@MedicineStorm: Yeah, I see your point. Hunting for cool loot can be really fun, it's one of the things that made the Diablo series so entertaining. I don't know, I'm kind of torn on this issue. I like both systems, but if I have to choose, I'll probably go with the IE style. It's true that the player is discouraged from profiting from standard items like halberds. I think that the developers discouraged farming in general, since the monsters usually don't respawn. I guess it all boils down to what kind of game mechanics you are in the mood for. Sometimes I just wanna hunt for cool loot, so I'll play Diablo 2, sometimes I wanna focus more on combat with a puzzle-solving mentality, so I'll go for an IE game. I think that FLARE can cater to both tastes. We'll see once I finish my new mod.
Cool, I'll check those out, I didn't even know them.
One of the things that I like about the Infinity Engine games is how the loot system works. Monsters drop loot that makes sense for them to drop. For example, in Icewind Dale, when you kill a yeti, it doesn't drop gold or weapons, it only drops a yeti pelt, which you can sell or craft into a leather armor. When you kill a goblin archer, it always drops a bow and some arrows. I think it's a really cool system. Right now I'm working on a new mod for Flare (my previous mod was not very succesfull), and I think I'll make the loot system like that one.
I'm slowly working on a documentation for the flare-engine. I think I may start by trying to write a general description of what it is, what it does, and what are the parts that it's made of.
Broadly speaking, it starts with the main function, found in main.cpp. There are also other functions in that file, together with an object of the GameSwitcher class. The GameSwitcher is the part of the engine that is in charge of switching between the main screens, the ones that occupy the entire view. Generally, these are called "game states" according to FLARE's terminology. For example, GameStateTitle, GameStateNew, GameStatePlay, etc. The saving and loading functions are controlled by a part of the engine called SaveLoad. There are also several managers that control other things, like the animations for example. There are some algorithms for pathfinding (such as "A-star"). There are also general purpose files such as CommonIncludes.h, Utils, and such. There is also a file parser that apparently is in charge of reading to/from .txt files.
Well you get the idea. There's a lot of work to do, but I actually find it quite fun to do, even if my skills are less than mediocre.
I see your point. I think that Flare's philosophy / design goal, as with many engines, is to give modders the most control possible. In theory, every aspect of the game should be controlable by mods, in the form of .txt files, so that one does not have to actually touch the C++ code. The source code should provide a bare minimum but flexible set of conditions. Modifying the C++ code should be a sort of last resort, it should be possible to do everything via mods.
That being said, in my case for example, my knowledge of C++ is next to zero. FLARE gives me the excuse for trying to learn that language, at least in a meaningful way. There's only so much you can do with making small "Hello World" programs and the like. Trying to contribute to something way more complicated like a game engine is a daunting, overwhelming task. But the things one learns by doing this are priceless.
Really, if I could start learning C++, then I assure you that anyone can do it. The syntax may be a bit daunting at first, but eventually you start to see patterns in what initially looks like pure chaos.
Yeah, Krita is free software / open source, it works fine on all operating systems. But even if you have some software that only runs on Windows, you can use an emulator such as WINE to run it on linux. For example, I have Baldur's Gate 2 and Planescape: Torment on my machine, and I can play them just fine with that emulator.
Personally I'm an Ubuntu fan. But there's a lot of awesome distributions out there. I've heard really good things about the new version of Debian, though I haven't tried it. Choosing a distribution is mostly a matter of personal tastes, I think.
Thanks! About the Blender version, yeah I don't really have any reasons for upgrading right now. I did try out the current version, but I found some of the new features to be kind of confusing, but that's just me.
Glad you found the source material useful. Didn't mean to swamp you with links. I just like to share cool stuff when I find it.
You can probably make that spider in 10 minutes or so. If you don't mind, I'll just share one more link. It's actually the very first tutorial that I watched when I just got blender. It's for making any low-poly animal in 10 minutes. Granted, the guy in the video only makes an elephant. But I tried his method and I used it for making the spider:
On a side note, GIMP is a great tool, but at some point you might want to check out Krita. I can guarantee that it's well worth your time if you want your images to have a more "painterly" aesthetic. What Krita has that GIMP doesn't is a set of brushes that mimic real brushes. So, for example, you have digital versions of watercolor, acrylic, oil painting, chalk, etc.
And here are some examples of what I was talking about earlier on tweaking the models with a graphics program. I'm using GIMP and Krita. These are works in progress, they're far from being finished.
