Hi! We moved to our new office a week ago and everything went well except that we still don't have internet access (that's why I didn't post anything to the coldstone board last week). Coldstone is progressing well and the artists are doing a really good job on the graphic library (a first draft of the forest environment is now finished).

Since the last version, 1.0.0d5, I added an animation editor to Coldstone. I will not explain it in details here but I can say that it will support traditional animation (sequence of pictures) as well as a keyframe animation system to let you "move" your sprite around. The keyframe system support linear interpolation (straight line from one point to another) and bezier interpolation - you can also combine the two for more flexibility. A preview of an animation file appears in the tile set browser like the other pictures. You can then put it anywhere on the map like any other still picture.

Among other things, I worked on the map editor to add some nice features like map optimization tools.

Check (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum18/HTML/000009.html")http://www.AmbrosiaS...TML/000009.html(/url) for more details!

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Dee Brown
Coldstone Game Engine developer
Beenox inc. - (url="http://"http://www.beenox.com")www.beenox.com(/url)

Nice. Keep on adding stuff like that, and you will have a place on mount Ambrosia with andrew and Matt.

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(url="http://"http://pages.hotbot.com/games/ambjorn/index.html")1000 Worlds(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum10/HTML/001524.html")The Tides of War(/url)
(url="http://"http://www.ohhla.com")The Original Hip-Hop Lyrics Archive(/url)
Hip Hop Recomendation of the week: Dead Prez - Let's Get Free

Heh.

Yeah, don't forget to edit the logs once in a while. It doesn't have to be too frequent, but its sad that some of the logs haven't been updated since June, even though massive improvements have been made. :frown: Oh well.

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Looks cool, especially the new animation features. Can't wait...

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<font color="gold">Bronze: the other gold metal.</font>
(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/show.pl?product=evo&category;=guides&display;=date&file;=ChroniclesByJake101.sit.hqx")Chronicles by Jake101: the unposted chapters.(/url)

Whoops, I thought I had already said thanks for the update, but as I had not yet, "Thanks!"

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And so the problem remained; lots of people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches. Many were increasingly of the opinion that they had all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that the trees had been a bad move and that no one should ever have left the oceans. - Douglass Adams

Quote

Originally posted by Avatara:
**Heh.:)

Yeah, don't forget to edit the logs once in a while. It doesn't have to be too frequent, but its sad that some of the logs haven't been updated since June, even though massive improvements have been made. :frown: Oh well.

**

Speaking of that, I need to post a new screenshot and sketch on the (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/news/upcoming/coldstone_betashots.html")Coldstone beta shots(/url) page.

Also, to Dee: just post a new reply in the progress log thread each time you update it, that way people will see a running history of the changes.

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Andrew Welch / el Presidente / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
(url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/~andrew/")http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/~andrew/(/url)

Looking great so far. I love those screenshots now that I have the time to look at them. They make the idea of this more fun than it previously was. Keep up the good work.

Seems people have formed a habit of making a smiley with each of their posts. This will be mine .

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How strange... To have gone so far and to want so little.
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(url="http://"http://www.adcritic.com/content/snickers-voting-booth.html")http://www.adcritic....ting-booth.html(/url)

(quote)Originally posted by Desert Fox:
**
Seems people have formed a habit of making a smiley with each of their posts. This will be mine .:)

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(url="http://"http://pages.hotbot.com/games/ambjorn/index.html")1000 Worlds(/url)
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Hip Hop Recomendation of the week:** Dead Prez - Let's Get Free

Hello again. These last days, I have worked a lot on the map editor to make it easier for the Coldstone user to add items and characters (monsters, villagers, etc.) directly on the map. You can even set the initial heading direction for the characters which is very useful if you want to make a specific encounter like kobolds sitting around a fire. Again, this feature is very easy to use: just select the "Character" mode and all the characters will appear in the standard map picture browser. Pick one and click on the map where you want it to appear. That's all.

I also worked on the battle engine. In fact, I rewrote most of the code so that the battles are more interactive and a lot more fun to play. I think we found a good middle between turn-based and real-time (sound strange but believe me, it's cool). Here's some hints: the battles can happen directly on the map, there is attack animations with nice effects to show the damage to the opponent and each characters in the battle now have an "energy meter" to show their current level of stamina.

Beside this, the artists are doing an incredible job (as you may have noticed by looking at the screenshots page) on our upcoming game made with Coldstone. Stay tuned.

Check (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum18/HTML/000009.html")http://www.AmbrosiaS...TML/000009.html(/url) for more details!

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Dee Brown
Coldstone Game Engine developer
Beenox inc. - (url="http://"http://www.beenox.com")www.beenox.com(/url)

Just thought I would say it is very nice to get these frequent updates. Us Coldstone watchers have the pleasure of the most active Upcoming log!! Woohoo!

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The sentient Glue
Bubble waves to
everyone.

....(orgasm of joy).....god that sounded nerdy... :)...oh well...off to Ju Jitsu.

