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[9joseph9]

this is a really great game ,but mabey you could tone it down on the wands ,i find two more before i even run out of charges on the first one lol.

[Interrupt]

I've been working on expanding the Entity -> Entity collision system lately to support static entities like bridges better. Before the Entity -> World and Entity -> Entity collision systems were different, now things will be more unified and should act the same.

MikeRatzlaff has been proven to be a Cool Dude, and given a fork of the Delver code to work on to try out some improvements he had been asking me for, he's been working on some cool stuff like exposing more properties for modding, angled walls and better doors:



I'll be merging bits of his work back into the main codebase, looking forward to some of this stuff

[ninja]

I've been working on expanding the Entity -> Entity collision system lately to support static entities like bridges better. Before the Entity -> World and Entity -> Entity collision systems were different, now things will be more unified and should act the same.

MikeRatzlaff has been proven to be a Cool Dude, and given a fork of the Delver code to work on to try out some improvements he had been asking me for, he's been working on some cool stuff like exposing more properties for modding, angled walls and better doors:



I'll be merging bits of his work back into the main codebase, looking forward to some of this stuff

When is the decal update coming out?

[gimymblert]

Fuck yeah, angled wall! I wonder how this is stored in the map?

I mean original delver had drawn heavily on map system like Tomb raider or system shock: each cell has wallID + ceiling/floor height + extra slope height for each, how the hell you can add slanted wall?

Also the minimap still show square data, yet the room is rather roundish

[Joshua]

Whoa. Great work guys!

[ImHereForDelver]

Wow, I haven't posted here in a while. Grats Chad for getting so much publicity(I have a lack of a better word) for this game, I hope you get it on Steam, That would be a big boost. Btw, Can you still not figure out why some people can't see the crystals?

[Interrupt]

Fuck yeah, angled wall! I wonder how this is stored in the map?

I mean original delver had drawn heavily on map system like Tomb raider or system shock: each cell has wallID + ceiling/floor height + extra slope height for each, how the hell you can add slanted wall?

Also the minimap still show square data, yet the room is rather roundish

Slanted walls end up just being an enum added to the tile. Instead of a tile just being solid / nonsolid now there's a bunch of enums: EMPTY, SOLID, ANGLED_NE, etc...

MikeRatzlaff also updated the map system later to show angled rooms. Instead of it being one pixel per tile, now it's something like four pixels per tile:

Wow, I haven't posted here in a while. Grats Chad for getting so much publicity(I have a lack of a better word) for this game, I hope you get it on Steam, That would be a big boost. Btw, Can you still not figure out why some people can't see the crystals?

In the next version I'm batching static models like crystals into one larger model per world chunk, a weird side effect of that process is that it also seems to fix the crystal rendering.

[Linkshot]

Now that's what I call a "feature". Good job on crystals. I never would have even known they existed without this thread.

[gimymblert]

Oh thank you for answering, that map look really amazing!

[ninja]

 :shrug2:two questions, approximate release date, and will the new textures be used in e next version?

[Interrupt]

:shrug2:two questions, approximate release date, and will the new textures be used in e next version?

Those textures are part of MikeRatzlaff's UW mod, not the base game.

[ninja]

:shrug2:two questions, approximate release date, and will the new textures be used in e next version?

Those textures are part of MikeRatzlaff's UW mod, not the base game.

And the answer to the first question is?  You know I will take I don't know for an answer, I would just like to know that you saw my question.

[Interrupt]

:shrug2:two questions, approximate release date, and will the new textures be used in e next version?

Those textures are part of MikeRatzlaff's UW mod, not the base game.

And the answer to the first question is?  You know I will take I don't know for an answer, I would just like to know that you saw my question.

I don't have any hard date right now. I'm almost done with the static decorative model support but I'll still need to actually make some assets and populate the levels with them to show off the new feature.

[Malloy]

I don't have any hard date right now. I'm almost done with the static decorative model support but I'll still need to actually make some assets and populate the levels with them to show off the new feature.

PM me man, maybe we can come to an arrangement on those assets

[Dementor561]

These new features will be worth the wait!!!

[Interrupt]

DelvEdit 3-12-13

Here's the next version of DelvEdit for those that want to start messing around with it. Major features:

• Entity selection and placement
  
  • x, y and z keys will lock movement to that axis
  • shift will lock movement to the x & y plane
  • alt will duplicate an entity
•    Entity editor
  • right click on a selected entity and use 'edit properties' to bring up a properties pane for that entity
  • choose textures, lighting modes, collision sizes, etc
• Static mesh support
  • Add a model entity, choose the model and texture, set to 'isDynamic = false' to have the model use the static mesh batching pipeline
  • Static meshes will render faster, have better lighting, and will receive decals
• Projected decal entities
  • Projects the chosen texture onto surfaces
  • Choose either projected or orthogonal mode
• C key displays / hides collision boxes for entities

[MikeRatzlaff]

The trap looks fantastic in that!

Meh, it looks alright on the ground.  I don't like the way it looks when it sets off.  I'd need to adjust the color values in the graphic.  But I no longer care to work on it.

Defiantly gives a very medieval look, and is that trap a pentagram?

Indeed it is.

Mother of God... 

Eh, doesn't take much to impress you, does it?

[MikeRatzlaff]

MikeRatzlaff has been proven to be a Cool Dude, and given a fork of the Delver code to work on to try out some improvements he had been asking me for, he's been working on some cool stuff like exposing more properties for modding, angled walls and better doors:

WOOT! Recognition!  By name!  I'm no longer "Someone working on an Ultima Underworld mod for Delver"! 

Fuck yeah, angled wall! I wonder how this is stored in the map?

