How hard would it be to redo the graphical interface?
 

I'm thinking that tiny window is WAY to small now. I think it should be at least as wide as the Eye of the Beholder playerwindow. I know that would mean many changes in the code, but can we do this? I think it could be done without messing with the wall sets too. but backgrounds would need to change.

Also, the bars around the text and stuff are way, way too hard to design around. It would be MUCH easier if we didn't border the text, but create the entire background as one image. This would allow for easy creation of not just a border, but neat game backgrounds and artwork.

I'd be willing to redo all the art for it, and do any testing on the changes--and make all the stock graphics. I say we upgrade this game maker to the ULTIMATE Unlimited Adventure! :)

I'll create some interfaces about how I envision the interface.
Also, instead of text for items, we should move to icons, and maybe even an EOB type slot interface. Any DC Programmers--can this be done? use another BMP background for the 'avatar' and have circles for where icons of items need to go-- I can make 100's of Icons for it as well. I think while keeping the feel of Goldbox, we can also enhance the look a bit--and it would attract a LOT of new people.

Ideas?

Re: How hard would it be to redo the graphical interface?
 

redo-ing the size of the (pseudo-) 3D viewport is possible, and the design was kinda integrated... but the problem lies in tying to design walls for that wider viewport. I've tried for a 3D view that was the entire top of the screen (as in the 3D view would be the size of a bigpic view) and found out that the backgrounds stretch to fit. But the walls with thier offsets were another story altogether. I've been asking about how to determine the offset of a wall, Manikus has asked around; seems nobody knows yet how that works.

Go ahead and mess with it and let us know how you do (If we figure out the offsets then we'll all be better off and a little closer to "unlimited" ;) )

As for the Eye of the beholder type interface as an option (not forced upon the mod designer), then this would be yet another bonus to the game... and if you c reated the "blank" items graphics page (empty slots and empty PC picture) then created some PC pics and item icons and set up some faked "screenshot" type pics you might be able to kick start some programmer into some action on it ('Specially as your artwork is amazing)

That is my 2 cents on the issues
SilentThief the 2 scented

SilentThief

Re: How hard would it be to redo the graphical interface?
 

As far as I know, Manikus has managed to design a 3D-View with totally different measures. I think he only meant that it is quite an effort.

However, if everyone of us used his own 3D-viewport with different wall-sizes, exchanging of walls would no longer be possible. That is the reason why I never tried to change the the viewport-measures...

Re: How hard would it be to redo the graphical interface?
 

Hi all,

Sorry I've taken so long to get in on this thread - first week of a new quarter, and they've even got me taking a Saturday class this time around.

Through use of the the config.txt we can already tweak all of the graphics in the game. This means size, shape, location and source. We can also add backgrounds of our choosing to the area that is normally black. (Steve McDonald has quite a few available on his web site.) The limitation are really with the text. CocoaSpud initially coded it so that the height and width of the text fields is hard-coded and all that could be done was defining their upper-left coordinates; but, he latered added the ability to change the size on the main text window to be a designer defined number of lines of text.
As far as a graphical inventory system, I personally think this would rock. :) But, I also know that it will be a while before the coders get to it, as the first objective is to squash the bugs, finish the spells and special abilities, and finish the combat AI. This will bring us to version 1.0 and CocosSpud's initial goal of creating an updated version of FRUA that can run FRUA games. I know it's been rather *slow* as of late in the release department (perhaps a bit of an understatement) but we've got another release being put together and it's about to be tested and hopefully released before the Holidays.
Now, with that being said, there are some big plans for DC as soon as 1.0 is reached (though I realize that it may be a case of putting the cart before the horse) that involve changing which libraries it uses- namely switching away from the Micosoft proprietary ones to something Open Source, that will have the benefit of allowing the code to be compiled on something other than MS Visual Studio 6, AND of making the project cross-platform at least with Linux. :)
If you were so inclined, Ziroc, to make a mock-up, I'm sure that could only help motivate the coding team. :D

As to what I meant about walls, Dinonykos is right- it's just very hard, with a lot of trial and error (at least for me) b/c the far-away walls don't behave the way my brain thinks they should. :D It is however possible to do just about anything with the walls and if a new viewport were created, I'd be more than happy to develop or help develop a wall template for it. :D

Re: How hard would it be to redo the graphical interface?
 

Any chance you might be interested in going for OpenGL while at it? Seems that'd make things a lot simpler, people wouldn't have to bother with the wall templates and could make new viewports for their designs while still using the same textures etc.

If that'd be interesting, I'd be interested in helping out with it, if needed. I know my way around basic SDL/OpenGL (at least more than capable of loading images and turning them into textures, and rendering some dungeoncrawly dungeon to some part of the screen).

Re: How hard would it be to redo the graphical interface?
 

:D I know that LurchBrick has mentioned SDL as a replacement for MFC. I don't recall anyone mentioning OpenGL, but that doesn't mean it's ruled out.
Right now, all of this is post 1.0. We first want to finish the original goal of Dungeon Craft, and then we'll move on to the updating.

I think changing the way that walls display, i.e. switching to 3D from pseudo-3D would be way cool. :D

Re: How hard would it be to redo the graphical interface?
 

Exactly my thinking Gnarf, especially in regards the 3d viewport. As part of my course, we've been learning SDL and OpenGL, albeit at quite a slow rate as I'm still getting to learn C++. And trying to wade through MFC as well is a bit of a headache too. :)

I'd like to go to true 3D, as you mentioned, this would get rid of having to do so many renditions of walls at various perspectives and you'd only need the one wall texture. Which would allow our resident artists to make many walls a lot quicker.

But as Manikus said, trying to squash the existing bugs and getting DC to a 1.0 release is higher in priority. Be that as it may, I'm still looking at the viability of it all. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this and have a look at any examples you may have of an actual dungeon crawl.

Re: How hard would it be to redo the graphical interface?
 

Well, what I do know is that everything needed to do what DC does, graphically, is fairly easy to do with SDL and OpenGL. I do have some very simple code lying around somewhere that does a rather similar 3D view, which is pretty much just what I've ended up with after experimenting with things while trying to learn some OpenGL. I'm not much familiar with the DC source though, so I've no idea how much work it'd actually be. I wouldn't be surprised if it at least wasn't that much more work than "just" porting to SDL or some such.

Re: How hard would it be to redo the graphical interface?
 

Awesome news! I'll be posting a 'what if' GUI layout and see what you guys think.

Now, if we went totally 3D, like some said, it would be TOTALLY cool-level wise, but monster wise, it'd be a totally different story--you have to make 3D Models for each monster, animate them--which I can do, but maaaan its not easy. :D Maybe just 3D levels... keep 2D fights--OR, 'paint' the 2D monster image on a flat 3D plane, and as the resolution changes, you can scale the icons to match..

Re: How hard would it be to redo the graphical interface?
 

Yeah. Only thing I was thinking of taking advantage of the 3Dness was the moving about in the levels. The part that's currently pseudo-3D. Personally, I think it's mighty fine if someone can make their own unique design by making some low res pics in some fairly basic paint program, rather than having to be able to model things and such. Part of the reason why I'd really like to see it go OpenGL is so that things get simpler for the ones just making designs -- set up their own viewport and use/make regular wall textures and get a resolution-independent game. Adding creature models and such, OTOH, makes it harder (unless they just want to use premade content).

Like you said tho, you can still take advantage of going OpenGL in the fights without requiring modelling and such, eg. by rendering the level as a flat plane in 3D, letting you rotate it and such. And using OpenGL for 2D still has the advantage of being rather resolution-independent (both as the size of the images you're using and the screen-/window-resolution is concerned) :)