Probably not, regarding the textures. I find there is little need, usually. Mixing the normal maps and texture-ID's of the regular textures gives you enough tiles useable in different terrain settings.
Unfortunatly I lost all my custom textures when my laptop broke, But I still have 2 (the ultralisk and the Infestor, oh and the hydra) if you get bored and feel like grabbing one tell me :P.
Oh, unit textures. Currently using a retexture for a zergling, but apart from that we're actually not using that many sc2 models, relying heavily on WoW assets. The hydra texture looks good, but I'm not sure whether I could actually use it unfortunately (Plus I have another retexture for it already, matching the zergling. "Hybrid Zergling/Hydralisk" is what the asset was called when I DLed it from mapster I think)
Retextures can definitely be useful, I will probably need a lot for the trainer model (Will probably end up using the WoW human model for trainers). If you have any ideas for other unit retextures, feel free to suggest them. If we can get an entire evolution chain that'd be great (Not all would need retexturing, could use some default models and then retexture some others to fit in)
Hey Zelda you guys going to use any custom textures in this?
Like maity said, we're using a lot of WoW models for starmon. We think they make more interesting creatures in general than the sc2 units that we're all very familiar with. We'll still have sc2 units in the game, of course, but there's simply not enough usable models from sc2 units. So some sc2 units will be retextured.
I think if your banking system is unable to store nicknames you shouldn't bother having nicknames for starmon. If you have a way to store nicknames then might as well go for option b, shouldn't be a problem to implement.
We are capable of it, I was explaining why it's not practical for us to store multiple encrypted nicknames for each starmon. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
@zeldarules28: Go
I'm kinda curious to the see the starmon icons in the party menu. If I'm lucky I might see something cartoony :P
As of right now we're actually using small versions of the models in the UI. Unfortunately we don't have the resources to develop artwork for all the starmon. Maity's great at doing artwork, but he's also the only person on our team who can write the fancy data that we very much need... Which is way more important.
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Okay, Sounds good, If I get some time tomorrow(Working Heavily on EvoFrenzy gotta finish the last hero tomorrow) Ill make an entire evolution for you guys, :D Prob a zergy Fire or Zergy Grass evolution, or whatever you guys need :D
Grass is something we have a harder time finding in WoW assets than fire.
Also, here's a list of models we are already using (So you know which ones not to retexture):
Drone
Lurker
Zergling
Ultralisk
Larva
Baneling Cocoon
Corruptor
Mutalisk
Overlord
Overseer
Lyote (Critter)
The other critter with the horns that looks a bit like an ultralisk
Observer
Phoenix (both hero and normal)
Spider Mine
Point Defense Drone
We originally used Baneling, Roach and Queen for the grass starters, the baneling already has good coloring for a grass starmon, maybe you can add some leaves or vines to roaches and queens? (Just to make it clear, we currently are NOT using these models - All starters got WoW models)
I got a question how are you getting around the 524,287 limit for XP in data and triggers?
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My Projects:
Sorted Multiplayer Leader Board
Card Shuffle Dialog Demo
Air Wars Mass
Blizzard Fan since Starcraft. The Single Player story is AMAZING IMO, I can't wait for the Expansions. In Warcraft 3 I only enjoy the Custom Maps scene (& Blizzards...
We don't seem to be having an issue with that, but I know that we can't display the actual number due to SC2 messing it up. Zelda probably knows more - I'm not entirely certain that we aren't using a workaround, but I think we aren't.
I got a question how are you getting around the 524,287 limit for XP in data and triggers?
Well, uhh, er.... this is actually sort of funny.... I wish you had asked me that about a month ago. This'll make you laugh, but I sure didn't find it funny.... >.>
WARNING- Wall-o-text incoming!
So here's the deal(I'm sure you know this part already, DaFunk, but I'll write it for those who don't)- Fixed number values (aka reals) are "fixed" in the sense that they use exactly 32 bits, with 19 bits for the piece to the left of the decimal, and 12 bits for the part to the right of the decimal. Because of that, the maximum real value sc2 can process is 524287.999, because it uses the full 32 bits allocated to it.