I mean original delver had drawn heavily on map system like Tomb raider or system shock: each cell has wallID + ceiling/floor height + extra slope height for each, how the hell you can add slanted wall?

Also the minimap still show square data, yet the room is rather roundish

Funny you should mention System Shock - I'm storing the wall angles in the exact same way.  SS keeps each map square data in a 16-byte entry (128 bits).  Take the value of the first 3 bits of that (or 4 if you prefer even numbers) and cap it at a value of 5.  What you have left is exactly how I'm storing the diagonals for delver.

Also, you seem rather excited about diagonal walls.  I bet you'd crap yourself if you ever saw a curved.  Oh hey look at this:



I suppose I owe you a new pair of shorts now.  Sorry about that.  My bad.

But seriously, Chad has said he has no interest in putting curved walls in the base delver engine.  After seeing how much work is it going to be to get diagonal walls in, I can see why:  They are purely cosmetic, add little value to gameplay, and add stress to the collision detection, path-finding, and other systems, plus the actual work to code and debug them.  I'm all for adding features but not at the cost of simplicity and speed of the engine.  I'll be focusing my efforts elsewhere.

[gimymblert]

Well I knew about system shock because of delver (he mention it somewhere in the thread) then I got on investigation about this map format. The reason angle surprise me is because the room is basically a double heightmap (ceiling/floor) with further height data for corner. Now if you have slanted wall you have (I thought) two distinct triangle plane to raise (floor1,floor2). Just thinking about a bit much told me I was silly since it's a derivative of plain wall (no floor/ceiling), you don't have a second raised plane, it's a mixed with a wall in a corner(no elevation) and a plane in the other corner, we just loose a single corner data. Now I think curve wall work in similar way, except the diagonal is tessellate a bit further as we still manipulate 3 corners.

[MikeRatzlaff]

As Chad mentioned, he has been generous enough to grant me access to his source code repository, so that I can fork his code and throw my own hacks in, and if he likes what he sees these features will be merged into the Delver base code.

Here are some of the things I am working on, and remember these may or may not make it back into the main code:

• Font scaling - In stock Delver you can change the resolution of any graphics files (textures, sprites, etc) except for the font file which was locked at 8x8 per tile.  This was not an engine limitation, just a bug in the font-loading code.  For my UW mod I've added a 16x16 per tile font.
• Standardizing graphics files to all be 16 tiles wide.
• Textures per wall face - in Delver base, you place a wall and give it a texture number and that texture will be used on all 4 faces of that wall.  I've added texture slots for the North, South, East, and West faces so that they can each be textured independently.
• Item textures, per location and per condition.  Right now all items are each represented by a single texture.  Actually, there is a second texture for a weapon that is wielded, and I take advantage of that in my UW mod.
  But image you have a separate texture for each possible location of an item: one for it being on the floor, one for it being in an inventory slot, one for it being in an equipment slot (if it's an equippable item), and one for it being wielded.  Take a pair of pants for example - when on the floor, there could be an image of the pants laying crumpled on the floor.  When you pick them up and put them in inventory, there would be an image of pants folded neatly into the inventory square.  When you equip them, there will be an image of pants being worn.  And if you wield them, you'll see your hand clutching a pair of pants and ready to lay the smack down.
  Once you have those 4 possible item locations, remember that items also have conditions like broken, worn, normal, fine, and excellent.  Image being able to provide a separate texture for each condition, for each location.  So a single item can theoretically have up to 20 textures specified, and that's not counting the 5 base textures.
  See for example my armor in my UW mod:
  
  the first column is what it looks like when on the ground, and the rest of the columns are what it looks like when equipped at various damage levels.
  
• Diagonal walls - you've seen the screen shots, not much else to say.  Just like square walls, diagonal walls can have a different texture on each of the 3 faces.  Unlike UW and SS, diagonal walls may also have slopes in their open space.
• The map has been increased in resolution to accurately display the diagonal walls.  Also an optional graphical background can be used for the map - you can see I used a UW map in the screen shot of my UW mod.
• context-sensitive action button - besides just the generic use button, I've added a get, look, talk, and attack buttons, depending on what entity your character is pointed at.  Look and Talk are not used by the stock delver engine, but they're in there for future expansion.
• Doors - lots of options for doors.  They can slide or rotate.  They can stand up straight or lie on the floor (think trap-doors and draw-bridges).  They can start out locked or unlocked.  They can be unlocked by a key or a scriptable item (like a wall switch).  They can stick open or they can be re-closable.  Lots of options in placing doors.  I've even added a special doors.png files to keep them separate from wall textures.  Right now all my door code uses sprites for doors because at first I didn't think my understanding was solid enough to deal with 3d models, but I have confidence I will be switching to models soon.
• Scripts within maps - No coding knowledge required, all editable within the level editor.  Scripting is very simple.  You start with on object that can pull a trigger, for example a wall switch.  Then on this trigger you place triggerable script nodes.  For example if you want to open a door when that switch is pulled, you just attach a DoorOpen trigger to that trigger line and then attach that to the door that you want to open.  You can attach multiple script nodes to a single trigger, and you can even place delays between them so that they fire off in sequence instead of all at once.  A trigger line can even pull another trigger line, so essentially you have routines and sub-routines.  And a trigger can pull another trigger based on a condition, so you have script branching capabilities.  All this without having to write code, just attaching objects together in the editor.
• a few other minor things, I can't remember them all right now.

Remember those are my suggested changes, Chad may or may not accept any or all of them into the official Delver base.

I could post some screenshots but some of these things don't convey well in stills.  If someone can point me to a tutorial for recording an app and uploading it to YouTube (or whatever is easy/modern) and I'll do that and post a link here.