Spherical forums

Creations => Game Development => Topic started by: williammah on March 12, 2013, 03:11:09 am

Title: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: williammah on March 12, 2013, 03:11:09 am
History was made in this post :P

Screenshots from a side scroller detective rpg that me and my friend have been working on. Opinions?

(edit - now the official screenshot thread +Neo)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on March 12, 2013, 09:03:30 pm
Pretty cool; I like the pixelated look of the rooms!

Since this is now the official screenshot thread, I'll add a few o' mine. They show off my new UI system for Sphere games. Also, these screenshots were not taken by pressing F11, but with the in-game variant... 'Insert' (which I guess could be reprogrammed to whatever the coders wants it to be). Right now, it';s for some reason the only way to get screenshots from sphere v1.6
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on March 13, 2013, 05:47:29 am

History was made in this post :P

Screenshots from a side scroller detective rpg that me and my friend have been working on. Opinions?

(edit - now the official screenshot thread +Neo)

Looks freakin' sweet. Any special reason you decided to use Sphere's internal map engine?
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: williammah on March 13, 2013, 08:42:34 am
For some reason I feel most comfortable with the internal engine.

Why, is there anything major that I'm missing out?  ???
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on March 13, 2013, 11:01:58 am
Not really, but considering how your maps are freeform instead of tile-based, making something custom to fit that format seems what most people prefer instead.

Not telling you to use one or the other, was just curious about it. :)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: williammah on March 13, 2013, 11:17:09 am
I did consider using an image editor to make the maps, which would be good news for furniture placement, but the problem is transparency   :-[  , which I don't think I can reproduce without the Editor. Having the sprite walking through the different levels of black transparency gives a really nice 'shadow' effect.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: N E O on March 13, 2013, 04:51:03 pm
The main advantage of using the built-in map engine over making one of your own is the built-in collision detection when using a Sphere format sprite. If I wasn't so adamant about trying to leverage the built-in offerings of Sphere as much as possible, Artyxx (a shmup) would've been all custom. It still needs work, but at least I didn't have to spend hours writing and testing pixel-perfect collision detection myself (yet; I'll probably have to do it for a web version :/ ).

@Angry_Pirate - great color scheme, very ambient atmosphere! That plus "side-scrolling detective RPG" reminds me a bit of Maniac Mansion...

@Radnen - were you intending on "leaking" Hold the Line 2? ;)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on March 13, 2013, 05:03:03 pm

The main advantage of using the built-in map engine over making one of your own is the built-in collision detection when using a Sphere format sprite. If I wasn't so adamant about trying to leverage the built-in offerings of Sphere as much as possible, Artyxx (a shmup) would've been all custom. It still needs work, but at least I didn't have to spend hours writing and testing pixel-perfect collision detection myself (yet; I'll probably have to do it for a web version :/ ).


The map engine can do a lot of the heavy lifting. I tried to make my own isometric map engine in Sphere, but found out that the code, not the rendering was bottlenecking the performance. Really, two for loops that compute tile positions and draw tiles slowed it way down. If I added a call that culled the tiles off screen, the fps took a further hit. The JS was doing it!  :o

I was only able to get back to normal fps by pre-rendering the map onto a gigantic image, and then blitting that image to screen. But then the overall memory use skyrocketed!


@Radnen - were you intending on "leaking" Hold the Line 2? ;)


Huh... What? How'd that get in there? ;)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Flying Jester on March 14, 2013, 01:35:07 pm
Hurray! Hold the Line 2! I really like the first game, I'm excited!
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on March 15, 2013, 02:22:22 pm
I'm going to now show you guys the greatest feature about my new radlib library and statemanager (with UI controls).

It is a log of debug messages. Add checks throughout your code to find troublesome parts and they will be here. You can log general messages (white) successful events (green), warnings (yellow) or straight-up errors (red). When you double-click a message you get a complete, and accurate call stack. This will show you (for each call)  the file and line of code of the call chain. This, for me, was crucially important to fix all kinds of errors. This is what Sphere needed all along, and if you develop using my library, you get this in a clean and easy to use GUI. And since the errors are logged, you no longer need to view them 1 at a time.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on March 15, 2013, 07:39:09 pm
Excuse the language, but fuck that's nice. I need to try RadLib for any potential future Sphere projects.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on March 15, 2013, 08:13:01 pm

Excuse the language, but fuck that's nice. I need to try RadLib for any potential future Sphere projects.


I might actually put it on github, and throw up a documentation as well. I'm liking where I'm going with this library right now. Soon, you'll be seeing more of it (now that we have forum!)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: alpha123 on March 20, 2013, 03:54:10 pm

When you double-click a message you get a complete, and accurate call stack. This will show you (for each call)  the file and line of code of the call chain.

Do you mind if I use this idea for Arq? (My RPG framework.) It has a console quite a bit like yours, but lacking the awesome stack traces.
Brilliant. This is using the throw trick from the old forums, right?
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on March 20, 2013, 05:02:35 pm

This is using the throw trick from the old forums, right?


Yes, it is. But some care went into dissecting the stack trace (it's stored as a single string... can you believe it!?) and the line numbers were off by 1, at least for the Sphere versions I use. You can see how at the source on line 204 here (https://github.com/Radnen/radlib/blob/master/scripts/radlib/debug.js#L204).

(edited URL to jump to line number ~neo)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: N E O on March 22, 2013, 10:23:25 am
@Radnen - you can bookmark line numbers on GitHub by adding #Lx to the URL, where x is the line number without zero-padding.

Also, that stack trace is WAY better than the stack trace method I used to use (same technique, but not nearly as in-depth; I think I was the second one to use it, and I probably copied Tung's or kamatsu's work or something).
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Flying Jester on March 24, 2013, 08:30:19 pm
I've missed the screenshot thread.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on March 24, 2013, 08:32:10 pm
yes, yes, YES! Joystick support is nice to have.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Flying Jester on March 24, 2013, 08:36:01 pm
And it's better than Sphere's was, too. It can handle more axes, more buttons, the 'hat' or D-pad is properly detected as being such, and there's a definite possibility of haptic support. .
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on March 26, 2013, 05:46:36 pm
I appreciate all the work and can test any future force feedback capability with a PS2 controller, if you wish. :)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Flying Jester on March 26, 2013, 07:04:39 pm
That would be amazing! The joystick test game is included in the 0.2.2 binaries, too.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: williammah on March 28, 2013, 05:16:09 am
So the player walks up to various furniture in the crime scenes, and a box will pop up and tell them what it is. Neat huh?
Yes I'm using the default font. I mean, who makes their own?
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Flying Jester on March 28, 2013, 05:50:37 am
I like that. The style vaguely reminds me of a game I made a while ago (http://rpgmaker.net/games/4519/). But much easier on the eyes. And more detailed. And you probably already have a better control scheme than I did. Keep it up!

Is that the default font? I used the default font for my shot at the top of the page, and it looks like you're using a much nicer one.

Well, you can always replace it later if you don't like it!
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on March 28, 2013, 05:52:07 am

I mean, who makes their own?


Well, I made my own custom font for blockman. However, there is an option to import Windows fonts to Sphere fonts in the file menu of the editor. Also, my Sphere editor can do such an import for you as well.

Nice screenshot though! Loving the art style.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: williammah on March 28, 2013, 09:42:05 am
Oh, it wasn't the default one. It's arial.rfn that I got from the system folder in Sphere.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Flying Jester on April 17, 2013, 03:57:32 am
Finally, finally, FINALLY. I made smooth, working platforming collision detection.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: N E O on April 17, 2013, 01:26:00 pm

Finally, finally, FINALLY. I made smooth, working platforming collision detection.


Is that with or without the default map engine?
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Flying Jester on April 18, 2013, 01:18:29 am
It's all Majestic all the way.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on April 22, 2013, 01:17:13 am
Nothing special, just showing off my textboxes and menu strips for Spectacles.  I've been trying for a minimalist design for Specs; really helps the atmosphere in my eyes, a more graphical approach would be out of place with Specs having as much emphasis on its story as it does.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on May 01, 2013, 11:54:17 pm
Showing off the (currently console-based) Spectacles battle engine. A proper battle screen is on the way, but almost all battle mechanics are implemented, which you can see here. Additionally, something you can't really tell by the screenshot, but I designed the Specs engine to be very flexible; it's easy to change battle formulas, add new move effects and stats, etc. without messing with the engine code at all.  Since I'm making the saga into a trilogy, having such a flexible engine is invaluable! ;)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Eggbertx on May 07, 2013, 02:34:31 pm

It's all Majestic all the way.

So Majestic has built-in tools for designing a platformer now? Considering my platformer is still having collision issues, I might mess with that, finally.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Flying Jester on May 07, 2013, 10:01:41 pm
Built-in? No. A script I wrote that works with it? Yes.

