Metroid Cubed
TommyVercetti
Join Date: 2003-02-10 Member: 13390Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2003-02-10 Member: 13390Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
Comments
I was hoping for something more ... 3D.
The SNES Chrono Trigger and Legend of Zelda's 3D remakes screenshots must have spoiled me.
I was hoping for something more ... 3D.
The SNES Chrono Trigger and Legend of Zelda's 3D remakes screenshots must have spoiled me. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well, it is a browser based game that doesn't need to be downloaded and installed.
Naaahhh I'm not angry at all. I don't know if coming here to reply is a good thing to do but I was bored and felt like correcting a few things and giving my opinions about it. Now like all the times I did something like this, it will be a long post. (sorry!)
First Red Alert doesn't use voxels, it uses "VoxelScape" or whatever they call it. Voxels are more a way of defining 3d data than a way to display it and the way voxels are defined is different than voxelscape terrains. Voxels define volumes inside 3d grids, for example 32x32x32 like it was used for each block in Metroid Cubed. You can (have to) display voxels using polygons one way or another, either with squares, circles, cubes, spheres or "marching cubes". So the polygon vs voxels debate is pretty meaningless since one can be used inside another.
Worms 3d is the first mainstream game that uses interactive voxel data, the game integrate a seamless conversion to polygons and the developpers call the things "poxels". but really, voxels are at work behind all this deformable terrain capability. VoxelScapes can have similar possibilities but are much more limited, there is a limited rotation angle, these height fields define only one point or line for each of the floor's x and y point while real voxel fields can define multiple points on top of each other so things can have internal structures. If I ever pull off a fast enough real-time voxel engine for Metroid Cubed you'll be able to rotate it relatively freely and effects like blowing up arbitrary parts of walls into thousands of pieces will be possible. I'm experimenting with various ways of displaying the voxel content. You can see an early demo there: <a href='http://pages.infinit.net/voxel/metroidrotation.htm' target='_blank'>http://pages.infinit.net/voxel/metroidrotation.htm</a>
Now, I can understand that some people may not like the result (or don't know what to think of it). Even more if they expected it to be in immersive interactive 3d. You are not the first wanting a more 3d gameplay aspect. But do you have any idea on how big Metroid 1 is? I would venture to guess that many modern 2d and 3d games on the market use much less different rooms in quantity than Metroid 1. There are 5 areas with their own graphic set and they each have about 40 different rooms, that makes 200 16x15 tiles rooms (each tile is 16x16 pixel). Some rooms are used at multiple places so in the whole game map there are much more than 200 rooms. I would have to design 200 rooms in 3d, based on their 2d equivalent...that's a lot of work... Also there are over 250 graphic tiles used in the levels and building real 3d objects using a "normal" polygonal 3d app would have been too time consuming and for speed reasons most blocks would have end up being boxes with a texture on it. Now if I keep the same 2d structure of the original, moving in the Z axis would only result in falling from platforms. I do plan a 3d spider ball though.
Metroid Cubed does have real 3d textures for each block so they don't look like flat boxes, not just pseudo-bumpmapping that most recent consoles and 3d cards uses. This is the choice I made, I wanted to use the original graphics and didn't want things to look like flat boxes. If someone wants to convert Metroid into something looking like an n64 game they can go ahead, but that's not what I intended to do. Now I do intend on doing something more 3d-ish out of these blocks. I'm working on doing Marble Madness type game using the Metroid Cubed blocks you can see an early demo online 3d level editor with a ball rolling on it right there at
<a href='http://pages.infinit.net/voxel/marbletroid.htm' target='_blank'>http://pages.infinit.net/voxel/marbletroid.htm</a>
As for the fun factor, I guess it's a matter of what you define as fun. You could use the cheat menu, and warp at various places by clicking on the map. The thing is not really intended to be played from the start to the end. I would hope that someone who just played the original could appreciate it more because really every room is the same and is using the original graphics.
Anyway remember that Chrono trigger 3d demo was made by 5+ people and it only features ten areas from the original game. As for the Zelda 3d remake could you please tell me where is it? I know I did a little 3d demo conversion of the overworld map at <a href='http://pages.infinit.net/voxel/zeldacubed.htm' target='_blank'>http://pages.infinit.net/voxel/zeldacubed.htm</a> But I didn't saw any game/demo on the web that is really remaking the whole game map.
Ah... and one last thing before I forget, the Metroid Cubed screenshots on my sites are a little old, Samus is different in the current version and other changes happened since. I guess that redoing only Samus using a real 3d tool instead of using my conversion method would be a good thing, and if anyone have a 3d model of Samus set in all the same positions as the original animation frames I would surely like to use them <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Ok and another last thing, I'm open to comments, negative or positive ones. If you have any specific requests about things be fixed changed, don't hesitate to tell.
