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16

Scripts, plugins, utilities, goodies / Re: Flashlight script

« on: May 21, 2007, 08:03:04 PM »

This reminds me of Alone in the Dark 4. Ever played it? It features prerendered backgrounds, but the character's flashlight can "light up" the darkened backgrounds. The cool thing is that it also creates shadows based off the flashlight's position, and they react appropriately to the flashlight. Would it be possible, in WME, to make the dynamic shadows react to the light cone?

You'd have to get the 3D coordinates based off the center point of the flashlight cone and trace from the player's world position to this vector in the level. Everything within the circular light cone would need to be influenced, of course.

I'm not sure right off the top of my head how to do this in WME, but what I described above is a start I suppose. There's a PC demo of the game floating around if you want to see the effect first hand. It's not the greatest game, but the effect is nice.

EDIT: Actually, I just played it, and it doesn't cast shadows, so I'm wrong about it. The flashlight is projected onto the walk plane, though and it lights up parts of the background it touches nicely. It looks like a real directx light because of an obvious tessellation effect.

17

General Discussion / Re: Finding a publisher..

« on: March 19, 2007, 10:32:34 PM »

Here's an old list of publishers from my Starving Developer's Guide:

http://www.coniserver.net/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=573372

18

Won't implement / Re: Wii and/or DS port

« on: March 19, 2007, 04:06:08 PM »

The main obstacle with console development is if you want create a commercial title you must get approval from the appropriate people(MS, N, Sony) to gain a license. After that you must invest in their respective expensive developer kits. However, in the case of the Nintendo Wii, the kit is much cheaper than the others (by many thousands of dollars...I believe the Wii kit is in the neighborhood of $2000...peanuts compared to the norm).

Of course, the costs are nothing if you are able to snag a publisher who wants to release your game. They'll fork over the funding (milestones), and perhaps even for financing an engine port. For example, the 3D Gamestudio developer (jcl of Conitec) requires something in the neighborhood of $50,000 to fund a port of A6 to another platform (Mac and Xbox being examples at the time). It believe this was half, and Conitec would fund the other half. This 50 grand would have to come from the publisher, since most of us don't have that kind of money to simply given away.

Anyway, getting that approval is the key. If your title is of quality, you may get it (and with a little luck and hoodoo). Given the point & click adventures coming out on DS lately, I see that being a good place to start. However, I've heard it has memory issues; thus you aren't going to be able to go to town with the bells and whistles. Since, they're wanting to emphasize "fun" and have a reputation for being indie friendly (because of the cheap kit), the Wii may be a better fit for the advanced version of you title.

Finally, I think you can test DS games on the PC, now via the SDK. No DS unit is needed anymore (could be wrong about that).

19

Won't implement / Wii and/or DS port

« on: March 19, 2007, 01:57:45 PM »

This is a fairly obligatory thread on engine forums, so I thought I'd port it.

Point and click adventure games are popping up on the Nintendo DS, and because of that touch sensitive screen, it's just made for the genre. Likewise, the Wii and its WiiMote are prime, as well.

It's no small feat and probably a pipe dream, but perhaps a WME port of one of these would be something to tackle one of these days.

http://www.warioworld.com/ - Nintendo developer's site

20

Game announcements / Re: Schach-Welten / Chess-worlds

« on: February 18, 2007, 08:22:42 AM »

Those tech demos are fantastic. IMO this kind of unique lighting is better than even the best realtime game. It has a unique vibe and look and that infinitely more appealing. Thanks for sharing.

21

Technical forum / Re: Switching to Wintermute...and perhaps a mild Bug Report

« on: January 25, 2007, 12:16:13 PM »

I'm not sure DirectX can handle a true greyscale image. Maybe it can but perhaps WME and other DX engines are designed/coded to only read RGB format (16-, 24-, and 32-bit). I'm using a realtime engine (WME on the side), and my title also features all black and white textures/levels, and I have to use RGB format images (24-bit TGA in my case) for it. Greyscale simply crashes my editor.

22

Feature requests, suggestions / Re: 3d scrolling

« on: November 21, 2006, 06:26:18 AM »

Haven't bothered to read most of this, however I don't think WME should ever go full realtime. The current optional, realtime 3D objects is enough given that is the direction the traditional adventure industry has been headed for a number of years. There are plenty of full, realtime engines out there that have been maturing for years, but there is only one 2D with 2.5D capabilities engine that is publically available(to my knowledge). You can code 3D engines to emulate this style, but WME is like this out of the box, and this should be expanded and made more feature rich instead of devoting development time and complication to full realtime integration. The two worlds are apples and oranges and WME would be better served sticking with what it does best.

If you want to make a Tunguska/Grim Fandango style game, use WME. If you want an Ankh or Fahrenheit style the go with a full 3D engine. Like with anything else, use the engine that works for your particular project.

23

Technical forum / Re: How do I cast 3d character's shadow on the wall/object?

