Dugoma Clone

Lesser known clone projects or isolated news items about rare or unusual clones.
Forum rules
Please read the Forum rules and policies before posting.
User avatar
Beastman666
Journeyman
Posts: 70
Joined: Mon Feb 15, 2010 8:34 pm

Dugoma Clone

Post by Beastman666 »

Just found another DM-clone project not mentioned here (unless i am blind): http://www.funkelwerk.de/applets/dugoma/
User avatar
cowsmanaut
Moo Master
Posts: 4378
Joined: Fri Jun 30, 2000 12:53 am
Location: canada

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by cowsmanaut »

worked but didn't work.. i could click in the window and create the jugs.. and remove them.. but not move..
User avatar
Gambit37
Should eat more pies
Posts: 13714
Joined: Wed May 31, 2000 1:57 pm
Location: Location, Location
Contact:

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by Gambit37 »

Yeah, I couldn't move either. But then I could. It's buggy.
User avatar
Paul Stevens
CSBwin Guru
Posts: 4318
Joined: Sun Apr 08, 2001 6:00 pm
Location: Madison, Wisconsin, USA

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by Paul Stevens »

Seemed to work perfectly for me.
Took 30 seconds of CPU time to get
started!


Edit:
Using Opera
Last edited by Paul Stevens on Fri Feb 26, 2010 4:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Lord_BoNes
Jack of all trades
Posts: 1064
Joined: Mon Dec 01, 2008 12:36 pm
Location: Ararat, Australia.

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by Lord_BoNes »

Worked for me too... I'm using Opera. Maybe it's the browser. It loaded pretty damn quick, and then I just sorta wandered around... :P
Looks pretty though.
 
Image

1 death is a tragedy,
10,000,000 deaths is a statistic.
- Joseph Stalin

Check out my Return to Chaos dungeon launcher
And my Dungeon Master Clone
User avatar
Hajo
Craftsman
Posts: 106
Joined: Tue Mar 02, 2010 11:33 am
Location: Between chair and keyboard

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by Hajo »

Mattias (the one who makes Dungeon Grind, you have a thread about it, too) told me about this forum, but I was too lazy to register until I saw that you discovered my dungeon master clone as well :P

I'm sorry to hear that it doesn't work for some of you, but it was just a proof of concept work. It was also much inspired by Mattias messages about dungeon grind in another forum. For a while both projects kind of pushed each other forward, and Mattias and me released walkaround demos almost on the same day.

Mattias is the better designer and developer for sure, I just felt inspired to try if I can do something like that, too.

Well, long ago I played both Dungeon Master and Chaos Strikes back, and even that I often pondered about making a clone, I never did until I saw Mattias doing one; this kind of gave me the motivation that I needed ... also I did not know about this forum earlier, otherwise I might have started with such a project earlier too.

The past weeks I was busy with another small game project, a breakout clone, but I think I'll come back to this some day soon. The project sure has its problems, though - less the keyboard problems that a few experienced, those should be solvable, but it has a very massive size problem. The high res graphics for all the wall and items views sum up dramatically, and a game with a fair number of items and a few wall/floor/ceiling types will easily reach a few ten megabytes, and this deems me too much. I can't really solve that though, but through shrinking the graphics, or limiting the viewable area even more. This was the biggest reason why I put this on hold - even the demo needs well 6mb download, and contains almost nothing ...

If I continue I think I'll go with smaller graphics, that won't solve the size problem completely but it will allow to have more items in the same download size.

Another constraint that might kill this project, is that I want to make a peaceful dungeon exploration game. I have tried so a few times and each time failed - it just seemed impossible to have an interesting and challenging dungeon exploration game without combat. I have asked about this in two other forums, and it spawned discussions, but results have been in between "combat is needed" and "puzzles can help but eventually are boring too".

I'm a bit uncertain what to do with it now ...