Luckily for us, this limit only applies to real numbers, not integers. Although integers are also 32 bits, they do not contain a fractional portion, and thus all 32 bits (mostly) go towards the piece to the left of the decimal. In other words, integers can go way higher than we 'll ever need- the maximum integer is over 2 billion in fact.
I did say this was kind of funny, so here's the so-called "funny" part- I spent literally 2 weeks trying to figure out why our AI's starmon would never spawn past level 72. I checked our level averaging functions, I checked our zone spawn tables, I checked our experience formulas, I checked our pokemon level tables, the list went on and on. Finally, I decided to switch everything over to integers in a desperate attempt to resolve the issue, and ta-da, things magically started working. I'm sure you can imagine my surprise :P I mistakenly thought it was an issue with real numbers on blizzard's end, since some new real features were added in a recent patch. So then I switched all of the high-level calculations over to integers.
Now, fast forward about 3 weeks. Picture a studious programmer, working on some starmon, poking around the forums.....And then he reads your latest post. Suddenly it all clicks together in his mind, and after a bit of research, he realizes that you were indeed correct! The problem all along was that (go figure) level 73 required just over 524287 experience! In other words, if you had asked me that about a month ago, you literally would have prevented multiple weeks of brain-melting confusion.
Right, so my embarrassing story's over now, time to answer the question- It's not an issue for data at all because our data doesn't actually do anything; It's purely visual for the most part. Triggers are where I need to be a little bit careful, because storing huge reals isn't possible. Our banking system uses only integers when saving and loading values, so that's not a concern. The only time we need those huge numbers is in two places- Nicknames (to store our mega-huge integer codes), and experience. Nicknames do not require reals, which leaves just experience to be taken care of. Although reals are more accurate in division (we're talking tenths of a exp point to determine whether to round up or down), this accuracy is totally unneeded when we're dealing with millions of experience points. Experience is, and has always been, stored as an integer. The only issue was when I stupidly chose to convert it to a real for a brief calculation. And that is now fixed. Phew, that was long.
Tl;DR
It's okay, I wouldn't read it either. Long story short, integers have a limit of over 2 billion, much higher than anything that we'll need. Reals are used for smaller calculations when precision is needed(like multiplying factors to calculate battle damage).
Well to hopefully save you more aggravation the Limit on Integer's is not over 2 billion but 16,777,216 but that should actually be enough unlike Reals since Pokemon in generation 1 & 2 could have at max 16,777,215 to be a maxed out level 255 through glitching or hacking.
You can put in all 9's till it stops allowing input of numbers then when you press up or down it will put it at 1 Billion but not be able to change the integer until you go to 16,777,215. Then you can increase the integer by 1 or decrease it to -16,777,216.
That Limit is for both Trigger's and Data, for Example I can set a unit's kill experience to 16,777,216 even tough Reals will only show up to 524,287. If I set the kill experience over 16,777,216 it would reset to 0.
My Projects:
Sorted Multiplayer Leader Board
Card Shuffle Dialog Demo
Air Wars Mass
Blizzard Fan since Starcraft. The Single Player story is AMAZING IMO, I can't wait for the Expansions. In Warcraft 3 I only enjoy the Custom Maps scene (& Blizzards...
Either way 16 million is more than enough. Right now our exp doesn't go above 9,999,999. It's just a matter of scale- if, hypothetically, it ever became a problem, we could just divide all the experience tables by 10 and now we're dealing with smaller numbers but the same amount of time required to gain experience.
That's an good point you've made. Strangely enough our nickname system uses values up to 129,000,000 but it's working totally fine. Yet you're right about 16,777,216 being the highest the number increase button will take you. I'll do a bit of poking around- if it becomes an issue, we can always just lower the nickname length from 12 characters to 9 and the problem goes away. But I have a feeling the engine can support a lot more than 16k, even if it's not allowed in the UI. For example, I just nicknamed my starmon "zxyzxyzxyzxy". When stored, that name is converted to the code "1-26-25-24-26-25-24-26-25-24-26-25-24", which is then broken into 3 pieces, the first of which would read of "1-26-25-24-26". That's then stored as 126,252,426, and it saves/loads totally fine.
