graphics as the entire level
 

i was wondering if anyone has considering making an overworld where all the levels are a collection of graphics. i mean that the level functionality is covered by an image which the player walks over. instead of using a tile set, the overworld just uses images

i know gate made a castle on npulse this way, and it turned out looking really well, especially since he could add small details to unique places, which with tilesets would make them all look the same. it also tends to make making levels easier, since tile errors don't matter anymore - the image will cover them up. so long as the tiles are in the right place to block the player and what-not, the image takes care of the rest

has it ever been done?

Never seen it on a public server.

Well the whole point of a tileset is so that you won't have to use giant images per level...

You can't, I mean you can but have fun the tremendous lag. Putting images everywhere would clog up the server so badly your server would conk out all the time. I know this because I have played some servers with this theme.

The roof of the LC gang base was an image and it worked fine but it was a simple roof.

I'm pretty sure he means the entire level is one drawn image

Definitely possible, even on GMAPs. There was something on GK doing it, but I better not say any more.

As long as the image is compressed/small in size and is not animated :)

Using a lot of animated images can clog up easy. (Reason why you should not flood a level with those darn animated flowers -.-)

Its not impossible but it'd be pretty impractical and would put a bit of strain on the server due to players having to download level-sized images when they are walking around the overworld.

Seems like it'd be a better solution if you don't want levels to look the same to add a wider assortment of tiles to the tileset for outside leveling. :confused:

It seems like it would be nice for detailed inside levels though

Yes, can confirm it works nicely with 24bit PNG :)

lol "flying technology"?

wouldn't the server not lag once the player downloads all of the images (for instance, as soon as they log on) so that everything is already there? i mean yes, you could just use a wider arrangement of tiles in a (or several) tileset(s), but it's essentially doing the same thing

Wouldn't cause any server lag, I don't think. You'd be showing the images through a clientside weapon script anyway, because if you place them in the actual level (at least for a GMAP), the image will disappear when you leave that level.

I think he meant the actual downloading of so many large images, the actual bandwidth and such.

I still don't think it would be that taxing. Maybe for a huge GMAP of these images, but meh... I can't imagine it being too bad.

If it was a map with lots of images that would take some time to download but you're right, once they have everything it'd be fine, but they would also have to redownload the image for any minor edits levels also. Have to also consider people with slower connections who are going to be stuck there waiting if an entire maps worth of images are being downloaded.

For one player I don't think it would be taxing but in the worst case scenario, where the server is hugely popular, there are lots of regular players and guests downloading/redownloading these files regularly.

I think crystia tried this at some point of time. No idea if they followed this path further.

The whole thing shows a big problem on graal:

The scripting engine is being updated regularly, while things like multi-layer or other methods to create better, more interactive and spectacular levels, were never introduced.
But it's no news that the focus of stefans and unixmads work have hurt graal in the last years.

When I worked on Final Fantasy Fate 4 or so years ago all of their levels were images, I think the only tiles that existed were the outside images. There was a huge problem though. When I was a LAT there and I added their images they wouldn't show up, DDKUK the owner had to send me all of the images so I could LAT this was like 300+ images just so I can make one level.

I always thought about using images for prerendered backgrounds though. Problem is that only works best when you control the resolution and such. Graal also doesn't have very good(actually nil) support for things like masking, which I imagine are often used for 'wall maps' of the area. Though I'm sure this could be easily done level-wise by simply making a mask of the walls and making it block, while having the rest of the images not block...

Don't you have hair to comb, mascara to apply, or something? :p
We did a decent sized GMAP and, if I recall correctly, it accounted for less than 1MB of images :)
One of the main reasons I've ended up using "level images" is because Graal's light engine is ****. :(

It'd probably be really laggy.

Why do you think so?

I'm not sure about other people but any level with a lot of NPCs is a lag fest to me.

i never said anything about NPCs

You would need (an) NPC(s) to display the image(s) though.

It really depends on how you do it though. It's better with one big compressed image then many small images. For example, don't build a building out of many small 16x16 / 32x32 images as the quantity might cause lag on low-end computers. And, try to stay away from animated images, as they clog up even faster.

you could do the whole level as one image which would mean you would only download one npc per level and it wouldn't be a lag fest

that is what i am talking about

I think Chris or Tig could elaborate on it better, but we had to break our images into sections of 512x512 (or, for some reason, the image wouldn't display if it was outside of a certain area of your screen).

Ya, Graal does have some pretty inaccurate clipping.

My concern would be with blocking and non-blocking objects.

Probably by adding blocking tiles underneath the image while the image draws under the player.

That is assuming he meant one whole image.

That'd be rather sloppy imo

I don't remember exactly, but I recall the maximum file size download being a potential problem, which was why it was split up (protip: ImageMagick works wonders at chopping images).

Also, if you had like a 14x14 GMAP or something, that's a a 14336x14336 image. I can't imagine it being efficient to show an image this large.

If this was being done for a huge GMAP, you'd probably need some kind of special scripting that only shows images for visible levels, not every single level. Tig did the scripting on GK, and I don't know if he just showed all the images at once, or only showed certain ones. It was working very nicely, though.

This is what was done on GK. The image wasn't an actual NPC, it was being shown with (I think) a weapon using showimg.

it could be done better if the server was done in the zelda style of once you reach the boarder the next level loads, leaving the other one behind

and i don't mean one giant massive image for the entire GMAP, i mean one image per level over the span of the GMAP's levels. it's evident that it can be scripted in; i think it could make certain levels look and feel very unique compared to what levels typically bring to the table

Then do it.

Games which have big images instead of tiles arent using a tile based block detection
and dont have a fix level size like Graal's 64x64 tiles :O

Screen of Tales of Eternia's Debug Mode with the Blue Block Detection Lines (x2) :
http://home.graffiti.net/chrischi4u/toedebug.png

:rolleyes:

it's already been done by gate. i wanted to introduce the concept to others so maybe they would try it, or at least experiment with it

By the way, where is this castle on N-Pulse? I wanted to check it out but can't seem to find it.

i'm not sure if it's even up anymore, i haven't talked to gate in awhile. it was for his "deathcorps" guild or whatever the name was. i remembered it while looking at the level forum, thinking about how awesome it was. i used to have pictures of it before my hard drive crashed and i had to replace it

i'll have to ask him on AIM

gate made sure i tell you guys that this is old work of his, it's nothing recent. it does show how awesome you can make levels using this technique. it's pretty obvious the steps taken here