Lunar Gravitar wip

[Isaac Sauvage]

all three successfully detected my current screen res, which i tested at both 1280x800 and 1152x864. the first program did display at the smaller size ( 1024x768 ) and then snapped to my current screen size with the press of the space bar.

with the second two programs, they were both 'pre-zoomed' to the corners even though the message said "only 1024x768." pressing the space bar merely scaled the boxes in the corners to about half-size.

EDIT: that testing was for the first set you had attached.

 

[Shockman]

Perfect. Full scale is stretched, both displays. Fixed aspect ratio is stretched too, both displays, but only as far as allowed to keep the aspect ratio. unless of course the resolution matches. Fixed scale will not stretch.

The game will be full screen and I have full control over the aspect ratio of the display, or the perception of that, by the size of the surface I select to display.

Fixed scale is really useless other than to test the display. The choice is to maintain an aspect ratio in full screen, or to have full scale, corner to corner.

Thank you Ike.

 

[Shockman]

Another thing that would maximize the end result is if we can determine the max resolution we could all go. This would be the highest resolution that we all have support for. Even 1152x864 would be an improvement over 1024x968. I don't want to make it in 1024x768, if we all could be running it 1n 1280x or more.

I still feel I need to force a resolution. though I can now display the view-ports at whatever resolution you have, it's the part I grab to view that would be the problem. When zoomed in because of the proximity of the rammers for example, that area would be different for each of us that are not running it in the same resolution, unless.... unless I can use percentages of the monitor resolution for these grabs. We'll see. But for sure there will be no more unusable displays.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

sure- glad to help.

yea, i guess i see what you mean about the max res. maybe you could let the user set it in an option panel or something.

that reminds me- based on the last time i played the actual game, the simulated vector lines looked very thin and even patchy. is it possible to boost the thickness and glow like in MAME / AAE? possibly another user option.

 

[kristian]

Make it work in a fixed resolution for now... you can concentrate on the looks later.... it'd be nice to test the gameplay which is the most important thing.

 

[Shockman]

That is exactly what I have just been doing.

The version on the first post will play in 1024x768. You don't have to set it. It will do that and return the res you had when it is done.

Lunar Gravitar wip - Pinball Nirvana Forums

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

no screen issues now. just trying to figure out what i'm doing. guess i need to read the latest instructions or something...

 

[Shockman]

There is no instructions yet. The mission documentation is not even correct. Just rotate, thrust and move around without crashing. Shoot everything that shoots or moves at you.

Hover over the fuel tanks, which are the rounds things on the blue frames and activate the tractor beam to get more fuel. Tractor the Lander and take her out and land on flat things very softly. Bring he back in and land beside the blue ship to run over to it (a Major Havoc cameo bit). Tractor the moon buggy at the bottom and see that nothing happens, Visit the big red world for a time race to shoot the reactor and get back out. That reminds me, that level needs an exit. Shoot the rammers that hover around the planets and the aliens that wonder about the space between, them. Visit the second planet and do stuff there. Visit the one on the bottom left and see that it does not work yet. Visit the top left and see that it's just the same as the bottom right. Run into the sun and think to your self "I better not do that again" Try to land on pads on the lunar lander surface with the gravitar ship. That's about all you can do for now.

 

[kristian]

Got the display working... but with these keys it's still unplayable.

Can you try something like this:

Z-rotate left
X-rotate right
SPACE-tractor
L-thrust
P-fire

It's essential to get the 5-button system working. Cursor keys kill this game (whatever it's going to be).

 

[Shockman]

Yes I could use those keys. What I think would be better and side by side would hit the same spots and have the corner of the keyboard as reference is on the keypad.

6 +

0

I will add both sets

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

could you let the user define the input, which would accept both keystrokes and gamepad presses?

having some gamepad issue right now where the ship is spinning in circles when i start in joystick mode. i'll try it again later and see what happens.