The main reason I used the Majestic was because I don't see why I would use the default map engine when most all of its features wouldn't be used here, and the Majestic has a very open interface for this kind of thing.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: williammah on May 08, 2013, 06:18:31 am
Thanks to Radnen for the help!
Now our hero has illuminating goggles to help seek evidence in the crime scene. Makes you wonder why can't he just turn on the lights lol.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Metallix on May 08, 2013, 09:54:00 am
Wow... it really has an atmosphere  :)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: williammah on May 08, 2013, 11:06:12 am

Wow... it really has an atmosphere  :)


I've seen that word being used many times, but I'm not sure what it really means, other than its literary meaning ( the ozone layer and so on ).
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on May 08, 2013, 12:54:30 pm

I've seen that word being used many times, but I'm not sure what it really means, other than its literary meaning ( the ozone layer and so on ).


For games, it's like the environment. The general feeling of the spaces: dark and moody, bright and happy, whimsical, realistic vs cartoon, etc. I think your game has a warm and mysterious atmosphere, due to warm colors (orange tints) and dark shadows.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Metallix on May 08, 2013, 05:19:23 pm
Umm yeah ^^ I meant definitely something positive with that :)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Flying Jester on May 08, 2013, 06:06:20 pm
Yes, the feels. Your game looks like it will evoke feelings from its locations. A definite positive point! To me it looks brooding and mysterious, uneasily welcoming.

Keep up the excellent work!
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on May 08, 2013, 06:23:32 pm

Yes, the feels.


Yes. All the feels. ALL OF THEM.

...

Okay, yeah, that was terrible.  Given my screen name though, it seemed obligatory. :o)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on May 11, 2013, 05:04:13 am
And so, I exchange one project for another...
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: N E O on May 11, 2013, 01:01:54 pm

And so, I exchange one project for another...


A wild Blockman appears!
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on May 14, 2013, 02:08:31 pm
Spectacles is finally starting to look like a game... ;D
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: williammah on May 17, 2013, 06:14:11 am
That Name-Health bar looks really nice! :D

Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: williammah on May 17, 2013, 06:17:24 am
Side Project: A Nordic-themed RPG

Is the forest layout good enough? And yes, it's the default map editor.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Metallix on May 17, 2013, 08:40:40 am
It's an interesting art style... I am curious what technique you used to draw those trees.
But the contrast is a bit too strong in my opinion. The dark parts are almost black, which is a pain for the eyes especially at the grass pattern.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on May 17, 2013, 03:18:17 pm
The distinction between the walkable grass area and the trees is also not defined enough, I think.

By the way, I haven't been commenting here much, but... So many Sphere projects all of a sudden! It all looks great. :)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on May 17, 2013, 03:28:38 pm
@Angry_Pirate: I think the trees are great, but for the grass I would change the hue. Push the grass more towards the yellow-green hue and I think it'll stand out a bit more.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Flying Jester on May 17, 2013, 08:13:32 pm
The layout in the top shot looks a tad repetitive. But I really like the style.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: williammah on May 17, 2013, 09:06:25 pm

The layout in the top shot looks a tad repetitive. But I really like the style.


Yeah but well the player won't be able to see all of the trees at a go, at most maybe 2 layers of trees.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on May 18, 2013, 01:11:09 am
Showing off my shiny new attack menu. ;D
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: williammah on May 18, 2013, 02:36:44 pm

Showing off my shiny new attack menu. ;D


Nice! I like the multiple colours. Just a question, are the hp for the NPCs and characters going to be insanely high like in Final Fantasy?

Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: williammah on May 18, 2013, 02:38:30 pm
I changed the blacks of the grass and trees to a very dark shade of green to even out the contrast as suggested, looks great :)

A wild Viking appears! As well as a Scandinavian turf house. ps if the house looks a bit small, that's because the houses are partially underground to preserve heat. Pretty cool huh? The Vikings were awesome.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on May 18, 2013, 03:03:28 pm


Showing off my shiny new attack menu. ;D


Nice! I like the multiple colours. Just a question, are the hp for the NPCs and characters going to be insanely high like in Final Fantasy?


I don't think so, wouldn't really work with the story aesthetic I'm going for with Specs. Maximum HP for characters is 999, bosses can have up to 10000.  That's a super-boss though, my final bosses average about 3000-5000 HP.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on May 18, 2013, 04:58:21 pm

I changed the blacks of the grass and trees to a very dark shade of green to even out the contrast as suggested, looks great :)

A wild Viking appears! As well as a Scandinavian turf house. ps if the house looks a bit small, that's because the houses are partially underground to preserve heat. Pretty cool huh? The Vikings were awesome.

Nice and interesting! But there's no shading on the turf house roof... Shouldn't one side be darker than the other, considering lighting direction?
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: williammah on May 19, 2013, 03:30:30 am


I changed the blacks of the grass and trees to a very dark shade of green to even out the contrast as suggested, looks great :)

A wild Viking appears! As well as a Scandinavian turf house. ps if the house looks a bit small, that's because the houses are partially underground to preserve heat. Pretty cool huh? The Vikings were awesome.

Nice and interesting! But there's no shading on the turf house roof... Shouldn't one side be darker than the other, considering lighting direction?


As requested :P

Gosh I hope I'm not spamming.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on May 19, 2013, 01:39:39 pm
It's not spamming if your post contributes something. ;)

Now it seems like the shadow is pointing in a different direction from the tree, though I'm not sure what a shadow is supposed to look like when it's sloped like that, in the first place... What I do know is that that left slope side is probably a bit too low to have such a big shadow, and it probably wouldn't cast over the viking character.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on May 21, 2013, 01:51:50 am
Here's another Spectacles screenshot showing off my nearly-completed HUD.  The only thing it's missing now is the CTB turn preview! :) (that's what the black bar at the top left is for)

You can't really tell from the screenshot, but the MP display is pretty neat.  As MP is used, the circle inside shrinks (yeah, that's a circle inside the box, you just can't tell here because the gauge is full).  Of course right now it's perpetually full because I haven't implemented attacks using MP yet.  And the reason there's only one MP gauge?  MP is shared amongst all party members (including benched ones).
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on May 21, 2013, 04:22:39 am

And the reason there's only one MP gauge?  MP is shared amongst all party members (including benched ones).


Now that's what I call a real mana pool. (A public pool) haha.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Harry Bo21 on May 21, 2013, 09:00:55 am
Just a thought,

You dont want people just carrying 100x mp restorative objects and using one every 10 turns or so.

Maybe to mix it up a bit you should regain a little mp per character per turn?

Then its not game over on a hard fight if you cant restore mp, you would just have to be more tactical

For example on guy could use ultima, or he could use fire, that way the other character would be able to use cure without restoring MP

just a thought. (kinda like last remnants AP)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on May 24, 2013, 02:30:01 am
@Harry: I've actually already considered that possibility (carrying a bunch of restoratives) and already have a system in place to deal with it: Each battler can only carry a small number of items at a time and every item has a certain number of times you can use it (e.g. 5x for regular Tonics, 1x for Alcohol which fully heals you but makes you drunk), so once those are gone, you have to wait till the fight is over to buy more.

And yes, MP will recover automatically over time. I may not even implement any MP-curing items, actually, but that's up in the air at this point.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on May 26, 2013, 11:36:00 am
New HP gauges for party members!  The dynamic-size reserve pips are a feature of kh2Bar 1.7, which I haven't released yet.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: williammah on May 26, 2013, 12:30:23 pm
I like the colours a lot! It's like the Windows 8 GUI.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on May 27, 2013, 01:06:12 am
Yeah, I experimented with a more monochromatic "accent color" system for a little while (so I could match the color of the HUD to the environment; I jokingly dubbed it the "AmbiLight battle system" :) ), but ultimately I liked the more colorful version better.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on May 29, 2013, 02:17:34 am
Target selection in the Spectacles battle engine: The full name of the targeted battler is shown, along with their active status effect(s) and HP/MP.  I may eventually have it show the full compliment of stats (VIT, STR, DEF, etc.) as well.  Seeing enemy info other than name and statuses will require use of Scan, like in FF.  Otherwise, you just get the Boss's lifebar and that's it. :-)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on June 03, 2013, 12:30:42 am
Not counting the replacement of graphics placeholders with actual graphics, this is most likely what the final Spectacles battle screen is going to look like, or very close at least:
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: williammah on June 24, 2013, 01:24:05 pm
Ok, so here I have a top-down map. The problem with doing top down maps ( at least for me ) is that there is virtually no way to distinguish a 3-storey building from a single storey one. Hence, I used the Blur filter and added some extra shadows to the larger building below to give the impression of height. You know, when objects are near the camera, it blurs a bit...

So my question is, does it give the impression of height?

http://sphotos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/999317_10200818317132323_56114670_n.jpg

had to use this link method thing cos the pic was too big to attached. it says there .jpg cos this is uploaded to Facebook.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Vakinox on June 24, 2013, 01:44:09 pm

(http://sphotos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/999317_10200818317132323_56114670_n.jpg)


Use [img] tags when you can, for future reference.
And might I suggest another web-host? www.imgur.com
Tailored specifically for images, without clutter and includes tags in links so you can copy it without having to edit.

. . .

Using shadows definitely give the illusion of height, but the blurring doesn't much but become a nuisance really.
Question: Is everything in the screenshot created from Pixelart, or are you using 3d renders and placing them on the map?
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: williammah on June 24, 2013, 01:47:03 pm
Wow. I have been enlightened lol. Thanks, Vakinox :D
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on June 24, 2013, 01:47:38 pm
@Angry_Pirate:
It's very hard to make height in a topdown game. One of the common limitations is to juts not show height. It's like not having doors on the north or east/est facing sides in 3/4 games (yeah some do, but it takes some imagination).

