GooRoo
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I luv Gruntz!
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Display Name: GooRoo
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Post by GooRoo on Nov 11, 2015 9:38:32 GMT -8
I have mentioned before about the graphical shortcomings of Gruntz ... the effective duplication of so many Tilez, while there is the nonexistence of Tilez that could easily have been made.
With my own pitiful graphical ability, and the freebie tools I have to work with, I find it easy to produce variants on existing Tilez that would allow more pleasing visual effects.
There are also several Tilez that are only useful with the background Tilez 1 through 8, such as Arrowz  which should have been on a transparent background  , usable with Tilez 9 through 16 ... and 17 through 36, as well!
Another restrictive graphical set is the Giant Rock, which in the "Honey, I Shrunk The Gruntz" should have been designed transparent, similar to this  .
The problem with such transparencies is that it would require the ability to establish a background with the equivalent of an HTML 'span' tag.
We have been blessed with a number of "young bucks" who are (or are becoming) experts in computer programming. Perhaps someone with the skills would be able to come up with solutions to the shortcomings I have mentioned here, giving new life to Gruntz.
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Zu
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Post by Zu on Nov 11, 2015 10:30:02 GMT -8
Some of the things you mentioned are definitely possible to do in Gruntz as it was released by Monolith, such as replacing existing tilez and adding new ones. However, this comes with several limitations, such as:
- Any kind of gradual transparency is completely out of the question. It's either 100% transparent or 100% opaque, with nothing in-between. This unfortunately results in ALL transparent elements within the game having jagged (pixelated) edges, and nothing can be done about it.
- It is impossible to make an object such as the Giant Rock have transparent tilez and be placed on opaque tilez. The game simply doesn't support something like this, instead treating Giant Rock (and various other objects) as a series of tilez that, when you break the Giant Rock with Gauntletz, they get replaced with other tilez. I think MAYBE it could be possible to utilize the BACK plane for this (you know, the one that the game usually uses for distant ground, space etc.), but even if it is actually possible, it would be a major pain to work with, and would only be applicable to worlds that don't normally have the BACK plane (Rocky Roadz, Gruntzicles, Trouble In The Tropics, Honey I Shrunk The Gruntz and Miniature Masterz).
- You cannot make any alternate variants of basically any tile that is meant to change into another, very specific tile. This includes: switches, bridges, holes/mounds, two-way arrows, and bricks.
- You obviously cannot make anything that is meant to have a functionality that the game doesn't support, like a switch that turns gruntz into zombies.
- A single tileset (or world, if you prefer) cannot have more than 999 tilez total.
That being said, there ARE certain things that could be done with this, such as adding variants of arrows, changing some of the existing tilez to fit better and/or allow for better patterns, stuff like that. Even the Giant Rock could have additional variants, just with no transparency.
But for anything more sophisticated/complex than that, we can only hope that the Dizgruntled project will be finished someday. Because for that, you need to be able to edit the game itself, which we cannot do without the source code (impossible, unless we somehow force the original developers into sharing it) and someone capable of working with it.
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Tomalla
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Post by Tomalla on Nov 12, 2015 11:26:24 GMT -8
I could swear there was an option in GLE to add planes to the level ... but can't find it anywhere. You can delete them permanently though, which is quite odd.
I'm 100% sure that *.WWD file format allows for multiple planes to be defined and it can successfully be done by manually editing the structure of a binary file. The Claw for instance utilizes plenty of planes simultaneously. I've never tried it though. And since that is/would possible, you could easily add up to three planes to the level: a moving backdrop, a helper plane for transparent tiles and the action plane. The game engine is likely to go bonkers though, but again: I've never tried it.
It's worth a try nonetheless.
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GooRoo
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I luv Gruntz!
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Display Name: GooRoo
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Post by GooRoo on Nov 12, 2015 13:21:35 GMT -8
I could swear there was an option in GLE to add planes to the level ... but can't find it anywhere. You can delete them permanently though, which is quite odd. I'm 100% sure that *.WWD file format allows for multiple planes to be defined and it can successfully be done by manually editing the structure of a binary file. The Claw for instance utilizes plenty of planes simultaneously. I've never tried it though. And since that is/would possible, you could easily add up to three planes to the level: a moving backdrop, a helper plane for transparent tiles and the action plane. The game engine is likely to go bonkers though, but again: I've never tried it. It's worth a try nonetheless.  |
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Zu
Retired Staff
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Post by Zu on Nov 12, 2015 22:26:26 GMT -8
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Post by SwordGrunt on Nov 13, 2015 10:52:52 GMT -8
Yep! That's the one! Thank you for locating it for me (us), as I took the opportunity to add my own thoughts to the thread.  Since that thread is locked for whatever reason I'm replying to your post here. I don't think holes display the back plane in areas 1-3 and 6-7 (I didn't test this though) since they do not have an invisible background in the editor, but simply a dark, solid color background instead. You'd have to add true invisible tiles with Ctrl+I as BattlezM mentioned in his original post. |
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