 

[Shockman]

That is the plan. A key mapping routine. There is a few things I need to get in order, then I will work on that before going on.

The rotation is a known issue. It happens with digital joysticks as well as analog sticks in digital mode. This mode could still have one analog stick. For now you need a gamepad with dual analog and it has to be in the dual analog mode. If your stick or pad does not have a mode button it will not work. Only one analog axis is needed so I hope to figure out how to get a single analog device to work correctly.

For the Gravitar ship, the X key works as well as the stick.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

okay, i'll try messing around with the mode button on this logitech. dunno if that's the type of mode button you mean or whether you're referring to something different.

re: X key,
my hands are often in pain which is why i would like to use the gamepad to test if possible.

good to hear about the key-mapping routine, which i presume you'll add to more of your games.

 

[Shockman]

The new update for the lower res version is up. It has a key mapper and some other changes. I will upload the HD version tomorrow.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

better. and that should make kristian happy. can you have it take gamepad inputs as well, or would that be too confusing?

ship is still rotating wildly in gamepad input. pressing 'mode' on the logitech didn't change anything here.

the thickened walls look good to me for the cavern area.

 

[Shockman]

This routine I threw in is just key polling. The joystick could be made to work that way with a separate routine, and they could be merged.

First I need to find out about the rotation problem.

How would you like the gamepad to work? If it is as logical as the keyboard layout suggestion, it too might be the default. If I can not whip something up easy enough, I will make a build how you like it. It's great that I have two testers and guides that love this type of game that have the two controller preferences. Thanks guys.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

okay, the problem was on my end. i plugged in my second logitech and the auto-rotation problem went away. seems that on the original controller the right analog stick must have gotten out of calibration with respect to this particular game, causing it to register a push when none (or very very little) was physically happening. maybe the ranges were set really tight since that stick has never given me such problems before. *shrug*

which brings me to a logistics issue- using analog controls when in 'gravitar' mode is very awkward. it should really be buttons-only IMO.

that also kind of leads in to the clash between gravitar controls and lander controls. that is, i think getting comfy with one button for thrust clashes a lot with getting comfy with a range of thrusts, i.e. analog. they just don't mesh well IMO. better would be to ditch the analog input idea and just go with digital on's or off's. most of the many, many lander games i've played have indeed been push button affairs with little less for the loss.

anyway, something to think about.

re: setting the controls,
ideally it would be like MAME where you can see a list of commands next to the inputs that correspond to them. otherwise, taking gamepad input through polling is okay. not a huge deal, really.

 

[Shockman]

Yeah, the problem is not analog control but that everything is treated as analog. I worked on that last night and made progress, but had the code in a state I no longer trusted so reverted. I'm working on converting the control for everything, other than landers' thrust to work as digitally on the dual analog stick. The change will be unnoticeable to a perfectly calibrated analog control, as it is now if working, but it will eliminate the problem of having no dead zone.

There are two ways to fix this. one is simple using a different function which reads direction, and not position of an axis. This has to be the X/Y axis though. Another is to hard code a dead zone and ignore readings outside a range.

Ideally, in my mind for a dual analog stick, is right stick thrust, left hat switch fire and thrust/shield. For ease and less movement.

Remember, we are talking about devices, but it is really all about axis.

 

[Shockman]

The reason I like checking the position of the stick vs the direction of the stick has nothing to do with analog vs digital, though that is the case. Using position, one reading will tell if the stick is to the left. Up left, down left, it's all left. Using direction I would have to check left, up left, and down left, all, and separately. I don't want rotation to stop if you wonder into a diag.

I think I have fixed the problem that you had Ike, that I did not, with the rotation even in analog mode. I did have it when thrusting though, it would cause rotation if the stick was not calibrated. You were right, the settings were too tight with no margin for error. There is a 10% dead zone now.

