Author Topic: Call for SGDK2 Artwork and Templates  (Read 19114 times)

bluemonkmn

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Call for SGDK2 Artwork and Templates
« on: 2006-10-04, 05:09:41 AM »
I figure the time is not far away when I will be ready to start incorporating some template artwork, sprites and code into the SGDK2 project.  I better start organizing now.

OrionPax, are you still out there?  Is there anybody else who'd like to work on and submit their efforts for consideration for inclusion in the initial SGDK2 release when it's ready?

Eastfist

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Re: Call for SGDK2 Artwork and Templates
« Reply #1 on: 2006-10-06, 01:12:25 PM »
I'm open for some "light" graphics work (I got time restraints)... depends on what you need.
"What's in a game?"  Juliet says to insult Romeo.

bluemonkmn

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Re: Call for SGDK2 Artwork and Templates
« Reply #2 on: 2006-10-06, 07:57:09 PM »
I don't exactly know what I need.  I just need some art libraries/templates to deliver with SGDK2 when the time comes.  So complete sets, probably, not just pieces... although if a team is assembled, maybe each member doing just some of the work would work out.  But in order to have a consistent artistic style within a set of graphics, there should probably be one person doing the drawing of discrete chunks of related styles of graphics.

Looks like I may have to email OrionPax to get his attention.

Jam0864

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Re: Call for SGDK2 Artwork and Templates
« Reply #3 on: 2006-10-11, 04:36:49 AM »
A sound library would be good too. I have about 200 sound effects on my computer I could send in, but they're all stolen from other sources. Do you want them anyway?

durnurd

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Re: Call for SGDK2 Artwork and Templates
« Reply #4 on: 2006-10-11, 07:57:49 AM »
I think original sounds would be a better idea.  We don't want to get in trouble here.  Also, it would just seem unoriginal if SGDK2's library is just full of assets from other places.

I think all Game Makers that come with a library (RPG Maker, Klik'n'Play, Reality Factory, etc.) comes with an original library of their own devising, not something stolen from elsewhere.

Now, if you have a way to make sounds, I'm sure that would be appreciated when that step is reached.  Just as a "throw it out there" thing, if anybody does have any sounds they want to contribute that are their own, I'm sure there will be a time for that.

Music goes with that, too.  If you have any easily-loopable music in OGG, Tracker, or MIDI format, that would go well in the library.
« Last Edit: 2006-10-11, 08:07:03 AM by durnurd »
Edward Dassmesser

Orion Pax

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Re: Call for SGDK2 Artwork and Templates
« Reply #5 on: 2006-11-16, 10:25:11 PM »
Still here =]

 I've been poking around the lastest version the past couple days. Thanks to the test project/experimenting with it I shouldn't have any problems building/testing a tileset.

 I'll see about putting the improved shfl set together. It's rather disorganized at the moment but somewhere in there is something usable so I'm currently sorting through it. I'll see about updating whats there to take advantage of some of new things that can be done in sgdk2. I've got some interesting ideas for the graphics to try out after the bulk of the existing work it is sorted/completed. I'm not sure how long it'll take but I'll see what I can get done on it over the next month or so.

 Is there going to be a way to change the opacity of a tile, perhaps in the frameset editor? Hue, saturation, luminance? If not then in engine/runtime?. I ask so I know what I need to render on the tilesheets vs. what to do in the SGDK2 environment. I know I can flip, rotate, resize and combine multiple tiles. Though I can't seem to both combine a number of tiles and animate it at the same time, example: an object blinking over a few static images as 1 tile animation.

bat

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Re: Call for SGDK2 Artwork and Templates
« Reply #6 on: 2006-11-16, 10:46:20 PM »
i got some midi's i wrote...you want to put those in?
~bat

bluemonkmn

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Re: Call for SGDK2 Artwork and Templates
« Reply #7 on: 2006-11-17, 07:25:39 AM »
Bat,

Thanks for the offet, but I have discovered that FMOD's support for MIDI, while consistent cross-platform, doesn't sound as nice as it should on high-end sound cards, so I'm thinking most of the music library will probably have to be in MOD or MP3 format, preferrably MOD format (in which I include whatever format FastTracker II uses, I forget the extension).  Anybody got any good freely distributable mods they want to share?

