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That's right

That is right

[Sean Mirrsen]

Total Annihilation was... weird. It didn't render the units outright, relative to each other and so forth. What it did instead was your generic 2.5D RTS engine equipped with a realtime sprite maker. Units had dimentions alright, they did follow the terrain and stuff, but they weren't 3D in the usual sense.

Same can be done for SS. Except our models will be more funkily colored. If we manage to make a cel-shading renderer, all the better. Procedurally equipped models aren't nearly as ugly when they're in a 32x32 sprite.

[Footkerchief]

Total Annihilation was... weird. It didn't render the units outright, relative to each other and so forth. What it did instead was your generic 2.5D RTS engine equipped with a realtime sprite maker. Units had dimentions alright, they did follow the terrain and stuff, but they weren't 3D in the usual sense.

Hmm.  I'm still not clear on the distinction between a "realtime sprite maker" and a normal rasterizer, unless it involved caching the rendered units in some way.

Same can be done for SS. Except our models will be more funkily colored. If we manage to make a cel-shading renderer, all the better. Procedurally equipped models aren't nearly as ugly when they're in a 32x32 sprite.

Cel shading would be interesting.  As for ugliness... well, a smaller sprite does hide the "blandness" typical of procedurally generated models, yeah, and maybe antialiasing would suffice to keep it from looking garbled.

There's been talk that DF's body definitions might become specific enough for full procedural generation of 3D creature models.  I'm not holding my breath, but it's fun to think about.

[Sean Mirrsen]

A 'normal' rasterizer tends to take the whole lot of 3D models and render them together. TA's might not have been actually caching the unit graphics, but it sure did render them piecemeal. It's still a normal rasterizer, it simply renders one unit at a time whenever the game engine calls for the unit's graphic. Don't ask me why it was done, but there's plenty of secondary evidence. Units don't clip into each other, and custom modded units that are too large begin to get cropped at a certain point.

[Footkerchief]

Oh, gotcha, they don't get rendered in a single 3D space.  Yeah, that makes sense.  I'd always wondered why aircraft flying near each other would just get drawn on top of each other with no clipping.

[Beefmo]

Wowz! This is pretty much the awesome incarnate 

Just got my visa confirmation email today, and this looks like the best way i can practice my pixeling and contribute at the same time!

So i made a giant toad for joo!



Think they're a little over saturated, and not sure how they're going to fit in with everything. Is it meant to be iso sprites? or going for the ol front and side views?

[Footkerchief]

Holy shit, Beefmo's alive!  I take it you got your deportation troubles worked out, then?  Glad to see you back.

Ideally the sprites would be in isometric perspective, yeah.  The direction they face is more up to you, although having them face down-left or down-right is nice cause then you can do a nice clean horiz. flip for a movement effect.  So that toad is great.

For those of you who haven't seen Beefmo's prior work, he made (most of) a graphics set a while back.  I think his style will look great in Stonesense.

[Neonivek]

Wow does that Giant Toady look like a Pokemon (Bulbasaur)

[CobaltKobold]

yummy iso toad + ...turtle?

[Beefmo]

Yup! I'm officially a canadian resident again for another 2 years as of last night! Feels good not to have to worry about that anymore ><

And those froggies are meant to be a Giant toad spawn -> Female giant toad -> Male giant toad

Stonesense can track gender right?

aaannddd.... a giant olm!



...anyone know what an olm "baby" looks like? I'm assuming its pretty much the same as a newt? ><

[CobaltKobold]

I'm colorblind, but...olms're pink/fleshtone, not green...

[Askot Bokbondeler]

colorblindness is stroke you hard, this time :\ beefmos olm is quite unmistakably pink

the olm is basically an adult baby newt, much like an axlotl or a mud puppy, so a baby olm would be basically a small olm


i predict that the DF fad dor 2010 will be dwarf visualizers, with the game now tracking precise apearence information, the next step is to take that information and make an utility that creates dress up dolls with a beard, styled and coloured in the manner of your dwarf, then dress him in pig tail socks, pig tail shirts, cave spider silk pants, dog leather shoes, +steel chain mails+, -«*steel helmets*»- menacing with spikes of gold...

[Neonivek]

Except I THINK that Olms lack the ability to turn into Salamanders.

Also Olms, if I am thinking of the right creature (I remember the look but not the name), were confused in the medieval age for baby dragons.

Olms are VERY pale. So in general think of them like white with a pinkish/fleshy hue or shadow

I am probably wrong because the creature I am thinking of lived underwater in a cave. Looks like an Olm but I don't remember the name.

[CobaltKobold]

Neonivek: Olms are neotenous in ways, yeah- can't find anywhere describing the larval stage, though...so I guess "same but smaller" is ok for now
er...damn. the brown looks green t'me against the magenta. anyway, paler, then?

i predict that the DF fad dor 2010 will be dwarf visualizers, with the game now tracking precise apearence information, the next step is to take that information and make an utility that creates dress up dolls with a beard, styled and coloured in the manner of your dwarf, then dress him in pig tail socks, pig tail shirts, cave spider silk pants, dog leather shoes, +steel chain mails+, -«*steel helmets*»- menacing with spikes of gold...

Someone's already working on the face-vis, I hear. I expect to see equipment and material choice (and dyedness at least) fairly soon- primitively you can just repalette. Damage, perhaps. Decorations, quality? Far future/not in a normal visualiser, certainly...fractal images for one...

[Beefmo]

Animated sprites? Or am i getting ahead of myself? ><



Yeah, I figured they were pretty much just undeveloped newts anatomically wise, so I'll use the source pics I found googling newt larvae.

....God I missed spriting!

[Jim Groovester]

I'm just posting in here so I can follow what's going on in this thread.

Fantastic work. I wish I had something to add other than compliments.