Metro Siege: new arcade quality a500 brawler!

[robinsonb5]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

That way, animation of the leg can be done very easily.
You rotate Thigh, both Calf and Foot follows. You wanna bend the knee, you just rotate Calf, and the foot will follow.
(I'll research this now, as I am curious, if that can be applicable)

It's certainly do-able, but it's very maths-heavy so would have to be precalculated, and when you're dealing with position granularity that's quite large compared with the size of the components there's a lot of scope for rounding errors and jitter. It would work fine if your target platform is something that can use a GPU to render 2D sprites with arbitrary scaling, rotation, sub-pixel positioning and anti-aliasing. On an Amiga it's... a bit more challenging!

[Tsak]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Thanks Tsak

Well, imho, rigg should be doable in 2D too (even if you're using 3D app ).
And could tremendously make animator's life easier.
Imagine if leg is with 3 parts:
- Foot
- Calf
- Thigh
Foot is linked to Calf, Calf is linked to Thigh.
Foot pivot point is on the ancle, Calf pivot is on the knee, and Thigh pivot is somewhere on the hip.
That way, animation of the leg can be done very easily.
You rotate Thigh, both Calf and Foot follows. You wanna bend the knee, you just rotate Calf, and the foot will follow.
(I'll research this now, as I am curious, if that can be applicable)

Nope. You said the magic word 'rotate'. Here we cannot 'rotate' a specific part in real time. We can just replace one part with another. And we only have a limited number of pre-rotated part versions. Also fixing a part in place and linking it to another is absolutely unwanted, because often we need the parts to move independantly and in various directions.

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Kudos to animator, animating all frame by frame.
That guy has some real talent.

Well, 'that guy' would be me, Mike and Corey

[d4rk3lf]

Here I did quick video in After Effects to showcase, what I was talking about.

[ Show youtube player ]

Pretty easy to animate, isn't it?
Though,it would need full character to setup like that.
And if there's way to do IK animation, that would be pretty awesome.

But nevermind... let me not distract you from workflow you already have.
It's just an idea.

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by Tsak

Nope. You said the magic word 'rotate'. Here we cannot 'rotate' a specific part in real time. We can just replace one part with another. And we only have a limited number of pre-rotated part versions. Also fixing a part in place and linking it to another is absolutely unwanted, because often we need the parts to move independantly and in various directions.

Ahh... I keep forgeting it's the engine that does rotations.
Sorry about that.

Forget it then.

Originally Posted by Tsak

Well, 'that guy' would be me, Mike and Corey

You are doing great job.

[Tsak]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Ahh... I keep forgeting it's the engine that does rotations.

Yeah and it's not only that. As @robinsonb5 pointed out, try and do the same animation and rotations with these parts in their native resolution (say 16x32) and with hard edges, no antialiasing or color blending and using just the standard 16 color palette.
Believe me, it won't look as pretty and crisp as it looks now == you're much better off with manually tweaked and pixeled, pre-rotated part versions.

[thairacerjp]

What you done is just amazing and incredible and so cool that you share all your work with us, step by step and as a supporter, asking us some ideas in creation for make it better, Mike & Corey are perfectness and it will be a game who will make Amiga great again ! thanks.

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by Tsak

Yeah and it's not only that. As @robinsonb5 pointed out, try and do the same animation and rotations with these parts in their native resolution (say 16x32) and with hard edges, no antialiasing or color blending and using just the standard 16 color palette.
Believe me, it won't look as pretty and crisp as it looks now == you're much better off with manually tweaked and pixeled, pre-rotated part versions.

We did implement something like that on Powder - in example the giant ant on the ruins level got head, legs and abdomen disjointed and kept in place by grouping

[hammer]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

While I tend to agreed that should be more AGA games (even I am A500 user), keep in mind that this genre (beat em ups) are totally neglected.
Apart from average Golden Axe, there are not one good beat em up on Amiga (even AGA), and everyone agreed that A500 is more then capable of great brawlers.
This game is huge step to improve that.

But for genres like platformers, or racing games, where we have a tons of great titles, I am all for AGA and high end Amiga's, and it would be interesting to see something like Rayman, or Pandemonium.

Amiga's Double Dragon 3 was a reasonable port.

[ Show youtube player ]

[hammer]

Originally Posted by Steril707

I fully understand this..


What I don't get is this attittude, that people think that those few existing coders are doing this for anything else than their own enjoyment.

There are usually extremely good reasons why someone goes for a certain setup. And it's definitely not "THE MONEY" in any case.

In my case it was simply nostalgia. I had an A500 (not even expanded to 1mb) back from 1988 to 1992, and never experienced AGA. Plus I like the challenge of creating something for these OCS machines.

