DM Java - Black Crypt remake

[Relig]

I've decided to work on making a version of DMJ dungeon like Black Crypt (as it was on the Amiga so long ago).

I've never done this before so of course I'm running into some problems.

The main problem I'm having is trying to create the new images (eg. the two headed orge) to only show the picture, not the white space around the image.

I got the ogre to work in the dungeon, but not the way it should look.

I thought it might have to do with Masking but I can't figure it out.

Can anyone give me a hand on how to make these images work for me??

I'm using CorelPhoto-Paint 7.

Once I figure out how to do this, the rest will come along nicely.

Cheers!
Relig

[cowsmanaut]

how are you masking it? Using the super green colour? or Power pink? or are you trying to use Gifs? or PNGs?

depending on which you use you get different results.

if you are using a mask colour like the green or pink. you have to be aware of the antialiasing you get from most paint programs. Many of the brushes have antialiased edges. What this does is softens the edges of what you are painting but for a mask colour it also means you are painting in extra colours in. A masking colour is chosen for it's pure number. 0,255,0 for the green and 255,0,255 for power pink.

So what you get with antialiasing is a purple or green rim on your images if you don't want that you need to use a non_antialiased brush.

onto gifs. Gifs can save with a mask like setting.. what happens is a pixel is either on or off in a gif. And from those that are on you can chose from a pallete of up to 256 unique colours. This gives you harder edges like the masks above but you can see the results immediately and you do not suffer the the issues of purple or green edges like in the masking method above. However, as mentioned you are limited to 256 colours.

PNG is a lovely format and it's really too bad it's not more accepted. You get smooth transition of your mask from opaque to transparent which provides for that smooth antialiased effect you don't get from gif or for the other masked ones. However the cost of this comes in the more you have of them onscreen at one time.. especially in Java..

let me know if you have any other question.

moo

[Relig]

Thanks Cowsmanaut.

I've been using GIFs but I didn't know that I had to put a different colour around the image. I just erased the extra leaving a white area.

I've noticed that the orginal pics are gif's but I couldn't figure out how to get the masking to work in photoshop.

I'll try some more tests.

At least this gives me a bit of a direction.

Cheers!

[Relig]

I got it to work. Once I used the green fill 0,255,0 (pink is just not for me) and did some adjusting I got the ogre to walk like the other monsters.

Yeess!!

I've completed 1 and a half levels from the 28 that the game had.

I don't have a job right now, so all of my free time will be towards getting this module done.

It won't be exactly like Black Crypt was, but I hope fairly simular.

Thanks again Cowsmanaut!

[Toni Y]

PNG is a lovely format and it's really too bad it's not more accepted.

PNG is lovely. And it's pretty widely supported. Every graphics program worth it's bits should be able to work on them. And every standards compliant web browser I've seen works very nicely with PNGs, as long as you stay away from the gamma settings or exotic bit depths...

In fact, I've only ever seen one program screw them up - every single one of them, be it alpha, gamma, plain, 8-bit, 24-bit, whatever and it gets it wrong in some way... The pretty much only standards noncompliant web browser: MS IE

[cowsmanaut]

relig.. in photoshop you must turn the "background" into a layer in order to get the correct transparency without using a mask colour. to do this simply double click on the layer named "background" and it will pop up a window calling itself "Layer 0" say ok to that and it's now a Layer. This means you can have transparency. Other wise you get as you mentioned.. white. Which is not transparent.. but plain, solid, white.

The masking colours can be used for gif, bmp, etc. It's not just gif. Just so you know

And Tony, yes.. PNG is supported by a number of programs but it's not as common as it should be.. You don't see it very many places.. simply because IE is the most commonly used browser (since most people are too lazy) and not many people are willing to do what it takes to make IE dsiplay them correctly.. though it is possible. I used PNG's in a game I was working on with Alandale but we eventualy abandoned the project for something more interesting.. which in a way was a shame but it wasn't really working out to be a great game so why waste the hours trying to fix it. However, with the use of PNG in it we had some nice results..

moo

[Arthur]

I've completed 1 and a half levels from the 28 that the game had.

I don't have a job right now, so all of my free time will be towards getting this module done.

It won't be exactly like Black Crypt was, but I hope fairly simular.

