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 Bifrost  |
Would it be possible to have an area where air crosses water? Like an air tube in the sea where air breathers may pass through and remain dry, while water beings can swim in front of or behind it? |
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 Geat_Masta |
Yes: The coordinate system for a vehicle is the same as any metaroom, so you would put a vehicle with a open air/cabin behind the tube and that would have the water in it. If you set the cabin to have a greedy cabin then dropping items in the tube would have them go into the vehicle, so instead you have a trigger zone, and will call a function whenever an object enters it, that function would test if the thing is in the tube or in the water and place it in the cabin if it's in the water. You could do a similar trick to have a place with foreground and background layers creatures can be in, using cameras in a similar trick to DS world wrapping. But one of the layers would need to be flat because vehicle cabins are always rectangles. Currently, scripts can create fake collisions that are indistiguishable from real ones for force fields. I'm unsure if I'll use that for doors (like C2 doors) or have the abillity to add/remove collision geometry in script. If the later cabins could have rooms in them, but they couldn't be imported from room maps. |
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 BaffleBlend |
I still have my doubts. At this point, the project seems determined to break even the smallest ties with the series, and to me, that feels like the opposite of carrying on its legacy even if mechanically it improves on it. The way it's going right now, playing this above C3/DS will still feel like a betrayal, not a tribute. Calling this a tribute to Creatures is like calling Rivals of Aether a tribute to Super Smash Bros; the only similarities are mechanically, and as a result, it feels completely mechanical, no substance at all. I admit it; this project is actually beginning to make me angry. Loyalty to the originals and to the IP is absolutely clouding my judgement on the matter, and I think maybe you should consider the impact it will have on people who are clouded similarly - for I'm sure I won't be the only one - and do something about it. I'm sorry. I was trying to be neutral and open-minded before, but there's some things I just can't hold back. |
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Bifrost |
I'm sorry that you feel that way, BaffleBlend, and I can only hope you'll change your mind when the game releases. |
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Geat_Masta |
@BaffleBlend name 1 thing I could do about it that wouldn't get me sued. Point is, don't try to pin this on me when Spil won't give up the IP. |
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Bifrost |
When you edit your post that much, BaffleBlend, it makes it look like I responded to something I didn't respond to. Better to put new thoughts in new posts. It looks to me like you fear that this new game will diverge too much from what it set out to be and what this community is gathered around. That it won't be an addition to the games and the community, but rather a rival. Those are valid concerns, of course. I can only say that there are still a lot of things that's not yet decided, and the progression of the development is very open here on this forum. It's good that you voice your concerns, and I hope you'll keep on giving feedback on how you think this could be the best tribute amd the best addition to the Creatures community. In my eyes, the development of this game encapsulates all that the Creatures community is about. And I hope that the rest of the community will end up feeling the same. |
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Geat_Masta |
AND AND AND AND! The fact that steve grand is supporting me and disowned gameware. Means MINE IS THE CONTINUATION AND C3/DS IS THE KNOCK OFF. And don't say that's just about spil or shit, because I corresponded with him in 2005, and he told me the real story of why he left CL, he disowned the series during the development of creatures 2. |
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 Brynn |
I don't think arguing the legitimacy of any installment/fanmade continuation, "spiritual" or not, is doing anybody any favors. (This reminds me of the whole Star Control III vs Project6014 debacle...) Is this supposed to be a sequel to Creatures, or an advancement in ecosystem/artificial life simulation? Is this a game or a science project? Is this something that we want to make money and get popular, or a contemporary proof of concept? Or, another way we can approach this is by first considering what we think of and how we feel about Grandroids. Is it a competitor to the Creatures series? A step forward? Steve Grand said, rather explicitly, that Grandroids will not be Norns and that if you miss them you will not find them in his new game. Does that make it better or worse? Getting back to the development of this project: Geat_Masta, do you think it would be possible to have put together easily-accessible to-do list/itinerary for this project? This thread seems to get pretty chaotic (it is at once creative direction debate and development correspondence.) Maybe something as simple as "This is what I intend for the Kreatures engine to be capable of" on the first post of this thread? I think you've mentioned a few things you want it to do here and there, but having it all in one place for new people to see would be fantastic. |