The only other option for you is to slightly mimic perspective by showing some of the south wall, this won't make it a true topdown, but at least you can detect height to a degree.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: williammah on June 24, 2013, 01:52:26 pm
Hmm I'll try that... and yea, I switched to top-down cos of the 3/4 view restrictions...seemed waaay too weird for me.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Vakinox on June 24, 2013, 02:04:56 pm
(http://i.imgur.com/izbd2Pu.png) (http://i.imgur.com/7KMGYml.png)

Question: Which do you all like more?
Without Black, or With Black
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on June 24, 2013, 03:02:30 pm

Hmm I'll try that... and yea, I switched to top-down cos of the 3/4 view restrictions...seemed waaay too weird for me.


There more restrictions on top-down! If you wanted less I'd go with the Ultima 7 styled 135 degree oblique view.

@Vakinox: I've tried to do GB colors before and found that black makes it look far more closer to the original styled used by games of the era. So, I'd go with black, it contrasts far better.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on June 24, 2013, 03:07:36 pm
That's a really tough one... Both look great, and the black one looks more defined, but the non-black one is easier on the eyes and more faithful to an original GB look. I'd say go without black.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on June 24, 2013, 03:50:12 pm
Actually I had to take a double-look at GB graphics and I think a shade of black between the two would work perfectly. It's not going to be pitch black, but not too washed out either.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on June 24, 2013, 03:51:00 pm

Actually I had to take a double-look at GB graphics and I think a shade of black between the two would work perfectly. It's not going to be pitch black, but not too washed out either.

Oh, that could really work. Best of both worlds. :)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Vakinox on June 24, 2013, 04:22:43 pm

I think a shade of black between the two would work perfectly.
It's not going to be pitch black, but not too washed out either.


You mean add another color?
Or change the shade of brown to a darker color, to have more contrast?

Problem being I can't add another color, because of Gameboy's color restrictions (4 colors).
Alpha counts as a color, taking up the last space.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on June 24, 2013, 04:29:07 pm
No, don't add another color. Change the black so it's between the two, of course! You showed a lighter version and a darker version, how about one that sits in the middle. No need to add another color, just change that dark tone.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Vakinox on June 24, 2013, 05:16:07 pm
How dis look [first one] compared to the others?

(http://i.imgur.com/1jZ9HAt.png) (http://i.imgur.com/YUO3Ld9.png) (http://i.imgur.com/7KMGYml.png)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on June 24, 2013, 05:29:32 pm
Much, much better. :)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on June 24, 2013, 06:40:58 pm
Yeah, I think it looks great, too. :)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on June 24, 2013, 07:37:53 pm
Nice, GB-style graphics :D  I always liked the feel of the B&W Gameboy games, gave them a neat atmosphere unmatched by any other system.  I always felt that the DX remake of Link's Awakening hurt the game for that very reason.  Don't get me wrong, it was an awesome conversion, probably one of the best B&W-to-color conversions out there... but the monochrome GB graphics lent the game a dreamlike atmosphere that was totally destroyed in the conversion.  For anyone who knows the plot twist in that game, losing that atmosphere is a big deal.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: williammah on June 24, 2013, 07:41:34 pm


(http://sphotos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/999317_10200818317132323_56114670_n.jpg)


Use [img] tags when you can, for future reference.
And might I suggest another web-host? www.imgur.com
Tailored specifically for images, without clutter and includes tags in links so you can copy it without having to edit.

. . .

Using shadows definitely give the illusion of height, but the blurring doesn't much but become a nuisance really.
Question: Is everything in the screenshot created from Pixelart, or are you using 3d renders and placing them on the map?



It's textures I found on the Net and converted to tiles on the Sphere Editor.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on June 25, 2013, 03:07:42 am
The new and improved trade menu. When you sell an item it goes into the other persons inventory (shop or not), and they get to use the item. I want to try and experiment with trading and put items in all NPC's pockets. Thanks to persist this is now possible. :)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: williammah on June 25, 2013, 06:13:39 am
Well that's one happy trader :D 
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on June 25, 2013, 01:02:20 pm

Well that's one happy trader :D


Well, that's the player sprite, they switch in and out depending on if you are buying or selling. Since it's selling, it's the player.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Vakinox on June 25, 2013, 01:16:37 pm
@Rad: That'll definitely come in handy. Can't wait to see more.
Don't think I can recommend anything, looks great. Have you experienced any problems with persist map related though (crashing when switching)?

In the mean time, been doing some trips to Pixeljoint for some help.
They educated me on the limits of the graphic restrictions, saying 3 + alpha applies to the sprite
But 4 colors apply to the tiles, according to their words.
And I think the update is a little over my head:

(http://i.imgur.com/KThWxJ4.png)

Trying to ground it, make it work, but I think this might be a little too complicated for me.
Should I go back to the basic graphics, or carry on with these new ones?
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Defiant on June 25, 2013, 02:23:25 pm
@Vakinox
The new graphics look great!
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on June 25, 2013, 02:50:07 pm
Vakinox: The new graphics look great, but seem a bit messy. Tighten up the lines and I think you'll have a wonderful style for a GB game. :) Also, no I haven't had crashes with persist when switching maps; it's not likely a persist issue as it is a mapping related issue, make sure all tile references are accounted for.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on June 25, 2013, 04:14:09 pm
It depends entirely on if you want to go for an unique, sketchy look and challenge yourself with the pixel art like that, or that you want to keep going with the very classic "feels like Gameboy Final Fantasy" style.

I think both could work, but the style on the right makes it feel more like your own game. You can really challenge yourself to improve pretty quickly in a short period of time there too, I think.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on June 26, 2013, 10:04:20 pm
Redid the interior walls of bunker-caves. Still a WIP.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: williammah on June 27, 2013, 09:32:56 am
Looks fantastic man. But how are the rooms linked together?
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on June 27, 2013, 02:23:34 pm

Looks fantastic man. But how are the rooms linked together?


Those are overhead roof pieces.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: williammah on July 06, 2013, 12:22:56 pm
A combat system that I put up in 2 days. Uses simplified rules from Dungeons & Dragons, which means your attacks will probably miss half the time due the Armor Class system ( that's the second number beside the characters ). Will add more skills for the heroes and consumables before releasing it as a demo.

Inspired by Wasteland, pictures are from Google. Cheers.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on July 06, 2013, 12:26:51 pm
Nice use of colours and whitespace so far. Hope the GUI will clarify what the numbers are a lot in the future. I'm also interested in seeing how this game will play in the end! What's the game look like outside of battles?
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: williammah on July 06, 2013, 12:31:26 pm
Outside of combat it's top down. I posted a picture of it on this thread. And thanks for the feedback :D
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on July 06, 2013, 01:58:46 pm

Outside of combat it's top down. I posted a picture of it on this thread.

Right... Should've looked. :P
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on July 09, 2013, 08:18:43 pm
Working on a game launcher using node-webkit (https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit). It's coming along well so far.

The game names are loaded from a Sphere games directory. Yeah, I'm very structured in (re)naming game projects. :P
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: N E O on July 09, 2013, 08:39:25 pm
Non-Arial font please, kthxbai!
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on July 09, 2013, 09:52:22 pm

Non-Arial font please, kthxbai!

Don't be crackin' on Arial. :P
But changed to regular old sans-serif for now. I'm thinking of using the fonts from the site, instead.

Added what shows up when you click on a game title.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Flying Jester on July 10, 2013, 05:04:52 am
Is that...a preview of the game? How did you do that using Node?
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on July 10, 2013, 05:18:32 am
That actually looks like a screen from Genesis Project, :P I think DaVince is just using a random screenshot there.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on July 10, 2013, 06:12:21 am
Yeah, it's just a random pic that fit the screenshot area perfectly. Would have been neat to have the game running in there, wouldn't it? :P
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Vakinox on July 10, 2013, 11:53:23 am

Is that...a preview of the game? How did you do that using Node?


Deh-La-Vince, master of illusions
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: N E O on July 10, 2013, 12:56:36 pm
@DaVince & Radnen - does either Sphere Studio or this upcoming launcher support a custom per project icon? I vaguely remember this being a thing being considered in a pre-1.0 version of Studio.


@DaVince re fonts - since the forums max attachment size is too small, use the following links for MgOpen Modata and League Gothic:

Modata (http://www.spheredev.org/res/doc/mgopen-modata.7z)
League (http://www.spheredev.org/res/doc/league-gothic.7z)


fake edit: Idea! Anyone here with a PSP like myself can tell you that when going to pick a game to play in PSP's launcher (the XMB) a small video loops. Can we get the ability to view a preview video (presumably in a vein similar to the per project icon image I mentioned above) in that screenshot box if one exists? Obviously do the normal <video> tag fallback method of WEBM->OGV->MP4->image in that spot if so and it'd be up to the project's dev to create the video.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on July 10, 2013, 12:59:26 pm

@DaVince & Radnen - does either Sphere Studio or this upcoming launcher support a custom per project icon? I vaguely remember this being a thing being considered in a pre-1.0 version of Studio.


