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Exit: Iconic

Something old, something new...

August 17th, 2023 by Holey Moley at www.swordofmoonlight.net

Since last seen I’ve put finishing touches on the new tile icon generation system and the old tile system too. The latter is now accessed by pushing the slider bar in the map editor to the very top. The slider can also now be used to fade out the grid lines and to fade in direction arrows.

There’s many more additions mentioned in a wrap-up address inside the Discussion forum. The advanced profile editing tools can now be left open while working, and the Alt key works with clicking to open a 3D model editor. The parts editor tool now has a UUID system shoehorned into the icon field. This works because the old style icons are secondary to computer generated icons. The art system also uses this icon generation system on everything else so its “shortcut” files display a thumbnail graphic. I want to add that a whole lot of work has gone into all of this. The new map icons fill in the space between the grids and include a 2 pixel border for shadow highlights. Getting everything right took weeks.

In other news I’ve reset the Subversion repository. The first revision is now classic Sword of Moonlight for previewing and comparing to the second revision. I’ve removed all traces of “source code” for work from the web. I’m keeping it private going forward. I have private copies on Github that I hope will outlast me. I’m actively trying to make a turn to commercial outlets. I intend to consult with From Software reps before making this move. I’m going to put a non-commercial version on Archive.org as-soon-as-possible. In the meantime, please stay tuned, use SOM, and support my work!

Forum Discussion

Coming up for air...

June 10th, 2023 by Swordofmoonlight.net at www.swordofmoonlight.net

Before I begin I’ve been in the habit of hiding past posts of late. The current most recent post dates back to April last year. I’m sorry. Anyone paying attention to me will have seen me going through a lot of contortions concerning my lifestyle and life course. Right now I have a kind of semi-benign schizophrenia that doesn’t interfere with my ability to think, however it disrupts my life a lot. I’ve been trying to cover my tracks.

I’m currently trying to tie up unpaid work on Sword of Moonlight in order to try to begin publishing a paid “early access” version. I haven’t had success with a Patreon model thus far, but I want everyone reading this to join me at Patreon.com/Swordofmoonlight and a new alternative called SubscribeStar I’m just starting out setting up.

In all these unpublished posts I’ve done some difficult work on order-independent transparency and most recently I’ve completed the new art import system by making icons be generated by default when making use of the art system. A preview is here showing how shading and lines are used to distinguish otherwise identical tile models.

Continued: Coming up for air…

Forum Discussion

Passing between worlds

February 1st, 2022 by Holey Moley at www.swordofmoonlight.net

An important milestone has (finally) been reached by Sword of Moonlight by realizing the original King’s Field single environment experience of no “loading screens” after hopping into the game. This is something King’s Field fans always gloat about since it was pretty novel back in the day, and even to this day lately I’ve played a little bit of some PlayStation 4 games and am finding myself shocked how much of the time is really just spent on minutes long loading screens. In my opinion I would happily remove the high fidelity visuals in these games for practical seconds long loading screens. Of course, no load screens would be ideal.

Continued: Passing between worlds

Forum Discussion

Long time no update! (Sorry about that)

December 14th, 2021 by Holey Moley at www.swordofmoonlight.net

I’m pleased to announce I’ve completed the most grueling round of work I’ve ever done on Sword of Moonlight and all the new files are online for the taking.

I did two long release cycles back-to-back except the first was not published because it didn’t have anything to offer to the general public. What it was instead was a big task to bolt on an OpenGL based alternative mode for SOM because new VR peripherals for PC don’t work with Direct3D 9. I chose OpenGL because I’ve used it plenty in the past and the newer systems like Vulkan and Direct3D 11 or 12 are completely different in terms of their design and are much more complicated, so it would be an even bigger effort to write code for those and it would be very alien to my past experience.

Continued: Long time no update! (Sorry about that)

Forum Discussion

Anti-aliasing announcement

March 20th, 2021 by Holey Moley at www.swordofmoonlight.net

Something of note occurred a while ago. Briefly, for a long time now Sword of Moonlight has had a unique anti-aliasing technique for which I’ve continued to develop complementary 3D image-based graphical effects. This line of work has matured and now has reached a conclusion. It started when I had an idea I thought could address its main weakness: that is it takes more than one image frame to create a double exposure image, which means it can’t anti-alias a single image by itself, or put another way: when a picture is moving it can’t do its job.

This is an economical solution because it doesn’t require any resources or time on the computer to compute its results. When a picture is moving it can be hard to make out its edges, so anti-aliasing isn’t as important. So it mostly washes out, except it’s still a legitimate mark against this technique. To solve this problem (with an equally no resources solution) (as well as it can be solved) the new complementary technique works to remove contrast on moving edges. This looks like an unfocused image on the moving edge.

Continued: Anti-aliasing announcement

Forum Discussion

25th Anniversary Project

November 2nd, 2020 by Holey Moley at www.swordofmoonlight.net

At https://swordofmoonlight.itch.io/k I’ve published an early demo of my King’s Field II project that’s haunted me for the past half year. At the speed I was able to work I’ve only produced a beginning that comprises my goals for the second demo I promised almost two years ago, to the day. Most the lost time was bound up in developing tools for working with the 3D models and ensuring compatibility with the existing models. This included developing a cross-platform UI system and 3D art package and utilities.

The demo is using a new update to Sword of Moonlight that’s also the subject of this announcement. It includes a number of features that aren’t yet readily accessible to projects, since they’re not fully developed and integrated into the basic tools. In the final month before publishing I found myself working furiously on the control system since it made some interesting leaps at the last moment and I wanted to take it as a sign I should ride that wave in order to use its public visibility to showcase the control system.

Continued: 25th Anniversary Project

Forum Discussion


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