Anyways, I'm happy that my project was listed here, and that it worked (mostly) even that it just was a very early proof of concept demo. Once there are news, I'll post updates here :)
User avatar
Gambit37
Should eat more pies
Posts: 13714
Joined: Wed May 31, 2000 1:57 pm
Location: Location, Location
Contact:

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by Gambit37 »

Hello Hajo, welcome to the forum and thanks for stopping by. Great to hear about your development plans, sounds fun! :)

Regarding the movement issue: I can't move when playing in Chrome, but I can move when playing in IE8 -- but not always! Looks like there are issues with the JRE not working consistently in different browsers?

One thing I noticed with the Dugoma demo is that you don't flip the floor/ceiling horizontally on each step. Dungeon Grind doesn't either. This is a key thing that simulates the sense of movement in these step-tile games. Without that, it just doesn't feel like the player is moving about. Just thought I'd let you know
User avatar
Hajo
Craftsman
Posts: 106
Joined: Tue Mar 02, 2010 11:33 am
Location: Between chair and keyboard

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by Hajo »

Thanks for the nice welcome :) This forum is sure an interesting place and I'll try to visit regularly. Dungeon Master was my first real computer RPG, and a very deep experience at that time.

I remember that the monster-under-rockpile thingies gave me nightmares, and in one level I met a single creature that seemed to avoid the party, and I never could figure out why it was there - it lead me through a hidden door, though, so it was good. It wasn't one of the thieves but rather some smallish sort of animal. Maybe I'll ask about that separately some day.

I'm a bit puzzled that there are differences between the browsers, but I just relied on the frame (window) receiving key events. This seems not to be reliable. Maybe some browsers give the frame input focus while others don't. I must investigate this.

After the demo I had worked some more on the code. The latter, unreleased, version has two different floor tiles, so movement is better noticeable. Flipping didn't seem to be much easier, so I thought I'll go for two floor tiles right away. I don't seem to have published a screenshot of that yet, though ... Also, big objects can now be turned, so that it's possible to place proper gates in all corridors. Still, just a bit more of a tech demo and no game yet.
User avatar
cowsmanaut
Moo Master
Posts: 4378
Joined: Fri Jun 30, 2000 12:53 am
Location: canada

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by cowsmanaut »

I was using Chrome as well. As for graphics issues, you can severely limit the colours to be sure of a lower download size. Remember that the original DM was less than 1 mb! 355kb for graphics.dat :)
User avatar
Hajo
Craftsman
Posts: 106
Joined: Tue Mar 02, 2010 11:33 am
Location: Between chair and keyboard

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by Hajo »

The original Dungeon Master for Atari ST fit onto a single sided floppy .. makes me a bit ashamed to need 6mb for this demo :oops: Mattias uses 256 color bitmaps, his demo is also about 6mb, but he has a few more textures in there I think. My postprocessing script converted a few of the bitmaps to 8 bit, those which already used less than 256 colors. I think I can make it so that all the textures/tiles get converted to 256 colors.

At the same time I think this would be a pity, though. The benefit of prerendered tiles and objects is that they can have much higher quality than the usual polygon based models in modern 3D games. Even real powerful graphics cards cannot produce the detail level in realtime that a raytracer can produce when allowed to calculate a few hours for all views of an object. And if this quality is what sets off the tile and grid based graphics from realtime polygon based 3D rendering, it would be wrong to give it up ... at the same time, this tells me I cannot make full use of the medium, because I'm not that good a modeler and graphics designer.

