It's mini-WoS 3D (the little 2D man was a place holder until the 3D character technology worked, which as of tonight it mostly does (top image))
All generated procedurally from a small set of control values. For example, each body part of the little man is 10-20 numbers. (from which the 3D mesh is generated dynamically)
And his dramatic pose, so evocative of Josh's original WoS logo, is not a manually posed cheat, it's just a random frame from his procedural walk/run animation.
And the whole 3D character thing only took a couple evenings work, with the terrain being three or four more. I love android. Everything is just so easy.
I mean, so long as you keep your expectations low.
posted
This is really cool. I assume these are prototype graphics?
Canonical is in the works of making android apps run on Ubuntu, so linux users could get some use out of this in the future.
I've never used Android yet, but I know it uses the Linux kernel, so I am curious what kind of process it would be to port it to a linux system.
Posts: 6821 | From: Aldergrove, BC | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
Looks interesting so far. Have fun with it.
-------------------- Innovation aimed at benefiting humanity is useless if it’s only accessible to a wealthy minority. Posts: 3474 | From: The Bat Lair | Registered: Apr 2008
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posted
Hopefully, no one will mind paying a couple bucks for it.
It's getting closer to being playable. You can now walk around with a real character (instead of the 2d placeholder), and the map has random monsters on it (that look suspiciously like you).
I have nice gravity to bring you back to dirt, so running downhill is kinda cool as you go airborn for a moment each time you run off a 'cliff'
The monsters don't do anything yet, that's the project for this weekend. That and the buttons. I'm dragging my feet on the buttons.
I like my movement UI though. It feels pretty natural. touch the screen (anywhere) and drag left/right up/down to control a virtual (invisible) joystick. Left/right changes heading, up/down changes speed. Lift your touch and you keep going at that speed.
It's a bit of a skill to stop (touch and drag down a little, but not so much as to go into reverse)
Some new screenshots. Note the emulator is getting less than 4 frames per second where my droid gets about 30fps (I would be more comfortable if I were getting 50fps at this stage, since there is still lots to add)
Anyway, a monster is peeking over the hill! Some sort of Giant! Oh no, the Giant has a friend!
Another view of the drop-shadow. Even a boring shadow is important to glue the character visually to the terrain.
an unimpressive shot of the run animation in world, from directly behind the character. Fleeing the giants.
One question, and I know it's early but: Will the user eventually be able to map out their own 3D models, for example, world developers for making their own monsters? Or will we be stuck to changing the bitmap displayed overtop?
quote:(yeah, yeah, why re-use someone else's really GREAT engine, when you can make your own lame one from scratch!)
posted
This looks closer to rocket club than it does WoS!
-------------------- SoV: Exalted Devout Oracle | World Developer | The Black Guard Outside is just a prank older kids tell younger kids at Internet Camp Posts: 9479 | From: NY | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Because I didn't want to make a bunch of models, everything (so far, at least) in rune runner is composed of 'primitives'
So a 'character' has a 'skeleton' (for posing purposes, and note that a character can be a human, a monster, or even a treasure chest, as not every node of the skeleton need be visualized. So a Treasure Chest skeleton has a 'hip' (the chest) and a 'back' (the lid, which can be pitched open and shut).
A Human has the full normal set of joints.
On each joint is hung a mesh (as in Rocket Club, still no multi-bone skinning).
Each mesh is a primitive (upper arm, lower leg, shoe, etc).
Each primitive is created from a short description of some control points and radii, not by an actual model. And texturing. So it's all very low poly and most of the interest will come from the texture.
The simplest primitive is a cylinder with a couple cones closing the top and the bottom.
A side vies cross section like this
code:
* control point 0, / \ +--*--+ control point 1, radius 1 | | | | +--*--+ control point 2, radius 2 \ / * control point 3,
Where the (*)s are the control poitns, and the (+) are the verts that I synthesize for you.
Basically the control points define a line in space, and I make an oval at each point. Then I sample N points on the oval to make the verts, then I hook the verts together with triangles to make a mesh with UV mapping and normals for each vert.
