6 replies to this topic

[Groggy]

Im developing a 2d/iso online RPG using Visual Basic 6.0 and i have a question....

Whats the best way to add multiple weapons and clothing graphics to a character, i guess i could draw the sprite with each new weapon and clothing but that would take a lot of (hopefully) unessesary work.

------------------
Groggy
Gazar Soft
http://gazarsoft.virtualave.net

[NuFAN]

If you do it in 2D, you have to render it with new clothes again, you could blit the new clothes over the character with colorkeys, but that'll look ugly. For they weapons, you have to position them on the right coordinates and blit them, that's simple (using colorkeys). For example you now the weapon should be on position (x,y) so you could simply but the weapon to this position.

CU

------------------
Skullpture Entertainment
#40842461

[Zenroth]

best to pre render everything. Otherwise you wont get the same level of detail in your animations if you just blit a gun to an x,y.

[Niels]

Animation doesn't have to suffer from divinding your sprites into sub parts, but it takes SERIOUS planning and color keying just won't cut it, you need real alpha blending or you'll get terrible aliasing artifacts.

I believe crack dot com used layered sprites for Abuse (and that's a pretty neat looking animation) - check it out at http://www.crack.com/

/Niels

(BTW.: Ever considered using a programming language instead of a GUI scripting language such as VB )

[Groggy]

Thanks,
i tried to blit the new clothes, weapons etc onto a base character and it looks pretty good.

As long as i dont feel "held back" by VB's limitations i see no need to switch to another language.

cya

------------------
Groggy
Gazar Soft
http://gazarsoft.virtualave.net

[Sieggy]

Not to bring up UO again but I think that it is another example of layers on sprites. There is no other way it could have been as there is a lot of user options on clothing and weapons. However, how they did it I don't know, but point being it can be done and have it look nice. Not to mention it will save you're on image storage space.

[felisandria]

You're right. UO has a base paperdoll for each gender, and hundreds and hundreds of different items of clothing, hair styles, weapons, and misc. items to tile on top of the paper doll. Each of these has every conceivable animation set it could go through drawn out, from swinging a sword to standing there to dying to riding a horse, and everything is stuck together in the correct order with the correct colors to show your character.
(I know this because I worked for several months on an Ultima Online server emulator, and I have a program that lets me see all the tiles. It's actually pretty interesting to look at.)

-fel