Home » SIRTECH CLASSICS » Jagged Alliance: Unfinished Business » Tools and Guides Repository (Archive) » Improving Original JA2 graphics
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| Re: Improving Original JA2 graphics [message #179722]
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Tue, 01 April 2008 17:41  
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 KeldorKatarn |
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Messages:37
Registered:May 2006
Location: Germany |
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When modernizing the graphics engine, then I don't see the point in staying compatible with old graphics files which won't be used anymore anyway.
I also still don't see why 3d is needed for this.
As a personal remark.. if you plan to go in a Brigade E5 direction with this.. eeek.. please don't. We're talking about improving graphics not making it worse. Decent 2D is far superior to mediocre 3d. Many developers found that out the hard way.
[Updated on: Tue, 01 April 2008 17:42] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Improving Original JA2 graphics [message #179738]
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Tue, 01 April 2008 18:31
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| BirdFlu |
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Messages:438
Registered:September 2007
Location: Lampukistan |
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KeldorKatarnI still don't quite get where you are really going with this.. are you planning on making this 2D with better graphics or convert to 3D..
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I agree with you. 3D if not done properly can look like crap.
My idea was to 'replace' the current 2D-GRAPHICS engine with another 2D-graphics engine, but one that is easier to handle (whatever that means in any special case).
The 3D 'extension' was brought up in this thread and whether it will or should be implemented, is, i suppose, one of the points in this discussion.
As i asked earlier: What is wrong with 2D? .. I would say nothing, or at least not enough to justify a complete change (we can believe in, or not).
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Concering the FIFE engine. (I am not sure if this all was addressed to me, but i will try to answer anyway)
Quote: .. professional approach software engineering wise .. agree
Quote: .. general engine stuff ..
I think i know what an engine is and am not sure what i wrote to make you believe that i didn't.
I agree with most of what you said besides one point - replacing ONLY the rendering engine. If the rendering 'sub'-engine
is clearly separated from other parts, then yes. But if there are dependencies, then this would require to either remove
them or to actually change more than the rendering engine, which may be easy or difficult.
Quote: .. single digit framerates ..
I agree that this sounded a little offending, but it is really not about modern software engineering. It is about one
single aspect of OpenGL's API usage. OpenGL's immediate mode IS slow. There is no point discussing it.
Just read the documentation from Nvidia and ATI/AMD. A supporting argument for my point is that OpenGL 3 will not have
immediate mode anymore and DirectX 10 does not have any similar capabilities either.
My point is that FIFE engine has (or will have) its limitations, whether we meet them or not is another topic. I am
just pointing out that it might be a problem in the future (like in the big maps project).
Quote: .. scene graph ..
A SceneGraph (a tree in a simple case) is about data organisation and about implicit ordering of objects that have to be rendered.
I believe that it is easier to use, but that may be only my perception.
Quote: .. screenshots ..
The thing is, with the data we have, we are likely to get results comparable to the second image, not the first image.
That was the whole point of it.
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| Re: Improving Original JA2 graphics [message #179797]
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Wed, 02 April 2008 03:51
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| lisac |
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Messages:92
Registered:July 2006
Location: Austria |
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1. Mauser: I agree completely, although I believe that if we (ever) see the new face-lift of JA2 one nice day, there won't be nothing to stop the talented people who made it to extend the code and provide an editor of some sort.
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2. BirdFlu: good to know we have such knowledge on board. I have further questions regarding your version of the JA2 graphic engine:
Do you suggest us to use full 3D objects for characters, interactive objects (crates, lockers) etc - and simple rectangular textured polygons for widgets, trees, ground tiles etc..?
Also, do you have any experiences with the 3D graphic formats used in games, anything specific to elaborate?
Irrlicht doesn't sound bad, although I didn't check its status more than a year ago for sure.
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3. KK: Talking about choice between 2D and 3D, I think it's still too early to say which path we might take. Of course it was meant to be 2D at the very beginning, but now some other options are available. Let's analyse the alternatives and decide.
