... erm.. Awesome ..  8)

So,... I upload and Scott downloads ( and vice versa ) . hmm I like the sound of that .

Are you done yet ? (j/k)   :lol:

If you need a mirror / more bandwidth, you can use my server that is currently sitting there...

Well, my comp handles heat poorly, but as soon as it cools down, I'll set it up for you ;).

Fantastico  8)

I'll be hearing from you soon , then  :)

And if there's money involved , just PM me ok?  :D

I had a look a couple of months back for free webspace and the sites offering their services look very dodgy. However, I suppose that doesn't mean that they're unreliable. Anyhoo, I look forward to working on this project. I will soon be having a play with Blitz to see how it works and possibly fudge some AI code together which can then be "plugged in" to the current code (ideally anyway). I'm sure it's self explanatory and there will be various tutorials to look through and peeps to ask if I really get stuck.

How much space will you need roughly?

And second question, roughly how much monthly transfer do you think will take place?

More than likely there won't be too much transfer. We mainly need to send files to each other when either makes an alteration. I personally think it may be better to have another bash at zipping/rarring the files again and emailing.

It was exe files hotmail complained about before but we don't need to transfer them because we can just compile the source files and create it ourselves. Therefore, the only files which need transferring are source files, models and images, which generally compress quite nicely in an email.

If we do need to send each other files which hotmail deems dodgy, then zipping/rarring has solved that problem in the past for me.

Hey dude :). The weather is slightly better now, so I think I can put something up now :).

I'll need some desired usernames and passwords though :).

Hiya Dev,

I've sent you a PM with a small list containing usernames & passwords.
If you need something else then mail me ok ?
Thanks in advance  :D  :D

Hi everyone,

Wow, time goes fast when you're having fun. The airship is very much complete now, rotors are ..erm... rotating, rudders have a swaying motion.
The texture needs a bit of work near the cockpit , it kinda "warps" at the moment.
There's one thing about the airship that always bothered me, and that is: "you never see it land ??!!!. So how do get people get on or off ?

Well there's a simple solution. I'll make sure it never lands. The only places, where you can embark or disembark the airship, are near cliffs.
( I told you it's a simple solution :) )

I have also been busy with a new collection of underworld maps.
While you can place lights in MAPLET, and for simple maps this will suffice, these have their restrictions.
So I bought Gile , it's a  program that lets you add lighting to a scene . You can add spotlights , omnilights , directional lights and as many as you want.
You can tilt and rotate the lights too. Even changing texture-color is possible.

So...to cut a long story short:

Levels (or Maps) are made in MAPLET.
Applying correct textures and its size are done in DECORATOR.
Adding lighting is done in GILE.

[silence]

Okay, I admit this is getting ridiculous :)  , but when you see the results, it is absolutely worth it.

Camera-handling  in these maps always was a bit difficult . It got stuck in corners, behind pillars, or even disappear between map-sections.
So I've decided to remove the camera from the player.

Take a look at the following map.


(http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a39/firestarter_/camerasetup.jpg)


This map is divided into a number of zones. When the player enters a certain zone then the camera is placed near that zone.
The system is versatile enough to change the width and length of each zone.

Every zone can "communicate" with the zones next to it . This is especially handy for traveling camera-shots.
You can have at the moment:

1- static camera / static camera-view
2- static camera / dynamic camera-view 
3- dynamic camera / dynamic-view
   
static camera        = camera does not move
dynamic camera        = camera does move
static camera-view        = camera does not follow player
dynamic camera-view  = camera does follow player

I'll try to extend it with zooming and panning.

Now for some bad news,

I lost one of my memory-sticks.. [ total bummer ]
Normally I use it for back-up, but lately I've been using it to store some code that quickly comes up in my mind.
Instead of memorizing, I type it directly to a bb-file (blitz file format) , so I can work on it at a later date.

Now, all my ( working ) code for the item-shop has been lost ( around 1100 lines of code )  ... *sigh* ... Another lesson learned, albeit a very costly one :(
Recoding the entire thing may take few full days. On the positive side , code for the weapon-shop is pretty much similar. so maybe I can cut a few corners :)

Well,... so much for now . If all goes well , then I'll send a running demo of the airship.

Happy New Year everyone :)

It is now possible to DERIVE items from the DEPOT and assign them to a character. I added a sorting function for the Depot-list.
In short,... this means that if you have 10 items , and you take out item no. 5 then items 6,7,8,9,10 will move up one place.
I still have to program a function that checks if there are no more than 99 items in the DEPOT. But this shouldn't be much of a problem. Anyway, when this is complete, then I continue with DEPOSIT (basically DERIVE in reverse , code-wise :)  )

You also can look at items in the depot , complete with info about how much it costs , who can equip it and what the range is (when it's a weapon of course) . I am currently busy with the comments for the items/rings etc.

