Tiles updated & more

Tile sets are harder than I originally thought. I still need to do the grass, cave entrance, level entrance and exit, then some flavorings besides the tiles that are obviously not done. The tile set is hard because of the volume of the tiles I wanted to do.

I also did the idle animation for the Briar boar. Yay!

Tileset updated!

I'm working through a lot of things and details but it's getting there. When it's your first go, it's bound to be a learning and slow experience, which this has been. Dragon was added for scale.

Workin on a tiles.

Well I'm still doing art.

I know I said I'd do more coding, but instead I did a bunch of sketches for enemies. I was pretty excited for the Briarboar, which in my wiki has this description:

A boar, pretty much like any other boar in almost every way. What's unusual about it is that a briar plant has taken to it, wrapping it's root system around the boar, but also giving he boar a defensive thorn armor. The older the boar, the stronger it's thorn defense. Young piglets will actually seek out their own briar seeds as soon as they are able.

The sketch to the side is a really quick and dirty version. Based off this sketch I've managed to finish the base sprite that all it's animations will be made from, which is shown below. The briars are separate from the boar sprite.

Taking Damage finished!

And with this one done, all I have to do yet is the Magic type attack. This one could be harder than all the rest. I don't have a plan on what it'll look like yet. I might sit on it and wait until I'm sure of what I want the attack to look like. I'm kind of sad I stuck with the original pixel art base frame from years ago instead of updating it. At least I know the next batch of dragons will look better. My pixel blending and detail skills have grown by leaps and bounds since ... when ever I first made the base down frame.

For these Damage animations, the actual attack has it's own animated effect (a slash, a flame, etc) that will be displayed on or around the dragon. This will allow for a wide variety of abilities to be used without having a giant amount of animations required.

I'll be refocusing on some more coding this week, but I'll also be doing some off computer work. This means doing some enemy monster sketches and ideas (such as the briar boar).

Taking Damage animation

Damaged animation!
This one is done.

This other one I'm still working on. All I need are the tween frames between the damage snap key frame and the base pose key frame. Tween being the smoother frames between key frames.

And yet more animations!

Fainting animations DONE! Yay! I'm so close to having the whole set of animations done for a breed of dragon. No... I'm not procrastinating the coding part by doing animations...

>.> Yea.. I am procrastinating. I promise to focus on coding next week.I only have two more animation sets to do for the European Dragon; Taking damage and ability attack.

More animation!

And I'm done the other basic attack! Next I need to finish the fainting animation. I took out the 1 second pause just because I did.

Dragon Regular attack

I did another animation for the game, cause you know, change of pace.

Checking in!

Back from Vacation, and working out states. Not US states, but states like modes or something. I have to build a bit more of the basics to get into the nitty gritty of the combat portion because those details rely on such things like states. It'll make more sense later I swear it ^.^

I'm also working on some placeholder menus to help facilitate things. I have family visiting this upcoming week though, so not much will get done during that time.

Time Transplants pls!

Okay I don't have much to actually show, because all my work has been just doing things in code that don't change how it looks. I don't even have anything working to the extent that I could post a video or gif. BUT what I have been doing is getting everything in place and working to make the A* pathfinding working, which also comes into play in allowing the the player to move their character. I went a head and made a tile class, a node class, converted the multidimensional array into a working list, and had that draw the tiles for the tile map.

I've also picked up a short order job to model/texture a 3d portrait, as well as I am still working on a 3d logo for someone else, which I'm trying to focus on currently. SOOO, for the next week it's just me, Maya and Zbrush. Then after that it's vacation time for a week. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to this as soon as possible, because I know what I need to do, I just need time to hash it out. I need a time transplant!

Pxl Perfect

Alright! I haven't posted anything in a bit even though I've been working diligently. I found out that moving the character is going to be a wee bit more difficult than previously thought. I need to use A* path-finding to create a moveable field. This seems to be part of the AI (small part)as well.

I did fix the camera size ration portion so all the pixels show correctly for the map. I also figured out the values needed for the diagonal movement when not in a battle ( aka not restricted to tile to tile movement). Check out the pixels! Well now you can see my place holder tiles have holes, which I knew. The tiles I'm using as placeholders are 64x31 for some reason. My tiles will be 64x32.

Tiles tiles and more tiles!

Look, look!!

I was able to get tiled maps working using data from Tiled. Yay me! Okay so ... now that I'm done that... I guess... hmm.

I know! I'll work character movement I guess! It seems to be the next hardest thing to figure out.

Iso Grid ... WORKING?!