I can understand that some people have different things/periods/setups/configs that tie them to the Amiga, but you certainly cannot expect other people to spend a couple of years on creating something that isn't interesting to them just because it is to you.

On other platforms this divide usually doesn't exist. There is only one C64, one Vectrex, one Atari 2600, on Spectrum, etc.
There might be a few differences on available RAM or disc drive hardware, but usually nobody complains if you go for the common denominator.

AGA's dual playfield's 16+16 color layers were disappointing when OCS can do multiplexing sprites parallax 16 colors + single playfield 16 colors.

AGA may need to use the multiplexing sprites parallax method to avoid dual playfield's 16+16 color layer limits.

AGA can do 256 color adventure games like PC VGA. Doom can use AGA's 256 color mode when coupled with a fast CPU e.g. 68060 or 68080.

Metro Siege's color range can reach about 60 when copper color tinting is used to shade grayscale bitmap graphics.

I only recently obtain A1200 by luck with my eBay bid when it was advertised as "broken, parts only" (i.e. the seller misdiagnosed disk drive's clicking sound as broken) and primary winning bidder backout of the bid (reached near $1000 AUD) and my bid was limited to $600 AUD. A1200 turns out to be working and in near mint condition. I didn't experience A1200 AGA in the 90s. Due to A1200, I signed up for Vampire 1200 V2.

My Amiga is the 500 Rev 5 model (from my school friend who abandon it due to hardware fault e.g. later found out to be PSU problem) which later gutted into Rev 6 and added Wicher 508i. I like A1200's small compact shape which has footprint of a PC gaming keyboard. My early 1990s Amiga was 3000/030 25Mhz model (my Dad paid for it out of the blue and traded A500 Rev 6, ) which I used for primary school presentation work. My Dad has an office friend who owned an Amiga 2000 while our family owned A500 Rev6.

My primary gaming machines are Ryzen 9 3900X + RTX 2080 and Core i9-9900K+ RTX 2080 Ti i.e. I'm a PCMR gamer who plays Blender 3D RTX as a hobby.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by hammer

AGA's dual playfield's 16+16 color layers were disappointing when OCS can do multiplexing sprites parallax 16 colors + single playfield 16 colors.

AGA may need to use the multiplexing sprites parallax method to avoid dual playfield's 16+16 color layer limits.

AGA can do 256 color adventure games like PC VGA. Doom can use AGA's 256 color mode when coupled with a fast CPU e.g. 68060 or 68080.

Metro Siege's color range can reach about 60 when copper color tinting is used to shade grayscale bitmap graphics.

I only recently obtain A1200 by luck with my eBay bid when it was advertised as "broken, parts only" (i.e. the seller misdiagnosed disk drive's clicking sound as broken) and primary winning bidder backout of the bid (reached near $1000 AUD) and my bid was limited to $600 AUD. A1200 turns out to be working and in near mint condition. I didn't experience A1200 AGA in the 90s. Due to A1200, I signed up for Vampire 1200 V2.

My Amiga is the 500 Rev 5 model (from my school friend who abandon it due to hardware fault e.g. later found out to be PSU problem) which later gutted into Rev 6 and added Wicher 508i. I like A1200's small compact shape which has footprint of a PC gaming keyboard. My early 1990s Amiga was 3000/030 25Mhz model (my Dad paid for it out of the blue and traded A500 Rev 6, ) which I used for primary school presentation work. My Dad has an office friend who owned an Amiga 2000 while our family owned A500 Rev6.

My primary gaming machines are Ryzen 9 3900X + RTX 2080 and Core i9-9900K+ RTX 2080 Ti i.e. I'm a PCMR gamer who plays Blender 3D RTX as a hobby.

And that's relevant to my post in which way?

[roondar]

Originally Posted by hammer

AGA's dual playfield's 16+16 color layers were disappointing when OCS can do multiplexing sprites parallax 16 colors + single playfield 16 colors.

Using a 16 colour sprite background in OCS games is almost unheard of (I know exactly one example and while it looks cool, you instantly see the severe limitations of the technique as well in that game). Could be an interesting topic for a different thread though, methods of parallax on A500/OCS and their pro's and con's...

With that, back to the topic at hand

Originally Posted by Tsak

Yeah and it's not only that. As @robinsonb5 pointed out, try and do the same animation and rotations with these parts in their native resolution (say 16x32) and with hard edges, no antialiasing or color blending and using just the standard 16 color palette.

Believe me, it won't look as pretty and crisp as it looks now == you're much better off with manually tweaked and pixeled, pre-rotated part versions.

I fully agree, hand pixeled graphics tend to look much nicer for rotation at such a low resolution. You can see the limits of scaling and rotating very easily at such low resolutions. For example, there's the rotating in Turrican 3 - very smooth, but also kind of ugly.

