Dungeon Master Forum

Yep, I wish I could have one of those :O) Unfortunately I have bought a pc in the last 10 years and they seem to have these great big bloody gfx cards in em. Love CSB by the way.

Hello, DSE and wellcome back! It's very nice to know your Entombed is not dead as it is showing even more potential with the new videos!

Just a couple of questions and considerations before answering your GFX car question:
1)I've seen in your video both a Step-By-Step-90° turning movement and a fluid Quake-Like one. Will it be configurable or will the game have just one of these?
2)I don't dislike too much the fireball effect but it seems a bit 'Fairy Tale'. Maybe something that looks more Powerful and Flaming... but that's just my personal taste.
3)In which language is it written? Are you going to release the source code? I'm asking this just for the dream of having it playable on a Wii too... but never mind, that's just a dream of mine.

Now, answering your question: I'm going to run your demo on an ATI 3870, XPSp2, 2Gb of RAM, Athlon Dual Core 2.2 Ghz

Hey Erik, good to see you are still around here.

You computer will monster the demo when it comes out. I know what you mean by the fireball. I have already changed it but it might not be for the better :O) Its difficult to get a good looking fire in a 3d world due to it needing to be hidden by geometry and stuff. I have added a lens flare and halo around it so it looks better (that was fun, sounds easy but its a pig to get looking right).

I might call upon you and your machine as a closed beta tester if thats ok before the demo release. The spec requirements have gone up now due to the deferred lighting and so on and doubabling the draw distance.

Now, to answer your questions -

1 - it will be step-by-step only. The FPS was just to see if I could do it or not. It worked but it introduces a 10000000 new test cases that would need researching. I dont have the time to do it. It might be in the demo just for a laugh.
2 - answered above.
3 - vb.net. I dont plan on releasing the source code anytime soon. Also, the engine requirements are already beyond the spec of the wii. You could tone the effects down and run something on there, but you would have to rewrite it in C and use dev kit pro or something similar. It would be cool though.

Thanks.

2. i'm not a specialist but is there a way to change the sprite to some realistic animated explosion, keeping the halo and resizing the sprite to bigger when the fireball explodes ?

i tested the demo on vista and it seems to crash immediately. it was ok on XP btw.

Hey up Linflas, good to hear from you.

Yep, the OLD demo wont work on vista. The new demo will be vista compliant as thats what I am developing it on. Microsoft have changed a few things which broke my older version.

Yes, the fireball is just a flat screen aligned quad with a texture on it. So if some awesome 2d artist (hint) was to create a lovely fireball effect that is 2d/flat (no 3d'ness, if thats a word) then it would work. TGA files with alpha channel for blending is whats required by anyone reading :O)

DSE wrote:TGA files with alpha channel for blending is whats required

Hehe, most of the "artsy" types around here seem to prefer PNG, and if you try to force them to use Targa, they'll revolt.

DSB used to only support TGA files, too. I eventually caved into the pressure and added PNG support-- and was amused how easy Zlib/LibPNG actually make it. You should look into them.

LOL. I am using some png already, you have much better control over alpha blending (I am told) with tga files. Guys, you can use PNG if it makes you happy :O)

DSE wrote:you have much better control over alpha blending (I am told) with tga files

How? Why? This doesn't make sense to me.

Both the PNG and TGA file formats allow for 8 bits of alpha information for each pixel. Once this is loaded and sent to your video card, it, not the file format, governs the alpha blending. So, on this level, there is no difference.

Now, the PNG format is much more complex than the TGA format, and so I've heard many reports that some programs will mangle the alpha channel. Even software as prestigious as QuickTime tends to do this. So, if you're using one of these broken programs, I understand-- but it's not the format's fault.

sent you an explosion animated set I was working on earlier.. should work for the fireballs boom. I'll play with making a looping animation for a fireball or some sprites what will work together to get a good effect.

as for monsters. the exported mesh needs to be .x format?

Oh and also, PNG usually creates smaller files which is why it's nice, it also holds them in the layer in photoshop, where as you have to make a seperate alpha channel for TGA in order to have it save properly. That said, I've used TGA for years in 3D and it's been the case in several top end video games too like ID's quake 3, and 4. and Doom3. So it is a respected format.. just usually larger files.

TGA files tend to be bigger because the compression used is much simpler. This makes the files easy to load and save, which lazy programmers like me appreciate. The compression in PNG is much better, but also more complex. Bad news for lazy programmers! That said, Zlib and LibPNG do it all automatically. Good news for lazy programmers!

Thankyou Cows. Much appreciated.

Sophia,TBH I dont know why, its just what was passed on to me. I have used both and dont have a problem with either. I have noticed that photoshop allows you to add a seperate layer for the alpha for TGAs and save it out. I have used this to do glows and drop shadows and stuff and it works really well. Maybe this is what they are referring to. Also, you are right its not the format, but maybe the implentation in some leading art packages, I dont know.