And yeah, when I said it wouldn't be an issue for data, I didn't mean that we could go above the number, I meant that our data shouldn't need to go that high. We use level tables that are stored in user types, but again, they won't be going past 9,999,999 at the very highest.
On a more positive note, I just added the hold item system as well as (you'll like this one, Trieva) the exp share item. You can't actually get the item in-game yet (we still need to decide when to give it to you), but it's fully functional and will definitely be a part of the game.
Wow nicknames values up to 129,000,000 is that being saved as a String, because otherwise I'm not sure how you got that to work.
I agree that the limit should not be so low for StarCraft 2's engine since windows calculator can handle over 9 hundred 99 trillion (1,000,000,000,000,000) on Windows 7 64bit, although maybe it's for XP support they made it lower.
[EDIT] I checked the limits on Starcraft: Brood War it allowed up 99 Milion integer. So it's quite odd sc2 integer's only go to 16 Million.
My Projects:
Sorted Multiplayer Leader Board
Card Shuffle Dialog Demo
Air Wars Mass
Blizzard Fan since Starcraft. The Single Player story is AMAZING IMO, I can't wait for the Expansions. In Warcraft 3 I only enjoy the Custom Maps scene (& Blizzards...
My Projects:
Sorted Multiplayer Leader Board
Card Shuffle Dialog Demo
Air Wars Mass
Blizzard Fan since Starcraft. The Single Player story is AMAZING IMO, I can't wait for the Expansions. In Warcraft 3 I only enjoy the Custom Maps scene (& Blizzards...
@zeldarules28: Go
Wow nicknames values up to 129,000,000 is that being saved as a String, because otherwise I'm not sure how you got that to work.
It's being stored in our bank files as a string (it's encrypted, so that's nothing special). But in-game I've got it assigned to a standard integer variable. We have a multi-dimensional array to store the stats of your 6 "party" starmon, and three of those values per starmon store nickname numbers. So unless the issue only pops up in multiplayer or something strange like that, I don't think there's will be any problems issues. Like I said, if issues appear, I'll just lower the nickname length and that will resolve the issue (it would be very easy to change). But as far as I've been able to tell for now, things work fine, which would lead me to believe that the limit is imposed on the GUI only, and is not an internal restriction.
Looks pretty good. I manually set the team color of each unit in the actor events, so I'd make the queen have green.
It's somewhat dark, but I can just make it a Grass+Dark type starmon and it'd fit. Still, the leaves/grass being somewhat brighter in certain areas would probably look better. Great work :)
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@Imperfect1987: Go
We do have a way of storing nicknames, that's why he mentioned it :p he was explaining why they were being encrypted (to save space)
@KingPopSicle: Go
Custom textures as in terrain textures? Currently none are planned, it's up to Mozared mostly, and whether he can find any textures he wants to use.
Probably not, regarding the textures. I find there is little need, usually. Mixing the normal maps and texture-ID's of the regular textures gives you enough tiles useable in different terrain settings.
I'm gonna make it as epic as I can, though.
@Mozared: Go
Unfortunatly I lost all my custom textures when my laptop broke, But I still have 2 (the ultralisk and the Infestor, oh and the hydra) if you get bored and feel like grabbing one tell me :P.
@KingPopSicle: Go
You're talking actual unit textures?
That'd be Maity's department.
@KingPopSicle: Go
Oh, unit textures. Currently using a retexture for a zergling, but apart from that we're actually not using that many sc2 models, relying heavily on WoW assets. The hydra texture looks good, but I'm not sure whether I could actually use it unfortunately (Plus I have another retexture for it already, matching the zergling. "Hybrid Zergling/Hydralisk" is what the asset was called when I DLed it from mapster I think)
Retextures can definitely be useful, I will probably need a lot for the trainer model (Will probably end up using the WoW human model for trainers). If you have any ideas for other unit retextures, feel free to suggest them. If we can get an entire evolution chain that'd be great (Not all would need retexturing, could use some default models and then retexture some others to fit in)
My goal for today- create the first version of the opening cutscene. It's not exactly polished yet, but here's a screenie. :)
Like maity said, we're using a lot of WoW models for starmon. We think they make more interesting creatures in general than the sc2 units that we're all very familiar with. We'll still have sc2 units in the game, of course, but there's simply not enough usable models from sc2 units. So some sc2 units will be retextured.
