Null updates, info, and development.

[Falco Girgis]

Warmtoe of DCEmu (actually, here too now) has suggested something interesting:

You know, that particle stuff reminds me a lot of a spray-can - would be a cool game (kind of like a 2D JetGrindRadio) if you had to go around spraying various objects in your 'gang colours' - of course, you could still use the same engine for blood and splashes etc - but it would give it some originality.

I'm actually considering that. It seems reasonable and he's right, that would be original as well as pretty awesome.

[spideyspiderman2000]

Maybe you could change the color of your character or play around like a paint program. You could draw stuff on the blue rectangle, kind of like that feature they've got in Kirby and the Amazing mirror, except you'd have more options.

[Falco Girgis]

You soiling douche bag. I just lost lots of respect. I think I'll walk into your room and beat you up now...

[Guest]

http://www.dcemulation.com/phpBB/viewto ... 303#668303

I'm Arce, Gyrovorbis's brother. It is an honor to post on these forums. I cannot Dev for DC or anything, but I'm posting none the less to tell about the level editor. :D

The level editor is being made in Blitz Plus, a BASIC language for PC that contains some components of C++. It is not yet near complete. But, it is still useable and good for making Null levels. All of the screen shots you saw above were levels made form older versions of my null editor.

In its current state, it is only a tile layer. We are planning to add multiple things, but, unfortunately, I am not telling what.  Anyway, below are some screenz of some levels I made and loaded.



Those are two screenz with Megaman based tiles. Sorry about the grid being turned on, I forgot to disable it.

Anyway, if you notice, there are red lines. They mark the end of a screen on the Dreamcast, which helps with creating levels when taking scrolling into consideration.

Anyway, as there is a Megaman theme, there are also other themes under construction. Here's a few screenz:


I'm sure you can tell what this is immediately. Mario.


Yes, the Mario's ARE mixed together.


More Mario tiles.


Yes, mixed tiles. I actually think it looks good. Does anyone here agree? Disagree?


This is a screen without the grid on. And, again, it has mixed tiles.

I'd like to hear what you think. Yes, All of the above levels can and have been played on the Dreamcast and work fine. Thanks goes to anyone who reads this. :D

BTW, ALL Mario sprites here were ripped by Showdin, and the Megaman ones, with an exception to three of them, are by me. :D

[JS Lemming]

Hmmm. Koo aspect with the spray can and all, but I don't see how you plan to "spraying various objects in your 'gang colours'" since the wall sides are not in our view. At most you would see a verticle line on the side of a block(s). Am I misinterpreting?

[Guest]

I'm a soiling douche bag for posting about the level editor? WTF did I soil? If I soiled my editor, then that doesn't concern you, so STFU.

[Falco Girgis]

a long time later...

I've been working on Null on and off recently.

Last night I started to completely rip it appart and recode lots of it. I've decided that I don't want Null to be some sub-par coding monstrosity on my part. I've started doing some things including cleaning up code and using better programming practices (like accessor methods and private data members) that I should've done a long time ago.

I think it'll be awhile before I get back on track.

The next thing I'd like to address is the level editing. After talking with Tvspelsfreak, I've decided how this'll work. First, we'll have an on-DC level editor. When you load up the game, you can start game or go to the on game editor. There, you can edit/load levels from your CD-R, VMU, or PC. Then, you can save them either on your PC or VMU. The downside is that only a few people have coder's cables which will mean that most people will be saving it to the VMU. The VMU isn't going to be able to hold a billion levels...

The probably "better" method is to use the SDL/PC level editor. You can then save files and burn almost infinate maps to a CD-R and simply switch out Null for your level disk you created on PC so you can browse through your levels and pick which ones you wish to load/edit via the DC. Then you can save those to your VMU and such.

Since I'll not only have to make Null, but also have to make the PC/SDL level editor and port it to the DC, it might take awhile longer. I'm looking forward to it and I'm pretty highly motivated right now...

[JS Lemming]

Switching the cd out? How's that work? You can just open the lid and replace the CD any time you want??? Anybody know how many bytes the VMU can hold? I bet it can't hold enough for just a coulpe of large levels. You'll probably need to compress teh level data too. Try RLE, it'll probably work best.

[Falco Girgis]

Yeah, DC let's you do that just whenever.

The game will be in RAM, so you can just exchange for a CD-R.

VMU holds 200 (to 240) blocks (real helpful, huh?) I believe that's an equivalent of 1MB...

[Tvspelsfreak]

Anybody know how many bytes the VMU can hold?

100KB - 128KB.
I don't remember exactly...

He could use gz compression...
A normal sized map shouldn't be more than a couple of KBs depending on the complexity.

[JS Lemming]

What exactly is gz compression? Heard about it but have no knowledge. Ah well, I can google it later.

[Falco Girgis]

Null update:

I haven't gotten much done, I'm almost completely rewriting Null to be more independent (as in you give it a level and it knows what to do) so that it can be moddable and easier to create levels and such.

Anyway, I think I'm going to go ahead and start on the PC editor while I rewrite Null. It does get a bit depressing and gloomy just changing some stuff around. It'd feel great to work on something different for a change (PC editor with SDL would be nice).

So yes, until next time.