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Re: this project sounds great.[message #167574] Fri, 14 December 2007 11:28 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Khor1255 is currently offline Khor1255

 
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Registered:August 2003
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This touches on a good idea though.


An expanded choice of pallettes would be a great step toward making sprites appear
exactly like the modder wants them to.

[Updated on: Fri, 14 December 2007 11:29] by Moderator

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Sergeant Major
Re: this project sounds great.[message #167600] Fri, 14 December 2007 15:51 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Telpscorei is currently offline Telpscorei

 
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Just finished reading the design doc. and was thinking that it would probably be easier for animators if the hands were kept with the weapon layer. I'm not an animator, so I don't really know, but it seems to me that if you want to show all kinds of different weapons, you're probably going to want to switch hand positions a lot, and hence keeping the weapons and hands as separate layers may make the situation a little bit more fiddly than is necessary.

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Private
Re: this project sounds great.[message #167603] Fri, 14 December 2007 16:41 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Thor is currently offline Thor

 
Messages:423
Registered:February 2007
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@Khor

About the pallet:
If it would make a more complex placement of colours possible..

What I mean is that hair could be given a second (partly overlapping) replaceable colour, making it possible to show that people wear a helmet or not (in the last case the helmet colour being transparant or hair-coloured)

In the same way this could be done with shirts, boots, pants... so that you could have long-sleeved shirts etc. Maybe body armour (for if you see allies & enemies from closeby) and they don't wear a shirt... So maybe not armour... Wink

Of course I totally stand behind the idea of a system that would allow to replace weapons and items too. Some animations (like for a machinegun) still would have to be made, but at least you could just replace them.

[Updated on: Fri, 14 December 2007 16:45] by Moderator

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Master Sergeant
Re: this project sounds great.[message #167608] Fri, 14 December 2007 17:30 Go to previous messageGo to next message
the scorpion

 
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the problem with drawing in any body armour and such is that you'll have to edit each and every single animation. And almost each frame.

unless you can get some 3dmodelling procedure working, it'll take ages.

there's a couple of ideas how to depcict body armour. since i don't see manual drawing in of body armour possible (again, this is unless the 3d model and rendering and all is being done) i'd say a more precise use of the pallets would help: camouflage pallets currently effect the skincolor, the pants color, the vest color and probably even hair color (not sure there though)

if we could define color palettes just for each of this colors, we could at least have body armour distinguished by color, maybe one color representing one specific body armour class level

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Sergeant Major
Re: this project sounds great.[message #167612] Fri, 14 December 2007 18:36 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Thor is currently offline Thor

 
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I wouldn't bother about body armour. People wear it beneath their clothes... The character should just have to be a bit puffed up around the body if anything.. (Which should only be visible from up close)

A helmet that's a different story.

What do you think?

[Updated on: Fri, 14 December 2007 18:37] by Moderator

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Master Sergeant
Re: this project sounds great.[message #167613] Fri, 14 December 2007 18:43 Go to previous messageGo to next message
the scorpion

 
Messages:1834
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not sure. i can imagine my Mercs to wear commando tuques, barrets or even bandana's

large helmets are so WW1- ish. me personally i'm not too fond of it

the hair color usually has only some 10 max. pixels per frame... i think we can't be very creative there. but that's just me. i guess that can be seen totally differently

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Sergeant Major
Re: this project sounds great.[message #167617] Fri, 14 December 2007 19:04 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Thor is currently offline Thor

 
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Totally agree on that. I also like the ammo bandoleros across the chest in your RR mod. What I meant was the armour. Kevlar & shit. They don't have to be seen.

We can always try and give a merc green hair... see how that looks Smile

[Updated on: Fri, 14 December 2007 19:08] by Moderator

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Master Sergeant
Re: this project sounds great.[message #167623] Fri, 14 December 2007 19:54 Go to previous messageGo to next message
the scorpion

 
Messages:1834
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hehe yeah.

i hope you don't mind if i pick up a point i was referring to earlier: camouflaged items, such as vests, pants and helmets give camo only to the part of the body they actually cover.

it would only require the game to check what armour type (armours.xml has already those distinctions) an object is. a camouflaged helmet would then just modify the haircolor palette, a vest only the vest color and pants only the pants color. We already have like 4 or 5 camo patterns... snow, urban, woodland, desert, stealth as far as i remember.

what i'm implying is that in such a way, we could customize the optics of our mercs manyfold, as a woodland camo vest plus a desert camo helmet plus an urban camo pants would make our character look much more unique.

we have 3 body parts and 5 possible camouflage patterns... that would give a large span of different possible looks. If somebody wants to portray specific armies in his squads, he may do so by adjusting the palettes in question...

