#109880 - Sli189 - Wed Nov 22, 2006 7:04 am
Yes I would appreciate if anyone could answer my question of whether or not vector programs can be used to create characters and or levels in a GBA game. Please respond if anyone has an answer. Thankyou
#109888 - Ant6n - Wed Nov 22, 2006 10:05 am
you mean 3d stuff?
cuz a point in 2d is denoted by a vector (x,y) so they are everywhere in any case...
Or do vector programs refer to some interesting programming paradigm?
#109896 - keldon - Wed Nov 22, 2006 11:56 am
If you mean vector programs like flash, then no. But you can create games and characters using vectors - ever played "out of this world" and starfox? Although I have this feeling that you may not have much programming experience and are expecting to be able to use flash, or some other vector drawing program to create a game for you.
#109914 - Miked0801 - Wed Nov 22, 2006 7:54 pm
You can rasterize vector graphics onto a GBA. But, it's not what the system is designed to do.
#109921 - Sli189 - Thu Nov 23, 2006 2:10 am
ya could you explain the rastersize thing i would really like to know what that is.
#109925 - sajiimori - Thu Nov 23, 2006 3:53 am
It just means drawing an image as pixels. For instance, rasterizing a circle just means plotting pixels in the shape of a circle.
#109935 - Sli189 - Thu Nov 23, 2006 7:09 am
what would be the best way to do that?
#109947 - keldon - Thu Nov 23, 2006 11:44 am
There are many ways in which you can do this, but you first should focus on simpler programming tasks rather than ponder on this.
#109958 - tepples - Thu Nov 23, 2006 5:07 pm
Translation: "What in your game design would vectors enhance?"
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#109972 - sajiimori - Thu Nov 23, 2006 8:16 pm
A search for "rasterizing circles" yielded this link right away:
http://www.mindcontrol.org/~hplus/graphics/RasterizeCircle.html
There's tons of information out there. Feel free to post here if you get stuck on something.
#110000 - Sli189 - Fri Nov 24, 2006 4:27 am
im trying to use the vectors to enhance the graphics. this is for a big project that i have been working on with a team and im doing the art portion, and wish to push the graphics as much as possible. The programming is being done by another teamate, and hes pushin for anything.
#110003 - tepples - Fri Nov 24, 2006 5:05 am
In order to be able to suggest the most efficient (in CPU time and programmer time) solution, we need more details. Do you want to draw the vectors on a PC and then export them to the GBA, or do you want to be able to change the vectors at runtime on the GBA?
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#110004 - Sli189 - Fri Nov 24, 2006 5:34 am
Could you explain the last part, like how the runtime would change, sorry if im still a little broad on my explaining. Like i would like to have the vectors to be drawn on the pc first if that could work.
#110006 - tepples - Fri Nov 24, 2006 5:39 am
What are you going to use vectors to draw? Whether or not they can be pre-rendered on the PC depends on this.
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#110007 - Sli189 - Fri Nov 24, 2006 5:47 am
right now ive been using paintshop pro 7 and i know how to do vectors on them, to a degree, but i know i can use illustrator also.
#110033 - tepples - Fri Nov 24, 2006 2:52 pm
| Sli189 wrote: |
| right now ive been using paintshop pro 7 and i know how to do vectors on them |
This answers the question "What are you using to draw vectors?", not "What are you using vectors to draw?". I'll phrase it another way: What images in your game do you plan to make with vectors?
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#110067 - Sli189 - Sat Nov 25, 2006 4:50 am
i would like to have the backgrounds and characters to be made using vectors. The best way to demonstrate what i would like to push towards would be like castle crashers, or locco rocco.
#110069 - tepples - Sat Nov 25, 2006 5:09 am
Something like Loco Roco would likely work better on the Nintendo DS, which has hardware to render vectors.
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#110074 - sajiimori - Sat Nov 25, 2006 5:40 am
As is often the case, it's possible to do it on limited hardware, but you'll have to make sacrifices in image resolution or complexity (or both).
A good programmer could produce something that looks uniquely lo-fi using vector graphics on GBA, but if you want high image quality, the last thing you should do is ignore the built-in hardware for sprites and tiled backgrounds and render everything using the CPU (which is what you'd be doing).
Anyway, isn't this whole thread a bit like a programmer walking into an art forum and asking how to do live drawing?? :P
#110076 - Sli189 - Sat Nov 25, 2006 6:01 am
no im not programming at all, this is the first game ive made and im really pushing myself. I know it sounds really n00bish and for that i apologize but thankyou for the help. I just really want to make the most visualy stunning product in my ability, and i can pick up new techniques and styles very quickly.
#110079 - gs2phateon - Sat Nov 25, 2006 6:35 am
Hey, I'm sli89's friend, and I'm doing the programming for the project he has been talking about. I know this board is more focused towards graphics programming than actual game art, but we have some questions about this part of the game. We've been talking a lot about graphic styles, and he's really interesting in making the game look, and hopefully run, like a program that uses vectors. I get the idea that this is a lot easier to do in 3d systems (I don't have a clue about programming it anyway), but do you have any suggestions for us to make some kind of compromise, like to make our sprites look and animate like a vector drawing? Our biggest challenge so far is that we haven't been able to figure out at least how to pixelize a vector drawing. The things my friend likes most about vectors are the crisp, even lines and the easy scaling, so is there any easy way to do get that kind of art on this kind of system?
#110081 - sajiimori - Sat Nov 25, 2006 7:17 am
You can either render out every possible animation frame, which is what most GBA games do, or try to create images on-the-fly.
Rendering frames beforehand is all a matter of tools, and there's not much to say about the GBA side of things. The hardware can scale and rotate sprites, but that's probably not what you want.
You can practice rendering vector graphics on your PC -- it'll be the same thing on GBA. The hardware isn't going to do much for you; you have to do it pixel by pixel.
There seems to be a lot of information out there about it. Here's something to get you started:
http://directory.fsf.org/libxmi.html
#110489 - Miked0801 - Tue Nov 28, 2006 9:35 pm
As an aside, the reason for all the confusion up-front is that the word 'vector' has many meanings in the dev world.
It's another world for an array.
It's a 1 dimensional matrix used for many physics and game calcs.
It can be a line drawn on a display using an electron beam as opposed to a bunch of pixels (your version) popular many years as in vector graphics.
and a few more in plain english as well...
#110548 - Ant6n - Wed Nov 29, 2006 3:37 am
| Miked0801 wrote: |
| It can be a line drawn on a display using an electron beam(...) |
abuh?
#110555 - tepples - Wed Nov 29, 2006 5:37 am
Asteroids and Tempest are probably the best known games played on a "vector" display.
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#110605 - Miked0801 - Wed Nov 29, 2006 9:21 pm
| Ant6n wrote: |
| Miked0801 wrote: | | It can be a line drawn on a display using an electron beam(...) |
abuh? |
Instead of the electron beam(s) going across the screen each scan line horizontally lighting up RGB pixels, imagine programming it directly to move between various points on the screen and turning it off and on. No "pixels", no "jaggies" on sloped lines, just a completely straight line between 2 points. That, fairly simplified, is how a vector graphic system works.
#110656 - Ant6n - Thu Nov 30, 2006 3:37 am
so with vector graphics you mean 3d wireframe style graphics?
#110662 - Dwedit - Thu Nov 30, 2006 5:47 am
It looks like wireframe, but they are pure lines, no pixels involved. If you've ever seen an oscilloscope, that's exactly what a vector screen is closest to.
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