Pokeworld (MMOG) Needs Help.

[Waudby]

Since this is designed in c# does that mean it's entirely limited to windows?

 

[Tocs1001]

Unfortunately yes.

I chose C# for 2 reasons.

I could use it at school, (They don't have dev environments for C++)

And it has a faster dev time because the core libraries are friendlier.

 

[Waudby]

Ah that's fair enough, are you writing the editor in c# as well?

When writing apps I prefer to use wxWidgets or wxRuby depending on my mood, it makes the processing time alot faster and it's cross platform.

Can you program in c++ then?

 

[Mr_Dark]

C#/.Net can be used on *unix through the Mono framework

 

[Tocs1001]

I've looked at WxWidgets before, never used it. The trouble is C#'s socket libraries are sooo much cleaner than C++'s I'd have to do alot of work to get the networking pumping if I switched over to C++. Plus I'd have to learn OpenGL to. I normally would try but I wanted this project to go somewhere instead of me being swamped by new things. I wanted some familiar ground. If I went to Wxwidgets and OpenGL I'm all in new stuff. I was really tired of stalemate projects. C# is just a more conformtable environment for me. And I figure most people use windows, I assume you don't, which means your in the minority. So hopefully that mono framework or whatever will run it, my concern is the fact that Pokeworld also uses direct X.

Its not like it's impossible for me to write it in C++ and make it multiplatform. But I'd be doing alot of extra work. Looking up OpenGL, WxWidgets, some sort of multiplatform Socket Wrapper, Multiplatform PNG tools. My editor writes and reads PNG's alot which is built into .NET but I dunno about WxWidgets. But for the amount of time I had, and the stability and ease of .NET I chose to sacrifise multiplatform warm and gooey goodness for to help me speed myself up.

 

[Darkraza]

long time...

some time since i last gave a sheet...
ill update this post with one
EDIT: just posted it, ive decided to do something small, since im not sure if you are really using the layering technic or not, if yes, then say when youre done with the script and ill give you a bunch then...
so the programming is going well right? thats great
Hey, what about the storiline and region from Pokeworld?

 

[darkerarceus]

That hair looks pretty nice!
although i dont like the white bit near the foreheadpart.

 

[Darkraza]

umm...

let me fix that, i will also put a work in progress sheet on this post...
here, which one do you prefer, 1 or second tipe of hair?
and also the work in progress sheet in which all i gotta do now is separeta the clothes... very simple shhet of a dp rip...

 

[Theik]

let me fix that, i will also put a work in progress sheet on this post...
here, which one do you prefer, 1 or second tipe of hair?
and also the work in progress sheet in which all i gotta do now is separeta the clothes... very simple shhet of a dp rip...

I didn't really put a lot of time in it, and I saved it as a jpg so all the quality is gone, but basically:
You can't just take a NPC sprite and chop off the clothing, it works for hair, but the rest of the clothing won't layer over eachother. Every NPC has a slightly different (or radically different) pose, making it impossible to layer over eachother. What you want to do is make all the clothing specified for a specific base and layer it over that instead.

Because if you just cut clothes off each NPC, you'd also need a new base for every NPC.
I hope what I'm trying to say makes sense. xD

 

[Darkraza]

...

well, i noted that the base looked a lot like Jun's pose on every sprite
so i really went overboard with that and totally forgot that there diferent poses, at least volkner poses were right...

 

[Tocs1001]

Hi guys! I put in some work on the upgraded map editor today, its coming along nicely.

I finished the Object Set Editor with a really cool packing algorithm I created to generate spritesheets that are as small as possible.

Check out what it does.

It puts things as close together as possible automatically so you don't have to.

Heres one with more objects.

While this seems like a dumb advancement it makes making objects alot less of a hassle!

The map editor can now edit overworlds and small areas seamlessly unlike before where you had to edit the overworld in small chunks. I'll post pics when it's working fully. Its set up with the tools on the side vertical. Like Photoshop or MS Paint. And the "Pallette" which changes between tiles and objects is a seperate tool window. I'm going to try to put in auto tileling where rectangle tiles (Edges + Center) are automatically tiled. Floodfill for objects and tiles. And an easier way of doing teleports.

Lastly we needed someplace to chat, so I created an IRC channel for us.

#PokeWorld
irc.Afternet.org

 

[Theik]

Looking good. =) Good to see you're making certain the 'backbone' of the developer side is working properly before you worry about showing fancy screenshots. Too many people on this forum rush out pretty pictures, only to realize later that it was built so shoddy that going back to edit something is neigh impossible.

 

[DubHalo]

WoW .... this is truly impressive o_O but where the heck did you get pokeworld editor? Looks alot like it was made but was it made in VB06 or 08?

 

[Tocs1001]

Well, I'm working on the editor and when it's complete I will release it to those who want to help. I got a snowday today so hopefully I can finish the map editing portion today!

Keep in mind, the map editor work i've been doing is simply a massive improvement, a working map editor exists, however it's unstable, its very frustrating to use, and really really really annoying.

The new one is designed to be less hassle and more fluid map creation.

Which may seem like a waste, buuuut. It also adds

Animated Objects and Tiles
Defined Areas
Area MetaTags (Indoors, Outdoors, Caves, Can Fly, Can Use Escape Rope,Etc...)
Day / Night support. (this will be fun)
and Less Memory Usage

 

[Tocs1001]

Hmm No one replied... Owell Double post because this doesnt fit in the old one.

I've been pecking away at the editor making sure everything is working correctly.