Orion Pax,

Yay, you're still here!  I guess I kind of neglected looking into the possibility of runtime adjustment of alpha/HSV values.  I added it to the list of things to investigate, but don't count on it being available.  I'll try and let you know soon so you know whether you need to make those adjustments in the graphic sheet or not.  BTW, if you want the recently added colorwheel rotation (hue remapping) and Add Noise features in the graphic sheet editor, let me know and I can make another pre-alpha release with those in it.

It should be possible to make an animated tile where each frame consists of multiple "sub-frames".  Frames are compounded by setting the frame delay to 0.  If you add a number of frames with a delay of 0, then add a frame with a delay of 1, then add some more with a delay of zero you should end up with an animated tile consisting of 2 "compound frames".  Let me know if this doesn't work. It's  designed to and needs to be fixed if it doesn't.

Orion Pax

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Re: Call for SGDK2 Artwork and Templates
« Reply #8 on: 2006-11-17, 04:43:16 PM »
It should be possible to make an animated tile where each frame consists of multiple "sub-frames".  Frames are compounded by setting the frame delay to 0.  If you add a number of frames with a delay of 0, then add a frame with a delay of 1, then add some more with a delay of zero you should end up with an animated tile consisting of 2 "compound frames".  Let me know if this doesn't work. It's  designed to and needs to be fixed if it doesn't.

It seems the problem I was having is related to not closing the tileset editor window before running the project. The animation wasnt behaving in accordance to the delays I set and i was getting some odd behavior. After closing the tileset editor before running the project the animation responded as intended. Similarly this likely explains the problems I was having when changing the size/binding box for the sprite (to indent into the surface) and getting some odd behavior, crashing (sprite falling off the screen), falling through tiles walking one direction but fine the other.

Just tested it, it was indeed the cause of the problems I was having while adjusting the player sprite's binding box (side note: do you think there will be a feature to align the bindingbox: left,right,top,bottom,center?). I had assumed everything was updated without closing the windows.

Jam0864

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Re: Call for SGDK2 Artwork and Templates
« Reply #9 on: 2006-11-17, 09:10:33 PM »
I have three good looping MP3's, do you want them? They are much better than the ones in my last game. I am now using Hammerhead, which makes great drum sequences.

bluemonkmn

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Re: Call for SGDK2 Artwork and Templates
« Reply #10 on: 2006-11-18, 07:53:22 AM »
I'd prefer to provide only MOD files in the sound library as far as music because MP3 files are so big that a collection of them would overwhelm the size of the library.

bluemonkmn

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Re: Call for SGDK2 Artwork and Templates
« Reply #11 on: 2006-11-18, 08:18:10 AM »
It seems the problem I was having is related to not closing the tileset editor window before running the project. The animation wasnt behaving in accordance to the delays I set and i was getting some odd behavior. After closing the tileset editor before running the project the animation responded as intended. Similarly this likely explains the problems I was having when changing the size/binding box for the sprite (to indent into the surface) and getting some odd behavior, crashing (sprite falling off the screen), falling through tiles walking one direction but fine the other.

I don't know how you managed to see this behavior.  If I change the "Tile Width" or "Tile Height" or "Repeat Count" in the tileset editor, it takes effect immediately.  I change the tile width from 32 to 16 and then activate an already-active map editor window, and I instantly see the map drawn with tiles overlapping horizontally.  Similarly, I change a Repeat Count from 5 to 50 and Press F5 without even leaving the field, the game will animate that tile according to the new parameter.  This is scary if the program is behaving differently for no apparent reason.  Do you know what version(s) of .NET Framework you have installed?

Just tested it, it was indeed the cause of the problems I was having while adjusting the player sprite's binding box (side note: do you think there will be a feature to align the bindingbox: left,right,top,bottom,center?).

I was hoping it wouldn't be necessary.  What could you do by changing the alignment of the "binding box" that you can't do now?  By "binding box" are you referring to the "solid area" of the sprite (with respect to the way it interacts with tiles) relative to where the sprite is drawn?  That you can manually control in the frameset editor, right?  You just move the graphics up if you want the box to be lower on the sprite... are you just referring to an automated way of aligning the graphics to a particular region relative to the solid rectangle of a sprite?  Maybe I could make a wizard for that if that would be helpful... it would just change a frameset frame's parameters based on the settings of a particular sprite that uses the frame (or change all the frames that a sprite state uses).  If that's what you're talking about, it shouldn't be too big a deal.

