My Summer Project

[NightrainSrt4]

This isn't dead, nor will it die, things have just slowed a bit with classes starting up again.

I've had to spend a majority of my time coding, at the University, on my laptop. Going from three screens to a dinky 720p screen is lame. You can't see the big picture.

I've fixed a few bugs, probably introduced a few more. I've been working on getting a basic weapon/item swing animation in and working. It's in its infancy, but things are starting to come along.

[NightrainSrt4]

With slowed progress between classes and being in and out of the hospital/doctors while feeling like death, things are starting to look up.

I've been working on the art, but my wrist hates me. Thinking of getting a monoprice drawing tablet once money settles down a bit. Less than half the price of the cheapest Wacom at a retail store and far larger. Everyone who has used one seems to give it great reviews, so that is a plus.

Update:

*You now swing the pickaxe when you mine. I'm not sure I like the way I implemented it, but it is a start. Currently only animates when you hold the mouse button. Need to add a function to force a full animation sequence. So once you initiate the swing, you swing all the way through, and not stop just when you let go of the mouse button.

*Saving now keeps track of the time of day you saved at. Loading an existing save now loads the time of day you were last playing at instead of defaulting the beginning of morning every single time. No more saving and reloading to skip night.

*Torches can no longer be placed in water. Still need to despawn torches that get wet from water running over them.

*Holding a torch, i.e. a torch is the currently focused hotbar item, now lights the area around the player to the same radius and brightness of a placed torch. So instead of clicking madly for a place to put a torch in the dark, holding the torch gives off a light allowing you to see. It is also useful for exploring in the night or underground. I may allow the torch to be an accessory item, allowing you to forgo an accessory to have an always on light source. Maybe.

I really need to get some extra funds together so I can get a tablet. My wrist kills me when I'm trying to work on the art. For some of these features it is a chicken and the egg type of deal, where I can implement it in code but have no way to test it without the drawing, yet I can't always code it efficiently without seeing and visualizing what it is going to be.

[TheMainMan]

Glad to hear that you're still chipping away at it. I've gotta say I've really been happy with the stuff I've bought at monoprice lately. It's even cheaper than Chinese knock-offs and ships quicker too! Hope things work out for you.

[NightrainSrt4]

I've been spending some time working on the UI. This image is just where everything is laid out and is in progress. In the thumbnail below the image you can see the UI without the inventory or anything else open. It is similar to before, just larger health/mana/etc bars, the embellishment around the hotbar, and a reduction in hotbar slots.

The left is for the character sheet and equipment.
The lower "inventory" is for chests and vendors.
The box in the upper right is for hovered tooltips. Tentative.
The bottom right is getting set for the base of the crafting system.

I'm working on a system so the two accent colors (the two shades of brown in the image) can be user defined in the options by RGB color codes.

As always, everything is in progress and tentative, but I thought I would share some more of my work.

[NightrainSrt4]

Working on my crafting menu. One of the tabs may also be used for a skill tree system if I decide to go that route.

I've also solved the problem I was having with my implementation of the weapon attack / weapon collisions. Such a simple fix, I can't believe I hadn't come up with it before. It came to me while cleaning. Things either always come to me when cleaning, or when in the shower (running water . . . odd).

EDIT: There are some artifacts. Looks like the gif creator caused them. Everything is solid sets of colors normally.

[NightrainSrt4]

Working on some icons for the tabbed interface. Couldn't get an animated gif up right now, but the icons shift their position by a couple pixels when their tab is the highlighted tab. This helps to give some visual movement when switching tabs.

I can't for the life of me figure out what to use for the miscellaneous tab. Things like torches, ladders, etc. I was thinking of doing a potion like bottle for consumables, but the miscellaneous has me stumped. I might just do a grayscale torch.

The final tab will most likely be for the abilities / skill tree. I might make six crafting categories though, and tab the character sheet on the left for that. Haven't quite decided.

[NightrainSrt4]

So I've decided to keep the crafting entirely separate from the skills. Doesn't make much sense to toss it in a tab with the crafting if I can just put it with the other character stuff.

5/6 Tabs in place. The last is for tools. I just have to make an icon for that. I might change the potion icon so a sideways vial or something. The other icons look beefy while that looks a bit dainty or fragile.

I've got to finish these icons, then layout the crafting within the tabs along with the multiple pages. Then I've got to rework the character sheet for tabs, design the skill menu, create the empty equipment slot icons. I'm sure there is more. Then get it code for it running, which is the easy part for me. Getting everything drawn and designed is the tough part.

[TheMainMan]

What about using a double open-ended wrench for the misc tab? Seeing as it seems like most of the items there will be tools of sorts. Layouts are looking good, it's got a nice retro feel.

[NightrainSrt4]

I wish I had thought of a wrench before! I went with the torch for the miscellaneous, as it would contain torches, ladders, springs, etc. I made a pickaxe for the tools menu. I could change things, and very well may, but I'm charging forward now.

Had to study for an exam, so didn't get too much done. As you can see though, I was working on the equipment slots. I'm pretty happy with the chest piece. I kinda wanted to make it a silhouette as these are for the empty slots, and I like that piece too damn much to see it get covered up by the very first piece of equipment. Shrug, I may leave it as the slot icon, or swap it out for something more simple.

Ignore the sketched out head. Was trying to get a base shape to design a helmet around.

Thanks for the compliments. I'm not an artist so retro works for me, haha. Just trying to keep it clean.

[NightrainSrt4]

I've forced myself to get working on the art. Difficult to split time between everything, but I've made some substantial progress today.

The empty equipment slot icons are in. They should be enough to get the point across, plus when you hover over one of them, will tell you what goes there in the tool tip box just in case.

Now I just have to get the tabbed menu for the character information, and the slots for the crafting, and I can finally get this programmed into the game and move on to something else.

Necklace...............Helmet...........Familiar
Belt......................Chest............Gloves
Ring....................Greaves...........Ring
Accessory Stone.....Boots............Accessory Stone