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

[Buch]

Heya all!

I've been busy for a while, so I couldn't work that much on the UI. I've made some minor changes and mocked up a minimap (which still needs refinements - as well as the rest, actually...). And I added some buttons below it... don't really know if they will fit, but here they are.

[Bertram]

Woohoo, go go, guys!

[Julius]

Great work as usual Buch!

There is a public holiday tomorrow here, so I hope to be able to make some progress on the level/mod/menu side of things.

Edit: 1000 posts, yay

[Julius]

http://opengameart.org/forumtopic/calle ... usic-remix
Good idea?

[Danimal]

Hi Julius, i catched notice of this post by pure chance by OGA way. I think its quite interesting and would like to help on the 3d models side, i can do the basic meshes and armor pieces, but dont know how to pixel texture them, someone else will have to do it.

If Surt is fine with it i can try my hand at one of the characters he showed before, i like all of them, except for the acrobat, a creppy joker trowing knifes would be better imo. Also i guess the pictures are the "basic versions" of the characters and any armor or weapon change will build up over them, more concept art would be need for that when we reach that point.

I am with bertram as well regarding to OD, i just cant even go there anymore, it makes me so demotivated to see they cant even build the lastest version, that just includes fixes and no new content at all (which we have plenty).

[Julius]

Great any help is very welcome!

Pixel-textureing is not very difficult, basically you just need to keep our UVs relatively strait lined so that it will not look too strange in regards to individual pixels being bend along more than one tris. or diagonally etc. and then apply a really low resolution texture to that.

However for now I would advise you against messing around with the players, as that is in huge flux right now and we are still experimenting with how to implement that sprite idea best (I just wrote like 3 pages of email exchange with Robert on how to implement that).

Maybe you can take some nice props stuff from this http://opengameart.org/content/lots-of- ... y-hyptosis or this http://opengameart.org/content/rpg-tile ... wn-objects (or another 32x32 pixel tileset) and try to make some nice map-models for populating levels? Try to recycle as much of the texture as possible and preserve the pixel like look. Polygon count can be higher if it helps the look, but you obviously shouldn't go overboard with that. Keep pixel density in mind, e.g. the size of the individual pixels should neither be different on the model itself nor in regards to the world textures etc. (which I haven't done yet I know). Just keep the relative size of the 2D tiles in tact when translating it into 3D, e.g. if one was to render the 3D model and use it again as a tile it should not look out of place in the same tile sheet.
Best would be something one can fit into the terrain, like fences, or lamp-posts etc.
Filetype can be pretty much anything... .obj or .md3 is fine (just have a look at how quake3 map-models are made). Transparent parts can be just done via .pngs, but for more crisp pixel look we will have to write a small quake3 like shader too. But I can do that no problem.

Alternatively I was thinking about how to implement pick-ups best. Currently I think some sort of quake3 like transparent and rotating shapes that can have different colors according to the characteristic (regular, magic, unique etc.) and a different shapes according to the type (armor, weapon, consumable etc.) and that can display the item sprite as used in the gui inside would be a good solution. If you want you can experiment with that, e.g. what looks good as a shape etc.
Again pretty much any tutorial on how to do items and write the shader for quake3 will also work with ya3dag if you want to experiment with getting it in game already.

[Bertram]

I am with bertram as well regarding to OD, i just cant even go there anymore, it makes me so demotivated to see they cant even build the lastest version, that just includes fixes and no new content at all (which we have plenty).

Thanks, it helps to have support. Once I'll have the correct dependencies created, building and rebuilding on Windows will hopefully be much easier.</disrupting> (Sorry, Julius)

[Danimal]

Sorry Bertram, thats not an attack directed to you, but to the general affair of things in OD, you have to agree that building it, its hell on earth, if it doesnt change in the future and things are simplified development will just go to a crawl.

Julius, i was thinking of doing a character first, but i dont mind trying to do props first, i guess you want them to be "boxy" like the first screenshot you showed us. Any preference in the props i should start with?, market stuff seems easy, like houses and the likes. Or do you prefer small objects?

[Julius]

@Danimal: Doesn't have to be super blocky, just fitting to the overall pixel style. For houses and such I think it would make more sense to build them as modules out of bsp geometry in a level editor (e.g. Netradiant). So smaller objects, details so to say and anything that does not have to block visibility like a house wall. Shop signs or window shutters, e.g. outside details for houses, or furniture would be also fine, but I still need to figure out how to make them into physics objects so that chairs etc can be pushed around.

[Danimal]

we are talking about 3d models here, rigth?. so you dont them to be like your example screenshot? you want them to be less boxy?

[Bertram]

Sorry Bertram, thats not an attack directed to you, but to the general affair of things in OD, you have to agree that building it, its hell on earth, if it doesnt change in the future and things are simplified development will just go to a crawl.

Np, I didn't take anything personally. That's my main motivation, lowering the requirement level to build the beast on Windows and permit development easier that way.
Hopefully, I'm becoming less and less dumb at each failed attempts, and I can say I'm definitely close. </disruption> (Arf, sorry again, Julius, this is the last time.)

