the release of 1.2.4, is that going to knock the release date back? Because a lot of my mods aren't compatible now.
What I'm planning on doing right now is having an installer that requires you drop the 1.2.3 jar into it, then installs H/M separately from the main install, so it won't interfere with your other mods or anything. So you'll basically have an entirely different program on your computer, and instead of referring to the .minecraft directory, it'll use .hackslashmine. I'm fixing to get started on this, hopefully it won't be that hard to do.
What I'm planning on doing right now is having an installer that requires you drop the 1.2.3 jar into it, then installs H/M separately from the main install, so it won't interfere with your other mods or anything. So you'll basically have an entirely different program on your computer, and instead of referring to the .minecraft directory, it'll use .hackslashmine. I'm fixing to get started on this, hopefully it won't be that hard to do.
And I am ticked they updated so quickly, haha.
Hey man, me and my friends were hoping to start the lets play this weekend. Would that be possible?
Hey man, me and my friends were hoping to start the lets play this weekend. Would that be possible?
It certainly would have been if it weren't for the 1.2.4 update. I just finished networking for the Area system, which was... insanely complicated, but nothing a few grueling hours couldn't knock out. I'm proud of myself I'm sure another error will pop up, though, haha. The rest will be a piece of cake.
I might get it done this weekend, but it'll be like Sunday if I do, and that's the quickest I could possibly do it. I've also got a test in my tax class to study for, so... hopefully I'm not too busy with that. Things are lookin' really good though, and I don't think there's much more to do.
This looks amazing. It will be the next mod i get when its released. I will not update to 1.2.3 if this is going to be released soon (I never intended on updating until my mods were ready anyway )
Only thing I want that isent in the mod is Skyrim like perk trees. The gui for it could sorta be like this but no books dear god please no books for the skills its a bad idea: http://www.minecraft...re-release-out/
Can you please make it so i can toggle multiple features. (I would most likely turn of raptors it doesnt fit the era)
IM NOT BLUE XEPHOS I ACCIDENTLY NAMED MY SELF CLOSE... I DIDENT KNOW XEPHOS EXISTED UNTIL LATER IN MY ACCOUNT (i honestly dident know some one with 2 letters off from me existed when i started my account.).
My reaction on skills: Yes, books would be a fine addition, but only to learn spells and the like. Reading a book could help improve a skill that is not learned by a book but does not learn the skill. Scrolls would be great for a one-time use of a spell that was not learned and would have to be a more common drop or find than books((e.g. books could drop every 10-30 (your choice, I won't criticize)scrolls that drop and scrolls could drop every about 30-50 times a monster is killed; passive mobs do not drop books or scrolls)) Also, I have wondered for a while, is the scorpion texture finished?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I love to test mods, so shoot me a PM if you need me to test YOUR mod.
This looks amazing. It will be the next mod i get when its released. I will not update to 1.2.3 if this is going to be released soon (I never intended on updating until my mods were ready anyway )
Only thing I want that isent in the mod is Skyrim like perk trees. The gui for it could sorta be like this but no books dear god please no books for the skills its a bad idea: http://www.minecraft...re-release-out/
Can you please make it so i can toggle multiple features. (I would most likely turn of raptors it doesnt fit the era)
IM NOT BLUE XEPHOS I ACCIDENTLY NAMED MY SELF CLOSE... I DIDENT KNOW XEPHOS EXISTED UNTIL LATER IN MY ACCOUNT (i honestly dident know some one with 2 letters off from me existed when i started my account.).
My reaction on skills: Yes, books would be a fine addition, but only to learn spells and the like. Reading a book could help improve a skill that is not learned by a book but does not learn the skill.
At the moment, there's not really a distinction between spells and skills, they're all just spells, but I suppose there could be. Reason being is that it would require making up skills for wizards, whereas their spells would be fireballs and jank, and then inventing spells for the other classes, whereas their skills would be physical things like leap. I think that's how you were interpreting it, but I'm not sure. Perhaps you meant skills be passive and spells be castable?
