Video tutorial series

#21 Hey dan,

On the gun switching, you think it would be possible to just create the gun, and have it be transparent except for the gun, then "mount it" to the player animated frames as needed at runtime? I was thinking maybe draw the gun in the 8 directions, then apply it at runtime. I am trying that out now (thanks to your tutorial, I was able to get a walking skeleton going!) but havent gotten time yet to test out my theory (I am not even sure if it is a good approach).

#22 Sounds like a good idea Dave, let me know if it works.
Post a screen shot or video clip if you can.

#23 Hey guyz
OK check the job postings. I'm contracting out the programming for this project, I just can't do it all...
Payment per contract, no royalties. (royalties on a free game?)
Also, I'm gonna start the blog thing.

#24 Hey Dan,

I was able to create two animations, one with just a skeleton walking, the second with the sword. Then through code, was able to add them together to create it. I got the skeleton graphics from the skeleton swarm package from 3dRT (those so own), and was able to batch render in maya to 2d, then to the sheets below with fireworks.

Skeleton Animation sheet
Sword Animation

This leads me to believe then for every item(gun, sword), you could create animations for the 8 directions, then merge them as needed at runtime. Below is some test code I was trying out, and it seems to work like a champ.

protected override void BeginRun()
        {
            base.BeginRun();

            // load our scene objects from XML.  Torque X is designed to load game data from XML, but this is not strictly required;
            // anything in an XML file can also be created manually in C# code.  The SceneLoader is provided by TorqueGame and can be
            // used to load and unload XML files.
            SceneLoader.Load(@"data\levels\levelData.txscene");
            // Get a reference to the animations
            T2DAnimationData skeletonAnimationData = (T2DAnimationData)TorqueObjectDatabase.Instance.FindObject("SkelWalkNoSwordAnimation");
            T2DAnimationData swordAnimationData = (T2DAnimationData)TorqueObjectDatabase.Instance.FindObject("SwordWalkAnimation");
            
            // Convert them to sprites
            T2DAnimatedSprite skeletonSprite = new T2DAnimatedSprite(skeletonAnimationData);
            T2DAnimatedSprite swordSprite = new T2DAnimatedSprite(swordAnimationData);
            
            // Add a mount point at 0,0 - not sure if I need the component there or not
            T2DLinkPointComponent weaponMount = new T2DLinkPointComponent();
            skeletonSprite.Components.AddComponent(weaponMount);
            skeletonSprite.LinkPoints.AddLinkPoint("WeaponMount", new Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Vector2(0, 0), 0);

            // Mount up and position at 0,0
            skeletonSprite.Mount(swordSprite, "WeaponMount", true);
            skeletonSprite.Position = new Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Vector2(0, 0);
        }

Maybe there is a better way (if there is, please let me know!!) , but after reading the documentation today, I tested it out and it seems to work pretty well.

#25 Hey Dave, looks pretty good

however... if you are going to spawn a new 165x165 sprite for the sword for each pose, it's not going to save the cpu any more cycles than having a different sheet of pics of the robot (or skeleton) for each new weapon.

meaning, I'm not sure there is anything to gain from having it spawn instead of prerendered;
and then having to tweek the link points for each pose and each gun type, and deal with sort points, (cause on the east and west poses you'd want one arm to be infront of the sword and the other arm behind).. etc..

As opposed to just sticking there in 3dsmax/maya and being done with it.

#26 Yeah, I figured it wouldnt save so much in the cpu arena. I was envisioning for my game say as a testbed 3 races, with 10 helms, 10 chest peices, 10 leg armors, 10 boots, and 10 basic weapons, that would be a serious amount of sprite generation for every possible combo (300 thousand combos). I was thinking that I could just do the individual peices peicemeal, then merge at runtime as needed, but also realize there are other animations it would need to be included with (yikes). I dont know what is an acceptable sprite amount for a game :(

I did quite a bit of research, and have not found much on google, gamedev.net, or here in regards to item generaton on avatars (for 2d). I was thinking in regards to the linkpoints and sort points that the data is stored somewhere(xml, database), and when the item is pulled into memory it populates an object contains all the linkpoint/sortpoint informaton needed for rendering based on the avatar build (small, medium, large).The downside being it would bne needed per animation (8 directions, idle, attack, death, etc),and that could get cumbersome.

I am probably way off lol or thinking this through too hard. I saw the iso builder nxanimator somewhere on this site, and it is using channels, but I am not too sure on exactly how that works. Hmm, back to the drawing board! Thanks fo rthe input dan, I will try some other ideas.

#27 Whoa, finally finished updating the videos.

tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/TorqueX

For those interested, please let me know if this all works.

#28 I can't seem to find the videos from your website (www.danpascal.com) or on the TDN.

Can you give me a direct link to the article or files? I'm really interested in seeing them and hopefully learning more about isometric engines :)

#29 Im waiting for TX3 to come out.
I made all the upgrades in a beta version of TX3.
TX3 should be out soon.


www.garagegames.com/community/blogs/view/13885