Yes, most image format types and icon types, it must be titled "icon.*" or end with "*.ico".
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Vakinox on July 10, 2013, 01:04:04 pm

Obviously do the normal <video> tag fallback method of WEBM->OGV->MP4->image in that spot if so and it'd be up to the project's dev to create the video.


How would we create the video?
Anybody know of any free screencapture programs that record video?
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: N E O on July 10, 2013, 02:01:00 pm
Free video capture programs include CamStudio (http://camstudio.org/), HyperCam (http://www.hyperionics.com/hc/), and .kkapture (https://github.com/rygorous/kkapture) (alternate URL (http://www.farb-rausch.de/~fg/kkapture/)), among others. TechSmith, maker of the commercial Camtasia, also has a free app Jing (http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html) for capturing as well but is limited to 5 mins at a time (not a problem for the preview video).

Use FFmpeg to convert to the chosen formats if needed. Free cross-platform video editors apparently include Avidemux (http://avidemux.sourceforge.net/), Jahshaka/CineFX (http://www.jahshaka.com/), the not-yet-stable VLMC (http://www.vlmc.org/), and the Linux-specific OpenShot (http://www.openshot.org/) is expected to go cross-platform by the end of 2013 after a successful Kickstarter. Linux-specific include LiVES (http://lives.sourceforge.net/), Kdenlive (http://www.kdenlive.org/), and Cinelerra (http://www.heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php) ("community version" (http://cinelerra.org/)). Nothing specifically Mac is available for free. This list on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_editing_software) has more.

I'd use FFmpeg for splitting and joining if nothing else is available. Once OpenShot is finally cross-platform, that will likely be the one I recommend from then on.

(edit - added LiVES)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on July 10, 2013, 02:20:42 pm
Thanks for the fonts, Neo!

Regarding icons, I looked into this when I was trying to make a new startup game. One of the earlier startup games (1.0) could do it. The icon file had to be a 32x32 PNG file, and there was a special .dat file next to the game.sgm that contained info on which file exactly it was.
I was thinking having something like an icon.png inside the project root folder could be a reliable way to find the game icon.
Also, a screenshot.png in the game's project root in a similar fashion.

Regarding video: interesting idea! Node-webkit supports WebM by default, so no cross-converting would be necessary (well, that is, as long as other projects that decide to use the video also keep using WebM).
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on July 10, 2013, 03:54:54 pm
Things are coming along nicely! That screenshot and icon are detected and taken from the game directory. Same for video. If it doesn't find either, it'll just show some "no screenshot available" text.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on July 10, 2013, 03:57:18 pm
Does it take from one path or many? My Sphere Studio has a feature that takes a list of paths and finds all games in that list. That way I can enumerate from different sphere versions and other special development folders (like github etc).
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on July 10, 2013, 04:18:48 pm
It currently searches one path (and a fixed one at that!) for games specifically. From the start I'm keeping multiple paths in mind, though. I want the user to be able to just define a whole bunch of games paths. It has something to do with how I organize all the games I've collected over time (in categorized folders, without any engine or editor files nearby).

I don't search for Sphere itself at all yet, but yeah, there should be a way to link those paths together. Like define a valid path that contains Sphere and extract its games. And have a default engine location for all those Sphere games that aren't in a games directory...
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on July 10, 2013, 04:47:30 pm
Here's some progress on the sphere-sfml, I got windowstyle loading, and the FPS is really nice! SphereGL has this at 1600, while the screenshot in sphere-sfml is at 8400.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on July 10, 2013, 04:52:52 pm
Nice progress! You got that working pretty quickly. :)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Vakinox on July 10, 2013, 05:20:44 pm
Awesome work. Good to see hard work paying off.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on July 10, 2013, 07:53:59 pm
game.sgm loads, and so do the first few lines of info.txt!
Also, video works (if a video.webm is found in the game dir).
Oh, and the path is displayed.

Now for the rest of the info.txt I'll need to start using a Markdown library. That'll come later.

...I've been posting a lot of screens here. Maybe I should just make a new thread?
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on July 10, 2013, 08:10:15 pm
Font loading! :) As you can see, font displaying takes a hit. I just wanted to implement it quick and dirty. The next step is to put all letters in one texture atlas and then blit portions of that single texture to screen. This will reduce the number of memory calls on the gpu and speed things up considerably. It's hard to put them in one atlas since each letter is saved separately. I'll have to add to the atlas as each letter is loaded.

I think I have the pieces to start loading graphics only games; games that don't use the map engine. :)

I'll try the KH2Bar by Bruce.

Edit: and Bruce's KH2Bar demo works! :D
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Vakinox on July 11, 2013, 01:04:38 am
@DV: Prefer the font you had previously over the one that's there now. Fitted better.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on July 11, 2013, 03:09:21 am
Alright, got a packed texture atlas going for the fonts. The speedup is significant but not exactly where I want it. At least the FPS went from under 2600 to just over 4900! :D In SphereGL this test is only at 1300, so it's really quite the improvement. :)

Bruces KH2 game is very slow though, at under 700 fps. In SphereGL however it is at 3500 fps but it doesn't even render the bar!  ??? The bar disappears at over 30 fps? Weird? Also in my version the colors are off slightly despite having the exact same RGBA values. I think it has to do with the BlendColors function? Nope - it was just that it was drawing the lines off by 1. Weird, I fixed my drawing problem and now the same issue that's in Sphere is in my game. I'm happy and disappointed. Oh well, :)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Flying Jester on July 11, 2013, 05:49:57 am
Jeez, makes me want to see how TurboSphere handles kh2bar...

That off by 1 error is one of the classic complaints against SphereGL, too. That's a weird kind of consistency.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on July 11, 2013, 05:55:55 am
Well, GradientRectangles seem to be the thing slowing down the KH2 demo. I have a plan though... It involves creating a static gradient texture, preferably the size of the screen and then scaling it to the places I want it blitted... It might just do well enough or completely fail. The bad thing is the worst case secnario is that each frame the colors change: such as a gradient background fading from one color to the next. I don't know what else... I might have to create a custom GLSL shader for fast gradients.

Well, at least I'm happy that windowstyles don't have an off by one issue, even on 2x scaling. However, lines are not scaling. In OpenGL, lines are not pixels per-se they are entities. I'll need to find a good way of drawing pixel-sized lines.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on July 11, 2013, 11:17:31 am
Hey Radnen, that's a nice font, any chance I could get a copy of that?
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on July 11, 2013, 02:55:52 pm

Hey Radnen, that's a nice font, any chance I could get a copy of that?


Umm, not really. It's my handmade font from Blockman. I want it to be unique to that game before others get to use it. I was just using it to test font drawing with.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Flying Jester on July 13, 2013, 05:02:43 am

Well, GradientRectangles seem to be the thing slowing down the KH2 demo. I have a plan though... It involves creating a static gradient texture, preferably the size of the screen and then scaling it to the places I want it blitted... It might just do well enough or completely fail. The bad thing is the worst case secnario is that each frame the colors change: such as a gradient background fading from one color to the next. I don't know what else... I might have to create a custom GLSL shader for fast gradients.

I have no idea how you are doing it, but in ye-olde software-rendering TurboSphere I was doing pretty well with just doing a pixel-by-pixel, line-by-line gradient rectangle. Just vertical gradient lines, each one having the top and bottom colors of the top and bottom colors respectively blended with weighting.

Also...in OpenGL I am now just using array drawing and four unsigned byte colors. Of course, the array drawing technique (which I use exclusively, unfortunately) is very fast approaching (if not already) deprecated OpenGL. But it is very, very fast. I'm 100% sure there is a way to do this using buffer objects and GL, no custom shaders just for it (and still very fast). But I really need to learn to properly use buffers before I could show how it would be done!


Well, at least I'm happy that windowstyles don't have an off by one issue, even on 2x scaling. However, lines are not scaling. In OpenGL, lines are not pixels per-se they are entities. I'll need to find a good way of drawing pixel-sized lines.


I hear you, I've got the same problem. It really bothers me that the end points of lines simply cannot be specified as pixels proper, and so all my lines go to pixel corners (this causes off-by-one problems in very certain circumstances in TurboSphere, but only with lines that aren't straight). But what really grinds my gears, and this is my only complaint against OpenGL, is how line drawing affects scaling.

You can set the GL Line Size. But it changes the width, which is not precisely what I expect from 2x scaling, I want each 'pixel' as the engine sees it to be a 2x2 pixel block, and draw the same with that in mind as it would without scaling.

My best solution so far is to just use Bresenham's algorithm (with an assumed half resolution), double the point size, and blit a series of points...but even then, things like triangles, circles (any poly, really), transform or rotate blits, and textures still aren't properly drawn as if the whole resolution is just half what it actually is. Honestly I think that a shader is the best solution to this, I've come to the conclusion that there's nothing built directly into OpenGL that does this properly (and fast enough!)

I did try doing all drawing on a framebuffer and drawing that to the screen at double res, but that is one: slower than I expected (by far) and two: still not perfect.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on July 13, 2013, 05:25:13 am
How the hell does Sphere do it?
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: N E O on July 13, 2013, 01:01:48 pm

How the hell does Sphere do it?


