The Dolmexica Engine [Moddable 2D Fighter]

[Anthony817]

Hey, hey, before we get worked up over the copyright, please check out my plan:

First off, I am going to release the D-Engine, completely legal, bundled with nothing but a simple self-drawn background and a dummy character, probably a stereotypical fighter, you know the drill. All of the things included there will be released under the GPL.

Yeah I can definitely respect how Indiket wants to keep everything 100% legal and all. Nothing wrong with that.

I like your plan Bro, sounds like a good idea.

This way it will keep both communities happy, the legit sites, dreamcast.es, Dreamcast scene, Dcemulation and the "I don't give a fuck sites" like Dreamcast-Talk, Snesorama and isozone hehe.

[Indiket]

Yeah, I like the plan! You explained perfectly all the situation and roadmap. Nothing more to say

About the KMG issue, you should ask directly to BlueCrab. He's the actual maintainer of KOS and I'm sure he would help you. I know that he was on holidays... don't know if he has come back

[VasiliyRS]

cpt, how hard will be to make my own game using your engine ? Any special skills, tools are requires ?

[Captain Dreamcast]

cpt, how hard will be to make my own game using your engine ? Any special skills, tools are requires ?

That's a great question (thanks for asking, I was about to register a second account to ask it myself! )

Making new characters is almost too easy. The "pure" D-Engine comes bundled with all tools required to create new characters. On the graphics side, the preferred image files are PNGs. Either 128x128 or 256x256. Those have to be converted to the Dolmexica format using tool #1: The PKG converter!

As far as the actual modding part goes, that one is dealt with by simply typing the values into a .txt or an .nfo file. There are only about ten values for a normal attack, most of which are pretty simple to use. Special Attacks on the other hand can get kinda difficult to implement, especially if they are supposed to look good and blend perfectly with the gameplay.

Since using a text file was too slow for the engine, this one has to be converted to the "Movement Register" file format using tool numero dos: The MVT converter!

Now finally, for the hit detection the input files are 128x128 BMPs. These can be kinda annoying to make, so I am working on creating a tool which uses the original PNG's transparency and turns that into a BMP. Of course there is still one more tool necessary to finally have the desired .CRA (Crash Layer) file, tool number three, the appropriately named CRA converter!

Now, let's sum it up:

The input files for each animation are:

• An entry in the .txt
• The PNG files to be converted
• The Hit detection BMP files

And the tools necessary are:

• PKG Converter
• MVT Converter
• CRA Converter

...Well, that's it for the pure, completely legal side.

There is still an "unofficial" tool supposed to be available, which automatically creates a CDI or an SDISO, automatically optimizing the disc in the process for use on a real Dreamcast. It is not 100% legal, since I believe Padus still holds a few rights related to the DiscJuggler format.

This should be way easier, especially considering the D-Engine uses CDDA for Audio.

Well, that's it from the tool side. Sounds like a lot of work, but most of those rely on pre-made tools which almost do what the engine needs them to do.

[Dreamcaster]

What about the sprites, you've ripped them by yourself or you used some ready solution?
And the most important question, do you plan to release this tools in the future for modding the beta, before you release the 1.0 version?

[PhiseJr]

I'm New to this forum. I Heard about this engine and i've been stalking it for the past week. I have interest in making Sprites but I was puzzled as to why 128x128 and it expanded it to 256x256. thank you for clearing it out that the engine also uses the 256 pixels aswell. I'm an artist and I currently Learning to model in Blender3D, my plan was to make some sprites for the engine but make them in 3D and convert them into sprites and toon shading ti resemble 2D characters. and create moves and specials in frame by frame animations. Because even though sprites do look better they are to tedious to create and require a lot of time. Which will be too much for a game that i cant market.

Does the Engine support online play ? and or Online support?

My question is does the engine support Tagging. kinda like MVC/2/3 or will i be able to have assists like in MVC1. I had a plan before to make a Dreamcast Fighting title but limited to do the things cause i cant program AT ALL. I would enclose some of my ideas but I dont want to just yet.

Captain Dreamcast Thank you again.ght eff

[Captain Dreamcast]

What about the sprites, you've ripped them by yourself or you used some ready solution?

Ah! That's another good one.

Especially since it's one of the things I forgot about: Giving credit to the brave sprite rippers without which the D-Engine would still use Stickler, the stickman protagonist from "The Best Game Ever". Shameless cross-game-promotion aside, those are the people who really deserve praise:

• Lord Zymeth, who ripped the Ryu and Ken sprites used in the Beta.
• Yawackhary, for ripping the Ryu Stage from Street Fighter II. Good stuff.

They usually post something like "Not necessary to give credit, but don't claim as your own", but they really deserve the rep.
The other sprites (the blinking "Fight!" animation from MK3/ SFA2 Lifebars) weren't ripped by me either, but I am currently unable to locate the original ripper.
Of course they will get mentioned in this thread as soon as I find out who exactly is to receive the credit.


Another person that has to be mentioned would be the BoR main programmer, known under the nickname Opla, who shared a great idea with me concerning the hit detection.

*Sigh*, there are so many more who need to have their names here, ranging from idea contributers to those who went out of their way to promote the engine. Like the credits.txt in the game files stated, all of you will get the cred you deserve in the final release. Just hang on a little longer...

And the most important question, do you plan to release this tools in the future for modding the beta, before you release the 1.0 version?

Oh, I believe that wouldn't be a good idea. Mostly because things change way faster than the tools get updated. Also, just imagine if someone was to put a lot of effort into creating a character, which later ceases to be compatible. That would be really annoying!

One thing I can release however is the PKG converter. It still consists of only a command line program and requires KMGs instead of PNGs as input, but hey- it should make it easier to guess how many overall frames the D-Engine can handle.

