Your level has an impressive look an feel! Nice trick rotating the sprite towards the camera. The shadow artifact you were describing looks like shadow acne to me. I love the idea to have the level just as a simple set of bitmaps and then auto-generate it. This makes the level edition incredibly fast. Congrats!
Your project looks visually pretty impressive. I really like the shadows and day/night lighting cycle.
Your level loading being based on bitmaps is pretty clever, but once you start relying on more than one bitmap, both of which need to correspond to each other (for locations of collision, etc.), it might make more sense to create a more custom level editing tool so that it's easier to specify some of the metadata required. Have you looked at all into that? I see you're already using Dear Imgui for parts of your code, that's something that could make such a tool easier to build.
I didn't see any source code download link. Is your code available somewhere? Based on the code visible in your video, it looks fairly readable, but like you said, some of your level loading code is a bit complicated.
Sorry about that. I do have a git repo with the source, I just forgot to add it to the itch submission. Here is the link: https://github.com/lucasfrederico2000/GDP_Game_Jam.git . As for the map loading, I did what made more sense at the time, but after having to work with it I admit there must be a better way. I didn't do any research on custom level loading techniques and that is probably my biggest mistake. I will look into more ways of doing it in the future. Thank you!
I was quite intrigued by your tech demo. Your animation system was well structured. Using images to load maps was a great idea as well.
You could optimize it further by having one image for scene creation and collision. Continue improving this engine of yours. It would be cool to see other elements like AI, UI
and dynamic collision detection incorporated in this.
I technically could have only 1 bmp map for decoration and collision since 3 values per pixel from the RGB would be enough. However, I wanted both the bmps to somewhat resemble the level so it can be more easily edited. So if I use only 1 bmp, I feel like that won't be the case anymore. But that may be changed in the future, so I will keep this in mind. Thank you! As for the UI/AI for NPCs, that is the next thing I wanted to work on.
The world generation from bitmap was super cool, definitely could go a long way in helping create a full scale game. I really liked how the slanted character matched the camera for effect, that was well thought out. It would be cool if enemies/NPCs could also be defined within the bitmap. There was some odd visual bug when the player goes near an elevated surface, but other than that it's great!
Yeah, the idea is for an entire level/area to be defined by a bitmap (or 2). But I'm not sure how to completely implement NPCs yet. Their starting position would be easy, but how would I go for the route they would take or what would they say? I may have to use a different approach for NPCs. Thank you for the feedback regardless!
Well done! This looks great. Loved the collision coming from the map. The water just changing from one offset to another worked in this style. Only minor complaints of trees sometimes being rendered in front of the player. I'm curious if you considered rendering the trees as 2d tilted sprites like the player character?
Thank you! The water took almost no time to implement since I had my animation system done when I did it. Although, I personally am not very satisfied the way it looks. In the future I want to try different techniques like bump mapping, reflection and a bit of transparency to give more of a "real" look to it, just like the shadows. But I'm willing to just leave it like this is it proves to be the more popular opinion. As for the trees, I did consider it at some point. But I found that the X shaped trees work better with the lighting system (parts of the tree can cast shadow on other parts of the same tree) and the 2D trees made the world feel very flat since the only things that are 3D right now are the trees and the buildings. And I was personally going for the 2.5D look. I like to think the trees are a constant reminder to the player that they are in a 3D space since they are so common.
The "sprite" animation and dynamic shadow look great, and is a difficult effect to create. Was able to see some grid line type artifacts around tiles as well as some z order clipping in front of trees. Overall the visuals are great and the lighting and shadows look awesome.
Yes, totally not Pokemon. I actually really liked how you decided to render everything. Super cool to have a "2d" sprite with dynamic shadows. Seems like you put a lot of thought into how you generate the maps. Definitely wish there was more actual gameplay, would be cool to do something with the day/sun cycle. Pretty clean overall for what you have!
Thank you so much for the feedback! This is definitely a project that I would love to improve on in the future, so I will take any piece of feedback I can have. The map generation was by far the thing that took the most time, but it was worth it in the end. I also agree that the lack of actual gameplay is a bit of a shame. So one of the first things that I would love to add is a way for the player to interact with the world. Maybe being able to talk with some NPCs and enter buildings (maybe the NPCs could have a routine to complement the day & night cycle?). And once I'm more comfortable with what I have, I can add actual battles.
The game displayed some graphic artifacts on my computer, but from the video it looked well done. I liked the clever ideas such as the slanted character to face the camera and the use of bitmaps to generate the game world. Good job, Lucas.
