Vapourware Codexian Game Development Thread

[Viata]

they added small gray "clouds" or masses where

Interesting you say this. It's something I didn't pay attention when I played this game and now after you said this, I can see how important such thing is to make the rain more realistic.

 

[Ninjerk]

they added small gray "clouds" or masses where

Interesting you say this. It's something I didn't pay attention when I played this game and now after you said this, I can see how important such thing is to make the rain more realistic.

Another thing I just noticed is that when they do closeups on the helicopter there are low resolution water effects over the screen, as if there were really a camera.

 

[Bad Sector]

Not really a game (at least not directly), but this weekend i bought Elminage Gothic and since i didn't want to bother with graph paper and the like nor a desktop based cartographic tool, i threw together a simple web-based cartography tool to use on my mobile phone (i know it has map itself but it costs and i've read that it isn't that good anyway, besides this can be used for more games :-P). Here is an image showing its UI and how to use it:

You can access it here (it is all javascript so you can save the page if you want a local copy). It keeps the maps in local storage so make sure you use the same URL to access the maps.

Do not try it on a desktop browser, it wont work unless your browser has some sort of mobile mode. In Chrome the developer tools has one and in Firefox there is also the "responsive design" mode but it doesn't seem to report the touch events. Firefox Mobile and Chrome on Android seem to work fine. I do not have an iPhone to test though.

Note that this is just a quick and dirty thing i threw together, i probably wont do many improvements beyond that (except perhaps adding a few more icons - although since you can use unicode you can also use unicode symbols so it isn't exactly necessary).

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Nice, but there's a mobile version of Grid Cartographer too, no?
Having a lightweight version that doesn't require installing an app is a good idea though.

 

[Bad Sector]

I don't think it is available anymore. But TBH i didn't really check since i like writing my own stuff anyway .

 

[7h30n]

Due to popular demand, I present to you the initial, very WIP, placeholder shooting feature I've just hacked together.

Oh, and lower the sound or mute it. I may have failed with editing and music is too loud.



Other than shooting, I've improved the engine a bit. It should run twice as fast since the last time I posted here. Next up is particle effects (instead of the "missing" texture) and placeholder monsters.

 

[CryptRat]

I was browsing my old stuff. I found some shots and sets of images, I don't know if I'll ever use any of this. .

I have got various swappable heads, eyes, mouths and suits (the mouths and eyes are animated) + visible armors and weapons, with two weapon positions.

I don't know if I'll ever use them even if I ever make something "top-down", because I've made a front view, which is a big mistake. You have to make sideway, no idea why it was not evident to me when I made them.

 

[Dorateen]

That is a cool looking dragon.

 

[CryptRat]

Exile III looks good, I miss these flat thin cartoony sprites (even if some roguelikes have such tilesets).

 

[The Avatar]

Converting my project to Pathfinder SRD rules and implementing point buy at character creation.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

 

[Otay]

Converting my project to Pathfinder SRD rules and implementing point buy at character creation.

woah this is super cool looking

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

 

[Viata]

Is this a new game or Das Geisterschiff Green Edition?

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Is this a new game or Das Geisterschiff Green Edition?

Right now this is just a mockup thrown together as a distraction. :^)

 

[Wayward Son]

Are there any good engines for a 2D top-down or FPP dungeon crawler that uses C++?

 

[CryptRat]

Using SDL libraries and making your own engine is an option in that case (C++, 2D).

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

 

[Wayward Son]

oooh that looks good zwanzig_zwoelf mahybe itll ge good
is ti itere basde

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Man, I'm glad I invested an hour or two to play around with shaders. Surprised how quickly I've managed to fake ambient lighting (selecting 'gradient' in lighting settings produces a similar result), while adding a small feature from Doom (walls facing north and south are slightly brighter than walls facing east/west) to reduce the depth perception issues from the first game. As a cherry on top, Sega Saturn-style checkerboards can be used to imitate lights/transparent shit and whatnot.

Guess I need to play around some more in the nearest future.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

First zwanzig_zwoelf started making blue and green levels. And now he's mixing colors! This feels like some kind of heresy. I don't have a heresy button though, so have a Deus Vult.

 

[Zep Zepo]

Found it easier to prototype stuff in 2D and then move the ideas over to my 3D engine.

The 2D is pretty cool in its own right now that I have been working with it for a few days.
Started thinking about taking a break on the 3D stuff and coding up a short 2D game for shits and giggles.