Question is, why prevent skills from being learned by books? Perhaps books are too random, and skills would be more integral to your class, whereas spells are less specifically needed but generally important, and can be left to random chance?
Also, it would be fairly easy to have books turn into something your class can use on pickup, so you always get something useful, though that could take away the fun of trading or saving books for other characters. That could resolve some bad luck issues, if that's a concern.
This looks amazing. It will be the next mod i get when its released. I will not update to 1.2.3 if this is going to be released soon (I never intended on updating until my mods were ready anyway )
Only thing I want that isent in the mod is Skyrim like perk trees. The gui for it could sorta be like this but no books dear god please no books for the skills its a bad idea: http://www.minecraft...re-release-out/
Can you please make it so i can toggle multiple features. (I would most likely turn of raptors it doesnt fit the era)
Can I help with Spriting Im very good. I also made you a Signature:
If you say no to this idea please contact me on Steam.
Steam: Garrysmodxpk3rownage2
Thanks! You can update if you want to, all you need is an modified copy of the 1.2.3 jar, which I suppose you'll have to scrounge around for if you've already modded your copy.
Dearly noted. A skill tree has already crossed my mind, but I'm kinda tired of seeing it in every RPG I run across. There's something to be said for tried-and-true RPG elements, but I think this particular element has a lot of potential for experimentation. Hence, books I could do a skill tree in conjunction or instead, but if I did, I'd still want it to be unique in its own right. If you think books are a bad idea, that's fine, but I need to know why you think they're bad, otherwise I don't get anything useful out of it.
Features will be customizable, but I don't think they should be that customizable. Allowing the user to configure which monsters they should fight introduces a lot of problems, particularly with respect to balance, which is something I'm striving for with the mod. There could theoretically be toggleable sets of monsters, but that's not a huge concern atm because there ain't enough monsters yet. But hey, if it makes you feel any better, Akira Toriyama sticks raptors in all of his eras... hehe.
Dismemberment is a cool idea, but it'd have to come later on the agenda. Definitely a possibility, though. Also, I'm already adding new weapons! Shields, dual wielding, and even more weapons are on the todo list. I'll probably let rogues dual wield and warriors use shields, either by default or as class perky skills, much like I think Psychoangel was thinking of "skills."
Wanna make sprites, eh? Could you link some mods you've already sprited for?
And you're welcome to make whatever signatures you want! I'll stick 'em in a spoiler on the bottom of the OP.
Quote from BlueXestos »
<Big ol' picture>
Wow, that's a lot of ideas. R to sheathe/unsheathe I think is similar to Skyrim. I don't see why you'd ever need to sheathe a weapon though. Perhaps not to **** off villagers? Haha.
I haven't really given shields a lot of thought yet. I wasn't sure if you should be able to hold them up for cover or if they should just provide passive stat benefits. I think there isn't currently a reason you'd ever want to raise a shield instead of just attacking and knocking your foes back, but I could definitely make a reason, like mobs with burst damage, for example. That could make tanking pretty fun... I'd also have to make it so that people who don't use shields are still alright without them... hmmmmmmm... so compleximicated.
Agility is currently defunct, but I may bring it back. I don't really care if it's taking up space on the GUI right now, because I'm still uncertain about it and it's the alpha, haha. Oh decisions, decisions.
Yeah, those empty spots are basically reserved for the future, though we were thinking about having main weapon and offhand slots in there, perhaps trinkets for the other two slots with nothing but fun, aesthetic effects, like a companion that follows you, or a remodeling of your character, like a dwarf or elf transformation. HMMMmmmmmm. I smell a micro-transaction system brewing... Frizzil, you sly dog.
Man that's a lot of stuff. I don't have time to comment on all of it, but I did read it all, and I do appreciate the effort because it's making me think about things. Thanks for the input! It's always appreciated.
