Post by lgb3d on Aug 8, 2022 21:13:46 GMT -5
A while back I was thinking to myself about enemy types I could create that use less memory. In the Dos release as well as early Windows releases we still had memory limitations to what we put in a level.
So yes I want to employ things like the eyeball that have a few graphics not 30 plus frames.. I made a floating head, no extra frames required for movement
This tutorial is an outside box thought of how to achieve low memory usage guards.
One night I was watching the original Predator film. And a thought came to mind an enemy with cloaking device would require very few graphics, as well could add challenge and diversity to gameplay.
...........
I started by picking enemy graphic that clearly demonstrated movement, "thats all the player needs to see is sugested movment" utilizing GCS paint FX functions used the outline function with my desired color.. I erased everything other than my outline... from there I chose points of the body that need to be present to demonstrate a humanoid form as well as movement everything else I got rid of. I put a little shine On on some key points.
Then I saved a blank ".vgr" image which makes up the majority of his animation.
I used five frames to demonstrate all of his movement, one of the five is the blank frame, as well one frame for his attack. Then three frames for the standard death, and three frames for my alternate Gib death. So I have a total of 12 frames.
.............
Then I created a guarddef.txt, that only contained handles for the 12 frames.
Then I created a solid0.txt for him.. the first step in that was filling everything except for the death frames with the handle number for the invisible frame.
Then I went through sprinkling the movement graphic handle numbers ensuring that I never placed them on a frame that was reserved for a standing position. I place these Graphics very sparse.
As an example there are eight frames for walking, as well as eight angles he is visible from. Each frame I put the visible graphic at a different angle, and some frames have no graphic IE frames referenced as standing..
The trick was figuring out which handle numbers need a negative number, sometines we have to test the game before we figure that one out
Placed the new attack handle in the final frame for shooting as you will not see him untel he pulls the trigger.. this guy can creep up on you and blast you.
Then placed the handle numbers for the death graphics in those frame positions as he will be visible in his death.
............
The key I found to pull this together was in guardSRC.4th.. there is a row that starts with move.stride. This is how large his steps are, smaller number bigger the step.
If I'm visualizing this right each walking animation sequence has two steps the left foot and the right foot. So the greater this distance the further apart you would ever see any of his silhouette graphics. As well being that 90% of his frames are invisible he would appear at one side of the room and be invisible for a moment and surprise you being at the other side of the room.
This leaves a player always aiming where he's seen the enemy last and not knowing what direction the enemy is moving.
......
I wanted to do this for a while and I was shy to try but it turned out to be a very easy and quick project.
About attached video. As it's hard to demonstrate something that's invisible, I added a few extra frames of the visible graphic as well reduced his step size to the normal guard.. so this is not the way it will appear in gameplay, but for video sake this is what I had to do to capture it on film..
After I shoot him lo and behold it was a lab rat playing with the new technological War toy the cloaking device..
youtu.be/SS73RKxjr9M
So yes I want to employ things like the eyeball that have a few graphics not 30 plus frames.. I made a floating head, no extra frames required for movement
This tutorial is an outside box thought of how to achieve low memory usage guards.
One night I was watching the original Predator film. And a thought came to mind an enemy with cloaking device would require very few graphics, as well could add challenge and diversity to gameplay.
...........
I started by picking enemy graphic that clearly demonstrated movement, "thats all the player needs to see is sugested movment" utilizing GCS paint FX functions used the outline function with my desired color.. I erased everything other than my outline... from there I chose points of the body that need to be present to demonstrate a humanoid form as well as movement everything else I got rid of. I put a little shine On on some key points.
Then I saved a blank ".vgr" image which makes up the majority of his animation.
I used five frames to demonstrate all of his movement, one of the five is the blank frame, as well one frame for his attack. Then three frames for the standard death, and three frames for my alternate Gib death. So I have a total of 12 frames.
.............
Then I created a guarddef.txt, that only contained handles for the 12 frames.
Then I created a solid0.txt for him.. the first step in that was filling everything except for the death frames with the handle number for the invisible frame.
Then I went through sprinkling the movement graphic handle numbers ensuring that I never placed them on a frame that was reserved for a standing position. I place these Graphics very sparse.
As an example there are eight frames for walking, as well as eight angles he is visible from. Each frame I put the visible graphic at a different angle, and some frames have no graphic IE frames referenced as standing..
The trick was figuring out which handle numbers need a negative number, sometines we have to test the game before we figure that one out
Placed the new attack handle in the final frame for shooting as you will not see him untel he pulls the trigger.. this guy can creep up on you and blast you.
Then placed the handle numbers for the death graphics in those frame positions as he will be visible in his death.
............
The key I found to pull this together was in guardSRC.4th.. there is a row that starts with move.stride. This is how large his steps are, smaller number bigger the step.
If I'm visualizing this right each walking animation sequence has two steps the left foot and the right foot. So the greater this distance the further apart you would ever see any of his silhouette graphics. As well being that 90% of his frames are invisible he would appear at one side of the room and be invisible for a moment and surprise you being at the other side of the room.
This leaves a player always aiming where he's seen the enemy last and not knowing what direction the enemy is moving.
......
I wanted to do this for a while and I was shy to try but it turned out to be a very easy and quick project.
About attached video. As it's hard to demonstrate something that's invisible, I added a few extra frames of the visible graphic as well reduced his step size to the normal guard.. so this is not the way it will appear in gameplay, but for video sake this is what I had to do to capture it on film..
After I shoot him lo and behold it was a lab rat playing with the new technological War toy the cloaking device..
youtu.be/SS73RKxjr9M