Instead of creating a whole new database for the comments, I simply re-used existing code with a few extra words to make it look like brand new code. A very efficient way of coding, even if I do say so myself. :D

Some of this code can be used again for items that can be put in or taken out of the depot (the character-selection code and slot-select code in particular)

Code for the church (saving progress, promoting & raising & curing characters) is now in pseudo-code. So everything is coming very nicely.

Finished the function that checks if a weapon is made of mithril or not. This one works :)

I also finished the function which checks the compatibility of the weapon against the [race of the] character that bought the weapon.
The array that contains the "weapon-part" is now completed. Every weapon now has 7 compatibility-fields.
Added race-data for the character-array. Now "all"  I have to do , is to program the comparison. Function returns a 1 if it is compatible, or a 0 if it's not.    
 
Meanwhile on the modelling-front:

I'm busy finalizing a new Church-model (complete with church-bell) Modelling-phase is finished. Currently texturing the walls.
So... when this one is ready I'll make some screenies,ok?
(about the bell, it will be animated once it is loaded in Blitz)


BTW: congrats on the new look of the SHINING SOURCE (IT'S VERY ...erm.. SHINY )

Hi Peeps,

I know I promised some screenshots , ... well, you can forget that :D
I have something better .... "moving pictures" .

The first clip is the church I told you about . If you look closely , you see the church-bell swinging

http://www.shiningsource.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/church.wmv

The second clip is a demo for the torches and lampposts I'm planning to use in the game.
The fire consists of numerous particles. So it's NOT an animation. :D 

http://www.shiningsource.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/torchlamp.wmv

Hi all,

Here's another update.
 
I've created a new topic called "DARK RESURRECTION - PROOF READING"
In this topic you will find every bit of text that will appear in the game.

First topic is the text for the item-shop , the weapon-shop and the depot.
The code for these sections is now complete.   
I've written down the text for all possible action.
Please feel free to check the text to make sure it is proper english, and
change where necessary.

In the coming weeks I may create another topic called "DARK RESURRECTION - BUG TESTING"     
This entirely depends on the response to the question:

How many of you are willing to test the program?

If you are interested then I could setup a test-village, where you can walk around , equip and buy and sell stuff, take out and put things in the depot.
Hopefully I have enough time to incorporate the code for the abbey/church , and the walkabout sections.

Other things I can add (if you want)

Objects ( Trees, Fences , Houses , Bridges , Underworld Maps , Forest Maps , Village Map (obviously) )
Music for a number of scenes.
Saving and Loading Data (it will be quite interesting when you save data, quit the program , and run the program again to check if it is the same data :) )

Naturally there are lots of different PC-configurations, so it would be very nice to see how everything runs along.
For instance:
 
1- Does the game run fast ?   ( or is it slow like melasses )
2- What is the screen-resolution ?
3- What type of graphics card do you have ?
4- How much RAM do you have ?
5- What type of processor do you have ?
6- What's the loading time between maps ?
7- Preferred input-device ( just keyboard for now , but I may include a joypad .

and of course lots of things I can't think right now :)


Your input is greatly appreciated.

I can't test it on my laptop (no 3D card), but I can test it on my other machine which is an old 800MHz/256Mb WinMe machine. Depending on which country I'm in, I might also be able to test it on a few other machines :)

My PC is a 3.0 GHz P4, 512MB of RAM and an ATI Radeon X300SE (I think). I run it in 1024 x 568 (or whatever, that 1024 one anyway) and I'm quite happy to use a keyboard, although I do have a USB pad too if that's any use.

Looking forward to it!

I could also do some testing. My PC is a Athlon 3200 with 1.5GB of RAM and an ATI graphics card with 256MB.

Count me in.  Could end up doing it on a variety of PC's so will give you feedback based on all those used.  Have some slower computers(1200mhz, 2000mhz) and nvidia cards, which will help round out the group.

I'd like to test too. I have 4 machines available:
- Laptop, 1.8Ghz Intel dual core, 1Gb RAM
- Laptop, 2Ghz Intel dual core, 1Gb RAM, NVidia GeForce Go 7400, 1280x800
- Desktop, 2 3Ghz Intel CPUs, 3Gb RAM, ATI FireGL T3100 1152x864.
- Desktop 2Ghz single core., 512Mb RAM (runs slowly, bad motherboard)

I also have VMWare running a couple of different virtual machines and a Windows Vista installation for compatibility testing.

Wow , great response  8)

Thanks everyone. 

I almost forgot my specs:

Pentium IV 3,4 Ghz
1 gig RAM
ATI RADEON X800 All-In-Wonder 256 Mb

(future expansion: 1 extra Gig of Ram, Nvidia Graphics Card 7-series (768 mb), possibly dual core instead P4 )

Nice to see that there are a lot of different PC-configurations, just as I expected.   :)

So here's what I'll do:

1) I'll make a "shopping-list" of all the things I mentioned in the first post , and put them in the game.