GradientRectangle? Check source/common/primitives.(hpp|cpp)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on July 13, 2013, 05:02:39 pm
I don't even understand what's going on in primitives.hpp, but from the logic it seems to do what Jest mentioned, drawing an interpolated color line by line (from source to destination). But it seems to draw it on a surface, then that surface to the screen? How can that be any fast?

Anyways to not go completely off-topic, here's a demonstration of all of the text functions. WordWrapString was not too hard to figure out, by looking at the source. In fact I had a different implementation but it wasn't exactly the same (it stripped whitespace on words that begun a new line like what most word processors do). But to be exact, it needs to behave the exact same way or I could in some weird way break a game entirely by wrapping the text wrong.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Flying Jester on July 13, 2013, 09:40:03 pm
But it seems to draw it on a surface, then that surface to the screen? How can that be any fast?


It's better to make a lot of small accesses to software memory than to hardware memory, and I'm guessing Sphere was written back when SDL 1 could actually get hardware surfaces--that was possible back in the day!

Plus, in SDL you really do need to do that to get alpha blending, the SDL blit operations (which are in fact hand written assembly routines that use vector instructions) are very fast for alpha blending. And accesses to surface pixels are just as fast as access to any system memory.

It's fast enough, that's how I did it back in the software rendering plugin for TurboSphere (and those were my reasons, perhaps Sphere was written that way for different reasons).
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Xenso on July 18, 2013, 09:59:19 am
Thanks to forum support, I was able to create a Necromancy Bullets script!
You can catch the souls of your enemies and use them as your slaves, mwahaha  ::)

I'm not sure I understand what you where talking about with alpha blending but there is a slight blur on the bullets when they are shot, whatever it is I'm NOT fixing it. What artists call a happy mistake.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Xenso on July 29, 2013, 08:10:21 am
Ripped tiles from FFII and Faria make everything look more official lol.
I was testing out my textbox window skin and main character sprite. I'm satisfied enough with how it turned out (^_^)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: williammah on July 31, 2013, 06:41:52 am
@Xenso Looks awesome!very retro :D

My textbox window and main sprite is done too.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Xenso on July 31, 2013, 07:00:53 am
nice text box too, your game looks cyberpunk!  8)
I envy your choice selection. I'm learning how to do that, any links/tips?
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: N E O on July 31, 2013, 04:30:49 pm

I envy your choice selection. I'm learning how to do that, any links/tips?


Most old choicebox scripts basically run a highly-customized menu script. Fundamentally, it's really just a specialized menu.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on August 03, 2013, 07:20:22 am
It would be nice if you could adapt the window height to the amount of text that's there. There's some space being wasted on the screen right now! ;)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Rukiri on August 05, 2013, 12:07:28 pm

It would be nice if you could adapt the window height to the amount of text that's there. There's some space being wasted on the screen right now! ;)

I used to just do  screenheight and screenwidth and just minus the pixels until it looked right.
yea gotta agree that is once HUGE textbox...
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Legaia on August 07, 2013, 05:25:30 pm
Hey guys, here's a couple screenshots of an old project that I decided to begin working on again. I started it originally for a game competition but never did get the chance to complete it. It'll be a different story than what it was gonna be originally but the good news is that a lot of the systems are working so it shouldn't take me long to get something up and going. Graphics are placeholders for the most part :) Just gives you an idea of the menu screen and early battle system.

(http://i.imgur.com/MQ76FZy.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/jdTYDIh.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/m9mhCDq.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/68GQLeR.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/hWQniZE.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/KNmuoZn.png)

Enjoy!
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on August 07, 2013, 09:36:07 pm
Are my eyes failing or is that Sphere 1.7 being used? Also I remember this! We were going to do this as a compo game, but then you had to stop. I'd say this is a great start and I'd love to see where this project goes.

But please don't make it about a goat. :P
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on August 08, 2013, 07:29:55 am
I misread Brian as Erian at first because of Erica. Erian and Erica. :P But these look nice! A bit too much saturated blue, maybe... The battle system's perspective kind of reminds me of Lufia 1.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Xenso on August 08, 2013, 02:27:22 pm
*droool* (*_*) is this a Lunar Star fan game? I'm exited!
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: casiotone on September 03, 2013, 03:20:57 pm
Decided to add some debugging tools to the engine I've been working on to help with UI objects.

You can toggle the debug mode to draw borders around every element that has been added to the screen, and click any of them to make it 'this' in the console. Then you can inspect its state or change it.

(http://i.imgur.com/3kfP0Wy.png)

(http://i.imgur.com/ZpRtURw.png)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: N E O on September 03, 2013, 03:38:24 pm
@casiotone - Is that an extension of Standard or is it something else entirely?
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: casiotone on September 04, 2013, 01:42:36 pm

@casiotone - Is that an extension of Standard or is it something else entirely?

It's new, something I've been writing in CoffeeScript.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: N E O on September 04, 2013, 05:23:05 pm
Reminds me of something; thanks for saying "CoffeeScript" :)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Defiant on November 04, 2013, 05:47:27 pm
(http://tequiladen.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/screenshot-2013-10-30-18-37-51-0031.png)

Just something I've been messing around with.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: williammah on November 05, 2013, 05:57:19 am
Wow! how did you do the hex grid?
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on November 05, 2013, 01:02:50 pm

Wow! how did you do the hex grid?


I'm sure it's as easy as making any other kind of grid, but using hexagon images instead. ;)

Defiant: what's it of? A turn based strategy card game?
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Defiant on November 05, 2013, 05:35:05 pm
@Radnen
Its from Settlers of Catan. Ever since Asobrain closed registration to their knockoff (Xplorers), Me and some friends love the game and wanted a means to play where we don't have to join up and be in the same room, thus this is born.

@Angry_Pirate
Just by doing offsets really, once you have the tiles and their dimensions, it isn't overly difficult. the left column is down, the right column in up. A little tinkering and it is fairly simple.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on November 05, 2013, 05:54:46 pm
That looks cool! You might want to work on the design and contrast, though, as the picture is extremely busy (tiring to the eye).

I'm also interested in seeing the continued development of this. I played the PC version of Settlers of Catan and liked it, so... :) Would be nice to see what your own spin on it will be.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Defiant on November 05, 2013, 08:01:22 pm
@DaVince
There's a lot missing still. The map is absurdly huge for testing purposes. A lot of things aren't outlined and the graphics are not complete and lots of finicky-ing are yet to be done.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on December 01, 2013, 03:59:43 am
Super Secret Message:

01000001001000000100010001110010011000010110011101101111011011100010000001010001011101010110010101110011011101000010000001110011011101000111100101101100011001010110010000100000011001110110000101101101011001010010111000100000010010000110111101101100011010010110010001100001011110010010000000110010001100000011000100110011001011100010000001000011011010000110010101100101011100100111001100101110
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on December 01, 2013, 12:07:14 pm
Neato. Smooth and colourful graphics - I like a lot. Though the floor path looks a bit too much like loose rocks rather than a proper path...

You mentioned 01000100011100100110000101100111011011110110111000100000010100010111010101100101011100110111010000100000011100110111010001111001011011000110010101100100, but what does that mean for the length of this game? "Really short" almost seems a waste for the graphics...
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on December 01, 2013, 02:50:37 pm
It's going to be fairly lengthy, I never did say how long it'll be. I guess you'll found out come Christmas. :)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on December 07, 2013, 01:37:12 am
Updated graphics!! :)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Flying Jester on January 14, 2014, 09:18:03 pm
Seems I just can't give up the idea that I can reinvent and improve SimCity.

All the stats are calculated with the help of Link, and the map is drawn using the Majestic.
In a cool twist of fate, the partial redrawing of the Majestic maps is calculated using Link. Back when I did partial redrawing in Attack, there was a half-second delay to the redraw. When I did it in my old SimCity demo, there was still a bit of a delay. This time, it can be done while maintaining 30 FPS.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on January 14, 2014, 10:04:10 pm
... Because of... link!? Or because this was ran in your newer engine? Really cool, and I think it's awesome you are using link. :) (are you using v0.2.2?)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Flying Jester on January 14, 2014, 10:08:48 pm
It runs in TurboSphere, but I'm running it in 1.6 (native on Linux!). GetFileList() has some weird bugs in Linux-TurboSphere (I really don't like the unistd or stat C APIs), so I can't make a nice debug mode that works in TurboSphere yet.

Using Link, though, is definitely faster than how I did it before in the "SC" demo. And a lot easier and more scalable, to be sure.

I haven't tested my old demos on my current laptop  (that might make a difference in performance), but I think that some form of resource sorting and selecting is necessary for this kind of game.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Flying Jester on January 20, 2014, 05:56:19 am
Running at a smooth(ish) 60 FPS, even in Wine.
Just imagine how cool it will be when there are more than one variant for commercial and industrial buildings!
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on January 20, 2014, 06:45:11 am
Nice! Reminds me of a software engineering class I took at PSU. We had to make a SimCity game as part of a team of two. We were not allowed to use Sphere, though. :P (We had to use a "Software Engineering" language like C# or Java, which makes sense since their IDE's have form-developers and unit testers, etc.)