I'm currently advocating the 3D approach, simply because it IS easier to make and control 3D content from MY perspective (or any other game graphic content creator/designer). Let me give you some basic examples:
a) Once I've modeled, skinned, rigged and animated a character, all I need to do to use it in 3D is to export it using the right plugin/tool, the engine will take care of the rest. If I'd want to use it as a 2D sprite, a long session of setting up the scene, rendering, post-processing (including cropping), adjusting and finalizing it in an appropriate 2D program should follow. Did I mention conversion to another format? Yes, that too.
b) I don't like a part of my character. His legs are too short! Extending the legs in the appropriate 3D software and slightly adjusting the animations won't take too long - export it, and my character is ready to be tested! On the other hand, making a bunch of new frames for my long-legged sprite must go through all those painful processes mentioned under a)
c) My character wears a red Hawaii shirt (FarCry, anyone?), I want him to change it to camo-shirt once he picks up the appropriate item (camo-shirt?) in game. If using a 3d object, I may simply switch the texture of its torso. Can you imagine how hard it'd be to make it with a 2D sprite? Making a new layer (sprite) containing camo-shirt and going through all the processes under a) and so on...
These are just a few things that first come to mind. Please, don't think I'm against 2D sprites - I'm just trying to save the time and resources and to simplify the graphic creation process. I don't have Crytek graphic department available, just a few volunteers.
Regarding latest (shader-)effects and the beauty of 2D comparing to 3D in long terms... I agree completely. Some 2D games looks beautiful today, even years after they were released. However, I think someone mentioned already that having a mediocre 3D engine would be make him/her more than happy. And i think we might do better than mediocre. The old JA2 engine survived for 10 years, I guess our Frankenstein can live that long too 
But if both of you, BF and KK, suggest a 2D version, I'm open to hear what you can offer me. Just don't forget - I want to make it easy for graphic-grunts as it gets.
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| Re: Improving Original JA2 graphics [message #179819]
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Wed, 02 April 2008 08:21
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| KeldorKatarn |
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Messages:37
Registered:May 2006
Location: Germany |
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I really think nobody who has said anything so far in favor of 3D has any idea what he is REALLY talking about (no offense).
Saying that creating a 3d character is easier than creating a sprite.. sorry.. that's crap.. if you want to create a new sprite, the basis WILL be a 3d character and you simply render certain animation key frames into the sprite, and use it. Changing clothes can be done with layers.
I am pretty sure all of JA2's characters, buildings and whatever were first created in a 3d modeling program and then rendered down into the frames of the sprites, since that's simply what you do.
THat's how WIng COmmander 1 created its ship bitmaps, that's how Panzer General II made their combat unit sprites.
You make it sound like 2D was the old school approach and 3d is the modern approach. That is simply wrong. 2D and 3D are a design choice, none is more modern than the other.
Now let me summarize for you what switching to 3d means.
You have to get a 3d engine, you have to make models. and I mean models.. that means models for every single weapon, for every bulding, table, door, roof, lamp, tree, lake, whatever.
Then you have to write shaders (how many of you here know anything about GLSL or HLSL or Cg? If none, then forget about it. Fixed function pipeline is a decade old by now, not using a shader based approach will make the game look 10 years old and will not improve a thing.
Then you have to create or learn to use an existing 3d physics engine, since without physics, nothing moves, neither character nor bullet. Collision detection must be worked out, and yes, then a character can be blocked by a door if he is slightly out of standard shape and collides with something.
Then a damage system has to be worked out, since now the bullet will actually collide with stuff. If you plan on making explisions.. forget about the way it currently works.. if you don't make structures 100% destroyable in 3D, then forget about looking like a modern 3D game. You cannot go 3D and make explosions stay the same, meaning just blend it an explosion sprite and make a part of a wall disappear. THings must fly around, tons but roll around, physically correct (back to the physics engine we are).
Then the AI must be adjusted, since pathfinding is different in 3D, line of sight is different, since now it must be calculated with ray tracing. Taking cover is different, climbing roofs is different.. remember.. with a 3d engine, there are no tile layers.. there is no 1st level then 2nd level anymore.. you have 3d. there are no distinct height levels in 3d.
Shooting will be different since now the bullet actually flies and isn't just a fake animation for a pure probability based shot anymore...
If you plan on doing this.. good luck, you have just decided to create 80% of a full 3d game all by yourself.