@MedicineStorm: Yeah, I see your point. Hunting for cool loot can be really fun, it's one of the things that made the Diablo series so entertaining. I don't know, I'm kind of torn on this issue. I like both systems, but if I have to choose, I'll probably go with the IE style. It's true that the player is discouraged from profiting from standard items like halberds. I think that the developers discouraged farming in general, since the monsters usually don't respawn. I guess it all boils down to what kind of game mechanics you are in the mood for. Sometimes I just wanna hunt for cool loot, so I'll play Diablo 2, sometimes I wanna focus more on combat with a puzzle-solving mentality, so I'll go for an IE game. I think that FLARE can cater to both tastes. We'll see once I finish my new mod.
Cool, I'll check those out, I didn't even know them.
One of the things that I like about the Infinity Engine games is how the loot system works. Monsters drop loot that makes sense for them to drop. For example, in Icewind Dale, when you kill a yeti, it doesn't drop gold or weapons, it only drops a yeti pelt, which you can sell or craft into a leather armor. When you kill a goblin archer, it always drops a bow and some arrows. I think it's a really cool system. Right now I'm working on a new mod for Flare (my previous mod was not very succesfull), and I think I'll make the loot system like that one.
Thanks! I edited the first post accordingly. I found the screenshots on Google.
I'm slowly working on a documentation for the flare-engine. I think I may start by trying to write a general description of what it is, what it does, and what are the parts that it's made of.
Broadly speaking, it starts with the main function, found in main.cpp. There are also other functions in that file, together with an object of the GameSwitcher class. The GameSwitcher is the part of the engine that is in charge of switching between the main screens, the ones that occupy the entire view. Generally, these are called "game states" according to FLARE's terminology. For example, GameStateTitle, GameStateNew, GameStatePlay, etc. The saving and loading functions are controlled by a part of the engine called SaveLoad. There are also several managers that control other things, like the animations for example. There are some algorithms for pathfinding (such as "A-star"). There are also general purpose files such as CommonIncludes.h, Utils, and such. There is also a file parser that apparently is in charge of reading to/from .txt files.
Well you get the idea. There's a lot of work to do, but I actually find it quite fun to do, even if my skills are less than mediocre.
I see your point. I think that Flare's philosophy / design goal, as with many engines, is to give modders the most control possible. In theory, every aspect of the game should be controlable by mods, in the form of .txt files, so that one does not have to actually touch the C++ code. The source code should provide a bare minimum but flexible set of conditions. Modifying the C++ code should be a sort of last resort, it should be possible to do everything via mods.
That being said, in my case for example, my knowledge of C++ is next to zero. FLARE gives me the excuse for trying to learn that language, at least in a meaningful way. There's only so much you can do with making small "Hello World" programs and the like. Trying to contribute to something way more complicated like a game engine is a daunting, overwhelming task. But the things one learns by doing this are priceless.
Really, if I could start learning C++, then I assure you that anyone can do it. The syntax may be a bit daunting at first, but eventually you start to see patterns in what initially looks like pure chaos.
Hope that helps
Sure, share it! Just out of curiosity, what did you find restrictive about the engine in relation to what you want to make?
Yeah, Krita is free software / open source, it works fine on all operating systems. But even if you have some software that only runs on Windows, you can use an emulator such as WINE to run it on linux. For example, I have Baldur's Gate 2 and Planescape: Torment on my machine, and I can play them just fine with that emulator.
Personally I'm an Ubuntu fan. But there's a lot of awesome distributions out there. I've heard really good things about the new version of Debian, though I haven't tried it. Choosing a distribution is mostly a matter of personal tastes, I think.
Thanks! About the Blender version, yeah I don't really have any reasons for upgrading right now. I did try out the current version, but I found some of the new features to be kind of confusing, but that's just me.
Glad you found the source material useful. Didn't mean to swamp you with links. I just like to share cool stuff when I find it.
You can probably make that spider in 10 minutes or so. If you don't mind, I'll just share one more link. It's actually the very first tutorial that I watched when I just got blender. It's for making any low-poly animal in 10 minutes. Granted, the guy in the video only makes an elephant. But I tried his method and I used it for making the spider:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjW6r10Mlqs&t
On a side note, GIMP is a great tool, but at some point you might want to check out Krita. I can guarantee that it's well worth your time if you want your images to have a more "painterly" aesthetic. What Krita has that GIMP doesn't is a set of brushes that mimic real brushes. So, for example, you have digital versions of watercolor, acrylic, oil painting, chalk, etc.
Hope that helps!
Very cool, you've put a lot of work into this. Just a note: remember to save your sprites with the .png extension instead of .jpg.
Nothing wrong with .jpg per se, but Flare mods generally use .png
And here are some examples of what I was talking about earlier on tweaking the models with a graphics program. I'm using GIMP and Krita. These are works in progress, they're far from being finished.
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