Metroid Cubed

2004-04-19 03:47:01 pm

Viking

Precursor

How about Metroid in Shockwave, in pseudo-3D?

http://homepage.mac.com/qubedstudios/metroidcubed.htm (lol new link)

(found on Samus.co.uk)

Thread title:

Toozin

2004-04-19 04:34:23 pm

Not impossible

just highly unlikely

That's deciently cool, but the isometric perspective is more of an annoyance than anything, and there's little point in playing it when you have all the items from the start.

KennyMan666

2004-04-19 04:39:49 pm

Viking

Precursor

As I understand it, it's not really finished yet. You can turn off the Items.

Syl

2004-04-19 11:53:18 pm

random note: its not polygons, just angled sprites, AKA super mario RPG.

too slow and clumsy for my liking... but, i also never figured out how to shoot a damn missile

KennyMan666

2004-04-20 04:07:10 am

Viking

Precursor

Quote from Syl:

random note: its not polygons, just angled sprites, AKA super mario RPG.

too slow and clumsy for my liking... but, i also never figured out how to shoot a damn missile

My bad. *changes*

Missiles is M. Or N. I forgot which.

Holy_Cow

2004-04-20 05:36:24 pm

the 3-d just annoys me cant see anything

Wassup Dawgs

2004-04-20 06:03:12 pm

You can also do wall jumps. :)

Rox

2004-04-25 05:06:59 pm

Interesting project, and very well made... Too bad it's a complete waste of time. Making a 2D game isometric without adding a third dimension to gameplay is just stupid. Oh well...

KennyMan666

2004-04-25 05:14:56 pm

Viking

Precursor

Ooh, it's updated. It's not version 0.96 anymore.

VL-Tony

2004-04-27 03:33:59 am

Oh well that's it, I don't like being called stupid ;)

I guess you wanted the Metroid Cubed author for an interview, now you got it :)

First I'm not pushing this demo anywhere since its still buggy and incomplete, its not like i'm posting all around telling everyone its the best thing ever. But hey don't think i''m taking this post too seriously either :)

I'll try though to address the "no 3d gameplay" thing first. I toyed with this idea since the begining. Doing the 2d gameplay engine was not that time-cosuming (that account though for the fact its buggy) compared to the voxel sculpting tool and rendering engine i had to write to convert the 2d nes tiles to 3d objects, and nothing prevents me from using them in a game with 3d gameplay, so i personnaly dont see this project as a "complete" waste of time. The part that is wasted is actually just me having fun with programming a game i am fond of, yeah... it is part of my entertainment time for now. I'm doing metroid cubed mainly for myself, to learn and have fun at the same time. I'm sure those hours of programming have thought me a few things about it, even doing the 2d part is usefull, it requires basic routines that are usefull in any type of programs. Anyhow maybe you'll convince me to add 3d gameplay to Metroid Cubed after all. As I said before, since the begining of the project I tried to think of feasible ways of convert the rooms to 3d and have Samus run in like 8 or 24 angles. There are like 180 -different- rooms in Metroid 1 so doing a 3d conversion of each ones by hand would be very long. Doing a semi-random algorithm that uses cues in rooms to make larger floors and lava fields and randomly place platforms is an idea, but would be still a lot of work and it would end up too adapted to the original rooms in this game and that would be a waste of time ;) . The volumetric cubic tile sculptor i wrote to render the blocks was also develloped with a Marble Madness engine in mind, for now it pre-renders game blocks using pre-rendered special "marching cubes" bitmaps, wich were stuck at a 45�/30� angle, but I've now added bitmaps for other angles, 24 views of the same block can now be pre-rendered in special bitmaps, but the problem now for metroid cubed would be the need for much more memory and storage. As there are like 280 tiles in Metroid 1, multiply that by 24 and the size of each bitmaps and you get dozens of megs. Why do i use prerendered bitmaps instead of say... OpenGL polygons? Because the blocks are not simply cubes with bump maps on them, they are generated from volumetric information that would require about 2000 polygons per blocks to be displayed on a 3d card and just one screen in Metroid Cubed can have up to 240 blocks. At most it would be possible if written in c++ and opengl and run on the latest video-card (dont hesitate as to say otherwise). I could probably optimise the poly-count to a great extent but as for now i'm not sure it would be a great first-time opengl project for me. As you can see on my main page, my voxel sculptor and renderer can generate true polygon meshes of the same blocks used in Metroid Cubed. Its part of the process anyway and it uses the marching cubes real intent wich is to convert volumetric (voxel) data into polygons meshes. I recently realised that after all, voxels (real voxels, as in VOlume ELement, not height field voxel terrain) are more of a way to store 3d information than a way to render it. To display volumetric data you are pretty much forced to use polygons in a way or another, wether its only squares or little cubes all alike, or more advanced extrapolation...