VL-Tone, Metroid Cubed Author's
<a href='http://pages.infinit.net/voxel/' target='_blank'>http://pages.infinit.net/voxel/</a>
edit: played it and it seems kinda headachy. Good for an 80's arcade game but wow asprin..
I really screwed up on that last one.
I meant 2D remake of Zelda: OOT, not the other way around
<a href='http://www.oot2d.com/downloads.html' target='_blank'>http://www.oot2d.com/downloads.html</a>
PS: It was impressive work, I can't imagine myself accomplishing that much. Sorry if my last statement gave you a bad impression. I just have a bad potty mouth in my real life to start with. I just expect more of Sonic 3D action given what I've seen.
<!--emo&::marine::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/marine.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='marine.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I really screwed up on that last one.
I meant 2D remake of Zelda: OOT, not the other way around
<a href='http://www.oot2d.com/downloads.html' target='_blank'>http://www.oot2d.com/downloads.html</a>
PS: It was impressive work, I can't imagine myself accomplishing that much. Sorry if my last statement gave you a bad impression. I just have a bad potty mouth in my real life to start with. I just expect more of Sonic 3D action given what I've seen.
<!--emo&::marine::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/marine.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='marine.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oh, boring then. I'm not saying it's going to be bad, but it seems dead right now.
VL-Tone, is it possible to make a downloadable version of the game? Would that increase performance?
I don't expect to become a regular here, I'll just post in this thread if necessary (and if you want).
Liku yes I could produce an stand-alone program file but for some reasons I won't explain here (well because I don't wan't to be cruicified here for my platform choice), I can't do an .exe version. When I finally get Macromedia Director MX (I'm still at 8.5), I'll be able to produce multi-platform programs from a single version of Director. For now I would need to find someone who has Director MX (someone I can thrust) to produce an .exe file. It could surely help for performance, depending on how bad your browser/os currently deal with the online Shockwave version. Anyway it's planned for the official release, remember Metroid Cubed is still Alpha software for now and was never officially released.
TychoCelchuuu I'll call you silly <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> But don't worry you are not alone, even people smart enough to program "voxel demos" as they call it do the same mistake. Many people are confused about the real definition of voxels (VOlume piXELS) these days.
Delta Force uses "VoxelSpace" or "VoxelScape" just as Red Alert (2). "VoxelSpace" terrains don't use voxels as such, it's just a marketing gimmick from NovaLogic and it confused people. These are terrains drawn with vertical monochromatic lines at different heights and like I tried to explain up here this is different than real voxels which define to whole volume with discrete elements and can be displayed at any angle. Also even if some kind of deformable terrain is possible with VoxelScape, the internal structure is not defined so the terrain would keep it's "top" texture and you couldn't blow holes through vertical walls.
In a real-time voxel game you could do something like this as an example: You see a sand dune in a game and you switch to a special sand-blower weapon, you begin to use it towards the dune and you see all the sand particles fly into the air, while you are doing this you realise that the dune was hiding a metallic structure inside as sands gradually uncovers it. You then take another weapon (somekind of high-heat flame thrower) and begins to shoot it toward the metal, which starts to melt in a very realistic way from any arbitrary parts you aim at. Another thing that would be possible using real voxels is to chop an enemy creature at any arbitrary angle and see it's internal structure, kind of like the "Visible Human Project" which incidently uses voxels to display a human body made from scanned "slices" of a frozen (dead) body. Now that's getting a little too gross for my tastes, but I guess some of you might be interested in such a feature <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
One of the other big limitation in VoxelSpace is that for example if you do any kind of vertical walls you cannot texture them (actually from 45 degrees slopes and up the vertical texture resolution goes down from full to 1). For example a box could only be textured on the top, the sides would only have vertical lines of different colors. In those games (DF2 and RA2) these limitations are overcomed by adding real polygons with textures for objects and vertical walls but that makes the whole thing hard to design and usually the polys have little alignement problems with the VoxelScape terrain.
Now I don't say VoxelScape is a bad thing, the name is just deceiving IMHO. Just don't equate VoxelScape with voxels as they are not the same thing.
Before I go, the www.natural-selection.org page has a very neat design, I'm jealous <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> I wish my page had such a great presentation, but for now I don't have the time and resources (my web tools are on some other hd I have to recover), and my current page badly needs a "real" design.
VL-Tone, Metroid Cubed's author
<a href='http://pages.infinit.net/voxel/' target='_blank'>http://pages.infinit.net/voxel/</a>
NOT-SO-NINJA EDIT: Woah, I just looked it up and found it. Chrono Trigger: Resurrection, is apparently what it's called. Looks neat so far.
Well, depending on how you look at it, Half-life will be retrogaming in another four or five years. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
This was waaaay back though, couple years at least.
They might have LIED, like I now know they did in Delta Force.