I don't know what makes you think I'm not using a lot of pointers. You may be refering to how the battle system has a different set of character variables? The battle system does A LOT of pre-processing such as working out what magic and summons you can use, how many all's/quadra magic/turbo mp each one has, what attack commands you have access to, what derived stats you have, etc. The menu does these calculations on the fly as the user is sporadically nagivating a menu to see temporary outputs, but I decided to do away with that overhead by pre-processing everything at the start of a battle.
And I appreciate it, but I don't need any help at the moment.
This post has been edited by Vanit: Mar 10 2011, 02:25 PM
Group: Member
Posts: 68
Type: None
RM Skill: Masterful
Um, the fact that you label and use a lot of variables. With pointers and some thinking, the memory could be managed during runtime for repeated, multi-variable structures such as character/monster info and sprite info, with no need for naming this stuff. (I assume you did the latter at least since you use PPP) But it doesn't matter since the system is finished as far as I can see. Good job.
@Ceiling_Cat: Ah thats what you meant. I'm using structures, it would be madness without them. The variables are named so I can use the debugging tool with relative ease, as you saw.
@ranmaster: Heres a vid from a while ago of me playing with the materia menu
This post has been edited by Vanit: Mar 10 2011, 04:34 PM
I'm really looking forward to the demo, this looks awesome.. and it's FF7 (which I've never played btw) so I'm going to assume it's going to be as good as the original (>^^,)>
Group: Revolutionary
Posts: 228
Type: Artist
RM Skill: Beginner
Wow dude, with that kind of skill man, It's hard to see where your limitations are. Psst, if you need a spriter or animator or sound dev, PM me. I'm willing to lend a hand.
I remember this project -- all to well -- back on Gaying Worldz a long time ago, and I remember all the feuds between everybody, my game, and this game. At first, I thought that we weren't gonna see much from this project because all Vanit should us was menu shots -- menu shots -- AND even more menu shots; but now, this game is slowly starting to be put together -- and I love it! Your slowly starting to prove all the naysayers wrong, Vanit; and I wish you the best of luck in finishing this masterpiece! Everything looks great, and I really don't have any problems at all! Weither you make small naming changes, or whatever, I don't care what you do to this game -- but keep on truckin'!
Keep us posted whenever you have made anymore additional progress, okay, son? ^^
I remember this project -- all to well -- back on Gaying Worldz a long time ago, and I remember all the feuds between everybody, my game, and this game. At first, I thought that we weren't gonna see much from this project because all Vanit should us was menu shots -- menu shots -- AND even more menu shots; but now, this game is slowly starting to be put together -- and I love it! Your slowly starting to prove all the naysayers wrong, Vanit; and I wish you the best of luck in finishing this masterpiece! Everything looks great, and I really don't have any problems at all! Weither you make small naming changes, or whatever, I don't care what you do to this game -- but keep on truckin'!
Keep us posted whenever you have made anymore additional progress, okay, son? ^^
Haha I remember those days and thanks for the support! I'm going to try post updates as soon as I have something to post.
This post has been edited by Vanit: Mar 11 2011, 02:18 AM
The menu is a little slow at times, but only where I've tried to do things that are a little ambitious (like the bubble sort for the materia which has a wait time of a few seconds when you've maxed out the materia).
The menu is a little slow at times, but only where I've tried to do things that are a little ambitious (like the bubble sort for the materia which has a wait time of a few seconds when you've maxed out the materia).
why bubble sort?
When I was studying the Arrange function in the Materia menu I came to the conclusion the programmers had used a bubble sort, so thats what I decided on.
The menu is a little slow at times, but only where I've tried to do things that are a little ambitious (like the bubble sort for the materia which has a wait time of a few seconds when you've maxed out the materia).
why bubble sort?
When I was studying the Arrange function in the Materia menu I came to the conclusion the programmers had used a bubble sort, so thats what I decided on.
Haha, really, they did? That's kind of sad, but whatever works I suppose.
I don't remember there being any lag over it in the original though, so maybe a better algorithm would be in it's place in terms of keeping the feeling of the game similar rather than the code. of course I realize this would be more of polish rather than anything else though, considering it's working and shouldn't be a problem until you've amassed quite a bit of materia. By the way, just how much materia is max?
This post has been edited by Kazesui: Mar 12 2011, 11:09 AM
The menu is a little slow at times, but only where I've tried to do things that are a little ambitious (like the bubble sort for the materia which has a wait time of a few seconds when you've maxed out the materia).
why bubble sort?
When I was studying the Arrange function in the Materia menu I came to the conclusion the programmers had used a bubble sort, so thats what I decided on.
Haha, really, they did? That's kind of sad, but whatever works I suppose.
I don't remember there being any lag over it in the original though, so maybe a better algorithm would be in it's place in terms of keeping the feeling of the game similar rather than the code. of course I realize this would be more of polish rather than anything else though, considering it's working and shouldn't be a problem until you've amassed quite a bit of materia. By the way, just how much materia is max?
Well unfortunately rm2k3 uses a non-compiled language so it'll never be as fast as compiled code on the PSX. The max is 200 materia including what you have equipped, in the worst case scenario of the materia being maxed out, all unequiped and completely jumbled up, the performance of a bubble sort is O(200^2). I just ran a test and in that worst case scenario, the bubble sort I wrote in rm2k3 does 19010 iterations of the bubble sort in about a second. This worst case scenario is only going to exist if you play FF7 for like 40 hours and for some strange reason have unequipped all your materia. I don't think this is too bad for poor ol' rm2k3.