I hope you have 10-20 people on a 10h per Week basis available and the motivation on actually working on this for the next 2-3 years.. and no.. you won't be able to do it in much less than that time and still get satisfying results.
PS: Oh.. and did I mention this? Flat ground looks horrible in full freeview 3d, so you better start on terrain making, line of sight and path finding in full 3d terrain and oh.. try to get some good vegetation shaders going, and you better make your water look great if you don't want to upset the fans.......
[Updated on: Wed, 02 April 2008 08:23] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Improving Original JA2 graphics [message #179836]
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Wed, 02 April 2008 12:45
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| KeldorKatarn |
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Messages:37
Registered:May 2006
Location: Germany |
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It wasn't meant as negative devastating criticism. It was just speaking from experience.
Also.. even considering being able to produce a commercial level 3d physics engine with just a few guys in a matter of months borders on insanity. if you want to have a chance at that I strongly advice to use already existing open source engines like Newton or Bullet and the like.
But I will stick to my original opinion that a decision to go full 3D will result in a complete rewrite of 75% of the game code.. you can just as well recode the entire game then, and I don't even know what that's going to achieve.
The original reason for this thread was the idea to improve the original 2D sprite engine to get better looks out of the engine. This suddenly has turned into such crazy thoughts (sorry but yes, they are) as to make an engine that is Far Cry like.
I've seen enough projects both commerical and open source community, that ended up nowhere with such ideas.
I strongly advice to stick to the original game design and simply improve the 2d engine instead of trying to recreate the game.
I don't understand why a 3D engine would be needed, I don't understand why you even want to try putting that much work into such a huge project. The complete code base would be rendered pretty much useless, nearly every single feature would have to be changed from map editor via AI to scripting and the end result would be have baked 3D looks that can't even compete with 20 year old games.
This may sound totally negative, but sorry, I've seen projects like that before and only 1% of them turned into something at least playable, the rest vanished into the abyss and not one of them turned out to the commerical style killer game people originally intended it to be.
From my point of view I see a great game design, whose only aging problems are the graphics and possibly the sound engine. The rest of the game design would still work when released today.
There ARE actually great 2D games release every day and they look great.
I don't see why the complete game design, that is proven and tested and fully accepted, should be changed, with the sole argument "makind 3d models and animations is easier".
Changing to a more modern 2D engine is geoing to bring a proven concept into a more modern age, making the game 3d will completely replace the entire game concept, wether you want to believe that or not, and I don't see a simple valid argument that supports a decision that will replace a proven design by something developed from scratch.
3D-itis is what killed a lot of very good franchises in the late 90s, and this discussion is going in exactly that direction.
Again.. you can think this sounds negative and destructive all you want, but I still think if that path is taken, the result will be a JA2 that will vanish from the screens since the result will be worse than what we have right now.
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| Re: Improving Original JA2 graphics [message #179838]
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Wed, 02 April 2008 12:56
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| Mysterious Dr.X |
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Messages:33
Registered:March 2004
Location: Croatia |
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The whole 3D-approach seems a bit heavy to me. I don't want to say, that 2D would mean much less work, but at least some less I hope.
Let me explain my idea :
I don't know how you guys think about that, but I would be totally satisfied with an engine like in 'Fallout Tactics'. Here's an example. As far as I know we would have to increase the size of the single tile, in order to get higher quality tilesets (obviously  ). Problem is that I really have no idea how much coding is required for this or whether it is possible at all.
The next step would be to increase the colours, which can be displayed by the engine. Doesn't sound too easy but I can't estimate the amount of work.
Finally of course the sprites, to display different armors and weapons etc. Pain in the ass, but rewarding as hell!
Okay I hope these three steps would get us closer to the Fallout-engine.
This approach requires us to make every single tileset from scratch in a 3D-program. Animate them if needed and then render them. On the other hand, these models could be used for future 3D-conversions.
Think of a wall-model in a 3D-program. All you would have to do to make a new wall-tileset, is to lay a new texture on the wall-model, then render it and finally bring it in the STI-format. So once a model is made - which can also be found on the web - the work is getting much easier.
Many problems wouldn't be solved by this, like brightness per tile or the ugly water, but in my opinion it would be a huge step in the right directory.
What do you think?
