Draco - Wednesday, 17 September 2008
Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 6:36 am
Name: Draco Astreus
Position: Team Leader, 3D modeller, event scripter, sound design, level design, texture design
Occupation: Aspiring Game Designer, Boyfriend, Restaurant Front Worker
Age: 20
Listening to: Tres Elements website ambience in browser tab
K well before I go to play TC Isle Beta2 tonight and then hit the sack... I will share a bit of our latest developments with you all. As I've indicated in the forums already, JPDS1 has been trudging along with palette optimization. Nem introduced me to the application "Wally", a rather old and quite trusty app which is small, insanely simple to install, efficient, and displays palettes right there in front of you at all times. The load and save palette function is so easy to use, a caveman could do it. It allowed me to begin building an actual palette library (.PAL files) to use with Trespasser! Some of the palettes are ones that I made some time ago for certain JPDS textures but most are from retail Tres. Strangely enough, a great deal of Trespasser palettes have only about 1/4th of total possible colors.. I would go get an exact number but it's late. Anyway, these incomplete palettes are bothersome and I avoid them when I can (adopting other Tres palettes most often), but sometimes it's just the case that none other will get the colors right. Sooo, that's been fun.. NOT. It's a lot of work but on the bright side, I am starting to be able to identify palettes on sight based on trademark spots on the palette that pop out and make the palette known, and other stuff.
Anyway what I have also been doing is reconstructing the JPDS1 files altogether... I discovered to my dismay certain objects, when I tried to delete them, would actually crash TresEd (no level corruption though, as no save could be done), including the outdated raptors you've all seen before. That alone was enough to force this, but it's actually going a long way to making JPDS1 more manageable. I am building a development system where different areas of the level actually get THEIR OWN level files. Here's how it works: There is a base level file (which I'm still building) that will have only the base terrain objects, start triggers (plus Sky etc.), the entire basement, and the player (now actually renamed to Tasha). Then the first real sublevel I've made is JPDS~Plains, where I retained the base of the level (base terrain player etc.) and imported into the basement only the objects which populate the Plains, then I imported all instances of those objects from the original level (both those in the Plains and those elsewhere, for instance -## consistency). So now, I can give this level to Nem (did so tonight) and let him work on it while still toying with the base level file. Eventually, all of JPDS1's main locations will have their own sublevel files (EA, HRS, Airport, World Foliage, etc.), each of which can be worked on separately. There are MANY benefits of this development method for such a large level, including the simple fact that it won't take half a minute to save the level anymore (and loading times will be much faster). Another way to ensure compatibility between the sublevels is, when copying new instances, to add a number in front of the new instances to ensure no overlap. For example, if I copy a new PWoodCrate00-00 in the HRS, and there are already new copies in other levels or w/e, I just name the first new copy "PWoodCrate00-1001", and maybe a new one in the EA would be named "PWoodCrate00-2001", etc.
And so.. the final component of this system is that a master texture dump folder will be created with the final paletted textures; GRF files of the sublevels are placed in this folder and imported directly into the main level, using the final texture versions (some sublevels will have previous, unoptimized texture palettes and that is fine due to this method).
Okay enough techno jargon.. how about some screenshots? Here now I've decided to give you all your first look at the new JPDS1 Plains. Most of what you see was put together by me but the original grass population was done by Nem (had to be entirely rescaled and positioned but he still takes credit for the general layout). The grass textures are probably not final but we still like them in their current state (going to wait to release pics to mod db until the area is more finalized). Enjoy!
Position: Team Leader, 3D modeller, event scripter, sound design, level design, texture design
Occupation: Aspiring Game Designer, Boyfriend, Restaurant Front Worker
Age: 20
Listening to: Tres Elements website ambience in browser tab
K well before I go to play TC Isle Beta2 tonight and then hit the sack... I will share a bit of our latest developments with you all. As I've indicated in the forums already, JPDS1 has been trudging along with palette optimization. Nem introduced me to the application "Wally", a rather old and quite trusty app which is small, insanely simple to install, efficient, and displays palettes right there in front of you at all times. The load and save palette function is so easy to use, a caveman could do it. It allowed me to begin building an actual palette library (.PAL files) to use with Trespasser! Some of the palettes are ones that I made some time ago for certain JPDS textures but most are from retail Tres. Strangely enough, a great deal of Trespasser palettes have only about 1/4th of total possible colors.. I would go get an exact number but it's late. Anyway, these incomplete palettes are bothersome and I avoid them when I can (adopting other Tres palettes most often), but sometimes it's just the case that none other will get the colors right. Sooo, that's been fun.. NOT. It's a lot of work but on the bright side, I am starting to be able to identify palettes on sight based on trademark spots on the palette that pop out and make the palette known, and other stuff.
Anyway what I have also been doing is reconstructing the JPDS1 files altogether... I discovered to my dismay certain objects, when I tried to delete them, would actually crash TresEd (no level corruption though, as no save could be done), including the outdated raptors you've all seen before. That alone was enough to force this, but it's actually going a long way to making JPDS1 more manageable. I am building a development system where different areas of the level actually get THEIR OWN level files. Here's how it works: There is a base level file (which I'm still building) that will have only the base terrain objects, start triggers (plus Sky etc.), the entire basement, and the player (now actually renamed to Tasha). Then the first real sublevel I've made is JPDS~Plains, where I retained the base of the level (base terrain player etc.) and imported into the basement only the objects which populate the Plains, then I imported all instances of those objects from the original level (both those in the Plains and those elsewhere, for instance -## consistency). So now, I can give this level to Nem (did so tonight) and let him work on it while still toying with the base level file. Eventually, all of JPDS1's main locations will have their own sublevel files (EA, HRS, Airport, World Foliage, etc.), each of which can be worked on separately. There are MANY benefits of this development method for such a large level, including the simple fact that it won't take half a minute to save the level anymore (and loading times will be much faster). Another way to ensure compatibility between the sublevels is, when copying new instances, to add a number in front of the new instances to ensure no overlap. For example, if I copy a new PWoodCrate00-00 in the HRS, and there are already new copies in other levels or w/e, I just name the first new copy "PWoodCrate00-1001", and maybe a new one in the EA would be named "PWoodCrate00-2001", etc.
And so.. the final component of this system is that a master texture dump folder will be created with the final paletted textures; GRF files of the sublevels are placed in this folder and imported directly into the main level, using the final texture versions (some sublevels will have previous, unoptimized texture palettes and that is fine due to this method).
Okay enough techno jargon.. how about some screenshots? Here now I've decided to give you all your first look at the new JPDS1 Plains. Most of what you see was put together by me but the original grass population was done by Nem (had to be entirely rescaled and positioned but he still takes credit for the general layout). The grass textures are probably not final but we still like them in their current state (going to wait to release pics to mod db until the area is more finalized). Enjoy!