We are capable of it, I was explaining why it's not practical for us to store multiple encrypted nicknames for each starmon. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
As of right now we're actually using small versions of the models in the UI. Unfortunately we don't have the resources to develop artwork for all the starmon. Maity's great at doing artwork, but he's also the only person on our team who can write the fancy data that we very much need... Which is way more important.
@zeldarules28: Go
Okay, Sounds good, If I get some time tomorrow(Working Heavily on EvoFrenzy gotta finish the last hero tomorrow) Ill make an entire evolution for you guys, :D Prob a zergy Fire or Zergy Grass evolution, or whatever you guys need :D
@KingPopSicle: Go
Grass is something we have a harder time finding in WoW assets than fire.
Also, here's a list of models we are already using (So you know which ones not to retexture):
We originally used Baneling, Roach and Queen for the grass starters, the baneling already has good coloring for a grass starmon, maybe you can add some leaves or vines to roaches and queens? (Just to make it clear, we currently are NOT using these models - All starters got WoW models)
Thanks in advance ;)
I got a question how are you getting around the 524,287 limit for XP in data and triggers?
@DaFunk86: Go
We don't seem to be having an issue with that, but I know that we can't display the actual number due to SC2 messing it up. Zelda probably knows more - I'm not entirely certain that we aren't using a workaround, but I think we aren't.
Well, uhh, er.... this is actually sort of funny.... I wish you had asked me that about a month ago. This'll make you laugh, but I sure didn't find it funny.... >.>
WARNING- Wall-o-text incoming!
So here's the deal(I'm sure you know this part already, DaFunk, but I'll write it for those who don't)- Fixed number values (aka reals) are "fixed" in the sense that they use exactly 32 bits, with 19 bits for the piece to the left of the decimal, and 12 bits for the part to the right of the decimal. Because of that, the maximum real value sc2 can process is 524287.999, because it uses the full 32 bits allocated to it.
Luckily for us, this limit only applies to real numbers, not integers. Although integers are also 32 bits, they do not contain a fractional portion, and thus all 32 bits (mostly) go towards the piece to the left of the decimal. In other words, integers can go way higher than we 'll ever need- the maximum integer is over 2 billion in fact.
I did say this was kind of funny, so here's the so-called "funny" part- I spent literally 2 weeks trying to figure out why our AI's starmon would never spawn past level 72. I checked our level averaging functions, I checked our zone spawn tables, I checked our experience formulas, I checked our pokemon level tables, the list went on and on. Finally, I decided to switch everything over to integers in a desperate attempt to resolve the issue, and ta-da, things magically started working. I'm sure you can imagine my surprise :P I mistakenly thought it was an issue with real numbers on blizzard's end, since some new real features were added in a recent patch. So then I switched all of the high-level calculations over to integers.
Now, fast forward about 3 weeks. Picture a studious programmer, working on some starmon, poking around the forums.....And then he reads your latest post. Suddenly it all clicks together in his mind, and after a bit of research, he realizes that you were indeed correct! The problem all along was that (go figure) level 73 required just over 524287 experience! In other words, if you had asked me that about a month ago, you literally would have prevented multiple weeks of brain-melting confusion.
Right, so my embarrassing story's over now, time to answer the question- It's not an issue for data at all because our data doesn't actually do anything; It's purely visual for the most part. Triggers are where I need to be a little bit careful, because storing huge reals isn't possible. Our banking system uses only integers when saving and loading values, so that's not a concern. The only time we need those huge numbers is in two places- Nicknames (to store our mega-huge integer codes), and experience. Nicknames do not require reals, which leaves just experience to be taken care of. Although reals are more accurate in division (we're talking tenths of a exp point to determine whether to round up or down), this accuracy is totally unneeded when we're dealing with millions of experience points. Experience is, and has always been, stored as an integer. The only issue was when I stupidly chose to convert it to a real for a brief calculation. And that is now fixed. Phew, that was long.