I had assumed everything was updated without closing the windows.
In my environment that does seem to be the case... everything updated without closing any windows.
Can you reproduce the strange behavior, maybe send me project/instructions if you think I might be able to get the same behavior if I do it right with the right data?

Actually you know what?  I did make a change recently that ensures all data in the current window was persisted to the project before allowing an F5 (Run) command (and a few other commands) to proceed.  I bet that would make a difference and might save you some grief in designing sprites and sprite plans.  I thought it only affected the rule editors, but it could have effects throughout the IDE.  I should make another pre-alpha release for you soon if this is causing you difficulty.

Orion Pax

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Re: Call for SGDK2 Artwork and Templates
« Reply #12 on: 2006-11-18, 02:11:07 PM »
I've just been using the test project so far. After playing around with it bit more it seems to do with not recording thw last value I type , in this case the repeat count, if it was the very last thing I did before hitting f5. if i deselected the frame, selected another frame, activated another dialog box, closed the dialog box.. anything afterward confirmed the value I typed in and the project ran as expected. My .net framework folder contains 2 version folders, v1.0.3705 and v1.1.4322.

 
are you just referring to an automated way of aligning the graphics to a particular region relative to the solid rectangle of a sprite?  Maybe I could make a wizard for that if that would be helpful... it would just change a frameset frame's parameters based on the settings of a particular sprite that uses the frame (or change all the frames that a sprite state uses).  If that's what you're talking about, it shouldn't be too big a deal.

yep =] In the Sprite definition window I changed the height of the player sprite from 32 to 16 for the walk left and walk right states. Frameset editor to then adjust the Y offset of the individal frames. I was thinking some quick alignment buttons in that dialog box or even what if black box(solid area) on the layer mask window(when mask lvl set to zero) was positionable but you're right, part of the functionality of the frameset editor just seemd more convienant.

Oh incidently If I changed the player sprites width from 32 to 16 the test project crashes when I try to run it with . I'm not sure I understand why that is happening, is their something in the test project that depends on the player sprite's width being 32? any value up or down caused a crash apoun loading/running.

bluemonkmn

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Re: Call for SGDK2 Artwork and Templates
« Reply #13 on: 2006-11-18, 10:54:43 PM »
1) I'm pretty sure now that the behavior you're seeing with the last value typed not persisting to the project is the thing I fixed recently.

2) Would it make sense for the auto-alignment feature to be a wizard that is launchable from both the Frameset editor and the Sprite editor?  Would there be any use to also supporting alignment with respect to, for example, an animated tile (and allow it to be launched from the tileset editor)?  I suppose I could figure this out myself, but having your opinion could be helpful and expidite my own decision making :)

3) The test project might be crashing when the width of a sprite changes if the size of the collision mask doesn't match the size of the sprite or something... but I think the mask is gereated at runtime so that's not it.  I'll have to try this and see what happens.

4) I discovered that support for runtime adjustment of alpha and hue levels is easy and have begun adding support for it.  In the frameset editor, I am exposing 4 new fields that allow you to adjust the R, G, B and A channels of the overall frame to a percentage of the full value.  (Actually a value between 0 and 255, not a percent.)  So 255 in each channel keeps the original image.  A value of 127 in the A channel makes the frame semi-transparent.  I am also planning on adding a sprite parameter to all sprites that can override this value.  There will be functions like "SetSpriteAlpha" that can set the alpha value of a specified sprite to 50% or something, and then it will effectively override the alpha level of all the frames within that sprite until it is reset or something.  I'm thinking for optimization purposes that it will just override the frame settings (as I just described), but if you think it would be especially valuable to be able to combine the color adjustment of the frames with the color adjustment of the overall sprite at runtime, I could try to make that work too.  What do you think?

bluemonkmn

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Re: Call for SGDK2 Artwork and Templates
« Reply #14 on: 2006-11-19, 07:28:00 AM »
I must have been in a work-reducing mode this morning because I was changing my mind on a couple things:

2) Do you think a wizard is helpful, or were you just saying that handling all the alignment issues manually in the frameset editor would work and wouldn't need a wizard or other alignment tool?

4) I don't think I will put a color override on the sprite itself.  It doesn't have any other overrides for transformations on the frame, so it seems like that kind of thing should remain exclusively in the frameset.  It wouldn't be a huge hinderance to require that the color transformation (like the matrix transformation) be defined in a frameset and just use sprite states to maintain which set of frames it's using, would it?