3D pixel style coop action RPG (IRON FIST?)

Re: 3D pixel style coop action RPG (IRON FIST?)

Postby Julius » 01 Sep 2013, 11:50

Quick update:
Have been working on some interface stuff, but IMHO the current ya3dag system (even though very easy to modify) is a bit limited. Thus I will probably only create a temporary version and hope the cool interface stuff from qfusion gets ported at some point. Anyways here is a nice pixelish font I am planning to use (the Alagard one):
http://opengameart.org/content/pixel-fonts-by-pix3m (for now probably as a black outlined 32x32 bitmap version).

I also sorted through the extensive and awesome variety of fantasy style music and sound effects on OGA. Here is a collection of stuff that might be used:
http://opengameart.org/content/music-an ... action-rpg
But the most work for sound effects has been already done before: http://opengameart.org/content/rpg-sound-pack (thanks! very nice set)
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Re: 3D pixel style coop action RPG (IRON FIST?)

Postby Julius » 01 Sep 2013, 22:44

Small update from Robert (the guy behind ya3dag):
- Advanced in game-editor particle system is now 2/3rds or so done, and particles can also be defined in a text-file expernally
- He got Ubuntu running and will look into the AlienArena code (also quake2 based) to get ya3dag running on Linux (it is working quite ok with WINE for the time being though)
- I suggested that he also looks into the nice new menu system of AlienArena (http://youtu.be/jVlR4kB6Ud0) which I hope can be transferred more easily than qfusion's one.
- We pretty much agreed on a way how to implement the advanced pre-rendered sprite characters. I will come up with a test model and then we see how well it works and looks. No definite decision on this yet though. I think it's a very good idea on paper, but if it looks sub-par I am not against using regular models.

P.S.: finished transferring the font into relatively nice looking bitmaps that work ok-ish in game, not a fan of bitmap-fonts at all though... I hope that AlienArena UI code comes with an option to render standard .ttf or something like that.
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Re: 3D pixel style coop action RPG (IRON FIST?)

Postby surt » 02 Sep 2013, 13:44

goonthenletus.png
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Re: 3D pixel style coop action RPG (IRON FIST?)

Postby Julius » 02 Sep 2013, 17:06

Neat, the only one I don't like is the Acrobat... looks too alien. Oh and the Witch somehow reminds me of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skrillex :D
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Re: 3D pixel style coop action RPG (IRON FIST?)

Postby Julius » 05 Sep 2013, 22:27

Working on creating a nice menu bitmap font for ya3dag.

However Robert is also looking into porting the nice new menu and ttf font support from AlienArena over... so I guess this will be only of temporary use.
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bitmap font (cc-by-sa; font: Pix3M, graphics: moOshiE and Pompei2)
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Re: 3D pixel style coop action RPG (IRON FIST?)

Postby Bertram » 06 Sep 2013, 14:24

Hi Julius! :)

Looks like Iron Fist will look a bit like Egoboo, in better.
What technology/language are you using? Have you got any repo yet?

Best regards,
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Re: 3D pixel style coop action RPG (IRON FIST?)

Postby Julius » 06 Sep 2013, 20:48

Maybe a bit like engoo, yes, although I imagine the player handling to be more like Savage2.

You can basically already play it: http://www.ya3dag.de just don't get scared by the programmers art mixed with a wild set of random free assets :p
The idea is to initially make a mod for that with all new art and changed gameplay, but I could imagine that it becomes the prime engine use after is has progressed a bit.
Currently only the level and NPC stuff is (quite extensively) scriptable, the rest is advanced Quake2 based C code. Robert (the creator of ya3dag) is looking into adding a scripting language though. The relatively similar qfusion engine (used in Warsow) has an Angelscript implementation which would be probably the fastest to port. Robert said however that lua might also be a good choice he is looking into.

Code is currently only available as a .zip download, but I would also like to set up a github or so to improve collaboration and bug-tracking. But I am concentrating on the art side of things for now. You want to contribute and maybe have experience in getting it to run on Linux?

P.S.: I think "Steel Socks" would be a cooler name :p
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Re: 3D pixel style coop action RPG (IRON FIST?)

Postby Julius » 09 Sep 2013, 21:53

quick update:

Making good progress with the mod base. Nice main menu and hud graphics are about 50% done... I guess I shouldn't spend too much time on those as they will likely be temporary only... but so what ;) And temporary things often turn out to last much longer than expected...

