06. March 2017, 05:03:41

#265

CarrotQuote

Hey Hank, gave your demo a try tonight.  Great stuff, this has come a long ways!  Not sure if you're looking for feedback, but I'll throw some up here, just incase

Also, to preface, I have never played much of the original, since the interface was so difficult for me to get past (one of the reasons I'm so excited about this project).

- When I picked up a skull, I didn't seem to be able to drop it afterwards
- The movement speed in the original looks like it was based on how far the cursor was from the center of the view screen when pressed.  In yours it seems to just be mapped movement keys, with a very quick ramp up when pressed.  Will you eventually implement a run toggle, or sprint key?
- Sometimes when talking to people, the color of the text seems to mess up.  When asking certain questions, the text will go back to the black/brown default and you will get the added <color=red>,</color>, etc messages.  The next response/question usually changes it back.
- I noticed the test config at launch let me re-map the movement keys, which was nice.  I'm assuming this was part of Unity tools?  I was wondering if you eventually will add things like toggle mouse-look, or any of options/talk/get commands as hotkey/remapable?  That would be great for comfort and useability.
- Even with the graphics quality turned to fantastic, the images didn't quite look the same as the original.  Do you notice that too?  Maybe something to do with the renderer, or some smoothing dosbox is doing?

Again, thanks for your work so far, this looks great.  Much more playable from a UI perspective.  I'm very excited to see your future releases.

07. March 2017, 20:42:59

#266

hank morganQuote

Thanks for the feedback.

Not sure about the issue with the skull. You should be able to drop. It's possible you were in use object on mode?
Not much done with movement speed. All WIP when it comes to that side of things.
Text colour is a known bug. Should be an easy fix when I get around to it.
Control editing is built in unity. I've only done basic controls. Now that I think about it I may not have documented the full list include the flying controls when casting levitate. About the only control conveniences I've done is pressing E to toggle mouse look and the context sensitive mode.
There are a few differences in how I'm rendering.  I'm probably a bad judge of these things at this stage since I can't see the wood from the trees.  Of course the original art is 20+ years old now displaying it at modern fidelity is a challenge. Most object art is about 16x16 pixels in size.

07. March 2017, 20:54:50

#267

hank morganQuote

Slightly off topic. As I mentioned in earlier posts I'm porting some of my older SS1 tools into Unity in order to make them available to anyone who is interested.

I did a small bit of work on one tool a few years ago while I was getting familiar with .res files but I never released it because it tended to crash out on me

It's a map loader for Terra Nova.

Image: http://imgur.com/a/hRrj0
Image: http://imgur.com/YpluZcM

It works in Unity so I've set it to generate a fairly complex mesh of 513x513 tiles using T Nova textures I had lying around from another tool (Gigaquad?)

For the curious I've absolutely no plans to go further with this. But I do have a question for anyone who is familiar with the Tnova file formats. Where is the game palette stored? What file and what chunk? As I'd like to poke through the art files properly.

08. March 2017, 03:04:24

#268

icemannQuote

I still say that it doesn't hurt to have SS1 support. Though I'd say to get Ultima Underworld 1 100% done first.

End of the day, yours could be a all in one engine for all of the games that used the underworld engine. That's at least 3 games right there. Wouldn't surprise me if there was more. Though I did a quick google search and couldn't find anything on it.

Doom does just fine and that has like 5+ source ports available for it. Fair enough, most people mainly use Zdoom, Doomsday or GZdoom.

08. March 2017, 03:32:33

#269

CarrotQuote

Odd, tried the skull thing again, and dropped it just fine.

I know you probably have a decent list of things you still want to implement, but wanted to ask one more question.  I noticed in the original game there were sounds/music for moving forward, opening doors, and dropping items.  Have you looked at implementing any of that?  Or is it something potentially difficult?