Zep--

 

[Bad Sector]

Man, I'm glad I invested an hour or two to play around with shaders. Surprised how quickly I've managed to fake ambient lighting (selecting 'gradient' in lighting settings produces a similar result), while adding a small feature from Doom (walls facing north and south are slightly brighter than walls facing east/west) to reduce the depth perception issues from the first game. As a cherry on top, Sega Saturn-style checkerboards can be used to imitate lights/transparent shit and whatnot.

You can also try to use some ordered dithering with a 3D texture using the Z coordinate for the brightness and nearest filtering. You can get some nice retro looking results. I took your image and applied this code to it:

function CalcColor(X, Y: Integer): TRGB;
var
Source: TRGB;
Brightness, Dither: Single;
begin
// Get the source RGB values out of the original image
Source:=SourcePixel(X, Y);
// Calculate the brightness to grayscale
Brightness:=Source.Red*0.2989 + Source.Green*0.5870 + Source.Blue*0.1140;
// Get the dither value for the current X, Y coordinate and use the brightness
// for the 3rd coordinate (layer that specifies which pattern to use)
Dither:=DitherPixel(X, Y, Brightness);
// Use the dither value as the final color
Result.Red:=Dither;
Result.Green:=Dither;
Result.Blue:=Dither;
end;​

This gives the following image which is just the dither texture (sampled via DitherPixel, in Unity it'd be something specific to Unity's shaders, just ensure the X,Y is repeated and Z is clamped) with the Z being determined by the brightness:

Using this as a base you can simply mix it directly with the source image:

// Calculate final RGB components by mixing the originals with the dither
Result.Red:=Dither * Source.Red;
Result.Green:=Dither * Source.Green;
Result.Blue:=Dither * Source.Blue;

Or remix the mixed color with the original color for a more subtle effect:

function CalcColor(X, Y: Integer): TRGB;
const
Mix = 0.25;
var
Source: TRGB;
Brightness, Dither: Single;
begin
// Get the source RGB values out of the original image
Source:=SourcePixel(X, Y);
// Calculate the brightness to grayscale
Brightness:=Source.Red*0.2989 + Source.Green*0.5870 + Source.Blue*0.1140;
// Get the dither value for the current X, Y coordinate and use the brightness
// for the 3rd coordinate (layer that specifies which pattern to use)
Dither:=DitherPixel(X, Y, Brightness);
// Calculate final RGB components by mixing the originals with the dithered
// versions and the originals by themselves
Result.Red:=(Dither * Source.Red)*Mix + Source.Red*(1.0 - Mix);
Result.Green:=(Dither * Source.Green)*Mix + Source.Green*(1.0 - Mix);
Result.Blue:=(Dither * Source.Blue)*Mix + Source.Blue*(1.0 - Mix);
end;​

You can also use each red, green and blue components individually instead of the brightness which adds a bit of colored dithering to the colored areas (the grayscale areas remain mostly the same):

function CalcColor(X, Y: Integer): TRGB;
const
Mix = 0.25;
var
Source: TRGB;
RedDither, GreenDither, BlueDither: Single;
begin
// Get the source RGB values out of the original image
Source:=SourcePixel(X, Y);
// Get the dither values for the current X, Y coordinate using each
// individual RGB component for the dither layer
RedDither:=DitherPixel(X, Y, Source.Red);
GreenDither:=DitherPixel(X, Y, Source.Green);
BlueDither:=DitherPixel(X, Y, Source.Blue);
// Calculate final RGB components by mixing the originals with the dithered
// versions and the originals by themselves
Result.Red:=(RedDither * Source.Red)*Mix + Source.Red*(1.0 - Mix);
Result.Green:=(GreenDither * Source.Green)*Mix + Source.Green*(1.0 - Mix);
Result.Blue:=(BlueDither * Source.Blue)*Mix + Source.Blue*(1.0 - Mix);
end;​

You probably want to open the last two images in two separate tabs and switch between the two to see the difference since this image is mostly gray. Here is how it looks with a slightly more colorful image:

It could look a bit better with some tweaks. You can also use a different set of patterns. I used this one i made in GIMP quickly:

This is basically 4x4x17 texture (the third dimension repeats in X here) with Z being the layer. You can adjust the layers (add or remove in-between steps), but AFAIK this is the most common set of dithering patterns.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Very interesting. Been looking for something like this several years ago.
Thanks for the suggestion, will definitely play around with this.

I have a wet dream of reproducing the way graphics were presented in PC-88 and PC-98 games (but in 3D) and your advice is going to help a lot.

 

[Otay]

that dithering is sexy