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Does the engine support animated tiles currently?


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Obviously another time-heavy addition, but it would be great if at least the engine itself allowed for static tiles to be replaced with animated ones in the future (....hey, they did it with Minecraft afterall!). A little bit of movement would be nice.

I'm hoping, too, that eventually someone mods this so that we have some nice optical effects (glows, flares, fog, etc). I'm all for the clean graphic style, but I also find that this look can still work well with 'real' optical effects.

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If it supports animated fire it should support animated tiles.

The spectres can be set to produce an animation but I haven't actually tried it to see if it is displayed properly.

The troops can be given idle animations as well if I remember correctly.

Pretty sure Chris said it was possible if they had the time and resources to do it.

What do you mean by glows and optical effects?

Got any examples?

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Ya, that makes sense, considering that we have fire and smoke currently animated. Idle animations for the troops/aliens would be really great too. Might even be able to fake them without going through the whole 3D modeling process just by hand editing the images. I wouldn't want them doing the usual overdone idle animations you see in so many games (where they do really blatant 'heavy breathing' loops!). Just some subtle random sway, and maybe head moves. You could probably do that by cutting and pasting heads from the other direction facing elements, and 'sway' them by distorting the element a touch.

The optical stuff would literaly be things like 'realistic' glows on fire, for example. Maybe best done with a post-process effect that blooms highlights? It's a tough call, as I appreciate/respect the clean graphic style (and am sure some would complain/argue that 'realistic' effects are out of place). I, personally, think combining 2D/graphical looks with 'realistic' effects (depth of field, glows, fog, etc) really looks great. Beast of both worlds, and (again, in my opinion) doesn't clash. (An example.... the game Limbo blends the two nicely, and really benefits from it).

Actually, that brings me to a similar suggestions (at least in execution)... Since you are inevitably going to have various splits in opinion among the players about the look of the game, I was thinking it would be great to have the ability to apply a global post-process effect to the ground battle display that allows you to adjust saturation, maybe lean the colours one way or another, adjust the brightness/contrast, etc), so that everyone can set it the way they prefer.

With such a post-process engine in place, you might be able to introduce a bit of random fog (which randomly changes in intensity), colour tinting, bloom, glow, etc... just to give life and variation (and, in the case of fog or even cloud shadows, a hint of changing strategic visability).

Other little touches, like occasional random flying debris, subtle smoke blowing by (just like a fractal overlay over the whole ground battle display) would really add a lot visually, with seemingly not much effort needed.

[shrug...] Just throwing it in the suggestion box. But, at least a post-process glow effect (that glows the highlights or fire/light sources) would add an additional level of refinement and atmosphere, I think.

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The game engine can't do much with the tiles other other than load them.

I am doubtful the engine has anything as fancy as post processing.

It is almost a decade old now after all and only uses 2D sprites.

I am pretty sure Chris said that hue and saturation couldn't be adjusted on the fly a long time ago when it was suggested as a way to easily add variation to armour types.

It is possible the team have learnt how to manipulate the engine better but I feel it is unlikely.

Remember as well that the owners of the engine no longer support it and have so far not answered Chris when he has requested support or permission to alter the engine to allow additional features to be added.

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Ahhh..., I didn't realize that this wasn't an engine they made, or that they weren't allowed to modify it. Ya, that kind of throws a wrench into that.

That's a shame. The stuff I was describing should be fairly easy to add to the engine (...ex. random fractal pattern moving across the screen, random opacity, to create drifting smoke, cloud shadow, fog, etc). I imagine a faux bloom type post effect wouldn't be too hard.

How does that 'no modification' rule apply to modders? Is it just people using the engine for profit (the Xeno devs) that have that restriction, or would that apply to modders who are creating free mods? (...assuming modders can even get into the engine... I don't know, as I haven't done mods before).

I'm curious, too... what other games were made with this engine?

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I don't know what the limitations would be on use by modders but to alter the engine as it is used by Xenonauts you would likely need to decompile it, alter the code then recompile.

Most people are not happy to allow that amount of free reign with their software so I would be surprised if the people behind the game engine allowed it, even if they no longer support it themselves.

Unless it specifically allows that in any user agreement and even then most companies prefer you to ask them beforehand.

I doubt they would respond though, especially as they haven't replied to a legitimate game studio who is using their engine for a commercial release.

The Playground SDK lists some features that it supports that may be possible to simulate the things you are looking for but I imagine you would still need access to the source code, plus some coding skill, to create them.

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