Edit: would post a screenshot, but as I am currently still running ya3dag in wine, the screenshot function is somehow broken or saves the pictures in some obscure directory I can't be bothered to search for right now.
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Re: 3D pixel style coop action RPG (IRON FIST?)

Postby Bertram » 10 Sep 2013, 08:37

Hi :)

Julius {l Wrote}:You can basically already play it: http://www.ya3dag.de [...] The idea is to initially make a mod for that with all new art and changed gameplay, but I could imagine that it becomes the prime engine use after is has progressed a bit.


This is excellent news! Eager to see the baby see the light in its first version.

Julius {l Wrote}:You want to contribute and maybe have experience in getting it to run on Linux?


I'm on the OD windows installer atm (The kinda opposite way to think, eh). But you should clearly make a repo with everything needed in. And make an announcement. I'm sure a lot of programmers will gladly help making it run on Linux if they have a clean start point.

Best regards,
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Re: 3D pixel style coop action RPG (IRON FIST?)

Postby shirish » 11 Sep 2013, 00:51

Bertram {l Wrote}:Hi :)

Julius {l Wrote}:You can basically already play it: http://www.ya3dag.de [...] The idea is to initially make a mod for that with all new art and changed gameplay, but I could imagine that it becomes the prime engine use after is has progressed a bit.


This is excellent news! Eager to see the baby see the light in its first version.

Julius {l Wrote}:You want to contribute and maybe have experience in getting it to run on Linux?


I'm on the OD windows installer atm (The kinda opposite way to think, eh). But you should clearly make a repo with everything needed in. And make an announcement. I'm sure a lot of programmers will gladly help making it run on Linux if they have a clean start point.

Best regards,


+1 to Bertram's suggestions.
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Re: 3D pixel style coop action RPG (IRON FIST?)

Postby Julius » 13 Sep 2013, 17:12

Robert is on holidays until the end of the month now, but afterwards we will hopefully look into setting up a code repository.

Before taking off, he left this video concerning the updated particle work on the engine and the in-game editor though: http://www.moddb.com/mods/r-reinhard/vi ... ticle-work

This should make creating cool level effects and spells much easier :)
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Re: 3D pixel style coop action RPG (IRON FIST?)

Postby Julius » 16 Sep 2013, 22:11

small update (sorry again no screenshot):

I have been toying around with this http://opengameart.org/content/2d-circle-graphic-archive-inven3tif and this http://opengameart.org/content/dungeon-tbs to make a nice GUI/HUD and also with the lost garden tiles linked before to make textures for 3D levels...
But it just doesn't give off the right vibe for me... looks more like really low resolution regular textures and an very old-school HUD than the desired 2D pixel look... in other words more like a PS2 game than an SNES one ;) Besides that, those lost-garden images are at a really inconvenient resolution.

Thus I have started looking into a 2X scaled (via the previously linked pixel scaler GIMP plugin) version of this: http://opengameart.org/content/golden-ui
And maybe a mix of this http://opengameart.org/content/lots-of-free-2d-tiles-and-sprites-by-hyptosis with various stuff from the LPC for level textures.
I hope the 32x32 tiles will give it more of the desired pixel look, and those actually include some pretty awesome giant trees which I think would fit great into the game.
I am also starting to think that maybe when going for a even more pixelated look, one could think about drawing the directional sprites by hand after all... kind of like this: http://www.opengameart.org/content/first-person-dungeon-crawl-art-pack but I suck at hand-drawing such pixel art (besides that doing it from all the different directions is a lot more work then rendering it out). Maybe rendering it out and then decreasing the sprites to a 16/32 color palette in GIMP will work (the chest in the previous example seems to have been done that way).
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Re: 3D pixel style coop action RPG (IRON FIST?)

Postby Bertram » 17 Sep 2013, 09:43

Excellent :)
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Re: 3D pixel style coop action RPG (IRON FIST?)

Postby Buch » 17 Sep 2013, 18:21

Heya all! Just wanted to let you know I'm following this project with interest... I love RPGs!
Also, @julius: I see you're looking for a proper GUI... I offer my collaboration with that if you need it, both for upscaling my old golden UI and for making a whole new one. The only thing I like more than RPGs is making UIs for RPGs :)
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Re: 3D pixel style coop action RPG (IRON FIST?)

Postby Julius » 17 Sep 2013, 20:00

Ahh, well that would certainly be even cooler :) The golden UI is a bit too low resolution for my taste and the automatic upscale is only somewhat decent.

