Bt Builder

[Methuselas]

Since it's been quite a while, I actually downloaded and installed the current version just to play around with it. It is greatly improved over when I was playing with it two or three years ago (I also bought a 'Gold Box pack' on the cheap with FRUA in it); I'll probably mess with it in more depth - I've wanted to just create an online AD&D 1st edition 'campaign' just for nostalgic purposes.

Exactly. If I wanted to do a 1st Edition AD&D game, this is what I would want to use. It has everything I need an then some.

But it does confirm what I was remembering - it's much easier to make a game with BT Builder (and BT Builder is much easier to 'customize' into something that differs markedly from it's 'roots'), while Dungeon Craft has, in a sense, more potential to make something substantially more complex (but with less deviation from the system it is based on).

I'm more into dungeon crawlers. Mainly Wizardry. Bane of the Cosmic Forge was a game that just sucked me in. Even though I hated how they changed spells and what not, it had me immersed. The conditions it added, like itching skin, made it even more dangerous for play. I played that game quite a few times, restarting, before I actually beat it.

Incidentally, the main thing I'm waiting on in BT Builder is the fix to spell durations (i.e. the fact that they are relative to when you last left the guild - I've just made all out of combat spells have *really* long durations to compensate), monster saves (at the moment only a roll of 20 - at least according to dulsi - results in a successful save; my conditional is because I have yet to see a monster actually make a save to anything ever when testing my modules - something I only started to see post ver 3.17 - so I have to take on faith they've just been absurdly unlucky so far), and paralysis (a spell that applies paralysis literally tries to apply the condition once per round of its duration, and once applied paralysis is permanent, essentially making it a death spell for all practical purposes - at least according to the BTCS manual the original intent was for the duration to actually be the duration of the effect and to 'restore movement' once the spell expired; but I honestly have no idea if it ever worked the way it was supposed to even in BTCS). Still, I'm currently on level 3 of 5 in the last dungeon in the current module I'm working on (and I've already got a sequel to that one fully outlines once I'm finished). The "released" one (based on my random dungeon generator) is much more fleshed out in the first five of the eleven levels it has - it's been fully playable, but didn't really have any story at all - just dungeon levels with monsters and traps to explore. So playing it is essentially like playing a the first Wizardry. Only harder. And Wizardry was hard. So I should probably do something about that...

I thought the spell durations were fixed? I've been making my own using the xml file. I will admit, I do find it irritating that BTBuilder doesn't just tick time, instead only changing time when you move. I don't remember BT games being like that.

I haven't really tested spell effects either, but I should probably start. Since I'm starting over from scratch, I reset everything and I'll be redoing all the spells again.

And yes, Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord was VERY unforgiving. It's part of the reason I loved that game so much. Was always disappointed that my characters would never transfer from Wiz 1 to BT, but I did get some interesting characters, with a few bonus items I didn't have before, when I used boot disks instead of character disks. I used to try and find characters on any game disk I had, just to see if I got anything good. Kinda like when I used to play Monster Rancher on my old PS1/2.

[caars]

Your memory is completely accurate - both the originals and the remade trilogy do tick time even if you stand around doing nothing. And both move time along a LOT faster than the default in BTCS (or, naturally BT Builder). In the remade trilogy you can actually see the exact rate time passes (turns out it's 1 minute of game time per 5 seconds; so an hour in game ticks by every 5 minutes). Interestingly, one thing BTCS/BT Builder didn't change is the default rate of regenerating spell points in daylight - in both games its 1 sp per 5 minutes of in-game time. In BTCS that means you have to take 50 steps (since 10 "steps" is 1 minute). In the "real" games it's once per 25 seconds.

Actually, I'm pretty sure in the original trilogy - and I'm completely sure in the remakes - time doesn't actually pass based on moving (i.e. taking a step doesn't actually tick by time). It doesn't really have to - the natural rate it passes is certainly fast enough. Time "freezes" in combat (it doesn't keep ticking by at 1 minute per 5 seconds), and random encounters have a chance of occurring not only per "time tick" but also per step.

But enough trivia - AFAIK the spell timing is not yet fixed in 3.17 (at least the version that is the windows install). It measures all spell durations relative to the last point where you left the adventurers guild. So if you cast a spell and the game determines it'll last for 600 rounds (i.e. 1 hour of in game time), then on round 600 after leaving the guild the spell expires. So if you cast it right after leaving the guild, it'll be in effect for the next 599 steps. If you cast it, say, 550 rounds after leaving the guild it'll only last 50 more steps before expiring. If you cast it 602 rounds after leaving the guild, it'll expire instantly, and so on. If you do return to the guild, the timer gets reset.

