Sean Catherine
Member
I've been working on this game since I started actually using GMS2 in November of 2017, and am planning —hoping— to release it in the fall of this year. Although I'm designing the game entirely, I'll be subcontracting out the programming. This of course means that the project needs to be in clean order before I present it to someone else...
It's really important that I note how big this game is (will be) so as to demonstrate my need to prepare things in the most efficient way. To offer a sense of scale, I've attached the diagram that I'd developed to map out the rooms for my game... And these are only the outdoor rooms. There are 625 "outdoor rooms," and roughly 1200 interior rooms. The interior rooms are 1920x1080, but the outdoor rooms are about 24,000x24,000... And it's the outdoor rooms that I'm most concerned with regarding their layouts:
Many of the outdoor rooms will be filled with trees, for which I've made about 20 different types. The trees are objects with their sprite origins set to bottom center so that they can be programmed to overlap each other according to their height placements in the rooms (that is the only programing that those will have —pretty sure at this point). Each tree type will have a corresponding object to mitigate or guide characters' and other items' (objects) movements through and around those trees, and there will also be another corresponding object for each tree which will act as a simple collision barrier for all characters, items, etc. So I'll have about 60 different tree-related objects totaling roughly 800 instances per room, along with about another 25 objects with instances totaling 200 or more (in each room). Ground images are just sprites that are placed on a lower assets layer, and there will be a top layer for day/night cycling. The camera/view will be 1920x1080 following the player.
So before I begin the awesome task of creating fully-"furnished" template rooms for mass duplication, I really need to be certain that the game won't stall or lag. I've been all over these forums, reddit, and others only to find a lot of mixed information.
Because I'm not a programmer, I can only relate what I've read elsewhere in rudimentary speak... For example, I've read that it is possible to activate objects that are only in view as apposed to all in an entire room. I've read that something on the scale of what I'm doing has more to do with how much code is attached to the objects as apposed to how many objects there will be —how many instances there will be.
Btw, I think that the most complex piece of programming for the trees would be the following: Because of the fact that each tree has a shadow attached to its bottom making it a single sprite, those corresponding objects represent the mass part of each tree. That way, when that corresponding tree object detects a character or item behind itself, it will cause a colored silhouette version of the character/item to appear as a sprite on a higher assets layer.
Also, I do not use tiles. I didn't use tiles for my smaller project that I released last year, and I'm not using them for this either. I find that they're too limiting in complex design applications (at least for my purposes).
I should also mention that I will have anywhere from 35 to 40 texture sheets at 4096x4096 when I'm done designing. So let me know what you think. Could an experienced programmer who is efficient with scripts and other things related make something this big work well?
It's really important that I note how big this game is (will be) so as to demonstrate my need to prepare things in the most efficient way. To offer a sense of scale, I've attached the diagram that I'd developed to map out the rooms for my game... And these are only the outdoor rooms. There are 625 "outdoor rooms," and roughly 1200 interior rooms. The interior rooms are 1920x1080, but the outdoor rooms are about 24,000x24,000... And it's the outdoor rooms that I'm most concerned with regarding their layouts:
Many of the outdoor rooms will be filled with trees, for which I've made about 20 different types. The trees are objects with their sprite origins set to bottom center so that they can be programmed to overlap each other according to their height placements in the rooms (that is the only programing that those will have —pretty sure at this point). Each tree type will have a corresponding object to mitigate or guide characters' and other items' (objects) movements through and around those trees, and there will also be another corresponding object for each tree which will act as a simple collision barrier for all characters, items, etc. So I'll have about 60 different tree-related objects totaling roughly 800 instances per room, along with about another 25 objects with instances totaling 200 or more (in each room). Ground images are just sprites that are placed on a lower assets layer, and there will be a top layer for day/night cycling. The camera/view will be 1920x1080 following the player.
So before I begin the awesome task of creating fully-"furnished" template rooms for mass duplication, I really need to be certain that the game won't stall or lag. I've been all over these forums, reddit, and others only to find a lot of mixed information.
Because I'm not a programmer, I can only relate what I've read elsewhere in rudimentary speak... For example, I've read that it is possible to activate objects that are only in view as apposed to all in an entire room. I've read that something on the scale of what I'm doing has more to do with how much code is attached to the objects as apposed to how many objects there will be —how many instances there will be.
Btw, I think that the most complex piece of programming for the trees would be the following: Because of the fact that each tree has a shadow attached to its bottom making it a single sprite, those corresponding objects represent the mass part of each tree. That way, when that corresponding tree object detects a character or item behind itself, it will cause a colored silhouette version of the character/item to appear as a sprite on a higher assets layer.
Also, I do not use tiles. I didn't use tiles for my smaller project that I released last year, and I'm not using them for this either. I find that they're too limiting in complex design applications (at least for my purposes).
I should also mention that I will have anywhere from 35 to 40 texture sheets at 4096x4096 when I'm done designing. So let me know what you think. Could an experienced programmer who is efficient with scripts and other things related make something this big work well?
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