R to Sheath and Unsheath:
Reason to Sheath is it will open the main hotbar again to use when your weapons are sheathed you cannot scroll through blocks but it allows you to duel wield without that horrible Duel wielding varient they have in Adventurecraft. This also gives you 2 more slots to the hotbar free so its not that bad. The 2 slots would be on the screen like in Battle Gear so you can see what they are. Please make shields like Battle Gears shields i love them.
Skill Books:
The reason why i think skill books is a bad idea is that it would lock skill trees until then and it would just not be fun at all. I also cannot link you to any mods if done anything for but ive done sprites for Doom Mods and Such. Also if you dont mind can I help program?
Id also love to beta test if possible. Im fine just making sprites if you even want me to but Id love to beta test im a good glitcher i was one of the first people to find out how to Glitch out of Forge World in Halo:Reach.
I also had an Idea for another Tab:
I also made a perk tree GUI:
Doom Sprites:
I was making a 2.5d RPG.
Note: I can do better but thats what i already had on my photobucket and i dident wanna have to upload something. Those Sprites are from 2008 lol. I come up with ideas every day so expect new things up on here everyday from me or every other day (Build up ideas into 1 big idea). Lol.
LARGE SIDE NOTE:
Also if you do a Skyrim like Perk Tree I will "Donate" 100$ :3 I really want a Skyrim like perk Tree.
Ill also "Donate" another 100$ if you add Minecraft Forge, ModloaderMP, Modloader to the mod.
and Again ill "Donate" ANOTHER 100$ if you Integrate Battle Gear's Duel Wielding and Shields.
IM NOT BLUE XEPHOS I ACCIDENTLY NAMED MY SELF CLOSE... I DIDENT KNOW XEPHOS EXISTED UNTIL LATER IN MY ACCOUNT (i honestly dident know some one with 2 letters off from me existed when i started my account.).
Haha, and by "donate" you mean donate money? Like through PayPal and everything? Donations are always awesome, but for anything that takes me longer than say 6 hours, $100 isn't worth it. Basically, $20/hour at my job vs $100+fun+glory, so 5 hours plus some time to offset the fun factor is the break-even point, if you do the math So ModLoader alone would probably take several days, say 20 hours. But whether or not you did that I'll probably wind up doing it in the future anyways because it will help the mod (assuming the maker of ModLoader is ok with it... Risugami, was it?). The money would definitely encourage me get it done faster, though. Generally speaking, multiple donations with the same purpose are a strong indicator of what everyone wants, since they were willing to back up their ideas with some dough.
As for the Skyrim perk tree and other features, I'm gonna wind up doing whatever I think will make the mod more popular, but again, feel free to donate as you wish. They're not bad ideas, though.
What I could definitely use right now are some magical projectile sprites, if you wanna whip some up. Basically, just stick 'em in a 256x256 pixel png, thinking of it as a 16x16 grid of 16x16 cells (like every png in Minecraft), with each projectile's animation taking up an entire row, and each cell in the row being a frame of the animation. There can be as few as 3 frames, as long as it looks right. I already have a generic firebolt, but ones I really need are:
Ice, Lightning, Poison, Holy, and Unholy Bolts. These will primarily be fired from wands, but may be reused for some random things if they look the part. They need to be very distinct from each other.
If the Lightning Bolt can't be repurposed for it, a Charged Bolt (google for Diablo 2 Charged Bolt, it doesn't have to look like it but it will behave similarly)
An extremely generic "magic" projectile that's grayscaled, so I can recolor it dynamically in-game for various mobs.
If they're as good those sprites you linked, I'll use them and list you in the credits with everything you did next to your name, and I would be extremely grateful. I'll definitely be giving everyone who contributed in some way in-game gifts/bragging rights, if that encourages you any. Things like unique items and mobs named after them, haha. I might individually give them special trinkets, too, if we wind up going down that route.