Making new UIs is actually quite easy with ya3dag, it's all .txt driven and the download comes with a detailed manual how to do it. But I am willing to do the technical parts so long as you do your awesome RPG gui magic ;) (Your golden gui is really well done!).

My proposal would be to make a really classical RPG looking GUI (to the point of being a cliche maybe :D ) maybe based on the 32 color palette by dawnbringer ( http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_p ... ?TID=16247 ) and with a size so that this icon set works well with it: http://opengameart.org/content/420-pixe ... antasy-rpg / http://opengameart.org/content/98-pixel-art-rpg-icons

Would be great if you could find the time for that!
Don't waste too much time on the main-menu graphics for now though, as I am still hoping Robert will soon port the great new menu system from Alien Arena, which looks quite a bit different.
The in-game HUD system will likely stay the same though, so that should give you an idea what kind of graphics are needed. It doesn't feature a fancy movable window system however (but mouse input will be in soon, with a touch-screen it already works). Robert implemented a sort of quick access and mousewheel driven "ibag" system, which is not quite typical, but once you get used to it it works quite well; and regular mouse input will surely make it more beginner friendly.
But as I said, no need to mess with that yet. If you can make a mock-up similar to that of the golden GUI that will be a great start.

P.S.: Since it features an in-game editor a few "editorish" icons or so in the same style would be great to include.

Awesome to have you on board... now I really need to get some shareable ingame stuff going over the weekend. Wish me luck :D
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Re: 3D pixel style coop action RPG (IRON FIST?)

Postby Buch » 18 Sep 2013, 21:37

Image

First mockup... Basically the same as (part of) the original, upscaled approximately at 2x. I used Dawnbringer's 32 color palette except for orange and yellow (which are the ones in the 16 color palette) because the ones in the 32 color palette were slightly too contrasting to me. There are still some things to improve of course (for example, the bad looking dithering on the window title...) and many others that need to be added. I also tried some kind of toolbar for the editor, but the icons look very flat... I rushed them up just to fill in the toolbar space.

Tell me what you think! Maybe it's still too small?
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Re: 3D pixel style coop action RPG (IRON FIST?)

Postby Julius » 18 Sep 2013, 22:51

That looks pretty excellent already! The size is exactly what I had in mind (I think... need to test it in game tomorrow ;) ).

The red x button is not needed though (for now) as there arn't any window decorations. We would need a larger "red x", "green checker" and a "back arrow" though for some menus.

Some vertical scrollbars and loading bars would be nice too. And maybe a round onscreen map/compass kind of thing, and little indicators to show friends enemies etc on it.

Some additional large box variations for in game story or conversation popups etc would be great too.

Hmm what else?

Ah, a floating above the head enemy life-bar...
And a day/night indicator (round like a clock) - yes ya3dag has dynamic day/night cycles ;)

Hmm, maybe a less solid box or something like that to frame the currently active abilities and spells?

Ok, but no need to do everything right now... once Robert has time to implement some more GUI stuff we can do the rest ;)

Great work so far!
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Re: 3D pixel style coop action RPG (IRON FIST?)

Postby Buch » 19 Sep 2013, 19:41

OK, here's a second mockup.

I added two progress bar variations (I personally prefer the first one, the one which comes in three colours already, but they felt like too small for a game loading screen or something like that, so I drew the second one too...). Of course, if you need I could add many alternate colours... The palette offers many possibilities on that side.

I made some buttons with the requested icons... Are they as you intended in your post? I also made a button that allows both the icon and a button text (the ones on the window bottom; the left one is supposed to be pressed, while the right one is released). If they're ok, I plan to add highlighted and pressed variations of each. And maybe add more icon possibilities...

The scroll bar is basically the same as the one on the window side. Yes, I know I've been lazy with that :)

I made some extra boxes: one with a standard window look, one with nothing but the frame and one with the three buttons on the bottom (I don't know if the engine allows that, I was just experimenting with the newly created buttons)

As for the active spell/item, I first thought of making the box brighter, then I thought of making the default look elevated (is this the right word? anyway, like the third from the left in the mockup), make it depress when the mouse clicks on it (like the first one) and highlight if the spell/item gets activated (like the second one). This is not a very brilliant idea, but should do the job.

Coming to the minimap... I guess the round thing near the bars of the hud is too small for that, right? If so, what is the expected size for a minimap circle? Same with the enemy lifebar: what size should it be, approximately?

