Path: chuka.playstation.co.uk!argonet.co.uk!argbc08 From: R Fred Williams Newsgroups: scee.yaroze.freetalk.english Subject: Re: Tomb Raider 3 Date: Sat, 28 Nov 1998 20:49:36 GMT Organization: ArgoNet, but does not reflect its views Lines: 99 Distribution: world Message-ID: References: <365BF45C.5D2B@bristol.ac.uk> <365C2DD9.4730@manc.u-net.com> <365C956A.FCF@manc.u-net.com> Reply-To: R Fred Williams NNTP-Posting-Host: userk687.uk.uudial.com X-Newsreader: NewsAgent 0.84 for RISC OS X-NNTP-Poster: NewsHound v1.37ß2 In article <365C956A.FCF@manc.u-net.com>, James Shaughnessy wrote: > R Fred Williams wrote: > > For the PC, Big Red Racing. > You were the lead programmer on it? Nice one! Most of us here are > aiming towards a position like that, and are merely peasant amateurs > so far :-) awwww... ;) > Indeed BRR is a great game and is one of the few exceptions to my > gross generalisation. It even ran on my 486 DX2/66 if I remember > correctly, I should hope so too! (It was *written* on a DX2/66 IIRC - certainly at the time there was only one machine (the P90) in the office capable of running Quake) > and multiplayer 'net races were cool. Funnily enough I was > just discussing that game with some fellow members -- regarding the 3D > environment, and getting some sort of 3D engine like it running on the > Yaroze. I liked the way you could drive all over if you want. Yeah, I'm not too keen on fixed-course racing games myself. The maps were a 256*256 integer heightfield, normally rendering a trapezium subset of it, 12-squares into the distance (or further according to PC spec), fixed-orientation triangles, (a couple of lines flat-shaded perspective correct textures, a few lines of flat-shaded affine, and a fade-off of flat-shaded untextured polys), all the texturemaps being fixed-orientation. ie, about the simplest heightfield-type map there is. Objects were, in the main, gouraud-shaded & untextured, and very low polycount (with the exception of the cars, which ran to the heady peaks of a few hundred - mostly on the wheels, natch), with the occasional bit of dynamic shape-modification to allow (f'rexample) the fences to hug the landscape. When I first got the Yaroze, I was going to port the engine as a "learning project". The absence of a "draw polygon" routine came as a severe disappointment at the time, hence my eventual reversion to 2D for Yaroze work - As a low-level engine programmer, I much prefer to work at the "polygon" level than the "object" one. These days, I s'pose it (the landscape) could be done on the Yaroze as a dynamic TMD... > Monster > Truck Madness was another I really liked, (despite being... by > Microsoft) with a brilliant physics engine, but nowadays my lowly > unaccelerated P133 can't run jack. As long it runs Quake and GP2 I'm > happy. (ok, meaning as long as I have an N64 and PSX also ;)) :) Actually, I only really play PC games at work, partly coz the upgrades are free, and partly coz LAN multitap is *the* way to play games! (As I keep telling people, the "snapsnapsnap, arrgh,argh,argh!... 'You *bastard*'" from the far side of the office, from a well-placed Painkeep beartrap, is as close as you can get to gaming heaven...) Anyway, currently a P200 MMX with two(!) 3D cards (win95 gets horribly confused when I stick a new one in every other month) and a pro playstation devkit inside it. At home I stick with the Acorn with a (non pentium) 586-133 card. 'Twill just about hack Quake, but I ain't got the HD space to waste on windows... (and yes, I've got an N64 here as well as the black PSX) > Why not do "Pushy 3D"? A little too conformist perhaps..;) hey, > it'd then be much like Pandora's Box (which I only just played > having got hold of a SIOCONS compatible version). I'm just living > in the past I guess, but I reckon a 2D game plays much better in 2D > unless something extra is added. (Like WHY did they need to make > Bomberman ISOMETRIC.. I mean JESUS H, WHY?!) Pushy3'll probably still be 2d, but with a few more "pretty light" effects, if it happens. As for that awful isometric thing - Gawd knows. SNES Bomberman remains the pinnacle of that genre. > I'd like to help you do some Pushy levels, but, well, like the evil > Alan B'Stard I am I'd make some so they ARE impossible. Just like > "Arthur" ;-) (refering to last month's OPSM Letters Page that is) Heh. I read that! It's not as if Arthur's particularly difficult! (Heidi & Boris remain the sticking points for P2, although someone did offer a "proof" that Harold's impossible) (& since the level editor's (currently) a Risc-OS app, it'd be a bit tricky anyway, thinking about it...) ttfn Fred (Yaroze /~RFREDW)