Sept 21-- Currently in the early development stages - we have begin the process of structuring what needs to be done. I know we have gone through this speech before on how we are working on something and nothing ever is produced. Hopefully with a little bit of effort and "hell week" is finished up for Fryedsoft (If you must know - ask him what "hell week" is) I must say I am really excited and have begun doing alot of the storyboard drawing. So far this has become a huge artwork project that I have taken on and in drawings alone is probably x10 the amount of pictures then any other game we have done and I am 'still' working on the pictures. After some discussion with Fryedsoft on the direction we would like to go and some personal decision making - I wanted to kind of emulate the story telling on how "Phantasy Star 4" did it. It won't be a matching copy but our own unique style which will still make the story worth it and hopefully with all the additions that we are planning for this should be a chart topper or at least a fan favorite. I will have some pics or hopefully a full working beta site for the game soon. Keep checking back here for more updates.
Sept 28-- Well I finished a couple more pictures and I figured it was time to post thumbnails of the storyline I have completed so far. This by no means is everything completed for the game. This section of pictures are just the story line pictures and this is still far from the intended amount that will be completed for the game.
Removed Preview - Check current posts for picture updates.
A couple more pictures done - been thinking on how I want to do the fighting engine still...not sure if I want to do a side-scroll, 2/3rd view, 3rd person view. No matter what - I will animate all the fighting sequences. That's going to be so fun to draw Anyways - I am going to use this thread as my project journal and maybe alittle venting here and there Hopefully by next week I will have a set of more thumbnails to post. -Peace
Just to show where the engine stands, and since I actually had to learn visio to teach someone else how to use it, lets have fun with flowcharts!
Basically, this lays out the general plot of the Landel Engine. (formerly the Slayers Engine.) This is a very rough layout and is not true to the actual layout, since many of the tasks (such as boxctrl and menuctrl) are reused throughout the entire engine. It's more of a what needs to be done kind of guide.
Box colors denote where a part of the engine stands. Red for not done, Orange for on paper, Yellow for done but needs fixed and Green for done. Most of the yellow boxes are pretty much completed, but were based on the older vnum system, which eats precious variable space. Since the 89 has a 2000+ variable limit, those modules are going to be coded to use more data matrices and consolidate multiple files into one file, which should eliminate that problem from the engine.
Project Update: Oct 8 - Too freaking early in the morning
Finalized more of the story line, so now I am up to part 27 in the story arc. I am going to assume the story line will be at least 50+ parts(not including side stories). I decided to post the completed world maps of 3 zones - these will be heavily explored during the first part of the game and probably used often throughout the game. So far I have one more zone I am currently working on and possibly more on the way. Depends on what Fryedsoft says what we can handle as far as area maps and memory. I have a fear we might be hitting a memory limit on the TI-89+ and that's what screwed us on FF7 last time. I guess I really want the game to be awesome but I don't want to get half way done and the calculator starts screaming at us for using too much damn memory. I would of had more to report but the last day has really been troublesome and having to sit at the hospital for a couple hours and listening to retards with doctor outfits on kind of killed my motivation to do much of anything tonight. Well.. back to work or sleep - which ever comes first.
I'm trying to get a feel on how many system variables we can have before the Ti-89 starts to show significant slowdown. after a few trials, I found that it could be measured by calculating the time it took for the home screen to go from the main line to one of it's stored history values. The Graph shows the results.
Pretty much, once you get around 1500 variables, the Ti-89 AMS starts to choke up until you get to 2400. Past that and you're most likely going to get a memory error when you try to run a program. It doesn't seem to effect program execution much, but it does affect calling other programs and variables, something the Landel engine does a ton of.
At the college where I work, I've been asked to work on a haunted house display system using 4 separate monitors on one pc, which has been eating up most of my free time.
With what little time I've had, the Landel Engine Room Editor with all the new room file changes is done. now to make a room and design walkctrl to read it. from there, the inventory system gets worked on.
Redit (not shown in the diagram. The Landel Engine Room Editor) is in the green. It's important, since I need maps to test and fix walkctrl. That should be in the green soon enough, taking checknow and checkesc with it.
walkctrl, checknow and checkesc are back in the green. At this point, we can start working on map designs and concepts. The Next step will be the data variables system layout, since this is needed to work on buynsell, invctrl and equip. The next step may also get loaddata, savedata, and the savefiles in th green or at least in the orange/yellow.
Currently we are focusing on variable file layouts, which is going to be the core data sets for both the inventory and fighting engines. We're also playing around with how to layout the fighting graphics. it's come down to two choices so far, the "Slayers RPG" like behind the player view with mobs facing them seen in many Phantasy Star games, or the "FF7:CQ" like side by side system seen in many Final Fantasy titles. We're also considering how this is going to effect available memory to work with.