- All planets in the first level have worlds, but two are the same, and one is from level 2. - The lander world is moved to planet 4 (upper left), which the Gravitar level belongs. The world from level two is on planet three (lower left) and is a retro level, meaning the guns and fuel tanks are as in the arcade. The status of each planet is maintained till the mission there is complete.
- When you leave a world, you spawn at that planet, unless the mission is complete, or you left because you were killed, then you spawn at your home base. you show up below the home base, and the aliens above, simulating you are in it. You are also safe from enemy fire inside there.
- Explosions are now particles instead of the cheezy sprite. More realistic, but they fade away.
_ Scoring is in, lives are in. Still need to do the bonuses time and score.

The pic is from the retro world. It looks pretty nice as far as simulating the vector lines with double intensity at overlap.

 

[Shockman]

It's hard to tell if the Gravitar ship has friction, or if the thrust builds up fast. The physics are a little confusing, because the ship tends to surge. It's like gravity has more effect on momentum than a pulling to it's point. Must be friction, but possibly dynamic. I will get it.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

Once I can get my gamepad set up with digital controls I'll be happy to do some actual gameplay testing. I suppose I could just use RBjoy until you work out these control issues. Okay, problem solved.

 

[Shockman]

No digital controller will work. RBjoy or joy2key etc. will make it work though, just be sure to press 1 on the keyboard and not button one on the controller so the joystick is not read by the game code. I'm assuming this. I have not tested it.

I have joystick control that works, keyboard control that works and can be re-mapped. I'm not saying I am done with control, I am not. Using a joystick always assumes the device is compatible. Some pads have digital and analog control. My steelseries rumble pad is like this. some are all digital and some are all analog. I use to have a dual stick controller that the mode button would switch from dual analog to one analog and one digital.

 

[Shockman]

For the lower res version, actually for both, but motivated by the low res version I have made the solar system (planet select) screen more compact, which makes the ship bigger there. It matches the arcade version. I also am in the process of editing the vector style font (vector battle) to have much wider lines and saving it as a new font. I also edited out the hash on the zeros and saved another named Asteroids with thin lines and no hash.

The lower res version will look very nice. The first solar system will be done in about a week and hopefully physics dialed in as well, which would made the rest of the game mostly graphics work. I will release a demo then that has the first solar system and the select screen for the next, and for the time reverse gravity or make the terrain invisible or something using the same worlds. Lunar Lander would be a trip without seeing the mountains and valleys.

 

[Shockman]

The screenshot shows the new scale of the select screen, the new font (which actually only the letters I use so far, and the numbers are done), the reader boards are falling into place (the old one will only show when playing Lunar Lander), and the timer of the planet bonus is working for planet one.

The planet objects will need to have the aspect ratio adjusted now. The objects will have a square aspect ratio, at 16/10.

The super bonus in Gravitar is in my opinion uninspired, giving a relative massive amount of points based on which planet you complete the mission on first. It really serves no purpose but inflate the score, though it does inspire you to do the most difficult planet first, the link planet. The cameo games in my version will be the super bonus. On the first system placing a flag on each pad will give you the super bonus points. In system two it will be an Omega Race game for bonus points, and so on with a bonus game on every system. Maybe you will play level one of those games, and if you cycle back to the start of Gravitar you will play the next level of those games, while the Gravitar game will have reversed gravity on level two. There will be 12 planets per level, 4 each plus the link, so 3 cameo games. Lunar Lander, Omega Race, and another.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

i'm more of a lunar lander and oids guy than a gravitar guy. no idea about those bonuses, and i'm not all that familiar with the official planetary layouts. hopefully kristian or someone else can drop in and give feedback on that stuff.

anyway, RBjoy is working okay and i'm trying to test the 1st cavern area. i must say it's kind of a pain after every death to have to fly back over there and squeeze through that tunnel to get back to what i was doing. if there was a shortcut for testing, that would help. maybe key "1" would jump you to the cavern in world one, etc.....