Comments
Your level has an impressive look an feel! Nice trick rotating the sprite towards the camera. The shadow artifact you were describing looks like shadow acne to me. I love the idea to have the level just as a simple set of bitmaps and then auto-generate it. This makes the level edition incredibly fast. Congrats!
Your project looks visually pretty impressive. I really like the shadows and day/night lighting cycle.
Your level loading being based on bitmaps is pretty clever, but once you start relying on more than one bitmap, both of which need to correspond to each other (for locations of collision, etc.), it might make more sense to create a more custom level editing tool so that it's easier to specify some of the metadata required. Have you looked at all into that? I see you're already using Dear Imgui for parts of your code, that's something that could make such a tool easier to build.
I didn't see any source code download link. Is your code available somewhere? Based on the code visible in your video, it looks fairly readable, but like you said, some of your level loading code is a bit complicated.
Overall, looks good!
Sorry about that. I do have a git repo with the source, I just forgot to add it to the itch submission. Here is the link: https://github.com/lucasfrederico2000/GDP_Game_Jam.git . As for the map loading, I did what made more sense at the time, but after having to work with it I admit there must be a better way. I didn't do any research on custom level loading techniques and that is probably my biggest mistake. I will look into more ways of doing it in the future. Thank you!
Hi
I was quite intrigued by your tech demo. Your animation system was well structured. Using images to load maps was a great idea as well.
You could optimize it further by having one image for scene creation and collision. Continue improving this engine of yours. It would be cool to see other elements like AI, UI
and dynamic collision detection incorporated in this.
Good luck!
I technically could have only 1 bmp map for decoration and collision since 3 values per pixel from the RGB would be enough. However, I wanted both the bmps to somewhat resemble the level so it can be more easily edited. So if I use only 1 bmp, I feel like that won't be the case anymore. But that may be changed in the future, so I will keep this in mind. Thank you! As for the UI/AI for NPCs, that is the next thing I wanted to work on.
The world generation from bitmap was super cool, definitely could go a long way in helping create a full scale game. I really liked how the slanted character matched the camera for effect, that was well thought out. It would be cool if enemies/NPCs could also be defined within the bitmap. There was some odd visual bug when the player goes near an elevated surface, but other than that it's great!
Yeah, the idea is for an entire level/area to be defined by a bitmap (or 2). But I'm not sure how to completely implement NPCs yet. Their starting position would be easy, but how would I go for the route they would take or what would they say? I may have to use a different approach for NPCs. Thank you for the feedback regardless!
Well done! This looks great. Loved the collision coming from the map. The water just changing from one offset to another worked in this style. Only minor complaints of trees sometimes being rendered in front of the player. I'm curious if you considered rendering the trees as 2d tilted sprites like the player character?
Thank you! The water took almost no time to implement since I had my animation system done when I did it. Although, I personally am not very satisfied the way it looks. In the future I want to try different techniques like bump mapping, reflection and a bit of transparency to give more of a "real" look to it, just like the shadows. But I'm willing to just leave it like this is it proves to be the more popular opinion. As for the trees, I did consider it at some point. But I found that the X shaped trees work better with the lighting system (parts of the tree can cast shadow on other parts of the same tree) and the 2D trees made the world feel very flat since the only things that are 3D right now are the trees and the buildings. And I was personally going for the 2.5D look. I like to think the trees are a constant reminder to the player that they are in a 3D space since they are so common.
The "sprite" animation and dynamic shadow look great, and is a difficult effect to create. Was able to see some grid line type artifacts around tiles as well as some z order clipping in front of trees. Overall the visuals are great and the lighting and shadows look awesome.
Yes, totally not Pokemon. I actually really liked how you decided to render everything. Super cool to have a "2d" sprite with dynamic shadows. Seems like you put a lot of thought into how you generate the maps. Definitely wish there was more actual gameplay, would be cool to do something with the day/sun cycle. Pretty clean overall for what you have!
Thank you so much for the feedback! This is definitely a project that I would love to improve on in the future, so I will take any piece of feedback I can have. The map generation was by far the thing that took the most time, but it was worth it in the end. I also agree that the lack of actual gameplay is a bit of a shame. So one of the first things that I would love to add is a way for the player to interact with the world. Maybe being able to talk with some NPCs and enter buildings (maybe the NPCs could have a routine to complement the day & night cycle?). And once I'm more comfortable with what I have, I can add actual battles.
The game displayed some graphic artifacts on my computer, but from the video it looked well done. I liked the clever ideas such as the slanted character to face the camera and the use of bitmaps to generate the game world. Good job, Lucas.