Possibilities of a fake 3d-engine

[Chrille]

I'm experimenting trying and make a first person dungeon explorer game with a locked straight-ahead-perspective like the one in games like Dungeon Master/Keeper, Waxworks etc. etc. though slightly more advanced.

NPCs & Monsters will walk around as they wish, so I'll have to calculate how these will scale depending on how far away from the player they are and where they should be positioned in X and Y. Also, at what speeds they would be moving depending on the distance.

I was wondering anyone has any ideas for simple ways to calculate this. I'm terrible at maths and wouldn't know how to make an advanced formula.

Thankful for suggestions! I haven't begun putting the actual code together yet, but I like to plan everything, even coding ahead.

[Chrille]

I'm experimenting trying and make a first person dungeon explorer game with a locked straight-ahead-perspective like the one in games like Dungeon Master/Keeper, Waxworks etc. etc. though slightly more advanced.

NPCs & Monsters will walk around as they wish, so I'll have to calculate how these will scale depending on how far away from the player they are and where they should be positioned in X and Y. Also, at what speeds they would be moving depending on the distance.

I was wondering anyone has any ideas for simple ways to calculate this. I'm terrible at maths and wouldn't know how to make an advanced formula.

Thankful for suggestions! I haven't begun putting the actual code together yet, but I like to plan everything, even coding ahead.

[DJFuego]

OK I'll try to make this sound simple

Creating a dungeon using an array object would be your best bet. you would specify north, south, east, west, wether they had a door or wall on each face. then you could make a simple rendering engine that drew the dungeon when you entered the room. in the mean time in the background you could make npcs that went from room to room in a random manner. If they tried going to a room that wasn't there they would pick another direction.
the npc would start in room (A1) then you could make a counter that made it go A2,A3 etc every 30 seconds, when it got to (A5) wich doesn't exist, it would go (B4) or (A4)
You would need to make a level editor that you could place walls in your dungon so you couldn't go from A1 to A2 or place a door on the south face of a1 and the north face of A2 when the door is opened you will need to flag this in the array some how.

You'll need to draw grids out etc, to experiment but I think this would be one of the ways I would do the sort of game you are thinking about.

String parser will also come in handy.

rooms in array

1, 2, 3, 4
a
b
c
d

Doors=0
Walls=1

A1=n1,s1,e0,w1
A2=n1,s1,e0,w0 etc

You can also specify other data like teleports, and stuff. this takes me back to the old progamming days of the C64... Life is sooo much easier now.

[DJFuego]

OK I'll try to make this sound simple

Creating a dungeon using an array object would be your best bet. you would specify north, south, east, west, wether they had a door or wall on each face. then you could make a simple rendering engine that drew the dungeon when you entered the room. in the mean time in the background you could make npcs that went from room to room in a random manner. If they tried going to a room that wasn't there they would pick another direction.
the npc would start in room (A1) then you could make a counter that made it go A2,A3 etc every 30 seconds, when it got to (A5) wich doesn't exist, it would go (B4) or (A4)
You would need to make a level editor that you could place walls in your dungon so you couldn't go from A1 to A2 or place a door on the south face of a1 and the north face of A2 when the door is opened you will need to flag this in the array some how.

You'll need to draw grids out etc, to experiment but I think this would be one of the ways I would do the sort of game you are thinking about.

String parser will also come in handy.

rooms in array

1, 2, 3, 4
a
b
c
d

Doors=0
Walls=1

A1=n1,s1,e0,w1
A2=n1,s1,e0,w0 etc

You can also specify other data like teleports, and stuff. this takes me back to the old progamming days of the C64... Life is sooo much easier now.

[Chrille]

Sorry for not being more specific.

Thanks for taking the time to write down that suggestion. But I have already solved that particular problem with a off-screen grid where each npc is an object that navigates the world/maze using the pathfinding object. The part I have problems with is the player's "view" where I need to calculate the graphic appearances of the characters/enemies.

For example, a npc is in the player's POV and 32 pixels away on the navigating grid. Where would it be positioned in the view and at what scale?

[Chrille]

Sorry for not being more specific.

Thanks for taking the time to write down that suggestion. But I have already solved that particular problem with a off-screen grid where each npc is an object that navigates the world/maze using the pathfinding object. The part I have problems with is the player's "view" where I need to calculate the graphic appearances of the characters/enemies.

For example, a npc is in the player's POV and 32 pixels away on the navigating grid. Where would it be positioned in the view and at what scale?

[DJFuego]

The npc could just walk accross the screen and ignore you, you could set it up so if you and the npc are in the same room then at a certain point (say when it hits another hidden object) in the screen it would face you and then start walking towards you. as it moved slowly further down the screen the sprite would enlarge or you could replace the sprite with a larger version etc..
Scaling would be simple, every pixel the object move down the screen it would enlarge by 10% or something similar.

[DJFuego]

The npc could just walk accross the screen and ignore you, you could set it up so if you and the npc are in the same room then at a certain point (say when it hits another hidden object) in the screen it would face you and then start walking towards you. as it moved slowly further down the screen the sprite would enlarge or you could replace the sprite with a larger version etc..
Scaling would be simple, every pixel the object move down the screen it would enlarge by 10% or something similar.

[Chrille]

It's quite important that it would be able to move in 8 directions because the engine will feature combat as well. So the characters/enemies will be able to move around and attack each other as well.

About the scaling it would work something like that, but the view distance will be quite far in some case so the scaling formula would have to be slightly more advanced. When determining a character's position I guess you'd have to calculate it based on both the player character's x & y values, using distance somehow.

[Chrille]

It's quite important that it would be able to move in 8 directions because the engine will feature combat as well. So the characters/enemies will be able to move around and attack each other as well.

About the scaling it would work something like that, but the view distance will be quite far in some case so the scaling formula would have to be slightly more advanced. When determining a character's position I guess you'd have to calculate it based on both the player character's x & y values, using distance somehow.