Arcane Fortune 3D ASCII

Darin · 2020-08-05 19:36:48

Not very high on my priority list but it's an idea that might make the game feel more realistic in some way. It would be optional to show the buildings in 3D mode.

Your cities' residents would start to build the taller ones if you'd discovered the right techs. With the benefit being more population, less spread out (therefore closer to the city hall and higher taxes levied). Might also depend on some future resident education or wealth levels.

The 3D perspective would depend on where your cursor is. So they'd "move" as if you were somehow walking along the streets or something.

3D ascii buildings

3D block ascii buildings

Tchey · 2020-08-06 10:52:24

Nice idea, but in motion doesn’t it make the view too... weird ? Distorted ? Dizzy ?
Anyway, i like what it could become.

About ascii arts, i know nothing, but a game quite amazes me :Stone Story RPG
Only for inspiration, maybe.

Darin · 2020-08-06 17:40:55

Yeah, this might be one of those things I'd have to demo and see if it works and isn't too annoying or dizzying before implementing the full idea.

Thanks for the tip about Stone Story RPG--I'll check it out. More ascii art, like in the dialog screens or `tech discovered` screens I think could give the game a little more character.

Tchey · 2020-08-06 18:31:51

What if you force perspective ?
ie : all buildings, no matter where the cursor is, are oriented north-west.

Darin · 2020-08-06 19:07:47

Good idea. At some point, I'll write up a simple demo to test these variations.

With your idea, I could also have it so that you'd have a keybinding to rotate the entire map in 90 degree increments, to get a view from 4 different perspectives and see around buildings. Again, I'd still allow disabling the 3D display entirely, but maybe people would find the 3D perspective slightly more immersive.

Darin · 2020-08-06 19:30:29

locking the perspective and then rotating it:
locked perspective rotation

Tchey · 2020-08-06 19:39:19

Have to see it in action, but i like the idea of it.

Darin · 2020-08-22 02:24:13

For some reason I was compelled to download and try out Blender today. I was pleasantly surprised about how much easier it is compared to what I expected. I only watched one tutorial and I feel like, with enough time, I could make a lot with it with it only using the small fraction of its features I learned today.

Here's what I made:
Blender 3d building test

If I were ever to add something like this to AF, it'd probably come after "3D" ascii is added to the game, and even that would have to wait until more basic features are added (as have already been suggested on this forum).

Models like this would likely be added to the game in the form of something like an isometric tile-set with 4 pre-rendered views (like some versions of SimCity, actually). Also, adding this wouldn't mean that I'd get rid of the text-mode -- I doubt I'll ever get rid of that.

I was aiming for a graphical style somewhere between what i have here and this: https://metropolisim.com/
Although I want the colors to be more vibrant than what they have to better match what I have in the game already.

Comments/feedback welcome!

Tchey · 2020-08-22 06:22:10

Hi,

Don’t you think with the scale you’re aiming for, 3D renders will kill computers?

Sure it’s "prettier" than ascii and will attract more players, but, can it actually run when the current non-graphic game is going slow after a few cities are up ? It’s more about CPU, sure, but having to compute all datas AND 3D rendering, seems i bit too much, but i don’t know.

Most complex games run badly or/and go for low visual. First one in mind being of course Dwarf Fortress, but also Aurora4X, Songs of Syx, Cataclysm DDA, and mostly all "true" roguelikes (ie not roguelite like it’s fashion to do these days), Shores of Hazeron, etc.

Anyway, if it’s doable, then do, of course !

Darin · 2020-08-22 07:27:07

Thanks for your comments. I wasn't intending to have the game render 3D models. Using an isometric view, I believe I'd be able to not have the game render anything 3D, and that the CPU demand wouldn't be any different than using a graphical tileset as one might do in DF or other games.

(I'd distribute pre-rendered images of the models, cut them up into tiles and show the game grid slightly rotated like "B" here:
https://www.vectorstyler.com/documentat … shapes.png
As long as I draw the tiles at the top of the screen first, and the bottom part last, I believe it'll give a decent enough illusion of being 3d without actually being 3d -- it isn't too different than what I did with the ascii examples in this thread, just rotating the grid and using image tiles instead

But yeah, many other major issues and features needed first for the game before this, I agree.

Tchey · 2020-08-22 14:17:09

Yep,

I’m looking forward to playing the next version, and the next, and the... !