Oh, and make sure any "blank" pixels are saved with nothing in any of the channels-- if you save in Gimp for example, there's an option when you save that ensures pixels with 0 alpha channel also have 0 in the other channels. This generally only happens if you erase, because it just sets the alpha to 0 without clearing the other channels. Hopefully this makes sense, and if you're not sure your png is ok, just send it to me and I can check it and probably fix it.
I've got a whole list of things that need drawin', but go ahead and get that done and we'll go from there. Mainly, I need some armor and weapon icons hammered out, as well as some particle effects for the various elements.
And thanks!
EDIT: ZOMG 100TH POST!!! HURRAY!!!! Maybe I should do something special for the first 100 posters...
I can see into the future.... there will be a popular sticker on the thread later on. Make skills like woodcutting and fishing too. (enchanting maybe make it easier to level, maybe ability to see enchantments after a certain level then after another certain level you can see the levels of enchantments on them)?
IM NOT BLUE XEPHOS I ACCIDENTLY NAMED MY SELF CLOSE... I DIDENT KNOW XEPHOS EXISTED UNTIL LATER IN MY ACCOUNT (i honestly dident know some one with 2 letters off from me existed when i started my account.).
IM NOT BLUE XEPHOS I ACCIDENTLY NAMED MY SELF CLOSE... I DIDENT KNOW XEPHOS EXISTED UNTIL LATER IN MY ACCOUNT (i honestly dident know some one with 2 letters off from me existed when i started my account.).
Hey, those are pretty good, but they need to only have one animation for all viewable angles. So no matter what direction the player is facing it from, it'll have that one same animation. The main reason for this is figuring out what angle the player is facing it from is a slightly expensive calculation, that for 200 projectiles on the screen would cause some lag. They look awesome though, you are quite the spriter.
EDIT: Stuck a banner on the OP for everyone to use! Woop woop!
Thanks soooo much for making this excellent mod! I will even downgrade to 1.2.3 to play it. Its like a completely new game! Also I want to show my support for the mod by using the banner you made, I just don't know the code to put it on my signatures. Mind if you post it for me?
Hey, those are pretty good, but they need to only have one animation for all viewable angles. So no matter what direction the player is facing it from, it'll have that one same animation. The main reason for this is figuring out what angle the player is facing it from is a slightly expensive calculation, that for 200 projectiles on the screen would cause some lag. They look awesome though, you are quite the spriter.
Really? So simply applying a texture to each side of an entity (for example the way you add skins to mobs) adds a tremendous amount of lag to minecraft?....either you've found the problem to an age old question or you're wrong...
Applying a texture to an entity (for example an arrow) is like...applying a texture to an entity (a mob)....you just put them in a .png image (or multiple ones) and tell it to choose which one depending on the side....like a mob...or a block....or am I missinterpreting something?...
I may not be a programmer (yet), but I am an Realist as well as an Idealist and I have looked at the code of most of those things...(Entities, Blocks, Mobs, etc.), and because it all seems logical, the way the code is written (thank you notch), it seems as simple as that...but of course if not, it could be something to look into, as somewhat of a side project
Really? So simply applying a texture to each side of an entity (for example the way you add skins to mobs) adds a tremendous amount of lag to minecraft?....either you've found the problem to an age old question or you're wrong...
Applying a texture to an entity (for example an arrow) is like...applying a texture to an entity (a mob)....you just put them in a .png image (or multiple ones) and tell it to choose which one depending on the side....like a mob...or a block....or am I missinterpreting something?...
It's nothing to do with applying the texture, rather, it's in calculating the angle. You'd have to either call Math.atan2(x,y) twice, which is an approximation and would be slow for a gajillion objects on the screen, or I could do what was already done in MathHelper with cos and sin, just cacheing the whole spectrum of values beforehand with a limited degree of precision. It would be a tad difficult with two inputs, and also it would be the inverse of what's already being done with cos already... the real problem is I don't see an obvious way of doing it without finding the hypotenuse of (x,y) to divide x and y by-- otherwise I'd have an infinite range of values to cache (you guessed it, impossible.) Finding the hypotenuse is itself an approximation, soooo... yeah, not gonna happen unless someone knows a fast way to find the hypotenuse or avoid it all together in this particular case. Furthermore, many approximations require that all angles be within a certain range, and Minecraft doesn't enforce this as far as I can tell. Directionally ambiguous sprites are what you go to when efficiency is a concern-- using sprites and calculating the direction when you don't have to is taking the worst of both worlds.
