This release has some improvements for importing FRUA designs, plus a new way to display distant backdrops.

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CocoaSpud
Dungeon Craft Development Team
http://uaf.sourceforge.net

Hi CocoaSpud!

I've just downloaded version 0.695 and the Show Distant Backdrop In Bands worked great: except that when looking side-on.
Example...
This is ok: http://www.dominions.fsnet.co.uk/example1.jpg
However: http://www.dominions.fsnet.co.uk/example2.jpg


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Hey! Like RPGs? See the DungeonCraft - RPG Game Maker on the Ironworks Gaming Forum

[This message has been edited by dominions (edited 06-12-2001).]

I'm not very confident that I can fix that particular situation. I'll give it some thought though.

When looking straight ahead, the image is a square with no transparency needed. The side view for walls are still square but use transparency above and below the desired wall pixels. The backdrops don't have that. Some way of copying the odd shape is needed (rhombus?), but DirectX only copies rectangular areas. If I copied the backdrop using the same rectangle as the side view wall, you would see the backdrop above and below the wall too.

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CocoaSpud
Dungeon Craft Development Team
http://uaf.sourceforge.net

I wander if later versions of DirectX allow the copying of Polygon areas rather than just rectangular?

Just a thought.

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Hey! Like RPGs? See the DungeonCraft - RPG Game Maker on the Ironworks Gaming Forum

DC is using DirectX 3, but my documentation is for DirectX 8. It still says that only rectangular blocks can be transferred in DirectDraw.

When I get a chance I'll experiment with a few things that might solve this.

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CocoaSpud
Dungeon Craft Development Team
http://uaf.sourceforge.net

I have poked around some and it appears that the only way to get this truly fixed is to create a new background format that is similar to walls. That is, have each background viewpoint available in separate images and use transparency. Transparency is the key in this. Backgrounds don't use it, and it is the only way to draw non-rectangular images.

DC supports multiple formats for wall images, but not currently for backgrounds. The format support allows the default images to be loaded plus any future defined format, and can display all formats at the same time. I don't think it is hard to convert backgrounds to use multiple formats, but there are some details yet to be worked out in drawing the different parts.

If it works, the results should be ok from any direction and distance, but some new backgrounds will need to be created. I'll create one or two samples that demonstrate how it works and include them in the install.

I'm not sure how long this will take, but I'll try to get started on it this weekend.

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CocoaSpud
Dungeon Craft Development Team
http://uaf.sourceforge.net