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Long Time No Blog

12/19/2006 (10:45 pm) by Eric Armstrong

Been a while since I posted here, so I figured I would let everyone in on what's been progressing. I had to take a little time away from By Mine Own Hand to work on a contract job, then I broke my hand, so things were slow going for a bit. I finally got the cast off today, so I'm back to typing at a normal speed.

In the mean time, not everything was wasted. I've just finished updating the RPG Dialog resource to work with TGB. I setup the dialog editor as a resource within the editor, and updated the AdventureKit project wizard to include the files needed to run the dialogs in the game. I added it to the Adventure Kit, as I'm using functions from that in some of the dialog methods. Here is a screen shot of the editor and the dialog in action:

www.trihex.com/img/dialogEditor.jpgwww.trihex.com/img/dialog.jpg
Of course, all the graphics in the above images are from the Adventure Kit, which I'm using as placeholder art. I'm still on the search for a good 2D artist that might be interested in working on this...

I'll be doing further updates to the dialog editor, allowing the dialogs to interface with the questing system I'm planning on building. So essentially, you will be able to set quests for the player through dialog items, and mark them as complete, assign items, etc. Pretty much your standard RPG kind of things.

I'll probably try and package it up as a resource when it's ready... Or if I think there is enough there, I may look at separating it from the Adventure Kit, and maybe sell it as a low cost code pack... We'll see...

Speaking of resources, I did submit a resource for TGB a while back, but I don't know if anyone saw it. It was a resource to allow you to fill tile spaces randomly, so if you had say 4 or 5 different types of dirt tiles, you could have the editor automatically choose one of those tiles randomly when placing tiles. Works for both flood fill and single placement. Saved me time anyway. I haven't applied it to 1.1.3, and there was some minor code changes required, so you need to have a Pro license, and you may run into minor issues. I'll be putting the functionality back in here soon, as my work will be requiring me to make a new level here soon.

You can check out the resource here:

Random Tile Placement

I have another contract job coming up here in the next few weeks, so things may slow down again, but I hope to be back soon with further updates. I still have to get the path finding and flocking code back into the new version.

About the author

I am a passionate programmer and am constantly striving to better myself in all aspects of code generation. I program professionally in the business world, developing enterprise web applications in Java using J2EE methods and objects. I am primarily a self-taught programmer and am fluent in C, C++, and Java. I have programmed on 6 different systems in twelve different languages and basically eat, sleep, and dream coding. I enjoy all aspects of software design and implementation. I constantly strive to better my code and myself. I enjoy game programming for the simple fact that there is no greater challenge, in my opinion, that a programmer can undertake. Games are truly the sole software that flexes every aspect of the personal computer. You can follow my development projects at www.trihex.com view profile »


#1
12/19/2006 (11:51 pm)
I could lend a hand in skinning that for you. Drop me an e-mail.

I had basically already redone the original for TGE.

members.visi.net/~mcelrath/RPGDio_Editor.jpg
Of course, i would request in payment a few additions to the editor =)
#2
12/20/2006 (5:50 am)
I was also going to do this but I ended up just writing my own RPG dialogue system for TGB. It streams text from left to right, line by line, by uncovering textobjects. After the text is uncovered it has a blinking icon, and when you press a key it continues on to the next text. It can also ask for input and you can click on the text to make a choice, like in the game Fallout. It doesn't have an editor though... honestly I don't even know if I'm doing an RPG right now lol I just felt like making it. It took about two weeks. Anyway, this is good work and I'm sure someone will find a use for this if you release it as a resource.