To be honest, I'm not sure it would look so great without at least 8 directions animated, otherwise it'd look silly as it turns. And 8 would be kinda barely scraping by... that may just be my opinion, though. The standard swiveling one direction sprite may look clunky to some people, but to me it's the clunkily transitioning between multiple directions that looks bad. Having it animated in such a way that it's direction is entirely ambiguous is more effective than barely approximating it's direction with 4 different animations. There's basically only two ways people use sprites nowadays-- one ambiguous direction (you can think of it as adjusting with the camera to always face it), or actually rendered in 3D to turn with the camera (think of grass tufts in your favorite N64 game, or in WoW, even). On top of that, it'll have a lot of directionality implied by the particles trailing behind it, so... I mean sure, if you're modding Doom, multi-directional sprites are totally fine because there's no way the CPU could handle entire 3D models back then to otherwise imply the directionality, and as a modder, the decision is both in respect of and limited by the game. But Minecraft has no such limitation or history, and the animation would be pretty much unnecessary. Basically, if something can be ambiguous in terms of direction, make it a sprite. If it can't, make it a model. A multi-directional sprite is a compromise you'd make if you can't make the direction ambiguous for whatever reason but also can't use model (which isn't true for us)
Some of the projectiles I'm considering may even be purely particle based-- explosions, smoke, and "magic" effects are frequently just the product of a particle engine, which is basically just a system that shoots out a ton of sprites at varying directions, speeds, rotations, and opacities, all of which are constantly changing by some factor. These all face the camera at the same angle, and thus avoid the dreaded "angle" calculation. Just a few sprites can reap pretty impressive results. I'm wondering right now how many particles I could add to a projectile before it breaks even with the multi-directional sprite... like I said, that one rotation calculation is pretty expensive. Also, I wonder how OpenGL deals with/circumvents the angle calculation... belgh.
Anyways, that's enough of me ranting. One direction I say! One!
Thanks soooo much for making this excellent mod! I will even downgrade to 1.2.3 to play it. Its like a completely new game! Also I want to show my support for the mod by using the banner you made, I just don't know the code to put it on my signatures. Mind if you post it for me?
You're welcome! No need to downgrade No, I don't mind.
What I'm planning on doing right now is having an installer that requires you drop the 1.2.3 jar into it, then installs H/M separately from the main install, so it won't interfere with your other mods or anything. So you'll basically have an entirely different program on your computer, and instead of referring to the .minecraft directory, it'll use .hackslashmine. I'm fixing to get started on this, hopefully it won't be that hard to do.
And I am ticked they updated so quickly, haha.
Hey man, me and my friends were hoping to start the lets play this weekend. Would that be possible?
very good, can't wait to get it, bookmarked it and checking very offen, i just can't wait for this mad mod
I made this map! Please check it out! It's a really awesome map that took me over a year to make! :3
It certainly would have been if it weren't for the 1.2.4 update. I just finished networking for the Area system, which was... insanely complicated, but nothing a few grueling hours couldn't knock out. I'm proud of myself I'm sure another error will pop up, though, haha. The rest will be a piece of cake.
I might get it done this weekend, but it'll be like Sunday if I do, and that's the quickest I could possibly do it. I've also got a test in my tax class to study for, so... hopefully I'm not too busy with that. Things are lookin' really good though, and I don't think there's much more to do.
