I wonder if anyone is open to HD flare art commissions? I could in theory do both game mechanic testing work and have 'Flare HD' art assets being made if I had to commission them anyway. Although my main concern is work load complexity / asking for too much too fast. Although I wonder if anyone in the community is interested as a hobby? The 2H attack animations could work in theory for original and ~'Flare HD'. Has anyone outside of Clint Bellanger created animations for Flare? Perhaps the 2H attack animations would be a good / reasonable starter art project for it enables a gameplay play-style as well.
Shorthand: Could a 2 affix and 2 suffix item generator system work?
Also new high definition art assets and animations for Flare are important to myself yet getting the core gameplay mechanics tested and working comes first.
Also can crafting be used to take away item affixes and suffixes effectively to return 'magical' items into 'base items'?
Longhand: Okay so 3 affixes and 3 suffixes is a bit much in terms of complexity (also it gets a bit crazy in name length / player expectations and borders on meme territory like the classic example of the longest German word: Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitan (Danube steamship company captain). So your system has 2 affixes and 1 suffix within realistic (non-insanity) work flow? Could 2 affixes and 2 suffixes be used? I even struggle to get 3 affixes and 3 suffixes and a lot can be merged like vanilla WoW's random stat items. Also doe this random item generator work with a bunch of custom item rarity text colours (it should?). Also I guess item 'enchanting' could just be a form of crafting even to add affixes and suffixes (if there is space / room [how would a check be done then?])? I suppose base items could be (with a crafting system) 'salvaged' and have new item bases made and have the crafting add more stats to them later to give deep crafting depth hopefully / wide level ranges of item relevance / 'up-trading' item ~crafting economy kind of like in Path of Exile.
Animations. When I can flesh out / test to see if the the Flare x 4 prototype can work sufficiency / good enough / reliably. Then once the major / game play critical features are fleshed-out and working I can shift gears and battle with the art and animations properly. Right now I would super ecstatic if the rough ~'placeholder' Flare x 4 art can work (even with low resolution player presentation). Although once the long battle for major gameplay features is majorly conquered / very close to complete / ~'done'. Then the big battle of 'going wide' / pushing out the visual diversity begins. Right now I am kind of wedged in to a corner trying to find what works and what creative tools / assets I can work with to build a (hopefully) a game worth playing. For in short I want to get the blender animations in a place where all of the main player expectations of character play-styles can be viable / enjoyed in the game (sword and shield/offhand, dual wielding, two-handed with armours being cloth, leather, mail, plate [possibly heavy / full plate]. I do have the animations / high definition renders for the graphics for turning Flare x 4 into ~'Flare HD' on my priorities; although after all of the major gameplay features / mechanics are fleshed out and prototyped / working and the main creative game 'tool set' is established / properly tested. If I have to get professional help for new art assets so be it. I am sure that with there being so many wonderous blender artist that someone can help make art assets if it come down to paying for commissions for making Flare HD art assets. So either way I hope to make good on the Flare HD art assets and animations, but only after the gameplay and game world building features and toolset(s) are properly hammered out.
Gems are cool although I guess with a crafting system they could (hopefully) be used in away to upgrade item bases and or even possibly add affixes / suffixes to items (if possible) kind of like a jewelcrafting version of enchanting (using added affixes and suffixes). How can an item be 'wiped' / converted back to item base item (like how Path of Exile can remove affixes and suffixes from items and return the base item)?
Wow big thanks to Justin Jacobs a.k.a Dorkster for this feature: Layered animations for non-player entities. What a legend XD. @Danimal Now you can make super crazy areas with tons of different kinds of humanoid monsters, creatures and N.P.C.s! Man this is such massive feature. For now Flare can have content depth like an M.M.O.R.P.G. with even thousands of creature customizations and ways to make places and populations feel unique and diverse and really build character to the world. Tons and tons of world building:-D!
Where can one find the heavy .blend sources? I use the .blend files to make new dual wield animations. Also I will most likely have to battle out new Flare x 4 scale animations / art assets which will require .blend source files.