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| Re: Improving Original JA2 graphics – Sprite[message #179901]
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Wed, 02 April 2008 21:46
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| Lt.Havoc |
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Messages:34
Registered:April 2006
Location: Germany |
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Well, everyone wants a improved JA2, but with the current STI files and the limits the JA2 engine has, there isnt a good way to improve it. Also, its just an idea to use a 3D engine, so its nothing final. Point is: improving the existing JA2 engine is a pain in the ass, so we need a solution that suit the thing and pleases the diffrent opinons.
Well, does anyone know the game Abdomination: The Nemessis Project? They had a intresting graphic approch to this: the world the figures where in, is drawn, e.g sprites, while the animated Player and NPCs where 3D models. That looks like this: http://uk.pc.ign.com/dor/abomination-the-nemesis-project/11551/images/abom002.html
http://uk.pc.ign.com/dor/abomination-the-nemesis-project/11551/images/abomination010.html
Well, not the hit, but my question is: could something like this be done with JA2? The gameworld dosent need to be 3D polygons, but the player modles and NPCs could be 3D models, including pick up stuff. Intresting is, that the enviorment could be destoryed too, you could blow up cars and stuff even if they where not 3D.
I think it could work. That way, we wouldnt need to completly change everything, including pyschis and have a better way to get stuff in the game object wise. Its only an idea, but I think its a intresting one.
Also, FIFE seems to be the most suitable for this whole thing, everything else would be too big I guess, even if ORGE 3D and co look intresting, I think the task would be too big.
The other thing I think we should keep in mind, would be a 1.13 Mod for JA3, but that would be the same for the JA2 and would not be a rremake of JA2.
Any other suggestions?
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| Re: Improving Original JA2 graphics – Sprite[message #179914]
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Wed, 02 April 2008 22:41
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| Lt.Havoc |
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Messages:34
Registered:April 2006
Location: Germany |
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Well, it was worth a try, but I still dont know what kind of engine that is, that these russian guys have use.
Maybe I didnt made myself clear enough: I didnt said that you guys should use the Abdomination engine, I said, if it would be possible to moc sprites and 3D models in a engine and use that for JA2. Something similar, but way looking bettter. Point is, you could the at least use 3D render models for weapons and stuff and could use all those stock models that you literally find everywhere. It would also not a problem to recompile models form other games and change the format so you could puit them into the engine.
Ya know, its possible to use CS models for C&C Generals and Zero Hour (the SAGE Engine) and if thats possible, then I see why people want a ture full 3D engine. Hell, some modders even managed to put BF2 player models into Generals. If that dosent speed up tjhe process of getting things done, then I dont know.
I also dont quite understand Khor
[Updated on: Wed, 02 April 2008 22:47] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Improving Original JA2 graphics [message #179926]
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Wed, 02 April 2008 23:37
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| lisac |
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Messages:92
Registered:July 2006
Location: Austria |
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I'm not a coder, so a professional opinion on this what I'm about to say would be helpful (KK, BirdFlu, someone)...
Nobody is changing JA2 physics engine (if such one exists in general - if not, then we're talking about certain pieces of code scattered throughout the source code), nor it is relevant for us. Read once again:
KeldorKatarnThe only job would be to identify all graphics engine parts of JA2, eliminate them, and replace them by the new engine and adjust the interfaces so they fit together. the game itself should not change one bit.
This is imperative.
Everything else is distraction from the right path and can cause highest probability that this project drowns in its own excrements.
The problem is: how the new sprites (graphics) should look like and what kind of engine graphic-wise should we use to achieve that? Obviously, there's no perfect solution, each approach has numerous (dis-)advantages.
What I'd like to hear during this discussion are definitive, available options we got at the moment. And people who can judge these things are coders. New characters will be made in 3D eventually, there's no doubt about that, however extending the work to 2D and creating the sprites depends on the new "graphic" engine and the way it uses graphic content.
So far we've got a few different, but interesting options, like:
- good ol' 2D (just like it is), with "layered" sprites and a new graphic format instead of STI
- combination of 2D and 3D (2D background, 3D for interactive objects/characters)
- 3D (which is definitely a no-no, according to the most, if not all of the, people here)
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| Re: Improving Original JA2 graphics [message #179949]
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Thu, 03 April 2008 02:18
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| BirdFlu |
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Messages:438
Registered:September 2007
Location: Lampukistan |
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Quote:Nobody is changing JA2 physics engine (if such one exists in general - if not, then we're talking
about certain pieces of code scattered throughout the source code), nor it is relevant for us.
