Land of Fire

by Pixelcomet
Land of Fire
An atmospheric, anime inspired role playing game.

Land of Fire Devlog #22

ID:2082504
 
May 11 2016, 12:40 am
Another week of updates, and this one was quite the workload! Last week we began introducing our work in progress nodes concept. This week we took that concept to the table and started getting things to work. A lot of smart techniques went into making what we have possible so far and I'd like to share what went down here.

Now as you can tell from this image that was posted in the last devlog



There are A LOT of nodes involved here. And mapping this up by hand would probably have taken the entire week. As many of you already know, the team is known for creating dev tools outside of DM (a tactic Zane enforces), to allow us to create content at during game time, and we currently have dev tools set up for our grid maps, NPCs (and various other legacy systems). This time I decided to take a different route. Nodes are static, and are not something that need to be changed during game hours, however it still needed a way to have them created not by hand because that would just take too long.

So to keep things short, this is the end product -



(everything including the large nodes are connected, just needs an updated gif)

In order to achieve this, when the game starts up, it scans the entire image pixel by pixel and starts sorting based on patterns found. It is able to detect where nodes are, what their sizes are, what nodes they are, and what nodes they're connected to.

This whole system took 3 days to complete. So why do this? There are over 400 nodes involved in this tree, and that's incredibly overwhelming to have to hard code all locations and connections for each. If Zane changes connections or moves nodes around, the only thing that'll need to happen is a rescan of the image to update.

SulLight has been working on completing the animation from last weeks devlog


You'll probably be seeing more iterations of this as we move forward, but it's really shaping up!

With this hard stuff out of the way (this node system took a lot of our attention this week), we're looking to complete the tree by next week. We'll be moving onto classes soon and I can't for us to report on those. Zane has already started working on the techniques (both document + art wise). A lot to look forward to! See you all next week!
May 11 2016, 5:08 am (Edited on May 11 2016, 5:18 am)
Good stuff, as always. I did find myself wondering how in the world you guys were going to manage all of those nodes and coding them in the proper positions. I too thought you were doing all of that in a massive list, but it's good to know there are better ways of handling this. Will you guys also have the techniques' desc/level/dmg or whatever other relevant information appear on MouseEntered()?

EDIT: I'm assuming you're breaking up the image in smaller pieces when using GetPixel(), setting whatever proc you call this on to instant, and stitching the image back and setting their locs like you are doing to your map zones?
May 11 2016, 7:47 am
nice job bro keep up with the good work
May 11 2016, 1:40 pm
Good stuff, as always. I did find myself wondering how in the world you guys were going to manage all of those nodes and coding them in the proper positions. I too thought you were doing all of that in a massive list, but it's good to know there are better ways of handling this. Will you guys also have the techniques' desc/level/dmg or whatever other relevant information appear on MouseEntered()?
EDIT: I'm assuming you're breaking up the image in smaller pieces when using GetPixel(), setting whatever proc you call this on to instant, and stitching the image back and setting their locs like you are doing to your map zones?

This is within the realm of code,far beyond my understanding. What I can tell you is that the image is not broken up. Yes we were in the process of implementing tooltips but it wasn't quite ready for the devlog.


Here's what's that's looking like.
May 11 2016, 2:49 pm
Looking forward to the next devblog :)
May 11 2016, 3:58 pm
im looking forward to the boss battles. Btw how are the boss battles/big enemy thingy going to be like?
May 11 2016, 4:30 pm
So umm looking at this last gif I'm wondering if the game is going to be multi-language?
May 11 2016, 4:43 pm
In response to 5ratsuperhalo
5ratsuperhalo wrote:
So umm looking at this last gif I'm wondering if the game is going to be multi-language?

[Lorem ipsum...] is a latin paragraph commonly used as place holders within software. The game is being developed for the English language, however there's no harm in venturing the realm of possibility in regards to multi language support. That will be a challenge far down the priority list however.
May 11 2016, 5:00 pm
ahhhhh okay also nice work on this game lol doesnt even feel like BYOND it feels like a game that would be made by MMO Pros lol keep up the great work.
May 11 2016, 9:56 pm
With the use of a skill tree similar to PoE, how will the abilities/jutsus be acquired and will there be different choices of abilities in each class?
May 12 2016, 8:47 am
Abilities and skills will be accessed outside of the passive tree. There are general abilities that all classes would be able to use and then there are class specific abilities.

Skills will be gained from special scrolls. These scrolls will be bought from stores or dropped by mobs.

The passive tree is more for the inherent characteristics of your character such as it's physique, special traits or talents.
May 12 2016, 10:35 pm
So if someone wanted to become like rock lee and guy would they learn taijutsu and gates outside of the skill tree or feom the skill tree itself?
May 13 2016, 12:26 pm
5ratsuperhalo said:
So if someone wanted to become like rock lee and guy would they learn taijutsu and gates outside of the skill tree or feom the skill tree itself?

Pixelcomet said:
Abilities and skills will be accessed outside of the passive tree. There are general abilities that all classes would be able to use and then there are class specific abilities.
May 13 2016, 4:56 pm
Okay my bad i was speed reading so i didnt comprehend it all