The biggest problem though is that I lack ideas on how to make an interesting but combat-free game with such a display framework. I see there are quite some other Dungeon Master revival projects going, so I assume I can take some time to come up with a plan.
DSE
Lo Master
Posts: 364
Joined: Sat Mar 20, 2004 12:22 pm
Contact:

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by DSE »

Yes I agree to some extent, but the end result is flat and cant be interacted with in the same way as a 3d world object can. You are massively limited with your lighting and effects, etc. Modern gfx cards are getting closer and closer to non-real time rendering techniques. In fact I have seen a recent demo from crytek where they produce a scene at 60 frames per second which takes 45 minutes to render using traditional ray tracing packages. The end result actually looked identical.
User avatar
Gambit37
Should eat more pies
Posts: 13714
Joined: Wed May 31, 2000 1:57 pm
Location: Location, Location
Contact:

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by Gambit37 »

Yeah, but when Crysis came out virtually no-one had the kit to run it. I'm guessing this is the same problem with any newer stuff that Crytek are working on -- only the hardest of hardcore gamers who can afford the latest top end kit will be able to run the demo?
DSE
Lo Master
Posts: 364
Joined: Sat Mar 20, 2004 12:22 pm
Contact:

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by DSE »

Crysis got a bad name and its release was poorly handled. People expected too much from their low end kit and then went on-line to bitch about it. It did no good for the average PC gamer and PC gaming in general. It should be remembered that Crysis is still amazing looking today despite being a few years old. IMO its still the best looking game today. What they did was mind blowing .... so far ahead of everybody else.

I think crytek have learnt their lesson from Crysis and they have stated that their new engine is going to run on more main stream pc hardware, the xbox 360 and ps3.

You need to remember as well that an extremely powerful gfx card (alot faster than what is in the 360 and ps3) is now about £130. Its not a great amount of money for the fps you will get.
DSE
Lo Master
Posts: 364
Joined: Sat Mar 20, 2004 12:22 pm
Contact:

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by DSE »

Just for the record .... I love 2d gaming and I think we need more of it today in the gaming world. I just think (biased due to my own clone) that Dungeon Master could look awesome with a proper 3d engine behind it. The atmosphere you could achieve would be brilliant, etc.
User avatar
Hajo
Craftsman
Posts: 106
Joined: Tue Mar 02, 2010 11:33 am
Location: Between chair and keyboard

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by Hajo »

DSE wrote:Yes I agree to some extent, but the end result is flat and cant be interacted with in the same way as a 3d world object can. You are massively limited with your lighting and effects, etc.
Yes, that is true. Actually in the break since I had stopped working on the project I seem to have forgotten about a lot of details that also made me stop for the time being.

Among those were the problem that items at different heights need different images. For example if there is a table, an item that I pick up from the floor and put it on the table, needs a different image for the floor view and the table view. And it will need a different view for each height level :(

One can say "I don't care", ignore the minor perspective problems, but it was something that bugged me.

I also have problems to pre-render transparent objects, like crystals, or even glass bottles, because the exact environment is not known beforehand, but would/will be visible through the object. Again, I can approximate the effect, but not do the real thing (caustics, refractions).

In lower resolutions and with more abstract graphics these effects are not so dominant. I decided to leave the project stopped until I have made up my mind what I really want, or how to use such a rendering framework to its best.

The are workarounds ... the original DM just didn't care about perspective oddities and used the same bitmap for the floor and the little wall niches where one could put things into. That was still cool in 1990, but today will spawn complains from players who are used to model-based 3D engines. Also one could just make a game where there is only the floor to put thing onto, so that the problem is not visible. Have no transparent objects in the game, because then the problem will not show - also have no reflecting objects. It's alright to do that, but when I noticed all these little quirks, I was a bit disappointed, because at first the idea to have no limitation on polygon counts and such, but to be able to use the very best graphics looked very appealing to me.

I still think the idea has potential. But it needs good planning, and there must be a game idea which fits into the limitations - or put the other way round - a game idea that makes good use of the options of this kind of rendering system.

Crytek can't work magic, if they can render something in real time, others can too. And polygon based graphics have their troubles, too, which crytec cannot witch away.