Now, if you've just been testing modules from a point relatively soon after leaving the guild, you won't notice anything wrong. But some of mine are tested from save games hundreds of rounds after leaving the guild, so the only spells in those games that do anything are combat duration spells (since those use a different "timer"). Unless, of course, I return the party to the guild - or I've used customized durations to give a spell a duration of *thousands* of rounds...

Actually I *think* "one turn" spells work too, since they're not so much "one turn" as just "fire the effect once and be done with it." But I may be wrong about that ... while I've been building, I haven't really been testing much since pinning down the duration issue in 3.17 (although without dulsi mentioning what the bug actually was, I don't think I would have ever figured it out on my own).

[Methuselas]

Finally got transferring motion files between rigs working in Motion Builder. It's been a royal PITA trying to use animations between files and I could never get a decent rig working with the various Daz models. I finally broke down and bought a plugin that uses HumanIK. It transfers straight from Daz to Maya. HumanIK sucks compared to the rigs that I build, but at least I can use motions between humanoids. Still haven't figured out how to transfer files between quadrupeds.



Stay Tuned.

[Methuselas]

Dulsi,

I updated the render engine to Arnold. It's a PBR Renderer. Means I had to make a new tileset template. I'll be updating all the tilesets to new ones. Here's the templates I rendered. It goes seven spaces deep, which was the longest view length in the original games, by using Cat's Eyes. I tried testing it, but I crashed the engine. I need a build with this included so I can make sure my DOF and Focal Points are correct and the tilesets line up.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1g5xAB ... drAAHeMXtA

Also, with my now using a PBR renderer, I can actually animate day and night in ming files. If you were to code time to 5 minutes = 1 hour of game time, I can render day and night based off sun settings. Also, can we get ceiling and floor tilesets? The horizon files are really only good for outdoor tilesets.

[caars]

Dulsi,

I updated the render engine to Arnold. It's a PBR Renderer. Means I had to make a new tileset template. I'll be updating all the tilesets to new ones. Here's the templates I rendered. It goes seven spaces deep, which was the longest view length in the original games, by using Cat's Eyes. I tried testing it, but I crashed the engine. I need a build with this included so I can make sure my DOF and Focal Points are correct and the tilesets line up.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1g5xAB ... drAAHeMXtA

Also, with my now using a PBR renderer, I can actually animate day and night in ming files. If you were to code time to 5 minutes = 1 hour of game time, I can render day and night based off sun settings. Also, can we get ceiling and floor tilesets? The horizon files are really only good for outdoor tilesets.

Seven spaces? Was that a major difference between various ports. The one I mostly played on was the Apple II version (which, in theory, was the same as the C64 version), and I'd swear up and down that Cat Eyes was only five spaces (technically the one you were standing on itself, and then *four* in front of you in the direction you were facing).

Not saying you're wrong, mind you, but I am somewhat curious which version was seven spaces? [Incidentally, in the apple version, CAEY and GRRE had the exact same level of illumination - and the 'strategic' difference between them was CAEY lasted 'forever' but didn't show you secret doors, while GRRE was actually 'long' not 'indefinite' but *did* show you secret doors. That said, I *do* think I remember hearing that there were versions of the game where CAEY *did* have a longer range than any other illumination spell - just not in any version I ever played. So this is more curiosity on my part...]

[Methuselas]

I'm going off my notes from a few years back, based off the Amiga version. It was 1 space, plus 6, for a total of 7. I can't test it, 'cos my A500 died. If I'm wrong, well, I can start rendering out the new tilesets (they're all being replaced.) Otherwise, I have to wait for the functionality, before I can test it accurately.

[dulsi]

Sorry I haven't been around much. Been working on other projects. I was recruited to work on a NES demake of OpenAlchemist. Then I stumbled on Mojotron. I was also pushing polish Troll Bridge into something more complete. And that is only the computer game stuff.

Now I'm looking at entering the Open Game Jam which may be good for Bt Builder. The theme is the future.


Instead of the Adventurer's Guild, you will be starting in a space ship and beaming down to investigate a wreak. Wall textures for the wreak may be a quick hack. I don't really have a lot more at the moment. Frankly I don't know if I will have the time to complete it before the contest end.

[dulsi]

Bt Builder 0.5.18 has been released.

Fix saving throws for monsters. Add better support for pocketchip mode. Allow black text to be changed to a different color. Add some more commands to specials. Add names to flags. Allow flags to be permanently saved. Add decorations to specials.

[Methuselas]

What is a "decoration?"

[dulsi]

What is a "decoration?"

Something that is displayed when you can see the square with the special. For my scifi game, I'm using it to display a transporter pad on the ground. You could use it to display a hole in the floor or the roof.

[Methuselas]

What is a "decoration?"

Something that is displayed when you can see the square with the special. For my scifi game, I'm using it to display a transporter pad on the ground. You could use it to display a hole in the floor or the roof.

Ah. Does this mean that monster mings can have alpha channels now, without tearing the images?

