I think that this is the whole point for having T3D characters. Nevertheless, I would like to make it clearer to other readers of the forum. Having many combinations of weapons, armour and shields besides a customisable hero makes it impossible to have a predetermined and rendered animation for each unique combination. In <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> the decision was to render a generalised representation, which is a huge amount of work by itself already.
The most perfect alternative is to have a graphical language that describes each item as well as the character in terms of polygons and texture as well.
Here I would like to suggest a very technical point that was missed in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" />
During any item exchange or popup panel being opened, the game should automatically enter into the pause mode to give time to the player and also to the graphics engine to render its animation strip that replaces the sprite. In other words, I do not see why should there be a huge library of final combinations. The best way to handle this issue is a run-time creation of sprites. This is possible because the game must have a library of item-graphics in terms of a Graphics Language rather than in bitmaps. Now what Larian Studios could break the grounds with, is that rather than real time rendering, the rendering could take place during the assembly of the items in the character’s personal inventory, and a thin progress bar for the few seconds would not heart either.
In this case, the player could wait such few seconds until the engine renders this selection of items being combined and creates a runtime sprite or animation strip complete with texture and all the visual delight.
It is not probable that the player shall constantly change items equipped as long as the items were kept balanced and related to the level. The estimated required rendering should be a score of seconds every hour or so when a much better item is found and to replace a lower quality item. There is no difference in the time taken to display a screen clip of 80 x 160 when it is T3D or P3D because what is being displayed is the final result in pixels.
To render each mini-frame on the fly demands the low quality polygonal description to keep the mathematics at a minimum. However, there is yet another choice of not doing that, but rather creating the mini-frames’ strips for the specific combination of items and character before using them and displaying them animated. This could be done during the game pause mode and after the combination had been confirmed.
The player shall understand that she/ he is in a graphics sub-program and that would be appreciated too as a creative activity.
Games that come with a scenario editor do have huge libraries of graphical items, but item manipulation is usually nonexistent. This concept of having a sub-module of character editing in terms of customisation at the beginning only and in terms of changing equipment during the game should utilise the same engine but with different interface panels. The resultant shall be a memory resident sprite that truly represent the combination with textures and all the visual delight.
Cheers.
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" />
