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[nihilocrat]

Sounds pretty interesting, and the visuals are superb. Keeping my eye on this.

[medieval]

Looks very charming, and I like the idea of an exploration shooter. Keeping my eye on this.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Okay, I tried TeeGee's suggestion of doing these trails through GM's particle system. The particles were actually much slower than either of these two methods for equal trail lengths. That isn't too surprising because creating 100 new particles for the player and for the creatures seems like it'd be drawn slower than a strip of 100 triangles or 100 lines in a loop. I did get some interesting effects which I may adapt or use for other things, but I probably will keep using the methods mentioned instead of particles due to the speed difference.

[Xion]

you said you wanted rainbow trails...couldn't you draw each point on the triangle strip with a different hue for that effect? I don't see why rainbow trails would be too hard...?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I could try gradually shifting the hue, yes. But what I meant by rainbow was this:

red red red red red
orange orange orange
yellow yellow yellow
green green green
blue blue blue blue

rather than

red orange yellow green blue
red orange yellow green blue
red orange yellow green blue
red orange yellow green blue

i.e. *stripes* rather than just a hue shift over time.

the second would be perfectly easy. the first, not so much. i will try the second to see how it looks though.

[Alex May]

If you can draw texture-mapped triangles, or texture-mapped rectangles in your original system, then you should be able to put a rainbow texture over the trail without too much trouble.

It's a shame about the overlap - there are probably some neat ways around it but it might slow the game down even more to implement them.

[Eclipse]

40 fps is the crap if the game is fast paced, aim always for 50-60 if you can D:

about that triangles overlap, maybe you can fix it using the stencil buffer

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

GM can do texture-mapped primitives, but I haven't actually used it that often. I used it a little bit in Immortal Defense for the shield effect around the first boss, but that was mainly randomly stabbing at the air and inserting random variables in the GM functions until I got a desired effect. I'll post the textured primitive description here:

Finally, it is possible to draw primitives using sprites or backgrounds as textures. When using a texture the image is placed on the primitive, reshaping it to fit the primitive. Textures are used to add detail to primitives, e.g. a brick wall. To use textures you first must obtain the id of the texture you want to use. For this the following functions exist:

sprite_get_texture(spr,subimg) Returns the id of the texture corresponding to subimage subimg of the indicated sprite.
background_get_texture(back) Returns the id of the texture corresponding to the indicated background.

A selected texture might not yet be in video memory. The system will put it there once you need it but sometimes you want to decide this yourself. For this the following two functions exist:

texture_preload(texid) Puts the texture immediately into video memory.
texture_set_priority(texid,prio) When there is too little video memory some will be removed temporarily to make room for others that are needed. The ones with lowest priority are removed first. Default, all have priority 0 but you can change the priority here. (Use positive values!)

To add textures to primitives you must specify which parts of the textures must be put where on the primitive. Positions in the texture are indicated with values between 0 and 1 but there is a problem here. Sizes of textures must be powers of 2 (so e.g. 32x32 or 64x64). If you want to use sprites or background as textures you better make sure they have such a size. If not, the test will be blank. To find out which part of the texture is actually used you can use the following two functions. They return a value between 0 and 1 that indicates the width or height of the actual part of the texture being used. Specifying this value as texture coordinate will indicate the right or bottom side of the texture.

texture_get_width(texid) Returns the width of the texture with the given id. The width lies in the range 0-1.
texture_get_height(texid) Returns the height of the texture with the given id. The height lies in the range 0-1.

To draw textured primitives you use the following functions:

draw_primitive_begin_texture(kind,texid) Start a primitive of the indicated kind with the given texture.
draw_vertex_texture(x,y,xtex,ytex) Add vertex (x,y) to the primitive with position (xtex,ytex) in the texture, blending with the color and alpha value set before. xtex and ytex should normally lie between 0 and 1 but also larger values can be used, leading to a repetition of the texture (see below).
draw_vertex_texture_color(x,y,xtex,ytex,col,alpha) Add vertex (x,y) to the primitive with position (xtex,ytex) in the texture, blending with its own color and alpha value.
draw_primitive_end() End the description of the primitive. This function actually draws it.