Looking good!
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Flying Jester on January 21, 2014, 12:16:11 am
I can see why. Bad practice and poor planning really stacks up quickly when making this kind of game. I could never have succeeded first try, a prototype is absolutely necessary!

I don't really like how SimCity 2000 used system forms for the interface (that's what I'm taking inspiration from, along with LinCity and some of the Tycoon games). Then again, I only had the Sega Saturn version until a few years ago, so I am definitely biased there.

Now with zoning and building growth! I'm not really sure how this worked behind the scenes in any of the SimCity games, so I just thought up how it works here. If the zoned land could be grown in population, goods supply, or used jobs (were it already a building), it has that out of the possible capacity of the finished building it becomes to change into a construction tile. Next time that construction tile is passed over, it has a chance (number of passes/3) to become the building. The process of construction can be sped up if the one job the construction space offers is used.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on February 02, 2014, 07:49:48 pm
I'm remaking my space game in Sphere-SFML, leveraging some of it's new features. I introduced a JS particle system and pixel-perfect collision, which both work in vanilla Sphere, but 4 to 5 times faster in SSFML. The nebula in the background is being 'wrap-blited', which is a feature not available in vanilla Sphere. The player ship is made of custom parts, so you can build your own ship.

The game is not 640x480 but 1280x720, but the resolution is changeable in-game, as are many graphics options. I'm thinking about making the options config a game, too, so users can make their own SSFML config 'games' like we have startup games.

Shit 128kb is barely enough for a highly reduced screenshot. Jeez. I had to really shrink the game resolution and optimize the image color palette just to get it to fit. :/ Now you can't see earth and several other details anymore.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on February 02, 2014, 08:17:47 pm
Use JPEG for high-colour images, then. It's not so bad and the file size is fairly small at around 75-80% quality. :)

Love the dry humour in that screenshot.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on February 14, 2015, 03:19:08 am
Edit:
I just realized I had discussed this here like a year ago. Wow, time flies. Did my brain just reference this from this time last year? Did my brain tell me that Feb. last year is when I worked on it and I should come back to it? Weird!!

Here is an updated screenshot from my space game (http://rpgmaker.net/games/2731/). I'm remaking it in Sphere SFML with better graphics, better physics, much better ship AI, and gameplay. I've learned a lot in game making and so I hope to make a neat little demo out of this.

I've also been primarily using it to benchmark SSFML and I'm happy to say it can't run well in Sphere 1.5, but runs with ample speed in SSFML. Plus it has a few screen effects that are impossible/impractical in Sphere 1.5 (such as wrap-around nebulas and clouds).

I will release it on both Sphere versions, but the 1.5 version will have reduced effects and things. For TurboSphere I will make a port of it, seeing what I can do with it's graphics API.

(Image: 1280x720, but the game is fully resolution independent)
(http://radnen.tengudev.com/images/starfront5.png)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on February 14, 2015, 07:34:21 am
That looks and sounds really freakin' sweet! :)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on February 14, 2015, 12:29:07 pm
I'd be curious to know how well it will run on minisphere, seeing as Allegro 5 is hardware-accelerated.  Of course that requires a full implementation of the Sphere API.  I'm not quite there yet.

Do you use the Sphere default map engine?
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on February 14, 2015, 01:38:04 pm

Do you use the Sphere default map engine?


No, everything is drawn in it's own game loop.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on February 14, 2015, 01:40:03 pm
Oh good, because that thing is complex as hell so I'm saving it till last.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Flying Jester on February 14, 2015, 04:57:54 pm

Oh good, because that thing is complex as hell so I'm saving it till last.


There's always a script-based map engine you could borrow from...
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: sirmattei on August 05, 2015, 12:34:16 am
Sup guys, this is the lastest screen shot of a game i attempted making during college. I didn't do too much with the game (especially graphically). I'll be posting similar pictures in another thread because I know you guys don't like too much posting of the same project in the screenshot thread. (i have earlier pics of my project)

Its called Maze of the Minotaur.

(btw, the reason why the intro screen looks small is bcuz I didnt have the time to resize and place the animated background as well as the menu. Also bcuz programming wasn't a priority for me in college  :P )
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Radnen on August 05, 2015, 02:27:10 am
Game looks bad, but in the Ultima way, so it could be nice. Look how well it turned out for Lord British!!

Anyways, if you have a good story and deep gameplay sometimes that all what matters. Some great games had crappy code, so focus on getting it to work before you make it better. The last part always comes with time.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: sirmattei on August 05, 2015, 09:17:17 am
yeah, like I said, I never had alot time to work with it, I'll be the first to admit it could look better. I got the idea from an eps of Batman the Animated series (the one introducing the riddler) and also from playing KingsQuest 6. Its supposed be less battle system, more answer riddles and solve puzzles.

When I was in college, I didn't have access to all the helpful threads sphere had, so I just used what i got (saved some tutorials) and tried to relearn sphere on my own.

Hopefully I'll have some time set aside to add to the game. Btw, thx for the advice, I'll keep that in mind.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on August 05, 2015, 10:09:37 am
By the way if you're planning on making a serious game I definitely have to recommend minisphere, and not just because I made it. ;)  You'll have a lot more useful features to work with, plus a more intuitive/modern API ('new Image' instead of LoadImage, sound.volume instead of sound.get/setVolume(), etc.).  And of course the upcoming Sphere Studio debugger will only work with minisphere.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: sirmattei on August 05, 2015, 10:28:11 am
So, would I have to adjust my code if I put it in minisphere? or would it work like it is? I'm a little unclear on the subject.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on August 05, 2015, 12:48:43 pm
Barring a few edge cases wrt function parameter typing, it should run as-is in minisphere.  I put a lot of effort into ensuring near-full backwards compatibility with Sphere 1.5, probably way more than I should have. :P
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Beaker on November 21, 2016, 11:55:27 pm
(https://rpgmaker.net/media/content/users/94/locker/screenshot_end.png)

All scenes done, but the battle engine has to be updated to make it more compelling, as well as a lot of polishing here and there.  Still, good progress.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on November 22, 2016, 01:17:56 pm
Whoa.

Whoa.

The Rainis Manuscript? After all this time? Holy shit.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Nikoomba on December 30, 2016, 03:31:42 pm
Certainly never expected to hear about the Rainis Manuscript again!
Nice to see.. ah good times
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Rhuan on December 30, 2016, 05:39:42 pm
Beaker: wow the Rainis Manuscript that game had reached near legendary status back when i first used Sphere in around 2005...
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Eggbertx on December 31, 2016, 06:51:17 pm
It's definitely got a ways to go, but I'm working on a Chip's Challenge engine in Sphere.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on December 31, 2016, 07:49:36 pm
That's awesome, I played the hell out of Chip's Challenge back in the day, but sadly Windows 3.1 programs don't run on modern 64-bit Windows, so it'd be awesome to have a Sphere version.

I see you're using minisphere too ;)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Eggbertx on December 31, 2016, 09:30:45 pm
Same here! I was originally working on it in Sphere 1.5, but minisphere's struct module makes reading the CHIPS.DAT files waaay easier.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Ma3vis on March 08, 2017, 07:27:06 pm

(http://i.imgur.com/xVqXl7n.png) (http://i.imgur.com/s3Qlo2n.gif)


Made some progress and new updates, posting to appropriate thread
Have most of the basics down (tile-movement, stats, etc.) -- just needs to be simplified and finished

Still have a few issues however regarding select objects
01. the Windmill
02. the Big Shaded Tree
03. the Walkway
04. House Door
05. Small White Tree
06. the Brick Wall
07. Mossy Swamp Tree
08. the Log Fencing

Could use edits, advice and critiques on such
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on March 09, 2017, 07:28:01 am
Whoa, that's really well done, considering the two color and low res limitations. Nice work. :D
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: scojin on March 09, 2017, 06:10:34 pm
Props Ma3vis!
The only thing that catches my eye is the brick wall, but that was really only because you mentioned it.
It all looks really good!
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Eggbertx on March 09, 2017, 07:55:46 pm
I'm digging the monochromatic style! I look forward to seeing where it goes, what is it called?
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Beaker on March 31, 2017, 12:48:46 am
A lot of the new battle engine is done, so I started working on some tutorials and redoing some of the intro graphics.  Decided to practice imitating an early 90's vga style.

(https://rpgmaker.net/media/content/users/94/locker/rains_bg1b.png)

Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on March 31, 2017, 02:46:20 pm
I went "woah..." the second the image loaded. Impressive work. :)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Beaker on April 02, 2017, 09:00:58 pm

I went "woah..." the second the image loaded. Impressive work. :)


When I started making the images for the first battle tutorial, I noticed that they had a bit of a msdos style to them.  I started on some bigger images and it seems the key takeaways to the style is realistic proportions and colors, grit, and extra use of grays and browns... at least for the style I'm interested in. 