As you can see I've gotten farther with my stuff, I have a moveable character and an isometric grid, but there is something off with the way the pixel art is rendering as it's not crisp and beautiful as I want it to be. It's probably because I just don't know what I'm doing with the camera and units yet. I'll look into it more later. The tiles are all placeholders, so is the character - though that is actually my own art.

I think I want to have the map layout zigzag style as opposed to the diamond style though. Figuring out this stuff was extremely difficult considering the only examples were poorly explained, had no comments, and written in languages other than C# or included code with no unity C# equivalents (such as sprite batch, which I still don't really know how that works).

What I ended up doing was Instantiating prefab tiles(cloning a pre-made tile) instead of what all the examples I found were doing - which was finding a sprite within a sprite sheet. I was able to get a top-down square tile type map to work absolutely fine so if I can't get the finesse of the isometric tiles to be what I want I may just scrap the iso theme and stick with something simpler. I've come this far though, so I think there's a good chance I'll be able to do what I originally wanted to do- beautiful iso tiles!!!

Update: Well it didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would, and I found errors and issues that I also fixed, but I have the isometric map drawing like I want it to. Now to implement a way to change up the tiles.


Update2 : I can use Tiled to create my maps and then use the data saved in the txt format for the actual maps within Unity. I'm doing this for now because the idea of writing a tile map editor that does Iso tiles... just no. This work around will be very nice and I'm fine with doin' it this way for sure.

Tiled maps and such

So I've moved on from the inventory portion and the profile portion to trying to make an actual level or tiled map. I've run into a problem in that all the resources I've found that go over any sort of tile or map engine or whatever you want to call it, all of them are using XNA. Now that alone isn't really all that problematic, but I've run into something called SpriteBatch. Now I kinda know what it does, but not enough right now to figure out how to make a unity equivalent.

~Sigh~ So I'll be tackling that. I would just use uTiled and then use Tiled maps, but I need to know how to make a character navigate using the tiles and indexes, so I need to know how such things work under the hood so to speak.

Then again maybe I'm over complicating it.

Layering, Color changing, and string to Color32 done!

So I've done the layer of the images as a layering of a sprite, that way I can easily turn on and off the sprite renderer to show coats and what-not. 

 As you can see here I've moved the shading layer to expose the other layers which just have color information. The actual layers will need to be white so that changing the tint won't obscure what color it turns out to be. The colors here are just for my own visual confirmation.

Basic layers a dragon profile picture would have is the body layer, the hair layer, the extra layer, and then shading. Nothing happens to the shading layer.

When I press play to test out my color changing system it works! I've only applied it to the base  body layer, but what you don't see is that I take a string that holds the rgb colors and then turn them into a working color32. What I don't have working yet is getting the colors from the dragon image database (Database that holds all the information needed to create the images of that dragon).


I've also gone ahead and created a menu that draws the user's dragon party. Right now I'm struggling with some simple GUI controls, but I should have that figured out in no time.

After I get that portion done, I want to change gears and start creating a navigational field and see if I can do it with the normal isometric map using Tiled and uTiled. We'll see how well that goes.

So! What I have done this week is more ... research. Well I did some other things too like more coding stuff and more writing my own versions of what I learned. I was able to layer the images to get the results I wanted as well. I'm not too sure about performance right now, but so far it looks good. I also set up a virtual database so I can start laying down the meat and potatoes stuff. It worries me that I'll have to learn about php, encryption and so on. It still seems way over my capabilities right now.

One thing at a time! Right? I'll be focusing on database structure right now so that I can use that to create more functionality. From there I'll focus on the image creation system. Then I'll go to combat. Those are the two big ones. Well... the combat stuff is HUGE. Image creation is more like a warm up. Actually I think almost any of the features would be warm up to getting the combat portion done. At least right now I know that everything I want to do is possible and I have a way of doing it. From reading the case of characters to determine breeding, to logging age, and layering images. I was worried I wouldn't be able to get the image system to work without having to learn how to code custom shaders. I may need to do that still depending on how I'm going to handle the player's units on the combat map. I could layer sprites- them being small and all the alpha sorting wouldn't be too much draw I would think. We'll have to see.

I'll have to update this with some pictures later on ^.^

Sunday, sunday.

I told myself I wasn't going to work on anything this weekend and relax given that I was starting to dream in code, wake up early to work/learn, and at the same time seeming to not get rid of a bug that's made me feel pretty meh for a week now (Like a mild lingering flu, probably something Dan unknowingly took home from the studio).