Just out of interest (sorry if this has been asked before - it's a big thread and I may have simply forgotten): do you have any idea how many "key frames" there are in memory for Metro Siege? Perhaps key frames is the wrong term here, I mean the number of separate stored actual picture elements?

Would be interesting to see that compared to the number of frames of animation actually achieved. It's just such a nice technique you're using, I keep wanting to know more

[DMWCashy]

Originally Posted by roondar

Could be an interesting topic for a different thread though, methods of parallax on A500/OCS and their pro's and con's...

This would be a very interesting thread to start. I am currently testing out several methods to find the right one for my project.

[CaptainNow]

This game looks absolutely stunning. I especially loved seeing how you're using modern tech to help with hitboxes and animations etc!! That is staggeringly clever!
With every update I see for this game I get more and more blown away by it.

Also, showing progress on a game for retro devices is a double-edged sword, on the one hand you want people to see your baby in development, but on the other it doesn't take long before opinions become a real drain on time as you address everyone who has something to say about your game. Excitement is always a good thing though at the end of the day.

I cannot wait to play this game!

[Tsak]

Thanks @LordNipple!

Originally Posted by roondar

Just out of interest (sorry if this has been asked before - it's a big thread and I may have simply forgotten): do you have any idea how many "key frames" there are in memory for Metro Siege? Perhaps key frames is the wrong term here, I mean the number of separate stored actual picture elements?

Would be interesting to see that compared to the number of frames of animation actually achieved. It's just such a nice technique you're using, I keep wanting to know more

You can check my #376 post where I explain in detail how frames are constructed e.t.c. In short, only parts are kept in RAM (as individual picture elements). Each frame is just a list of parts, their coordinates and their order (overlaps). Similarly each animation is a list of frames playing one after the other. So in regards to storing frames and animations it's just a text with names, coordinates e.t.c.

[Pyromania]

Great game, when can we play this awesome beat em up joy?

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Tsak

You can check my #376 post where I explain in detail how frames are constructed e.t.c. In short, only parts are kept in RAM (as individual picture elements). Each frame is just a list of parts, their coordinates and their order (overlaps). Similarly each animation is a list of frames playing one after the other. So in regards to storing frames and animations it's just a text with names, coordinates e.t.c.

Brilliant, thanks. It's very cool and saves a ridiculous amount of memory... Only 42K for the main character. Amazing

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by LordNipple

Also, showing progress on a game for retro devices is a double-edged sword, on the one hand you want people to see your baby in development, but on the other it doesn't take long before opinions become a real drain on time as you address everyone who has something to say about your game. Excitement is always a good thing though at the end of the day.

Amen, Brother.

[Pjeff18]

I have been following the progress of this and can’t get enough of the visuals!

I have considered becoming a Patreon via your website but before doing so want to know a little bit more. What is the Expected completion and release date, will it be digital and physical copy release and how much would you be selling it for ?

Finally is there a possibility of a single level demo ?

Keep up the good work !

[alpine9000]

Originally Posted by Pjeff18

I have been following the progress of this and can’t get enough of the visuals!

I have considered becoming a Patreon via your website but before doing so want to know a little bit more. What is the Expected completion and release date, will it be digital and physical copy release and how much would you be selling it for ?

Finally is there a possibility of a single level demo ?

Keep up the good work !

Unfortunately we can’t give you a definite answer to any of these questions. Things change and we obviously can’t predict the future, but I can let you know our current intentions.

Completion date: This is the hardest one to answer. There will be some significant new functionality made public soon, from this you will be able to judge the progress we have recently made. Having said that, as time goes on and the engine and tooling are almost completed, the velocity of progress will likely increase.

Release format and price: We hope to have a high quality physical release as well as a digital option. Pricing is yet to be determined, but my hope would be that we can provide a great value release.

Demo: I think the last time we discussed a playable demo, the thinking was that it would be more than one level (possibly up to 2.5 levels?), but we have not arrived at an absolute final decision on that.

If you’re primarily interested in the visuals I would say you should check out the BitBeamCannon Patreon as from what I understand it has lots of behind the scenes info (sometimes Patreons find out stuff before I do!), but I can’t say for sure how much stuff is on there as I’m not a Patreon myself and Mike doesn’t post here.

Sorry for the “non answers”, but we really are just focusing on development at the moment. Lots of this stuff we haven’t discussed lately.

[Samurai_Crow]

Originally Posted by Pjeff18

I have considered becoming a Patreon via your website but before doing so want to know a little bit more.

BitBeam Cannon has a YouTube channel you can subscribe to also. Not all of it is about Metro Siege though. Lots of it is about Daemon Claw, another game project developing in parallel.