Exult Forum

I extracted the shapes.vga and converted all the .u7o's to .shp's, but I'm having a heckuva time finding any actual paperdoll art. I'm looking for not only the faces and bodies, but also all of the weapons/armour/clothes/etc...

Can anyone help me with that? Thanks...

because paperdoll art is in paperdol.vga...

Oops! Sorry Ravenous...

No, that's okay, I really should've noticed that =)

I do have another question though: What decides the layer on which the art is displayed on the paperdoll? For instance, if I were do do paperdoll art for pants, what would tell the program that the pants would layer OVER the boots? IIRC, the boots are always on top of the armor leggings.

Do I need to design the pants so that they look as if they are stuffed into boots or can I design them to layer over the boots? I don't know a darn thing about coding, so I need to make sure this gets done in a way that you guys will be able to use the art without a lot of problems.

The drawing order is completely fixed. In this specific case, boots are drawn after the pants.

The problem here is probably that the same image has to be used for the pants regardless if you are or aren't wearing boots.

Well I suppose I'll just have to make the pants relatively tight on the legs, especially the calf area. Perhaps even ending them at mid-calf, ala short breeches. I'll figure out a way to make them look good with or without the boots.

A slightly unrelated question:
Why does Exult continue to use the U7 palette? Seems that it would be able to support 16 bit colors since it's a brand new engine. I may be waaay off here, but it seems that since Exult is a windows application, it wouldn't be that hard to have it support 16 bit graphics. (Not that I would have any bloody idea how to do that.) Would that alter the way the graphics are seen ingame? It would certainly open up new doors to creating new art for use in Exult Studio...

Exult is not a windows application.
U7 has 8 bit graphics.
Exult uses 16bit graphics.
Exult has scalers.
Exult's scalers take advantage of 16bits to do antialiasing.
Support for 16bit shapes may appear after 1.0 and only for Exult-only games

>>Exult is not a windows application.
Sorry, I should have said it is a program that is capable of running on advanced operating systems. IE, no longer DOS native.

>>U7 has 8 bit graphics.
Yes, I know

>>Exult uses 16bit graphics.
That's what I was asking, yes. Thanks.

>>Exult has scalers.
Mmkay. I noticed, but I fear that like most of us, I don't know the logistics of them.

>>Exult's scalers take advantage of 16bits to do antialiasing.
I assumed the scalers weren't only capable of 256 colors since they kind of blur the screen and smooth it out.

>>Support for 16bit shapes may appear after 1.0 and only for Exult-only games
And this is what I was getting at. If there were any plans to add higher color quality art to Exult, which I assumed would probably find more use from folks who are using Exult to make their own games, as opposed to trying to replace graphics in U7.

I am attempting to do some paperdoll art for Exult, and was simply wondering why I have to stick to the U7 palette if Exult was, in fact, capable of displaying thousands of colors.

I appreciate the info, but I gotta be honest with you, the attitude that is apparent in your posts aren't exactly friendly. If you have a problem with people asking questions, then by all means, don't answer them. You have no right to talk down your nose to me.

I'm doing this is my free time to try to help out a project that I completely respect and believe in. I'm excited about it. I want to be able to use the skills that I have to enhance Exult, even if it's miniscule compared to what some others have done. But I want to do it correctly so that you guys can actually use it in the game. Therefore, I will have questions. I can only hope that most of the team's attitudes are more like WJP's or Dr. Code's, and less like yours.

Thanks.

In the about us section, you'll read that Nadir has the responsability of policing the forum.

Now, have you ever met a cop in service? Ever talked to one?
They aren't exactly what we call friendly during service.... if you know what I mean.

Now, it doesn't mean that they are bad once the uniform is off. Some are even very nice!

Don't kill Nadir because he's doing his police job.

Artaxerxes

I understand what your saying Antaxerxes, and although it's a valid point, I still don't think it is an excuse for being rude. I had cops in my family at one point, and you are exactly right about them having seperate personalities for home and work...

I'm sorry if I came off too harshly, my intention here is not to kill Nadir — only to express to him without any shadow of a doubt that if he wants to judge or talk down his nose he can do it elsewhere. I don't appreciate it, and I'm old enough and mature enough to not have to tolerate it.

He can do it elsewhere, and since this is his forum, he can do it here.

I'm surprised at your eagerness to stoop to puerility.

Puerility nothing. It's his forum, he can do what he wants. If you don't
like it, no, you don't have to put up with it, because you can leave. It's not
that complicated.

Ravenous,
maybe you took it too seriously or misinterpreted Nadir's response because from my point of view, he corrected you and answered your question in just a serious and no-nonsense way. His responses weren't friendly but they were not offensive right?

You were quite harsh in your criticism. I admit I was shocked to see your 'explosive' response. I suppose you realise it youself as well?
Perhaps I think you were disillusioned because of his lack of enthrusiasm and his indifference, particularly since you are contributing to the project. Or may I attribute it to external factors such as stress?

Nevertheless, I am sure people appreciate your contribution and if you come up with good designs, I am sure there will be requests by Exult-fans to the Exult team to support better graphics.

Suraimu,
Your response is somewhat offensive. But you have a point there, though it is often favourable to be people-friendly. And it would be a waste to kill Ravenous' ethusiasm and effort, right?

Suraimu,
Your response is somewhat offensive. But you have a point there, though it is often favourable to be people-friendly. And it would be a waste to kill Ravenous' ethusiasm and effort, right?
--

Well it was _supposed_ to be somewhat offensive. It gets on my nerves
when people start complaining about how people are behaving on their
own page. It would be like if I barged into your house and started berating
you for watching TV in your underwear. Yeah, it may be disgusting, but
who the hell invited you to my house in the first place?

