The Wonderland Board

I don't know about anyone else (except Bigzips) but I'm definitely looking forward to the 3D model option available in the new version.

The Milkshake 3D creator program is quite good & even after the 30 day demo time it's only $25. Pat mentioned that it's not all that easy to create 3D models & even the basics I'm just coming to grips with but as you can see in my doodles below, there's a vast array of possibilities even with the most basic of shapes & a bit of skinning ^ ^

Just for reference again
Milkshape proggy >>> http://www.swissquake.ch/chumbalum-soft/
and this was handy as far as the skinning goes
http://www.psionic3d.co.uk/tutorials.html
(see the references to building & skinning a house)
If anyone else has any better links to tutorials feel free to add them - I haven't looked too far as yet...

I had mentioned about Pat's reference to making squares 'walkable' or not and a lot of the following ideas assume that our 3D creations can be made to be walk-through-able or otherwise.

I don't know if you've got 5 seconds Pat just to confirm that?


Any way - I've broken this up into 3 separate posts to fit in all the doodles.
This page shows some alternative options for Teleporters & Bridges

TELEPORTERS
Placed over a teleporter square & made walkable

* Stairs - a number of people have used 'multiple floors' in their creations, why not use stairs - these are just basic but you could build a circular staircase, ladder etc

* Stargate or Dr Who's Tardis

* Wells - with different coloured water

* Arrows which might be all the same colour that point in the direction of the corresponding teleporter.

(all these models could have - like the well - variations in colour to correspond to the different teleporters)

BRIDGES
* Fixed Use

* Limited Use - simply leave a hole in the bottom of the model so that when the bridge is finished it's use, the hole becomes visible & you can see that it don't work no more

WALLS
Simple shapes skinned into different themes

GATEWAYS
Something that the characters can walk through/under – 3 squares wide with the outside squares not walkable

SIGNS
Requiring a very shallow base to hide the game sign.
The bottom sign combining the gateway idea but requiring a base again to hide the game sign.

HIDDEN WALLS
In this example 3 squares of wall with a bushy variation & a walkable middle

Nice sketches Robbie

I do hope all your suggestions come to reality

The signs look great. Am I right in thinking that the signs for the game go under the models so that when you stand on that square the message pops up as it does now? Cos at first I thought you were going to try to put the writing on the sign itself (I'm going a bit do-lally!)

I noticed one of the signs is a gravestone I hope no-one we know is in there

My son Tim can't wait for it to come out, I think he's planning an epic!

I noticed one of the signs is a gravestone I hope no-one we know is in there

Just the current version of the game

As for the sign thing, yes that was the idea... puting the writing of the sign would require a pretty big sign. You could do it with reasonably sized signs as long as you didn't have much to put on ie a building name, town name etc...

Since creating 3D models is not easy, perhaps Midnight Synergy can help us out a little by including a few more already-built models into RTW Deluxe. No need to create anything new though. For example, having models of Stinky and the gang, or the baddies, will allow us to do things like make a big statue of Stinky or a baddie, without dealing with the hard part of creating the model itself. Also, since Robbie suggested that we can use models to hide stuff like signs to make them look like normal floors, it would be useful to have the texture bitmaps for all the different styles of floors available, again something that's already been made so it would take little work to make it available to us.

By the way, Patrick, what would the limitations be on the size of the model, if any? Also, can you specify every square the model occupies to be walkable/non-walkable, or is it only for the squares on the perimeter?

The reason I asked is because I remember you said that user-created models will be treated like treens and mushrooms, and so there's this 100 object limitation. But then a really wild thought occur to me: we can combine all the models we want to use for a level into one gigantic model the same size as the level itself, now that would only count as 1 object! (In saying this I'm also assuming that the polygons within a model don't necessarily have to be connected to each other, so that you can have more than one distinct object within a model.) Would that work?

Hi LinkyNStoof - just a quick note on one of your questions

Pat Wrote in the It's a Mystery! thread p.6

No size limitations. Huge models or many many models might cause issues for slower computers (or older video cards), but that's already the case if you create gigantic levels with lots of stuff.

...and I gather from previous screen shots & comments that there will be more pre-made objects for use. As for how many that will be we may have to wait 'till we see the program.

Robbie