[Julius]

we are talking about 3d models here, rigth?. so you dont them to be like your example screenshot? you want them to be less boxy?

Yes, 3D models At this point is is basically up to you to test and see what looks good.
But personally I don't see us "copying" the blocky look for Mincecraft and the like (since we are not using voxels it also doen't make much sense). For example contrary to the screenshot, I would not make boxy barrels, but rather hexagon/octagon ones that are smaller at top and bottom, e.g. still visibly low-poly with a pixel like texture, but not boxy only.
But just try yourself, I am sure you can come up with something nice

Edit: the use of transparent texture parts that emphasize the pixel look, like for example texture ornaments on chairs, or pixelized grates as part of the fences etc is encuraged

[Danimal]

Why not call it "Pixel Warriors" or anything that starts with "Pixel"? Pixel dungeons, pixel arena or Full metal fist?

[Julius]

The folder of the mod for ya3dag is currently called pixelRPG
I am pretty undecided in regards to the name, and I don't think we need to decide on one yet.

Status from my side: got the test_dummy directional sprite body 80% done today. Was more work than expected But I think it might turn out to be a good base for drawing the real characters (or reference for pre-rendering them), so the work isn't only for helping Robert implement the feature. The main body (without head and arms) is 48x96 pixel which seems like a good looking size. Currently there are only 4 individual directions, but 45° views are planned to be added bumping that to 8. Depending on how that looks in game, 16 directions might also be possible, but that will be a lot of work to draw by hand (as well as require very large sprite sheets).

[Danimal]

Is somehing like this ok?

[Julius]

Shape is fine, for the texture I would suggest a 1/10 of the resolution or less. 32x32 or 64x64 is probably a good texture size to aim for.

[Danimal]

I made two new textures one at 32 pixels and another at 64 pixels, which one do you like the most?, please ignore displaced uv (like the barrel top) for now ill correct it later when i know the rigth size of texture

[Skorpio]

32px looks great.

[Julius]

32px looks great.

+1

Edit: if you want you can already tinker with a greyscale heightmap to do a simple normal-map through the GIMP filter. I am not quite sure how to do that best, but try doing the heightmap at double resolution so that the shadow is a bit smoother while still maintaining the pixel look of the main texture.

This is how to write the shader:

material diffusemap [bumpmap bumpScale/normalmap] [glossmap] [decalmap]

Materials are used to define a deluxemap/dot3 shader stage. Any
numeric value after diffusemap (texture) defines bumpscale - the
"bumpyness" of heightmap. If no bumpmap has been specified, the
engine will attempt to load the default images (with _bump and
_gloss suffixes). material textures/walls/stupid_wall.tga loads
textures/walls/stupid_wall_bump as heightmap with default
bumpscale (or loads textures/walls/stupid_wall_norm as normalmap),
textures/walls/stupid_wall_gloss as glossmap and either
textures/walls/stupid_wall_decal or textures/walls_stupid_wall_add
as decalmap.

(no worries, I can do the shader if you never wrote a quake3 like shader before, it is rather simple though)

[Danimal]

By 32 pixel you mean this one rigth? (i didnt make it too clear).
Im doing everything on blender and can make a normal with a plugin in photoshop, im sorry to say i have no idea how to do it for a quake file; but i do know blender can export to that kind of file.

[Julius]

Yes that one It's fine if you provide a .blend or an exported .obj. Texture needs to be a .png or .tga (no .jpg please!).
Yes the photoshop plugin works just the same, if you make the normal-map please also include the grey scale height-map as a source file.

Edit: now I really need to figure out how to make rolling and exploding barrels using the bullet physics and the new particle system

[Danimal]

This is embarrasing but i have not the foggiest idea of how to create a grey scale height-map, up until now each time i needed something like that i just desaturated the image or texture in photoshop. And it got the job done, since basically dark colors remained dark and ligth colors reamined white or greyish, but i guess that its not what you need?
Googling how to made it just made me more confused, since tutorials only explain how to make them from a blender mesh or applying an existing one to a mesh. So... help?, Skorpio?

[Julius]

http://www.katsbits.com/tutorials/textu ... images.php

At the low resolutions we are talking about here, you can simply draw them pixel by pixel though

A desaturated base texture often works too, but as explained in the tutorial, redrawing it can look a lot cleaner and thus better.

Edit: random picture from my reference folder to show how normal-maps can look like on low resolution textures:

[Danimal]

ill look at the tutorial tomorrow, i just finished another one. Im enjoying quite a lot making these.

[Julius]

Yes, those are quick and fun to do One of the reasons why I think this art-style is perfect for the project!

The torch looks great too, but please make the "glowing" part a bit smaller so that the actual flame can be either a particle effect or an animated sprite texture.

Edit: hmm on a second thought, leave it as is. With a particle effect it will look nice as is, and we can even make the glowing part "pulsate" with a q3 like shader.