Bt Builder

[Methuselas]

I am working on a secret btbuilder related project. A non-covid sickness may have sidelined it. I also may have put some kind of sample in my signature.

Hoosh,

that 100 mb map is INSANE, but awesome. I wish I had something to offer you for it, but I lost my external work drive. Complete mechanical failure. I lost every project I worked on, from Unity to Maya. All the tilesets and animations I had are gone. I think I managed to recover 5 animations and some random tiles. Only thing I have are the Gamescreens, which were in my documents folder.

I hope Dulsi and his family are okay. Haven't seen him in well over a year.

[Methuselas]

So, I got really bummed that I lost everything I had done for BTBuilder. When I was setting up some mods for a game last night, I introduced my kid to, I found an old BTBuilder directory that I was apparently using to update the graphics a few years back. It had a working 1280x960 module. That's the highest I ever got BTBuilder to work correctly. It was based off 320x240. So, I decided that I would start over completely, from scratch and set up BTBuilder to support 1080P Widescreen, which is the most common desktop resolution.

Oooh boy, is BTBuilder pissing me off. First, the multiplier won't work. I've been trying to find the "sweet spot" for resolution and I've discovered it to be 160x120 pixels. That will support 640x480 (which works), 1280x960 (which works) and 1920x1080, as well as any resolution in-between that divides by 160x120. At 1920x1080, though, it won't multiply the text. Since the Windows version doesn't have TT Font support, we're stuck using the old-school bitmap font which is 8 pixels tall and wide. There's no way that I know of to replace it, so we're SOL. I tried brute forcing it, first by using a Height and Width of 1920x1080, without a multiplier in the display.xml, but again, it refused to increase the bitmap font size, nor will it show the 3D view correctly, only displaying 224x176 pixels. Then, I tried using the same Height and Width, using a multiplier of 1, but it refused to use the images in the 1920x1080 directory, used the old default 320x200 ones, only renders the 3D view in 224x176 pixels and still wouldn't multiply the font size (which wouldn't matter anyway, since it's by a x1 multiplier.)

Ironically, though, I found out the "Rename a Member" function in the Guild is bugged and won't allow you to rename a character.

Here's 1920x1080.

https://i.postimg.cc/L81NHRGQ/1920.png

Man, I really wish Dulsi was around. I hope he's okay......

[Methuselas]

So I've done some thorough testing. BTBuilder will not support any resolution size beyond 1280x960. It will stretch to any size bigger, however. The maximum resolution for the 3D view is 580x580 for the Gamescreen. Anything bigger will start cutting off the images. Still no TTFont support for Windows. I took a lot of the functions Dulsi added for the Pocketchip version and integrated them into the PC version, as best I could.

The MapEditor will support up to 1280x960, as well and will stretch to larger resolutions. However, the 3D view on the MapEditor will only support up to a resolution of 290x290. I've managed to trick the MapEditor by pointing it to it's own image directory, to use the smaller resolution, which is what I wanted to do anyway.

I've gone over Dulsi code. It's fairly clean, though lacking any comments. It appears that this bug may be related to the SDL_ming hook, but I'm not sure. I don't have it and my coding experience is nowhere near anyone else's on the board. I can't find anywhere in Dulsi's code that would cause these bugs, but again, I don't have the experience to properly test it. I don't even have an environment built to build a Windoze version on my own.

I made a quick and dirty map template to test the 3D view. The resolution works, so I could redo all the dungeons, images and what not. The caveat is placeables don't function as walls, so you couldn't use them to replace walls, meaning we're stuck using the modulus way it's been the past decade. I can make them, and would plan to, but you'd still have to drop them in specials, as before. You'd also be stuck suing 2 tilesets: one for the Gamescreen and one for the MapEditor.

I wouldn't be supporting Pocketchip, at all. If Dulsi came back, it would probably be easy to do, but I want a full 1920x1080, for maximum pixel density and since I can't do that and Dulsi is MIA (I hope he and his family are okay), I don't want to invest the time to do it, since he was the only one that actually used it anyway. I would also be modifying the way the Status.xml works, the way I want it. You'd have to mod your own, if you didn't like my setup.

The question is: Should I even bother? Would anyone else use it? Between Unity, UE4 and BTBuilder, BTBuilder is my favorite engine to play with, but honestly, there's still a lot of things that I wanted out of it, I never got, so I'm still on the fence on doing anymore work on it. With Dulsi and Caars gone, I'm again on the fence as to whether or not I want to do the work that would be required.

Is anyone else interested in or still using BTBuilder? Are there any coders that would want to take over where Dulsi left off? (his last commit was Aug 2020.) Just putting out some feels.

https://i.postimg.cc/9FFkk6Lm/BTBuilder-1280.png

https://i.postimg.cc/wvh6W19b/BTBuilder ... r-1280.png

[Methuselas]

Here's a working copy of Caar's Relis Nubilar adventure. It's as close as I could get to his original, based off Hoosh's working copy (mine was corrupted - It should have been my first warning that my drive was dying.)