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Sergeant Major
Re: this project sounds great.[message #167627] Fri, 14 December 2007 20:06 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Khor1255 is currently offline Khor1255

 
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The idea originally posited was to have armour and such 'layered' on to each animation as per Diablo (I think). Although I can forsee some real nightmarish xy coordinate tweaking to get 'floating' armour and the like to look right I think this is a great idea.

Now if 'layers' were introduced into the sprites you could do that highlighting idea you have by just adding a few pixels of another colour.

One of the things I'd really like to see is more colours to choose from so we could introduce some drab colours without having to overwrite existing ones. About ten more would be plenty and I can hardly see this as being a big coding problem.

But then, my talking about code is pure conjecture.

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Sergeant Major
Re: this project sounds great.[message #167629] Fri, 14 December 2007 20:09 Go to previous messageGo to next message
lockie is currently offline lockie

 
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hey dan , im sure we're just glad you seem to be fired up again :ok:

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Captain

Re: this project sounds great.[message #167738] Sun, 16 December 2007 06:25 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Dekar is currently offline Dekar

 
Messages:7
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In reality helmets just suck... the only thing they can protect you from are graze shots!
So yeah, pro bandanna/barret Wink

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Private
Re: this project sounds great.[message #167917] Mon, 17 December 2007 22:57 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Luftzig is currently offline Luftzig

 
Messages:18
Registered:November 2007
Got blender, and hopeful I'll manage to run the Linux port, and in a few years I might be helpful Smile

On the discussion note, I feel that the sprites should go hand in hand with the new inventory, and allow us to represent the LBE.
And about the vests, the two kinds I saw were way to big to be wore under a shirt, unless your shirts usually 2 or 3 sizes bigger. I don't know what kind of vest they were though, I only know the IDF jargon for them...

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Private
Re: this project sounds great.[message #168366] Fri, 21 December 2007 07:06 Go to previous messageGo to next message
tazpn is currently offline tazpn

 
Messages:99
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New user to the forum and boy was I pleased to find this gem still alive and kicking and even better open source. I've always ranked JA2 up in my top 3 favorite games of all time with Fallout and Planescape.

Anyway, I'm no expert in blitting but I think most of the request is possible but still not exactly easy. Between stiedit and ja2pal many of the base tools are ready but the remaining manpower seems a little light.

1. Updating Palettes
This is relatively straight forward. Basically, all of the customized merc palettes are held in ja2pal.dat and are referenced by name in the code. The animation palette is then altered with those colors. This still means that the available colors are fixed but very flexible. More selections and the ability to customize in the IMP screen (or inventory screen) is probably the biggest job.

2. Separate items
Again still possible to do with the STI format but definitely a lot more work. The current resolution of the images are poor enough that I'm not sure allow that to be more fancy would be useful. It would be nice if we could block off part of the palette for the gun colors and then use the color substitution code for slightly different colors. Still not easy but probably easier than creating 5x more STI files with only the requisite body parts.

Given that every soldier already has unique color combinations for Head, Pants, Vest, Skin, Misc colors that is almost enough for a lot of interesting customization.

3. Unique color control based on armor
Color control based on items should be easily doable. One difficulty here is that there is no good mapping of items to color palette that I can see but I'm sure this could be added to the XML files if somebody wanted and then if it was missing default to the original color or something. We could easily introduce a bunch of different color shades here to get the most bang for our buck. This also fixes a lot of interface problems. I would recommend introducing new attachment items that alter color here for extra flexibility.

4. Camo items
I can't really tell how the replacement works at the moment but it looks like its just another form of palette replacement. The colors types are hard coded but specified in XXX.COL files for some flexibility.

5. Arms
Looks like arms use the same palette as the face so it looks like trouble to allow for sleeves.

---
I would take the approach of:
1. Adding meaningful palette replacements to ja2pal.dat for use in the XML.
2. Adding references to those color strings to the XML for all armor items to allow custom colors.
3. Adding color attachment items for the Head, Chest, Leg armor (using the XML color strings)
4. Altering the "Soldier Control.cpp" code to update palette from the items worn by the soldier.
5. Adding a setting to disable this code in the INI file so its not forced on users.

