MM8,5 - Echo of Destruction

[vladimir-maestro]

Now we got a face and name:


now our MOD called "Echo of Destruction" and won't be completed with destruction of the Escaton's crystal.

Heroes will face aftershocks of the destruction that will echo over whole Planet and cause new cathaclisms never seen before by mortals eyes.

[jeff]

That is very nice and with today's computers the addition of such animations should have minimal effect on system performance.

[vladimir-maestro]

yes it is! as grayface told - we could upgrade LOD files till 2 Gb size without any slowdown in perfomance.

the one best effect of that animated trees - you cannot see a monsters come to you behind them cause and monsters and trees moves =) they will confuse you alittle
+ other effect - less statics and wind presence

[jeff]

If you could have the wind effect the archer's accuracy; then you would really mix it up.

[BMJedi]

Is this something we can download and install, or is it a work in progress? I'd love to have a mod.

I noticed that the water was shimmering as well as the trees waving.

[vladimir-maestro]

Is this something we can download and install, or is it a work in progress?

work in progress. i've done only with palm trees.

[BMJedi]

Fantastic, Maestro! I hope maybe you will be able to make a mod from your expertise.

[vladimir-maestro]

no more restrictions for 50 palettes per map - now they could be unlimited.

also MM supports bigger tilesets! from 128 -> 256!

just compare the water http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0q-u4gn1Ig
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maybe not the last variation of water

[unknownone]

Great!!!
the animation looks good! One thing: can't you make the animation so it doesn't appear as the same square is repeating everywere in the sea? Maybe having less marked borders or smoother animated transition

[MMXAlamar]

Fuck, that looks amazing! Well done grayface!

I'm not too thrilled about the water, but the trees are fantastic! It makes the game seem much more lifelike.

[vladimir-maestro]

Great!!!
the animation looks good! One thing: can't you make the animation so it doesn't appear as the same square is repeating everywere in the sea? Maybe having less marked borders or smoother animated transition

i've tried 512 textures but they looks very distortion, mm doesn't have any smoothing algorithms. so you could play only at acceleration with them + streached screen.

here is 512 grass


here is 256 grass


pay attension that it is JPEG that smooth a picture! in real game you can get your eyes hurt with 512 textures at far distances!

[GreatEmerald]

Well, the trees are nice. Reminds me of the animated trees in WoG. The water doesn't tile together that well - maybe it's a better idea if you kept the style of there being small waves, but changed the base texture?

Yea, it's too bad they use the nearest neighbour resize method for displaying far away objects instead of using bilinear or anisotropic filtering. It would be awesome if we could have things like S3TC textures here, like in Unreal. Too bad that even these days people don't use S3TC textures and instead go for cheap effects like bloom.

[gunman]

The tree animation is fantastic! Can't you release a patch only with this enhancement ?

[vladimir-maestro]

i'm afraid but 8,5 enhanced is a part of new mm8 mod.

i didn't wanted to anounce it cause didn't have anything exept ambitions and ideas in style "what if mm8 could have this or this...".

now we got some material to work with and got something to show...

belive me - you even couldn't imagine that all this is possible in MM8!
i won't tell you much cause we still got difficulties with some tricky things but few you will know:
1) enhanced graphics
2) animated plants
3) reworked units
4) unique unit tier appearance!!! YES! it is possible! single monster tier could be differ now! just look at the buccaniers:

three levels and each level looks it's own way!
5) even unique bosses will be "visible" in a crowd...
6) enhanced storyline and many other things that will stay unrevealed for now.

[gunman]

i'm afraid but 8,5 enhanced is a part of new mm8 mod.

That's too bad. The problem with big mods is the extra content that comes mandatory and not everyone agrees with some changes. For example I don't like the photo-realistic buccaneers that IMO don't fit in the MM8 universe, where all the creatures have a cartoonish appearance.

But if all extra content is optional and can be installed by components, then it is ok.

[hatsforclowns]

i'm afraid but 8,5 enhanced is a part of new mm8 mod.

That's too bad. The problem with big mods is the extra content that comes mandatory and not everyone agrees with some changes. For example I don't like the photo-realistic buccaneers that IMO don't fit in the MM8 universe, where all the creatures have a cartoonish appearance.

But if all extra content is optional and can be installed by components, then it is ok.

Indeed.

Just because it has simple graphics doesn't mean it has bad graphics. I also quite like the style of MM7-8.

Still, pretty damn good job! Especially considering it's probably mostly raw editing of the binary image file and disassembly.

Well gosh, golly, damn and fiddlesticks, jolly good job, ol' chap!

EDIT:

Btw, are there other reasons to why MM projects seem to have a habit of failing? Apart from the projects ending up too ambitious. Are there few programmers among us? Few artists? Or otherwise just busy with projects of their own?

Just curious...

[vladimir-maestro]

But if all extra content is optional and can be installed by components, then it is ok.

actually this "creature enhansment" based only on 1 TXT file only...so if you will replace it - you will get old one monsters...

...but what to do with new creatures that were added to old ones and not replaced? with this option off they will be invisible and unkillable with melee... or still use realistic graphics.

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what other extra content you mean? we planning alot of extra content but it is no use to make it all "optional".

4 example: if you won't install animated trees - you can have troubles with events that based on these trees...so you cannot enter certain areas and complete the game... creatures trouble i've described above - invisible monsters... spells could ruin the game each time you open enhanced spellbook or read changed spells...etc.

it is a modiffication and it should be solid and gathered together butnot splited in pieces.

[gunman]

Yes, I understand your view and I don't try to convince you otherwise.

I was hoping it was possible to add to my game only the animated trees.

[GreatEmerald]

The problem with big mods is the extra content that comes mandatory and not everyone agrees with some changes. For example I don't like the photo-realistic buccaneers that IMO don't fit in the MM8 universe, where all the creatures have a cartoonish appearance.

Not 'cartoonish'. It's actually closer to 'perfect render'. Cartoonish is WH2K/WoW/H5. The renders in HoMM3/MM7-8 are not hyperrealistic, but are made to look clean and aesthetic. See the portraits and you'll see that it looks just like real, but more perfect. Which then falls in Uncanny Valley that tells you that something's wrong there.

[GrayFace]

Still, pretty damn good job! Especially considering it's probably mostly raw editing of the binary image file and disassembly.

Pretty much the opposite. Everything that could be automated was automated. For example, I made a program that names creature cadres properly and adds info about them into SFT.txt file, from which MMExtension makes dsft.bin binary file when the game is run.