Platform Masters development (January 26, 2012) - Lake Keveran 100% complete

[vgZerstorung]

Can you create animation frames for the ground decals themselves, or would having a visual effect of waves washing up and down the shoreline require separate processing?

[ulillillia]

Animation is possible, but requires so much memory that it's not worth doing. For 4 frames, I'd have to quadruple the memory used by ground decals, adding about 20 to 30 MB more. With 96 MB as my limit, that's too much considering that world 11 will be pushing things a lot. I'd have to allocate more memory that, if other worlds can't use the extra 20 to 30 MB, it's wasted. Worlds 1 and 2 use the most from ground decals, about 8 MB.

[whoopdeedoo03]

Is there a height ceiling or will you be able to fly into space?

[ulillillia]

Due to referencing an array position out of bounds with the terrain when I was working on it, I had a height of about 1E14 CU. That's basically the distance from Earth to the orbit of Neptune or about 2.78 billion miles. You can still go higher than that too! The limit, as far as I know, is 9 2/9 quintillion CU, roughly 90,000 times higher. Essentially, there is no height ceiling.

[MarioMastar]

@ulillillia That'd be wild upgrading the jump to the point where you could jump straight to World 17 or 18 knowing that's the height limit. Though I'm willing to bet it'd take so long to reach that point, you'd be better off trying to break the collision detection as far as real time usage and impossible challenges.

[ulillillia]

You wouldn't be able to get to world 17 or 18 with extreme height like that. To reach the height of the Earth Space Base, you'd need to jump straight up from sea level at a bit over 18,918.6 mph just to reach the floor. Getting even jump 500 will take considerable dedication, but you can certainly go for jump 20,000... decades down the road.

[MarioMastar]

@ulillillia Ah, I was comparing to jumping to the orbit of Neptune, but 20,000 mph to jump to the space base! That'd be quite an easter egg there even if impossible to make within a reasonable amount of time. This really makes me excited to find out how to level up stuff like jump height and everything! Mainly to see what kind of effort it takes to get to those extreme statistics.

[ulillillia]

Power, Lives, Air, and several others max out at about 4.3 billion. Jumping maxes at 4.3 billion as well. HP maxes at 999,999,999 (not 4.3 billion due to space limitations). Score and position (including height) maxes at 9 2/9 quintillion, and speed and height max out with 11 significant figures. Basically, not months to max out stats, it's decades, centuries, to even millions of years, to the point where you'll otherwise never see the limits.

[foofiter9097]

@ulillillia Hopefully nobody learns to hack this game and push the limits to un-fairly get max stats, that would be annoying to one day see a video about that, but I think it would happen eventually, this happens in games even on the PS3 and Xbox where hackers get maxed stats and cheats while playing against other people, and its really rude.

[ulillillia]

This is one reason for MD5 checksums, so that nothing can get modified. It's still no safe bet though.

[foofiter9097]

@ulillillia Well, you can never permanently prevent it, but the longer you can keep it from happening the better. And the more fun the game will be for everyone who gets great achievements in this game. Also, can't you modify the game as is to check its very limits? I am sorta guessing you have already done this and that's why you know its limits? Or you know based on calculations you have done?

[ulillillia]

The limits come from the types of variables I use. A 32-bit int maxes at 2.173 billion if signed, 4.295 billion if unsigned. A 64-bit int maxes at 9 2/9 quintillion when signed, 18 4/9 quintillion when unsigned. The 1E300 limit for my 2D RPG's stats comes from the limit of a 64-bit double. It comes short of the real limit of 2^1024 because I need to account for various damage offsets and multipliers.

[foofiter9097]

@ulillillia I figured you where refering to the 64-bit signed because that's the number, but I was mearly curious because I realized you can obviously manipulate the stats the character has, or rather I assume you can because most of your videos show you being able to jump very high and very fast, even without using slopes I think I have seen over 500 Mph from just a standard jump. And you wont get any of the Variable overflow in this game? Provided you could reach max stats that is.

[ulillillia]

I've used more than 500, from previewing the clouds. If you jump while running high speed up a slope, even with the original jumping height, you can certainly jump far higher. Run 800 mph up the steepest slope and jump and you'll be going around 750 mph straight up with only the basic jump. With jump 200, that turns into exactly 1000 mph going straight up, of which will get you 250,000 CU above that point ground (about 7 miles). I'll be watching variable overflow.

[Korendian199]

this game is shaping up to be a monster! keep up the excellent work.

