Sprite Support?

[Andrettin]

Does 0 AD's engine support using animated sprites for units and buildings instead of models?

Thanks in advance

[Stan`]

21 minutes ago, Andrettin said:

Does 0 AD's engine support using animated sprites for units and buildings instead of models?

Thanks in advance

Hey Andrettin, the only animated thing I know that is not a 3d model is water, so i'd say yes, but probably not in the way you want. May I ask why ?

[Andrettin]

19 minutes ago, stanislas69 said:

Hey Andrettin, the only animated thing I know that is not a 3d model is water, so i'd say yes, but probably not in the way you want. May I ask why ?

I am thinking about the possibility of transferring Wyrmsun to the Pyrogenesis engine, since it can provide better pathfinding, multiplayer capability and such than Stratagus currently can. Not to mention that 0 AD (and thus its engine) has a pretty lively community, which is quite nice. It would be a lot of work to change Wyrmsun to use the Pyrogenesis engine, but... I think it is worth it to at least look into.

Regarding the water, the way its animation works could probably help. I think a big challenge could be to make the sprites be drawn "as they are". Contrary to other textures, they couldn't be just applied to a model, since that would most likely make them look strange. Unless the model were a square that somehow always changed its angle to be towards the camera?

[Stan`]

See https://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/72

and https://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/108

That sounds like great news, how many people are working for wyrmsun atm ? I hope you'll succeed migrating your engine. We will all benefit from this.

EDIT: Anyway If you need anything you could ask me. I'm sure @Itms might be able to help too / might be interested in that kind of collaboration,

Edited May 15, 2017 by stanislas69

[sphyrth]

Wyrmsun? To Pyrogenesis? Now THAT I'm looking forward to.

[Andrettin]

9 hours ago, stanislas69 said:

See https://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/72

and https://trac.wildfiregames.com/ticket/108

That sounds like great news, how many people are working for wyrmsun atm ? I hope you'll succeed migrating your engine. We will all benefit from this.

EDIT: Anyway If you need anything you could ask me. I'm sure @Itms might be able to help too / might be interested in that kind of collaboration,

Thank you!

Those two tickets are pretty much what I am looking for I wonder how difficult it would be implement ticket #72.

Programming-wise, it's just me working on Wyrmsun. There are also two artists I commission graphics from.

Thanks for the offer to help

7 hours ago, sphyrth said:

Wyrmsun? To Pyrogenesis? Now THAT I'm looking forward to.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

11 hours ago, Andrettin said:

Unless the model were a square that somehow always changed its angle to be towards the camera?

In a 3D engine, this is pretty much how a "sprite" works, as far as I know.

[vladislavbelov]

6 hours ago, Andrettin said:

 I wonder how difficult it would be implement ticket #72.

It's easy enough to implement, in other case there're many things, which devs should review too.

[fcxSanya]

@Andrettin did you see the second linked article from this post?

It describes how 0 A.D. gradually transferred from full 2D to full 3D in early stages of development. It may have some useful insights for you.
As far as I understand you're considering switch from "Full 2D" to "3D Terrain, 2D Objects" (using the article terms), right? (or you want to render the terrain in 2D too?)

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

My suggestion @Andrettin is to make everything 3D, and then adjust the camera settings to give you the isometric view you desire.

 

See:

 

 

Edited May 17, 2017 by wowgetoffyourcellphone

[Andrettin]

8 hours ago, fcxSanya said:

@Andrettin did you see the second linked article from this post?

It describes how 0 A.D. gradually transferred from full 2D to full 3D in early stages of development. It may have some useful insights for you.
As far as I understand you're considering switch from "Full 2D" to "3D Terrain, 2D Objects" (using the article terms), right? (or you want to render the terrain in 2D too?)

I hadn't read that yet, actually, thanks for showing it to me! It's pretty interesting, specially the discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of 2D/3D.

The idea in would be keeping the game full 2D, at least at first, to prevent having to modify a large quantity of assets. If later on it seems possible to mix 3D elements with the sprites without them looking too out of place, then that would be pretty nice, too. I intend to use a fixed camera, which should help with that. For units in particular, 3D has some attractive advantages compared to 2D, as adding new animations can be quite a lot of work in pixel art, and the same goes for developing variations of units (for example, humans with different equipment). Pretty much the same advantages that the 0 AD team saw as being most attractive in 3D units. I am really fond of how 2D sprites look, but maybe with appropriate use of textures it would be possible to make models look relatively similar.