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BaffleBlend |
Again, I'm sorry. This is a lot to take in. I know I'm unreasonably freaking out, and I'm sorry that that's winding up being taken out on you. What's most important to me is the one thing that nobody can do anything about. That frustrates me to no end. All I can hope is that the community creates a series of "classic" mods shortly after release, but that would be unreasonable to demand; I can't just ask people to make mods like that. I'll just have to wait and see if it happens. I'm going to try to change the subject with a more reasonable question about the game. What about portability? Can this be installed on a flash drive, for example, or does it need to be installed locally/on a VM? Because that really is one problem I have with the originals; even Grendel Man's Portable Creatures just doesn't cut it. |
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Geat_Masta |
@BaffleBlend honestly, I don't know how to make an application that CAN'T be installed on a flash drive. @Brynn I'm not sure, the issue is that I myself am unsure of what the final form will look like. I'm constantly reevaluating things and trying to figure out if it should go together in a different way. E.g. Right now I'm thinking about texture atlases, e.g. Images that are likely to be rendered at the same time should be part of the same image, not part of the same sprite file, but image, to reduce rendering time. That change would significantly change the engine, and I don't know if it's necessary. I don't know how the UI will go together, and I'm often unsure of what it's really capable of, because several things are just consequences of other decisions that I never really thought about. There are still other things that I wouldn't consider features because they're just necessary parts, and of course things that I would consider features but you as a player/modder would never know exist at all. |
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Bifrost |
@BaffleBlend: Geat Masta mentioned a few posts back how quickly I was able to turn ReGenesis into a functioning metaroom. It lacks lifts and objects, but even those are far more easily added than it would be to make the world into a functioning DS agent. My guess is that there will be several mods of the original games in this new engine competing with each other. A few fan made C3DS metarooms will most likely find their way to this game as well. A quick thought: could the main creatures for this game simply be known as kreatures? Like the gorgeous kreature Ghosthande is designing. |
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Brynn |
If "Kreatures" is treading "too close" to the source material, we could be lazy and adopt the working title of "kritter" (quritter? looks too close to "quitter"...) Someone mentioned that the ones Ghosthande were designing "bunny-raptors" so maybe "Lagoraptor" for that one? I think the prefix "Lago-" has potential because it feels friendly and sort of cute. |
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 Wingheart |
Can the lagoraptors also have a running animation? Like, are running and walking both possible for creatures to do, or are they like Creatures creatures and stuck to only one speed? |
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Geat_Masta |
@Bifrost Also I didn't get into the file i/o part of the program! It would be trivial to make an agent that looks like whatever object, you could put it where the object should be, and when you click it it would write a line to a file saying to create this object there. The only problem is that if then engine is trying to save the game, and a file is open, it will crash. This is unavoidable because restoring the state of an open file is impossible. That reminds me, I only tested the saving functionality, I don't know if the loading works :S. I'm kinda avoiding putting in some stuff like loading/saving, because currently I can make a change and boot the engine to test it in about 3 seconds, once loading is added it could take like 30. And I haven't gotten to figuring out how injectable agents will work exactly. Would it be better for the sounds/textures to be unpacked from the agent and put into the sounds/images folders, or to just load them in the agent--to prevent it being used if the creator doesn't want it to? @Brynn I had the same thought about calling it kritters! |
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Geat_Masta |
@Wingheart it remains to be seen. I want to get it so that creatures can run and skip and jump, by controlling the walk speed with the physics engine but #1 there's no way to calculate swim speed based on pose information in any reasonable frame of time, and #2 there's enough trouble stopping them from falling through the ground! |