There are three functions that influence how textures are drawn:

texture_set_interpolation(linear) Indicates whether to use linear interpolation (true) or pick the nearest pixel (false). Linear interpolation gives smoother textures but can also be a bit blurry and sometimes costs extra time. This setting also influence the drawing of sprites and background. Default is false. (This can also be changed in the global game settings.)
texture_set_blending(blend) Indicates whether to use blending with colors and alpha values. Switching this off might be faster on old hardware. This setting also influence the drawing of sprites and background. Default is true.
texture_set_repeat(repeat) Indicates whether to use repeat the texture. This works as follows. As indicated above texture coordinates lie in the range 0-1. If you specify a value larger than 1, default the rest is not drawn. By setting repeat to true the texture is repeated. Note that sprites and backgrounds are always drawn without repeating. So once you draw a sprite of background this value is reset to false. Default is false.

So as you can see, it has some capability for it, but I'm just not sure how to use all that. I doubt it's as simple as making a rainbow texture and telling it to use it, since I don't know whether to set repeat on or off, or what xtex and ytex values to use, and all that.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

40 fps is the crap if the game is fast paced, aim always for 50-60 if you can D:

about that triangles overlap, maybe you can fix it using the stencil buffer

Yes, I'm aiming for 60 fps, the reason I'm not using really long trails is that it reduces it to 40 fps. I don't know what a stencil buffer is.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

crazy performance test

i had the idea: since there are about 30 creatures in the game, i'll dedicate one day each this month to each of them (programming their behavior), and try to get them in the game. today was the unicorn. if i don't get a creature done during their dedicated day, i will not be able to work on them again for several months, and have to just keep what i get done on that day. that should be motivation to do a lot for each creature this month.

[KennEH!]

That's looking beautiful. I got a manhug with your name on it when you need it.

[increpare]

a creature a day?  that sounds satisfying   i hope their interactions don't cause you too much trouble ;p

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

firefly (creature in the lower right) movement/behavior/friending is in.

soon i'll reach creatures that are not yet drawn by the creature artist, so i'll have to use placeholder graphics for those.

[William Broom]

How's this going? I was under the impression that you would post one creature a day...

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I'm working on a creature a day, it's just that most of the graphics for the creatures aren't done, what I'm actually doing is their behavior. I think it'd be kind of weird to show the same sprite over and over with different behavior (I'm using the Unicorn's sprite as a placeholder for all the ones that don't have sprites yet). But I wouldn't mind posting it, I just think it'd look kind of silly; I'll post one today and see how it goes.

[moi]

Little tips for you Paul:
Stop posting huge posts here. Also: stop thinking that Flash is the messiah or something.
And work on yo'game dawg.
 

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I don't remember thinking Flash is the messiah -- my most recent comment about Flash on the front page was how a lot of people think it's easy to earn money with Flash but the numbers I see look small in comparison to shareware numbers, at least from the outside. I haven't even ever finished a Flash game (besides that valentine's experimental thing).

I don't think my posts are any longer than average, I think it's just that your posts tend to be so short that anyone bigger looks huge 

I agree that I should work on my game more, but I still probably work on it more often than I post here (despite what the 4000+ posts make it look like).

[agj]

Man, I hope you somehow manage to make it look like that.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

another random pic of some creatures

oh, and for those of you who care about design sketches:

http://komera.deviantart.com/gallery/#_browse/scraps

those are the designs for most of the creatures in the game (but not yet all)

sayar (at the bottom) is not one of them, he's for a different game by komera

[Fuzz]

Those sketches are very cool. I like how the insect-type things are all named after various mythological beasts that share similar characteristics.