Ralph

[VectorX]

Oct 18, 2012 19:20:41 GMT -5 ledzep said:

Too bad Disney is so dumb when it comes to these things. I still wish, back when "Tron" first came out, that they'd had the presence of mind to release arcade versions of Space Paranoids, Matrix Blaster and the rest of the Encom games.

...which is what pretty much EVERY gamer wanted back then

[celtroniclabs]

Oct 18, 2012 7:38:18 GMT -5 sokurah said:

Oct 17, 2012 15:40:56 GMT -5 fury said:

Anyway, here's Vector Ralph for your amusement. I never got to the animation, unfortunately.

That looks great.

Hmm, I just added animation to my vector editor last night, to help with my latest game, so I gave it a trialrun on your vector-Ralph. ;D

It's a complete rush job and probably haven't taken more than 30 minutes to do, so if the animation is a bit simple that's why.

Sokurah,

What program are you using as a "vector editor"?

I've been creating vector line objects in Adobe Illustrator. I have not figured out a way to export the x,y point data directly from Illustrator. In a highly inefficient manner, I have been dictating x,y point data from Illustrator to my iPhone using Siri voice recognition. Then copying it from the iPhone into a file for use by my game programs.

By dictating, I mean selecting a point in Illustrator and speaking the x,y values (displayed on the screen) as Siri listens to what I say. Surprisingly, she translates the values very accurately..

I'd say what I am doing though, efficiency wise, is as bad as Tim Skelly writing Star Hawk on legal pads with a pencil. Using a legal pad and pencil as a coding "development" machine.. The resources available in those early days at Cinematronics were just awesome! I'm only a step up from what he had.

I have found no way of exporting x,y data from Flash either, but I have an old version (Flash 8). My Illustrator is old too, version CS2.

This is NOT a method that I wish to continue utilizing, so I thought I'd ask how your doing it.

[sokurah]

Oct 19, 2012 3:20:57 GMT -5 celtroniclabs said:

What program are you using as a "vector editor"?

I have been dictating x,y point data from Illustrator to my iPhone using Siri voice recognition. Then copying it from the iPhone into a file for use by my game programs.

This is NOT a method that I wish to continue utilizing, so I thought I'd ask how your doing it.

Wow, that is really inefficient. I didn't even want to have to define just one vectorshape for my first game and thought I'd be a good use of my time to make the exact tool I needed.

So, I'm using a homegrown editor made to suit my own needs, and thus exports in one format only - the format I need for my games. No graphical interface (except for placing the lines obviously), so no drop down menus or anything fancy - just a lot of hotkeys. I've always found that often the best tools are the ones you make yourself.

[VectorX]

VML is an all-vector program made by Microsoft. You can check out some results here:

www.youtube.com/user/magesfolly

You'll need to use Explorer, some release of Firefox or Opera Mobile (I don't know which versions) to be able to see and navigate through his web site though:

magesfolly.net/

[gliptitude]

If you're trying to make vector shapes for a vectrex game, V-Model is a very lean and simple program, which apparently exports 'code ready sprites'. You can point and click in the field to 'draw' intuitively and you can also easily make adjustments. It is also just as easy to manually enter coordinates if you have a pre-existing drawing. ... Not sure about "importing" from other programs, but the files in V-Model are just text files, which can be edited (or pasted into) directly, outside of the program.

I know NOTHING about programming, but between (a piece of graph paper), V-Model and Vectorzoa's Vecdraw kit, I can easily display my own sprites on a Vectrex emulator, (or on an actual Vectrex with my Vecflash). I know George uses V-Model routinely, and he may well have made this Ralph drawing with it.

[gliptitude]

Oct 19, 2012 3:20:57 GMT -5 celtroniclabs said:

I'd say what I am doing though, efficiency wise, is as bad as Tim Skelly writing Star Hawk on legal pads with a pencil. Using a legal pad and pencil as a coding "development" machine.. The resources available in those early days at Cinematronics were just awesome!

Such a romantic story! It stimulates my imagination to think about such a medieval process of game programming.

Tom Sloper (designer of Bedlam), relates another awesome story involving - programming on paper:

www.sloperama.com/advice/lesson19.htm

Towards the bottom of this page he describes the programming of the Space-N-Counter calculator game, at Toshiba in Japan.

[celtroniclabs]

sokurah, So you coded your own vector editor program.. I will have to look into that.. For relatively simple vector shapes though, especially if there's little to no animation frames involved, that would probably take me a lot more time than I spent doing it the "Siri / Star Hawk" way.

More time than it took to transfer the coordinates for ONE game, but after several games it probably would become a good time saver in the long run..

I would prefer to find something already made instead of having to reinvent the wheel though.

gliptitude, No, I was not making vector shapes for a Vectrex game.. I made them for a soon to be released iPad game. A game that has been delayed by a few set backs, but finally, will be submitted for inclusion on the App Store very soon!

I will start an official thread for the App and its first game, on this site, once that game's "flyer" artwork is completed (by me, so I can embed it in the post).