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3dSen VR - 3D NES Emulator For Virtual Reality

Breathing new life into classic NES games by magically converting it into 3D and letting you play in VR · By geod

ZScale Questions

A topic by resx created Aug 15, 2016 Views: 478 Replies: 5
Viewing posts 1 to 6
(8 edits)

The manual says this for Zscale: "is an float value – the scale in z axis of the selected sprite.

I'm not exactly sure what that means or why you would use it instead of just making the Depth value larger. They both seem to do the same thing to me.


That being said, I think a good feature to put in the future would be the ability to bring an object further away or closer in a layer without making it any bigger. For instance, a lot of games automatically make the playable character "4 Depth". What if you would like the character to maintain that "4 Depth", but bring them 8 pixels closer to the front of the screen? Right now you can bring the character those 8 pixels closer, but only by selecting "12 Depth", and this makes the character 12 pixels deep instead of 4 deep.

Here is a great example of why you would want to do this, using the game Blaster Master:

Ideally, you could keep the power bar at 8 units deep, but bring it in front of the landscape and enemies that would otherwise get in the way of you seeing it. Right now, it's possible to bring it to the front, but this is how it ends up looking and I don't think it's very appealing:



EDITED TO ADD:

Here's an example of how Double Dragon II would benefit from ZOffset as well.


No matter what I try, I cannot get those to move back with the rest of the chopper. I assume that's why JJXB left them there. I wasn't about to re-do the entire chopper to make them work though when he did such a great job on it otherwise.

(1 edit)

Thank you for your long and very clear post. I want to clarify:

- ZScale is similar but different to Depth.

+ The renderings are different for some pattern : cube, cylinder etc

+ For the current version, set different ZScale could create multi layer effect, it's not the case for Depth. You could watch the Tutorial 3 to see this effect (the pot and plants in Chip&Dale Rescue Ranger)

- Totally agree. ZOffset will be supported in the future. You could discuss and share your ideas in this special topic https://itch.io/t/29232/3dnes-comprehensive-feature-request-list . It will be easier for everyone to keep track.

I bookmarked the to the request list.

Good to hear that ZOffset is going to make it in there. I'm sure there will be a ton of good uses for it, but figured that Blaster Master example would really show the need. Sounds like I didn't have to make a case for it though :)

I'm glad you are open to suggestions. It's amazing what you've done already here and I know you're doing this in your free time and there's only so much that can be done over time. Sorry if I come off as impatient at all some times. I really want to start using this, but there are still too many things right now that discourage me from working on any one rom too long.

I still don't really understand what ZScale is though. Could you explain it to me like I'm 2 years old ;)



BTW... is there a way to post images in here instead of links? I've been trying several different ways, but I can only get the links to show up.


Thanks

(2 edits)

- WRONG! I quitted my job to work on this project 24/7. That's why i respond to you that fast.

- ZScale is just scaling the 3d shape on z axis, it's different with depth - parameter to create the 3d shape. Currently shapes in back layer are align by the front face not the center, so using different zscale can create different "surface layer" effect. I'm not good at English to explain it more clearly. Toy with it to see the difference :).

- Use <> button on the left of editing toolbar to edit your post in raw html. So you can insert whatever you want.

Hey. I actually played with the Zscale quite a bit in Blaster Master and kind of figured it out. I don't think I totally understand it yet, but I'm figuring it out :)

Good luck making a living on this. I got too much freetime at the moment myself, but I'm not getting paid :( When I get back to work I'll contribute to the project, but for now I can't help out financially.


BTW... did you get a chance to look at the other two threads I posted about? I put pictures there for you to look at as well.


Thanks

"Good luck making a living on this"

Not yet but there are still hopes :). Thank you.