2) Finalize the code for the Abbey (which includes saving and loading) (-> I'm currently halfway through coding it )

3) And if Newts , or Elvenfyre , or Devlyn , or someone else can provide a decent spot for uploading all the files that are needed, then I'm a happy bunny.   

More news as it happens.  ;D

I can either put it in the main download section of the site, or somewhere else if you want it to be a "closed" test.

A "closed" download is appreciated.  :)
All files are free accessible,  and I wouldn't want the "whole world" to get their grubby little mitts on some of my models.  ;) 

I would love to be a tester.  sign me up.  I tested a few games and found the bugs.  was great times in graal, back in the day. =D

I have an intel celeron D 3.2ghz
512 MB PC3200 Ram
7200 Rpm Hard drive
128 MB ATI Radeon Express 200 Video Card

@ Viper : thanks for signing up (the more the merrier  :) )

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

@ Job , Elvenfyre , Solmyr , Newts & Ty  (and our latest addition:  Viper )

I started a new topic:  Dark Resurrection - Beta Test
( topic number 4  ::) )

The first post has some "homework" for you to take a look at.
 

Here is my latest movie:

(http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a39/firestarter_/th_AirFortress.jpg) (http://s8.photobucket.com/albums/a39/firestarter_/?action=view&current=AirFortress.flv)

Hahahha, cool!  Well worth the watch :)

So, it stays up by magic then?  :D  That got me all excited.  Well done programming that movement(or were you controlling it with input?), and the music is placed pretty well.

The movement for the oars is controlled by the computer via an algorithm.

It keeps adding one degree to the current angle-variable until it is over 360 degrees, after that keeps resetting itself.

The rotation point for the oars is in the area where the oar touches the main section of the airship. Actual rotation is done by adding the SIN (sinus) of the angle to the X-axis of the oar , and the COS (cosinus) of the angle to the Z-Axis to that same oar. Naturally, this applies to all the oars. :)

To achieve the caterpillar-effect, I linked the movement for each set of oars.

Section 1 : Oars on the front-left & on the front-right
Section 2 : Oars on the middle-left & on the middle-right
Section 3 : Oars on the rear-left & on the rear-right

Now add an extra 60 degrees to the angle to section 1 and an extra 30 degrees to the angle  to section 2.
That's basically all there is to it :) 

The movement of the airship was done by me.   Because I had very little time , I just copied the code from my Airwolf-model, and tweaked it a bit.
However , once the ship is in the game , all movement will done by the computer.  ;D       

Initially I started with a simple waypoint-system but it evolved in something much bigger. Each waypoint contains info for triggers for stopping/starting events, id-numbers for other waypoints( for getting from A to B ) and switch-counters.

The switch-counter is basically the time it takes for waypoint 1 to "switch" direction from waypoint 2 to waypoint 3, and when the time is up, it simply switches back to WP 2.

When I steer the Airship left or right (it depends how long you press the left/right cursor key)
then the ship will bank automatically left/right.

I programmed a function that takes care of banking, by models that are controlled by the computer. This is done by creating a temporary reference-point , then the model will keep on rotating until it (the model) is pointing in the direction of the reference-point. If you combine this with forward motion and a take-off sequence then you will get some awesome movement. :D

Just out of curiosity:.... did you notice the shine coming off the oars and the glass of the cockpit ?
This was done by creating a second texture-layer and treating it as a pre-computed cubic-environment map. Basically this is a mini-version of a skybox.       

the movie looked awsome.  i like your clouds. they look almost real =D

Hi Guys,  :-[

I'm back. Sorry for the delay. It was impossible for me to work on Dark Resurrection
for a (very) long time for a number of reasons. A few are Real-Life related (very hard to dodge these ones.) The other ones are related to the game.

I have to admit that there is very little to do at the moment in the game.
There are no battles , no characters and there's very little interaction.
That's why I didn't upload stuff. :-[

More time was/is needed.

As stated earlier: I simply had no spare time to work on it. Fortunately I'm now starting to get some [spare time] very soon.  :)
Lucky for me , I commented all of my code. So, catching up should pose no problem!

As for the characters - I'm gonna start with a number of enemies from SFIII ep. 1.
Once I get a feel on how to model these, I add some chars of my own.
Pseudo AI-code was already finished. So reworking it in real code should be a piece of cake (hmmm ....cake....  :D )

Anyway ,  Dark Resurrection is back on track ... finally !
Stay tuned for more info very soon.
 
     

That's very good news Peter! I know all about the RL issues, but I'm glad at least your project is back on track :D.

Mine will have to wait for a bit, but my background campaign is reaching completion. All I need to do is wait for 4th edition to come out and then convert the whole thing ;).