What can be done with the Item Generator? Can it have 3 affixes and 3 suffixes applied to the base item (and still work)? What are the possibilities and the restrictions with the current iteration of the item generator? Can specific chosen fixed ranged item (not random) affixes and suffixes be applied to items? Such as 'Blessed Fine Pure Steel Cuirass of Major Vitality and Lesser Might and Minor Gloam [Frost/Ice] Resistance'? A bit of a long possible item names but still lots of pixels can lead to long item names.
Has anyone tried to make an 'enchanting' system, like where items get new arbitrary attributes and or item effects (e.g. Crusader). Likewise has any tried to make an item system with sockets with gems / jewels / runes items for Flare? I think all that Flare is missing from Diablo II item depth is affixes and suffixes (random item generator), sockets and gems / jewels / runes (minus runewords). Is a gem / socket system out of realistic reach or is it one of those things that can be done but needs lots of work to implemented?
@rubberduck Can these Flare HD art assets use / be compatible with / in 256 x 128 scale pixel tiles? Also I am without a clear understanding as to how to turn this: https://www.deviantart.com/withinamnesia/art/Balduran-s-Sea-Tower-Redesi... into this: https://github.com/flareteam/flare-game/blob/master/art_src/tilesets/gra... . I am hoping to have a 'Flare x 4' prototype working and eventually I hope to piece by piece replace the enlarged x 4 original Flare art assets / animations with new Flare HD art assets. Basically Flare but 4 times the pixel density / each original art asset pixel is split into 4 to start to get a working prototype with enlarged x 4 original flare art assets. How close is this 'Flare x 4' to your ideas of 'Flare HD'? For example can the 'Flare HD' tilesets work as rendered 256 x 128 scale pixel tiles? Also how can one make a 256 x 128 scale pixel tile standard lighting rig / work pipe line / get blender to make 256 x 128 scale pixel tiles from say a bunch big castle 3D models?
I am working on 128 x 128 pixel scale icons and I am wondering how to have each icon be its own .png image? For if I have (like you say) thousands of icons, it would be a nightmare to have to change the whole giant icons.png image to make a small change. Also keeping track of say icon 1528, is like uhh so where is that again? XD. vanilla World of Warcraft has over 2,000+ unique icons and if anyone were to match that scale of content than there needs to be compartmentalized / modular / each icon is its' own separate .png image to battle the complexity with simplified icon image management.
How are you trying to get the random item generator to work? Is it like Diablo / Path of Exile? I was thinking that such a system would be hard to make. So I just kind of left it in the back of my mind; but that is really cool to hear that you are going for it. --------------- How does a respect option work? Is it an NPC or event and or an item? How does that work? I know with console commands that there are a respect options. Although I wonder how to 'gamify' / put that in game? Is it a case of an NPC dialog triggering an event or something like a quest? How does one go about making a respec option for a game in Flare?
I also am overhauling everything on my side of things. For I want to get the core gameplay hammered out and I am trying to get 'Flare x 4' working so that I can add longevity / 'Flare HD' down the road. To hopefully go from 2000's player presentation / graphics to 2020's / on par with Diablo II Resurrected player presentation / graphics. I figured that if it takes myself into the late 2020's to get all of the maps and areas ('game world ecosystems' / large content areas) built out / long term support of the game. Then I better make a game that can stand up to the test of time. So I hope that right now pushing as hard as I can for a working 'Flare x 4' can eventually lead to 'Flare HD'; of which I hope can be played well into the 2030's and beyond. This will hopefully avoid the original Baldur's Gate / Diablo 'dated graphics' / low resolution textures / art assets and be more like Pillars of Eternity / Path of Exile / Diablo II Resurrected eventually. Although that all starts with getting the framework / 'skeleton' of the 'Flare x 4' prototyped and working and bit by bit, piece by piece swap out the low resolution art assets with high resolution art assets (hopefully making a realistic work load and path towards 'Flare HD').