One thing, I have noticed that occasionally when I load PNG files they are darker than the original. Not sure why and I have never bothered to find out.

It might be the Gamma chunk that's causing bright/darkness problems. Remove all extraneous chunks from your PNGs using something like TweakPNG or PNGcrush. I wrote a blog post about this for web development, but it holds true regardless of where you will eventually use the PNGs (wow, almost exactly one year ago!):

http://www.friskdesign.com/2008/03/19/o ... r-the-web/

I like how the guy who criticized you for "its" and "it's" managed to make two blatant gaffes in his one-line reply.

(Putting the period outside of the quotes, and "in and on itself")

Yeah, I know, but I let it slide No need to stoop to his level...

DSE wrote:Hey Erik, good to see you are still around here.

My love interest in Dungeon Master keeps me very attached to this Forum, even if I do not write a lot

You computer will monster the demo when it comes out. I know what you mean by the fireball. I have already changed it but it might not be for the better :O) Its difficult to get a good looking fire in a 3d world due to it needing to be hidden by geometry and stuff. I have added a lens flare and halo around it so it looks better (that was fun, sounds easy but its a pig to get looking right).

Sounds good! Another advice is to add some more red to the flame. What about working on the original one as basis for the fireball concept?

I might call upon you and your machine as a closed beta tester if thats ok before the demo release. The spec requirements have gone up now due to the deferred lighting and so on and doubabling the draw distance.

I'll be GLAD to do it!
As soon as the installer will be stable and secure I'll test it also on my job's laptop with Vista, Dual core Centrino and GeForce8600M GT.

Now, to answer your questions -

1 - it will be step-by-step only. The FPS was just to see if I could do it or not. It worked but it introduces a 10000000 new test cases that would need researching. I dont have the time to do it. It might be in the demo just for a laugh.

That's clear and appreciated. I've a suggestion then:
Monster movements in the video are very very cool (can't wait to see a Screamer or a Worm) but there is imho too much contrast between the fluidity of the monster's walk and the step-by-step movement of the party. Take it with a grain of salt, I do have to actually play it to give you a full judgement about it, but I'd try one of these things:
A) Make the party movement smoother by scrolling in the movement direction instead of 'teleporting' to the next cell of the dungeon. But be careful, because you can achieve a DMII like effect that is even worse (It was achieved with 2-3 frames and was pretty ugly) and you can make feel people dizzy if the 90° Turining effect is timed badly

B) Make the monster walking a bit less fluid, even if I do not know how to acheve it.

2 - answered above.
3 - vb.net. I dont plan on releasing the source code anytime soon. Also, the engine requirements are already beyond the spec of the wii. You could tone the effects down and run something on there, but you would have to rewrite it in C and use dev kit pro or something similar. It would be cool though.

Thanks.

Ok, no problem about that. It would be cool indeed but I do not have the time or even the skills to port it to Wii...

DSE wrote: Can I ask what GFX cards you guys are currently running ?

GeForce 8800GT

ati 4870 hd

wow, those two cards are right up there :O) Good going guys !!

New video with lens flares, smoke and an updated fireball. Looks a little better now. Still no explosion but I am working on it (looking at some pics from cows).

Hey, dse! could you put your webpage adress into your signature?
you update with new stuff fairly frequently, and would be easier for me to access this way..

Done :O)

or zoom may have clicked right next to the pm icon...

I didnt want to say

oh! Well, that´s something I did not see !! Thanks anyway
The fireball demo is cool. Not sure about the lens flare... where would it come from in a dungeon ? The eye lens? I tend to classify lens flare more scifi than fantasy; but again not sure really. waý Better than the first fireball demo

Another thing: please make the fireball left and right side aligned. That is, a fireball does not fly in the middle of a corridor but either left , right or, wickedly 2 fireballs on each side.
Same goes for monster movement.

you could make pits (traps) that are only on 1/2 of the square, thus, changeging party formation to
instead of the standard
(for very confined places, like small corridors. Could change formation automatically back and forth to fluid up movement in the dungeon.
Could lead to a more realistic dungeon layout, maybe

sent out the flames. they should add well to what you already have to give it a flaming halo. As long as they offset well it should look fine, I can always adjust it later if it needs it

ATI Radeon 9550.

Geforce G100
(thats a GeForce 9400 GS apparently)

Zoom, thanks for your comments. I know the fireballs dont fly up the center of the corridor in DM, but they do in mine (for the moment). The creatures in DM also moved to the center of the square if there was only one (well the amiga version did). The ettin creature I have is a single creature per square type. If I ever get worms (not the medical term) they will be 2 per square, and hobbits/dwarves/etc will be 4 per square. Hope this makes sense.