Although you know, the more I think about it, the more I wonder how any
of us people that are so absorbed by Ultima can think that we're NOT
allowed to just barge into peoples' houses and start making strange
demands of them.

lol, that same thought crossed my mind when I read that

Hehe...

Look guys, I'm not here trying to piss anyone off or hurt anyone's feelings. I pretty much shoot straight from the hip, and if I have a problem with someone, I let them know.

I probably jumped too quickly on Nadir, he could have been having a bad day or something, I don't know the specifics. I suppose I was hoping he would reply rather than something like Suraimu's attempt to aggravate the situation. But this is a public forum, and I should really have just sent my post to Nadir's e-mail address and kept it out of the public eye.

This is a public forum; it may be moderated, but this is an open house. It is listed on search engines and there is no password required to get in. Anyone on the internet could wander in here. Therefore, this forum is no different to me than the park in your local town or city. I refuse to believe that a public forum BELONGS to anyone. It belongs to everyone who posts here, good or bad.

Suraimu, your likening this to barging into someone's house is ridiculous. At most, and I mean very most, this situation could possibly be like me calling the host of a public television show and telling him that he shouldn't be rude to the callers. Which, in my opinion, is completely justified. Especially if it were me that the host was being rude to on public television. Just because it's his show doesn't mean he can treat the callers that way, it's still PUBLIC TELEVISION. And besides, it isn't only the host's show, there are a lot of other folks who make it happen. Just like with Exult.

I didn't ask the question to get a rude response. The question wasn't stupid, it wasn't sarcastic, it wasn't critical, it was just a question. I've never made any remarks to Nadir - never even really noticed him. I had no problem with him.

I will apologize to everyone reading this topic: I'm sorry this silly little flame war broke out. Nadir's attitude is not justified, but I should have just e-mailed him my concerns. I believe I was at work when I read the post, and they have hotmail.com blocked - I was a little too miffed to wait 6 hours until I got home to reply.

Exult is awesome, and I have nothing but respect for anyone who's involved with it. Even Nadir. I just have issues with rudeness that is uncalled for.

Haha, Suraimu has always been so sarcastic so don't take it too hard....

Meanwhile, I don't like the way this thread is going...

Just forgive and forget?

Yeah, calm down - no flame wars.
Nadir's response is the kind of response yozu tend to get from people who are busy and just want to write quick answers so it gets answered at all. In my view it wasn't rude. it just cut to the point without bothering with great details. And as you can see how a thread here turns out in the end you are better off asking on the mailing list and/or in the IRC channel. At least such technical questions because with those you tend to have bigger dialogs with questions and answers...

I have a full-time job, and my time is scarce lately (as some of you may have noticed by my near-lack of activity in the CVS logs/mailing list/IRC channel). I tried to provide a concise answer to all of the questions that were asked at the top of this thread. Others may add to my reply if they have any more detail than I can give you.

I agree: I may be a bit harsh at times, especially when people ask questions which have already been answered in the docs or in the FAQ, or when people use l33t-speak...not that this is the case of course.

Other things that really piss me off: Windows users who assume that they are the only users; people who demand instead of asking; people who complain that their problems are our fault, and then it turns out its theirs; lazy people in general (especially those who do not read docs/FAQ).

Thanks for listening.

And I've tried not to be any of those people, Nadir. I couldn't find the answers to those questions in the docs (sourceforge kind of confuses me anyways, I did my best to navigate them)

I certainly don't think that Exult is a Windows only application as I've successfully ran it on Mac OS 8.5, 9.2 and my Redhat 7.2 partition. When I mentioned Windows above, it was more or less a slip of the tongue.

I also have a full time job, and I want to try to use my free time in the best way for Exult - I leave those questions at work, and by the time I get home, they are usually answered and I can start actually doing something.

If I gave a misconception that I was demanding instead of asking, complaining that my problems are your fault or being lazy somehow, I apologize. But I can assure that I am none of those.

I appreciate your replying. Just the fact that you are willing to admit some harshness is good enough for me. I apologize for snapping, and I hope we can just put this behind us.

Nothing to see here, move along.

I just went back and read the entire thread...

> Nadir's attitude is not justified,

Ravenous: there was nothing in my reply that justifies your answers. My reply was dry. That's all. No aggression. No frills. No nothing. Just content

> never even really noticed him

...and I've been around here for a looooong time

Quoting the NEWS file:
4/23/99: From Tristan Tarrant: Read item names from "text.flx" instead
of trying to enumerate them in the code.

Summing up:
"You, too, shall soon acknowledge my authority -
for I shall be your companion...
your provider...
and your master!"

Laugh now

Maybe Dominus should email us all drinks. I'll have pina colada, please:-)

ok, the bar is open
my favourite is a "Lava Flow".
My girlfriend had a pina colada last night while the kid watched "mermaid 2" with the kids from an american couple that stay in the same complex (a dotcom lay-off on a six month vacation).
So anyone else want a drink with an hawaiian flavour?
might get you all a bit relaxed.

ohh, here is your pina colada, Jeff!

P.S.: I noticed that there is writer called J.F. Freedman... Is that you?

Mmmm... coconut.

J F Freedman? Nope, not me; my middle initial is 'S'. But I did get a book published once...

How about a Mai Tai? Not one of those from a mixer, but the genuine 3-layer kind.


-Karl

no problem, here is your Mai Tai.

the bar is closed now. end of holiday

What about those of us who want to drown out holiday memories? hehe