(Edit: oops, I somehow hit the submit button before finishing!, though its getting long)

...like marching cubes that use triangles to fit a surface on a volumetric model, to put them on a 2d screen you have to use polys. So Polys VS Voxels is a false debate.

To get back to Metroid Cubed with 3d gameplay, its possible but I rather do a somehow new game. So my next project was to be a Marble Madness game with a Metroid 1 theme, but I'm thinking more and more about making Samus stand and jump also in most part of the game. It could eventually turn into a 3d retro Metroid game (with 3d gameplay and playfields/rooms) that could (eventually) run on something like a cell phone. It would feature a rotateable orthographic playfield and dynamic lighting.

So ok Metroid Cubed is relatively slow for now,and I'm presently changing the way it displays rooms and sprites so they use real z-sorting instead on only a pseudo-one using a block mask on Samus. So the version on my site sill stay the same until I've made the transition and do speed optimisation (thats mainly were I'm at now, thanks for remembering me its too slow). The controls were at first carefully designed to mimic Metroid 1 but to try to overcome the slowness I added over the course of the project (enemies and 3d bg) I messed too much with it, I'll have to redo them when the speed is back. Another important thing I plan too add is an option to change the key controls. Oh well I'm tired, sorry for the long and confusing post :)

Overall, thanks for the critisism, I'm always opened to suggestions.

VL-Tone
---Everything counts in Large amounts---

Oh well that's it, I don't like being called stupid ;)

I guess you wanted the Metroid Cubed author for an interview, now you got it :)

First I'm not pushing this demo anywhere since its still buggy and incomplete, its not like i'm posting all around telling everyone its the best thing ever. But hey don't think i''m taking this post too seriously either :)

I'll try though to address the "no 3d gameplay" thing first.  I toyed with this idea since the begining. Doing the 2d gameplay engine was not that time-cosuming (that account though for the fact its buggy) compared to the voxel sculpting tool and rendering engine i had to write to convert the 2d nes tiles to 3d objects, and nothing prevents me from using them in a game with 3d gameplay, so i personnaly dont see this project as a "complete" waste of time. The part that is wasted is actually just me having fun with programming a game i am fond of, yeah... it is part of my entertainment time for now. I'm doing metroid cubed mainly for myself, to learn and have fun at the same time. I'm sure those hours of programming have thought me a few things about it, even doing the 2d part is usefull, it requires basic routines that are usefull in any type of programs. Anyhow maybe you'll convince me to add 3d gameplay to Metroid Cubed after all. As I said before, since the begining of the project I tried to think of feasible ways of convert the rooms to 3d and have Samus run in like 8 or 24 angles. There are like 180 -different- rooms in Metroid 1 so doing a 3d conversion of each ones by hand would be very long. Doing a semi-random algorithm that uses cues in rooms to make larger floors and lava fields and randomly place platforms is an idea, but would be still a lot of work and it would end up too adapted to the original rooms in this game and that would be a waste of time ;) . The volumetric cubic tile sculptor i wrote to render the blocks was also develloped with a Marble Madness engine in mind, for now it pre-renders game blocks using pre-rendered special "marching cubes" bitmaps, wich were stuck at a 45�/30� angle, but I've now added bitmaps for other angles, 24 views of the same block can now be pre-rendered in special bitmaps, but the problem now for metroid cubed would be the need for much more memory and storage. As there are like 280 tiles in Metroid 1, multiply that by 24 and the size of each bitmaps and you get dozens of megs. Why do i use prerendered bitmaps instead of say... OpenGL polygons? Because the blocks are not simply cubes with bump maps on them, they are generated from volumetric information that would require about 2000 polygons per blocks to be displayed on a 3d card and just one screen in Metroid Cubed can have up to 240 blocks. At most it would be possible if written in c++ and opengl and run on the latest video-card (dont hesitate as to say otherwise). I could probably optimise the poly-count to a great extent but as for now i'm not sure it would be a great first-time opengl project for me. As you can see on my main page, my voxel sculptor and renderer can generate true polygon meshes of the same blocks used in Metroid Cubed. Its part of the process anyway and it uses the marching cubes real intent wich is to convert volumetric (voxel) data into polygons meshes. I recently realised that after all, voxels (real voxels, as in VOlume ELement, not height field voxel terrain) are more of a way to store 3d information than a way to render it. To display volumetric data you are pretty much forced to use polygons in a way or another, wether its only squares or little cubes all alike, or more advanced extrapolation...