The style seems easier to do, but also takes way longer than more modern styles it seems.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Ma3vis on September 18, 2017, 04:52:45 am

Made more progress
(https://i.imgur.com/xcdON5u.png)

Adding a Colossus since most of it is Ico/Shadows of Colossus inspired
01. water, 02. windmill, 03. big tree, 04. swamp tree need to be better
Problems with the wall still -- needs cleaning, hard to read
And the coliseum requires completion

@Eggbert: haven't named it yet, was making this game for you guys, so was hoping one of you could name it
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Chad Zechs on September 18, 2017, 09:03:26 am
@Ma3vis those sprites are very descriptive, considering they're monochrome. I like it! :D
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on September 19, 2017, 10:47:39 am
That is really good artwork, considering the crazy constraints (16x16 monochrome). I like. :smiley:
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Chad Zechs on September 19, 2017, 11:36:05 am
That is really good artwork, considering the crazy constraints (16x16 monochrome). I like. :smiley:

Is this what they always told me in school, don't copy word for word, just change a few things up? haha
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on September 19, 2017, 12:45:05 pm
Oh shit, I did say the same thing half a year ago! How about that. :laughing:
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Chad Zechs on September 19, 2017, 05:38:51 pm
I was referring to what I said, which is a similar statement to what you said lol
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: East on September 25, 2017, 04:01:13 pm
Can I post a video?
I'm gonna post a video.
Using a screenshot.

Click here:
(https://i.imgur.com/Y3N8Ez6.png) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIn_Df4hdTM)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIn_Df4hdTM
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Rhuan on September 25, 2017, 05:15:10 pm
Can I post a video?
I'm gonna post a video.
Using a screenshot.
Wow, this is some good work.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on September 25, 2017, 06:59:45 pm
Did you use SSj or SSj Blue to help you develop that?  Because that would be incredibly appropriate.  :P
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Eggbertx on September 25, 2017, 10:31:10 pm
That looks great! I didn't play much of Legend of Goku 1 or 2 but I immediately thought of those when I saw that screenshot.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: East on September 26, 2017, 02:24:31 am
Did you use SSj or SSj Blue to help you develop that?  Because that would be incredibly appropriate.  :P

The funny thing is, I probably don't even know how to use those to their full potential! I'm like an RPG Maker creator who stumbled upon Sphere by mistake. My code for this project is one big mess at this moment but somehow I manage to make things work. :P

Quote
That looks great! I didn't play much of Legend of Goku 1 or 2 but I immediately thought of those when I saw that screenshot

It's supposed to be sort of a remake/homage to the first one. I'm using a lot of sprite animations from there now, but I was recently joined by a really talented pixel artist (https://rpgmaker.net/users/George_LN/) who is gonna help me replace most of them with original art.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on September 26, 2017, 02:35:07 am
The funny thing is, I probably don't even know how to use those to their full potential! I'm like an RPG Maker creator who stumbled upon Sphere by mistake. My code for this project is one big mess at this moment but somehow I manage to make things work. :P

Just goes to show how accessible JavaScript is.  Which says a lot, given how arcane curly-brace languages tend to look to the uninitiated.

Had Chad Austin picked any other language than JavaScript to drive the engine, I fear Sphere would have fell off the map a long time ago along with all the other failed RPG creation tools/engines.  Instead it managed to hang on just long enough for someone (me) to get fed up with all the bugs and rewrite the damn thing from the ground up. :P
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Rukiri on September 27, 2017, 12:24:23 pm
Can I post a video?
I'm gonna post a video.
Using a screenshot.
Planning to have the dragon radar on the bottom? 
Kinda like the old hud better personally :(
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: East on September 27, 2017, 02:45:03 pm
I wasn't sure about it at first, but it kinda grew on me pretty quickly! I want to find some use for it other than just a decor.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Rhuan on September 27, 2017, 04:06:06 pm
Did you use SSj or SSj Blue to help you develop that?  Because that would be incredibly appropriate.  :P

The funny thing is, I probably don't even know how to use those to their full potential! I'm like an RPG Maker creator who stumbled upon Sphere by mistake. My code for this project is one big mess at this moment but somehow I manage to make things work. :P
I'd love to help you re-code it if you're interested?

But not until my map engine is done - so not for at least a few weeks.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Beaker on January 30, 2018, 11:06:45 pm
(https://rpgmaker.net/media/content/users/94/locker/screen8b.png)

Currently at chapter 4 in the graphical and story rewrite.  Still lots to do...
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on January 31, 2018, 10:12:01 am
This is turning out to be excellent and aesthetically pleasing - yet also retro in a way. I'm a fan of the shading.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: SilicateWielder on May 12, 2018, 10:20:07 pm
So it's been awhile. I had to kill off the 3d rendering engine as it turned into more of a beast than I could handle. Though it's not actually dead but in my vault of projects *click*

In other news I am continuing along with the original project but because I do want real time lighting/shadows I am writing my own framework for world and asset management. I'd say it's already about 25% done. Some art assets are in the works too but mainly exist as brainstorming material/concept art

In the meantime. Here's an early test of map loading. the map loaded here 50x300 tiles in size.

(https://s31.postimg.cc/ktgfc8xrf/Screencap_2018_04_18_at_20_42_32.png)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on May 12, 2018, 10:32:01 pm
Quote
SSj Blue

It makes me happy to see this banner :)

Kind of off-topic, I notice it says "60 fps" instead of "60/60 fps", which means you have Sphere.frameRate set to infinity or else are using the Sphere v1 API without calling SetFrameRate (presumably you're FPS-locked by your graphics driver hence why it stays at 60).  I don't recommend doing this as it will max out a CPU core and kill battery life on laptops.  If you set a specific framerate the engine will be more friendly to the CPU and background programs :P
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Eggbertx on May 14, 2018, 01:49:38 am
It isn't very far yet, but for Shape practice, I decided to work on a small side project: a clone of the original arcade Asteroids. Luckily, I was able to find a font that mimics the original. Rather than using sprites, with the exception of the font, I'm going to use vector graphics like the original as much as possible.

(https://i.imgur.com/M4vd1kg.png)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on May 14, 2018, 02:53:36 am
It'll be neat to see something using vector graphics, I think.  You didn't see much of that with Sphere v1 because the API just wasn't designed for it.  The v2 Shape class is a perfect fit for that, though. :D
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Eggbertx on May 14, 2018, 03:26:14 pm
Yeah, I noticed that and that was the idea.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Eggbertx on July 16, 2018, 07:05:27 pm
(https://i.imgur.com/ABLw2SL.png)
I've been working on my old shoot 'em up project for the last couple days, and I'm kind of surprised how well replacing the old sprites and tiles with ones rendered in Blender has been going.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on July 18, 2018, 06:57:10 am
Hey, using 3D modeling software for pre-rendered graphics isn't something I've seen a lot of in Sphere! I'm thinking that by using Blender you can do some interesting animation - like having the tiles slowly change their perspective relative to the ship (by cycling through different animation frames) as you zoom past them. :)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Eggbertx on July 19, 2018, 09:52:02 am
I actually got the idea from an old site called Java on the Brain (http://javaonthebrain.com/), which has a bunch of Java applet games. My original goal was to rewrite them in miniSphere since applets no longer work in most, if not all modern browsers. They still work in Netscape 7.2 (which still installs in Windows 10, oddly enough) but nothing on the internet lasts forever.
"Unnamed "SMUP" is based on Warp/Warp 1.5 from JotB. I got the idea for doing the graphics in Blender from Warp 1.5's History page, which mentions doing the graphics in POV-Ray. I've never used it, but I am plenty familiar with Blender. I say "My original goal" because for copyright reasons I may end up using the same gameplay but with my own graphics and sound. I'll still probably end up distributing them as a package with their own game menu.

I still find this excerpt from the Wap 1.5 page kind of funny. "MIDI music in particular tends to hog a lot of processor capacity."
As usual, technology marches on.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on July 19, 2018, 10:22:24 am
I still find this excerpt from the Wap 1.5 page kind of funny. "MIDI music in particular tends to hog a lot of processor capacity."
As usual, technology marches on.

Yeah, back in the day playing MIDIs, especially on Windows, was surprisingly processor-intensive.  I could never figure it out myself, apparently the Roland soundfont included with Windows was hard to decode or something.  It was bad enough that MIDI playback would actually stutter--badly--when the processor was taxed.  Then again, that was in the days of Pentiums and PIIs for which even mp3 decoding was a chore.

I still remember trying to coax Winamp into playing mp3's on a 486/66... it was an uphill battle, but I did ultimately get it to work--by forcing the mp3 plugin to decode at 8-bit quarter-resolution (i.e. 11kHz).  It murdered the sound quality, but at least I got to listen to my music! :stuck_out_tongue:
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Eggbertx on July 19, 2018, 11:06:23 am
That's weird, I don't remember having much trouble with it, and I remember using computers as far back as Windows 3.1.
Granted, I didn't listen to a lot of music on the computer until around Windows Me *shudder*.
I mostly stuck to CD players for dedicated music.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on July 19, 2018, 03:40:58 pm
@Eggbertx: I imagine the sound cards on your old computers just supported MIDI natively up to the point where your computer was modern enough that software-based MIDI just wasn't an issue anymore. There was that sweet spot right in-between where computers were weak and some systems still needed to rely on that crappy software-based MIDI implementation from Microsoft that's common on all systems now, though.