I'm not sure if I want to be bothered by this comparison. Polygonal 3D is one thing, pre-rendered tiles are something completely different. Personally I never liked the polygon based 3D, and as long as I can see polygon corners along the contours of models, I do not buy that technology. And I still saw some on Crysis screenshots :P

I think this is the wrong way to enter the discussion. A DM like rendering system offers a number of features - the question is how to make a new game that makes good use of those features. The question is not, if something else looks better. At least not for me.
DSE
Lo Master
Posts: 364
Joined: Sat Mar 20, 2004 12:22 pm
Contact:

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by DSE »

Just remember one thing, you are using a 'polygon based 3d' program to create your tiles. If you can render it in your off-line program in full detail, I bet I could render it in my real time engine and achieve very, very similar results (if not better) with parralax and normal maps. Also, I would have the advantage of being able to light the object with multiple light sources, apply physics, scale it as required, etc, etc and place it anywhere in the world.

As you say I just jumped into your thread as I didnt agree with your posts about 3d. So I apologise for the scope shift. Either way good luck with your clone and I look forward to seeing the results.
User avatar
Hajo
Craftsman
Posts: 106
Joined: Tue Mar 02, 2010 11:33 am
Location: Between chair and keyboard

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by Hajo »

DSE wrote:Just remember one thing, you are using a 'polygon based 3d' program to create your tiles.
I don't :P I'm using PovRay, which also supports polygon meshes, but it's core is a renderer of mathematically defined shaped like spheres, cylinders, cones and such. There are no polygons involved, and the surfaces are mathematically exact, also smooth.

It is very hard though to model complex shapes based on these primitives, but well, I got used to it. The textures in the demo are also all procedurally generated, if that means something. my modeling skills are definitely limited though, and thus I won't be able to generate content that really makes use of the theoretical "smooth" shapes and contours.
DSE wrote: If you can render it in your off-line program in full detail, I bet I could render it in my real time engine and achieve very, very similar results (if not better) with parralax and normal maps. Also, I would have the advantage of being able to light the object with multiple light sources, apply physics, scale it as required, etc, etc and place it anywhere in the world.

As you say I just jumped into your thread as I didnt agree with your posts about 3d. So I apologise for the scope shift. Either way good luck with your clone and I look forward to seeing the results.
Thank you :) I think we should bury the question which rendering system is superior. Modern polygon based rendering systems have advanced very much, and you are right, they have a lot of advantages, like being able to deform models on the fly, let alone the positioning and also lighting abilities. Even reflections work nicely in modern polygon based rendering systems, although I think that raytracing can be better there. But as you say, in the end result most likely not by much.

My core problem is that I have no good ideas for a new game using such a rendering framework, particularly if it shall be without combat. So before I dive deeper into the graphics issues, I need an idea for a game, and then try to work on the details.

"Real" DM clones, also some very faithful ones, I see being made in this place, so I want to either try something new, of I can't, let it be and be happy that I learned how a DM like rendering system works.

Currently I'm bus with a very, and genuinely, new breakout clone :mrgreen: just to show my lack of creativity :twisted:
DSE
Lo Master
Posts: 364
Joined: Sat Mar 20, 2004 12:22 pm
Contact:

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by DSE »

Do you have a link to how PovRay stores its models ? I would love to understand how complex shapes are stored in a non polygon/vertices based format. That sounds interesting ....

For the record, I wasnt trying to say 3d was superior because that isnt a valid debate. You cant compare 2d to 3d, they are inherently different and achieve different things. There is another clone on here that I found which might be trying to do what you are talking about -

http://mattiasgustavsson.com/Blog/Entri ... legame.php
User avatar
Gambit37
Should eat more pies
Posts: 13714
Joined: Wed May 31, 2000 1:57 pm
Location: Location, Location
Contact:

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by Gambit37 »

Hajo already knows about that clone, DSE. It was Mattias who sent him here in the first place ;-)
DSE
Lo Master
Posts: 364
Joined: Sat Mar 20, 2004 12:22 pm
Contact:

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by DSE »

oh right thanks.
User avatar
Hajo
Craftsman
Posts: 106
Joined: Tue Mar 02, 2010 11:33 am
Location: Between chair and keyboard

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by Hajo »

DSE wrote:Do you have a link to how PovRay stores its models ? I would love to understand how complex shapes are stored in a non polygon/vertices based format. That sounds interesting ....
I have published some of my scene files under the GPLv2, so you can easily take a peek.

