isometric walking engine

[vuurrobin]

for the past time, I've been working on a isometric walking engine in basic and xlib, because I wanted to see if I could do it and maybe to use it in a game. it works including hit detection, but it is a bit slow and somehow walking just doesn't look right.

[attachment=2279:attachment]

I'm probably going to rewrite it when Iambian fixes celtics signature and when he *hopefully* adds the functions I suggested for its string tilemapper. then it should probably be faster and shouldn't take 9kb of matrixes.

If anybody has any suggestions for better/faster code, better graphics or anything, please tell me.

[attachment=2280:attachment]

[tifreak8x]

Maybe see if you can get in touch with JFish? He had created that isometric engine that scared me... o.O

[vuurrobin]

I saw that isometric engine from jfish (I actually stored the 2 pics of it on my computer), and from the looks of it, he is only using 1 layer so it will be harder for hit detection and to fill in half of the tiles without using alot of pics. the character also stays in the middle all of the time, which makes it a bit faster but does mean you need more space on the map for the corners which the player can't reach. I'm not sure what people would think of that.

[bananaman]

I tried my hand at an isometric walking engine. And you are already beating my speed. Let me see if I can drag up any of my pics...
[attachment=2288:attachment]
I don't have a moving screen-shot but it would look terrible, so here is a stationary one.

[Ed H]

[Liazon]

nice work vuurrobin! The speed's pretty good.

[vuurrobin]

I looked at jfish's profile, and it doesn't have its email. I don't think I have to pm him, seeing he hasn't been online for like half a year. any ideas?


@bananaman, that does look good, I'd love to see the program itself. btw, if your character stands right behind the fence, will the fence be drawn over the character or not?


@Ed H, it doesn't slow down on my calc, maybe it's the emulator/image/internet/your browser/computer....

and I think that it looks weard is because the character stands still after each step (and yes, my drawing skills are bad, if anyone wants to help....)


@Liazon, the speed will drop if someone would use this as a game (adding houses, events, swiching maps, menu, random battles ect.)


@everybody, thanks

would people mind if the character stayed at the center all the time. it would increase speed, but the character wouldn't be able to reach the outer part of the map, so I would have to fill that with something.

[bananaman]

My program actually redraws the entire map each time. Each sprite has two images corresponding to it. One is the AND layer and the other is the OR layer. Because it draws from the top of the screen to the bottom, it will draw the fence in front of the person. Here is my sprite sheet that I was using.
[attachment=2295:attachment]
Unfortunately, b/c the images are so large, you can't fit very many sprites w/in one picture variable.
This actually isn't the most recent version of my program. I did make a slightly quicker one with better graphics, but I can't find it anymore.

As you can see from my screen shot. The matrix is displayed on the screen at a 45 degree angle rotation. This means that you can reach any location on the map. It simply won't display anything near the edges when you reach that part of the screen. The character does always stay in the center of the screen to make things a little bit easier. B/c of it redrawing the screen each time, it takes like 2 seconds for the character to move one tile.

If you want the actual code I could upload it.

If you want to stick our heads together and try to come up with a good way to get an iso-engine working at a usable speed, I would be happy to work with you and to come up with a game that uses the engine.

[vuurrobin]

shouldn't the upper layer be ANDed on, instead of XORed?

I asume you aren't using xlibs tilemapper function, but created you're own using xlibs putsprite function?


I'd like to see the code, and I would love it to work on this with you (and anybody else who wants to join).

*vuurrobin* looks at (dead?) group project at a dutch tiforum and the group project of harrierfalcon, luby and some others.

*vuurrobin* hopes this doesn't end the same way...


I'll try to change it so the character stays at the center the whole time.

[tr1p1ea]

Wow, looks really cool!

If you're guy moved halfway between tiles when he stepped, it might look a little more fluid?

[tifreak8x]

And if it did not look like he was doing jumping jacks when he walked... XD

[bananaman]

Yeah, I guess it ANDs both layers. I PM'd you the code so that you can look at it. I'm not sure if we are using the same method, I would like to see how you are implementing your iso method.

Edit:

Wow, I just now saw that Group file in your original post.

Unfortunately I have no way of transferring the file to my calc. And wabbitemu for the mac doesn't open .8xg files correctly. Could you upload each file individually?

[vuurrobin]

afaik, ti-connect can extract group files. but anyway, here are the files in a zip file.


I'll explain my way over PM (we are not using the same way) and then try out your code.

[bananaman]

Over the weekend, I tinkered around with my engine. I vastly improved the speed and now I think that it may be possible with just xLib and Basic. I also shrunk my sprites down to only 16 tall as opposed to 20 tall. This makes it possible to utilize xLib's tilemap routine.

[attachment=2311:attachment]

This uses 26 calls to the tilemap routine. It takes once to mask a row and then another to draw the row. As I am typing this I know how to reduce it to 25 calls. (The first row doesn't need to be masked.)

Yes, this means that it displays 13 rows worth of map data tall, and it also displays 10 rows wide. Of course this is kinda skewing the numbers b/c rows and columns are subjective in iso. It basically overlays a 7*5 with a 6*5 grid. This makes a total of 65 tiles on the screen at once. This is pretty good for each tile being 16*16.

I think that vuurobin and I are going to be optimizing this engine and trying to utilize it for a game. I am wondering if ppl think that it moves quick enough. In other words, would you actually play through the entire game if you were forced to take so long to move each square?

[Taricorp]

That looks pretty good, but it's far too slow to really be playable. Keep working on it, though.

[bananaman]

Yeah, I kinda got the impression that it would be too slow as well. I will have to rack my mind to see if the speed can be improved at all.

I did get it to display a character. Unfortunately, to be able to retain any amount of speed requires him to be stationary in the center of the screen.
[attachment=2312:attachment]

[vuurrobin]

I fear it will become to slow to be usefull, since adding hit detection will also slow it down a lot.

if you send the code to me, then maybe I can help to speed it up.


I'll also try out an idea I have, maybe that will work.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Advice: Do not use 30 fps screenshots with Wabbitemu when you are going to post them online, because some internet browsers slows them down to 10, so some people might think it's very slow when it's just a bit slow.

This look nice though, this reminds me JFISH's engine on Omnimaga

[bananaman]

So when using Wabbitemu should I change the settings to 10fps?

Edit:
I guess that is impossible. The slowest that it allows is 20fps.

[DJ Omnimaga]

uhm, strange, for me Wabbitemu goes from 9 fps to 30. I doubt I have the lastest version though, but it's a challenge to find Wabbitemu on Revsoft sometimes