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[SolarLune]

@buckteeth canyon - Yeah, that's some solid art. Nice work! That breathing effect works really well! I assume you'll animate using the usual mesh swapping or UV sliding approach?

The mesh swapping method's a bit harder to set up, but can be used across objects that share sprites (like two guards). On the other hand, UV animation's a bit easier to set up, but objects that share meshes (like those same two guards) share animations. However, this can be great for objects that you don't mind sharing animations (like background torches). You can perform the logic on one object and have a hundred all animating with no drop in FPS (if I'm correct).

[clockwrk_routine]

Here's a mockup.  I've mostly been thinking about the setting and the world, but they are just a collection of loose ideas right now.
 
@Solarlune Yea I was wondering why you used two different methods when it seemed liked spritesheets would be more efficient/organized, but that makes sense.  But doesn't each object have its own uv information, so sharing the same spritesheet wouldn't be a problem, since you could each objects uv information is separate.  Maybe I'm not understanding something. (I don't think I'm being clear either)

I'm going try to aim for something like this:

Mixing sprites and 3D at a 45 degree angle, where you can also rotate the camera.

I recall someone having tried this in blender but had difficulties when it came to angling other sprites on the screen with the camera.  Maybe I could try fixing the camera to an angle depending on the scene/part of the map, not having to worry about angle the other sprites are facing.

[SolarLune]

That screenshot is orthographic, so angling the sprites shouldn't be hard at all if you stick with that. Angling the sprites for a perspective camera is a bit tougher since you get skewing along the edges of the screen (for a top-down perspective like you have / want).

Well, instanced objects (created with Alt+D) or objects created in-game share meshes, so they share UV values. However, objects can have unique pointers to existing meshes, so two objects that are the same, like enemies, can point to two different existing planes sprites.

[clockwrk_routine]

Alright I'm starting to understand that better.  And I tried out the camera positioned at a 45 degree angle, that rotated with the player cube, with some 3d objects in the background, works exactly how I want it. 

Something I know I will have to implement, is to have all the npc planes/cubes match the players plane/cube angle. And come up with a script that changes their sprites on the screen depending on angle of the camera, so they face in there respective directions.

And also this came to mind.  Something I've thought about before was rotoscoping over 3D objects to get sprites with accurate perspective.  And I figured a way to do this in Blender.  I set up a simple model, positioned the camera at a 45 degree angle, and placed a plane over the model.  I erased the alpha, and then started drawing over the model.  Here are the results:


If I was making a sprite sheet, I can rotate the model in 8 directions, rotoscope, then do the next frames of the animation posing the model.

[ink.inc]

Fantastic~!

[Kiriban]

カワイイ!

Any plans which platforms will this be able to play

[BomberTREE]

カワイイ!

cute..

I like this hand painted art style 

[clockwrk_routine]

@guys & gals: thank you!  I'm making this in blender, so I'll be able to make ports to linux/mac/pc.  But then again this could just turn into an abando before I speak too soon.  But I feel pretty good where this is going.  the 3D rotoscoping works wonders.

[Joshua]

Interesting stuff! I really enjoy when folks share their workflow/process.

[SolarLune]

Yeah, it's looking pretty sweet, indeed. How long does it take you to draw over the model? And what are you aiming for in the BGE - GLSL mode?

[clockwrk_routine]

This is where the project stands right now.  I made a rough sprite sheet of a run animation 6 frames long in 8 directions, rotoscoping.  Besides it being rough, I don't like the run animation since it feels stiff. 

The spritesheet is 2048 x 2048, and each frame is 256 x 256.  As I painted, I had my UV in one corner of the sprite sheet, finished the frame, and then move the UV to an empty frame and started painting again.  It took about an hour to complete the sheet, but I was kind of dragging my feet so I think I could complete it in less time.

The camera orbits at 45 degrees locking in place, much like bof4.  Player's direction updates when the camera orbits.

I have a free day today:
- NPC's direction update with camera
- New models with better animation.  (going to try the skin modifier to build them)

@joshua I really like hearing about other peoples process as well, I learn quite a bit, so I thought someone would get as much out of it as I do. 
@solarlune GLSL mode doesn't appear correctly on my gfx card.  So I use multitexture
@makichan I miss you

[SolarLune]

I'd go for SingleTexture mode for the reason I mentioned before and for simplicity's sake if you're not trying to use multiple textures on the same mesh.