This chest might be one of the more interesting objects:
http://www.funkelwerk.de/forum/index.ph ... 674#msg674

There is a link to the scene file in that message.

In general, the scene files look much like a programming language. In fact the language supports loops and computations, even recursive calls of macros. For natural shapes like monsters, animals and such, I think at some point meshes are the better solution. At least they are mush easier to create as meshes.

I just discovered your own development thread, and it seems you have been very busy there. It's been like 6 years of development, that is a really long time. Much to read for me, I'll try and get a better impression of your project.

Mattias and me had developed our projects in kinda parallel - well Mattias inspired me, and a while it was a very interesting co-evolution, but at the moment Mattias and I seem both busy with other things. For the curious, this is how it started:
http://forums.rpgdx.net/viewtopic.php?t=2262

And here a bit more of previous discussion about my project - also some more work in progress screens in there:
http://rampantgames.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=808
DSE
Lo Master
Posts: 364
Joined: Sat Mar 20, 2004 12:22 pm
Contact:

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by DSE »

Ok, thanks for that.

My project has evolved over 6 years, its not a continual development and has been rewritten from the ground up too many times to mention. I have been using my clone as a spring board to learn game programming and to improve my coding skills in general. I am a lead developer (well more like IT manager really) at a logistics firm so I dont get the opportunity to try game related coding stuff. My clone allows me to play in that arena.

If you want to see the latest effort just view the two latest movies. Its free movement (fps style) at the moment so I can check the world and physics, the final version has movement based on the old dm flick screen style.
User avatar
Hajo
Craftsman
Posts: 106
Joined: Tue Mar 02, 2010 11:33 am
Location: Between chair and keyboard

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by Hajo »

It's important to experiment a lot. I have tried a few ideas several times too. Overall I have a massive fail rate at projects, though. If this is bad is another question - while you are interested in it, learn from it or are entertained in some way, it's good to do it. The path is more important at times than the result.

Lately I try to reduce the scope of my projects though, to be able to finish one within a shorter frame of time, well, I finally want to finish a project at all again :P

Good luck with Entombed :)
User avatar
Hajo
Craftsman
Posts: 106
Joined: Tue Mar 02, 2010 11:33 am
Location: Between chair and keyboard

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by Hajo »

I found a way how to separate wall decorations like booths and niches from the actual wall graphics. The moss texture layer I want to keep as part of the walls, since it is semitransparent and would be very difficult to attach to different base walls on the fly while rendering.

This is how the undecorated wall look currently:
http://www.funkelwerk.de/data/dugoma/li ... take_2.jpg

But with the split I can go with two base wall types, and decorate them freely with niches, switches, paintings, and other decorative elements. This should help to keep the whole project more manageable, while still allowing a nice visual variety.
User avatar
Bit
Arch Master
Posts: 1064
Joined: Mon Mar 03, 2008 10:53 am
Location: Nuts trees

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by Bit »

Perhaps think about some fractal formulas to spread decorative elements around. those can be used independently for several functions, but give a stable result in the end.
User avatar
Hajo
Craftsman
Posts: 106
Joined: Tue Mar 02, 2010 11:33 am
Location: Between chair and keyboard

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by Hajo »

Currently the dungeon is randomly generated, inspired by the roguelike games. If you start the demo, you get a new dungeon each time (including floor and wall patterns). I'm working on an editor to make fixed dungeon as well.

Visually it looks much like before:
http://www.funkelwerk.de/data/dugoma/se ... l_deco.jpg

To show that it's really just bitmaps slapped onto he walls, I put some mid air here:
http://www.funkelwerk.de/data/dugoma/se ... oating.jpg

This element needs 144 views (ack!) and takes a bit more then 300kb on disk, which is acceptable I think.