Having said all this, I dont know if I have the time for this kind of project but could be fun and looks simple enough that it could be manageable.

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Corporal 1st Class
Re: this project sounds great.[message #168405] Fri, 21 December 2007 16:23 Go to previous messageGo to next message
lisac is currently offline lisac

 
Messages:92
Registered:July 2006
Location: Austria
tazpn
Between stiedit and ja2pal many of the base tools are ready but the remaining manpower seems a little light.

Right, one of the biggest problems.

I find the points 2 and 3 rather interesting, since those are the first progressive thoughts towards a cheaper solution, but which indeed would need less time to get finished. Point 5 is just another limitation of the original system, which I'd rather to see replaced than slightly upgraded.

And the whole approach seems pretty reasonable to me. We do have two ways of handling this now, let's see what can be done about it.

Thanks for your contribution, tazpn!

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Corporal 1st Class
Re: this project sounds great.[message #168410] Fri, 21 December 2007 16:33 Go to previous messageGo to next message
the scorpion

 
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Location: CH
concerning point 3

the scorpion


camouflaged items, such as vests, pants and helmets give camo only to the part of the body they actually cover.

it would only require the game to check what armour type (armours.xml has already those distinctions) an object is. a camouflaged helmet would then just modify the haircolor palette, a vest only the vest color and pants only the pants color. We already have like 4 or 5 camo patterns... snow, urban, woodland, desert, stealth as far as i remember.

what i'm implying is that in such a way, we could customize the optics of our mercs manyfold, as a woodland camo vest plus a desert camo helmet plus an urban camo pants would make our character look much more unique.

we have 3 body parts and 5 possible camouflage patterns... that would give a large span of different possible looks. If somebody wants to portray specific armies in his squads, he may do so by adjusting the palettes in question...


i think this is a promising idea. instead of checking for the 50 percent camo bonus, the game would have to trigger a special palette according to the item's type or maybe even by an external value

"ItemPalette" tag that points to a palette.

i used camouflage as an example in the above posting, but basicly, any kind of palette is thinkable.

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Sergeant Major
Re: this project sounds great.[message #168958] Sat, 29 December 2007 14:24 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kaerar is currently offline Kaerar

 
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The main question is how much detail is going to be portrayed on the characters.

To start with the new LBE gear could easily be replicated (admittedly lots of boring Blender work) but it is possible to add the items in a reasonable fashion.

Also the Backpacks would be great to have. You have your Merc start with the backpack on and then when combat starts drops it. Would be great for atmosphere.

For guns are you going to put all in? Or just the M16/AK47 for the start and add the more unique shapes in one at a time?

I am looking on this project with great anticipation Very Happy

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Lieutenant

Re: this project sounds great.[message #168977] Sat, 29 December 2007 19:02 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Khor1255 is currently offline Khor1255

 
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I think as much detail as possible should be put into each layer. Perhaps we start with the 1024x768 resolution in mind because detail will naturally 'blur' with other resolutions. The trick - of course - when dealing with so few pixels is to figure out which pixels need to be which colour so as not to make the layers look cluttered.

I also don't like the top heavy American Football player exadurated look that some of these layered images have. Rule of thumb = even if it is a covering layer it does not have to extend passed the silhouette of the original image even one pixel in some places to keep this unrealistic proportioning to a minimum.

A wider selection in pallettes would go a long way toward depicting the illusion of a covering layer without having to inflate the image to cartoonish proportions.

I think these layers would be pretty easy to crank out (but time consuming as hell because you need to adress every frame of every animation) but the xy coordinate tweaking seems a beast on this particular project. Perhaps the best way for this would be to use the whole sized sti for each frame of each piece but just make everywhere your layer does not appear the 'invisable' colour to maintain some reference to xy coords.


Which brings me to a question I may know the answer to but clarifacation here would be helpful:

Q: Where is the reference corner (the x-0 y-0) located on each frame?

I believe the top left corner of each frame represents the point at which an sti is 'zeroed in' but I am not 100% sure here.