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BaffleBlend |
When it comes to naming the little bunnyraptor, I think being different is important there. *glances at how any and all searches for "Norn" brings up Asura's Wrath or whatever* So I don't think calling them Kreatures or Kritters will be sufficient. |
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 Merboy |
Geat_Masta wrote: Hey, yeah that's no problem. My world - like the real world - may be too vivid or too colorful for some, or not arranged to others' personal approval. And that's fine. I made Ainarda for me. Just as you're making Kreatures based on your own concepts of what it should be. I'm pretty sure there's a life lesson in there somewhere, lol. So no worries. I think it'll be great, I'm very excited for this project. The Lantern Light.com |
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 Prodigal Sock Ghosthande  |
Leporans? Corrans? Staga? Faunlets? Their design isn't actually based on raptors... they're mostly deer and rabbit, with a little tauntaun and kirin thrown into the mix. I like the name Lagoraptor, though... perhaps that could be their scientific name. On an unrelated note: I'm curious how kreatures behave while in vehicles? Can they interact with objects? Can they interact with the vehicle? In C1 and C2, Norns can interact with things from inside a moving vehicle, but in C3/DS they literally can't do anything.  |
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Merboy |
Faunlet!!! <3 Question. And this is more than likely impossible for the obvious reason that it just wouldn't fit together the right way, but, it would be neat if there were other species that were build differently than the... wait for it... Faunlets... (is it a thing yet?). Like if there were also little Pujos and Marens running around who all had the same amount of body parts but they were jointed up differently. The head would still determine the species of creature and thus the jointing, but there would be some that walked upright and others that were quadrupedal or really tall, etc. I dunno, maybe that's way more work than it's worth but I just think making the possibility for a wider variety of offspring types creates more a sense of evolution. The Lantern Light.com |
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Geat_Masta |
@GhostHandle There is literally no way an object can tell if it is in a vehicle or a metaroom. @Merboy No idea what you're trying to say there. If you mean can they have 6 limbs instead of 4, no. Head doesn't determine species anyway. The species gene does, which is the only gene that is a haploid randomly selected from the parents rather than being diploid with a copy from both parents. My scheme for determining which head to use when there are 2 different sprites is pretty complex, but suffice to say: there is no way to predict what sprites are dominant over others other than trying a crossbreed. The forelimbs don't have collision geometry, so it could fake being quadrupedal like how a norn crawls, but it wouldn't really be. |
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BaffleBlend |
Reminder that Aardvark Norns and Centaur Norns exist. |
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Wingheart |
Centaur norns clip through the floor when lying down because their collision geometry doesn't match up with their bodies. |
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Bifrost |
The name raptor means bird of prey. Although the general shape of the kreature's body reminds me of velociraptors, utahraptors and other similar dinosaurs and birds, I don't think Lagoraptor would be a fitting scientific name. I'd rather call the general kreatures species something like <Ghosthande's first or last name>idae or <>us. If not gounasaurus which I think would mean fur-lizard. |
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Prodigal Sock Ghosthande |
Geat_Masta wrote: I think the issue with C3/DS was rather that Creatures inside vehicles were disabled from interacting with anything. As in, not even with the vehicle itself or other objects inside it. If Kreatures can't tell that they're in a vehicle in the first place, then I guess that answers the question.  @Merboy it sounds like a lot of what you're describing regards to poses (standing up straight vs. slouching, walking on all fours) which is controlled by gait and pose genes, so it would be possible. In fact it would be easier than C3/DS since they only allowed for body parts to be held at a certain number of angles. Quadrupeds could at least fake being quadrupedal. I think the problem with the centaurs is mostly because of their size... Aardvark Norns and crawling babies never seem to clip, or at least not very badly. @Bifrost: I have no problem with changing the name, although using "raptor" in a reference to another animal, not the term's meaning, is honestly an okay thing to do... there are several real-life animals with names like that, even though the meanings don't always make sense if you take them at face value. I'd rather nix using -idae in this context, though, since it's the ending you use when you want to create a family name. |