I also tried something for the day/night indicator, but nothing good came out (yet). It might go inside the circle near the bars (or is it supposed to contain the character portrait?)

Anyway, tell me what you think of the changes...
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Second UI mockup: added some progress bars, other buttons, other boxes and a scroll bar
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Re: 3D pixel style coop action RPG (IRON FIST?)

Postby Julius » 19 Sep 2013, 21:09

Did a quick test with the previous version (see attachment, the overall layout will still change a lot I guess). Size is pretty much perfect (as long as you don't change to a 4:3 resolution... need to look into that), but I have to talk to Robert about how to turn off the scaling/mipmapping for the gui (e.g. the texture filtering that makes the white borders and the mushy overall look). I guess one can just write a q3 shader for all the GUI textures and turn it off there, but I didn't try so far.
The mouse pointer could be a bit bigger btw. I guess about double the size and with two color variations. A glove type of pointer is also always nice for RPGs :p

As for the new version: AWESOMETASTIC ;)
I guess we need to convince Robert to implement more advanced windows with integrated buttons after all ;) But regardless of that, most of it should be pretty usable right now already.

Concering your questions:
For the spell border... maybe something that actually looks a bit "magic"? Like only a half frame and the rest some vapour, light-rays or glass (but currently you can't have a reflection over an icon)? Something that works from the "side" of the screen would be nice too.
From the new "button like" ones you did we can make nice main-menu buttons for sure. The other buttons could have a pressed version too by the way.

I checked again for the minimap, and that feature is currently implemented differently (you open up a scroll), but I guess it would be still nice to have on screen permanently and that should be very easy to implement. The size should be probably about 3x in both directions what the current round part is.

For the emeny lifebar one of the glass "loading" bars you made should be fine, unless you have a better idea.

About the day/night one... I don't really have a good idea for than one either... forget about that one for now. And yes the current small round one could have a character portrait or some other important indicator (like souls collected if I think about Savage2 ;) ). A relatively generic prominent hud element is for sure usefull for something.

What I would still like to see are larger boxes that give off more of an:
1. Inventory feel
2. Spellbook feel
3. Item/potion crafting feel
4. Skills/Level-up/character stats feel
5. Story text, jobs/targets feel
6. Conversation feel
7. Lager overview map feel

I hope those are not too many demands ;) Keep up the great work!

edit: Some kind of multicolored horizontal config bars with an scroll button left and right and maybe a variant that also has a "bubble" next to it that shows the actual number value would be cool too.
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ingame_guitest. credits: Buch for GUI, Alis for icons
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Re: 3D pixel style coop action RPG (IRON FIST?)

Postby Julius » 20 Sep 2013, 17:43

Hmm, played around with the quake3 like shaders for the gui elements, and while it seems to be picking up the shader itself, the "nomipmap" command seems to be getting overwritten by the GUI layout code that scales everything relative to a 640x480 screen. I need to talk to Robert about this when he is back from holidays. Obviously such nice pixel graphics for the hud only work if we can render them pixel perfect and scale them only at even intervals. It's probably not a big deal to implement in the HUD code, but for now we have to live with the blurry look :(
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Re: 3D pixel style coop action RPG (IRON FIST?)

Postby andrewj » 21 Sep 2013, 07:19

Julius {l Wrote}:Hmm, played around with the quake3 like shaders for the gui elements, and while it seems to be picking up the shader itself, the "nomipmap" command seems to be getting overwritten by the GUI layout code that scales everything relative to a 640x480 screen.

Judging from the ya3dag code, mipping cannot be controlled on a per-image basis -- it is hard-coded that certain types of image use it and other types don't.

Also looks like "gl_picmip 0" command in the console will disable it (but for everything not just the UI).
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Re: 3D pixel style coop action RPG (IRON FIST?)

Postby Julius » 21 Sep 2013, 08:25

Ahh, that is good to know, direct control through the quake3 like shaders as one can do in other engines would be probably useful. However it seems like the issue with the blurry textures is the arbitrary relative resizing. Obviously that doesn't play well with pixel-art. I though that by setting the size of the HUD images to the actual image size this could be avoided, but the on screen rendering is still of different sizes depending on the screen-resolution.
I guess this is probably the intended effect Robert had in my when coding the gui code, but a small change in that behaviour would be probably nice for this type of gui.... however is only a minor issue for now.

btw @ andrewj: You seem like you know your way around the idTech2 code-base? Would you be interested in helping out?

