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Town Populations

Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2017 4:26 am
by Interkarma
I've posted a new article about implementing town populations in Daggerfall Unity.

http://www.dfworkshop.net/town-populations/

This is just a first pass for 0.4. I expect to refine this somewhat in 0.5 including the "talk" interface for wandering NPCs later in the 0.5 cycle.

Re: Town Populations

Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2017 8:42 am
by Biboran
Good choise for a adityional feature for 0.4
This really mske game much more alive and make du look much more finished :D

Re: Town Populations

Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2017 8:38 pm
by Nystul
excellent work.
maybe we could add some shadows one day (maybe I find some spare time, then I will give it a try), could be even improved billboard shadows since there are different rotations/views for town folk's sprites ;)
but it already looks great ;)

Re: Town Populations

Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2017 10:37 pm
by Interkarma
Yes, it would be nice. :) Because they're basic textured quads, the shadow will shrink as the player rotates quad towards a right-angle to the sun.

We really need to build a 8-directional sprite shader for these one day. Not only better performance, but will help us ensure the shadows are cast properly. With a bit more work, it should even be possible to cast shadow based on what sun would "see" from that angle (i.e cast shadow from whichever of the 8 directions are facing sun, rather than facing player).

Re: Town Populations

Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2017 11:52 pm
by jman0war
Wow.
How do you do it?

It's like you just figure this stuff out naturally.

Re: Town Populations

Posted: Fri Jul 07, 2017 5:08 pm
by Blue Footed Booby
I cackled when I saw the cutouts for the flats in your sea of white cubes. I think you're right: that's too perfect a solution to not be how Bethsoft did it.
jman0war wrote:Wow.
How do you do it?

It's like you just figure this stuff out naturally.
The secret to programming is the same as the secret to anything else: practice. You try to learn a little bit every time you fail, then keep failing until you don't. :)

Re: Town Populations

Posted: Sat Jul 08, 2017 1:51 pm
by Narf the Mouse
If you catch the time right, you can see NPCs just after spawning; *Daggerfall spawns a bunch of NPCs in one spot, then lets them wander off and separate.

So my own guess would be "spawn points". :)

But I actually like your solution better.

* It might also spawn them in other ways, but I have seen bunches of NPCs moving out of a single point.

Re: Town Populations

Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2017 8:28 am
by King of Worms
Very interresting article and nice results indeed. Ad the NPC shadows... maybe it would be a good solution to use the old fashioned blob shadows (gradient circular spot directly under the NPCs feet). It might look even better than a classic detailed shadows, when you consider the animation of the NPCs is very rough 2 phase flat "switch" and so would be the detailed shadow of such a flat - resulting in a mixture of realistic shadow and unrealistic animation of that shadow. Blob shadows have no animation and they look good all the time. Maybe its worth trying.

PS: I reserve the right to be completely wrong, maybe the detailed shadows will look better than simple blobs. Maybe both option could be present and player could switch between them in graphic options, choosing the option which better suits his taste and a hardware he is using.

Re: Town Populations

Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2017 8:58 am
by Interkarma
Old-school blob shadows are a pretty good idea actually. I think they might look good as well, but never know until I try.

I probably won't get to this for a bit, but will definitely give it a shot and report back if someone doesn't beat me to it. :)

Re: Town Populations

Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2018 5:46 pm
by pango
Hi,
Around dungeon entrances, random enemies can walk on water just fine though (and it seems consistent with classic game).
I assume that cannot be fixed by the same mechanism?

Regards,
Pierre.

(Example of dungeon entrance with ruins and pools of water in attachment)