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Sergeant Major
Re: this project sounds great.[message #168980] Sat, 29 December 2007 19:10 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kaerar is currently offline Kaerar

 
Messages:2022
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"Khor1255"
Perhaps the best way for this would be to use the whole sized sti for each frame of each piece but just make everywhere your layer does not appear the 'invisable' colour to maintain some reference to xy coords.


Thats exactly what I am experimenting with for guns at the moment. Using a base 117x46 template for Bigitems and a 60x23 template for MDGuns or 30x23 for small slot MDGuns. I tried with 59 but they didn't actually fill the grid apparently.

[Updated on: Sat, 29 December 2007 20:20] by Moderator

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Lieutenant

Re: this project sounds great.[message #168981] Sat, 29 December 2007 19:20 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Khor1255 is currently offline Khor1255

 
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That's great but the only frames you need to reference are the animation frames, right?

We are talking about the same thing here aren't we?

What needs to be done animation wise is to provide the illusion of different weapons and armours appearing on the in game sprites. In order to do this we need to work with the existing animations as a reference/template.

The good news is that this negates the need for three different sized depictions (we are in essence only working with the smgun sized images) the really bad news is that these depictions must correspond to every frame of every animation.

Sometimes you will see only a small part of your image (the rest being blocked by the soldier's body when he has his back to you for instance) sometimes the image will 'float' low on the tile (crouching and prone) sometimes high etc.

I don't see the need for different sized item pics for this project but only a lot of repetative imaging with very few pixels at any resolution.

Right?

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Sergeant Major
Re: this project sounds great.[message #168989] Sat, 29 December 2007 21:10 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Dr-D is currently offline Dr-D

 
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My wishes related to this topic:

being able to know if armor is being used just by looking - seeing helms, seeing the vest in top of the shirt, seeing larger pants

dynamic weapon picture - By default, every weapon would be shown with the current weapon picture. but if the weapon xml entry has "custom_picture=" then the weapon would appear different. (i just wanna see my P90!!!!)

those are my only requests.

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Sergeant
Re: this project sounds great.[message #168992] Sat, 29 December 2007 21:36 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Khor1255 is currently offline Khor1255

 
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I do not see how it would be possible to depict weapons in full detail when held by the in game sprites. The best - I think - we could hope to do is make differences between the different types of firearms (you know, pistols, machine pistols, smgs, assault rifles, sniper rifles, shotguns) because we are working here with very small sprites.

Certainly - especially if we introduce more colours to the available pallettes - we could depict helmets and maybe even vests (by bulking up slightly etc.), pants and possibly even web gear. This is what I am aiming for and would be willing to work on.


Please let me know if there is any way you think we could add such precise detail without cluttering up the scree with some floating bigitem pic or such. I don't see how this would be possible and would not even want all this information at any kind of long range.

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Sergeant Major
Re: this project sounds great.[message #169003] Sun, 30 December 2007 03:40 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kaerar is currently offline Kaerar

 
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Khor1255 I believe it is possible to have the best of both worlds. Yes there are a majority of guns that will look to similar to bother having all iterations, however unique guns like the P90, AN94, etc... should have their own. That way its easier to see them. The C7 and the M16 for example would use the same sprite.

Armour and other gear thats worn should be done too, they are all feasible but if we can implement lisac's ideas for multi-part sprites then that would make the different bodyparts all that much easier as you wouldn't have to have a different body anim sprite for every combination of armour and clothing.

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Lieutenant

Re: this project sounds great.[message #169004] Sun, 30 December 2007 04:06 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Khor1255 is currently offline Khor1255

 
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Certainly bullpups for example could be represented differently (although there would have to be something that triggers this particular animation as opposed to any other assault rifle) but if you take a look at how many pixels you have to work with at that scale you will quickly see that only so much detail is possible.

The animation tag is one problem, the ammount of different animations another but the small scale and the fact that you often only see a part of the weapon clearly make providing any in depth detail impossible as far as I can tell.

If you have an idea or better yet an example that is done to scale I'd like to see it.

I think this project is very possible but only likely to actually happen if we walk before we run. I think the individual weapon classes being illustrated is definately enough at this scale but am opened to any suggestions about how we might increase detail but to start, having two handed smgs take on a different look than any other two handed weapon, having sniper rifles appearing differently than assault rifles, etc. is a great start.
Having EOD armour (or any armour for that matter) appear differently from regular clothing, etc. etc. are all asthetic improvements and will improve gameplay as well so I'd like to offer a method of doing this that might get done.
I am also willing to contribute although as anyone who has had the displeasure of working with me knows that my contributions are often slow in comming if I'm able to work around rl commitments at all.

