experience?

[esw]

[RwGast]

[Moose or Chuck]

[randall]

The Quake map file is in plain text and readable in any plain text editor (notepad or wordpad). A VB editor would be possible and has very little to do with the compiler. Basically it would act as a frontend. The compilers have nothing to do with editing, all they do is convert the map into a format readable by the engine.<br><br>I haven't worked with any version of VB beyond 4.0 so I don't know if they've added support for DirectX and openGL since then. Those would be much needed in order to render the scenes fast enough to do any kind of real editing.

[esw]

Yeah, I don't think that I could do a quake editor. It's a lot more complicated than argentum. <br><br>With ArgMap, all that has to be done is load a picture (I used the PictureBox control) and have the ability to add units over it. It's fairly simple to create a new Image control where you click and then have the option to save a list of the objects and their positions in a file.<br><br>Of course, ArgMap has many more features that make it easier to use but those were just added on to what I described above.Last modification: esw - 07/10/01 at 18:06:38

[RwGast]

Yes you can call dx and opengl api's from vb, but you really dont need to fast of proccessing anyway if you used the same concept of quarks 3d view, wich might i add is made in python a much slower language than vb even.

[randall]

Um, I'd like to add that Quark sucks. I had it crash four times on a project. I dumped it, got Worldcraft and finished it without a hitch.<br><br>Some people will say the Quark is easier to use... that doesn't matter piss-in-a-pot if it holds up production with fatal bugs.

[Malmer]

[randall]

It's not a big secret or anything. While I am working on it, I'll probably be posting screenshots periodically.<br><br>terrain<br><br>currently Argentum uses voxel technology to render the terrain. Optimally, I'd need an alpha layer to create illuminated surfaces and semi-transparent surfaces. They need to be layered so they can fade or warp... or something.<br><br><br><br>This image shows the type of ground surfaces I would need- the glowing blue behind the figure is similar to a river of BLUE lava. I'd need the semi-transparent layer for a flowing fog-effect.<br><br>I believe this is already beyond the scope of the PocketPCs capabilities. Even if Argentum supported it, I doubt the PPC has the hardware to push it. So this part is not so important. I could fake some of it, but it wouldn't be nearly as impressive.<br><br>sprites<br><br>Looking at the screenshots and video, it looks like Lomax uses a 3D rendering package to create the objects in the game, and converts them to sprites with an accompanying alpha channel.<br><br><br><br>In my vision, all the objects will need to have an idle animation. Even static objects like the buildings will be animated because there won't be buildings in my world, but hulking beasts instead. EVERYTHING will be replaced with a creature of some sort.<br><br>If the sprites support an alpha channel, that will be perfect. Some of the objects will have membrane-like skin and will need to be semi-transparent (about 40% transparency).<br><br>AI<br><br>I'll need to modify attributes pretty heavily, since most of the creatures won't have a projectile attack.<br><br>I'm done<br><br>This is everything I could think of off the top of my head. I will be creating the creatures in 3D Studio Max and animate them with bones and Character Studio.<br><br>If the current hardware or Argentum doesn't support this kind of concept, I'll just wait for the next generation of PocketPCs. This thing has been floating around for over a decade so obviously I'm in no hurry. I'd rather do it right the first time around.<br><br><br><br>

[John Lomax]

Hi randall...<br><br>yes you are correct, I create the units in 3d (maya) then render them out with an alpha channel at 640x480 (making sure the camera is at the correct position and has no perspective (orthagraphc))<br><br>Then I simply scale them in photoshop to the correct size and crop/color correct. Save them out with there alpha channels.<br><br>This goes for any animated units aswell.<br><br>J.

[RavenRay]

Randall...you got some mad skillz

[Diego Cueva]

oh yeah..

[CARPEDIEM]

Randall:<br>I'm not the graphics guy in Argentum so Fredrik will probably answer if what you want is possible. What i can talk about is the game engine, so far i am planning on implementing Objectives and Trigger via scripts, the other stuff will be hard coded. What you will eventually be able to do is to make Mod maps like the ones in Starcraft, For example you could do an RPG or something like that, like the ones you find in starcraft.<br><br>However, if we like your idea, we could probably colaborate and make a specific game, not a mod, and commercially distribute it. The engine is very versatile, If i wanted to i could make a racing game out of argentum, or an RPG or a pacman hehe. But doing this will require specific coding, not scripting.<br>If the game becomes popular i would have no trouble in adding stuff for scripts, it all depends on the level of interest people have.<br><br>

[RavenRay]

Hey, What If I not only want to make maps, but also new People?  Will this be possiable?

[randall]

That's fantastic. I really groove on scripts- it makes the development cycle for maps so much faster and easier. Incremental changes can be immediately tested. Sounds like you guys thought of everything.<br><br>I guess I'll wait and see how modifiable everything is through scripting. But if the engine is so flexible that it could support a racing game or RPG I guess I don't have much to worry about.<br><br>I've been searching for a decent PocketPC RPG engine as well.