Great news Peter :) It's always great to read DR updates, and I look forward to seeing what you have in store for us :D

Good news from Dev too! I think the Shining scene will only get stronger over the next few months :)

I finally got around to one of the niggles that bothered me from the start.
The way all the screentext was displayed , was adjusted manually.
And boy, is that boring or what ?

So now I have rewritten the code in such a way that it will take care of it automatically.

1) you need a sentence.(of course  ;D)
2) It counts how many words (including the length of these words) there are in that sentence.
3) Set the maximum length of the string.
4) Start with an empty string.
5) Update the empty string by copying the next letter from the sentence.
6) If the program encounters an empty space, then it will add the length of the NEXT word to the current length of the string.
7) And if the sum of the previous two lengths exceeds the maximum-length then it will
simply start a new line.

Very simple really. :D

I'm almost finished with a BloodBorne Model. The model itself looks nice . but the textures look a bit bland.  :-\
And the head (or rather: Skull  ;D ) looks a bit naff. So I searched for Skull references on the Intarweb, and I found some great examples. So, when the skeleton is complete , I'll post some screenies , ok ?

One thing that IS finished, is a carriage. When in the game, I can make a few copies of the carriage and attach them to the train.
(I made a small movie of this train a few months back.)
I'll make a few screenies of the carriage.

It's safe to say that the carriage looks very good, even if I do say so myself  :)   

See Ya  ;)

Great news Peter!  Keep it up.  Can't wait for more screenshots etc.  ^_^

Hi Everyone,

I've done some major stuff lately.

First off:

The event-system:

This system will take care of events that are currently running:
Each event has a unique ID-number. This way I can check if a certain event is initated or not.
It is flexible enough to do a number of things:

1) Play a sound
2) Start a scripted event (cutscenes)
3) Start NPC-related stuff
4) Change active zones (see Zone-System for more info)

There are a number of events:

1 ) Switching from Day to Night ( O rly ?)
2 ) Switching from Night to Day ( Ya rly !)
3 ) Fog
4 ) Rain
5 ) Storm (mainly storm-SOUNDS for now)
6 ) Thunder
7 ) Falling leaves from the trees
8 ) (De)Activating lightflares from lanterns
9 ) a few other ones I'm working on at the moment

Switching between Day/Night (and vice versa) will take approximately 2 to 3 minutes. So it's hardly noticable. :)
Until you realize: Hey , wait a minute, it's dark (???!!) 

######################################################################################

The Zone-System:

Each map or dungeon is divided into a number of zones.
Each zone has a unique ID-number.

Here's how it works:
Each zone checks its location in the Gameworld and its relation to other zones nearby.
Each zone checks also its contents: trees , treasurechests , torches . Basically all NON-moving stuff.
And because these entities are non-moving, it's very easy to catalog these things and store their ID-number,
entitytype , X-Y-Z-position , X-Y-Z rotation , etc.

All this info is then put into a datafile. The program reads the file, copies the appropriate models and puts
them on the same position and turns them at the correct rotation.

Now comes the tricky part:

Please look at the picture below.

(http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a39/firestarter_/layout.jpg)

The BLUE zone is the zone where the camera is in.
This zone is related to all the surrounding GREEN zones.
The YELLOW zones are currently 'sleeping" because they are not close enough to the camera.

The camera is always connected to the player ( it moves to a position behind it -> = third person )
Thus, when the player moves, the camera moves with it. (so far so good :) )

Eventually, the camera will leave the current ( BLUE ) zone and move into a GREEN ZONE.
Now, this zone contains info about all the zones around it.
The camera will now activate the nearest sleeping zones and deactivate the furthest active zones.

And as long as a zone is active, it will perform a number of tasks.
(Move trees , leaves , check visibility of lanternpositions in relation to cameraposition etc.)

########################################################################################

Lanternflares:

Ooh boy. Do I have this one sussed out or what? :)
It's actually a lighting trick you can find in today's AAA-games.
In c++ (and pascal I think) there is a statement called PRIORITY. The Blitz-equivalent is ENTITYORDER.
If you activate this for a certain entity, you can determine it's "drawing-order"

Normally it's default position is 0 (zero). Now, when I change this into a "1" or a "-1" you can change the order.

"1" means that it is drawn FIRST, so that it appears BEHIND everything else. ( SkyBoxes are a very good example )
"-1" means that it is drawn LAST, so that it appears in FRONT of everything else. ( A good example is said lantern-flare).

(http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a39/firestarter_/Afbeelding7.png)

The lantern on the left has its flare drawn first and looks very unimpressive.
The lantern in the middle has its flare normally , and is just plain wrong.
The lantern on the right has its flare drawn last , and looks very good.     


More news very soon,

Toodle Pip ;)

Wicked, the difference is pretty obvious.

The other two do have some merits though, I'm guessing you're going to keep them in mind for slightly different situations?  Like maybe the one on the left for a place that is supposed to seem "darker" ?

Well, a few years ago I played Warhammer 40K on the PC. In that game I noticed that some characters did have some sort of 'aura' around their heads.

