About the latest version of the game

Belmont2500 · **Reply #660 on:** September 22, 2009, 09:25:12 PM

in other words it might be up tomorrow.

action9000 · **Reply #661 on:** September 22, 2009, 09:26:39 PM

Or right now, before I go for my pre-work nap.

Version v0.22 is ready!

Here's the link to download:
The Land Before Time RPG v0.22

Anywho, new stuff!

This update is mainly for interface stuff and optimization. More development on the interface and levelling/adventuring coming soon!

1) Purchased a piece of software called "Tree Party" (thanks to your donations!!) which will be used to create trees for the game. We have successfully put our first real tree into the game in this release. It has a few bugs, including:

- If you rotate your character into the tree, you will get stuck so you'll have to jump around and rotate out of the tree before you can keep moving.

- Collision detection is only working for trees at the same height as you. This means that if you select a flyer and try to land on a branch, you will fall right through it because we're not dealing with collisions with trees directly above or below you yet.

- If you click "Main Menu" from in-game and start a new game without closing the program, the tree will not appear again. The tree only appears the first time you start a new game until you close and re-open the program.

2) Introduction of an Experience Point system. Completing your adventure earns you enough experience points to gain a level, as can be seen in the Experience meter on the bottom-left, as well as in the character stats screen. You also have the ability to change the size of the experience bar with the arrow icon.

3) Created buttons at the bottom right of the screen which can be used to open and close various interface items. Click the buttons to see what they do! The ones on the right side of the ring are for later on. Press the large center button to open or close this ring of buttons.

4) Created placeholder Inventory and Adventures graphics. These can be opened either by using the gray buttons at the bottom right of the screen or by pressing the hotkeys "I" and "V", respectively. "C" for character stats still exists.

5) Repositioned a bunch of interface stuff.

6) Made it more obvious that you can enter your name on the Character Select screen.

7) Did a bunch of memory management stuff. The game now loads only what it needs and unloads any graphics it's not currently using. As a result, we're using about 50MB less of RAM while in-game.

8) Added an abilities toolbar across the bottom of the screen which will be used in releases in the near future.

9) Changed the movement physics (recoded everything related to movement). You will now keep whatever speed in the air that you had when you left the ground. You also are no longer able to control yourself in the air and are not able to hold the Spacebar to keep hopping. You must release it and press it again in order to jump. This is a little buggy on slopes while sprinting; I apologize and I am working on it.

10) Fixed some bugs in the code relating to changing the adventures available as you level up.

11) Fixed some bugs in the code that detects whether you're above or below water (Again!)

12) Improved the code for the "Main Menu" feature on the in-game menu. This should be more stable now, minus the disappearing tree.

13) Added more detail to the loading screens.

14) Changed the graphic for the HP and Stamina meters (thanks Mumbling!)

15) Created "slots" where the interface windows (stats, inventory, etc.) appear and intelligently move to fill these slots based on what is open. I will refine this and make more efficient use of screen space in the future but the logic is coming.

Kor · **Reply #662 on:** September 22, 2009, 09:55:04 PM

Didn't work for me. Something about not being able to load a certain mesh.

Belmont2500 · **Reply #663 on:** September 22, 2009, 09:58:40 PM

I couldn't download it(megaupload has never worked for me) so I guess its better if you put the link on the offical site.

DarkHououmon · **Reply #664 on:** September 22, 2009, 10:40:30 PM

The download worked for me and the game loaded up just fine.

Mumbling · **Reply #665 on:** September 23, 2009, 01:17:33 AM

Quote from: Belmont2500,Sep 23 2009 on 03:58 AM

I couldn't download it(megaupload has never worked for me) so I guess its better if you put the link on the offical site.

We will upload it later to Austin's Server, when tim has got time for that.

Oh how annoying the use of that sprint function is right now, but you know my rants on it

Love that you got collision working, without too much lag too! Great job!

Quote from: Kor,Sep 23 2009 on 03:55 AM

Didn't work for me. Something about not being able to load a certain mesh.

Are you sure you unpacked the whole zip file into one folder? It might not be able to find the mesh folder or something since it's not on the place where it should be?

Works fine for me as well.

DarkWolf91 · **Reply #666 on:** September 23, 2009, 11:37:40 AM

Aaaah, I had to sneak it onto this computer, I couldn't resist

I couldn't play for very long, but, again, WOW! It's looking so super fantastic, I'm so excited!

Just some things I noticed about the tree collision:
Sometimes regular collision will cause you to lose the ability to back up, and require you to rotate and go forward to get out of it, though this isn't particularly common.
More often it is triggered if you enter collision, stand still, and then jump.
Also jumping into the tree at a run causes the same thing, but also sticks the head of your model into the tree

Though perhaps that's part of the 'collision detection only works at your height' thing?
(Note that I only tested this on the Longneck.)

These are all probably known already, but I figured I'd mention them just in case!

Again, great work Tim! This is looking really, really super good! I love it!