If N=3 then it's a "3-sided cylinder" (not very round), if N=20 then it's a very round cylinder (and wasting memory).
The control points don't have to be in a line
The control points don't have to move in a consistent direction (going backwards with appropriate radii makes concave surfaces, like the inside of my shield)
So far, it's been a lot more powerful than I expected it to be. The point being you can define most objects with about six points worth of complexity, which is very text-file friendly. And no 3D modeling program required.
Of course, you're limited as to what you can do, but these are tiny little low poly models render itsy-bitsy on a phone screen, and I claim it's a perfect marriage.
You even get automatic level-of-detail as it's really easy to algorithmically reduce the primitive (mainly by reducing N).
Anyway, so far this is still more about "keeping Dan sane" than actually providing a finished game experience.
But I made an icon for the game finally. Can a title graphic be far behind?
---
More details
* each control point gets two radii, so as to define an oval, not a circle. the oval is always centered on the control point, but since one control point need not be 'directly below' the previous, you can have points of increasing radius but a constant vertical 'back' (imagine the side view of a shoe. the back of the shoe is straiht up and down, but the toe-side gets wider radius as you near the ground. The 'control line' then sort of 'curves forward' as needed.
It's primitive, in name and nature, but it is working well and very end-user-friendly.
Oh, it also maps well to the texture map layout. Each prim maps to a rectangle of texture with the control points controlling the V value , and the N-steps-around-the-oval controlling the U value.
And if you have N = 4, you get boxes. (treasure chest).
posted
We should shower you with lots of money so you can stay sane.
-------------------- Innovation aimed at benefiting humanity is useless if it’s only accessible to a wealthy minority. Posts: 3474 | From: The Bat Lair | Registered: Apr 2008
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I'm secretly hoping that Google will make Chrome (Browser) able to run android apps. (and still make you pay your 99 cents, of course!)
----
Here is a newish image with a monster that has been selected for attack. Note the red shadow, and arrow above his head, lest you forget.
Note that he has his own life meter.
Targeting was a little problematic. Normally, as in Rocket Club, I would click on something to select it. But in a 'touch, not mouse' environment you frequently click where you didn't mean to, and I feared you would lose your selection and need to retarget a lot.
So instead, I keep track of the N closest targetable things, and if you have NO target selected, I automatically select the closest one.
Once you DO have something selected, if there is more than one possible target, you can tap the target's life meter to step between targets (with the red shadow and arrow hopping around as needed)... and maybe some automatic camera work as well ....
posted
I'd be surprised if Chrome wouldn't eventually be able to run android apps. It would make sense, especially if they are releasing a Chromium OS that is entirely browser based. It will probably happen at the same time.
I'm still curious though if a golden soul will unlock extra features, ie: new models, special weapons, etc.
Posts: 6821 | From: Aldergrove, BC | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
I kinda doubt the GS will be associated with the android games, mainly since you 'have' to pay to get the game in the first place.
Emotionally, I like the idea (honor the old players, I mean), just not sure.
My other two android games have achievements and unlockables, so I'd say there is some possibility of that here as well, but since this is more story-based, anything that could be an unlockable is competing with it being just "in a later chapter" (if that makes sense.)
To sum up, I dunno :-)
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10560 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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posted
I think that if Dan made a PC port he should charge extra for it. Meaning instead of $9.99,they should pay $19.99. It's hard work to port.
Posts: 967 | Registered: Jan 2010
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I refactored my Hive Manager so now I have 1000 monsters on a single map, with barely noticable lag (because I only spawn the ones close to you, so there are really only four or five around at a time normally).
But the MAP gets to place all 1000 of them (I actually tried 8000, but that did cause some lag).
A single map is a 2Km square (that will wrap infinitely) and takes about 2 minutes to run across the length of.
Anyway, right now the monsters are still spread around randomly, and I only have the one 'model' which I use in several sizes.
And the NPCs now have their beginning AI, Here we see a couple shots of them wandering around (they 'patrol' until they smell an enemy)
At night.
In the day.