Id really like to play that once it is finished. Did you find pics of the monsters somewhere or have you taken screenshots with an emulator?

[Arthur]

BTW, if you dont already you should know that the "stone mace" and the "doom hammer" never were intended to be as powerful as they are in the game (the game is a cakewalk after you find them in the original), they are bugged (this has been confirmed by Raven). I suggest you do not make them as powerful in your remake. You do want the game to be a challenge after lvl 13 I hope

[Relig]

I'm doing screen shots from the Amiga version via the emulator.

I hope I don't get into trouble 'copying' their images from the original game.....

It's going a bit slower than I thought it would take, but it's getting there...

I'm even trying to get the same walls graphics to work so that the feel of the game looks the same.

One thing that I haven't figured out yet is to get the sounds of the monsters - walking, roaring, etc...

I read a simular post on the Raven site about the hammer being too strong... I'll try to make it not as powerful Thx.

[WolfHeart]

I hope it turns out better than EOB and EOBII Java. I downloaded them after seaching forever for a good link. (finally got a good one from here). I was very impressed when the title screens and loaders come up almost exactly as they did in the real EOB. I did not get sound but loaded the game as fast as I could........... UGGGGGGGG was I disapointed! the look was not there the feel was not there and it really ticked me off that it was just DM with the EOB characters and maps the put most of the stuff in but in a DM setting rather than a EOB feel. EOB was my first real RPG on the PC. I had almost every 1st person RPG you could buy for the ST, with DM being my first. I left the ST community sorta and tried to embrace the PC. each new game become more and more polished and while support for the Atari and the Amiga slowed and finally stopped almost the PC just kept getting better. I was a long time before DM or DM2 become available for the PC. I remember calling FTL and Interact almost monthly for news on their release dates.

On the PC EOB I II III, Might and Magic, Dungeon Hack Menzoboran (terrible spelling of a great game dont have it handy hehe) and a ton of others really helped me put up with all the downfalls of PC in application and utilitys

[Arthur]

I'm even trying to get the same walls graphics to work so that the feel of the game looks the same.

I read a simular post on the Raven site about the hammer being too strong... I'll try to make it not as powerful Thx.

It would be great if you can get the walls in there I dont think the sounds are as important for the feel, even though the "doorsound" and the "swingsound" bring back memories

Dont forget to nerf the Stone mace, it is even better then the doom hammer. Basicly, the artifacts should be the best weapons in the game.

[Arthur]

I hope it turns out better than EOB and EOBII Java. I downloaded them after seaching forever for a good link. (finally got a good one from here). I was very impressed when the title screens and loaders come up almost exactly as they did in the real EOB. I did not get sound but loaded the game as fast as I could........... UGGGGGGGG was I disapointed! the look was not there the feel was not there

Ya, I was real disappointed too, I thought the walltextures from the original would be there, but he just used the doors. I guess it is really hard to rip the wall textures and have them look good.

Then again, I still have my original eob 1-3 CD here, so I dont really need a DMjava version. Well, the automap feature would be nice I guess.

[WolfHeart]

Then again, I still have my original eob 1-3 CD here, so I dont really need a DMjava version. Well, the automap feature would be nice I guess

Well I have most of the PC originals and a good number of the ST originals, I gave all of the originals for the Amiga away with it when i sold it, because I really never thought I would see an emulator hehe. Sadly alot of the orginals that were on PC floppy won't load (PC 1.4 meg floppys just seem to be real unstable, always have.) In most cases I later bought the CD versions aka EOB 1,2, & 3. Some though I never got a CD version such as Dungeon Hack. I have since DLed DH CD version i think. I know DOS BOX and a few others out there do good at emulating hardware, but I still wish i could find DOS drivers for modern sound cards to make them look like SoundBlaster so I could build CD or even better DVD boot disks with MS DOS and games.

[Guest]

I know DOS BOX and a few others out there do good at emulating hardware, but I still wish i could find DOS drivers for modern sound cards to make them look like SoundBlaster so I could build CD or even better DVD boot disks with MS DOS and games.

I use VDMSound htp://ntvdm.cjb.net/

With it I get sound in my old games like eob 1-3, havent tried Dungeon hack yet (since it is not as much fun as EOB and BC).

