Platform Masters development (January 23, 2012) - Making ground decals (part 1/6)

[Tomapella]

Wow, the Carnivalesta area is really impressive, I love the light coming through the mountains. As always, I look forward to seeing more of the game!

[ulillillia]

Carnivalesta will be redone though the change isn't significant so what you see is fairly close to the final result. The mountains and the rides won't change. The basic ideas behind the stands in the foreground won't change and neither will the hotel. The arrangements for the stands will change though to cut back on repetition and extend the visibility range. New objects (tables) will be added and the roller coaster tracks may get animated lights. That's basically it.

[bonniedog96]

@richardcmongler101 U mad bro?

Your rage feeds me.

[Shahamu]

The detail you've added is beautiful. I am curious about one thing, will there be an option in the menu to change the Height and Speed displays into metric?

[MarioMastar]

Ah! So it's now "Barugan Reef" Very nice name! It really fits with the other regions and fits the Ocean very well. Also really nice to see the stars in motion as well!

Nice to see more updates on PM! I'm so psyched to play it more and more with every video!

[ulillillia]

The Barugan region is tropical. It is found in the far south central portion of the game's overworld. Worlds 7, 8, and 19 take place there. Have you seen the overview video? That video covers what all remains fairly well. As a side note, I'm now on the verge of completing Lake Keveran 100%. I now just need to import all the images, test things out, and I'm done.

[MarioMastar]

@ulillillia Yeah! I just watched each of the videos in order and saw every one of them! That seems like a really great way to get double parallax scrolling for each of the decals so well done and the 3D looks more amazing with each video! Ah, and I'd LOVE to write the theme for World 19 if I can, Reggae is one of my top favorite musical themes. I'll wait until there's more info on it while finishing the other themes, but progress looks Amazing!

[ulillillia]

Lake Keveran is 100% complete now. I should have the screenshots posted in the screenshot archive around 7:10 PM UTC on Jan 26, 2012. I got too tired yesterday to continue and I had thoughts in my mind for how amazingly beautiful Lake Keveran came out for nearly a half hour! I also intend on getting a video overview of Lake Keveran. That one level in Croc 2 in the first world is what came to mind with Reggae (I've been told it's Reggae, but 5% certainty can't be trusted).

[MarioMastar]

@ulillillia Ah, I remember playing Croc 2. The song where you chase the minion is "Calypso" style, which is tribal, island style music. It's also one of my favorites though. Reggae tends to focus more on the Melody while Calypso is more percussion oriented. Ah, But you're right! Lake Keveran looks absouletly stunning and so wonderful!

[ulillillia]

I don't remember the exact names or anything, but I do recall getting a key in a lava cave and out one exit was a heart.

[MarioMastar]

@ulillillia Yeah, it's been years for me too. Though I think all except the racing stage had lava in it. One played a mine cart theme, and one played a calypso version of the theme song, the rest I don't remember the song at all (except the racing stage, because those were my favorites).

[CrocoDuck420]

Hey Ulli do you have an adsense account?

[ulillillia]

No.

[Oreichalcos]

@ulillillia You really should become a Youtube partner. You would make a tidy sum considering the number of views you get for each video and I believe that most of your fans would be fine with seeing a banner or two alongside your videos.

[foofiter9097]

@Oreichalcos The issue is copy written game material, of which means he cannot become a youtube partner, his PM videos are essentially all he could make money off of because he owns the rights to this game. He could however make a seperate youtube channel for PM updates and become a youtube partner through that channel I think, as long as everyone would subscribe to him there, but its tedious and I don't think he needs more then 1 channel.

[ulillillia]

Well, there are my camcorder videos that should be fine and that's otherwise it. About 80% of my videos are of game play from video games I play.

[foofiter9097]

@ulillillia Yeah I forgot about your camcorder videos, those should also be just fine, but the gameplay videos are a problem, wish there was a way to claim "fair use" under the copyright laws for gameplay videos, but with ad revenue you cannot claim fair use unless your somehow giving the money back to the creators of these said games, no idea how to do that...

[MarioMastar]

@foofiter9097 Oddly, my LPs have been accepted (randomly wiht a 95% chance of success) for Ad revinue, but due to the low number of views I get, I hardly get more than one cent a month, so it's a slow process. Though, youtube only really cares about popularity more than copyright, so if Uli had about 2*10^6 or 10^7 views per video, they'd make him a partner in a heart beat regardless of what was on his channel as far as the games are concerned. Stated on YT's own partner page.