[LunaVorax]

I really can't wait for PM to be 100% complete

[napillavideo]

Hey Uli...

Near the end of the video you were gliding at the speed of sound, and I was wondering;

Are you thinking of adding in a sonic boom effect for the character if he breaks the sound barrier? I think that would be a fun reason for one to try to move at the speed of sound.

[ulillillia]

A sonic boom effect is unlikely. The flare effect, however, may be included, depending on available memory.

[banduril]

Will Axl Rose, Budnick, or Tom Petty (circa 1985 live aid) be playable characters?

[ulillillia]

Never heard of them.... Besides, if they have copyrights or trademarks on them, I can't use them.

[foofiter9097]

@ulillillia They are actual people, so I doubt you will be able to use them, I only recognize the name "Tom Petty" however, how they would even be made into a character design or a reason on why they would be a character in PM, that I do not know. Besides, isn't there just 1 character? Because he said "Characters" which is plural...

[ulillillia]

PM does have other characters, but they're only for the story - unplayable. There is only one that you play as.

[GigaBoost]

What's the plans for release of this pearl? Price, date, platforms? Any plans for a Steam release?

Those boats look amazing, By the way.

[ppoint432]

When can we buy this?

[MarioMastar]

Wow! Lake Keveran DOES look so beautiful! Absolutely stunning what you can do with 2D graphics and the right knowledge of scaling! Not to mention, the graphics themselves look so beautiful with the color choice, gradient, and everything! Even without textures for the hills and such, it's still very amazing!

[ulillillia]

Lake Keveran is best viewed from about 600 to 1400 feet above the ground. Does this inspire you for a song for this world? This is the 100% complete version of the lake. The hills do have a texture, though faded due to great distance. At this moment, I'm reworking the ground decals, planning out how to distribute the memory with the new sizes I'm using. This addresses the frame rate problem in Ronnis along with a bug fix I made. Redo the buildings and I should be good to go.

[odddzy]

Hey Uli, to give yourself a bigger sense of speed it might be nice to have some form of pixel radial blur coming from the direction you are travelling towards. It's a post-process effect that would give you much more ''speed'' if you pass through a certain threshold.

[ulillillia]

I cannot do any post-processing effects - I can't modify the image data.

[ulillillia]

Z, can't modify the image data directly. Directly as in "ImageData[KeyPosition] = 213;" - that doesn't work. It's also why I can't record screenshots through the game engine itself, forcing me to use the print screen key and using MSPaint to paste and crop it. There is an alternative method I know of, but it will double the draw count and unless you have a very top notch processor (beyond even the i7-2600K overclocked to 4 GHz), you won't be able to handle it.

[HappyRussians]

beautiful

[napalmrain]

The Balloon Festival is my favorite sailboat.

[PerpetualAscent]

my lord, that texture is really nice

[muffinsdotexe]

Are you going to have splashing when you enter the water?

[Dragon555]

You can get so high in this game!

[ulillillia]

Normal levels may only be bound to 3072 CU (4 screen heights) for their extreme end, but with upgrading jumping and using slopes wisely, along with leviburst, any height is obtainable. Due to a glitch from reading array values out of bounds, I got something like 1E14 CU above the ground. Falling from that height is another subject, but a few million mph can be expected. PM's score maxes at 9 2/9 quintillion, of which takes 500 years to do. 4.3 billion lives only takes a decade.

[foofiter9097]

@ulillillia 10 years to gather 4.3 billion lives? Already, finally a reasonable challenge, I am going to try to be the first person to get max lives.

[foofiter9097]

@ulillillia I meant Alrighty not Already....

[letspretendxc0re]

Are planning to use 3D software for your next game?

[ulillillia]

Not my next game (that's my 2D RPG), but the game after.

[letspretendxc0re]

@ulillillia Sweet! I wonder how many de-greased pizzas you will go through for that game! Oh! By the way, I do video game music, and if you're interested you can use anything I have up on my site, I have a 120+ audio track collection download pack if you want everything! Just credit me if you decide to use anything. Go here: matthewpablo com

[letspretendxc0re]

@letspretendxc0re I can also, make new music for you if you want as well.

[Butzo]

I'm 100% serious when I say this; Platform Masters truly is art, in the truest form that art can be. Skip to 5:10 and listen to a dude who finds the utmost beauty within nature, and can't help but recreate and share it with the rest of the world.

[ulillillia]

Platform Masters takes parallax scrolling to an extreme never seen before. World 1, Jeremy's House, is the best on that front.