I hope that I / we / the community can succeed at 'Flare x 4' and the community can get access to basically the working 'version 1.0' / prototype of 'Flare HD'. Given that all of the art is open source / forever free to use that means if one of us rises to a greater feat of gameplay features / quality of experience then everyone else is also empowered. I really like this open source / forever free approach to game development for it enables everyone rich or poor to have a fair chance at making great games decade after decade. I remember playing Baldur's Gate, 2000's WoW, Diablo, Runescape, Zelda, Mount and Blade etc. and being so frustrated that I could not make a great game of my own legally with the same game engine. I did not have millions of dollars to ~'face tank' a whole studio of expenses to produce a great game. So I had to venture out and self-teach myself how to create content for old games that I enjoyed. I had to learn from nothing and figure out first how to 'mod' for a community in the ~'digital wilderness'; hopping around tinkering and modding games from community to community. I just keep the momentum up year after year and I just keep failing upwards until I get better and better. I become more and more creatively powerful with each cycle of success and failure; with each time getting closer and closer to realizing my life long dreams.
I eventually ended up here trying to combine my favourite parts of other great games in a tool set / game engine that can support / create great games and that is finally forever free / open source for everyone. I hope that by making a great game series / realize a medieval fantasy setting in some kick ass video games, that it will inspire more people keep making better and better video games. What ever assets I make I hope that they can be free for everyone to use for if I 'make it' (able to reliable produce commercially viable video games that can stand the test of time and be enjoyed by the community); I would like to bring more than just myself up. So as to kind of make right the old wrongs / problems of my past frustrations of being a creative person with no powerful tools to realize my creative visions / dreams. Thus to empower the world and have creative people of all kinds be empowered with open and powerful video game creating tools and a kick ass game engine forever free :-).
Also I have this castle I want to make into a tileset but I want to get Flare x 4 stress tested and working properly and start making 'Flare HD' quality of tilesets with 256 x 128 pixel scale tiles . I am wondering how to get this model rigged up in a standard (hopefully blender) render rig so I can make Flare compatible tileset and use them. I hope to make Flare standard tilesets (with same style as the base game art assets) and then have my own unique version to match my own artistic styles for my game. So that when I go to make new arts assets (like a castle tileset) I can share my work with the community to be opensource / forever free to use and I also get to make my own game better. Although I need to better understand how to turn this: https://www.deviantart.com/withinamnesia/art/Balduran-s-Sea-Tower-Redesi... into this: https://github.com/flareteam/flare-game/blob/master/art_src/tilesets/gra...
@Danimal What are the main goals for your work work with Flare? What inspired you here and there and what are you aiming towards making? What are some of the most important novel / new things you have added / wish to add to Flare? You did a lot of cool work with adding in new armour weapons and enemies and making tilesets work. I wonder though what other things might not have made it and what are the possible future goals moving forwards for your work with Flare?
Although I am wondering if 'Flare x 4' can work where the Flare engine could run all the original art assets of Flare yet with x 4 the pixel density. As in like how 32 x 32 icons turned into 128 x 128 icons success as seen in screen shots. 32 x 4 = 128, or split one pixel into 4 to make the same image but with 4 times the pixel density.
If 'Flare x 4' can work that could pave the way for 2020's graphics for Flare and it could make any game running on Flare still use the original assets but have the option to bit by bit add in high detail art assets. With the new high resolution art assets being able to be side by side of the original low resolution art assets. This can eventually lead to games made with the Flare engine to be as in high of detail as that of Diablo 2 Resurrected or other high resolution isometric games. This can take the 2000's graphics of Flare and bring them into the 2020's and add decades of life to the visuals of the game and hopefully graphically stand the test of time.
Has anyone fought for high resolution in Flare yet? I know Clint Bellanger did Wandercall / ~'FlareHD'. Do we have any experience ~'in house' or am I flying into this blind and hoping that Dorkster can tell myself how to ~'not suck so bad'(XD) at using the Flare engine to try and increase the pixel density / minimum resolution by 4. From 640 x 480 into (hopefully) 2,560 x 1,920 with 128 x 128 icons (splitting the pixels by 4 to make the old assets still work / look the same but be able to bit by bit add in new higher resolution art assets / icons).
