Dune 2: Redux progress

[LPC-Disco_Inferno]

I would even pay for a new dune2!

I love the game and it rocks..

Anyway u guys have msn?? Mine is d_rook@hotmail.com

David

[neonext]

That big? I thought you only distributed the EXE, not the media files. What's so big?

the problem is that i had to rip the images from dune 2, format them differently, and then have them as files included with the game for people to download.

[neonext]

I think you're (legally) allowed to make money off the engine and simply require the original game to be installed.

i would have to use the files directly out of dune 2 then, right?

[neonext]

Why not release it right now?

I said it contains no big unpassable objects. All objects are small and the route will be a nearly straight line > 90% of the time.

The source code will not be released until i have a well paying job in the game industry, that is the whole point of me slaving over this project.

ok, there will be lots of straight lines when traveling across the map, but near the destination or on small maps there will be lots and lots of crooked lines

[neonext]

dont worry bout that, Ill be using the original graphics to patch up my own interface, I doubt it would end up looking like yours,

BTW I've been working on this a long time, it wont be a copy of your dont worry

ok just making sure ;D

how long is a long time? i have been working on this for 3 months, and it feels like forever already.

[TonyD]

neonext,

hmm, off and on not too long, but I started it at least a year ago now....

It is very difficult to extract the files and automatically format them.. Do u guys think i should release with all the data included?

[XTF]

I think you're (legally) allowed to make money off the engine and simply require the original game to be installed.

i would have to use the files directly out of dune 2 then, right?

Yes, but that's no problem. You could just add the ripper to your distribution. But Dune 2 itself isn't that big either.

[XTF]

The source code will not be released until i have a well paying job in the game industry, that is the whole point of me slaving over this project.

ok, there will be lots of straight lines when traveling across the map, but near the destination or on small maps there will be lots and lots of crooked lines

Ah, I didn't know that. Did you work full-time on this project?

Maybe you could use A* just for the parts where a straight line doesn't work?

I think there's also a dynamic A* that works faster then just running A* again if the path gets invalid.

[neonext]

[quote author=TonyD

It is very difficult to extract the files and automatically format them.. Do u guys think i should release with all the data included?

Based on what I have experienced, and what you have shown me so far, I think you should go ahead and release it. Honestly, as long as you don't plan on making money from it (until you make it fully legal), I really doubt anyone will complain.

The worst thing that could happen is that you will have to take it down, but I think that is very unlikely. DII came out almost 10 years ago, no one cares about it anymore (except some people that frequent this board)

[neonext]

[quote author=Olaf van der Spek Yes, but that's no problem. You could just add the ripper to your distribution. But Dune 2 itself isn't that big either.

honestly, i don't have time to do something like that. the limited amount of video memory back in the dune 2 days caused them to write lots of routines to custom make the graphics on the fly, rather than just holding all the images in memory and doing straight blits.

i want to improve the images anyway, update them to higher standards while keeping them the same. what's the point of using 16 or 32 bit color if you don't update 256 color images?

[neonext]

[quote author=Olaf van der Spek

Ah, I didn't know that. Did you work full-time on this project?

Maybe you could use A* just for the parts where a straight line doesn't work?

yes, that would work. i will be doing something like that later when i optimize the code for bigger maps.

I think there's also a dynamic A* that works faster then just running A* again if the path gets invalid.

i have heard of dynamic A*... i will have to look it up again and see if it will solve my current problems.

[XTF]

[quote author=Olaf van der Spek Yes, but that's no problem. You could just add the ripper to your distribution. But Dune 2 itself isn't that big either.

honestly, i don't have time to do something like that. the limited amount of video memory back in the dune 2 days caused them to write lots of routines to custom make the graphics on the fly, rather than just holding all the images in memory and doing straight blits.

i want to improve the images anyway, update them to higher standards while keeping them the same. what's the point of using 16 or 32 bit color if you don't update 256 color images?

No points, except mods could use true color images. How do you intent to improve the images?

[neonext]

most (if not all) the images are stored as half the size of what are shown as. they just double the size when displaying it in dune 2, and that's why everything looks so blocky. i can use image editors to double the size with better effects, so that the image blends together and doesn't appear so blocky. i have only tried this on an explosion so far, but it did make it look better. it takes more video memory this way, but it looks better and runs faster. the problem is that it will take time for things that have trasparency layers, because i have to go back and touch up every single frame. units will take the longest to update because they have a transparency layer plus about 5 layers of color coding that the updating will disrupt.i'm not sure if i will be doing this process at all, i will probably just try it on the structures and see how it looks. oh, and this process makes the images at least 16 bit, which is good, because my game doesn't even support a 8 bit color depth (you can still force it to run that way, but it will look like crap). i will write support for this 256 color mode if a performance issue comes up on older video cards

[Gobalopper]

I am sure you could find a volunteer to help with images, which would free you up to work on the more important stuff.

[XTF]

Are you sure Dune 2 resizes all images on the fly? Maybe it's because you're using Windows, which uses 640 x 400 instead of 320 x 200 for MCGA mode.

[neonext]

yeah you are right, i thought it was strange....

[XTF]

But you're right about your method looking much better. I once resized the A10 32x up and it still looked good.

[neonext]

it used to be that you could only resize downwards while still making the image look good. now you can resize upwards and make it look better

[neonext]

map editor beta tomorrow, redux beta in 2 days

[alphabeta4000]

how big will the game be?

[vidiware]

and i gonna host that prog?

[neonext]

as far as how much space the game takes up...

right now the game is a little over 10 mb. it could be much less, but i'm not interested in saving space or download times. in order to improve the visual and audio aspects of the game i reconstructed the images and many of the sound files.

anyways,

art takes up about 7 megs right now, will increase by a few meg probably, but not till ver 1.

sound takes up about 3 megs right now, will also increase as the game progresses.

as far as the actual size of the zip file for download,

it's currently 2 mb, using normal compression

[alphabeta4000]

wow that is cool, so small yet it has huge promise

[XTF]

What did you do to improve the audio?

[neonext]

ok i really shouldnt say "improve".. because all i'm really improving is the occasional break-up of sentences on slower machines. instead of statements being broken up into different parts and then played sequentially, i'm just putting them together in the first place and then playing it all as one sample. makes it much easier