You shouldn't have any issues with the display.xml anymore. Thankfully, I kept each of Dulsi's milestones on a flash drive. I learned a long time ago, after working in the game industry to save milestones. It appears Caar's build was 0.5.13. I went through each milestone and tested the display.xml and found that was the working one. Ironically, it's IDENTICAL to the 0.5.18 one, but that one didn't work properly with his module. Once I threw in the 0.5.13 version, it worked without problems.

I highly recommend downloading it, if you're still mucking about in BTBuilder. It's a lot of fun. I'm playing it right now.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EgJk-P ... sp=sharing

[hooshnik]

I don't have time to test it but I uploaded it to my link in my signature. Relis Nublar is probably the best adventure for Btbuilder right now.

Did you say something about not being able to rename? I know somebody who on windows 10 can't get Btbuilder to acknowledge certain keypresses which is not in my buglist.

Dulsi is fine. He's just found another project. Apparently so have I, don't know if I'll be back. I kind of wish I could come back.

[Methuselas]

I don't have time to test it but I uploaded it to my link in my signature. Relis Nublar is probably the best adventure for Btbuilder right now.

It works. All the problems with the display were directly related to the display.xml. I don't know why. I went through all the milestones to find the appropriate one. It works without issue. If there are bugs, it's related to what Caars set up.

Did you say something about not being able to rename? I know somebody who on windows 10 can't get Btbuilder to acknowledge certain keypresses which is not in my buglist."

The "Rename a Character" doesn't work in the Guild. When you click on it, it spits you back to the main menu. As for keypresses not working, BTBuilder, I've discovered that having the caps locks enabled interferes with key commands. Turning it off will alleviate those problems.

Dulsi is fine. He's just found another project. Apparently so have I, don't know if I'll be back. I kind of wish I could come back.

Glad to know he's okay.

I guess I'll just scrap all this and move on myself, then. I had a falling out with the project I've been working on. Always the same thing: we want this, but the stuff you want, well, I don't want to do it. I gave the guy a bunch of rigged skeletons for Maya, but he was expecting me to re-rig, paint weight and animate all these blender files he had that he "needed," but wouldn't get me things I needed for my own project, so I bailed.

It's been a blast these past 12 years or so. Stay safe and good luck in all your endeavors.

[dulsi]

Still no TTFont support for Windows.

Actually Fedora includes SDL2_ttf for the windows cross compiler. It is in btbuilder 0.5.18. My initial work on starsong used it.

[Methuselas]

Were I not married, I would kiss you, Dulsi. I never thought to check the display.xml for Starsong. I just played it and when I saw the placeables you added, my dev brain immediately went to "What can I add for BTBuilder?" This might fix the problem I had with 1920x1080 screens and the fonts. I'll be more inspired to work on modernizing BTBuilder now, so don't be surprised if I start dropping links for new graphics.

Speaking of Starsong, should you get the whim to come back to developing BTBuilder, I've been quietly gobbling up robots and drones, from the Daz Studio marketplace, when they go on sale the past year. I just picked this one up, last week.

[Methuselas]

Happy Thanksgiving, all! Hope all is well with you and yours.

[Methuselas]

Template for the Map Editor is done. It's 1280x960, with a 3D View at 290x280, which is half the gamescreen picture size and the size I wanted to use for the Map Editor anyway. Map icons have been updated and quadrupled in size, for a more modern appeal. Map display is 24x24, so it will fit the standard dungeon sizes for Bard's Tale. If I could stretch the screen to a full 1920x1080, I would be able to display the 30x30 Skara Brae map from the original Bard's Tale. But you work with what you've got.

The Main Screen is stuck at a flat 640x480. Anything higher doesn't display correctly and fonts don't work at all with it.

[dulsi]

There is a Game Jam made for Bt Builder. The Dungeon Crawler Jam 2022 starts in a couple of days.

https://itch.io/jam/dcjam2022

I don't know if I will enter but it is tempting.

[Methuselas]

You might want to. I think I just cracked the 1680x1050 limitation. 1920x1080 still crashes, but I've got the gamescreen working at 1680x1050. It was driving me nuts this afternoon, trying to figure out a way to get the one I was working on to use smaller tilesets for the map editor, so I was crunching numbers while kiddo was in Kung Fu.

And I figured it out. Hopefully, I'll be able to get all the screens to the same size, like I did with 1280x960. The switching between the editors is almost seamless. I don't know why they would always break the picture screen, but setting the Height and Width to 105 and 168, with an XYmulti of 10 fixed it. Doesn't work for 1920. I think it has to do with it being too big to fit the screen with the header at the top.




[EDIT] - Yeah..... hold off on that one. It's borked too. Man, I'm trying every possible way to make a working build higher than 1280x960. I'm nervious about 1280x960, 'cos you have to run it from a module, but in order for the smaller tileset to show, it has to be the "default." It's messy and not working right now, but I think it's from older tileset templates. I'll eventually have to redo new tilesets, since I no longer have mental ray.