I wonder if anyone is open to HD flare art commissions? I could in theory do both game mechanic testing work and have 'Flare HD' art assets being made if I had to commission them anyway. Although my main concern is work load complexity / asking for too much too fast. Although I wonder if anyone in the community is interested as a hobby? The 2H attack animations could work in theory for original and ~'Flare HD'. Has anyone outside of Clint Bellanger created animations for Flare? Perhaps the 2H attack animations would be a good / reasonable starter art project for it enables a gameplay play-style as well.
Shorthand: Could a 2 affix and 2 suffix item generator system work?
Also new high definition art assets and animations for Flare are important to myself yet getting the core gameplay mechanics tested and working comes first.
Also can crafting be used to take away item affixes and suffixes effectively to return 'magical' items into 'base items'?
Longhand: Okay so 3 affixes and 3 suffixes is a bit much in terms of complexity (also it gets a bit crazy in name length / player expectations and borders on meme territory like the classic example of the longest German word: Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitan (Danube steamship company captain). So your system has 2 affixes and 1 suffix within realistic (non-insanity) work flow? Could 2 affixes and 2 suffixes be used? I even struggle to get 3 affixes and 3 suffixes and a lot can be merged like vanilla WoW's random stat items. Also doe this random item generator work with a bunch of custom item rarity text colours (it should?). Also I guess item 'enchanting' could just be a form of crafting even to add affixes and suffixes (if there is space / room [how would a check be done then?])? I suppose base items could be (with a crafting system) 'salvaged' and have new item bases made and have the crafting add more stats to them later to give deep crafting depth hopefully / wide level ranges of item relevance / 'up-trading' item ~crafting economy kind of like in Path of Exile.
Animations. When I can flesh out / test to see if the the Flare x 4 prototype can work sufficiency / good enough / reliably. Then once the major / game play critical features are fleshed-out and working I can shift gears and battle with the art and animations properly. Right now I would super ecstatic if the rough ~'placeholder' Flare x 4 art can work (even with low resolution player presentation). Although once the long battle for major gameplay features is majorly conquered / very close to complete / ~'done'. Then the big battle of 'going wide' / pushing out the visual diversity begins. Right now I am kind of wedged in to a corner trying to find what works and what creative tools / assets I can work with to build a (hopefully) a game worth playing. For in short I want to get the blender animations in a place where all of the main player expectations of character play-styles can be viable / enjoyed in the game (sword and shield/offhand, dual wielding, two-handed with armours being cloth, leather, mail, plate [possibly heavy / full plate]. I do have the animations / high definition renders for the graphics for turning Flare x 4 into ~'Flare HD' on my priorities; although after all of the major gameplay features / mechanics are fleshed out and prototyped / working and the main creative game 'tool set' is established / properly tested. If I have to get professional help for new art assets so be it. I am sure that with there being so many wonderous blender artist that someone can help make art assets if it come down to paying for commissions for making Flare HD art assets. So either way I hope to make good on the Flare HD art assets and animations, but only after the gameplay and game world building features and toolset(s) are properly hammered out.
Gems are cool although I guess with a crafting system they could (hopefully) be used in away to upgrade item bases and or even possibly add affixes / suffixes to items (if possible) kind of like a jewelcrafting version of enchanting (using added affixes and suffixes). How can an item be 'wiped' / converted back to item base item (like how Path of Exile can remove affixes and suffixes from items and return the base item)?
Wow big thanks to Justin Jacobs a.k.a Dorkster for this feature:
Layered animations for non-player entities. What a legend XD.
@Danimal Now you can make super crazy areas with tons of different kinds of humanoid monsters, creatures and N.P.C.s! Man this is such massive feature. For now Flare can have content depth like an M.M.O.R.P.G. with even thousands of creature customizations and ways to make places and populations feel unique and diverse and really build character to the world. Tons and tons of world building:-D!
Where can one find the heavy .blend sources? I use the .blend files to make new dual wield animations. Also I will most likely have to battle out new Flare x 4 scale animations / art assets which will require .blend source files.