Especially the Space Marine Chaplain. Other character did have a flare for the Magic Rods. Don't know for sure if it's the same flare or perhaps only differently programmed.

I can sure use it,.. only NOT for lanterns.  :D
   

I've programmed an "equipment-check"... finally :)
It was one of the things I "forgot" to do ;)

All you need is the name of the character who does the buying, and
the name of the weapon that the character buys. The function takes care of the rest.
There's even a check for weapons meant for the characters that did not have a promotion.
(in other words: weapons that can only be used by promoted characters.)

#####################################################################################################

Other things that are finished:
When a character levels up, he/she receives a certain number of points, distributed over:
HP , MP , AGI , ATT , DEF. The computer deals, ... and that's it. :(

My idea for point-distribution is the following:
 
Let the player decide how many points go to HP , MP , AGI, ATT or DEF.
As long as you are in "distribution-mode" you can change the allotted points to your heart's content.
I'll even throw in a check to make sure that all points are used , before you return to the battle-screen.   

According to a walkthrough made by Apathetic Aardvark (at GameFaqs) it seems that promoted characters receive
a bit more point than not-promoted characters. I'll take that into account. :)

######################################################################################################

There seems to be an annoying bug in Blitz: it looks like there's a maximum number of data-statemens you can use.
I struggled with this one for a long time.
It doesn't matter if you divide the code in numerous files.
( one file for globals , another for constants etc)

When I use a DATA-statement and then run/compile the code, it automatically opens the "OPEN BLITZ FILE" window
for no apparent reason. ...What a bummer :( . Luckily most of the data is already present , and this works.
If , for some reason, I still need more data, then I'll simply create a very small program to store all data in a DAT-file.
The program will read the Data and stores it into a DIM , very simple.
Now that I know where the bug is, I'll work around it :D   

Tally Ho,  :D

 BTW (here's the code for the equipment check:)

The last two weeks were used to find a respectable way for implementing a pathfinding routine for computer-enemies.

Eureka...... as Archimedes would say( except I'm not running around in the streets naked  ;D )

Okay, it's (very) early days at the moment, but for now... a red cube is chasing a white cube, and if you click anywhere on the screen, the white cube is moving towards the mouse.

Yup, it starts out in 2D and it ends in 3D . That's because it is a reprogrammed version of the 2D A*-pathfinding-lib by Patrick Lester.

( http://www.policyalmanac.org/games/aStarTutorial.htm )

The goal is to turn the entire 2D lib into 3D, but this shouldn't be much of a problem.  8)

More news soon....

Kthxbye  :D

what methods are you using for enemy choosing?

I came up with several different options which I would then attach to each computer unit based on which method I wanted that unit to use.

-closest
-highest attack
-lowest hp
-type(and give the character type it prefers to attack, so this includes leader - also allowing skeletons to try to attack priests more often, etc.)

then you set up to 2 methods(one which has a stronger "influence" on the badguy than the other) for the unit and it will use them in order to decide which out of a bunch of enemies within its fighting range it will attack.

eg:
-type: leader
-lowest hp

so it will first look for the leader in its move/attack range and if so, attack the leader.  If not, and lets say there are 2 force members in the badguys range who are both on 10hp, it will then automatically go for the closest, and if they are both at the same range will randomly choose between them.

the closeness and random chooser is after your first two protocols have been worn out.
you can do a lot more with it, but the idea is to keep a few different routines for the AI so they aren't all reacting the same way to every situation, and secondly so that it's easy to set the battle maps up without designating an array of hate values for every unit.

Thanks Elvenfyre,  :)

There already were a few thoughts about which enemy to attack.
A quick look at your list made me realize that you have thought this process over far more better than me :D

The methods I have so far are:

1) Attack closest one
2) If leader is closest and not targeted -> make leader the target.
3) Check enemies in range for less than half HP of maximum
4) Check the position to attack enemy.
( attack from the side , rather than from the front / attack from the rear , rather than from the side )

-------------------------------------------------------------------

My 1) , 2) and 3) are on your list too. So these are definately 'in'.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

What do you think of my no. 4) ?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

I like the randomness of choosing, so that goes in as well.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Your 'type'-attack looks quite interesting.
Is it possible to compile a list of enemies that would 'prefer' to attack certain characters ?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

It is probably a good idea to give all possible actions a certain priority and combine
them with the flow-chart I made some time ago.

*rummaging through year-old posts*

Ok.. found it. :D

(http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a39/firestarter_/decision_flowchart.png)

-------------------------------------------------------------------

More news from the 'programming front':
The entire pathfinding Lib is now in 3D . HUZZAH!  :D

Started adding code from characterdata-arrays.

Also found some old code for smooth cameramovement. That goes in as well.

