I would like to get some opinions on something. I''m stuck on how to have my characters weild their weapons. The game is fully 2D, isometric, 8 character directions. Theme is cyberpunk, futuristic, with mostly gun weapons. Characters use 8 bit images in a 32 bit graphics engine, and each have their own palette. There are... three choices to this, I think. 1. Characters always have their weapons out. This would be a little lame. Especially with police and organized crime guys. 2. Characters have twice as many frames loaded, and can walk + run + die + etc, both with and without holding their weapon. So they can draw their weapon any time, and not have to always be walking around toting it. This would use twice as much memory, but be extremely flexible. 3. Same as above, but the secondary frames are loaded and the other freed when they draw or put away their weapon. Which would cause the PC to take craps right at the wrong time. It''s impossible to load the new frames into the same memory (unless I did some ugly blank-pool thing), because every frame is fully cropped. Also, if characters sharing the same images were about to start fighting, they would all have to draw weapons at once, or both versions of the frames would have to be loaded anyway. These are the only ideas I can come up with. I can''t just draw the weapons over top of the character unarmed images in-game, because most of the weapons (like rifles and big guns) will definitely change the stance and moving styles completely. Any ideas / opinions are greatly appreciated Jiia

graveyard filla > It's not playable yet I am working on a website, though.

deman555, Vangelis > When weapons are out, character walking, running, and stance animations will be different, depending on the type of character and type of weapon.

For example, I think it would look bad to have the characters hold a sniper rifle or shotgun type weapon in one hand, jogging down the street. It would look worse to have really big guns, RPGs, Lazor cannons, etc, dangling from a single hand. Of course the most they can do to put a cannon weapon away is to throw it over a shoulder

I still appreciate the ideas. I can't come up with a better solution either..

Thanks,
Jiia

[edited by - Jiia on February 9, 2004 7:45:52 AM]

i''m still nooby in this so I don''t really follow on your options but I think you should look to fallout for help:

- they pull their weapons out in a cool animation
- the theme is cyberpunk so you can see how to make it work

I need to explain further. Each character graphic in the game will be rendered with all the weapons they can use. Most characters will only use one weapon, while the player character and any potential party member characters will be capable of using any weapon. So they will be rendered 10-20 times, each time with a different weapon. Since a police android character can only use hand guns, two graphics will be made for them. One standing, walking, and running with a pistol, and all those animations without one. There will of course be a graphic for unarmed. There are unarmed attacks.

The problem is that when you have a graphic for a pistol, and a graphic for unarmed, which one do you load into memory, and when? That's my question. Do I have unarmed images loaded at the same time as the equipped weapon image (choice 2), have the other image load in when the weapon is put away or taken out (choice 1), etc. Each choice has a big cost

Hope that helps clear it up

By the way, if character images are loaded with choice 2, I can also do cool things, like have the weapon strapped to their back, or holstered at their side.

Jiia

[edited by - Jiia on February 9, 2004 5:46:56 PM]

This is what a few people have already suggested, but here's an image.

Image

Here, there's a generic single-handed weapon image for the character, then you just draw the appropriate weapon image over top. Then, you just do the same with animations, have one animation for the character to be holding any single-handed weapon (but without the weapon), and an animation for the weapon too. This'll take up a lot less space than rendering the character 10-20 times, once for each weapon.

Then, if you have some two-handed heavy weapons like grenade launchers and stuff, you render another animation set for holding a weapon with two hands, and fit a separate weapon image over top of that.

And, since during the course of the game, you'll be likely to see every different combination of weapons/characters/animations, just load them all at once. You say you're using 8bit images, and if you also use some sort of compression, it would take up very little space, and the player won't have to wait a second every time they take out a new weapon


EDIT: grrr... tripod doesn't allow remote linking... I'll fix it later...

[edited by - BlabberBoy on February 9, 2004 6:00:49 PM]

[edited by - BlabberBoy on February 9, 2004 6:01:07 PM]

[edited by - BlabberBoy on February 9, 2004 6:01:41 PM]