Only thing I want that isent in the mod is Skyrim like perk trees. The gui for it could sorta be like this but no books dear god please no books for the skills its a bad idea: http://www.minecraft...re-release-out/
Can you please make it so i can toggle multiple features. (I would most likely turn of raptors it doesnt fit the era)
Also can you add a few of these mods but tweaked to this mod:
Dismemberment (On all Mobs Please): http://www.minecraft...ent-v1-updated/
Shields, Duel Wielding and New Weapons: http://www.minecraft...ng-and-shields/
Can I help with Spriting Im very good. I also made you a Signature:
If you say no to this idea please contact me on Steam.
Steam: Garrysmodxpk3rownage2
They already said that it isent.
I had another Large Idea this time in a Picture:
Old Ideas:
Nnnnnnope. Man, I should probably do that.
At the moment, there's not really a distinction between spells and skills, they're all just spells, but I suppose there could be. Reason being is that it would require making up skills for wizards, whereas their spells would be fireballs and jank, and then inventing spells for the other classes, whereas their skills would be physical things like leap. I think that's how you were interpreting it, but I'm not sure. Perhaps you meant skills be passive and spells be castable?
Question is, why prevent skills from being learned by books? Perhaps books are too random, and skills would be more integral to your class, whereas spells are less specifically needed but generally important, and can be left to random chance?
Also, it would be fairly easy to have books turn into something your class can use on pickup, so you always get something useful, though that could take away the fun of trading or saving books for other characters. That could resolve some bad luck issues, if that's a concern.
I appreciate the input I needz more of it.
Thanks! You can update if you want to, all you need is an modified copy of the 1.2.3 jar, which I suppose you'll have to scrounge around for if you've already modded your copy.
Dearly noted. A skill tree has already crossed my mind, but I'm kinda tired of seeing it in every RPG I run across. There's something to be said for tried-and-true RPG elements, but I think this particular element has a lot of potential for experimentation. Hence, books I could do a skill tree in conjunction or instead, but if I did, I'd still want it to be unique in its own right. If you think books are a bad idea, that's fine, but I need to know why you think they're bad, otherwise I don't get anything useful out of it.
Features will be customizable, but I don't think they should be that customizable. Allowing the user to configure which monsters they should fight introduces a lot of problems, particularly with respect to balance, which is something I'm striving for with the mod. There could theoretically be toggleable sets of monsters, but that's not a huge concern atm because there ain't enough monsters yet. But hey, if it makes you feel any better, Akira Toriyama sticks raptors in all of his eras... hehe.
Dismemberment is a cool idea, but it'd have to come later on the agenda. Definitely a possibility, though. Also, I'm already adding new weapons! Shields, dual wielding, and even more weapons are on the todo list. I'll probably let rogues dual wield and warriors use shields, either by default or as class perky skills, much like I think Psychoangel was thinking of "skills."
Wanna make sprites, eh? Could you link some mods you've already sprited for?
And you're welcome to make whatever signatures you want! I'll stick 'em in a spoiler on the bottom of the OP.
Wow, that's a lot of ideas. R to sheathe/unsheathe I think is similar to Skyrim. I don't see why you'd ever need to sheathe a weapon though. Perhaps not to **** off villagers? Haha.
I haven't really given shields a lot of thought yet. I wasn't sure if you should be able to hold them up for cover or if they should just provide passive stat benefits. I think there isn't currently a reason you'd ever want to raise a shield instead of just attacking and knocking your foes back, but I could definitely make a reason, like mobs with burst damage, for example. That could make tanking pretty fun... I'd also have to make it so that people who don't use shields are still alright without them... hmmmmmmm... so compleximicated.
Agility is currently defunct, but I may bring it back. I don't really care if it's taking up space on the GUI right now, because I'm still uncertain about it and it's the alpha, haha. Oh decisions, decisions.
Yeah, those empty spots are basically reserved for the future, though we were thinking about having main weapon and offhand slots in there, perhaps trinkets for the other two slots with nothing but fun, aesthetic effects, like a companion that follows you, or a remodeling of your character, like a dwarf or elf transformation. HMMMmmmmmm. I smell a micro-transaction system brewing... Frizzil, you sly dog.