[n1njapirate]

i don't want to wait to play this

i want to play this now

outsource this bad boy to india

[GThanatos]

i wish i could fly over that lake, yes. but what i wish even more is to be able to listen to your voice all day long

[someotherguy560]

Is that a mechanical keyboard, Ulillillia?

[ulillillia]

Aren't all keyboards mechanical?

[someotherguy560]

@ulillillia

Your keyboards was a little loud, so I thought that it might be mechanical. By 'mechanical', I mean mechanical switches as opposed to the usual rubber-dome switches. This is an example of what I'm talking about: /watch?v=dZ80bIUEMyQ

[ulillillia]

Oh, that. It's because I have the microphone very close to the keyboard. Get more distance and my voice fades and the mouse's cord hits it (causing the thumping sound in the "how I make ground decals" series).

[Renderc4t]

I don't want to be near when that kid does a cannon ball into the lake!

[ulillillia]

A 1400 mph impact will cause a splash to get probably one-third to even halfway to the shore's closest point! I don't yet know as I don't have that formula. Once I redo the character, I can get fluid mechanics working for the water and with that, splashes. I've already planned out the mechanics for the splash as well.

[foofiter9097]

@ulillillia *warning, we do not advise a 1,400 mph fall while in a ball shape to be a good idea when hitting ANY water of any kind* (its a joke) Seriously though, a splashing mechanic? That would be awesome!!!

[ulillillia]

Getting 1400 mph in the first place will take a ton of time and effort, but it can be done. Even a 300 mph impact is quite intense, of which should easily hit the closest of the sailboats. 300 mph is easy to get with a little upgrading of jumping and the bounce ability in the jumbo and/or supersize levels. 500 mph is a different subject though and would take a fair amount of effort but it can be done.

[foofiter9097]

@ulillillia Well, we need some effort for getting stat increases. And when you say Supersized levels, do you mean worlds 19 and 20? Or just the worlds you made that are bigger then the others in general? Just curious, I assumed you meant worlds 19 and 20. 500 mph is already quite intense and in reality an impact on water at 500 mph (even just 150 mph) will either kill you, or make you gravely injured.

[ulillillia]

All worlds have jumbo and supersize levels. These levels are far larger than your normal, required ones and are prone to containing treasure chests. Each world has 10 regular levels, 1 boss level, 3 jumbo levels, 1 supersize level, 1 tutorial level, and at least 1 story level. Worlds 19 and 20 don't have a boss level - an extra jumbo level replaces it. See the "levels" section on PM's site for more details.

[insectsandangels]

@ulillillia do it, uli.

[ulillillia]

Do what?

[insectsandangels]

@ulillillia make a splash animation.

[ulillillia]

It won't be an animation. It will be a special effect with particles flying around.

[OGMOGOGM]

and why does the clock have shoes

[ulillillia]

It's based off of those old-style, cartoon-style clocks I see in Looney Tunes and the like. It's an old-fashioned alarm clock.

[qerguil]

I absolutely love your attention to detail. This level is stunning, great job.

[OGMOGOGM]

Why does the timer have 3 decimal places?

[ulillillia]

Movement is precise to 960 frames per second, independent of the frame rate. This allows the timer to be able to go down to the millisecond instead of the centisecond as is usually done.

[risonhighmer]

The shore looks phenomenal, excellent work! I can't wait to get my hands on platform master and play with all the scrolling background you have so meticulously crafted. Well done, my friend.

[Volvox9]

Congrats! Uli, when you narrate these videos, do you write a little 'script' or notes, which is why your text description always matches the main points you say so closely? Or do you just record yourself talking spontaneously over the video, and then type up the text description afterward so that it hits on the main points of what you have said? Just curious about your process here.

[ulillillia]

No scripts. I just narrate as I go. The description follows after all the processing. See the "how I process PM's videos" video for details. The video description often contains corrections.

[ItsFizikal]

will there be a level with lava, Ulil?

[ulillillia]

That's world 13. See my "progress overview" video and PM's site for details.

[Osithirith]

Are you going to change the character? I like it as is now but I think the animations could be redone to make it look a lot better. Looking up a tutorial on run cycles might really help.

Really enjoying the sights though Uli, This and Jeremy's house have to be my favorite.

[ulillillia]

See my "progress overview" video for details.

[fuckthisfuckbullshit]

Air taxis are, of course, the vehicle of the future.

[BiffJohnston2]

how fast are those waves moving?

[ulillillia]

6 mph or 1 CU/fr.