[saxman]

Chimpo, on Apr 10 2007, 03:08 AM, said:

I'm not sure if this was asked, to lazy to check, but will the engine support sprite rotation and scaling? Sort of like the last few games on the SNES like Yoshi's Island bosses.

Because that would be sweet.

Yep, and for one big reason -- Sonic CD and Knuckles' Chaotix use sprite scaling (don't remember if they use rotating, but this will be supported too). Scaling will have to also be supported since my engine has the zooming feature. It wouldn't make sense to zoom in and out of the level without applying the zoom to the sprites as well.

And sprite rotating will also be supported. The engine will support up to 256 rotation angles. At one point I thought about allowing the entire level to rotate. This would be an interesting feature that could be used in many different ways, but I am not sure that it's really necessary... will people actually WANT to rotate their levels for any purpose at all?

[Caitlin]

I once had an idea for a sonic game to have the level rotate, but Sonic's sprites never rotated at all... it wasn't that great though, and that's the only reason I'd see for rotating a level, unless you do something like at the end of Super Metroid where the elevator shaft "tipped" to give the feel that the place was falling apart.

Hey, Tweaker even has a visual. =P

This post has been edited by ThunderSpeed: 13 April 2007 - 05:23 PM

[Tweaker]

[saxman]

I thought of that, but I think people would get headaches after a while.

[Hivebrain]

[Mystical Ninja]

Wow, that's actually pretty cool. It's a lot like the rotations of that "Fish-Eye" camera that was used for Sonic X-Treme.

[nineko]

Make new kinds of gravity switchers more complex than Death Egg's ones. Maybe using rotation as well.

This post has been edited by nineko: 13 April 2007 - 06:30 PM

[Caitlin]

So, gravity like this?:

___.
../|
/..|

something like that general (and crappily texted) direction?

[nineko]

Yes. Walk on the walls :D

[Upthorn]

saxman, on Apr 13 2007, 06:58 PM, said:

I thought of that, but I think people would get headaches after a while.

If you know how to do it, you might as well support it anyway, just because it could be an interesting gimmick.

[Shadow Hog]

Agreed, mostly because, in tandem with nineko's suggestion, it could make for one hell of a unique experience.

I'd already worked out the basics of the gimmick in my head, even... running around any curve will alter the direction of gravity to match your normal, unless the curve happens to have a right angle in it somewhere (ie: it's perpendicular to the floor you're on, or parallel to your normal); if it's a right angle such that a wall is in your way, then it acts like a normal wall (ie: you push on it); if it's a right angle such that there's a pit, you would fall into the pit instead of wrapping over onto the resulting cliffside. Obviously it can't be that simple, as there are varying angles to think of (for instance, what if the angle of a slope is tall enough that you shouldn't be able to scale it, yet it isn't a right angle), and momentum'd be a pain (since you can't count on using gravity and curves to build it up necessarily), but I'd be willing to try it out.

[Chimpo]

A rotation feature can be used to make puzzle based platforming levels or even games. If I could only remember the name of the game where a similiar feature was used I would use it as an excellent example since it was a pretty unique and tricky puzzle that was done thanks to the rotating level. I'm pretty sure it was for the Super Nintendo and it was a Donald Duck game developed by a company that wasn't Capcom.

It was a pretty awesome puzzle too.

[saxman]

Hmm, well there certainly seems to be a lot of people who would potentially use the feature. So I'll consider adding it in.

With that feature, the engine would have X, Y, Z, and R? Or A maybe? Whatever you would call it. On my dad's CNC mill, a rotatory axis is labeled 'A' (mainly just to give it something to reference to).

[nineko]

Just a quick mockup:


Basically, something that allows the stage rotation (as in Sonic 1 special stage) AND gravity on any axis.

[Shadow Hog]

There's a Z? Hmm, maybe I should re-read the specs, must've missed that.

Quote

If I could only remember the name of the game where a similiar feature was used I would use it as an excellent example since it was a pretty unique and tricky puzzle that was done thanks to the rotating level. I'm pretty sure it was for the Super Nintendo and it was a Donald Duck game developed by a company that wasn't Capcom.

It was a pretty awesome puzzle too.

Well, there was <I>Super Castlevania IV</I>'s "rotating room"... no Donald Duck in sight, though. Plus it wasn't that complicated a puzzle.