Looking back ,....the biggest hurdle was getting some good pathfinding.
Lucky for me it's now a thing of the past. :) 

Well.... that;s it for this time

Ta. ;)
       

I'm sure there is some kind of list or logic you could use, Devlyn would be the one to ask, he plays a lot of the games that require that sort of thing.

However, think outside the box too:
For some quests a certain character in the force will be particularly invested and for this reason, their unit type may be picked on by the enemy.

If I remember correctly, The Sims has a system whereby each object "emits" information about which desires it will satisfy. For example, a shower would emit a "cleanliness" signal. The closer the person is to the object, the stronger the signal. At any time, a person has needs of varying levels, and will aim to move to objects which satisfy the most.

For a Shining Force game, each character could emit various bits of information, such as their health, strength and how dangerous and important they are. One idea would be to have their danger level increase every time they kill an enemy or heal an ally. As Elv said, AI controlled characters would need to have different "personalities" to prevent everyone going straight for the leader. Dark mages might hate healers, or might go towards groups of players to inflict the most damage.

The pathfinding algorithm could be tweaked slightly to give a better experience too. A* chooses the fastest route, but for a smarter challenge you might want to factor in land effects and map objects too. Enemies might take a slightly longer route to avoid archers or to seek cover in forests etc.

Hopefully that's given you a few ideas you can use :)

Thank you , Ty and Elvenfyre for your input.  8)

I've emailed Devlyn about this , and he supplied me with a small list with a number of
possibilities for attack-preference. He's on the case right now. :D

First, I'll start with a basic "when-near-then-attack" pattern.
When this works well , I will add more choices for random attacks.
(Probably a combination of all the ideas that were discussed previously.  ;)  )

Again,... Thanks  :D   

Fire Emblem tends to work with rock-paper-scissors like triangles. Perhaps that may be a nice idea?

e.g. Swords win from Axes win from Lances win from Swords?

Dev, I'm pretty sure SF3 has a similar system to this. You're more likely to have critical hits and do more damage when attacking a weapon that's weak against your own. I remember it being quite a neat system, especially once big boss characters arrive and you have to pile the correct players up the field.

I can't recall how the rods, wands and ankhs work but I seem to remember ankhs being very nifty against undead creatures.

Pathfinding is coming along quite nicely  8)
It can now detect obstacles and can move around them.
It's tested to death with numerous configurations, and it's working well ...
with one exception:  :-[

When a character tries to access a free tile surrounded by occupied tiles , it may cause a hiccup FRAMERATE-wise.     

Some things I'm working at the moment:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The general idea is avoid the tiles which are occupied by a character.
I'm thinking of including the LANDEFFECT just for defense-purposes, and not in terms
of movement-cost. Just playing with the idea, so nothing is set in stone. :-\

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Camera-movement is almost complete. When you control the cursor, the camera tries to keep looking at the cursor. It's a smooth movement because I've used a method that computes the vector between the CURRENT angle of the camera and the ACTUAL vector between the camera and the cursor.

So, when the player has decided a good spot for his/her character to move (by pressing SPACE) the camera is "glued" to that character. And now the camera will turn to that same character with the aforementioned vector-method.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's how far I am at the moment. To do the same thing for the computer is a different kettle of fish. A good start would be to think how "I should do it" . :D

I've been checking these forums here and there.  Wandering what happend to this project.  It sounds like you've come a long way since i have last checked.  keep it up peter.  I can't wait to play this =O

as for the triangle thing.  I remember sf1 and 2 also had something like this.  I remember archers were good against flying creatures and axes were good against heavily armored creatures  thats all i can remember at the moment =P

Everything is going well with Dark Res. I've made 4 more houses each with a different texture-set.
Total number of different houses is now six . There are also six different textures, so that makes 36 different versions.
That should be enough , don't you think ? :D

Anyway, I've programmed the code for the entrypoints.
These entrypoints are important for changing maps , and for deciding where to position the player-character.
Each entrypoint contains information about the map you are currently ON, and the map you are going TO.
That means , when you are near one of these entrypoints, the program changes maps.
Each map has a unique number.
Each object that can be entered (house,depot,shop,church,castle,HQ,worldmap,areamap) also has a unique number.

Example:
You enter a townmap from direction of the map of the harbour. This map [of the harbour] is numbered "5"
You are standing in the middle of a town. The map of this town is numbered "1".
You walk down the street and would like to enter a house with two floors. This house is numbered "2".
Now..., you are entering the detection range of the entrypoint in front of that house.
The entrypoint decides that it is time to switch maps. 
The map-info of this entrypoint is as follows: Current_Map = 1 , Next_Map = 2

Before the switch: MAIN_MAP = 1               , PREVIOUS_MAP = 5
During the switch: PREVIOUS_MAP = Current_Map , MAIN_MAP = Next_Map
After the switch:  PREVIOUS_MAP = 1           , MAIN_MAP = 2

You are now inside the house, and because this is a house with two floors,
there are 2 ways you could enter this particular map, 1) from the outside and 2) from the first floor.