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(url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum10/HTML/001524.html")The Tides of War(/url)
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Hip Hop Recomendation of the week: Beastie Boys - Ill Communication
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Hey! Two cool things have been added to Coldstone lately (among others of course, see detailed release notes).

The first thing is that the ground and movement grids are now separate grids. You can create maps that use 96x96 tiles (like we do in POG) but have the player walks on a 32x32 grid. The access and events are placed on the movement grid (i.e. where the player walks). Now stop bugging me with the tiled look of our ground (this should improve it a lot at least).

The other cool thing is that you can now create "tools" for ground editing. Let say that you want to draw a river across a grass plain. In the old days, you would have drawn all the water tiles and then, drawn all the edges of the river (which can become a long and boring work). Now you can create yourself a water-grass tool and use it with the standard pen tool. It will draw the water tiles and automatically create the edges for you (like the warcraft, starcraft, HMM3, etc. editors). Creating maps is now MUCH more fun (and much faster too). By the way, these ground-editing tools are nothing else than an animation with all the pictures listed in a specific order. Very easy to create and use.

Check (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum18/HTML/000009.html")http://www.AmbrosiaS...TML/000009.html(/url) for more details!

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Dee Brown
Coldstone Game Engine developer
Beenox inc. - (url="http://"http://www.beenox.com")www.beenox.com(/url)

Looks pretty cool. Just making us a little more excited with every post Dee.

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Had to alter sig because it was pissing me off

Huh... looks like i'll be spending a good part of my time with clodstone figuring out just how to do the process described in the screenshots as "Tweening"...huh...the npc editor looks cool too...

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"I will make this whole planet suffer!" --Frieza
"Are you crazy?" --Tenchi
"You're tuned to the comercial channel! All commercials, ALL THE TIME!" --Mike the TV
"I knew that if I lat this kid wander around, you might show up. The only mistake i made was to underestimate the power of this kid..." --Ganondorf

I'm glad you fixed the tiled ground problem. One question though: How big can the ground (not movement) tiles be? Could you do a very detailed map and have one tile? How will solid objects (such as walls) be handled in large tiles?

Also, you have something about zoom settings. Will it be possible for it to have two zoom settings, which can be switched by the player?

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<font color="gold">Bronze: the other gold metal.</font>
(url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/show.pl?product=evo&category;=guides&display;=date&file;=ChroniclesByJake101.sit.hqx")Chronicles by Jake101: the unposted chapters.(/url)
(url="http://"http://users.erols.com/alkrauss/Once_Again.html")Once Again: on the web.(/url)

Let's just make sure some ancient graphics (e.g., Rome and Greece) make it into the fray ... or, at the very least, pillars and stone that looks like marble. Just wait til you see what we're creating.

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Again!

A few interesting things to note in this update: first, the new "Map Mask" layout. You can now create map interfaces with overlapping stuff - you are not limited to a rectangular area anymore. Also, all files created with Coldstone now have an extension and the config file doesn't have a resource fork anymore which means that Coldstone games are now editable on both platforms (win32 and MacOS). A Win32 version of Coldstone (editor only) is now up-to-date with the MacOS version and is running well. A usable OSX native version (editor only) is also existing.

Be sure to check (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/news/upcoming/coldstone_betashots.html")http://www.AmbrosiaS..._betashots.html(/url) for Win32 and OSX previews.

Complete release notes available at (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum18/HTML/000009.html")http://www.AmbrosiaS...TML/000009.html(/url) .

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Dee Brown
Coldstone Game Engine developer
Beenox inc. - (url="http://"http://www.beenox.com")www.beenox.com(/url)

Lookin' good. Non-rectangular areas? That means I could create a map with an ultra-weird shape? Cool.

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<font color="gold">Bronze: the other gold metal.</font>
Bacchus Publishing: (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/show.pl?product=evo&category;=guides&display;=date&file;=ChroniclesByJake101.sit.hqx")Chronicles by Jake101: the unposted chapters.(/url), (url="http://"http://users.erols.com/alkrauss/Once_Again.html")Once Again: on the web.(/url)

Since I'm very busy working on the upcoming beta, I'll make it short: there is now a "Map overview display" action type that let you display a map with an icon where the player is (that you choose). Only the region already explored by the player is displayed on the map (everything else is black). Any interface (shop, inventory) that was using a list now use my version of a listbox instead of the standard system version. This mean that the background is now transparent and you can customize the look of the scrollbar. A lot better for interface design. There is other interesting things, (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/webboard/Forum18/HTML/000009.html")take a look to the detailed list(/url).

Oh, and I just added two character skins to the (url="http://"http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/cgi-bin/ubb/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum;=Coldstone+Image+Gallery&number;=57&DaysPrune;=20&LastLogin;=")Coldstone Image Gallery(/url). Your comments are welcome.

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Dee Brown
Coldstone Game Engine developer
Beenox inc. - (url="http://"http://www.beenox.com")www.beenox.com(/url)

Quote

Originally posted by Dee:
**
snip
**

Cool, I was wondering whether the map overview feature would be there. I'm off to go look at the log, as well as the character skins....thanks for the hard work.

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"Bond, GlueBubble Bond."