Edit: I tried it in the ingame resolution of 640x480 (see attachment), and at this resolution (which forsm the base for gui resizing) the pixels looks fine.
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at ingame resolution of 640x480
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Re: 3D pixel style coop action RPG (IRON FIST?)

Postby Buch » 21 Sep 2013, 17:19

Another update on the GUI: I have started working on the specific windows.

Right now, I have done the inventory screen and mocked up a spell book and a conversation box.

The inventory as it is now is limited to 16 elements: I guess that's pretty small... I could add some tabbed inventory or buttons to switch pages, if you need. The bottom section is for selected item description and actions (the three buttons are supposed to be use/equip/unequip, drop and... some other undefined action), and the right section is for equipped items (as you might have guessed...). Of course, equipment slots will be changed according to the slots you'll decide to have in the game. I thought that drawing the icons inside the slots was a good idea to show what went there...

The spellbook (the bottom left window) is not very good to me... I might decide to do that from scratch again. The idea is that you have one side with spell list and the selected spell description on the other side, possibly with some action buttons for the spells (basically the cast button - any others?)

The conversation box looks better, but I have some 'compatibility' questions. First of all, is that kind of title supported by the engine? Secondly, where and how should I put buttons for possible answers (if any)? I was thinking of integrating them in the box frame on the bottom, but that would probably overcrowd the box border if there are many conversation options... The square on the left is supposed to contain the portrait of the speaking character.

Lastly, I added the configuration bars you were talking about (I hope I got what you were meaning!) but I haven't done the ones with the bubble yet...

I also did new cursors (but no color variations ATM...): a bigger arrow (approximately doubled in size, as you requested) and two glove cursor variations (I first drew the one in the middle, but the hand shape seemed quite odd to me, so I drew the other one, which is quite simplistic maybe... just pick the one you prefer).

I still couldn't figure out a good way for highlighting selected spells, but I guess there's no hurry with that :)
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Re: 3D pixel style coop action RPG (IRON FIST?)

Postby andrewj » 22 Sep 2013, 05:06

Julius {l Wrote}:btw @ andrewj: You seem like you know your way around the idTech2 code-base? Would you be interested in helping out?

I have been following this thread with some interest, and I do know my way around the idTech engines very well (upto Quake 3). However my current computer is too old to run ya3dag (it requires 4 texture units) and when I get a new one then -- well, there'll be lots of shiny stuff demanding attention :D

Plus I'm not sure your game is exactly what I want to work on, though I agree with a lot of your ideas. So for now I am keeping an eye on this project, and possibly later I might help out.
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Re: 3D pixel style coop action RPG (IRON FIST?)

Postby Julius » 22 Sep 2013, 14:07

@ Andrewj: Ok I understand, well maybe we can find you someone that is willing to donate a better GPU then ;)
Alternatively you could work on making a "low spec" version :) However Robert already lowered requirements to let it run on a Intel HD 400, so maybe he will look into getting it to run on your PC as well. Would be a pity to loose a potential contributor that knows his way around the Q2 engine to a stupid reason like that ;)

@buch:

Great update again!

Sadly a drag and drop inventory like that is currently no implemented, but I guess that should be definitely on the to-do list so having it as an option is definitely great.
Personally I am not a big fan of "inventory tetris" so having all items the same size should make 16 slots sufficient... but adding a row or two shouldn't be to complicated either. Ya3dag currently does inventory management by weight and a simple list interface, so there is some improvement definitely needed.
The spellbook mock-up looks fine to me, and should actually serve as a nice temporary solution for the inventory, the shop interface and all the other "ibag" stuff. Here is an example how the current shop interface looks like:
shop_ya3dag.png
Shop interface ya3dag


The conversations window is perfect for the current implementation. A window title like that should be possible I think (if not embedding the text in the bitmap is also no big deal for now). Buttons for answers are currently not in, you just select one of the possible answers in a list like this:
conver_ya3dag.png
Conversations ya3dag

So again, for now the way you did it is fine, and we can see later on to improve on that.

The bigger cursor is fine, but I agree the hand cursors are not really that great yet. So far I have been using this one, which I think has a rather nice shape:
Hand.png
CC-by-SA Ashiroxzer
http://opengameart.org/content/dungeon-tbs
Hand.png (14.29 KiB) Viewed 16902 times

Maybe you can just make an overdraw of that? It's cc-by-sa though, so a derivative work would need to be the same. Not sure what your license plans are, for this game itself the target license is CC-by-SA, so everything we use needs to be compatible to that.
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