[Relig]

Here is a screen shot of some of the work that I've done so far for the curious.

(I don't know how to paste images in this post so here's a link)

http://www.geocities.com/dmj4322003/DMJ ... -demo1.jpg

I've decieded to finish getting the walls, etc. setup first before going on to laying out the dungeon. This has taken me a bit longer than I thought it would take, but it's been worth it.

Cheers!
Relig

[Gambit37]

Link doesn't work.....

[Relig]

Oops!

Here use this http://www.geocities.com/dmj4322003/DMJ ... Files.html

the image is at the bottom of the page.

[Guest]

Are glyphs in the game?

[MadMunky]

On the Dungeon Maker forums Arthur was trying out Black Crypt in DM

http://www.imageshack.us/img1/7421/bc.JPG
http://www.imageshack.us/img1/7974/bc3.JPG
http://www.imageshack.us/img1/6190/bc4.JPG

Thread Here
http://www.dungeon-maker.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=83

[Arthur]

Lets not get ahead of ourselves here

I wanted to see how the BC graphics would look in Dmaker (and they look good btw, much better then the EOB-graphics), so I put together a few rooms, a door and a monster. I am currently not working on remaking all the BC levels.

Basicly, I want to get my skills with dmaker up a bit before I start a projekt, there is still several key things that I need to work out before I start one.

There will be a project though, as soon as I feel that I can handle the editor a bit better . I have not yet decided what that project will be.

If anyone on this forum havent tried out Dungeon-Maker, I highly recommend it, go download it at: http://www.dungeon-maker.com

[Relig]

Are glyphs in the game?

So far I haven't figured out how to add glyphs.

The way DM Java is setup, it's not all that easy to do.

[Gambit37]

Hi Relig, I've been looking at Black Crypt graphics too -- did you manage to get a back view of the 2 headed ogre -- it doesn't seem to have one as far as I can tell!

[Relig]

I wasn't able to get the monster to turn around. It's always facing towards me.

I guess if you can start getting it weak after hitting it with the special sword you might get it to run away. I haven't gotten that far yet to test that. So I don't know for sure if there is a back view of it or not.

[Arthur.]

Several monsters in BC have no pic where they are walking backwards. In some situations you can force them to walk towards, then back and some of them monsters show one of the "side-images" when they are going straight away from you (in a corridor).

I havent managed to get screens of the backs of the ogre, the red spider guys or the thieves (which has an entirely different problem too, since they teleport). The lich dragon block you in, so I only got frontal screens of that one.

Confirmed backs on the flying heads (grey and pink) and the floating eye. Some monsters dont need a back (the thing on the ceiling and the slime).

Ive only dinked around with this up to the purple lvl, so I have no clue about the higher lvl monsters.

[Arthur]

Several of these games use other images for some movement. Take Dran in dragonform in Eob2. He doesnt have a "move right" and "move left" pic, instead he has several frontal pics with his head in different positions. When the players sidesteps this creates the illusion that Dran also sidesteps, which he doesnt. This got me clicking as fast as I could when I played the game the first time, since I thought he would attack as fast as me

In Eob and Dhack they probobly did this because the dragons/giants would look extremely small if they had them in a sideshot.

You basicly dont need the back to use the monster. If you have a sidepic instead of a back the player will think that the monster is turning towards him very fast, when in fact, he is just as slow.

[Arthur]

Anyone thought of a good way to do the underwater monsters? The "water effect" will clutter the screenshots...

[FallenSeraphin]

I am not a programmer, but would it be possible to emulate the original Black Crypt textures and "feel" to RTC and CSBWin ? One of the games strong points originallywas the superb graphics engine

[cowsmanaut]

if you are talking about the overlay.. that is specific to CSB4Win anyways.. if you are talking about DMJava you can make a custom wall set that looks like it's underwater.

and I think that being gif images for the walls you may be able to make them animate.. so shifting light motes on the floor and walls will sell it further

just an idea

[FallenSeraphin]

if you are talking about DMJava you can make a custom wall set that looks like it's underwater.
and I think that being gif images for the walls you may be able to make them animate...

That won't look so good, will it ? is it possible that anywone here could try it and post some pics ?

[linflas]

*never played black crypt but interested by the idea*
do you have a screenshot of a black crypt water level ?