Lets say nobody wants to change the physics engine.
There is (or has to be) a world representation in the game. We render this world and we let the physisc engine operate on this world
(compute vesibility, collision detection for bullets). The problem might be, that if we change how rendering works, we may also change the internal
world represention. And this could result in trivial or not so trivial changes in the physics engine. As i don't know how physics
works in JA2, i can't say how many problems we could get. I just hope that we don't have to change the internal world representation at all.
Quote:3D (which is definitely a no-no, according to the most, if not all of the, people here)
I think, it is not worth the trouble.
But you may want to look closely at "Hired Guns". Is has a 3D engine and pretty much every file is in the open, at has no packages.
There are over 25000(!!!) files distributed over some directories (that's why it takes so *ucking long to install), and many of these
files are xml or lua files. So i would say it could be moddable if the executable doesn't screw up too much.
Quote:combination of 2D and 3D (2D background, 3D for interactive objects/characters)
The combination itself could be a little bit tricky. I wouldn't rule this option out, but i also can't say that it will work. The problem
that i see is the Z-Buffer. 3D-objects have real depth, but 2D-objects are actually flat rectangles in 3D-space.
I can't say anything specific until i am more familiar with the current graphics engine.
Quote:good ol' 2D (just like it is), with "layered" sprites and a new graphic format instead of STI
Probably the way that's easier to go fo the coders and one that would preserve the nature and spirit of the original game.
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| Re: Improving Original JA2 graphics [message #179971]
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Thu, 03 April 2008 07:56
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| Arethusa |
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Messages:24
Registered:August 2006
Location: Connecticut |
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KeldorKatarnI really think nobody who has said anything so far in favor of 3D has any idea what he is REALLY talking about (no offense).
Saying that creating a 3d character is easier than creating a sprite.. sorry.. that's crap.. if you want to create a new sprite, the basis WILL be a 3d character and you simply render certain animation key frames into the sprite, and use it. Changing clothes can be done with layers.
I am pretty sure all of JA2's characters, buildings and whatever were first created in a 3d modeling program and then rendered down into the frames of the sprites, since that's simply what you do.
THat's how WIng COmmander 1 created its ship bitmaps, that's how Panzer General II made their combat unit sprites.
You make it sound like 2D was the old school approach and 3d is the modern approach. That is simply wrong. 2D and 3D are a design choice, none is more modern than the other.
At the highest level, the entire point of using 2D over 3D, with rare exceptions for artistic license (and with more advanced shaders, the usefulness of this is increasingly limited) is trading difficulty in content creation and much more limited visuals for faster realtime processing. 2D absolutely takes more time to get off the ground with content creation. If I need to not only create a 3D model but then render it in all animation frame positions and from all angle (conservatively, let's say the eight the game currently uses), that's a lot of work. Even with layering, the number of possible permutations is just geometrically difficult. Moddability is simply not an option with 2D; for example, just look at this thread and this game: nothing has been changed visually in all the years the 1.13 project has been going.
KeldorKatarnNow let me summarize for you what switching to 3d means.
You have to get a 3d engine, you have to make models. and I mean models.. that means models for every single weapon, for every bulding, table, door, roof, lamp, tree, lake, whatever.
You would have to do this for 2D as well. Granted, terrain generation is simpler when you're dealing with 5 tile brushes in the JA2 editor that's a decade old, but good tools can make 3D content creation reasonably painless, especially when you don't need exceptional detail.
[quote=KeldorKatarn]Then you have to write shaders (how many of you here know anything about GLSL or HLSL or Cg? If none, then forget about it. Fixed function pipeline is a decade old by now, not using a shader based approach will make the game look 10 years old and will not improve a thing.
I am familiar, but certainly not enough to be useful. This is actually (part of) why I agree with you and why I think that making a 3D engine is as bad an idea as redoing a 2D engine. Just rewrite JA3 when it hits in four months.