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Sergeant Major
Re: this project sounds great.[message #169059] Sun, 30 December 2007 18:04 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Dr-D is currently offline Dr-D

 
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lucky for you, you have me Razz

I explain, i am a paint fanatic. i love mspaint!!! I know how to make photoshop art in ms paint, call me crazy but i like to imagine layers, since paint does not have layers, we have to imagine them, and do copy pastes in order.

JA2 is alike MsPaint in that way, It does not uses layers, but i know how to emulate layers with simple changes in the current engine. Just need a coder to read my idea.

You guys interested?

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Sergeant
Re: this project sounds great.[message #169081] Sun, 30 December 2007 21:47 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Dr-D is currently offline Dr-D

 
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Well here i go Razz
here is my approach

The 1st thing we must do is to remove the weapon(in all images) and remake the damaged part left by the weapon, like this:
http://clientes.netvisao.pt/joaogdc/olddiv.gif

2nd: Add 2 new color codes to the images, 1 to difference the skin near and the skin deep, 2 to difference 1 leg to the other, like this:
http://clientes.netvisao.pt/joaogdc/newdiv.gif

3rd: Alter the image-creation's functions to write the image in frames in a total of 16 frames.
The impair ones will come from the correct images created in step 1 and 2.
The pair ones will be custom ones, like this:
http://clientes.netvisao.pt/joaogdc/newdivlayer.gif

4th: Make a new xml tag in items.xml to be able to add images to the custom frames, like this
P90.slf


And the outcome of that tag being there should be this:
http://clientes.netvisao.pt/joaogdc/newdivp90.gif

I hope this helps the coders
Good luck in coding Razz

[Updated on: Sun, 30 December 2007 22:14] by Moderator

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Sergeant
Re: this project sounds great.[message #169082] Sun, 30 December 2007 22:13 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Dr-D is currently offline Dr-D

 
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With this method items could use several frames:

an example of this is a vest that covers the arms:
frame12 - left arm of the vest
frame13 - torso part of the vest (this would overwrite the standard frame 13)
frame16 - right arm of the vest

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Sergeant
Re: this project sounds great.[message #169083] Sun, 30 December 2007 22:18 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Khor1255 is currently offline Khor1255

 
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I think there are good things to be gleaned from this idea.

However, one huge problem is that if we separate the gun sti from the sprite sti we must make different animations for each silhouette of weapon. Just representing the weapon in it's 'clean' sideview is not good enough because we must also represent it turning away, facing away, prone north, prone south and all directions in all stances for all weapons.

A huge ammount of work and that is before even making sure every frame fits in the proper xy coordinate.

If you are volunteering for making these animations my hat is squarely off to you.

We do of course need a coder on board but please be clear about what it is going to take to make this work for every frame of every animation.

I think the close arm far arm distinctions would go a long way toward making these animations properly appear when parts of the weapon would be blocked from view because - for instance - an arm was in the way so in essence all you would need to do was to draw the guns themselves in several angles (working with very few pixels) and tweak the xy coordinates to make this work.

It is a lot of work given the ammount of weapons available in the 1.13 and I wish you the best of luck.

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Sergeant Major
Re: this project sounds great.[message #169084] Sun, 30 December 2007 22:19 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Dr-D is currently offline Dr-D

 
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Dr-D
3rd: Alter the image-creation's functions to write the image in frames in a total of 16 frames.


Please note that this part is not as difficult as it appears, the game already divides the picture by the color code to recolor it, I'm just asking for more 2(3 with feet) color codes and an sequential adding.

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Sergeant
Re: this project sounds great.[message #169085] Sun, 30 December 2007 22:23 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Dr-D is currently offline Dr-D

 
Messages:102
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Khor1255
However, one huge problem is that if we separate the gun sti from the sprite sti we must make different animations for each silhouette of weapon


thats not an issue, we just have to make 5 default weapons(pistol,gun,knife,law,mortar) and if "" tag does not exist, force them in the original place

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Sergeant
Re: this project sounds great.[message #169087] Sun, 30 December 2007 22:29 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Dr-D is currently offline Dr-D

 
Messages:102
Registered:July 2005
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Khor1255
I think the close arm far arm distinctions would go a long way toward making these animations properly appear when parts of the weapon would be blocked from view because - for instance - an arm was in the way so in essence all you would need to do was to draw the guns themselves in several angles (working with very few pixels) and tweak the xy coordinates to make this work.


