Ultimate Amiga
Games Corner => The Crypt of Bloodwych => Bloodwych => Topic started by: MadMunky on December 27, 2014, 09:39:18 AM
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Merry Christmas all, sorry its a bit late but have been spending time with the family as one should at Christmas.
I just wanted to let people know what I'm working on at the moment and why.
Bloodwych HTML was done by Wishbone and myself and we got it to a pretty good stage there is some issues with assets loading due to the it being html and the way we have done it and the other issue we have is the fact we have to guess how all the fighting combat system worked so we could only try and make it feel like the original also as the plan was to recreate the game as close a possible that also limited a lot of things.
Bit is working on reverse engineering the Atari ST source, at the moment he has a playable PC version of Bloodwych and the Data disk and is working on converting the code to an understandable version which will hopefully help answer any questions we have about the combat system.
Wishbone also is currently busy most of the time doing other things so I have started a new project on my own.
This will use what we learnt from doing Bloodwych HTML but it is not a clone, my plan is to remake Bloodwych but in 3D. I am doing everything on my own its a slow process for many reasons as I'm having to learn Java and 3D at the same time and also try and model assets.
So at the moment I'm just announcing my plan, I'm not sure how far I will get as while I expect doing all the movement and levels will not be a problem, doing all the monsters in 3D will be more of a challenge.
Key differences with this version will be
- 3D Graphics - Bump mapping/Lighting etc...
- Single Player Screen - No split screen at the moment hopefully I will try make it network playable for the other party
- Converting Bloodwych Hex to Classes - (making it use the original data but without the limitations)
If anyone is any good at 3D modeling in Blender let me know :) At the moment this is very early stage and nothing is final that I am showing its all place holder objects and the movement/lighting (pretty much everything) is likely to change from what I have now.
http://youtu.be/91QXL1bCHnA (http://youtu.be/91QXL1bCHnA)
(http://s19.postimg.org/mpulwuzy9/2014_12_27_10_42_27_Bloodwych_Enhanced.png)
(http://s19.postimg.org/cpv437zb7/2014_12_27_10_42_51_Bloodwych_Enhanced.png)
(http://s19.postimg.org/6q7czkeir/2014_12_27_10_43_11_j_Monkey_Engine_SDK_3_0.png)
(http://s19.postimg.org/lc2z1k0ox/2014_12_27_10_43_28_j_Monkey_Engine_SDK_3_0.png)
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Im not fan Bloodwych game but is looks good.
keep the good work.
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At least models and textures have to be on the player's computer,
so it has to be some kind of client/server-programming or you won't get lucky with it.
Graphics will be the biggest part of this work and that can get pretty frustrating because artists - unlike excited programmers - usually don't work for free...
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most of the modelling I think I'll be able to do its just really the monsters / player models that will be an issue.
I will keep cracking away either I'll try but some models if I really need them or maybe at some point once the dungeon is done someone will want to help out if I can make the first part look half decent
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So it didnt take me long to change my mind about this... :)
Good news is the project is not cancelled but its moving from Java/JMonkey to Unity3D and C#, the main reason for this is the Unity3D gives me a lot of nice features and if I get stuck with Models I can just buy them from the Asset store.
If anyone's wondered what Mod0 looks like as a 3D Tower here you go (Still very early WIP)
(http://s19.postimg.org/plqzpfvcz/2015_01_14_21_13_36_Unity_Bloodwych_Test_unity.png)
Screenshot as of today...
(http://s19.postimg.org/6up2fa0sh/2015_01_14_21_14_22_Unity_Bloodwych_Test_unity.png)
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One of those existing engines surely should do it.
And either Java or C# - porting the formulas of BW from a C-Code shouldn't be that big problem. (once we got them - that one is really a funstopper... :o)
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Thanks Bit,
I'm pretty sure Unity will do what we want and it also makes Network support easier. Once you have decoded the mess that is the Atari Source we should be able to get a good remake going. Finally bringing Bloodwych to the masses :)
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A little teaser for everyone,
Unity really is a excellent product :) its making this very enjoyable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_wJi3L1ZEI
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A little update for everyone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XXkEuLI6DE
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So I kind of lost interest in this due to the fact making stuff in 3D is not my strong point as doing all the modeling is too much work for me and I dont think I could have enhanced it in a way to do the original justice
I have just ordered myself a MacBook and decided now I can play around again on the sofa without the wife moaning at me I want to try and write something again for Bloodwych. The idea this time will be to use Unity in C# (cause its multi-platform) and try and write Bloodwych in this using 3D objects for the dungeon but everything else will be 2D i.e. the monsters/items this will hopefully allow me to have nice 3D effects but allow at the same time to use all the original Bloodwych graphics hopefully the plan is to make it look 2D so you cant tell its 3D.
