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CommanderSpleen 
Vortininja
Posts: 48
(10/1/03 10:23 am)
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Platform Engine Underway To Allow Decent Klik Fangames
I have begun work on a TGF platform engine that works independently of the inbuilt movement and clipping routines built into the program, with a whole lot of other features, including cycling backgrounds, level editor, enemy editor, etc, and will generally offer customisation to any degree necessary, hopefully.
Screenshot
This screenshot shows the actual TGF level in which I'm designing the graphics that I'm gonna play around with at first, and offers a bit of an indication as to what's to come.
It uses a Keen4-style tilted-angle view (man, that's hard to implement), and will hopefully offer a decent engine for Keeners wishing to make fangames in the future.
It uses a hell of a lot of math (very interesting endeavour trying to fit it all into a list of events), and all calculations will be able to be edited (ie. gravity level, player speed, etc).
I'm doing what I can to reduce the amount of active objects in use at any one time, so huge levels using the Dynamic Array extension will be possible, along with cycling backdrops (I hope--I'm yet to test this). I almost had a plan for parallaxing backdrops, but it seems that's not entirely possible the way I've designed it thus far... but we'll see yet.
There'll be a tool to easily customise every aspect of the engine (or at least as many aspects as I can manage to make customisable). I'll do what I can to implement a scripting engine that will make enemy AI easy to set up, and the entire physics of the game will be able to be modified.
At the moment, I'm using 8-pixel tiles (see screenshot), which is actually quite amusing to build games with, but I'll still implement an option to modify tilesize (and the final release will be basically a .gam file which will allow the graphics to be edited and such--there's no extension to make this process external unfortunately).
There's a lot of experimentation and loud exclamations of frustration and joy, often simultaneously, yet to come though, and I'm still in the midst of my Keen1 mod, so it may be a while before it is completed. I'll keep y'all posted, though.
Incidentally, is there anyone that may be able to inform me of the exact physics of the Keen4 engine? If this info exists, it'd mean my random experimenting would be much more productive. By physics I'm talking walking acceleration/speed, jump deceleration/initial speed/jump key influence, ledge-climbing animation, etc.
I'm starting to get some random mind-flashes of CK:MB that will help me finish off the beta, too, so hopefully when I get some of this TGFing out of my system I'll be getting stuck back into it.
Smeep!
>Commander Spleen
ö Cave assectatorem Ductoris Alacris ö
"If good men do nothing;
Why, that is evil enough."
GOOD MORNING SHADALU! Edited by: CommanderSpleen at: 10/1/03 10:24 am
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KeenRush 
Photachyon Transceiver
Posts: 4163
(10/1/03 1:40 pm)
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Re: Platform Engine Underway To Allow Decent Klik Fangames
Sounds like a cool engine, good luck!
"Incidentally, is there anyone that may be able to inform me of the exact physics of the Keen4 engine?"
Well, I think adurdin will be the only one..
Oh, and waiting your Keen mod beta. 
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Xtraverse 
Stranded Fish
Posts: 2477
(10/1/03 3:12 pm)
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Re: Platform Engine Underway To Allow Decent Klik Fangames
I did the same thing as you--built a custom engine with pogoing, ledge grabbing, nice movement, etc...worked amazing but the only problem was that it was damn slow on >~500Mhz computers. Right now I'm in the process of rewriting the engine completely, and I'm also redoing the save engine in my game. Once I'm done, Alpha Manhattan should run speedy on slow computers, and only take a second to save/load instead of ten.
I'm debating whether I should use a level editor or not.
Never argue with an idiot. He brings you down to his level, then beats you on experience -- Mark Twain
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Dr Villain 
Vortininja
Posts: 53
(10/1/03 11:12 pm)
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Re: Platform Engine Underway To Allow Decent Klik Fangames
 It'll be incredible if it works. I've made un-customizeable and slightly buggy Keen1 and Megaman engines (both using essentially the same principles), but I've never been able to figure out how to do ledge climbing, paralaxing without forced scrolling, anything that doesn't rely on The Games Factory's built in engines to some extent,(Collison mostly, I gave up the platform and 8-way engines years ago.) and none of my engines are easily portable.(that's why Robotnik's Revenge wasn't completed earlier) Hmm... needs more research. By the way, how are you planning on programming the level building? I assume you won't be using the normal backdrop.
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Xtraverse
Stranded Fish
Posts: 2480
(10/2/03 12:34 am)
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Re: Platform Engine Underway To Allow Decent Klik Fangames
Parallaxing in TGF requires all objects in front be platform objects (there are other long-winded solutions, but they'll be slooooooww), and this will make you hit the object limit soon. I doubt you'll be able to make working parallaxing unless you upgrade to MMF.