At the time I was looking into the bubble sort I considered using other sorting algorithms that had a worst case scenario of O(nlogn), which is a hell of a lot faster. But my programming knowledge wasn't that great at that point. Now I think about it however, I could probably implement a non-recursive quicksort, so I'll write that down on my todo list.
I can't recall if this was asked already, but why did you choose RM2K3? Was XP or VX not available? Did 2K3 suit your needs better? Was the default battle system exactly what the doctor ordered?
I can't recall if this was asked already, but why did you choose RM2K3? Was XP or VX not available? Did 2K3 suit your needs better? Was the default battle system exactly what the doctor ordered?
I'm not using the default battle system, or any default systems for that matter. I don't want to get into a huge discussion about my choice of rm2k3 over xp/vx because in my experience users of xp/vx will defend them to no end like king and country.
In short though, I found that rm2k3 was more appropriate for the feel I was after, and it was the resolution I wanted without having to make everything twice as big. I also didn't want the game to look like Generic RPG #5023, like how all the xp/vx games seem to look to me. Additionally, though I haven't used xp or vx before, it looked like people who aimed for custom menus and battle systems always ended up with something still tainted by the feel of the default systems, and it seemed a lot easier to make something completely new and separate from the default systems in rm2k3. I've yet to see an rpg that looks really diverse from the look of xp/vx made in xp/vx.
This post has been edited by Vanit: Mar 12 2011, 06:08 PM
I can't recall if this was asked already, but why did you choose RM2K3? Was XP or VX not available? Did 2K3 suit your needs better? Was the default battle system exactly what the doctor ordered?
I'm not using the default battle system, or any default systems for that matter. I don't want to get into a huge discussion about my choice of rm2k3 over xp/vx because in my experience users of xp/vx will defend them to no end like king and country.
In short though, I found that rm2k3 was more appropriate for the feel I was after, and it was the resolution I wanted without having to make everything twice as big. I also didn't want the game to look like Generic RPG #5023, like how all the xp/vx games seem to look to me. Additionally, though I haven't used xp or vx before, it looked like people who aimed for custom menus and battle systems always ended up with something still tainted by the feel of the default systems, and it seemed a lot easier to make something completely new and separate from the default systems in rm2k3. I've yet to see an rpg that looks really diverse from the look of xp/vx made in xp/vx.
You are a great developer to say that. Although I only use VX, I totally agree with you about many games seeming similar and how all the custom systems and scripts resemble the default stuff.
How long has this project been in development? How many people are you collaborating with to make it? What is your level of ambition in completing this project on a scale of 1 to 10?
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How long has this project been in development? How many people are you collaborating with to make it? What is your level of ambition in completing this project on a scale of 1 to 10?
The project started in around August 2008, but actively I've probably only been working on it for about a year. I'm juggling full time uni (Bachelor of Software Engineering) at the same time so unfortunately I can't work on it nonstop (trust me, I'd love to do this). As people have noted already, the custom systems are very polished and thats where all my time has gone so far. When I was doing the feasibility study before I undertook the project, I looked (and continue to look) at all the previous attempts people had made, and it seemed that people had the pattern of making the opening scene, getting to the first battle and being like "fuck, how do I handle the battle system and where the hell am I going to get the sprites?". So I started with the menu, then onto the battle system, and when I don't feel like coding I draw sprites. This is actually my first real attempt at an rm2k3 game, and when I started I had only very basic programming knowledge. Over time I've used what I've learnt at uni to supplement how I code in rm2k3 (I couldn't do pixel art at all either), and I've figured some stuff out in rm2k3 thats also helped me with programming in uni.
No one has ever collaborated with me on this, its entirely my work. Having said that, there are several people whose peripheral efforts have made this possible. Without Cherry's hacking it would've been impossible to replicate FF7's systems in the way I have (due to the pic pointer patch and increase to 126 simultaneous pictures). Also Gutts from GW forums provided me with a patch that increased the max value of variables to 99999999 up from 9999999, which I needed for the gil variable. I also have to give thinks to TFergusson and many others over at Qhimm.com that have put a lot of work into documenting all the algorithms that the FF7 battle system used, and without that I was left doing a lot of guess work (I like to think I helped as some stuff wasn't documented until I started prodding people with questions about lacking areas, particularly the time mechanics of the ATB). Anyone who's written a walkthrough or a guide for FF7 has been helpful too, I've probably looked through them all at one time or another.
I'd also like to give a shoutout to anyone whose ever helped me with blackbox testing. Occasionally I release moleboxed builds so I can have a deluge of people ravage the custom systems and see where they break (I'm planning a new release VERY soon), which is extremely helpful and I'm very grateful to anyone whose taken the time to poke around what I've produced.
My ambition level, despite all odds, is unrationally 10/10.
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Revenge of the triangles! I've implemented a fair portion of the AI code now, so the triangles now fight back. In the video they're running the AI script for MP (the guards in the first battle), though I've inserted the AI for all the monsters in the bombing mission. I've also done an overhaul of several modules under the hood including the target selection so no more targetting blank spaces! The cursor will automatically navigate to a new target if its current target dies mid-selection and skip blank spaces, and will follow targets as they move around the screen.
This post has been edited by Vanit: Mar 13 2011, 03:37 PM
So honestly, this will be the exact remake only in 2d graphics, right? Will you keep the same scenes, how to get special scenes, dialouge and all that? Will anything else be added or removed? By the way, I think it looks amazing. You're doing a great job making it look like FF7.
Thats correct, an *exact* remake. Nothing will be added or removed, and I'm paying very close attention to detail, the characters even do the same little gestures they do as they talk (this'll be evident in the proof of concept demo I hope to release on Sunday).
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Mar 10 2011, 02:24 PM