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Bifrost |
Yeah, raptor dinosaurs are named for their similarities with birds of prey, so a fluffraptor kreature could be named after their similarities with raptor dinosaurs. |
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Bifrost |
Would the krearaptor hand fit better as a separate limb? Imo, the more parts we cut the kreatures into, the better, because of the more individual diversity we'll get. (I'm still strongly in favour of separating the eyes, ears, horns and hair from the rest of the head.) |
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BaffleBlend |
The ears/horns/hair being separate I could see, but I don't think separating the eyes would be a good idea. Mismatched eye shapes, unlike the other stuff, would leave holes. |
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Merboy |
I originally called ghoste's creature a rabbit raptor just for giggles, not meaning to suggest we adopt a dinosaur theme. Personally I have no affinity for dinosaurs whatsoever, but mainly I think ghoste should choose what to call them since she is their creator. I think it's a really good idea to separate facial features and ears and such. Like the hypothetical quadrupeds breeding with bipeds, the more diversity the better! The Lantern Light.com |
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Bifrost |
As long as the head is left fully rendered without eyes and without holes for eyes, there wouldn't be any problems. And if we got the pigmentation to affect eyes separately, the diversity would be really great. Pigmentation could perhaps affect each body part individually. I don't know if it would be possible to have the pigmentation of head, ears, body, limbs and tail linked, while eyes are separate, and hair is linked to tail tuft. And perhaps even other tufts of hair could be linked with those as well. |
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Geat_Masta |
rabtor Oh! by the way, pose genes store relative rotation data, the rotation of a femur isn't in world coordinates, it's relative to the rotation of the body, the tibia is rotated relative to the femur, etc. If I store the textures for the legs in a single sprite, e.g. the 1st 1/4 is the thy, the 2nd 1/4 the calf, 3rd 1/4 foot, 4th 1/4th toes. That would eliminate the problem of not having enough letters and decrease time to render (doing 1 polygon at a time takes time, but you can only do 1 texture per batch). But it would also eliminate the possibility of inheriting parts of the leg separately. The same is true of horns/hair/ears etc, if they all get inherited separately it increases render time. Also pigment genes don't use the standard RGB/rotation/swap, they're just 4x4 matrices linked to receptors. So the pigment is: [ a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p] R' = a*R + b*G + c*B * + d*A G' = e*R + f*G + g*B + h*A B' = i*R + j*G + k*B + l*A A' = m*R + n*G + o*B + p*A So maybe you could designate eye color with the alpha channel if it isn't used for anything? I can make the shader not change the alpha if it's 0. Also all sprites have to be a multiple of 4 pixels in each dimension. I didn't mention it because the sprite builder will adjust it, but if multiple are being stored in each texture, that matter.s |
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Merboy |
Oooo that's neat. I was wondering about pigmentation. I think C2 had the best pigmentation because it had such gorgeous colors while C3 made the Norns look like they fell into a bucket of paint. The Lantern Light.com |
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Geat_Masta |
Honestly I did it that way because I couldn't figure out how rotation worked. |
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Bifrost |
How much slower render time are we speaking about? Unless it'll be glaringly slow, I'm thinking variations>quick rendering. |
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Geat_Masta |
I don't know how much slower, I would need to implement both and benchmark them. I'm trying to do that now by batching particle effects. Obviously this will be inconsequential compared to batching all the carrots in a scene, but all the little bits add up. I'm thinking of 45 as the creature breeding limit. It can't be over 150 because that's as many things as you can reasonably feel some emotion towards as an individual. And 12 is a handful. Generally the way to get a good number is sqrt(high_estimate*low_estimate) so 45. |
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Wingheart |
Is it possible to change the breeding limit, like you can in DS? Some people might like to do a huge wolfling run or something, where it doesn't matter if they're attached to the kritters. |
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 replies cannot be added because this thread has been locked. | ||||
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