Never argue with an idiot. He brings you down to his level, then beats you on experience -- Mark Twain
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CommanderSpleen
Vortininja
Posts: 49
(10/2/03 4:02 am)
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Re: Platform Engine Underway To Allow Decent Klik Fangames
Quote:
"Incidentally, is there anyone that may be able to inform me of the exact physics of the Keen4 engine?"
Well, I think adurdin will be the only one..
Well, not necessarily 'exact physics'... I don't necessary need a fully-fledged description of the actual calculations and figures (though that would indeed be nice )... just any observations that have been made as to the actual movement of the Keen sprite itself.
I've been playing Keen4-6 under close scrutiny as to animations and movement and such, and I'm starting to get a clearer picture of this, and I'm sure others have done this before--that sort of observation is what I'm looking for.
Quote:
I did the same thing as you--built a custom engine with pogoing, ledge grabbing, nice movement, etc...worked amazing but the only problem was that it was damn slow on >~500Mhz computers.
Did it ever make it online? I'd like to see that in action. What caused the slowdown on >~500Mhz PCs?
Quote:
By the way, how are you planning on programming the level building? I assume you won't be using the normal backdrop.
*shudders at reference to 'normal backdrop'* Definitely not. I have a working level editor for another game that uses the Dynamic Array extension object (that game may turn up online one day soon as well), and the same techniques I used in that form the basis for this engine's level editor. Collision detection uses a number of calculations to determine if the next position a player is about to end up (ie. 2 pixels to the right when walking, 2 pixels beneath when falling) is a tile, and if not moves the player as such. It uses only very basic physics at the moment, but it shall evolve as I go.
I'm not sure whether I'll be making clipping info inbuilt to each tile (there are a lot of different possibilities, including slopes, clingable ceillings, mid-point horizontal/vertical, etc--a lot of experimenting yet to come to get these to work) or instead creating an extra layer for clipping which can be set independently. I'm thinking the second option may work best... even if it's not directly editable, it will still make things a lot easier.
I'm not sure whether cycling backgrounds will work too well... involves a lot of redrawing (there are 300 tiles on the screen at once as it is, and pasting even 30 tiles takes time) and the other alternative is a lot of active objects, equally unfeasible. Perhaps if I reduce the screen size to 15x10, or 12x8 rather than 20x15 (and if that can be redrawn each frame with ease, parallaxing shouldn't be too far off--parallaxing as in Duke1-style with a full-screen background behind the level). Perhaps a primitive radar system that gives warnings if items or enemies are near (ie. an object for each purpose that has eight arrows that turn on and off as necessary) can make up for the smaller gameplay space.
And, of course, active items only become active objects when the player is a few tiles away. This saves a hell of a lot of memory and even gives some leeway for special effects and such.
I don't know how well some of these techniques will actually work speed-wise, but here's hoping. Otherwise, there's always another way to do anything. I can still scrap the cycling and parallaxing backgrounds if absolutely necessary... or offer them as an option with an incredibly small playing screen. And even then the game may as well have been made in an ordinary programming language with a constant redraw in mind (the only reason it isn't is because I keep losing interest in learning the acual routines necessary for graphics).
Anyway, that's my... er... dollar or three.
>Commander Spleen
ö Cave assectatorem Ductoris Alacris ö
"If good men do nothing;
Why, that is evil enough."
GOOD MORNING SHADALU! |
Xtraverse
Stranded Fish
Posts: 2481
(10/2/03 2:53 pm)
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Re: Platform Engine Underway To Allow Decent Klik Fangames
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Never argue with an idiot. He brings you down to his level, then beats you on experience -- Mark Twain
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CommanderSpleen
Vortininja
Posts: 50
(10/2/03 6:07 pm)
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Re: Platform Engine Underway To Allow Decent Klik Fangames
Woah. Why haven't I seen this before!? Nice engine despite said bugs... especially that one that kind of makes you fall through the floor or launch off to the right at the level exit...
I suppose it probably uses a lot of active objects and stuff? It runs alright on my laptop, which is a 500MHz... slight lag, but nothing entirely noticeable. Sound effects are insane.
And that BWB game... though I haven't played it yet, it looks like it'd be very similar to the BWB sidescroller I've spoken of in other posts. Looks like I've post-empted a lot of your ideas... still, I'll give them a shot and see what I can come up with.
---
I'm experimenting at the moment with redraw rates using the 'Paste into background' active object action... the vertical retrace is evident as the game redraws the background, so unless I can find a way around this I'll need to use active objects for cycling backgrounds... and that would mean that I'd have to limit the number of cycling backgrounds within any one screen so as to keep within the limit of about 160 or so active object limit... which almost defeats the purpose of most of my other efforts.
Hmm... I just did some further tweaking... two-frame cycling seems relatively possible as long as the entire screen isn't filled up...
Wow... and yet more tweaking reveals four-frame cycling seems to work well for properly constructed tiles without any noticeable redraw...
Wow... and there's even enough leftover pasting room to allow transparency effects (a background tile being pasted followed by a foreground tile).