Game's looking great so far, though. I like the orbit locking and the running's not too bad. I know what you mean, it does feel a little stiff. I think he's not bending his legs enough (though the FPS of the GIF's lower than in-game). Don't forget to cross (frames where one leg is on the ground and the other is moving forward) in between the strikes (the frames where his legs are out).

[clockwrk_routine]

Somewhat productive today, made a new base model for the hero.  And drafted some npc/enemy designs but I'm kind of crapping out right now.  I've had only a vague idea about what the world is going to look like/be, but with each of these designs more of it is coming together.  I plan on filling a sheet of 64 designs within the coming days.  And I'll probably do another sheet of 64 for environment objects.  When I'm doing these, I'm thinking about what do their designs say, each of them could represent an entire race so I'm thinking about race, family, their settings, and belief systems, and some dumb things but I'm really fanatical about it.  I like to keep these ideas floating around while I'm working, since the world is far from concrete right now.

@solarlune yea the gif doesn't catch the crossing frames but they are there

[rdein]

i really like the designs and art for this kiddo

[Calum Bowen]

these designs are beautiful. 
i need to make you some twisted windwaker-type music 

[clockwrk_routine]

@rdein & calum Wow totally respect both your work too, means a lot you think so!  I'm not sure if you are joking but if you aren't about the music calum that would be incredible!  um... I think I've listened to the wind waker anniversary cd more than a dozen times 

Today I went swimming but I have another laptop to work on.  YAY!

[ninja]

THis is looking realy good.  Keep up the good work.

[eyeliner]

this will be cyberpunk underwater story about a punk crab with a concealed claw gun fighting the nautical tyranny

You

own

the story

is epic

I

desire this

[clockwrk_routine]

It might be annoying to be affronted with a different design each week, but I think I'm building towards something each time.   Anyways this week I really dug into python scripting, along with playing FFT again and thinking about the mechanic that's growing old down my road.  My friend was telling me how he's too old to learn how to fix newer model cars, that they require diagnostic machines that he doesn't know how to fiddle with, but he can diagnose an old car just by listening it.  And I thought that was an interesting story in an of itself, when technology surpasses the skills you trained in your whole life and becoming obsolete.

That's when I started to settle on a story, world, and game mechanics that would tie into it. 

The premise a turn based strategy RPG with a heavy focus on puzzle solving and exploration not typically found in turn based strategies.

Your character will be building robots that he manipulates through some wireless technology, to move around a level solving puzzles while combating other robots, scrappers, hackers, science experiments.  His robots will each have their own specific roles to play for puzzle-solving/combat, and are built from interchangeable parts.  Your character will move between fields like they would an adventure game, not by fulfilling winning conditions for disconnected maps which is typically found in tbs.

I imagine each room will be small areas the player must traverse, he'll learn to activate teleporters, so he can easily move around the world.  Set in the far future possibly a space colony, the world will be interspersed with dungeons, 'fields', and residential areas.

well actually it's 4 am so I'll stop there about the game.  Anyways this isn't the first time I've tried making an turn based strategy, one of my first project attempts was one in rm2k3 that also faked varying terrain height(very very slow movement check), its one of my favorite genres.

The above is a shot of the movement algorithm based on Djisktra's, that takes into account jumping vertically and horizontally to reach the shortest path.  It uses an arcing ray cast for long distance jumps of varying height, and returns whether the player can make the jump or will they run into an object if they do, it will also adjust to see if there's a better angle with no collision but not exceeding the jump maximum.

It's pretty slow right now, I think there might be some redundant/unnecessary searches.  I also need to increase the volume of the ray cast to match the height of the player, you can now slip through cracks.  But otherwise I find it accurate.  In that shot the player can jump 1 tile vertically and 1 tile horizontally.

[SolarLune]

Sounds really interesting. I like the robot-building mechanic - I hope you can get it to work!

As for the slow raycast searches, how are you going about it? You could shoot a ray for x tiles forward, each going from 100 units up to 200 units down, for example. If it hits a tile, then you can measure the distance away from the player in tiles to see if he can make the jump.

Anyway, it's looking good! Keep it up!