The new map editor is coming along, take a peek

Please note I havent made icons for the tools on the side bar, or the Tile Type Pallet. I'm getting the functionality down before I make fancy icons for it.The tile Pallet widget is custom made Its quite spiffy to use, it just needs a scroll bar for larger tilesets. The Object Pallet has a scroll bar to select which object you'd like, which actually functions and feels quite good when using it.

You can pan around the map by right click-n-drag this will be better used when you have to edit entire overworlds.

I guess I can explain somethings about my map format.

Tile Type is basically what kind of tile it is.

It can be one of 4 things

Walkable
Surfable
Solid
or a JumpLedge*

*Jump ledges are those one way ledges that you can jump off of. Its split into 3 parts (Left, Right, and Down)

Tiles are anything that IS the ground... short grass, water, gravel, sand, etc.

Objects are anything that sit ON TOP OF the ground... Buildings, Trees, Flowers, Mailboxes, Fencing, Tall Grass.

So, I'm chuggin along, hope to have this thing totally done by the end of next week. Which includes weeding out all the bugs, making some nice icons. Overworld editing, and tile effectors.

I gotta goto bed now so cya.

~Tocs

 

[darkerarceus]

Looks Pretty nice!
and I agree with not making the fancy
icons for it yet.

 

[Theik]

Looking pretty good so far but there are some things you might want to take a look at. For example, you currently have these tiles, for example:

You should consider adding 'autotiles', as RMXP knows them as. Instead of having the map designer go through the different tiles and making them pick, for example, the lower-right corner to place down; you'd have one sand tile. Behind that tile is actually 9 different 'sub-tiles', and which one is placed down depends on the position where it was placed. It'll require some work, but it'll make the map designing a lot more user-friendly. (Not to mention a lot faster.)

Another thing you might want to keep in mind is the way you are currently describing your objects.

Objects are anything that sit ON TOP OF the ground... Buildings, Trees, Flowers, Mailboxes, Fencing, Tall Grass.

It is likely that at the moment, you are simply setting a flag on an object to determine if it is walkable or not. Tall grass is walkable, where as a fence is not. But something you have to keep in mind is the 'height' of objects. Some objects might be two tiles high (trees), where as others can be three tiles high. But then this problem occurs:

You want to be able to walk across the back of trees (after all, there's no actual 'treestump' in the way, you're walking on grass but the high tree from a tile below you overlaps a bit. But you don't want to be able to walk through the base of the tree, because there's a stump there.

Likewise, you want to be able to walk behind the roof of the house, but you don't want to be able to walk through the first two rows of tiles, where the house's walls would be in your path. So instead of a 'walkable' or 'not walkable' system which is likely what you're currently using (because if I recall correctly, in the beta version I playtested you couldn't walk behind houses, you had to go a tile higher and walk in a wide radius around them), I urge you to think well about how you handle the 'heightmap' of your objects.

Also, if you tell me what kind of icons you want, I'll throw you something together. =)

 

[FrozenMaster757]

Sorry it's been a while. I wanted to let you know I am getting my computer fixed soon, so I should have your picture of the Professor up soon. It seems like a while. Also, what I've seen on here is pretty good. Good luck with the game.

 

[Tocs1001]

You bring up a good point about collision, but the problem you mentioned does not exist. I took that into account when I designed the system. To understand you need to know the render order.

Everything is on top of tiles so they are rendered first

Then all Actors (Players, NPCs, Etc) and Objects (Trees, buildings, etc) are indexed into a ZBuffer based on the tile they sit on. For objects this is designated in the editor. So If a player is allowd to walk on the tile behind the tree's base tile, the tree is rendered on top of the player, allowing them to be "behind" it. Collision has nothing to do with objects shape or size. So they are still permitted to walk behind.

The auto-tile's you mentioned are planned thats why tilesets are listed as incomplete. I need to make a tile editor where you can sequence tile animations and define auto-tiles. This will be in the release.

Gota run to my next class seeya

 

[Theik]

Then all Actors (Players, NPCs, Etc) and Objects (Trees, buildings, etc) are indexed into a ZBuffer based on the tile they sit on. For objects this is designated in the editor. So If a player is allowd to walk on the tile behind the tree's base tile, the tree is rendered on top of the player, allowing them to be "behind" it. Collision has nothing to do with objects shape or size. So they are still permitted to walk behind.

Well, using my image as an example again:

The house you don't want to be able to run through the 'upper level' for a lack of better words, the second row of windows. But that's already a tile higher than the one you placed the object on. (Assuming you're building an object up from base to top, with the tile the base is on being blocked if the object isn't walkable.

Your 4 wide, 3 high house should be walkable like this:

OOOO
XXXX
XXXX

Assume a big, grassy plane. You can walk everywhere and anywhere.
Now we toss down a tree.

O
X

So far so good, we can walk behind the tree because the grass is walkable. Yet when we get to the house, there's a problem with that method. We don't want to be able to walk through the second row, yet what we'd get with this method is this:

OOOO
OOOO
XXXX

Basically, what I'm saying, unless you can define in an object if something should be walkable or not, you're going to end up with problems for multi-tile constructs. It is no problem if somebody walks behind a tall tree, the stump would only take up 1 tile high anyway, but you don't want them to walk through the big train you had planted down.

If you can't set such restrictions in the object editor, you're going to end up having to place specific tiles down for these multi-tile objects.

The house for example would require somebody to put unwalkable tiles on the 'second floor' ala this:

OOOO
XXXX
OOOO

At that point you could plant the house down on the bottom row of O's, but you'll then make things incredibly difficult for your map makers, especially when they also have objects that don't cover entire tiles. (And planting 'non walk' terrain would be easy to spot.) Even an invisible "block" object you can place on those tiles wouldn't really be an elegant way of solving it.