@Fat Cerberus: That's kind of strange, I thought Microsoft specifically converted the sound bank to DLS format so that it was lighter on resources. (The original patch set was actually just a binary ROM on Roland chips for synthesizers, I believe.) Hell, Microsoft's Wavetable synth doesn't even support neat and interesting things about MIDI like chorus and reverb effects. I guess it was just expensive no matter what at the time.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Eggbertx on July 19, 2018, 03:56:10 pm
Yeah, I was thinking that might be the case. They weren't exactly cheap pieces of junk, but they definitely weren't super high end either.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Eggbertx on July 19, 2018, 04:11:38 pm
On an unrelated note (but still relevant to the thread in general), as if I didn't have too many pipe dream projects already, I'm sure some of you guys are probably fans Homestar Runner so I'm sure you'll be able to appreciate this.
This technically isn't really a screenshot since I made it in GIMP as a mockup, but it eventually will be a miniSphere game launcher. Assuming it actually gets anywhere. Ideally it would select a random computer (Tandy, exploded Tandy, Compy, Corpy, shotgunned Compy, Lappy, Compe, Lappier) and instead of email titles, it would show game titles.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on July 19, 2018, 04:25:38 pm
That's awesome.  Yeah, Homestar Runner was the best thing about the 00s internet.  Shame the creators moved onto bigger and better things around 2009 and just kind of left the site to rot.  Pretty soon Flash will be totally obsolete and the cartoons won't even be watchable anymore. :(

I'm kind of surprised they never ran ads on that site.  Guess they made enough money from merchandise to keep it running without them.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on July 19, 2018, 04:32:23 pm
@DaVince I think it didn't help that for a long time all my computers had just enough RAM to run the operating system on them.  4MB for Win95, 16MB for Win98, 64MB for XP, 512MB for Vista... so even light multitasking would cause a ton of HDD thrashing and hit the system even harder than usual.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Eggbertx on July 19, 2018, 05:58:06 pm
Yeah, Homestar Runner was the best thing about the 00s internet.  Shame the creators moved onto bigger and better things around 2009 and just kind of left the site to rot. 
That's unfortunately inevitable, but at least they still occasionally update it.

Pretty soon Flash will be totally obsolete and the cartoons won't even be watchable anymore. :(
That's pretty much the reason why I wanted to recreate the Java on the Brain applets. Originally because the Java browser plugin had turned into a piece of junk, and then because it no longer worked at all. The Brothers Chaps did say that they're experimenting with different solutions to solve the issue though. And the flash player is one of the very few plugins that browsers still support because of how ubiquitous it is.
The Java plugin turning into a piece of junk is why I gave up on JavaSphere.

I'm kind of surprised they never ran ads on that site.  Guess they made enough money from merchandise to keep it running without them.
I always appreciated that fact. H*R was (and still is) 100% awesome.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on July 23, 2018, 07:14:01 pm
I have to say, I would most definitely use that H*R startup game. Make sure it includes Strong Bad spewing out a bunch of randomized lines!

Quote
That's awesome.  Yeah, Homestar Runner was the best thing about the 00s internet.  Shame the creators moved onto bigger and better things around 2009 and just kind of left the site to rot.  Pretty soon Flash will be totally obsolete and the cartoons won't even be watchable anymore. :(
You might want to take another look at the website... ;)

(I've seen glimpses of their new design as well, which relies on YouTube embeds for all the videos, with higher quality audio as well.)
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Eggbertx on July 23, 2018, 07:32:46 pm
I have to say, I would most definitely use that H*R startup game. Make sure it includes Strong Bad spewing out a bunch of randomized lines!
I was actually considering doing that, but I'm not sure how appropriate that would be for a game launcher.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Eggbertx on August 16, 2018, 01:33:38 am
I decided to pick my Asteroids clone that uses only Shapes/Transforms (as opposed to images or spritesets) and the font for "PRESS SPACE", and it actually does stuff now. In retrospect, I should have used this for my entry into the Ludum Dare game jam. I might have been able to finish it (maybe) and it would have had a unique look.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on August 17, 2018, 05:24:01 am
This is looking very nice and faithful so far!

(Though I have to disagree that it's a unique look - the Vectrex did it in 1982, after all. :P )
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on August 17, 2018, 11:05:58 am
I'm going to guess that the ship is drawn as a LineLoop?  Looks really nice, and it's great to see more and more people get some mileage out of the Galileo classes.  @Flying Jester would be proud because I nicked the idea for them straight from TurboSphere. :stuck_out_tongue:

On an unrelated note, seeing things like this in action does make me think I should add an "auto" resolution option that makes the window resizable and also to use the OS native resolution in fullscreen mode...
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Eggbertx on August 17, 2018, 03:41:07 pm
(Though I have to disagree that it's a unique look - the Vectrex did it in 1982, after all. :P )
I meant compared to the entries in the game jam. I didn't see any other vector graphics-style games posted.

I'm going to guess that the ship is drawn as a LineLoop?  Looks really nice, and it's great to see more and more people get some mileage out of the Galileo classes.  @Flying Jester would be proud because I nicked the idea for them straight from TurboSphere. :stuck_out_tongue:

On an unrelated note, seeing things like this in action does make me think I should add an "auto" resolution option that makes the window resizable and also to use the OS native resolution in fullscreen mode...
It does, and I wrote a helper class to make working with rotating, translating, and scaling a bit easier.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Eggbertx on August 18, 2018, 04:53:33 pm
I posted the screenshots in the Discord so I may as well post them here too. On a whim, I decided to write a Wavefront .obj (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavefront_.obj_file) model parser to experiment with 3D drawing in miniSphere. It's extremely preliminary, but here's what I've got so far. The screenshots are of a correctly loaded but not correctly (yet) drawn Suzanne (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Suzanne.svg), a built-in Blender model:
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: DaVince on August 20, 2018, 05:02:19 am
I was following the Discord chat and saw the progress you were making on this, very promising and very nice!

3D in a primarily 2D-focused game engine would be very nice, and I can think of applications like those 2D RPGs on the Playstation and Nintendo DS that had some 3D objects layered on top. I think that would be an excellent addition to Sphere, especially when you can 3D model them and just use them just like that.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on September 01, 2018, 12:33:29 pm
Here's a couple of screenshots from the introduction of my OFF remake.  @DaVince has actually seen it in action; I'll hopefully post a demo soon.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Eggbertx on September 28, 2018, 02:05:22 pm
Weird, I could've sworn I posted an updated screenshot of my Chip's Challenge clone...anyway, it fully loads and parses the binary .DAT file and accurately (mostly) draws levels to the screen. You can move around and it handles basic collision, but not much else (yet). I replaced the UI background and the time font with my own, and eventually I'll either replace the sprites and tiles with my own or use the sprites and tiles from Tile World to avoid copyright issues.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Eggbertx on September 28, 2018, 02:23:10 pm
By the way, if you're in Windows 10 and want to record a game/window, press Win+Alt+R to start recording. Then when you're done, press Win+Alt+R again to finish recording. I just converted the video to webm with ffmpeg because I thought it would expand the video inline like it did with the GIF file I uploaded earlier.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Fat Cerberus on September 29, 2018, 10:31:11 am
Huh, I didn't know there was a shortcut key for that.  I usually just press Win+G and look for the Record button.  That's a good wisdom! :dog2:
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Eggbertx on September 29, 2018, 12:32:25 pm
I didn't even know about that until yesterday, when I was looking for an easier way to record games than with ffmpeg. I read about the game bar and saw the shortcut I mentioned in my post. I decided to try and see if it worked without opening the game bar first, and it did.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: Eggbertx on November 02, 2018, 02:16:07 pm
I haven't mentioned it until now since it's a very low priority project that may never even get finished, but I figured I may as well post a screenshot for interest. The blocks that comprise each letter are actually one image copied to multiple locations as determined by a per-character array of JS object literals with x/y coordinates.
Title: Re: The Screenshot Thread
Post by: SilicateWielder on March 19, 2019, 03:26:21 am
So I picked up my graphics engine again

I've been posting too many screenshots in the discord (Sorry for the spam!), and thought I should share an update regarding the latest version here

Because it's most relevant to what I plan to use this for, I've written a voxel world-type, these can be created dynamically and can also be loaded in parallel provided you have a system in place for selecting which world you want to display. They are inefficient at the moment though due to the inability for models to share a single pointcloud, I plan to fix this for version 0.5

I'm aiming to push a commit to github tomorrow if not tonight, and likely wont be updating this again for about a week or two since that seems to be the frequency at which I get time to work on this

Anyway, screenshot time, because of the forum's image size limit the images are hosted from my personal server.
The terrain is randomly generated using a fractal-based terrain generator that I wrote
(http://redwyn.moe/pub/images/Candle0.4.1-1.png)
(http://redwyn.moe/pub/images/Candle0.4.1-2.png)
(http://redwyn.moe/pub/images/Candle0.4.1-3.png)
This last one uses a lower FOV, the top ones use an FOV that's been cranked way up to create an isometric rendering effect

This is from an experimental version that produced a result I thought was cool.
(http://redwyn.moe/pub/images/CGL%20Artifacting.png)