I'm New to this forum. I Heard about this engine and i've been stalking it for the past week. I have interest in making Sprites but I was puzzled as to why 128x128 and it expanded it to 256x256. thank you for clearing it out that the engine also uses the 256 pixels aswell. I'm an artist and I currently Learning to model in Blender3D, my plan was to make some sprites for the engine but make them in 3D and convert them into sprites and toon shading ti resemble 2D characters. and create moves and specials in frame by frame animations. Because even though sprites do look better they are to tedious to create and require a lot of time. Which will be too much for a game that i cant market.

Welcome to DC-Talk!

Your plan sounds great, the new 256x256 sprite size should make it way easier to change these 3D models to good 2D sprites! Those Cel-shaded graphics look real good on a DC, in fact there was a fighter using cel-shading announced called Maid Fight. Sadly, it was later revealed to have been a fraud, so I'm extremely happy to hear about your game.

Since your characters sound like they are using a whole lot of frames, plese keep in mind that the maximum amount of frames is limited by the Dreamcast's RAM. Since The binary and other shenanigans takes away a few MBs from the DC's 16MB main RAM, that would leave you with 8-10MB for both characters.

Does the Engine support online play ? and or Online support?

No, that's because the D-Engine relies on KallistiOS, which in turn does not appear to be capable of complex networking stacks.

But honestly I have to admit, I haven't really looked into it yet.

My question is does the engine support Tagging. kinda like MVC/2/3 or will i be able to have assists like in MVC1. I had a plan before to make a Dreamcast Fighting title but limited to do the things cause i cant program AT ALL. I would enclose some of my ideas but I dont want to just yet.

Tagging really isn't possible. It would only be possible by limiting the colors of both fighting characters to 15 colors (+1 transparent color) per character. That's where the problem lies, since a moddable engine could theoretically pit a 256x256 (256 color) character versus one of those "tagging" characters.

Assists on the other hand shouldn't be that difficult to implement, as long as they are treated as normal "Special Effects" (or a fancy Special Move if you will). On the downside, those Special Effects eat up a lot of memory.
for example, a single 256x256 frame's memory use would be either 128kb (true color format), 64kb (256 colors) or 32 kb (16 colors).

In case someone wonders how Capcom did it, Marvel vs Capcom 2 chars only use 16 colors. It really doesn't look like it, does it? Those designers really knew their stuff! Heh, I hope you can put the D-Engine to its limits as well!

Really sorry to say your cel-shading + tagging project is as good as impossible on the Dreamcast.

If you wish to continue on that game, I wish you the best of luck. In case you need more information on the engine or want to have anything I rambled about earlier clarified, feel free to ask me.

[Anthony817]

PhiseJr has some good ideas. Glad to see potential developers interested in the engine as well.

Good luck to you, turning 3D sprites into 2D looks awesome as Capt. DC demonstrated with Ryu from SF4!

[PhiseJr]

Really sorry to say your cel-shading + tagging project is as good as impossible on the Dreamcast.

Well I wouldnt think the cel shading will have much effect on the graphics since it actually loading pictures? instead of actually processing graphics from an actual game. Am I right ? but cool now that I know some of the limits of the engine I'll work on more of the artwork and characters. and the Design of the game and the motive of which direction i'll be going with the Gameplay. Since Tagging will be an issue I'll Continue with more of the designing and Share with you my Idea.

Well I'm a Big fan of Super Smash brothers and, Capcom Fighting games. But of course the dreamcast is the greatest console to ever existed since it started the current generation of gaming that were in. Being that a Good fighting game can never die. and the few that keep the dreamcast alive are being ported to the current generation i.e. Third Strike, CVS2, MVC2.

My idea involves making a fighting game with Dreamcast Characters and titles but being that this is basically a Open Source engine and a Fan Based influenced game. this is the perfect opportunity to bring my idea to life. I wanted to make it a MVC or CVS2(excluding the grooves) style game play. I have a long list of characters from Dreamcast Exclusives. such as RYO, Red Ring Rico, Nightmare, Taki, Beat, Gum, Ryoma ... and the List goes on . But what Im going to do is lower the list to about 16- 20 characters. Most of the characters I mentioned most likely will be in the roster. I plan to have the game more team based since that's how a cross up should be. So im aiming more towards the CVS style play with one character losing then the next one comes out starting a new round.

As far as the online Code goes Captain Dreamcast if you do look into it take a look at GGPO its a great client for online multiplayer which can be beneficial to the Dreamcast since most owners don't have a BBA and what the netcode does is apply the lag before the players inputs so they barely experience lag and latency issues, regardless of the distance. Im not sure if capcom has exclusive right to it though but then again this is an open source engine.

One more thing if I decide to make all the characters in 16 colors will that benefit me on utilizing more of the gameplay and engine ?

PhiseJr has some good ideas. Glad to see potential developers interested in the engine as well.

Good luck to you, turning 3D sprites into 2D looks awesome as Capt. DC demonstrated with Ryu from SF4!

Well hopefully I can get the characters to look as close to the originals as possible. And thank you I've always wanted to develop for the dreamcast But like i mentioned before my programming skills are.... wait who am i kidding I have none.

Let me know whats your thoughts on the idea and what characters you would like to see but of course Dreamcast exclusives. and Captain DC if you like my sprite work maybe you and i can work on the SF vs MK sprites a game will always look better when the characters look like they are in the same game instead of sprites ripped from separate games. ^.^

[Jenkins]

PhiseJr has some good ideas. Glad to see potential developers interested in the engine as well.

Good luck to you, turning 3D sprites into 2D looks awesome as Capt. DC demonstrated with Ryu from SF4!

We need more of these "3D" Spirtes. Add this Ryu into the Dolmexica Engine and it will be the best looking fighting game on DC!

I really can't wait for the next release/build!