With side by side, it opens us up for more animations during the fight, but would eat much more memory that we want to dedicate towards the storyline. The rear view has less and smaller animations, but that frees up RAM and Archive for other things, like more maps or more storyline or both.
We can alleviate many of these issues by making LoL HW2 only, or we can make the storyline episodic in nature. (a la .Hack) Currently, I'm looking into a way of doing both so that episodes can be added to fill more spacious calcs (such as the Titanium) but keep the older calcs in play. I should know more at a later date whether that's possible or not.
Yeah its been a while since I bothered to update the thread but here we go. After alot of talking with Fryedsoft on how we are going to work with memory and what calc version we are going to shoot for. It wasn't much of a ground breaking decision but it looks like we are going to break the game up into episodes/disks. After this decision was made - a realization that memory will be factor and I need to rethink on how I am going to present the storyline so I went through the entire collection of pics and conformed them all to the same size. Before it was 2 different picture sizes and alot of switching between the two. So I went in and turned all the wide formatted pictures into the standard size(81x76 if I recall). Some made an easy transition while others had to be converted into 2 separate pictures. Also I retouched up on some while adding a bit more to the overall completed folders. As you can see this is now the format I am working under - this is disk 1 of the game. Within each disk the storyline is broken up in parts and named. However I removed the names in the picture because I don't want to reveal anything about the storyline. As you can see Parts 13, 15~20 are still being drawn and probably will be another week or so before I update with alot more completed or the entire disk completed. Once I have the first disk completed I will move over onto the battle system pictures and finalize all of them for disk one. Till next time, peace.
Working on Disk 1 Progress: Finished Parts 1 - 14 (Currently working on Part 15)
Well after much thought about the storyline - I added alot more pictures in Disk 1 and its coming along nicely. I am currently in the process of finishing Part 15 and so forth. Once I have Disk 1 storyline pictures completed - I will continue onward as planned. I am way behind my own deadline so I don't think I will have this stuff all done before Feb 1st as initially planned. Anyways enjoy the picture preview of what I have in store for Landel so far.
Not much done this month, mostly due to work eating a ton of time between virus outbreaks and virus software replacement decisions. (About time thank god, although this could eat more time.)
What little I did do is change the look of the inventory control so that it shows more items on screen vs the old one. See for yourself below. This still works like the old invctrl, (Up-Down selects. Right-Left pages) but shows more than three items on screen. the only thing now to do it size the inventory correctly to handle this change.
Next step is get back on track and start working on the variables again. That was supposed to happen after this change but hopefully I can get time to get started on it next month.
With the previous games we have released as joint and solo, I don't think a demo will be done. I am not exactly sure Fryedsoft's take on demo making but I don't feel a demo would even do this justice and considering the time it would take to build the demo and to bug test it - I think it would be a misuse of the time we could of used to focus on the actual game. Besides from how Fryedsoft explained the coding and how the engine works it would be counter productive for him to not just code the entire thing. I know not having a demo released means a longer waiting period to see the game in action - but I promise that if you liked any of the previous released games we have then you will love this one. Its worth the wait >_<
This is a book that they're requiring me to read at the college where I work, and is easily the most boring thing that I have ever read. And I've actually read the below book from cover to cover. It's basically 500 pages of stuff that could be condensed into 4 pages if it got to the point. I'm pretty sure that If I go to hell, Satan's going to say something on the line of "Welcome to Hell, Here's your book. Enjoy your Eternal Damnation."
Anyways, in what little time Ive had to myself The Variable Engine has been on my mind, particularly how to handle equipment and the like. Since the engine has a vnum system, the best bet would be to separate each characters equipment into their own vnum, that way its more organized, but you would have to have more programs to handle each vnum class (1 Program for a group of 100 Vnums) So if you have 7 characters, that's 7 programs (which would basically be the exact same thing) to handle the add item to the inventory.
The fun starts happening when you look at equipment. To gain the most efficiency out of this system, you should fill the vnum class (IE: have 100 items) but that may not always be the case, so if you have a charater that only has 20 items, thats 80 vnums that can not be used for anything, and you're still stuck with the 7 handling programs. also you're tied to 100 items total and cant go over that, so that can be an issue as well. On the other hand, If I consolidate the vnums, it should eliminate waste and will definitely reduce the control programs, but would add some complexity to the search routine for the equip menu. Not much overhead would be needed though.
So first, I'm going to try the first option since it should have the least overhead to the inventory system (with added overhead to walkctrl and buynsell.) If we actually need to expand beyond 100 armor items per character, we can either use vnums for each type of armor (with a ton of overhead) or go to consolidation.