Man that's a lot of stuff. I don't have time to comment on all of it, but I did read it all, and I do appreciate the effort because it's making me think about things. Thanks for the input! It's always appreciated.
R to Sheath and Unsheath:
Reason to Sheath is it will open the main hotbar again to use when your weapons are sheathed you cannot scroll through blocks but it allows you to duel wield without that horrible Duel wielding varient they have in Adventurecraft. This also gives you 2 more slots to the hotbar free so its not that bad. The 2 slots would be on the screen like in Battle Gear so you can see what they are. Please make shields like Battle Gears shields i love them.
Skill Books:
The reason why i think skill books is a bad idea is that it would lock skill trees until then and it would just not be fun at all. I also cannot link you to any mods if done anything for but ive done sprites for Doom Mods and Such. Also if you dont mind can I help program?
Id also love to beta test if possible. Im fine just making sprites if you even want me to but Id love to beta test im a good glitcher i was one of the first people to find out how to Glitch out of Forge World in Halo:Reach.
I also had an Idea for another Tab:
I also made a perk tree GUI:
Doom Sprites:
I was making a 2.5d RPG.
Note: I can do better but thats what i already had on my photobucket and i dident wanna have to upload something. Those Sprites are from 2008 lol. I come up with ideas every day so expect new things up on here everyday from me or every other day (Build up ideas into 1 big idea). Lol.
LARGE SIDE NOTE:
Also if you do a Skyrim like Perk Tree I will "Donate" 100$ :3 I really want a Skyrim like perk Tree.
Ill also "Donate" another 100$ if you add Minecraft Forge, ModloaderMP, Modloader to the mod.
and Again ill "Donate" ANOTHER 100$ if you Integrate Battle Gear's Duel Wielding and Shields.
As for the Skyrim perk tree and other features, I'm gonna wind up doing whatever I think will make the mod more popular, but again, feel free to donate as you wish. They're not bad ideas, though.
What I could definitely use right now are some magical projectile sprites, if you wanna whip some up. Basically, just stick 'em in a 256x256 pixel png, thinking of it as a 16x16 grid of 16x16 cells (like every png in Minecraft), with each projectile's animation taking up an entire row, and each cell in the row being a frame of the animation. There can be as few as 3 frames, as long as it looks right. I already have a generic firebolt, but ones I really need are:
If they're as good those sprites you linked, I'll use them and list you in the credits with everything you did next to your name, and I would be extremely grateful. I'll definitely be giving everyone who contributed in some way in-game gifts/bragging rights, if that encourages you any. Things like unique items and mobs named after them, haha. I might individually give them special trinkets, too, if we wind up going down that route.
Oh, and make sure any "blank" pixels are saved with nothing in any of the channels-- if you save in Gimp for example, there's an option when you save that ensures pixels with 0 alpha channel also have 0 in the other channels. This generally only happens if you erase, because it just sets the alpha to 0 without clearing the other channels. Hopefully this makes sense, and if you're not sure your png is ok, just send it to me and I can check it and probably fix it.
I've got a whole list of things that need drawin', but go ahead and get that done and we'll go from there. Mainly, I need some armor and weapon icons hammered out, as well as some particle effects for the various elements.
And thanks!
EDIT: ZOMG 100TH POST!!! HURRAY!!!! Maybe I should do something special for the first 100 posters...
Ok in the morning ill get right on it...
May i recommend:
Sparkle, Water, Swirl, Smoke and Heart Spells using the Normal Sprites?
EDIT:
I decided to stay up a little while and make a few sprites.
Heres some Sprites i whipped up quickly:
I dont like them that much. They arent as good as i wanted them to be, Ill try again in the morning.
I doubt it.
