Re: Main character animations.

["Tony Joblin" <tonyjoblin@yahoo.com.au>]

Hi,

I was reading in a book about developing games for Linux where the author
used a technique as follows. First develop a 3d model, they used a shareware
program called AC3D (approx $40), then render using POV ray to get 2d
images. Admittedly no animation was used, just wanted to get 2d images of
the spaceship for lots of rotations. I haven't tried it, I hope I have
described the process accurately and that it may be of use to you.

Tony Joblin
Convenor Computerbank Queensland
Po Box 1423, Coorparoo DC, 4151.
Email: cbq-exec@dstc.edu.au
http://www.dstc.edu.au/CBQ/index.html

----- Original Message -----
From: "Katie Lauren Lucas" <katie@fysh.org>
To: <linuxgames@sunsite.dk>
Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2002 5:39 PM
Subject: Main character animations.


>
> So I'm toying with this 2D spritey game idea. Has a main player character
which
> has lots of pick-upable weapons (guns, bows, swords, spears). So I'm
wondering
> how to handle this graphically. I can think of:
>
>   1) Tons of sprites, going to need each weapon X each direction X each
frame
> of animation.
>
>   2) Layers of sprites, one to animate the main character, one to overlay
a
> weapon on him/her. Issues of alignment, it might end up lacking graphical
> sophistication. I have a feeling this ends up needing (weapons X
directions X
> frames + directions X frames) images in total.
>
>   3) Cheat. Have the player carrying an indistinct black blob.
>
>   4) Sophisticated cheating. Player carries nothing, when he starts
fighting he
> draws a weapon. Not sure this reduces images much.
>
>   5) Not caring. Player carries a sword. All the time. If he's got a gun
he,
> erm... appears to shoot with a sword. Heck, if RPG players can cope with
an "@"
> being a person...
>
> In a 3D game this would be easy (attach appropriate weapon mesh to the
player
> character's "hand" matrix)... but how do people do this in 2D games?
>
> {Why am I developing in 2D? Because I'm doing this on a laptop. Because
they
> won't let me take a workstation into work...}
>
>
____________________________________________________________________________
___
>       Katie Lauren Lucas, Consultant Software Engineer, Parasol Solutions
> katie@fysh.org katie.lucas@parasolsolutions.com
http://www.parasolsolutions.com