Woah... with this whole setup, parallaxing is even possible!
Bahahahahaha! Scrolling works beautifully using a stationary animated backdrop and animated cycling tiles! Barharharharhar! No slowdown! No evident retrace! PII350MHz! TGF! T - G - F!!!
Ugh... getting seasick.
*uploads demo*
Download Demo
Whew. That was fun. The implications are nothing short of only expressible through a statement that vaguely references even a glimpse of what's possible. 
Or something.
Weeheee! I love TGF!
>Commander Spleen
ö Cave assectatorem Ductoris Alacris ö
"If good men do nothing;
Why, that is evil enough."
GOOD MORNING SHADALU! |
Xtraverse
Stranded Fish
Posts: 2482
(10/2/03 7:18 pm)
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Re: Platform Engine Underway To Allow Decent Klik Fangames
Cool stuff..why's your Dynamic Array named garray.cox? It's darray.cox here..
Anyways, the stuff looks promising, but I dunno how it would fare with larger tiles and a slightly larger screen. Also, it would get quite annoying making an entire level and have to scroll it with the method you use.
Never argue with an idiot. He brings you down to his level, then beats you on experience -- Mark Twain
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Dr Villain
Vortininja
Posts: 54
(10/3/03 4:26 am)
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Re: Platform Engine Underway To Allow Decent Klik Fangames
Scratch that bit about my engines not being portable. My Megaman egine works for Mort.
I also have experimented with using the paste into backdrop action to build levels, however I never figured out collisons. Once I figure out this Dynamic Array, I may develop an engine like yours.(Maybe even better.)
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Xtraverse
Stranded Fish
Posts: 2483
(10/3/03 2:02 pm)
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Re: Platform Engine Underway To Allow Decent Klik Fangames
And can you tell me a lot of the bugs you saw in my engine so that I can hopefully fix them?
Never argue with an idiot. He brings you down to his level, then beats you on experience -- Mark Twain
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Dr Villain
Vortininja
Posts: 56
(10/12/03 3:47 am)
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Re: Platform Engine Underway To Allow Decent Klik Fangames
Commander Spleen, how do you manage with only a one-dimensional array? I keep trying, but the 1-D Dynamic Array Object just doesn't cut it.
Dr.Villain's Evil Emporium Vilains R Us |
CommanderSpleen
Vortininja
Posts: 54
(10/12/03 4:19 am)
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Re: Platform Engine Underway To Allow Decent Klik Fangames
Quote:
Commander Spleen, how do you manage with only a one-dimensional array? I keep trying, but the 1-D Dynamic Array Object just doesn't cut it.
I really don't know.
I haven't been able to work out how to use more than one dimension. Hmm... strangely, I seem to have blocked any other possibility from my mind and made do with what I've been able to work out.
How does one use more dimensions? Might make things that little (insanely huge) bit easier.
>Commander Spleen
ö Cave assectatorem Ductoris Alacris ö
"If good men do nothing;
Why, that is evil enough."
GOOD MORNING SHADALU! |
Dr Villain
Vortininja
Posts: 59
(10/16/03 9:51 pm)
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Re: Platform Engine Underway To Allow Decent Klik Fangames
You can't use multiple dimension arrays with that object, and I haven't found any that can. What I meant was: How do you translate that 1-D array into a 2-D grid? But I've already figured out that, with some slightly confusing wildcard manipulation, I can retrieve the X and Y coordinates from a single value. I have attempted to do so, and have so far only managed to create a broken line of tiles across the screen.
Villain Technologies Helping the Bad Guys since 2003 |
Xtraverse
Stranded Fish
Posts: 2503
(10/17/03 2:07 pm)
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Re: Platform Engine Underway To Allow Decent Klik Fangames
You guys might want to look into the Dynamic Array 2: www.3ee.com/docs/files/tgf/darray.gox
Never argue with an idiot. He brings you down to his level, then beats you on experience -- Mark Twain
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Dr Villain
Vortininja
Posts: 61
(10/18/03 5:40 am)
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Re: Platform Engine Underway To Allow Decent Klik Fangames
Thank you for bringing that to my attention, Xtraverse. I have not been to the 3ee website in a while. By eliminating the wildcards needed to emulate a 2 dimensional array with the original array object, the chances for errors are greatly decreased.  (Now if i can just figure out how to use this new array object. )
Villain Technologies Helping the Bad Guys since 2003 |
Rave O Mania
Vortininja
Posts: 152
(11/3/03 7:32 pm)
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Re: Platform Engine Underway To Allow Decent Klik Fangames
Hey Xtraverse, I think there might be something about the video card. All objects are graphics at does something the fps memory. I only hold a filthy NVidia Vanta with 16Mb of memory. BTW Xtraverse, about your latest version of AM, when I was playing it on XP, The mouse cursor can move around half of the screen.
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