29. August 2006
A developers' blog - wait a second! A blog? With my many updates? I think, it should
be called something like one update in a month and even if this works I would be
wondering. But if I call this section "Check some and then for an update", no body
will understand, what I mean. Okay, okay, I stop this bad jokes and start.
Of course, I could pretend, that you did not look at the screenshots, that you could find here. But as I always look at first at the screenshots, I do not assume, that you behave different. If you did, feel free to look at them right now.
There are som strange windows on the screenshots? Why is it called Diced?
And you did never hear Diced before? Okay, let me start at the beginning.
It is the first entry and I do not know, in how far we reported about
Diced - and not everybody follows our postings in our forum - especially
as we write a lot in German.
I think that you aleady guessed, that the screenshosts are not from the game. They are taken from our editor. But why did I take screenshots from the editor and not from the game? Well, the reason is simple. Since the beginning of the development of Diccuric, the editor is my baby. That means, that I am the maintainer of the editor and - as far as possible - develop code for the game and the editor at once, e.g. loading routines. Of course, I am also working on the game. But what is a game worth, where you cannot create levels? Exactly! Of course, the editor has a name: Diced. The name is a short cut of Diccuric Editor, but as fortune wants, there is also the English word "to dice".
Why do we develop an own tool? That is a good question. The reason is not, that
we want to show, that we are able to develop one. Actually, we develop it,
because we want an editor, that offers what we need. This starts, that we
have an own world format, that it should support. We also created an own
format to save informations of objects. If we would adjust an existing
editor, we could directly develop an own one, that offers all the features
we want to have. Moreover, the creators are directly in our team and know
all features. That sounds as we do not document our code? Well, we do,
but they are avaiable to our team only - other people will not have any
use to them.
What can Diced? Diced is able to load a level and insert NPCs and objects. It is also possible to define objects by scripts or simply use meshes. Why scripts? They enable us to add interactions, e.g. destroyable chests or dynamical changes. The last thing I added to the editor were lights. It is possible to add lights at a certain position or that they fly on a track. Unfortunately, it is impossible to catch the second one on a single screenshot.
Currently, I am working on the waynet. The waypoints can bet set right now, my current task is to connect them and to create a compile algorithm for the waynet. Of course, data can be saved and loaded.
If there will be a release of the editor? To be honest, I do not know it yet. At the moment, it is a developer tool only and it tends to crash at wrong settings. Of course, I try to catch those crashes. But we still have problems with our manpower and have to decide, which parts are important and which are not. At the moment, there is one target: A playable demo. At the programming part, we can live with our current capacities, but we are really looking for people who can help us with textures and animated figures (characters, animals, monsters...). If you are interested, please mail me.
Of course, each part develops. Today, I reported on a tool, that exists in the background and that you will maybe never be able to use yourselves, but which is very important for the development. What will be the next topic? That depends on the person, who writes the next article.
Of course, I could pretend, that you did not look at the screenshots, that you could find here. But as I always look at first at the screenshots, I do not assume, that you behave different. If you did, feel free to look at them right now.
There are som strange windows on the screenshots? Why is it called Diced?
And you did never hear Diced before? Okay, let me start at the beginning.
It is the first entry and I do not know, in how far we reported about
Diced - and not everybody follows our postings in our forum - especially
as we write a lot in German.
I think that you aleady guessed, that the screenshosts are not from the game. They are taken from our editor. But why did I take screenshots from the editor and not from the game? Well, the reason is simple. Since the beginning of the development of Diccuric, the editor is my baby. That means, that I am the maintainer of the editor and - as far as possible - develop code for the game and the editor at once, e.g. loading routines. Of course, I am also working on the game. But what is a game worth, where you cannot create levels? Exactly! Of course, the editor has a name: Diced. The name is a short cut of Diccuric Editor, but as fortune wants, there is also the English word "to dice".
Why do we develop an own tool? That is a good question. The reason is not, that
we want to show, that we are able to develop one. Actually, we develop it,
because we want an editor, that offers what we need. This starts, that we
have an own world format, that it should support. We also created an own
format to save informations of objects. If we would adjust an existing
editor, we could directly develop an own one, that offers all the features
we want to have. Moreover, the creators are directly in our team and know
all features. That sounds as we do not document our code? Well, we do,
but they are avaiable to our team only - other people will not have any
use to them.
What can Diced? Diced is able to load a level and insert NPCs and objects. It is also possible to define objects by scripts or simply use meshes. Why scripts? They enable us to add interactions, e.g. destroyable chests or dynamical changes. The last thing I added to the editor were lights. It is possible to add lights at a certain position or that they fly on a track. Unfortunately, it is impossible to catch the second one on a single screenshot.
Currently, I am working on the waynet. The waypoints can bet set right now, my current task is to connect them and to create a compile algorithm for the waynet. Of course, data can be saved and loaded.
If there will be a release of the editor? To be honest, I do not know it yet. At the moment, it is a developer tool only and it tends to crash at wrong settings. Of course, I try to catch those crashes. But we still have problems with our manpower and have to decide, which parts are important and which are not. At the moment, there is one target: A playable demo. At the programming part, we can live with our current capacities, but we are really looking for people who can help us with textures and animated figures (characters, animals, monsters...). If you are interested, please mail me.
Of course, each part develops. Today, I reported on a tool, that exists in the background and that you will maybe never be able to use yourselves, but which is very important for the development. What will be the next topic? That depends on the person, who writes the next article.