KeldorKatarnThen you have to create or learn to use an existing 3d physics engine, since without physics, nothing moves, neither character nor bullet. Collision detection must be worked out, and yes, then a character can be blocked by a door if he is slightly out of standard shape and collides with something.
Whoah, what? A physics engine is necessary if you want ragdolls and physical objects, but it's hardly necessary for actor movement (that can be quite static and simply animation driven). Collision detection is a non issue; all game world interaction would be handled by the established turn based mechanics, which really aren't that hard to port. I guess you'd have to write new pathfinding (especially because the current pathfinding is garbage), but that's really a separate issue. There are a lot of people confusing the issues of realtime games with turnbased games, and they're just not engine related.
KeldorKatarnThen a damage system has to be worked out, since now the bullet will actually collide with stuff. If you plan on making explisions.. forget about the way it currently works.. if you don't make structures 100% destroyable in 3D, then forget about looking like a modern 3D game. You cannot go 3D and make explosions stay the same, meaning just blend it an explosion sprite and make a part of a wall disappear. THings must fly around, tons but roll around, physically correct (back to the physics engine we are).
You don't need a new damage system. That, again, is a turn based mechanics issue and not related to the engine. However, I agree about deformable and destructible terrain. Even Silent Storm is really crude by modern standards. Granted, UT3 doesn't have anything like this, but in a turn based strategy game, you really can't get away with this.
KeldorKatarnThen the AI must be adjusted, since pathfinding is different in 3D, line of sight is different, since now it must be calculated with ray tracing. Taking cover is different, climbing roofs is different.. remember.. with a 3d engine, there are no tile layers.. there is no 1st level then 2nd level anymore.. you have 3d. there are no distinct height levels in 3d.
Shooting will be different since now the bullet actually flies and isn't just a fake animation for a pure probability based shot anymore...
Again, not true. If you just have 3D rendering and the same internal mechanics that you have in JA2 currently, there's no change in the way these things function. Silent Storm had distinct height levels. It also had gradients, which do require that sort of calculation, and I think this sort of project would be better with it, but it's not strictly necessary. You absolutely can just fake animation for behind the scenes mechanics; that's how every single turn based strategy game works in 3D, even the ones that take 3D terrain into account.
KeldorKatarnIf you plan on doing this.. good luck, you have just decided to create 80% of a full 3d game all by yourself.
I hope you have 10-20 people on a 10h per Week basis available and the motivation on actually working on this for the next 2-3 years.. and no.. you won't be able to do it in much less than that time and still get satisfying results.
PS: Oh.. and did I mention this? Flat ground looks horrible in full freeview 3d, so you better start on terrain making, line of sight and path finding in full 3d terrain and oh.. try to get some good vegetation shaders going, and you better make your water look great if you don't want to upset the fans.......
So, yeah. Give up both projects now and mod JA3. I've seen custom 3D engines made, and they take time and still to look spectacularly crude. It might be worth it starting from one of the open source engines I linked to, but with JA3 not far off, it really, really, really isn't.
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| Re: Improving Original JA2 graphics [message #179997]
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Thu, 03 April 2008 13:58
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| KeldorKatarn |
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Messages:37
Registered:May 2006
Location: Germany |
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I'm going to repeat this again.. yes you can switch to 3d, yes you can do that without completely rewriting the world representation.. but let me ask you this...
if you want to create the worlds in 3d, but let all objects basically behave as if they were 2D sprites (since that's what they'll do unless you rewrite the physics engine and the world representation), then why bother with 3d in the first place? Because content creation is easier? Sorry but that buffalo bagels. Creating a sprite and a 3d object is one and the same process. You create a 3d model then export it into a format the game can read. For a 3d engine this would be a 3d mesh with anymation keys if it was an animated character, for a 2d engine it would be a picture the model is renderd to from a certain camera angle, possibly a series of such pictures representing the animation frames for an animated sprite.. how one is more work than the other I fail to see. Do you honestly think that a sprite is commercially drawn by hand these days? It is simply a matter of either making a mesh file or a picture file from a 3d model, that's all. The texturing and modeling will have to be done in both cases. Ground textures will have to be done too, whether they'd be put on a ground mesh as a texture or on a tile.. again.. how one is more work than the other eludes me.