[ulillillia]

My game play videos typically get about 500 to 1500 views within 1 month of release. They're not as strong as my PM videos. Still, I average about 20,000 total video views per day so I average about 1 million total video views in only 1 2/3 months. My most active are the first segment of my "50 oddities in Spyro 2" video and the "5 secrets in Bubsy 3D" video. Those two alone total nearly 1 million views though it's been a few months since I last checked....

[Axon193]

Every time I watch one of your videos, I'm simply astounded at the attention to detail. The upper areas of carnivalesta are mind-blowingly beautiful. Great work, ulillillia.

[hedasw]

Carnivalestra world looks great.

[bonniedog96]

@richardcmongler101 That's a very nice little comeback you have there, so because of my age my joke is completely invalid?

Also, it's a joke about the way he sometimes changes words around and maybe if you feel like taking the time to write a comment mybe you're the one who should calm down.

[doshemekluta]

Hi Ulillillia - I was wondering how much time (per week) you spend on Platform Masters? Thanks :)

[ulillillia]

If I'm working on PM, it's 80 hours. If I'm not, it's 0. The overall average is about 30 to 40 hours a week.

[doshemekluta]

@ulillillia Thanks for the info :) The game is really shaping up now; keep up the good work.

[KoRL12]

What resolutions will Platform masters run? Will i be able to play it in true HD 1920x1080?

[ulillillia]

Platform Masters is hard-fixed to run at 1024x768 and only 1024x768. If I went with 2560x1600, you'd pretty much be able to see the entire level in the view at once giving such users an unfair advantage over those with a tiny 640x480 maximum resolution. As long as your monitor has at least 768 pixels vertically or can handle 1024x768 (of which is a very widely supported resolution), you'll be able to run PM without problems.

[foofiter9097]

@ulillillia If you don't mind me asking, where is part 6? Or is that for tomorrow? Since these videos where made on the 23rd of January?

[ulillillia]

Part 6 got delayed because I was eating and I didn't want my greasy fingers handling the mouse and keyboard. There is one other video coming too (about 40 minutes away) that explains how Platform Masters is coming along. That video was recorded yesterday but I ran out of time processing this 110-minute-long video.

[foofiter9097]

@ulillillia Ah I see, I also wouldn't touch the mouse or keyboard if my fingers where greasy, I personally wash my hands before I go back to the computer if I even eat potato chips... I can't wait to see these videos, especially the one on how PM is coming along! On a side note, did you update the site with screenshots 254 and so on?

[ulillillia]

I always wash my hands right after eating. I haven't posted any new screenshots yet as I prefer to get Lake Keveran 100% complete first. The buildings and houses are otherwise quick to do. The sailboats are actually done already. That only leaves the air taxis (already done) remaining. I should finish either tomorrow or the day after.

[foofiter9097]

@ulillillia I don't always wash my hands after eating, but it is a good habit to have, because your much less likely to get a cold or get sick if you wash your hands often. Well, once I see the screenshots up I will know that Lake Keveran is finally finished! So that's something nice to look forward to. I also have videos to make soon IF my PC can handle the DVD's I use (if it can read them I mean)

[Lisergishnu]

Hey Ulillillia, what does CU stand for (in the debug panel)?

[ulillillia]

Coordinate units. It's the game's back end units of distance measure equal to exactly 1.76 inches or 4.4704 centimeters. See the glossary for more details on the term.

[PissMyFaceSh0w]

When are you going to be uploading the next few?

[x1te]

Have you considered licensing a piece of software called SpeedTree for rendering the trees in your forest?

[bonniedog96]

"It looks extremely 3D, VERY 3D"

So Very is bigger than Extremely now?

[chelf12]

I just saw Mount Sentusia in your world list there. Have you started on that world at all yet, Uli?

[ulillillia]

It has been started, but only the bare minimums. The mountains from the Sentus Mountains world are used for the far part (their shape at least - they'll be much more snow-capped due to the greater distance from the tropics and the usual elevation. I can make the scenery for it, but I can't make the lava dangerous until I redo the character's animation.

[silversobe]

Very nice, looking forward to further developments.

[MagikGimp]

This looks very impressive but you've really got to learn distance fog or level of detail manipulation for what is at its heart a fairly simple platformer (i.e. remove all those background graphics and you could probably run it on a Pentium III!)

[ulillillia]

I have accurate distance fog. The cause for the frame rate problems is that the draw count is too high. The fix is easy though - keep the draw count to within 2500 draws per frame and I have an assortment of fixes to allow for that.