Here a little monster smelled me and ran up behind me and started poking me. They are already obeying a little bit of rules (can't just slash constantly). Note also that they run up to a spot NEAR me, as opposed to right on top of me. They feel reasonably alive already, though the animations are still a bit wooden.
And here one of his pals has joined him. You can actually see him in the distance in the previous shot. It's a little scary when you see him realize you exist and watch him run up to you. The fact that his patrol speed is one rate, but then he actually RUNs to attack you, gives the illusion that he has some emotional content.
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10560 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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-------------------- Innovation aimed at benefiting humanity is useless if it’s only accessible to a wealthy minority. Posts: 3474 | From: The Bat Lair | Registered: Apr 2008
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* As to 'storage', about 500M on the Droid is reserved for stored application downloads (WarPath is about 3M)
* I believe a single process has 1G of virtual memory, but since there is no paging to disk, you are actually limited by physical memory, which varies from phone to phone
* allocating a 4M bitmap (1k x 1k x 4 bytes) has a high likelihood of failing (memory fragmentation), so individual images should really be more like 64x64 or 128x128.
In Rune Runner, I had one 'full screen size' texture which is apparently causing memory issues on the HTC Incredible (which has a 800x480 screen, which is large for an android phone), so I am going to have to watch out for that.
* The physical memory on the phone (no swapping) is shared by all running apps, and the 'less important' apps get shut down when needed (but otherwise allowed to hang around in the background)
So, all in all, I guess I am trying to stay within 50M - 100M total memory footprint. (unload textures when not needed, only have one level at a time loaded, etc)
And, of course, being Java, you're working with Garbage Collection...
posted
Do you think you'll make any PC games in Java in the future, or are you just flirting, so to speak?
I think this game is gonna be sick. I've got a Motorola Dext, I'm curious how this game is gonna run on it.
Posts: 6821 | From: Aldergrove, BC | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
well, just because I don't HAVE $$$$$$$$$ doesn't mean I wouldn't LIKE $$$$$$$$$, so Fendaril's cynicism is not *completely* unfounded.
I'm enjoying java *on the android* a lot. But that's mostly because of all the OS support. If that same support came on the PC, I guess I would consider it.
But if it DID, it would probably be because google enabled the android OS in Chrome (browser or OS... I'm a little vague on the distinction)
But just Java on its own, on the PC, would be more effort than its worth, and I will continue to use c++ on the PC.
Google doesn't seem to be much on touting what they are planning to do in this regard, so I still expect to hear some sudden announcement like
* android fully supported on Chrome Browser!
or
* android no longer supported at all, developers required to switch to Chrome OS! All android phones to be orphaned with current software in place.
or
* the Android Market just went off line today, with no comment from Google whatsoever.
But it sounds like android is doing fairly well, overall, so hopefully the latter two possiblities won't happen.
--
But getting back to the $$$$$$$$.... nothing would make me happier than to achieve financial independence by ten million people voluntarily paying me 99 cents each. That's the sort of commerce that brings a smile to my face.
But since I can't just MAKE that happen, in the meantime I will just do whatever I feel makes me happy on a day by day basis and see what happens.
If you don't enjoy the individual days, well, you never know which one will turn out to have been the last. Gratification should only be deferred in small doses.
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10560 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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posted
By my math, you've sold at least 500 copies of warpath at $2 a pop, so you've made about $1000 doing something as a hobby. I wish my hobbies paid out like that.
It's gotta be kinda weird, you started out selling shareware games, then shareware died on the computer and came back in the form of the app store on phones.
-------------------- SoV: Exalted Devout Oracle | World Developer | The Black Guard Outside is just a prank older kids tell younger kids at Internet Camp Posts: 9479 | From: NY | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote: Negatory. You should know better by now. :-)
I support this.
quote: well, just because I don't HAVE $$$$$$$$$ doesn't mean I wouldn't LIKE $$$$$$$$$, so Fendaril's cynicism is not *completely* unfounded. [Smile]
I support this as well.
A man's gotta' eat, right? mirite?