Tl;DR
It's okay, I wouldn't read it either. Long story short, integers have a limit of over 2 billion, much higher than anything that we'll need. Reals are used for smaller calculations when precision is needed(like multiplying factors to calculate battle damage).
@zeldarules28: Go
This made my day. Poor Zelda!
Well to hopefully save you more aggravation the Limit on Integer's is not over 2 billion but 16,777,216 but that should actually be enough unlike Reals since Pokemon in generation 1 & 2 could have at max 16,777,215 to be a maxed out level 255 through glitching or hacking.
You can put in all 9's till it stops allowing input of numbers then when you press up or down it will put it at 1 Billion but not be able to change the integer until you go to 16,777,215. Then you can increase the integer by 1 or decrease it to -16,777,216.
That Limit is for both Trigger's and Data, for Example I can set a unit's kill experience to 16,777,216 even tough Reals will only show up to 524,287. If I set the kill experience over 16,777,216 it would reset to 0.
Either way 16 million is more than enough. Right now our exp doesn't go above 9,999,999. It's just a matter of scale- if, hypothetically, it ever became a problem, we could just divide all the experience tables by 10 and now we're dealing with smaller numbers but the same amount of time required to gain experience.
That's an good point you've made. Strangely enough our nickname system uses values up to 129,000,000 but it's working totally fine. Yet you're right about 16,777,216 being the highest the number increase button will take you. I'll do a bit of poking around- if it becomes an issue, we can always just lower the nickname length from 12 characters to 9 and the problem goes away. But I have a feeling the engine can support a lot more than 16k, even if it's not allowed in the UI. For example, I just nicknamed my starmon "zxyzxyzxyzxy". When stored, that name is converted to the code "1-26-25-24-26-25-24-26-25-24-26-25-24", which is then broken into 3 pieces, the first of which would read of "1-26-25-24-26". That's then stored as 126,252,426, and it saves/loads totally fine.
And yeah, when I said it wouldn't be an issue for data, I didn't mean that we could go above the number, I meant that our data shouldn't need to go that high. We use level tables that are stored in user types, but again, they won't be going past 9,999,999 at the very highest.
On a more positive note, I just added the hold item system as well as (you'll like this one, Trieva) the exp share item. You can't actually get the item in-game yet (we still need to decide when to give it to you), but it's fully functional and will definitely be a part of the game.
@zeldarules28: Go
Wow nicknames values up to 129,000,000 is that being saved as a String, because otherwise I'm not sure how you got that to work.
I agree that the limit should not be so low for StarCraft 2's engine since windows calculator can handle over 9 hundred 99 trillion (1,000,000,000,000,000) on Windows 7 64bit, although maybe it's for XP support they made it lower.
[EDIT] I checked the limits on Starcraft: Brood War it allowed up 99 Milion integer. So it's quite odd sc2 integer's only go to 16 Million.
@TheAlmaity: Go
Grass it is, Ill do some test later on to see what I can come up with, in the mean tim, HEY check out my new hydra :P
@Taintedwisp: Go
That's some sweet Textures on them Hydras.
It's being stored in our bank files as a string (it's encrypted, so that's nothing special). But in-game I've got it assigned to a standard integer variable. We have a multi-dimensional array to store the stats of your 6 "party" starmon, and three of those values per starmon store nickname numbers. So unless the issue only pops up in multiplayer or something strange like that, I don't think there's will be any problems issues. Like I said, if issues appear, I'll just lower the nickname length and that will resolve the issue (it would be very easy to change). But as far as I've been able to tell for now, things work fine, which would lead me to believe that the limit is imposed on the GUI only, and is not an internal restriction.
Indeed they are! Nice work, wisp :D
@TheAlmaity: Go
Since you guys dont seem to be all about team color in your map :P I just left the Team color the default and did this.
@Taintedwisp: Go
Looks pretty good. I manually set the team color of each unit in the actor events, so I'd make the queen have green.
It's somewhat dark, but I can just make it a Grass+Dark type starmon and it'd fit. Still, the leaves/grass being somewhat brighter in certain areas would probably look better. Great work :)