What can be done with the Item Generator? Can it have 3 affixes and 3 suffixes applied to the base item (and still work)? What are the possibilities and the restrictions with the current iteration of the item generator? Can specific chosen fixed ranged item (not random) affixes and suffixes be applied to items? Such as 'Blessed Fine Pure Steel Cuirass of Major Vitality and Lesser Might and Minor Gloam [Frost/Ice] Resistance'? A bit of a long possible item names but still lots of pixels can lead to long item names.
Has anyone tried to make an 'enchanting' system, like where items get new arbitrary attributes and or item effects (e.g. Crusader). Likewise has any tried to make an item system with sockets with gems / jewels / runes items for Flare? I think all that Flare is missing from Diablo II item depth is affixes and suffixes (random item generator), sockets and gems / jewels / runes (minus runewords). Is a gem / socket system out of realistic reach or is it one of those things that can be done but needs lots of work to implemented?
@rubberduck Can these Flare HD art assets use / be compatible with / in 256 x 128 scale pixel tiles? Also I am without a clear understanding as to how to turn this: https://www.deviantart.com/withinamnesia/art/Balduran-s-Sea-Tower-Redesi... into this: https://github.com/flareteam/flare-game/blob/master/art_src/tilesets/gra... . I am hoping to have a 'Flare x 4' prototype working and eventually I hope to piece by piece replace the enlarged x 4 original Flare art assets / animations with new Flare HD art assets. Basically Flare but 4 times the pixel density / each original art asset pixel is split into 4 to start to get a working prototype with enlarged x 4 original flare art assets. How close is this 'Flare x 4' to your ideas of 'Flare HD'? For example can the 'Flare HD' tilesets work as rendered 256 x 128 scale pixel tiles? Also how can one make a 256 x 128 scale pixel tile standard lighting rig / work pipe line / get blender to make 256 x 128 scale pixel tiles from say a bunch big castle 3D models?
I am working on 128 x 128 pixel scale icons and I am wondering how to have each icon be its own .png image? For if I have (like you say) thousands of icons, it would be a nightmare to have to change the whole giant icons.png image to make a small change. Also keeping track of say icon 1528, is like uhh so where is that again? XD. vanilla World of Warcraft has over 2,000+ unique icons and if anyone were to match that scale of content than there needs to be compartmentalized / modular / each icon is its' own separate .png image to battle the complexity with simplified icon image management.
How are you trying to get the random item generator to work? Is it like Diablo / Path of Exile? I was thinking that such a system would be hard to make. So I just kind of left it in the back of my mind; but that is really cool to hear that you are going for it.
---------------
How does a respect option work? Is it an NPC or event and or an item? How does that work? I know with console commands that there are a respect options. Although I wonder how to 'gamify' / put that in game? Is it a case of an NPC dialog triggering an event or something like a quest? How does one go about making a respec option for a game in Flare?
I also am overhauling everything on my side of things. For I want to get the core gameplay hammered out and I am trying to get 'Flare x 4' working so that I can add longevity / 'Flare HD' down the road. To hopefully go from 2000's player presentation / graphics to 2020's / on par with Diablo II Resurrected player presentation / graphics. I figured that if it takes myself into the late 2020's to get all of the maps and areas ('game world ecosystems' / large content areas) built out / long term support of the game. Then I better make a game that can stand up to the test of time. So I hope that right now pushing as hard as I can for a working 'Flare x 4' can eventually lead to 'Flare HD'; of which I hope can be played well into the 2030's and beyond. This will hopefully avoid the original Baldur's Gate / Diablo 'dated graphics' / low resolution textures / art assets and be more like Pillars of Eternity / Path of Exile / Diablo II Resurrected eventually. Although that all starts with getting the framework / 'skeleton' of the 'Flare x 4' prototyped and working and bit by bit, piece by piece swap out the low resolution art assets with high resolution art assets (hopefully making a realistic work load and path towards 'Flare HD').