Now.. people here seem to think 3d is the non-plus-ultra and that the 2d approach is usually made to trade speed for graphical quality.. I have never heard bigger crap.
There are games that genre wise simply work better with 2d graphics than with 3d and simply look stunningly good.. It is also a well known fact that old 2d games usually look good a lot longer than 3d games, since it is extremely difficult to make a fully blown 3d engine really look good, since evrything has to be rendered realtime and needs a lot of shader programming, shadow computation and what do I know.. in 2d this can be prerenderd and will look just as good since you have a fixed perspective which is for many genres more than enough.
If you want to stick with JA2's general gameplay and its isometric looks, then I fail to see one single argument for going 3d. Saying stuff like "that game does it too" and "it worked for them" is bringing no arguments at all. Other game = other game = not Ja2. Ja2 has a certain interface and looks and gameplay the players love and want to keep.
The original reason for this thread was to improve the sprites of JA2, possibly get rid of the crappy file format and also probably get better lighting for the maps instead of the old looking per tile lighting. All this can be easily done by either improving the JA2 rendering engine, or replacing it with a more modern 2D isometric engine.
How some people think, keeping 2D automatically implies keeping STI files is something I don't understand either btw, and that has been said a lot in the past pages of this thread.
I don't want to sound like Mr. Wiseguy or tell you guys what to do, but giving my personal opinion and speaking from experience of having seen a lot of fan projects and commerical franchises go to ruins.. if you go 3d.. you'll kill JA2. You'll change looks and gameplay in such a radical way that people won't recognize the game anymore and you'll have to recreate and code a volume of stuff you cannot even begin to overlook yet, and you'll still end up with not only a different looking game but a crappy looking game since you have by no means the manpower or knowledge it takes to get the looks of games like Far Cry as some people here might think this community could.
If they could they'd earn big bucks at a game studio now and not talk here.
If you go 2d you have all possibilities you want. You can simply try to improve JA2's rendering engine by introducing a new file format like PNG, by using 32bit tiles and by introducing layers. All that can be easily done.
You can also switch to a rendering engine (JUST the rendering engine, nothing else) that already exists and already provides those services and that was written with isometric tile based games in mind.
Btw.. how bigger tiles would improve looks I fail to see. Bigger just means bigger. That doesn't imply more colors, more layers or anything, nor is it required for that.
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| Re: Improving Original JA2 graphics [message #179999]
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Thu, 03 April 2008 15:06
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| Mysterious Dr.X |
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Messages:33
Registered:March 2004
Location: Croatia |
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KeldorKatarnIf you go 2d you have all possibilities you want. You can simply try to improve JA2's rendering engine by introducing a new file format like PNG, by using 32bit tiles and by introducing layers. All that can be easily done.
Then what are we waiting for? Let's do it!
KeldorKatarnBtw.. how bigger tiles would improve looks I fail to see. Bigger just means bigger. That doesn't imply more colors, more layers or anything, nor is it required for that.
I also mentioned the idea of bigger tiles, because I associate bigger tiles with more details possible to show. I play 1.13 on a 800x600 resolution, because the 1024x768 one makes everything too small imho. With bigger tiles, we could reach the same overview like in the 800x600 - which means: not too small - version combined with better details. If we now also get rid of the old file formats and add sprites, this sounds very good to me!
This is why I say let's start! Of course, I'm not a coder and have no experience in this whole thing at all, but when it comes to tileset-creation I could learn everything that's necessary to make some progress and push this project further.
Another question: Let's say we really change the file format and as a result are possible to display more colours etc. Would this mean that we would have to change every single picture in the game? If yes, what would really cause a huge amount of work, we could also begin to rearrange the interface. Imho it would be great to use the current bigitem-pictures as MD-pictures, which are shown in a mercenaries inventory. Same idea like the bigger tiles -> more detail. To realise this, everything would have to be redone, but if we anyway had to change all pictures, then why not do it that way right from the start?
To all pessimists: many guys here don't believe in this idea or forsee that it will likely be dropped anyway, but hey! We're now on page 26 or something and it didn't go offtopic, as far as I see, which shows me - and should show you, too - that there are great interests in this. Let's not goof on this, but instead start something already!
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, but thats besides the point.
