Regarding massively abusive framecounts

Here's the deal. I'm working on a game which is to be the crown jewel of my indie career. (Until I make the next one, obviously.) It is the most ambitious project I have undertaken, and as a grizzled veteran of solo game production, I know I need to watch my step at this high of level--it is easy to crush your own bones to jelly with unrealistic design decisions.

With this in mind, I carefully evaluated numerous development tools for it. In the end I chose MMF because it would cut the development time significantly, leaving more time for the ridiculously elaborate graphics.

Now...that's where the problem is creeping in. Or, rather, has barged in with a keg and a bad stench and taken up what may be permanent residence on my couch.

You see, the main character in the game is modular; he/she is constructed from multiple objects depending on what he/she is equipped with.

The problem is that the character has 850 frames of animation, multiplied by a minimum of 9 bodyparts. As such, the game is already experiencing choking loading times. The frame containing only the main character takes 50 seconds to load.

Second, the intent was to have the armor, clothing, and the characters themselves change color. This also takes for-freaking-ever.

So I have a few questions.

I figure the horrible load time is probably inevitable just because there is so much crap crammed in there. But I thought I'd check to see if there are ways to speed it up. So is there any way to reduce or optimize the load time for a game that has a horrendous number of frames (besides using load on call)?

Will the hardware acceleration release include the ink effects SDK or something similar to it, and if so, would it theoretically be possible to make recoloring of certain types a realtime effect? (i.e. making all pure magenta tones show up as a different hue?)

Are there any other tricks or techniques that will help a game not choke when you cram ten or twenty thousand frames of animation into a single level?

Lastly, if I asked real nice and made Bambi eyes at the developers, do you think you could make a command to reset the colors of an object to their original values? (This is so I can recolor an object to a different color)

Well I've been having the same problems too. My games get really graphically intensive, and MMF2 just currently isn't for that. I've been opting for some 'import compressed animation, AND LEAVE IT COMPRESSED for the love of God!' type of functionality.

It seems everybody is having a very low Framerate due to their projects getting more serious, which is why we all will make love to Yves when the Hardware Acceleration is out. However, it's not guranteed that it will speed up your project, depending on what part of it is causing a slowdown.

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Will the hardware acceleration release include the ink effects SDK or something similar to it

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shaders might make the ink effects practically obsolete

Good.

The general idea appears to be, if your making something serious, MMF isn't a good solution. Yays..

I'm also not really expecting much from the HWA. MMF's graphics engine doesn't seem to really work well with HWA, eg. we cannot have floating point angles or positions. Well I suppose I'll just wait for the build.

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Originally Posted by The_Alee

eg. we cannot have floating point angles or positions.

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How the hell do you position an object at position 341½ pixel? I mean, you can't put something between two pixels, so it's obvious that if you need floating positions you need VARIABLES. And with the angles, 360 degrees seem enough for me, but if it isn't for you then you're requiring a process that may take longer to calculate and even slow down the rotating process of standard round values. I see no use in getting to have a 321½ degree angle, but sure, I guess some could use it.

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Originally Posted by The_Alee

The general idea appears to be, if your making something serious, MMF isn't a good solution. Yays..

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There is no perfect solution. If you develop seriously, you need to consider the strenghts as well as the limitations of your development tools. In MMF it's easy to create scrolling and tons of objects to test the frame rate, before spending months of work...

It is far too early to decide prematurely what HWA will and won't be able to do, or its impact on any project.

I don't see how massive, impressive, choking graphics are a sign of seriousness or MMF2's capability to create serious works.

MMF2 is a 2D creation tool and I am not aware of any tools in this range that can solve the problem of loading huge amounts of graphics into memory without taking up memory or having a corresponding impact on cpu/speed.

In all fairness, it seems that this is an across-the-board problem for anyone creating a game, be it 2D or 3D and might rely on some ingenuity, planning, and understanding of the physical restrictions that are the nature of computer hardware to date. Obviously, intensive, high-quality graphics are going to assure that your system requirements are much higher than average and impact the range of access to your work, regardless of any solutions applied to the problem.

Even 3D game creation has limits and restrictions when it comes to textures. We see video memory increasing exponentially, and there is even a proprietary, built-in compression scheme, (GTX) to allow more detailed textures. The hardware has been evolving along with the software to give more quality, (not to mention polygon count, etc. That not only creates a syndrome where the more they get, the more they want, but it forces users to update their hardware to play the games, or at least enjoy the quality in many cases.

Among the restrictions are the 2x factor for textures in 3D.

MMF2 is a serious tool and is moving forward. It is useful for serious game creation, but fun for frivolous experimentation, and it is affordable and accessible.

Clickteam is open to ideas and improvements. My quesiton is, if anyone has researched the issues involved, then that may be were the answer can be found. Then, this discussion could go from pushing the limits of hardware and software and confabulating glitzy graphics with serious game creation, (both casual and commercial) to something this company can consider implementing in the future.

If anybody has any solutions that are viable, then that is worth considering. Hardware acceleration will certainly have a large impact on MMF2, but as with 3D game creation, that impact will not be limitless and users will still have to apply skills and techniques to get the most from it, I think.

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Originally Posted by MechaBowser

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Originally Posted by The_Alee

eg. we cannot have floating point angles or positions.

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How the hell do you position an object at position 341½ pixel? I mean, you can't put something between two pixels, so it's obvious that if you need floating positions you need VARIABLES. And with the angles, 360 degrees seem enough for me, but if it isn't for you then you're requiring a process that may take longer to calculate and even slow down the rotating process of standard round values. I see no use in getting to have a 321½ degree angle, but sure, I guess some could use it.

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It's less for positioning, and more for custom movements. If we could just add 0.2 to an object's X location every frame...
An object's position and angle are only variables anyway, they don't necessarily correspond to the exact location the object is drawn at.

hey maggot

Here is a solution that might improve your game performance:

Instead of putting ALL graphics for the character (of which most of them you might not even use in the level!), put only the most vital parts in the character by default, and then put the rest of the graphics as .png or .tga or something externally in a folder. Then, when the player equips a new item or such, import the frames you need into the active object.