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Re: Desert complete revision conceptualization

Posted: 19 Apr 2008, 13:50
by Dave
Rotonen wrote:We have to address the outlining issues at some point.
What do you mean, like outlining consistency?

Re: Desert complete revision conceptualization

Posted: 19 Apr 2008, 13:53
by Len
I believe he is saying that Bitan needs a darker more pronounced outline
(making him standout more from the map)

back on topic
Image

a transition like this is just sad (my eyes)

Re: Desert complete revision conceptualization

Posted: 19 Apr 2008, 14:44
by Dave
I like the idea to enhance the tidal animation with particle effects. Depending on how extensive you want to get with the animation after the wave, the water could recede, leaving wet sand. Other transitions will be needed for places where water meets rocky areas, rather than a beach. I'm curious about how much of the water's animation we can practically push off on to the particle effects?

Re: Desert complete revision conceptualization

Posted: 20 Apr 2008, 13:53
by Crush
The particle engine is not really suitable for something like that. You would need far too many particles to calculate the whole coastline.

Re: Desert complete revision conceptualization

Posted: 20 Apr 2008, 13:59
by fate
Crush,

couldn't you use a small number of very large particles that match the shape of the coast line? Not quite as elegant, but it might look good enough if you overlay a few of them.

Re: Desert complete revision conceptualization

Posted: 20 Apr 2008, 14:30
by Crush
I don't know how exactly this is supposed to work. Maybe you should experiment a bit with the particle engine yourself to learn its possiblities and limitations. A good starting point is the wiki article: http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/Particle_engine

Re: Desert complete revision conceptualization

Posted: 20 Apr 2008, 18:13
by Dave
I assumed it would be an inappropriate task for particle effects, I just figured there'd be no harm in asking someone who knew for sure. I'm confident animated tiles will eventually fit the bill, it's just going to take some kicking around and unfortunately, probably quite a bit of trial and error. I'm going to poke at a few SNES and old PC games in a bit, to see what sort of comparable coastal animations I can find. I think I remember something halfway decent in Illusion of Gaia, but I have to roll through a mountain of savestates to confirm this.

Until anyone has a breakthrough on the water, maybe we should take a look at some of the other desert features.. who was it that wanted to draw some attention to the cliff graphics, Othello?

Re: Desert complete revision conceptualization

Posted: 20 Apr 2008, 18:48
by fate
Crush,
Crush wrote:I don't know how exactly this is supposed to work. Maybe you should experiment a bit with the particle engine yourself to learn its possiblities and limitations. A good starting point is the wiki article: http://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/Particle_engine
Thanks for the pointer! I experimented with it a little and set up a `wave emitter', using somewhat larger wave graphics-- unfortunately, the result looked nowhere near what Dave had in mind, largely because it is (as far as I can tell) impossible to have objects move back and forth, unless this coincides with gravity, and because it is not possible to first increase and then decrease the alpha value of an object.

So, without extending the client, I agree that this is probably not possible.

Are there any plans to extend the client to permit arbitrary scripts to dictate how particles behave? (To allow particles to rotate around monsters, spiral in a vortex, change their colour as the player approaches, be blown around by a gust of wind...?) That should permit such a beach effect (as well as many other effects, of course.)

(Really, using client-side scripting for all visual effects (well, not quite for pixel operations, but for the next higher level of abstraction) and UI actions sounds like a good idea in general... but I am getting off-topic here.)

Re: Desert complete revision conceptualization

Posted: 20 Apr 2008, 19:12
by Crush
We thought about scriptable particles but we came to the conclusion that it would be too slow. By the way, particles which spiral in a vortex or around a moving object are already possible.

Re: Desert complete revision conceptualization

Posted: 21 Apr 2008, 00:12
by yosuhara
Some inspiration maybe?
Image and tiled: ImageImageImage

tiles made by .TakaM from wayofthepixel.net

Re: Desert complete revision conceptualization

Posted: 21 Apr 2008, 00:37
by Dave
:shock: Maybe we should just contact the person who made that animation, to see if they'll make our coastal animation. :wink:

Needless to say, but I think it looks totally boss. We just need something inspired by that, preferably from 8 directions. No big deal, right? :roll: :mrgreen:

Re: Desert complete revision conceptualization

Posted: 21 Apr 2008, 04:09
by 5t3v3
Would it be possible to make an animation out of a few frames rather then with particles? I think it was suggested before btw.

Re: Desert complete revision conceptualization

Posted: 21 Apr 2008, 04:33
by Dave
Look at the example yosuhara just posted.

Re: Desert complete revision conceptualization

Posted: 21 Apr 2008, 09:36
by ElvenProgrammer
That's just a matter of animated tiles, we should really try to introduce those instead of forcing the particle engine to cover the holes of the graphics engine.

Re: Desert complete revision conceptualization

Posted: 21 Apr 2008, 09:53
by Othello
Elven, browsing the repository of Tiled I saw you commited some code. Do you have any idea how difficult would it be to enable animation in the new version of tiled? I've seen there is some support for it in the distribution version.