About having more character directions

[vulfox]

With this this 3D thing going on here and the fact that 3D characters are not going to be a part of AGS any time soon (never?) I thought of - once more - bringing upp the amount of character facing directions.

AGS now has built-in max 8 directions and I like to see more because I hate to see character sliding and, most important,  more directions would help to create an better illusion of 3D characters. So is it so hard to implement? Any problems with it? I'm personally rendering my graphics so more sprites from different angles would just be a few seconds of rendering.

[Sektor 13]

For classic 2d adventures 8 different turning options is more than enough, if you ask me, if the AGS engine becomes 3d (support of 3d maps) that more walking direction would be an good idea too..

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

You specify two arguments - character sliding and illusion of 3D. The first is a piece of news to me - are you sure anti-glide mode is off when you use it? The second is a bit unnecessary, as 8 directions ALREADY gives a more than passable illusion.

What you SEEM to want isn't more directions, is support for 3D characters.

[Khris]

avolare_: Have you played any of the Ben Jordan Games? 8 directions is more than enough for low-res games. Maybe you should try out a different engine.

[vulfox]

Well, yes 3D characters would be quite nice (and the discussion is still going on - I know), but I thought that adding a bit more directions would be easy - and "cheap" - way to compromise.

With sliding I mean that character is moving in slight different direction than he's facing; kind of walking a bit sideways. I would hate to give upp AGS because it clearly is the best.

And why many of us want more possibilities for game graphics? Because players are so demanding nowadays and I really like to introduce adventure games for everybody and graphics are the first expression.

Don't get me wrong, AGS is the best there is - thanks CJ!

[Pumaman]

There's no particular technical reason why I couldn't add support for 16-directional walking animations. The main reason it's not there is that
(a) nobody has wanted it before, and
(b) drawing the art for 16 directions for each character is a very time consuming task, and even most commercial 2D games just go with 8.

Would anyone else actually use 16-direction support?

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Question - 16-direction would entail more loops per view, yes? Just asking.

[Pumaman]

No, the current limit is 16 loops per view.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Kewl. I was still thinking in terms of "more loops in a view than the walkcycles", which is, naturally, not a necessary thing (just the way my mind works). I don't see the need myself (and it's doubtful I'd use it)... but if it's trivial to implement, and if people want it, I vote for it.

[Ishmael]

It'd be usefull for arcade type stuff. I have one thing from an ancient Games Factory project in mind that I'd like to do with AGS, but 8 directions for characters wouldn't match up with the (very little) that was made of the TFG version. I could go with 8, but if 16 are there, I'd use it.

[Kweepa]

It'd be usefull for arcade type stuff.

If it's a top-down game, it might be better to have one loop and draw it rotated? That way you can have as many angles as you want, and only have to draw and import one loop.

[vulfox]

Well it seems that this is once again a feature that wouldn't be used every day - but what about when you happen to need it? So nobody else thinks it would be useful?

Any suggestions for workarounds then? Turning animations? Tweaking with views and loops? I'm really more of a graphic type; not so good at coming up with code so if anyone want's to point out the right way or give a hint...  (or maybe I just skip it)

[Kweepa]

I can see it being useful, though it's getting very specialized.
It might be better to define angle ranges that each loop corresponds to. Then we could have:
left/right only animations
  -90 -> +90 = right
  +90 -> -90 = left
isometric animations
  0 -> +90 = up/right
  +90 -> +180 = up/left
  -180 -> -90 = down/left
  -90 -> 0 = down/right
flattened perspective animations (this seems to be how AGS works?)
  -60 -> +60 = right
  +60 -> +120 = up
  +120 -> -120 = left
  -120 -> -60 = down
top down animations
  -45 -> +45 = right
  +45-> +135 = up
  +135 -> -135 = left
  -135 -> -45 = down
6 way animations, 12 way animations, 16 way animations, and so on...

I realise this doesn't help you right now. Just thinking out loud.

[Sektor 13]

No, the current limit is 16 loops per view.

Can we expect more loops in newer versions. I think 30 loops per view should be enough, sometimes you need many character animations, if you use all 16 loops you must create new view and asign this view to a character and then animate him. Well it would make things easier..