I evaluated that issue, but i think thats the animator problem, the engine that way can support every single position of the gun, in every direction, if the weapon pack is done correctly.

the divisions i made cover all louse members that can have things between them.


but, hey, if you think more frames are needed Razz, I have nothing against it.

[Updated on: Sun, 30 December 2007 22:37] by Moderator

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Sergeant
Re: this project sounds great.[message #169089] Sun, 30 December 2007 22:41 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Dr-D is currently offline Dr-D

 
Messages:102
Registered:July 2005
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since weapons will also need multiple frames, maybe the xml tag sould be:
P90.sti



with P90.sti having several folders one for each frame

so if does not exist
and item is a weapon, add default animation (to cover the huge amount of weapons issue)

[Updated on: Sun, 30 December 2007 23:48] by Moderator

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Sergeant
Re: this project sounds great.[message #169090] Sun, 30 December 2007 22:45 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Khor1255 is currently offline Khor1255

 
Messages:1817
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Location: Pleasantville, NJ
If you say we only need 5 weapon types than I am afraid I did not follow what you initailly said. It seemed to me you were proposing making a different animation for at least each silhouette type (a p90 looks remarkably different than any other smg for instance).

If you are saying we only need to separate the weapon type animations than that is closer to what I had in mind. Less exacting than your method yes but it would only require altering existing animations slightly than coding in the new animation that seperates - for instance - a sniper rifle from an assault rifle.

This is what I had in mind and the solution may lie in whole new animation sets for the different weapon classes.

But I like your layered method much better it's just that the xy tweaking does not sound like fun at all.

Do up a custom animation and rename it to an existing one. When you test it it will appear to jump wiggle and or shimmer if your frames get any bigger or smaller than the original animation's frames.

Placing a weapon into the hand of a sprite means manouvering this animation into a very precise spot on each frame so of course frame by frame tweaking is the only way I can see to make this happen.


Is there maybe some imaging software that makes this process easier?

It is not just a question of how each weapon is angled in reference to the 'camera' but where they exist within each frame of each animation. They rarely hold a stable plane and aren't always angled exactly the same way either.

So again if there is a program that makes this process easier than just photosuite or shop etc than I sure hope you have it.

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Sergeant Major
Re: this project sounds great.[message #169092] Sun, 30 December 2007 22:55 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Dr-D is currently offline Dr-D

 
Messages:102
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At the beginning we would make exactly what we see right now but with the new engine.

that would support any kind of custom animation. but that would not be added. we would only add the already existing 5 weapon types, as defaults for all weapons.

But as animators got work done we would add the animations and the xml tags to the game.

for example:

If some one makes the AK animation, we would add in all AK type guns the same xml tag and only one animation(not one for each weapon, all AK would use the same animation).
If later some one thinks the AKM is different form the rest of AKs and makes the AKM animation then we would add that animation and change the AKM tag from the AK standard file to the new one.

That way we can make the engine changes with only 5 animations work, but still be compatible with 1000 different animations if there are ppl wiling to do it.

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Sergeant
Re: this project sounds great.[message #169093] Sun, 30 December 2007 22:56 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Khor1255 is currently offline Khor1255

 
Messages:1817
Registered:August 2003
Location: Pleasantville, NJ
Another problem I can see is that the computer would need to know when the torso should block the weapon and when the weapon should appear over the torso.

Perhaps making the back of each sprite a different colour (we might even be able to make all 'far' parts of a sprite the same colour) could be the solution?




EDIT:


Sorry, just saw your post. That is the only way I could see thins thing actually getting done. That is precisely what we need to do.


I am wondering how you got all that detail into the sprite sized p90?

Is this by using the highest resolution and if so how to I generate the extra pixels necessary to make images in this resolution?

I'm sure it is probably just a simple mathematical formula but what is it?