As luck would have it, ( ;) ) you've entered the ground floor via the outside map,
so that means - based on the values in the variable PREVIOUS-MAP - your playercharacter is positioned
near the front door, otherwise it is positioned near the stairs leading to the first floor.

And another problem rears its ugly head....:D

What to do with all those models ? Sure , I can use CLEARWORLD() , but that would delete everything
from memory, including entities , brushes and textures.
And to load everything again, each time you enter a new map is frankly.... ridiculous.
Therefore I present to you: DELETEWORLD()

What DELETEWORLD() basically does, is going through each type (and there are types for everything
you can think of) and free the model in that type along with the handle of the type.
If a copied entity is freed from memory, all the children that spawned from the parent, are automatically freed too.

Also, when you start the program everything (except the level-maps) is loaded once.
During program-execution all following models are just copies of the loaded entities.
According to other experienced Blitz-users, COPYENTITY is much faster than LOADMESH or LOADANIMMESH.
When program-execution is fast, then there is practically no waiting time for the user.

That's what it's all about. :D

-#-

I really really really.... REALLY want to show you some new piccies.  It's just that all my time is used for programming, modelling etc. I could make a small movie , to show everything at once.  :-\

Whoops, I almost forgot .... :D
All the animated icons (itemshop,weaponshop,depot,church,walkabout) are IN.
Yes, yes...... everything is working beautifully  8)  , and there's even less code compared  to the first version.

A long time ago , in a galaxy far, far away... (oh wait, that's another story.. :)  )
But a long time ago nonetheless, I lost one of my USB-sticks.
It contained code for displaying the icons. And it was also one of those rare
occasions that I did not make a backup copy.   :-[
I guess that sometimes, something good can happen out of a bad situation  ;D ;D ;D

's good.

Well, think I'll shut up for now ...

See Ya's :) 


 
   

Hi Peeps,

A small update on how things are progressing.

I've been coding like mad at the level-up code.
How many experience-points does a character receive when killing a monster?
How many points does he/she have right now and how many points until level-up ?

I lost the plot a bit at how the game handles promotion.
Reading the SFII boards on Shining Force Central, I've noticed that there are basically two camps of players.
One camp does its promotion-ceremony as quickly as possible (lv. 20) , while the other camp
waits until lv 40.

On Gamefaqs (yes, a lot of research-time was spent on this problem. :) )
I've found a FAQ from Apathetic Aardvark ( 8) )   
( http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/genesis/file/563341/28017 )
He stated that the original SFII-program treats the promotion at level 20.

So, I think that means: even if I leveled up a character to level 35 (NOT promoted), then promote him/her,
the game will set its level back to level 1 (promoted) . So that makes it level 21 , right ?

The characters that "practice" magic might now have the following problem:
At some levels they either get a new spell , or gain a level for that spell.

For example:

Sarah learns HEAL 3 at Level 33.
That means: level 33 unpromoted OR level 13 promoted 

or.....

level 33 unpromoted AND level 13 promoted ?

o_0

Is there someone that can explain this a bit more clearly ?

If the latter is the case, then I think I need an extra flag for checking whether a character
has received a new spell / spell-level.

-#-

The AI is coming slow at the mo. ;)
A character keeps filling the grid-sections with his ID-number when moving around.
So , when the next enemy checks if a character is near  , he stops at the first grid-section he comes across,
even when there is nobody around o_0. I have to suss this one out before I continue.

-#-

I've also learned a few things here and there about animation for characters,
and bought a few books with examples on how to draw heads , eyes , bodies.
A list which contains info about animation-sequences for each character,
(walk , jump , attack , defend , special attack , etc. ) eye-expression (if applicable), fighting stance and
spell-casting stance is in the works. This could be a [very ]long list. :)   

Nice reference on animation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqENARuEGM0


See ya

OK what I know about promotion that you've missed is this:

When you are promoted (even at level 20) you are WEAKER than you were.
So therefore you aren't the same as level 21.
Also: you are not really level 15 again either because when you are promoted stats distribution changes, giving you different weaknesses and strengths than you had at level 15 before promotion.

This is a lot easier to see with magic, since commonly you can't actually advance to a higher spell until after promotion(not sure if this is true for all spell levels).


However you can see a change in warriors etc as well, as they do gain stats differently after promotion than if you continue to level them up.  As I said, distribution changes.

As far as one major problem you have which I don't know the answer to, it seems there is a simple solution: (the way I saw the game when i first played it)
Does a character promoted at level 25 become a stronger level 1 promoted character than one who was promoted immediately at level 20?
NO.
This is how I believe the game to be, but have no proof.  It also makes sense from how the game manual and game explains the process of promotion:
key: because promotion makes the character weaker, you may choose not to promote them to keep them strong.