I hope that I / we / the community can succeed at 'Flare x 4' and the community can get access to basically the working 'version 1.0' / prototype of 'Flare HD'. Given that all of the art is open source / forever free to use that means if one of us rises to a greater feat of gameplay features / quality of experience then everyone else is also empowered. I really like this open source / forever free approach to game development for it enables everyone rich or poor to have a fair chance at making great games decade after decade. I remember playing Baldur's Gate, 2000's WoW, Diablo, Runescape, Zelda, Mount and Blade etc. and being so frustrated that I could not make a great game of my own legally with the same game engine. I did not have millions of dollars to ~'face tank' a whole studio of expenses to produce a great game. So I had to venture out and self-teach myself how to create content for old games that I enjoyed. I had to learn from nothing and figure out first how to 'mod' for a community in the ~'digital wilderness'; hopping around tinkering and modding games from community to community. I just keep the momentum up year after year and I just keep failing upwards until I get better and better. I become more and more creatively powerful with each cycle of success and failure; with each time getting closer and closer to realizing my life long dreams.
I eventually ended up here trying to combine my favourite parts of other great games in a tool set / game engine that can support / create great games and that is finally forever free / open source for everyone. I hope that by making a great game series / realize a medieval fantasy setting in some kick ass video games, that it will inspire more people keep making better and better video games. What ever assets I make I hope that they can be free for everyone to use for if I 'make it' (able to reliable produce commercially viable video games that can stand the test of time and be enjoyed by the community); I would like to bring more than just myself up. So as to kind of make right the old wrongs / problems of my past frustrations of being a creative person with no powerful tools to realize my creative visions / dreams. Thus to empower the world and have creative people of all kinds be empowered with open and powerful video game creating tools and a kick ass game engine forever free :-).
Also I have this castle I want to make into a tileset but I want to get Flare x 4 stress tested and working properly and start making 'Flare HD' quality of tilesets with 256 x 128 pixel scale tiles . I am wondering how to get this model rigged up in a standard (hopefully blender) render rig so I can make Flare compatible tileset and use them. I hope to make Flare standard tilesets (with same style as the base game art assets) and then have my own unique version to match my own artistic styles for my game. So that when I go to make new arts assets (like a castle tileset) I can share my work with the community to be opensource / forever free to use and I also get to make my own game better. Although I need to better understand how to turn this: https://www.deviantart.com/withinamnesia/art/Balduran-s-Sea-Tower-Redesi... into this: https://github.com/flareteam/flare-game/blob/master/art_src/tilesets/gra...
@Danimal What are the main goals for your work work with Flare? What inspired you here and there and what are you aiming towards making? What are some of the most important novel / new things you have added / wish to add to Flare? You did a lot of cool work with adding in new armour weapons and enemies and making tilesets work. I wonder though what other things might not have made it and what are the possible future goals moving forwards for your work with Flare?
https://github.com/flareteam/flare-game/issues/880 128 x 128 icons work now.
Although I am wondering if 'Flare x 4' can work where the Flare engine could run all the original art assets of Flare yet with x 4 the pixel density. As in like how 32 x 32 icons turned into 128 x 128 icons success as seen in screen shots. 32 x 4 = 128, or split one pixel into 4 to make the same image but with 4 times the pixel density.
If 'Flare x 4' can work that could pave the way for 2020's graphics for Flare and it could make any game running on Flare still use the original assets but have the option to bit by bit add in high detail art assets. With the new high resolution art assets being able to be side by side of the original low resolution art assets. This can eventually lead to games made with the Flare engine to be as in high of detail as that of Diablo 2 Resurrected or other high resolution isometric games. This can take the 2000's graphics of Flare and bring them into the 2020's and add decades of life to the visuals of the game and hopefully graphically stand the test of time.
Also spoilers / here is a speed run of Hades: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMb05zKj_3w
Has anyone fought for high resolution in Flare yet? I know Clint Bellanger did Wandercall / ~'FlareHD'. Do we have any experience ~'in house' or am I flying into this blind and hoping that Dorkster can tell myself how to ~'not suck so bad'(XD) at using the Flare engine to try and increase the pixel density / minimum resolution by 4. From 640 x 480 into (hopefully) 2,560 x 1,920 with 128 x 128 icons (splitting the pixels by 4 to make the old assets still work / look the same but be able to bit by bit add in new higher resolution art assets / icons).
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