Darin · 2020-08-30 15:43:18

As if I needed another completely orthogonal direction to go in, I realized Rust (what I write the game in) can be compiled into WebAssembly (which is something like a compiled javascript that can be run in the browser without any plugins or need to install anything). In the more distant future, doing something like this may make the game more easily playable to people that don't want to download and run the game or who want to quickly try it out. I wouldn't get rid of the downloadable version though as it would almost always run faster than the WebAssembly version.

Here's a quick demo I found:
https://richardanaya.github.io/rust-rog … index.html
(code: https://github.com/richardanaya/rust-roguelike)

Aside from this pulling time away from me simply adding depth to the game, the other less obvious drawback of potentially doing something like this would be that it might "cheapen the brand", perhaps, and make people think the game won't have that much depth (admittedly it doesn't have much depth now anyway, but I'm thinking about the future...). Although maybe that's just my bias from having seen the previous generation of Flash games.

Tchey · 2020-08-31 18:04:53

Hi,

I don’t understand what is it to see with the demo linked.
How is the @ moving around green ... something new ?

Darin · 2020-08-31 18:27:53

The demo itself isn't interesting. It's more the technical approach/development tools. It may allow me to have AF run in the browser in the future without having to re-write all the code.

Darin · 2020-10-06 07:12:44

This isn't actually implemented, it's just a concept image. (This as mentioned before is an isometric view, and would require minimal CPU power for the game to show)
What do you think?

Tchey · 2020-10-06 08:22:04

It’s, hm... It’s... Interesting ?

Can you rotatethe view, at least by 45° increment if not fully free ?

Not sure what to think. It’s technically intriguing, but i’m not sure i’d "want" to play with this view.
It makes it closer to a Civilization-feel, but doing so, it also suffers from being way uglier, less detailled etc.
Less precise and more confusing to move around maybe ?

Anyway, i’m curious to see where you may go with this idea.

Darin · 2020-10-06 08:37:46

Hm. I see, thanks for your thoughts.

I agree the rotation is a bit much and is way more than I'd actually have in the game. It was more chosen out of a limitation in how we setup this mock-up scene than anything else.

Tchey · 2020-10-06 16:45:56

I don’t really see what "3D" could bring to the game actually.
If it was like Dwarf Fortress, or Odd Realms, yes, more yes.
So, not 3D, but topdown view, only less flat, with some smooth corner etc to better show altitude.

Darin · 2020-10-07 20:21:38

I hear what you're saying -- I think it's annoying when some games are unnecessarily 3D partly because it can make navigation and seeing everything harder than it needs to be.

However, the side I'm coming from is that I've always liked games like SimCity 2000 -- certainly it wasn't necessary for the game to have an isometric view, but to me it made the city feel more alive. It's also easier to know what's going on and with graphics -- such as how wealthy or poor an area is -- or even how technologically developed -- does the empire have stone-age looking buildings or modern-looking skyscrapers?

Certainly, to be clear, I'm *not* planning to get rid of the game's text mode. (Someone even contacted me about playing the game only using a screen reader -- and that's a direction, simultaneously I'd like to slowly improve too)

Further, I was thinking that as you zoom out, the game, even in graphics mode, it will snap back to current text-based map (at the full zoomed in level we have now). Kind of like what Google Maps does with zooming out of and into street view sometimes. Of course I'll let you disable this and let you use the full mouse features without any graphics at all.

Tchey · 2020-10-08 09:08:05

Yep.

I’m not at all against 3D next-gen visual, i’m only questionning the relevance of them (and all the range between text-based and high-end-tech stuff), based on gameplay, budget, timeframe, art direction etc. No answer, only open question.

Arcane Fortune Forums

#1 2020-08-05 19:36:48

Arcane Fortune 3D ASCII

#2 2020-08-06 10:52:24

Re: Arcane Fortune 3D ASCII

#3 2020-08-06 17:40:55

Re: Arcane Fortune 3D ASCII

#4 2020-08-06 18:31:51

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#5 2020-08-06 19:07:47

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#6 2020-08-06 19:30:29

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#7 2020-08-06 19:39:19

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#8 2020-08-22 02:24:13

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#9 2020-08-22 06:22:10

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#10 2020-08-22 07:27:07

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#11 2020-08-22 14:17:09

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#12 2020-08-30 15:43:18

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#13 2020-08-31 18:04:53

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#14 2020-08-31 18:27:53

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#15 2020-10-06 07:12:44

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#16 2020-10-06 08:22:04

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#17 2020-10-06 08:37:46

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#18 2020-10-06 16:45:56

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#19 2020-10-07 20:21:38

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