[Danukem]

Today I'm adding pop-up game tip windows:



I'm running out of things I can do on my own, though.

[KillerBudgie]

Kickass. An in-game tutorial!

[Sangman]

Good idea though I don't like the graphic that much.. and now, seeing the chest in that environment, it seems pretty inconsistent with the rest of the art. Look at the pixels on those walls and then look at the really sharp-looking chest..

[Spiker]

That's nice. Are you planning to have a separate tutorial level or do you want to indruduce these things during gameplay?

[Danukem]

Spiker, on Sep 5 2009, 12:36 PM, said:

That's nice. Are you planning to have a separate tutorial level or do you want to indruduce these things during gameplay?

The tutorial windows are coded to pop up the first time you encounter a new type of thing. A tutorial level would be a waste of time; WG has already made the maps so that new things are properly introduced.

[Danukem]

I made a blade of grass sprite and coded it to spawn randomly on grass textured floors when the map loads. It adds a few thousand sprites to each map that has grass. I had a few issues coding it, but it's still a lot easier than placing all those sprites in mapster. Plus I could use the same code to add different stuff.

[Hellbound]

Would that be a big framerate eradication to make that grass with a bigger density?

[Stabs]

cool shit, is it going to added to dukeplus?

[KillerBudgie]

He might do. It's his code, so he could do whatever he wants with it. Including what you said.

[Sangman]

Hellbound, on Sep 10 2009, 10:19 AM, said:

Would that be a big framerate eradication to make that grass with a bigger density?

Not necessarily, but it could make the game crash if too many sprites are spawned.

Though I do think it needs bigger density, perhaps you need to set it so it only spawns within a certain distance of the player? As far as I know the unspawned grass wouldn't exist in the gameworld until the player gets in range, but I'm not much of a CON artist.

[Danukem]

Hellbound, on Sep 10 2009, 01:19 AM, said:

Would that be a big framerate eradication to make that grass with a bigger density?

Not really, because the grass sprites do not run any code, and they are only 8-bit sprites, not models. However, there are two other problems to worry about. First, there is a limit to how many objects the renderer will draw at once. If the limit is reached, important sprites like monsters will start to blink or disappear (this actually happened in a test where I had the density much higher in a wide open map). I could prevent that by making the grass do something like ifpdistg 32768 cstat 32768, but then all the grass sprites have to run code, and when thousands of sprites run code it lowers fps, even if the code is simple. Also, I really HATE to see sprites popping in and out. The other worry is getting too close to the hard sprite limit of 16384. Right now I only allow up to 6000 grass sprites, and I wouldn't want to go much higher than that or there is a risk of hitting the limit, because of all the other sprites already in the maps and the sprites that get spawned during play. If the maps were smaller and the view distances not so large, I could increase the density a lot. But these are huge, epic WG maps.

[Jimmy]

I remember MBlackwell coded something like this very soon after Eduke32 was released. It's an interesting effect, and can make maps less bloated in the editor.

[Usurper]

Yeah, Mb's forest generator was cool. Would spawn "randomly" based on the floor tile. I say random because it would generate the same sprite placement as long as the level geometry stayed the same, if I remember correctly.

[Hellbound]

DeeperThought, on Sep 10 2009, 06:41 AM, said:

Not really, because the grass sprites do not run any code, and they are only 8-bit sprites, not models. However, there are two other problems to worry about. First, there is a limit to how many objects the renderer will draw at once. If the limit is reached, important sprites like monsters will start to blink or disappear (this actually happened in a test where I had the density much higher in a wide open map). I could prevent that by making the grass do something like ifpdistg 32768 cstat 32768, but then all the grass sprites have to run code, and when thousands of sprites run code it lowers fps, even if the code is simple. Also, I really HATE to see sprites popping in and out. The other worry is getting too close to the hard sprite limit of 16384. Right now I only allow up to 6000 grass sprites, and I wouldn't want to go much higher than that or there is a risk of hitting the limit, because of all the other sprites already in the maps and the sprites that get spawned during play. If the maps were smaller and the view distances not so large, I could increase the density a lot. But these are huge, epic WG maps.

Okay, anyway it still looks like next-gen of DN3d total conversions ;]

[Danukem]

Usurper, on Sep 10 2009, 11:08 PM, said:

Yeah, Mb's forest generator was cool. Would spawn "randomly" based on the floor tile. I say random because it would generate the same sprite placement as long as the level geometry stayed the same, if I remember correctly.

He probably coded it in the days before it was possible to reseed the random number generator. While I never saw his system in action, I do remember looking at the code for it a few years ago, and IIRC my system works in pretty much the same way.

It's fine for this TC that the grass sprites do not saturate the ground. The sprites give an impression of depth and make the grass look wild, and that's enough.

[Danukem]

Is there anyone out there who has or could produce a decent sprite for armor shards?

Right now I'm using this, which I believe was ripped from Quake II:



Unfortunately, it looks a lot like a cell phone.

[Mark]

Unfortunately, it looks a lot like a cell phone.


Maybe thats a good thing. We all know that cell phones can do almost anything these days.

[XThX2]

There are only the doom bonus armor sprites and a "spinning green strife guy helmet" I know of. If you might want to take a look, just ask.

[KillerBudgie]

It looks like a brick if you ask me...

[Geoffrey]

DeeperThought, on Sep 19 2009, 04:08 PM, said:

Unfortunately, it looks a lot like a cell phone.

It's a recognizable shape in-game that isn't too detailed to give the impression that it's some super power-up and not dull enough to get ignored. I don't see what's wrong with it. It works.

[Danukem]

Geoffrey, on Sep 20 2009, 10:37 AM, said:

It's a recognizable shape in-game that isn't too detailed to give the impression that it's some super power-up and not dull enough to get ignored. I don't see what's wrong with it. It works.

After seeing them in game, the only thing that bothers me about them is they look too much like red potions when viewed from a distance (they are about the same size and I've got them bobbing up and down like the potions). Replacing the red surface with grey metal should fix that, but then it loses the nice chipped paint look.

[Jimmy]

I don't like the angle either, it looks weird.

What about this sprite from HeXen?

[Stabs]

could use a slight aura glow to it, i could add one but this is all 8-bit and no transparent stuff right?

[Danukem]

DanM, on Sep 20 2009, 02:23 PM, said:

could use a slight aura glow to it, i could add one but this is all 8-bit and no transparent stuff right?

Right. It's impossible to make part of a sprite solid while another part of it is transparent. But it is possible to make the glow outline into a separate sprite and then make the glow transparent using cstat. However, I don't think that armor shards should glow like that.

Anyway, the Hexen sprite C.A. posted looks like a fancy pot with an ankh on it, I would rather go with the Quake one for now. Thanks for trying, though.

[KillerBudgie]

And I was just about to say "What about using the spiritual armor pickup from DOOM? Wouldn't that be better?"

[William Gee]

This sprite would add just 1 armour, so it needs to be something minor and small.

[TerminX]

Hmm, maybe you could make some different armor shards out of various scrap metal sprites or something. Then, the player could do contact damage to enemies depending on the amount of armor the player had (since it would all be made out of pieces of sharp scrap metal).

[eddym4814]

There are a lot of armor sprites HERE.

I don't know if they would be of any use to you or not.

[Danukem]

eddym4814, on Sep 21 2009, 06:15 PM, said:

There are a lot of armor sprites HERE.

I don't know if they would be of any use to you or not.

Thanks for making me aware of VideoGameSprites.net. I'll start looking there in the future.

[Tea Monster]

What do you think of this?

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