It's just a random thing which I used for testing since a while. The niche and crystal ball have no meaning really. I still have to work on a game idea and proper content.

Edit: Looking at the floating niches, I can't resist to think about portable holes for this project :P
User avatar
Gambit37
Should eat more pies
Posts: 13714
Joined: Wed May 31, 2000 1:57 pm
Location: Location, Location
Contact:

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by Gambit37 »

144 views? Thats' a bit...insane. How long does it take for to create all these views and incorporate them? Why do you need so many?
User avatar
Hajo
Craftsman
Posts: 106
Joined: Tue Mar 02, 2010 11:33 am
Location: Between chair and keyboard

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by Hajo »

Most likely I didn't manage to recreate the same view and field of view that the original DM had, and so I might have have more map positions visible on screen. I noticed that every 4th of the 144 views is empty, because such structures cannot be seen when they are on the back of the wall. But if this was a regular large item, most of those would be needed - 4 rotations and 28 base positions are 112 images ... now I'm a bit puzzled myself where the others came from. Maybe my rendering system produced a few that are actually not needed.

How many wall tiles did the original DM need? I guess I went a bit over the top with my wish for perspective and lighting precision.

Depending on the complexity of such a structure it takes a few minutes up to several hours to compute and render all views. The niche takes about 10 minutes. It's quite automatic once I have the model. Making a good model needs longer, definitely :P

Meanwhile I've been testing a new type of wall, which has a stronger 3D rock/brick structure:

Image

Appears to be darker than the former walls, too. I didn't see it till I had the screenshots side by side. Well, it's easy to change if needed. For the moment I'm happy that I finally got a real brick type structure. With rounded corners, I like those much better than the razor sharp edges of the former version :mrgreen:
User avatar
Gambit37
Should eat more pies
Posts: 13714
Joined: Wed May 31, 2000 1:57 pm
Location: Location, Location
Contact:

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by Gambit37 »

It looks very cool, nice job! :)

DM is obviously a lot simpler. It has 3 front facing walls and the player can see three squares ahead, 4 if you include the tile the party is standing on. Wall items simply have 2 views: front and side, and the engine scales and positions them accordingly using pre-determined coordinates based on the fixed perspective. The items are flipped around their vertical when displayed on the opposite side wall.

When placing items on the the furthest side wall, they are scaled and also stretched horizontally to simulate perspective. This was all very passable in 320x200 res at 16 colours.

Clearly you need more in yours, but I'm pretty sure you should be able to cut this down to just a few sizes/sclaings for items. I have no idea why you'd need more than 20 or so, let alone 100!!! Better still, do what DM does and develop some routines for auto scaling and auto lighting your main views of each item. This would be much easier and more efficient than the route you're currently taking. Plus it would make it better for other users if you ever want to open this up for people to edit. No-one is going to want to create 144 views for items. I think you really need something simpler, automated and more efficient that can work off just a few key views.

How many front and side facing walls can be seen in your setup? Can we see a top down plan of the maximum view range?
User avatar
Bit
Arch Master
Posts: 1064
Joined: Mon Mar 03, 2008 10:53 am
Location: Nuts trees

Re: Dugoma Clone

Post by Bit »

Hajo, just take the time and checkout my 'reloaded' version together with your wallset.
Take a look in the given wallpictures (they are all between ~050 and 100), replace some with your wallpicture (just pick the right maskcolor) - and just see if that wouldn't be enough.
All those things that Gambit mentioned calculate fast enough to give good results in the final viewport picture. Absolutely correctly calculated perspective - I doubt that it is really needed.
But 144 views - nonono.
Better save the memory for things like alpha-masks that i.e. can be used on a wall in distance to realize a flickering torch that lits the surrounding somehow and such things. You maybe want to add mini-movies later.
Post Reply