« on: October 06, 2006, 01:09:09 AM »

Open the manual and research the section Inside a Game -> 3D characters support

24

General Discussion / Re: Latest beta: WME 1.7 beta 1 (Oct 1st, 2006)

« on: October 04, 2006, 06:44:45 AM »

I'm assuming they behave the same as realtime 3D stencils. If so, then know that they are not clipped by the collision hull; thus you'll have to design the lighting/level to prevent this.

25

Done / Re: Stencil shadows

« on: September 23, 2006, 12:13:34 PM »

I don't want to start a new thread, but I came across a 2D dynamic shadows feature that the creator of Shadowplay developed in AGS. Think stencil shadows in 2D and reactive to a lightsource. I wouldn't know where to begin scripting something like that, but I think it would be a nifty future engine feature:

Here's the thread with 2 screens:

http://www.bigbluecup.com/yabb/index.php?topic=8237.80

The most interesting one (for the sole reason that I've never seen it done in a 2D adventure game before) is probably the dynamic shadows. The ShadowBox script module will allow a character (currently only the player character, but that's a trivial matter to change) to cast a realistic shadow from a light source positioned anywhere in the room.

26

Done / Re: Stencil shadows

« on: September 13, 2006, 07:48:54 AM »

Yeah, SS LOD is good for speeding things up.

Another couple ideas for SS enhancements:

Allow the shadow's color and opacity/transparency to be changed. Instead of 50% black, allow the user to make it any color(for color correction/tinting purposes) and any opacity. Also, it would be nice if the closer an entity is to a light, the darker the shadow, and moving farther away leads to a lighter/fainter shadow. Lastly, multiple shadows if there are multiple lights that influence the shadow simultaneously.

27

Done / Re: Stencil shadows

« on: September 11, 2006, 09:51:43 AM »

I'm glad to hear that SS will make it the engine. I can attest to the CPU intensive nature of them with my experiences in 3DGS. One thing for users to keep in mind is that they don't get clipped. I don't how it will behave in a non-realtime environment, but I would assume the same given you're still using the same base as a full realtime engine. If you're using z-pass SS(the fastest), you also have to make sure the shadow volume never enters the camera space or you will see nasty artifacts. However, you can get around this with z-fail method and other more advanced SS methods.

Anyway, with this feature, you'll basically have everything you'd need to pull off the look of Resident Evil 0 and RE 1 remake(Gamecube). RE0's shadows and the way they made each static camera angle more alive was fantastic.

28

Software and games / Re: The Starving Developer's Quickstart Guide

« on: August 23, 2006, 09:37:42 AM »

I'm not putting this into the regular list given the offer expires the first week of September.

Bryce 5.0 for free:  http://www.daz3d.com/program/bryce/bryce5free.php?

29

Software and games / Re: The Starving Developer's Quickstart Guide

« on: August 05, 2006, 10:13:20 AM »

August 5th, 2006 update:

1. Corrected the Caustics generator link
2. Corrected the Paint.NET link(that program is making great strides)
3. Added CB Model Pro to 3D. A Zbrush-like organic modeler with OBJ export and paint on mesh features and free
4. Removed Open 3D Models link. It's dead.
5. Correct 2-3 more links.

30

Feature requests, suggestions / Re: Full Screen Pixel Operations with Pixel Shaders

« on: June 21, 2006, 09:27:19 PM »

Unless you are wanting to do something really fancy pants and elaborate, I think using a pixel shader for fullscreen filmgrain effects is overkill(IMO). It can easily be done using a close to the camera model with animated skin or using multiple, fullscreen panels(see below). Given WME projects are generally only one resolution, you only have to make one set of grain screens. With a realtime engine like 3D Gamestudio, it's better to make a set for each supported resolution. Here's the function I created for just such an effect for use in 3DGS. There are a few lines that are not necessarily needed, but because of my panel system, I included them for polish reasons:

function filmGrain()
{
   resize(filmgrain);
   grainFlag = 1;
   while(grainToggle == 1)
    {       
      if(blackpanel_pan.visible == off)
      {
         filmGrainPanel.bmap = grain1; filmGrainPanel.visible = on; sleep(0.09); filmGrainPanel.visible = off;
         filmGrainPanel.bmap = grain2; filmGrainPanel.visible = on; sleep(0.09); filmGrainPanel.visible = off;
         filmGrainPanel.bmap = grain3; filmGrainPanel.visible = on; sleep(0.09); filmGrainPanel.visible = off;
         filmGrainPanel.bmap = grain4; filmGrainPanel.visible = on; sleep(0.09); filmGrainPanel.visible = off;
         filmGrainPanel.bmap = grain5; filmGrainPanel.visible = on; sleep(0.09); filmGrainPanel.visible = off;
         filmGrainPanel.bmap = grain6; filmGrainPanel.visible = on; sleep(0.09); filmGrainPanel.visible = off;
      }
      else
      {
         filmGrainPanel.visible = off;
      }
   }
  filmGrainPanel.visible = off; bmap_purge(grain1); bmap_purge(grain2); bmap_purge(grain3); bmap_purge(grain4); bmap_purge(grain5); bmap_purge(grain6); grainFlag = 0;
}

Anyway, I don't know if WME will allow this sort of overlay technique, but perhaps that will give some ideas on how to do it with existing instructions.