[dulsi]

Ah. Does this mean that monster mings can have alpha channels now, without tearing the images?

No. I don't remember if I added mitigation for that by coloring the image box black first. But I assume what you want is the regular 3D dungeon image with the monster displayed over it.

If you want to see the early Sci-fi game:

http://identicalsoftware.com/btbuilder/ ... arsong.zip

[Methuselas]

No. I don't remember if I added mitigation for that by coloring the image box black first. But I assume what you want is the regular 3D dungeon image with the monster displayed over it.

If you want to see the early Sci-fi game:

http://identicalsoftware.com/btbuilder/ ... arsong.zip

No. There's no need to add anything on my account. I was just asking. I haven't touched BTBuilder for some time. I've mostly been working with the RogueTech mod group for BattleTech for the last year or two. I was working with a dungeon crawler asset for Unity, but after I bought it, the developer just dropped it, so I kinda stopped thinking about working on a dungeon crawler all together.

I do like some of the additions you added to BTBuilder, though. The allowing a special to change classes was a nice touch.

I'd be interested in BTBuilder again if:

1. We had multiple attacks for mobs (the lack of, is my largest disinterest in BTBuilder)
2. XML files for a working temple or all the special actions required to build one. (primarily cast spell for $Gold x Level)
3. Doors that could lock, requring a specific key or key type to open or an open locks roll.
4. Treasure Tables for item drops (again, a lack of causes disinterest)
5. Placeable wall tiles. Since mental ray is no longer a part of Maya, I'd have to redo all the tilesets, as I can no longer render them. If I went to all this trouble, I'd rather be able to put any tile, where ever I wanted. I always wanted to be able to see temples, Garth's, etc from a distance, like in the original games.
6. Animated wallsprites/horizon maps, so I could emulate day and night times.
7. Time actually ticking away naturally, instead of by movement.

Having mobs walk through dungeons and actually seeing the dungeons, instead of my static backgrounds would just be the icing on the cake.

Truthfully, I really miss playing with BTBuilder, but over the years, the what I couldn't do, but wanted to, outstripped what I could do, so I lost interest.

It's nice to see development still being done, though.

[Methuselas]

Okay......

I stand corrected. My apologies, Dulsi. Starsong has been sitting on my desktop for a while, so I decided to check it out.


I really like this decoration thing. One of my biggest issues was the fact that a lot of my maps had things like rivers and oceans that I couldn't place. This could make more of my maps doable, especially the port city I mapped out but could never complete. It would take a lot of specials, but I think I could set up tiles for different landscapes, using this.

I noticed, however, that the teleporter is dumped in the dungeon0 folder and we have a decortype in the walls. That's bad. Using Starsong as an example, if you had multiple dungeons that used the teleporter, you would either have to a) have a teleporter decor for each tileset (which increases file size) or b) point each tileset in the wall.xml to the sole decoration which has the potential to cause crashes, especially when using several decorations, due to typos.

It would be far more efficient to create a decoration.xml file and put all the decorations in said file, with a folder for decoration images. With my naming scheme, it's not an issue to keep them separated in a dump folder. That way, if you wanted to make a Tree decoration, but put it in say a space ship (maybe you want a hydroponic lab), the special would look in the decoration.xml, instead of the wall.xml.

Going even further, why not integrate this into the map editor? Give us Door, Secret Door, Locked Door (with a difficulty for open locks, strength tests and flags for keys), Wall, User-Defined Wall, Floor, Ceiling, Impassable and Clear actions. Special Wall, Floor and Ceiling use the decoration functions, so we could drop sprites for Floors, Ceilings and User-Defined Walls. The rest function as normal.

After playing with the decorations, I realize a lot of what I want to do, visually, can be done using the decorations, with a few tweaks.

You get me something like that integrated into the map editor and I'll make you some walls and doors for your Starsong mod. I may even throw in some mob images.

[Methuselas]

Dulsi,

Is there a hard-code limitation on screensize? After looking at Starsong, I got inspired to work on BTBuilder again. In trying to bring it into the 21st Century, I have been pushing the resolution. I'm currently building the screens, but I've changed the resolution to 320x240 matching monitor standards, yet anything higher than 1280x960 (x4 multiplier) doesn't work. It won't load anything out of the directories, instead defaulting to the original 320x200. 1280x960 will read from the 1280x960 directory, but anything higher will not. I was going to max BTBuilder to 1920x1440 (for normal monitors) and then do a 1600x1200 for my laptop's max resolution, but they're not working. Even setting the display to 1600x1200 with a multiplier of 1 doesn't load from the 1600x1200 directory.

The goal was to have resolutions from 320x240 all the way to 1920x1440, with Pocket Chip having it's own directory for it's images. The Main window is now 145x145px, up from 112x88px originally.