Though the possibility of having 3D elements could be useful in the future, the improved pathfinding, multiplayer capabilities, and the strong commitment of the 0 AD team in further developing the engine are the main draws in the idea of switching Wyrmsun to Pyrogenesis.

[Andrettin]

8 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

My suggestion @Andrettin is to make everything 3D, and then adjust the camera settings to give you the isometric view you desire.

 

See:

 

 

I had seen screenshots of 0 AD with isometric view, and indeed it looks stunning Unfortunately, having everything in 3D (even if we managed to give the 3D models the somewhat cartoonish look of the sprites Wyrmsun uses) would require redeveloping A LOT of assets for Wyrmsun, which isn't really feasible.

[implodedok]

25 minutes ago, Andrettin said:

I had seen screenshots of 0 AD with isometric view, and indeed it looks stunning Unfortunately, having everything in 3D (even if we managed to give the 3D models the somewhat cartoonish look of the sprites Wyrmsun uses) would require redeveloping A LOT of assets for Wyrmsun, which isn't really feasible.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you set camera fixed in isometric view, you don't need to create 3D models do you?  You can just have a 3D box with a 2D sprite on it positioned so that it always faces the camera (which is easy to do with a fixed camera position).  Of course that will break things like proper 3D shadows, but it could be a nice way to start maybe?  Eventually assets might be converted to true 3D models and then you could even unfix the camera, but with fixed camera that doesn't need to happen right away.

Also, Wyrmsun on Pyrogenesis:

[Andrettin]

2 hours ago, implodedok said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you set camera fixed in isometric view, you don't need to create 3D models do you?  You can just have a 3D box with a 2D sprite on it positioned so that it always faces the camera (which is easy to do with a fixed camera position).  Of course that will break things like proper 3D shadows, but it could be a nice way to start maybe?  Eventually assets might be converted to true 3D models and then you could even unfix the camera, but with fixed camera that doesn't need to happen right away.

Also, Wyrmsun on Pyrogenesis:

Yes, that's pretty much what I was thinking And I'm glad you like the idea of having the game on Pyrogenesis!

[echotangoecho]

You're also welcome in #0ad-dev on quakenet if you have any questions about the engine.

[serveurix]

@Andrettin : Wyrmsun on pyrogenesis ? Why would you do that ? You're the one that made Stratagus usable ! Although Wyrmsun lacks some gameplay and UI features compared to more modern RTS engines like pyrogenesis, it shows quite a significant progress compared to the BOSWars experience. I had never thought I could enjoy a Stratagus-based RTS until I saw Wyrmsun.

Also, although the pathfinding in Wyrmsun is not optimal, I'm skeptical about pyrogenesis being able to improve it. I'd recommend making a lot of performance tests before giving a definite opinion.

(I haven't tried Wyrmsun multiplayer so I don't know about that part)

Don't get me wrong, I would love to see a 3D RTS based on the lore of Wyrmsun, with nice models, graphical effects and all that stuff. But perhaps not as a replacement of the current 2D game.

[Stan`]

I don't think the plan was to go full 3D for now, only to port the assets in 0ad

[Andrettin]

On 5/22/2017 at 5:38 PM, serveurix said:

@Andrettin : Wyrmsun on pyrogenesis ? Why would you do that ? You're the one that made Stratagus usable ! Although Wyrmsun lacks some gameplay and UI features compared to more modern RTS engines like pyrogenesis, it shows quite a significant progress compared to the BOSWars experience. I had never thought I could enjoy a Stratagus-based RTS until I saw Wyrmsun.

Also, although the pathfinding in Wyrmsun is not optimal, I'm skeptical about pyrogenesis being able to improve it. I'd recommend making a lot of performance tests before giving a definite opinion.

(I haven't tried Wyrmsun multiplayer so I don't know about that part)

Don't get me wrong, I would love to see a 3D RTS based on the lore of Wyrmsun, with nice models, graphical effects and all that stuff. But perhaps not as a replacement of the current 2D game.

Thank you! It's very nice to read such warm words I will think on what you have said.