I always found it a good idea in my games to keep a couple of the middle group of characters for later promotion(just a few levels behind) to allow them to "carry" the force through battles since the rest sucked so much after promotion.

Hope some of this helps.

Hi Everyone,

A quick update is in order:

Just finished programming a database that contains all values
for leveling up player-characters. It's huuuuuuge (  :o ).

It includes HP , MP , gaining spells and their respective levels (1 thru 4)
The database can be used for up to 30 characters and it has entries for 40 levels
unpromoted and 99 levels promoted. It comes complete with accompanying text.
It is programmed in such a way that it keeps track of every change in a character's level.
This way it is impossible to learn the same spell twice.

For example:

Sarah levels up to Lv. 29 (unpromoted). At level 29 she learns BOLT lv1.
Now , if she was promoted at level 20, then she would have learned the same spell
at level 9 (promoted).

The aforementioned process puts a "1" in a specially created array.
So, when Sarah is promoted , she returns to Level 1, and when she arrives at
Level 9 , the Level-Up FUNCTION checks the array to see if she already has the BOLT 1 spell. 

(of course,..... Sarah never learns BOLT and certainly NOT at lv 29 :D )
 
-#-
     
The actual texts and values from this database are simply "knitted" together.

A few examples:

<CHAR> has gained <VALUE> HP , and <VALUE> MP.
<CHAR> has learned a new spell, <SPELLNAME> Lv. <SPELL-LEVEL>
<CHAR>'s spell <SPELLNAME> is now level <SPELL-LEVEL>.

Like I said, a quick update :D

   

Hi everyone,

After weeks of finetuning the pathfinding, I can safely say that it is now in
perfect working order. Also working is the option of retracing your steps ,
in case you selected a different location than intended.

-#-

The animated icons ( FIGHT , ITEM , MAGIC , STAY ) are "in" too.
Currently working on the info of the "free cursor mode".

-#-

Sorting units on their "agility" is also complete.
A special function keeps track of all unit-locations, user-input,
all kinds of sorting, switching between battlemaps and cinematic battles, calculating damage etc. etc.

All the data, that is needed for this function to work properly, seem to hold up well to this point.

I'm programming lots of "error-traps".
These error-traps are useful because it informs me if a data-file is loaded or not ,
or a variable is "out of bounds" or an image is loaded into memory.

Lucky for me , there are no "RuntimeErrors" , so "no news is good news" as they say. :)

-#-

For the switch from Battle-Map to Cinematic (and vice versa) I've decided on creating
a temporary datafile which stores all the necessary data for unit-placement after the cinematic.

This datafile is created just before all units are deleted by the system. It will contain
information of their XYZ-position , Y-axis rotation , UnitID , UnitNumber.

After the cinematic, the datafile is loaded and units are "recreated" as long as the system is NOT
at the end of the datafile. After reading, this file is deleted from the harddisk.
(everything you see onscreen is just a visual representation of what's current in memory.)

This file is also useful when saving mid-battle.
It is combined with the overall gamedata.

-#-

Also finished it is the data for making decisions about which unit to attack.
I've made an array which contains data for a certain unit to lookup what kind of unit He\She\It is.
The first part is just a simple decision: Is the unit a weapon-user or a magic-user.
The second part is based on ROCK-SCISSORS-PAPER. It is translated into: Swords(or Melee) , Ranged , Magic
All units are divided into one of these 3 categories.

The decision for using part 1 or 2 lies within the variable LUCK.
LUCK changes a number of times during battle for everyone,
so I'm sure you will get a few "OMG-look-the-computer-made-a-stupid-mistake" moments during each battle. :D

-#-

I'm not sure to use LUCK as an important factor for calculating CRITICAL HIT , COUNTER_ATTACK .
or simply use a random number. Random numbers are ... erm... more random ( :-X )
and LUCK is more like a sinus-wave.

So, your opinion is greatly appreciated. :)   
   
-#-

Other factors used for attacking units are:
Unit must be in "Walking-Range" and within "Weapon/Magic-Range".
Weapon-Range and Magic-Range are based on WeaponType and MagicType.

Also, the weapon-range is affected when a weapon is NOT equipped , it reverts back to range 1.

However, I don't have a clue if this also applies to magic-users:  :/
Can a magic-user use a spell if his\her weapon is NOT equipped.  ..... answers on a postcard,please :D

MagicUsers will try to damage as many characters as possible.
Every time the unit scores a hit on the attack-list, it records the position of the cursor and the total number
of enemies registered. This list is then prioritized, with more units at the top and less units at the bottom.
Possible multiple entries are removed.

-#-

Well, so far so good.
If you have other thoughts about all the above, please feel free to shoot (not literally).

See Ya Guys, :) 

Hi Peter,
Sounds great keep up the good work :)

To answer your question:
Magic can be cast if you have nothing equipped.
Also, weapons/rings that have magic can be used without be equipped.