Regardless, we keep moving.
quote: But getting back to the $$$$$$$$.... nothing would make me happier than to achieve financial independence by ten million people voluntarily paying me 99 cents each. That's the sort of commerce that brings a smile to my face.
It's a good dream to have. It's a big step into building a better world. That type of sacrifice for that type of love and respect and willingness to pull through despite the odds.
quote: But since I can't just MAKE that happen, in the meantime I will just do whatever I feel makes me happy on a day by day basis and see what happens.
This a good idea. Stay focused on what you desire though, but don't let it get you down if it doesn't come as fast as you would like.
-------------------- Innovation aimed at benefiting humanity is useless if it’s only accessible to a wealthy minority. Posts: 3474 | From: The Bat Lair | Registered: Apr 2008
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You can access the app store on Android x86, a port of Android that runs on PC hardware. I guess we won't have to worry if our phones don't have enough memory. Just dedicate a couple gigs to an Android partition and duel boot.
You can access the app store on Android x86, a port of Android that runs on PC hardware. I guess we won't have to worry if our phones don't have enough memory. Just dedicate a couple gigs to an Android partition and duel boot.
(it's after the introduction, and before the Dev Blog)
But as of this weekend, you can now level up, and it even remembers your level between sessions now. And has a Character Creation and Selection screen so you can CUSTOMIZE your character (between, say, 2 choices :-) and have up to N characters saved. (N could be anything, but currently is 3, just to make it easier to test the code)
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10560 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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-------------------- SoV: Exalted Devout Oracle | World Developer | The Black Guard Outside is just a prank older kids tell younger kids at Internet Camp Posts: 9479 | From: NY | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Good point, and seeing as you're AFK on MSN...
*sneaks up behind Ray and steals all of his stuff*
-------------------- Come ride with me through the veins of history, I'll show you how god falls asleep on the job. Posts: 5438 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
I'm having a little writer's block gaining traction on 'the story'
I keep getting stuck on character growth... it's like I want your charecter to be a leading player in the story, but that keeps taking me into a rat-hole where your character needs to show some growth (like changign from a spoiled rich kid, to a heroic figure). But it's one thing to have a story which just SAYS that happened, and another thing to actually have your behaviour in game reflect it.
I mean, you have free will in the game. If I provide you with ice cream, I let you choose whether to eat it or give it to a blind child. Your choice may not fit in with the character growth the story claims you have made.
So, "Why not let the player make these choices and then have the story ultimately reflect the sum of those choices."
Yeah, right, the holy grail. But it means writing sixty stories instead of just one :-) Though obviously you could make it just affect a couple sub stories and still claim the story morphed to follow.
And if I had sixty stories, I think it might make more economic sense to try to sell them separately ($1.99 each, for example :-)
But right now I want just one story (one mainline story, I mean) with maybe a little variation at the start to account for your selected character class. (sword user born in the castle, bow user born in some camp in the woods, etc.) But in all cases you soon get on the track to save the princess and recover the stolen soul rune, blah blah.
But I keep oscillating between 'You are a featured character IN the story... YOU marry the princess' versus 'you are an enabler to NPCs who the story is actually about.. you help PRONCE CHARLY marry the princess'
I mean, you do have a name, NPCs will call you by name on occasion, but when the history of the world is written, you're just the kindly stranger who came from no where to put things right, and are not the Prince of the Valley Kingdom at the end.
Though maybe I should be thinking of a multi book deal, so maybe you should start off as X, turn into Y. then in book two you turn from Y to Z, then in book three, your son (from book 2) turns from A to B, etc.
Yeah, that's how the franchise should work :-)
I mean, it just FEELs better to have you be mister big and not just a shadowy force. Makes you more important. It just messes up the free will thing.
But I think the meme (trope?) I like is:
* you have humble origins * you have some mentor that trains you to be super cool. * someone dies, motivating revenge * You use your cool powers to right some wrongs * It turns out you are the true ruler * You marry some hot chick * everybody likes you
Maybe I should google 'trope' :-)
-------------------- He knows when you are sleeping. Posts: 10560 | From: California | Registered: Dec 1998
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