Even though I set down that rule for myself and had every intention of keeping it, I found myself sitting here at 5pm, notes open, wiki open (the wiki is the work-in-progress Andicuri game design doc) and attempting to get something done. I don't understand what's wrong with me. In any case I've discovered whole areas of the doc that still need to be fleshed out and corrected, or translated into something I can use code wise. While I would attempt to close my notebook and stop, I know I'd just go back to working in some shape or form- whether it's cleaning/ house-making/ chores, modelling/ creating store assets, or working on the game. It might as well be the one I want to do most.

As for the code thing, I've discussed, thought, and researched ability systems for RPGs. For the game I'm doing I believe the simplest thing to do would be the classic rpg turn style, but the monotony of such a style isn't really something I want. I've looked into the tactics style turn based vs the classic style in terms of fun, and tactics - also being my favorite type other than real time - wins out when pitted against the classic style. The problem is that the tactics style battle would be much harder for me to code considering my current level. SURE I've gotten better by leaps and bounds in like... a week, but who knows if that'll continue. I may just peak out at intermediate to junior type levels and never be able to get any better. In any case I did actually research the tactics battles more. I know what I would need to do, but I don't know how to do what I need to do. I also don't understand the why behind some of it as well, but more on that later.

Currently as it stands I need to figure out abilities regardless of classic turn style or tactics turn style. This is what I have so far:
I want the player units (dragons) to have two sets of abilities.
One set is a constant unchangeable set, though the abilities inside the set can change.
*Second set I either want the player to be able to assign or the unit inherits the set from the parents.
Abilities can be leveled
Abilities will earn experience for that ability when used
Abilities will need to be learned either by leveling another ability to unlock
**Special combo abilities will be unlocked and learned @ leveling two abilities from different sets
More abilities may be added later

* - This I think I'd need opinion on

** - So far I know that most abilities will be able to be stored in a database, with the level and current experience being stored somewhere else. Say maybe something like having a small table or list for an individual unit/dragon that stores the ability information, but adds an ability to that list dynamically, as it's learned. The other idea is having a list that's already there, as in technically the dragon "knows" all the abilities in the entire game but what the list stores is the level and experience of the abilities- then only displaying the abilities the unit can actually use based on the current sets and the current levels.

If I go with inheriting the abilities so that the secondary set of abilities never changes, then the list of potential abilities is much smaller and I can probably store that somewhere more easily perhaps? If I want to add more abilities later, it would be more difficult to add them as each table that holds abilities would then need to be added onto, and it would be a rather large table. Should I break down that information even more?

These are just some of the things I'm running into that I know I'll need to come up with a solid design for that just isn't there right now. Anyways I'm off to try and figure it out.

Getting Back on the Blog!

A lot has happened since my last post. I've done a lot of small jobs, reached a lot of conclusions, drove across the US twice... again and never touched my Pazuzu model during that time. Haha. Also I'm getting married and I have been attempting to plan a wedding, etc etc. I'll just pretend like I wrote out everything that happened and all that I aspired to do in the past year or so of not posting anything.
Good. Imagination is now in full effect!
Now I can move on to more important things, like what I'm doing now. So lately I've been ambling about, taking care of Dan(household things, so on) as he works till he's ragged with hours even sweatshops wouldn't do. In the mean time, I've been doing several other things, one being creating a stock for an etsy store. The other, which is more recent is teaching myself through mean of the internets on how to code. Code in C#. Now for those of you who know me, you know how incredibly difficult scripting or coding of any sort has been for me each time I've tried to pick it up before. This time though... this time is different!

No, I really mean it, it IS different. I think I'm really getting it this time. Currently I'm working in Unity, with C# using that monodevelop program that unity comes with. So far I have a working item database and player inventory. Granted I did follow a tutorial- which I have to finish the last part- I also created and implemented a few of my own things. And they work. It may not be the best way to accomplish these things, as I am still learning it all, but it works. It's way better than I've ever done before at any point in my life when I've attempted to do scripting/coding/programming/whatever you wanna call it.

With this renewed ferver I am going to attempt to create the coding for the Andicuri Project, which I started YEARS ago and never really was able to get a programmer to come help me with. I do have a lot of programmer type friends, but they're a hot commodity, and I'm a poor person. I'm determined this time to make this work!

DETERMINED!

A nice side effect of this will also be that I'll know the ins and outs of the unity engine like a pro by the time I'm done. I might just be unstoppable! Also I might be able to do more tech stuff which would mean more jobs, more pay, and more job security. Also, just with the little bit I've done, I've been able to approach my game design in a much better fashion. What I mean is that I have to think in a completely different way to figure out how to make a bit of code work, and when I go back to my own design doc, I can see now what's off, what's fluff, what won't work, and so on.