[Updated on: Sun, 30 December 2007 23:00] by Moderator

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Sergeant Major
Re: this project sounds great.[message #169094] Sun, 30 December 2007 23:03 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Dr-D is currently offline Dr-D

 
Messages:102
Registered:July 2005
Location: Portugal
Khor1255
Another problem I can see is that the computer would need to know when the torso should block the weapon and when the weapon should appear over the torso.

Perhaps making the back of each sprite a different colour (we might even be able to make all 'far' parts of a sprite the same colour) could be the solution?


well thats not up to the computer, thats up to the animation, i explain:

when the weapon is in front of the torso, the animator should use frame 14, when its behind the torso, the animator should use frame 8.

so in the same place that frame 8 is used, the frame 14 has nothing(in this case, in other cases it may have).

Its all up to the animator, if he choses the right frames, it appears correctly

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Sergeant
Re: this project sounds great.[message #169095] Sun, 30 December 2007 23:05 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Dr-D is currently offline Dr-D

 
Messages:102
Registered:July 2005
Location: Portugal
Khor1255

I am wondering how you got all that detail into the sprite sized p90?

Is this by using the highest resolution and if so how to I generate the extra pixels necessary to make images in this resolution?

I'm sure it is probably just a simple mathematical formula but what is it?


Nope, I'm a paint fanatic, i painted it, pixel by pixel, from memory.
But if you want a good (and free) draw tool, get Gimp.

[Updated on: Sun, 30 December 2007 23:09] by Moderator

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Sergeant
Re: this project sounds great.[message #172368] Tue, 22 January 2008 02:07 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kaerar is currently offline Kaerar

 
Messages:2022
Registered:January 2003
Location: Australia :D
Is there any news on this project from lisac or Dr-D?

Its a very good project and I look forward to seeing it implemented at some point.

Unfortunately it does highlight the single most limiting aspect of JA2. The graphics engine. Ah well seeing as its JA2's 11th birthday this year I think its perfectly ok Wink

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Lieutenant

Re: this project sounds great.[message #172377] Tue, 22 January 2008 02:30 Go to previous messageGo to next message
circ is currently offline circ

 
Messages:10
Registered:August 2004
interesting that you brought up FOT, as i played that for a week or two just recently. anyway, it has some cool sprite animations and the gear changing your appearance is nice. but not everything is painted in so you get crowbars and spiked bats and cattle prods that look like each other. ive never played d2 because diablo 1 was utterly boring, however, lately ive been playing ToEE, the temple of elemental evil, and it too has some cool layered sprites. i think it uses 2d maps and 3d for the tiny chars, that end up about the same size as JA2. it looks pretty cool, and uh barbie doll like, you put on say a fullplate, and it shows up, and then slap on a robe and it covers the whole thing up.

the 1.13 did alot for JA2 graphics just with the higher resolution possibility imo, but ah, to have the living scenery of ToEE or even the shell craters from FOT would be nuts. but lacking that, more lifelike sprites would be cool.

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Private
Re: this project sounds great.[message #172674] Wed, 23 January 2008 18:49 Go to previous messageGo to next message
lisac is currently offline lisac

 
Messages:92
Registered:July 2006
Location: Austria
I'm sorry to report that the constant lack of free time keeps me away from starting anything serious regarding this question.

There's always hope, though... The interest of the community shows there could be something done, with or without me. I'd prefer the first option, of course Smile

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Corporal 1st Class
Re: Improving Original JA2 graphics – Sprites[message #173350] Mon, 28 January 2008 12:29 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
rasz is currently offline rasz

 
Messages:38
Registered:August 2006
>Yes, that'd be nice, but we can't use other formats than STI (legal reasons and what not)

??? is there something in the JA license that says you cant use any other file format? I think not (after all xml IS another file format Razz). I understand we cant just copy STI to new format and distribute it, but using our own new data is ok. I suggest PNG/MNG (free open license, tons of sample code).

Why not go one step further and introduce openGL? If you are going to build 3d models you are already doing half the work, maps can be converted on the cheap (after all they are made from cube like blocks with tile textures, it will look like crap at the beginning, but will be easy to tweak). You get scaling and rotating for free.

example engine ioquake3
http://ufoai.ninex.info/gallery/albums/ingame-screenshots/grenade_launcher.jpg
http://ufoai.ninex.info/gallery/albums/ingame-screenshots/ingame003.jpg


[Updated on: Mon, 28 January 2008 12:47] by Moderator

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