Belmont2500 · **Reply #667 on:** September 23, 2009, 03:48:03 PM

I just downloaded and played 0.22 and I have three words that....was...AWESOME!!

although there were a few things happening with the tree:

1. when you go underwater half of the leaves on the tree mysteriously disappear.

2. when you go back to main menu and start another game when you get in to the game you find that the tree is gone....darn lumberjacks

action9000 · **Reply #668 on:** September 23, 2009, 05:59:02 PM

Quote

2. when you go back to main menu and start another game when you get in to the game you find that the tree is gone....darn lumberjacks

Haha, that's a known bug. I'll see if I can deal with the lumberjack problem in the near future.

Quote

1. when you go underwater half of the leaves on the tree mysteriously disappear.

Wow, you're right! Okay that's officially weird and I have no idea why that's happening. I'll see what I can do about it.

I'm working on v.23 now and I just put in a neat little feature that pops up a "Level up!" text when you gain a level. It fades out over a few seconds.

v0.23 will probably have all sorts of neat new things such as better Sprint controls and possibly an energy meter related to it, an Air meter while you're underwater (which will also make it easier to distinguish when your character is underwater and when it's swimming on the surface), among all sorts of other goodies.

DualXz · **Reply #669 on:** September 23, 2009, 06:49:55 PM

The tree even moves!(or at least it looks like to me

).
I loved it.

While I was doing some ramdom here and there with the Flyer, I noticed something, if you fly until a certain height, the tree as that aspect as we see it, but if we fly to a higer zone, the tree changes form, maibe its done on purpuse, I dunno

, anyway, here are the pics:

Almost sure this is normal, but I just wanted to be sure.

I also took some other ramdom pictures:

All that flying sure tired me, so I rested for a little...

On the top of a mountain

Great progesses, its going on really well, amazingness(yes I say this a lot)job

Belmont2500 · **Reply #670 on:** September 23, 2009, 09:06:14 PM

Yeah I noticed the tree changing form too when I was messing around with the flyer

Mumbling · **Reply #671 on:** September 24, 2009, 12:49:06 AM

That could be because the leaves fade away from a certain distance(when you have a lot of trees which are always visible it would probably take too much ram.. I think)

I don't know for sure though!

And yes, the trees move, that's one of the things that program does, create wind

action9000 · **Reply #672 on:** September 24, 2009, 03:04:28 PM

Yep, Mumbling is right. A tree actually has 3 shapes: a "closeup" high-detailed shape, a medium-distance, medium-detail view (as you've seen when moving further away) and a very low-detailed view designed for very large distances.

We are able to customize at which distances it switches views and that will appear in the game's options eventually.

Belmont2500 · **Reply #673 on:** September 24, 2009, 08:01:54 PM

I've been wondering,when are you guys going to introduce the character creation or expand the map,just curious?

action9000 · **Reply #674 on:** September 25, 2009, 09:16:46 AM

Character creation won't come until much later. Our first priority with 3D stuff is to make one of every creature in the game that we'll need. From there, we can produce modifications and whatnot but for now, we'd rather get one of everything before making 2 or 3 of one thing but getting stuck because we don't have something else at all.

The reason for the delay is that we only have one person on the team, Razzie, who is creating our 3d models. Simple customization could be put in right now, by letting the player change their character's colours but that's as far as we could go at this point.

As for expanding the game's map, we have a process that involves creating 2d versions of the maps first, which I can then convert to 3d via software. We want to create a more detailed version of the existing map before creating other areas. I cant say when we'll have the more detailed version ready but it will be significantly larger. This is because the area you see in the game now is supposed to be a recreation of the area of the Great Valley you see at the end of LBT 1 (overlooking the large cliff). Obviously, while we captured the shape of the river and whatnot, the scale is very small and there is very little detail so far. Our first step is to improve our map so that it is an accurate recreation of that area we see in the film.

Belmont2500 · **Reply #675 on:** September 25, 2009, 03:54:54 PM

well I would join the design team but as I said before it would be easier said than done coming from someone who has almost no expirance with anything like 3D modelling or what not.

action9000 · **Reply #676 on:** October 01, 2009, 07:46:15 PM

I just got an air/breath meter working. When you run out of breath now, your HP starts to drop quickly. When your HP reaches zero, everything on the screen fades to a dark colour except your character, accompanied by a message "You have drowned...". The game then reloads back to the main menu.

Depending on your character choice, you can spend more or less time underwater before you start losing HP.

Almost out of air...!

Gradual fade to dark as your character dies from lack of air (depressing, isn't it?

)

Mumbling · **Reply #677 on:** October 02, 2009, 12:42:50 AM

Depressing, yea, but looks wonderful!

Kor · **Reply #678 on:** October 02, 2009, 12:56:20 AM

Very Depressing,

but a nice touch that the look changes.

Belmont2500 · **Reply #679 on:** October 02, 2009, 06:59:34 PM

that's some game over screen,its depressing.