Prism - Animations almost complete

ID:122019
 
Dec 18 2011, 12:32 pm
We've almost finished creating all the animations for the male and female versions of the human race character in Prism. We are planning to have a total of 3 races available upon release; each will have a playable male and female gender.

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We have a total of 9 animations and 2, static, poses. The plan is to have the sprite sheets generated for the male and female characters and equipment by the end of next weekend.

On an unrelated note, the data server for Prism's character files is pretty much complete. The server interfaces with a MySQL database to serve up character data. All data is encrypted with a pseudo-randomly generated encryption key that changes every 60 seconds.

Previously, the character selection screen and creation screen were developed as Flash objects. In order to support the future Flash client, these screens will need to be reworked. They will probably use a combination of the map interface and other window elements. This will be the next development project after sprite sheets are created.
Dec 18 2011, 1:39 pm
Exactly why are you developing a game of this caliber on BYOND?
Dec 18 2011, 1:41 pm
Ryuk25 wrote:
Exactly why are you developing a game of this caliber on BYOND?

He is a believer.
Dec 18 2011, 1:48 pm
I think it'll lag like shit on byond with them graphics.
Dec 18 2011, 2:01 pm
Ryuk25 wrote:
Exactly why are you developing a game of this caliber on BYOND?

I've been with the BYOND community for a long time. I've even made a few games that people liked. I'd like to create a game with BYOND that will, hopefully, show BYOND's full potential.

I don't believe that the graphics will cause it lag. Additionally, I'm not expecting each server to hold more than 20 people.
Dec 18 2011, 10:18 pm (Edited on Dec 18 2011, 10:26 pm)
ImmeasurableHate wrote:
I think it'll lag like shit on byond with them graphics.

I'm already doing something similar in a project of mine (which is a bit further ahead in development than Prism is). The graphics do not lag like shit on BYOND, so to speak.

Here's a short video of it. Excuse the poor video quality. Please note the shading of every object in the game.
http://www.livestream.com/d4rk354b3r/ video?clipId=pla_83463d8a-d1e2-48d7-941d-762131aab4f0

The rendered sprites don't have any impact upon the game itself. Right now the bottlenecks are just networking problems with the mouse functions.
Dec 18 2011, 10:24 pm (Edited on Dec 18 2011, 10:39 pm)
On a different note:

Your UV Mapping looks really wonky. Especially around the shoulders and armpits. I guess since the sprites will be really small, a lot of the mistakes and errors won't be visible, but I think this is still something to be a little concerned about.

Have you tried just creating a separate mesh for the armor and then parenting the new meshes to the rig's bones?
It would probably look better (and easier to UV map) than what you have going on here.

The only foreseeable problem is that layering the armor renders can be a pain in the ass.
Dec 18 2011, 10:36 pm
D4RK3 54B3R wrote:
On a different note:

Your UV Mapping looks really wonky. Especially around the shoulders and armpits. I guess since the sprites will be really small, a lot of the mistakes and errors won't be visible, but I think this is still something to be a little concerned about, at the very least.


You are correct about the sprite size. Once rendered down into sprites, these errors are not noticeable at all.

The only foreseeable problem is that layering the armor renders can be a pain in the ass.

By establishing certain rules, we were able to avoid layering issues. For example, chest piece armor is always just a retexture of the body, unless the armor extends below the waist. Armor below the waist may contain geometry. We have a few rules like this that allow us to make sure no two pieces occupy additional geometry in the same place.

Dec 18 2011, 10:46 pm
NefariousDevelopment wrote:
The only foreseeable problem is that layering the armor renders can be a pain in the ass.

By establishing certain rules, we were able to avoid layering issues. For example, chest piece armor is always just a retexture of the body, unless the armor extends below the waist. Armor below the waist may contain geometry. We have a few rules like this that allow us to make sure no two pieces occupy additional geometry in the same place.

So every piece of armor will be essentially skin-tight? That'd look pretty weird for someone who's supposed to be in something like full plate armor.

I think you'd need some crazy parallax mapping or something to make it look like there's thickness to the armor without modifying the mesh.

Dec 19 2011, 6:40 am
D4RK3 54B3R wrote:
So every piece of armor will be essentially skin-tight? That'd look pretty weird for someone who's supposed to be in something like full plate armor.

I think you'd need some crazy parallax mapping or something to make it look like there's thickness to the armor without modifying the mesh.

Not every piece is skin tight. If you examine other MMOs, you'll see that they follow a similar pattern. The key is to make it so that two pieces of gear can't use geometry to occupy the same space. So in the example with the chest armor, shoulder armor can have as much geometry as necessary because chest armor will never occupy that space.

Edit: By the way, you can see what the full-plate looks like in Prism already. There was a video post that showed the inventory system. At one point, the character is wearing every piece of plate gear.