Anyways at the moment its just an idea, I will start to play once the notebook arrives next week. Hopefully all the work Bit is doing will allow me to match the original code of Bloodwych a lot closer than we could do with the HTML version.
I will post back once I have a demo to show.
Bit/Horace - Keep up the excellent work with the Original :)
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Hope you will still develop the HTML version to fit with our findings and to support more modifications!
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Hope you will still develop the HTML version to fit with our findings and to support more modifications!
There is a number of problems with the HTML version which may require a rewrite to fix.
* It redraws at 60+ fps, for a game like bloodwych it a bit pointless unless there is something changing on the screen
* Wishbone helped with a lot of the logic so it maybe there are some things I cant fix unless he helps
* Updating the game to work with things Bit finds might make it require a rewrite
* There is issues with the way it loads data
Im not staying the HTML version is dead, we both put a lot of work into that but depending on the information from Bit it maybe best to rewrite a lot of it.
I will have to have a think and see what the best option is, Unity has a HTML output option so if I did use that it would make it HTML + Windows + OSX compatible, maybe with more overhead but the engine also gives a lot of other nice features would could be good like network support, physics...
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I don't know anything about what can be done with HTML nowadays, but maybe my emu-code would be translatable (...even better to Java).
Ofc, it would be needed to load the half-MB-dumpimage for each run, the 2nd party option wouldn't be available for a while - and we still would use pretty anonymous code. No idea if that makes any sense, but it would be almost bugfree from the beginning...
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I don't know anything about what can be done with HTML nowadays, but maybe my emu-code would be translatable (...even better to Java).
Ofc, it would be needed to load the half-MB-dumpimage for each run, the 2nd party option wouldn't be available for a while - and we still would use pretty anonymous code. No idea if that makes any sense, but it would be almost bugfree from the beginning...
I'm pretty sure almost anything can be done these days as there are Atari ST and Amiga emulators written in HTML/Javascript
Amiga - http://scriptedamigaemulator.net/
Atari ST - http://estyjs.azurewebsites.net/
Maybe porting your code Bit to Javascript would been an idea as like you said would give us online bug free versions of Bloodwych + Extended levels.
Once you have your next version let me know and ill see if I have any idea about how to convert it, otherwise if your interested in doing it take a look at the above links I believe they are open source so maybe we should adapt them.
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The selected language needs to have a timer at least.
I don't know if we can have two threads working on the same datas,
so it has to be somewhat modified to having polling loops for the inputs (mouse, keyboard), and check the timer and blit the framebuffer to the real screen. But, except of that, loading the initial file and care for the save game - that's it. If that language can give back more than one argument that should be translatable easily. In addition, I would take one of the very first versions, that could be translated automatically, whereby this translater don't have to be very complex, because the used syntax is pretty well defined for my own sourceprocessors.
I am also sure that you then can program the extended features easily once you're a little firm with that all. Once the basic concept is set, I am sure that this is no dead end street. Maybe it can't be done at all, but then we haven't put too much work into it.
You then can spend as many years as you want to give each variable a real name and translate it into readable optimized code. ;)
But we don't depend on any other one's emulator.
I found bugs in Steem as well as in other emulators which i.e. often have some problems to emulate the abcd command correct.
Give me some days to check what's possible.
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Hi Bit,
Im sure if a full emulator can run in JS we should be fine to work with that. The issue i have with doing this while it is excellent that we can understand the source and can have a faultless port of the original we also limit ourselves to the restraints of the original.
Either way I think it would be a good thing to have and happy to help if I can but with my complete lack of Atari/Amiga knowledge im not sure how much help I can provide.
I think if we look at the source for the emulators I posted above and with your knowledge/port/code we should be able to knock something up :)
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I think with what bit is doing you wont need "real" emulation code Tbh... You are better off avoiding the extra overhead too :)
Any limits in the original can easily be programmed out! (As I am doing even on the Amiga !)
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From what bit showed me before I believe his code is more of a wrapper for the disassembled code with some emulation functions and custom output for the gfx/sound etc...
Either way I'm sure we can get something together
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Hmmm, that with the limits is such a thing.
You almost feel how it did hurt them to extend npc-things in the extended levels version, ... not talking about graphics!
It's a big challenge to sort this out.
From a certain point you have to leave assembler to further develop it. But each step in a decompiling process hides new dangers - ... and then the typos...