And as for the TV book, It's been 10 years since I read it and I can still remember part of the CBS Color section. (unlike the current book which I don't remember anything but the title) Particularly because of the whirring color wheel in front of the TV that would probably shred your dog like a meat cutter if it got too close to it. http://www.hawestv.com/mtv_color/colrtel_block.htm
Well, here's the next update. same as the last one.
During the first month of April, (Easter weekend and the week after), I end up going to Washington DC to watch my 2 cousins for a week, since I have to burn vacation time before I lose it and they use it to do other things, (like watch them for the other vacation times) I go down there for awhile. It's fun and it gets me closer to a Micro-Center to buy computer stuff. Nothing really there that I need this time though. Anyhow, no chance to program there, since I have to watch them like a hawk or they'll run off to provoke the neighbor's pit bull or something.
On top of that, the RV is back in my Driveway. And any free time has been going into that since it's currently got a gas leak on the main gas line which also messed up the brake lines pretty good. This gives you not only the bonus of a 11000lb RV going out of control with brake loss, but a spectacular fireball when you hit something. Since I just put $75 in gas in the thing, I've been doing whatever it takes to stop the leak.
And the job's still there sucking more time from me with a virus scan roll-out, registration, inauguration of the new president, and computer swaps looming on the horizon.
coded some of the basic structure for the buynsell routine, but still needs a ton of work.
Well since BGCv2 is moving along nicely - I should be back to this project 100% by the beginning of June. Probably when I am bored or have some free time during the next week or so - I will draw & color a character listing of all the known main characters so far planned in the game - possibly a short bio along side them as well for reference.
Well I missed the last monthly update, but for good reason.
For awhile now, I've needed to upgrade my computer, I've been using Vash (an Nforce2 based Shuttle SN41G2 running an AMD Athlon XP 3000+) for over 7 years now and it was time to upgrade.
The End Result is Catnarok.
Why did it take over a month to build? for starters, waiting for the loan to get approved. I actually took out a loan to Build Catnarok
Once that got approved. I ordered the parts from Newegg. A lot of that wait was due to many of the parts being backordered.
Finally, I had to wait for an RMA, Since the Motherboard failed after three days due to a faulty northbridge cooler.
What's in it that makes Catnarok cost more than what I paid for my RV?
1 x LIAN LI ARMORSUIT PC-P50R Red Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 1 x ASUS Crosshair IV Formula AM3 AMD 890FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard 2 x XFX HD-597A-CNB9 Radeon HD 5970 Black Edition 2GB 512 (256 x 2)-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card 1 x CORSAIR HX Series CMPSU-1000HX 1000W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply 1 x AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition Thuban 3.2GHz Socket AM3 125W Six-Core Desktop Processor Model HDT90ZFBGRBOX 1 x CORSAIR DOMINATOR 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model CMD8GX3M4A1333C7 1 x Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC256MAG-1G1 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) 1 x Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive 1 x NEC Display Solutions EA231WMI-BK Black 23" 14ms(WTB) IPS Panel Height/Pivot/Swivel adjustable stand Widescreen LCD Monitor 1 x LITE-ON 24X DVD Writer Black SATA Model iHAS424-98 LightScribe Support 1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders - OEM 1 x DIAMOND ATI Theater HD 750 Tuner Card TVW750PCIE PCI-Express x1 Interface Various Lian-Li upgrades. Added a Fan Speed Controller, two front fans and a slim Hard Drive bay. these were added in order to accommodate the video cards.
As for gaming, I cant stress this system. Games that support crossfire seem to never turn it on since the framerate s already high. The best stress test so far has been the Aliens vs Predator demo, which runs smooth using crossfire throughout the entire demo. Even then It doesn't seem to stress out the vid cards or the processor cores for that matter.
Anyway, this shouldn't affect Landel programming, since I do all of my programming in a virtual machine, and I can just port the VM over to this machine and lose no dev time, but most of my free time is going into working out issues with this system. Although other than a UPS and a 2.5 HDD converter, there shouldn't be any more major issues.
Looking at my Dev logs, I noticed that for some reason I tend to work on the Landel Engine more during Christmas than any other time of the year, so this year I decided to take a week off work and spend more time on finishing up the inventory part of the engine.
The July cabin trip this year wasn't as productive as I wanted it to be Between forgetting my Development Journal, Severe Thunderstorms threatening the area (and you have to watch out for those since the cabin has no serious protection against heavy winds) and not to mention the lack of sleep from said storms during the night (damn astraphobia). Not to mention Hryu's sunburn. we at least got some of the variables sorted out. this should speed up the inventory fleshing out immensely.
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