Progress Report

[Binx]

Looks gorgeous. I can't wait to see what comes out, here.

[Gleeok]

Hey guys. Yep, still working on it. I've had a RL project I've been working on that gets priority, but I've been slowly churning away on it.

If anyone is interested, here are about half the total sprites and graphics from the PSP version of FF1, along with the maps and tilesets. (The binary formats are all compressed but the source code will be available shortly, so it would be possible to convert the data to another format, say to RPG Maker or whatever, as long as you have a serializer or specification for that format.)

http://lodge.magesguild.net:11180/~g...PSP_Assets.zip


Besides that I've been doing a lot of refactoring--there is no separate rpglib anymore, for example--and fixing a few design problems and bugs, along with some scripting.
There are now very few dependencies as everything is built-in to a core library; there are not even any c++ standard headers included, and it uses no c++ STL whatsoever. Compile times are also insanely fast.
Now that most of the major components are mostly done (except UI *cough*), I'm strongly leaning toward a "simpler is better" mentality, getting away from the (sometimes unproductive) default OOP mindset, and trying to write more data-oriented in general.

I also just realized I should take more screenshots. I am very bad about that. :/ ...I should just add a built-in screenshot function I guess.

[Samer]

@Gleeok

I've never done DOP before, yet I would believe OOP is simplier.
I can't think of a single decent game engine that uses DOP.

Edit: However, if you are the only one working on this, then do what's more simple for you yet things like this take teams with 100+ developers to get it done in a "reasonable" amount of time.

Just do what you think is best

Best screen capture tool ever
https://www.techsmith.com/download/jing/

[Anarchy_Balsac]

@Gleeok

I've never done DOP before, yet I would believe OOP is simplier.
I can't think of a single decent game engine that uses DOP.

Edit: However, if you are the only one working on this, then do what's more simple for you yet things like this take teams with 100+ developers to get it done in a "reasonable" amount of time.

Just do what you think is best

Best screen capture tool ever
https://www.techsmith.com/download/jing/

I think he's just saying he prefers to do what works, rather than stick established programming mindsets. OOP is efficient and mostly optimal, but there are times when you don't NEED to create an object for something in your program, and when doing so can actually overcomplicate a more simple procedure. This is not the case in general, but there are indeed situations.

[Gleeok]

Hey, it's @Anarchy_Balsac . What's up; you ever manage to get a hold of that quest?

Yeah. What I meant is that I got into a habit of just defaulting to Mr. OOP template wizard, instead of first thinking about the problem and finding the simplest solution. The simplest solution, as it turns out, is not what it seems if you just think in terms of OOP. What happened is that most of the mid level code is more of a pain to use/refactor than it should be. Instead of making some data reusable it should just be made usable instead. It took me about 5 years to figure it out but I'm getting on to you c++.

Anyway, got it compiled again today. Placeholders are being removed one by one and new things are getting done again. Put in a screenshot function today, and messed with fonts a bit, particularly generating shadowed foonts.


Caption: "It's not upside down!!"

2 things:
1) I'm not digging that resolution [480x280], it looks to tight in the Y direction--not enough tiles--although it is 16:9 aspect, but, the battle backgrounds height are only 312.
2) Can't get fonts to how I want them. I may just put new font stuff on hold until I have an artist helping.

[Anarchy_Balsac]

No I sure didn't, I'm making its spiritual successor though. But yeah, focusing too much on OOP can be a hazard.

For the layman:

Good OOP:

- Makes RPG character as object
- Adds character stats and misc info into character object
- Makes one time character lines and other throwaway game elements into simple data since it will only be used once and/or has to be made unique to each circumstance anyway.

Bad OOP:
- Makes RPG character into object
- Makes each character stat into subobject
- Makes character lines and other one time use data into objects as well, only to just end up using the objects once.

It's a lot more complicated than that, but that's the general gist. OOP is good, but it's easy to get bogged down by it if you shoehorn your code into it. The code should serve the program, not the other way around.

[Samer]

Yeah, I agree there are times when OOP does not work without serious planning.
Requirements in software change on a constant basis, data oriented is good if you are sure it is as good as you think it can be.
It is a lot more tedious to patch it up though. Software is always going to be complex no matter what approach you use, so whatever
the developer thinks is best is the best. Democracy does not work in development since nothing will get done. Discussing ideas is another matter entirely.

There are times in my own projects where I make my classes strictly as data instead of objects.
Sometimes my impulsiveness gets the best of me. I honestly try not to act superior, just letting people know what I know. @Gleeok has a lot more experience than me (I am still a student) so I take his wisdom to heart.
I appreciate you too @Anarchy_Balsac . I learn from stuff like this.

Thanks for all the wisdom.

[Gleeok]

Well, to be fair most of the code was written in the last 2 1/2 years so it is almost all OO. It's not like I'll switch to c-style coding or anything since it won't be consistent with everything else already written. It'll still all be objects.

I'll try to post actual code when it comes up so you guys can get a context, then we can argue about it until we are foaming at the mouth.

[Gleeok]

No I sure didn't, I'm making its spiritual successor though. But yeah, focusing too much on OOP can be a hazard.

For the layman:

Good OOP:

- Makes RPG character as object
- Adds character stats and misc info into character object
- Makes one time character lines and other throwaway game elements into simple data since it will only be used once and/or has to be made unique to each circumstance anyway.

Bad OOP:
- Makes RPG character into object
- Makes each character stat into subobject
- Makes character lines and other one time use data into objects as well, only to just end up using the objects once.

It's a lot more complicated than that, but that's the general gist. OOP is good, but it's easy to get bogged down by it if you shoehorn your code into it. The code should serve the program, not the other way around.

It's funny you mention this because I literally have a butt-load of different ways to put in stats, modifiers, states, auto-abilities, etc. that I haven't decided yet and have just pushed that off to the side until battles are fully script-able. it's just arrays right now. It's a tricky thing to get right. I'll even just go ahead and say that rpgmaker fails at this IMO.


Anyway. Today was get off your lazy ass and "finalize the dang tile specification already" day. So that's done. That might be a whole other post though.


Also refined map spritesets. This means full on map entities will be done in a jiff. [1]

"Rock on hero dude, rock on."

Those specs are easy:
-Animations are packed fixed point and have up to 0.0625-th of a frame speed (This equals roughly 1 millisecond accuracy). This is because anything higher is not perceptible to the human brain. If you are a fly then you can complain.
-Any map object spriteset can have any number of animations. They are not separated into 'directions', and they cannot be referenced by strings (I think strings are stupid for that because they are not type safe and just waste space, eg; spriteset.state = WalkingUpEnum is better than spriteset.state = "waklingup "<--oops, typo.). I don't like to be constrained to having direction arrays of animation arrays as well, so it's just wham bam single array easy with the small catch that you have to make sure every sprite is set up correctly to how it is handled logically. ...uhh, and that's it really.

So for example an octorock like in ZC would just have an animation for each dir[4], and that's it. ...although(!), each animation can be x or y flipped individually so it could just be 2 animations. ...err, actually(!) spritesets can be rotated too so /technically/ they can just be one animation... uhh... whatever is easiest to set up for you I guess. Whatever. It's late and I'm tired. x_x


[1] : Jiff. A unit of measurement. No idea what the heck it is though.

[Tamamo]

If battles are fully scriptable that means we can do something like this right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYnZbG-MXLw
@Gleeok