This is interesting, though. I've never seen it stretch the default slots. It did it with the ming files, too.

[Methuselas]

I DID IT! I FINALLY FIGURED OUT WHAT'S BEEN MESSING WITH ME FOR YEARS!

Dulsi, please correct me on this, if I am wrong, but I finally found out why my redesigns kept messing up. In the Display.xml, there are various layouts for example, Gamescreen and Text. An Example Gamescreen layout for 1280x960 is below:

<label><name>main</name><location><x>4</x><y>155</y><w>158</w><h>8</h></location></label>

The main element of the Gamescreen layout covers both the text layout AND the image. The X is the distance from the left of the layout The Y is the total length of the image AND the text, the W is the Width of the Image and the Text and the H is the size of the font, correct?

Now, if I was using a multiplier of 4, that means the coordinates for each has to be multiplied by 4. So, if I wanted to have a a Main Screen that displayed a 512x512 image, with Text at a Font Size of 32 and a box around the text that was 40 pixels in height, I would put the following:

<label><name>main</name><location><x>4</x><y>138</y><w>128</w><h>8</h></location></label>

So, I was up until 0400 this morning, mucking with numbers. Instead of using the default Display.xml, I re-wrote it completely by scratch and then created a template in Photoshop, after I laid out a rough outline in the game engine. Disregard the clipping in the Picture window, as I didn't re-render new images or tiles. Nothing broke this time. What was causing the breaks appears to be stretching of the 640x400 images, but since they weren't a solid number multiplier, they got wonky.



So, now I know, for a fact, that I can make a 1680x1050 resolution for BTBuilder now. We could use that as the primary, with a pocket chip, as an independent build specifically for pocket chip devices and 640x480 resolution for the fall-back for Linux/PC. I'd only need to re-render 2 sets of images, instead of 3, since 640 and pocket chip use the same resolution of 224x176. I can also, use those 224x176 tileset images for the 1680x1050 Map Editor, if there was a way to tell the Editor, "Hey, when displaying the tileset, use the tilesets from this directory, instead."

[Methuselas]

Dulsi, can you take a look at this build project? This is a 1280x960 resolution. There's two Display Versions: 1x1 and a Multi of 4x4.

The multi is the one that works for the most part. It clips off the right 20 or so pixels of the 3D View. The slot images that are inculded are the proper size, but they're being clipped off by the 3D View. The tileset template isn't the proper size, but it's the only one I had available to temporarily test and it works properly. All the images are in the default directory, so I can test all the screens. The map icons are the correct size and display correctly, for both the MapEdit and the Gamescreen. The Spell Effect icons are the correct size and display correctly. There are placeholders for the Status Effect icons.

The 1x1 is really broken. the 3D View displays as 224x176 - it clips off everything else. The map icons, spell effects and status effects don't display correctly.

If we can get it working at a 1x1, I can use an Aspect Ratio of 4:3 on all the images. All the screens and slots are 98% set to a 4:3 ratio, right now. I created a new template, using Vector Shapes, so I can scale them up and down seamlessly, provided the Width is divisible by 4 and the Height divisible 3. If we can get all the way up to 1920x1080, so long as I use this new template to scale down, I could create seamless Display.xml for each the following resolutions:

1920x1080 16:9 21.5" Monitor/23" Monitor/1080p
1680X1050 16:9 22" Monitor
1600x900 16:9 20" Monitor
1440x900 16:9 19" Monitor
1360X768 16:9 14" Notebook/15.6" Laptop
1280x960 16:9
1280x728 16:9 720p
1024x768 4:3
960x540 16:9
640x480 4:3 14: Monitor
404x270 4:3 Pocket Chip

If the SDL package you use can scale images and mings now on the Windows version, we'd have the tools to create a display screen to pick your resolution, first. Then it could go to the Mainscreen. If the images could scale, I would only need to render 1 set of images. Otherwise, I'd need one for each resolution. You have everything you need to test at 1280x960 resolution, to either figure out what I broke, or what is causing the clipping and other errors.

Also, there are 3, GPL fonts that I added. One is a nice Arial Bold that I'm using by default. Currently set at 32, but that's too high right now. 32 would be good for 1920x1080

NOTE - The MapEdit displays correctly on the 4x4 version, but the 3D View is still the standard size. I wanted to be able to scale the 3D View smaller, so you'd have more real estate for the Map, itself. There is a smaller tileset in the MapEdit/tileset/ folder. It's broken, but so long as the 3D View in the MapEdit can scale to the horizon size, I can re-do it.

https://files.catbox.moe/xm54t4.7z

[Methuselas]

So close! 1600x900 is now working. Still some clipping issues with slots. Don't know why. I double checked my math. It's a bug with the 3D view. I can get into 1920x1080, if I don't use a multiplier, but the fonts don't work.