Hey, those are pretty good, but they need to only have one animation for all viewable angles. So no matter what direction the player is facing it from, it'll have that one same animation. The main reason for this is figuring out what angle the player is facing it from is a slightly expensive calculation, that for 200 projectiles on the screen would cause some lag. They look awesome though, you are quite the spriter.
EDIT: Stuck a banner on the OP for everyone to use! Woop woop!
Really? So simply applying a texture to each side of an entity (for example the way you add skins to mobs) adds a tremendous amount of lag to minecraft?....either you've found the problem to an age old question or you're wrong...
Applying a texture to an entity (for example an arrow) is like...applying a texture to an entity (a mob)....you just put them in a .png image (or multiple ones) and tell it to choose which one depending on the side....like a mob...or a block....or am I missinterpreting something?...
I may not be a programmer (yet), but I am an Realist as well as an Idealist and I have looked at the code of most of those things...(Entities, Blocks, Mobs, etc.), and because it all seems logical, the way the code is written (thank you notch), it seems as simple as that...but of course if not, it could be something to look into, as somewhat of a side project
It's nothing to do with applying the texture, rather, it's in calculating the angle. You'd have to either call Math.atan2(x,y) twice, which is an approximation and would be slow for a gajillion objects on the screen, or I could do what was already done in MathHelper with cos and sin, just cacheing the whole spectrum of values beforehand with a limited degree of precision. It would be a tad difficult with two inputs, and also it would be the inverse of what's already being done with cos already... the real problem is I don't see an obvious way of doing it without finding the hypotenuse of (x,y) to divide x and y by-- otherwise I'd have an infinite range of values to cache (you guessed it, impossible.) Finding the hypotenuse is itself an approximation, soooo... yeah, not gonna happen unless someone knows a fast way to find the hypotenuse or avoid it all together in this particular case. Furthermore, many approximations require that all angles be within a certain range, and Minecraft doesn't enforce this as far as I can tell. Directionally ambiguous sprites are what you go to when efficiency is a concern-- using sprites and calculating the direction when you don't have to is taking the worst of both worlds.
To be honest, I'm not sure it would look so great without at least 8 directions animated, otherwise it'd look silly as it turns. And 8 would be kinda barely scraping by... that may just be my opinion, though. The standard swiveling one direction sprite may look clunky to some people, but to me it's the clunkily transitioning between multiple directions that looks bad. Having it animated in such a way that it's direction is entirely ambiguous is more effective than barely approximating it's direction with 4 different animations. There's basically only two ways people use sprites nowadays-- one ambiguous direction (you can think of it as adjusting with the camera to always face it), or actually rendered in 3D to turn with the camera (think of grass tufts in your favorite N64 game, or in WoW, even). On top of that, it'll have a lot of directionality implied by the particles trailing behind it, so... I mean sure, if you're modding Doom, multi-directional sprites are totally fine because there's no way the CPU could handle entire 3D models back then to otherwise imply the directionality, and as a modder, the decision is both in respect of and limited by the game. But Minecraft has no such limitation or history, and the animation would be pretty much unnecessary. Basically, if something can be ambiguous in terms of direction, make it a sprite. If it can't, make it a model. A multi-directional sprite is a compromise you'd make if you can't make the direction ambiguous for whatever reason but also can't use model (which isn't true for us)
Some of the projectiles I'm considering may even be purely particle based-- explosions, smoke, and "magic" effects are frequently just the product of a particle engine, which is basically just a system that shoots out a ton of sprites at varying directions, speeds, rotations, and opacities, all of which are constantly changing by some factor. These all face the camera at the same angle, and thus avoid the dreaded "angle" calculation. Just a few sprites can reap pretty impressive results. I'm wondering right now how many particles I could add to a projectile before it breaks even with the multi-directional sprite... like I said, that one rotation calculation is pretty expensive. Also, I wonder how OpenGL deals with/circumvents the angle calculation... belgh.
Anyways, that's enough of me ranting. One direction I say! One!
You're welcome! No need to downgrade No, I don't mind.
Here ya go:
I'll stick this in the OP.