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Animated Gif's as scenery !
Soldat Forums - Soldat Talk - Game Improvements / Suggestions
IRRiTANT
September 13, 2003, 9:44 pm
I just had another brainwave! [2 in one night! This is getting serious :-P ] Could it be poisible to allow for the use of animated gifs as sceneries in Soldat Maps? This would allow for a much greater level of interactivity and detail to maps of future Soldat versions (flickering lights, fire torches e.t.c).

LiL_FuKa
September 13, 2003, 9:48 pm
Umm what do you mean exactly? I don't wanna sound dumb or anything but I don't understand what you're getting at.

IRRiTANT
September 13, 2003, 9:56 pm
OK. At the moment The sceney of Soldat maps are stationary, .bmp files [trees, bushes e.t.c]they don't move. An animated gif would allow the scenery to move, so a tree could sway in the wind or a fire could burn and flicker instead of just standing there, doing nothing, being boring. . . . . . Hope that helps.

LiL_FuKa
September 13, 2003, 10:01 pm
Yeah now I see, but that would increase lag I supposed..(would be nice to look at though) [:D]

doffencom
September 13, 2003, 10:10 pm
Whats so funny about some thingy moving back and forth in the same patern over and over again?

b00stA
September 13, 2003, 10:14 pm
Funny?
It would be really useful. Fire, blinking lights...
"Whats so funny about some bitmap being static all the time 24/7?"
Just give it a try and be creative. I support the idea as long as it's easy to implement :)

IRRiTANT
September 13, 2003, 10:25 pm
It wouldn't cause lag fuka. The game wouldn't have to send/recive any info regarding the movment of scenary as the calcualations fo rthat wouldn't be important to the game!!!

morpheus
September 13, 2003, 10:26 pm
with the wind effect, it would be nice to see trees moving. rain produces puddles that splash. it could add lots of ways to spice up the maps.

Hitman
September 13, 2003, 10:54 pm
This is the best idea I have seen in a long time!!!!!!I hope that he will implement this.

eyic
September 14, 2003, 12:11 am
this is a great idea and has been suggested before, the best way this could work is if michal makes the scnery .gif format compatible

Meandor
September 14, 2003, 12:38 am
There could be not lag issues but maybe hardware issues, i mean, calculationg many animated objects could give some problems to slower pcs. Anyway, this is a great idea.

?
September 14, 2003, 1:49 am
yeah this is a great idea, but it will proly not be put in =/

n2j3
September 14, 2003, 5:08 am
There's only one thing that'll make soldat really funky aside from animated-gifs. PARALLAX SCROLLING!

Aquarius
September 14, 2003, 5:59 am
GIF has max. 256 colors, I think some 24bit format would be better, or even 32 bit for alpha channel (transparency mask).

NightCabbage
September 14, 2003, 6:13 am
Animated scenery = good idea.

Aquarius - I think 256 colours are quite adequate for scenery in Soldat, especially seeing as though most scenery has pretty small dimensions. (keeping in mind that you can use palettes pretty effectively).

And perhaps an alpha channel would be nice for window effects / edge anti-aliasing, however I would put it pretty low on the priority list :P

Also keep in mind that all of this would increase the file size quite a bit. That's one of the main reasons it should be limited to GIF format.

RDrull
September 14, 2003, 6:13 am
I like IRRiTANT's [IMAGE]Idia actualy alot I think that it should be done. May be it would add more interest to the game dont you think?