(Edit: oops, I somehow hit the submit button before finishing!, though its getting long)

...like marching cubes that use triangles to fit a surface on a volumetric model, to put them on a 2d screen you have to use polys. So Polys VS Voxels is a false debate.

To get back to Metroid Cubed with 3d gameplay, its possible but I rather do a somehow new game. So my next project was to be a Marble Madness game with a Metroid 1 theme, but I'm thinking more and more about making Samus stand and jump also in most part of the game. It could eventually turn into a 3d retro Metroid game (with 3d gameplay and playfields/rooms) that could (eventually) run on something like a cell phone. It would feature a rotateable orthographic playfield and dynamic lighting.

So ok Metroid Cubed is relatively slow for now,and I'm presently changing the way it displays rooms and sprites so they use real z-sorting instead on only a pseudo-one using a block mask on Samus. So the version on my site sill stay the same until I've made the transition and do speed optimisation (thats mainly were I'm at now, thanks for remembering me its too slow). The controls were at first carefully designed to mimic Metroid 1 but to try to overcome the slowness I added over the course of the project (enemies and 3d bg) I messed too  much with it, I'll have to redo them when the speed is back. Another important thing I plan too add is an option to change the key controls. Oh well I'm tired, sorry for the long and confusing post :)

Overall, thanks for the critisism, I'm always opened to suggestions.

VL-Tone
---Everything counts in Large amounts---

Toozin

2004-04-27 03:46:13 am

Not impossible

just highly unlikely

That's a big block of text. Shocked

Part of my disinterest stems from the fact that I don't like Metroid 1 too much at all, so just turning on all items and goofing around in it isn't something I want to do. If the items were actual pickups I'd probably spend more time with it. It's technically impressive though, that's for sure.

VL-Tony

2004-04-27 04:11:27 am

Yeah I know its a bit long, and even longer now :)

I forgot to mention that I recently discovered (at last!) how to decode the item data location in the Metroid rom and in my own version they are somehow implemented. Maybe it will encourage me to finish my other project, a Metroid level editor, once and for all (almost finished for like 2 years, but it was missing the item information). Unfortunatly you wont see in-game items in Metroid Cubed until the next update, in like a week or 2. Like you said, its probably more interesting for people who knows Metroid 1 by heart and can say: "hey its that cool room". I'm completely clueless about if someone would really want to play the game from start to end, maybe only one or 2 people would ever do that. My goal is more to let people have access to anything they like about Metroid 1 in 3d, rooms or enemies or powerups for a few minutes :) But yeah in game Items will make it more interesting.

Metroid Cubed is at http://pages.infinit.net/voxel

VL-Tone
---Everything counts in Large amounts---

Yeah I know its a bit long, and even longer now :)

I forgot to mention that I recently discovered (at last!) how to decode the item data location in the Metroid rom and in my own version they are somehow implemented. Maybe it will encourage me to finish my other project, a Metroid level editor, once and for all (almost finished for like 2 years, but it was missing the item information). Unfortunatly you wont see in-game items in Metroid Cubed until the next update, in like a week or 2. Like you said, its probably more interesting for people who knows Metroid 1 by heart and can say: "hey its that cool room". I'm completely clueless about if someone would really want to play the game from start to end, maybe only one or 2 people would ever do that. My goal is more to let people have access to anything they like about Metroid 1 in 3d, rooms or enemies or powerups for a few minutes :) But yeah in game Items will make it more interesting.

Metroid Cubed is at [url]http://pages.infinit.net/voxel[/url]

VL-Tone 
---Everything counts in Large amounts---

KennyMan666

2004-04-27 05:34:38 am

Viking

Precursor

When it's finished, I promise you that I'll play it through ^__^

Something that I don't know if you have fixed in version 0.97 - I went to Kraid, and I killed him with about two shots... I even think I used Ice Beam.

VL-Tony

2004-04-28 02:33:59 am

Cool :)

Yes Kraid is for now more of a placeholder, he doesnt shoot anything and is killed by the same number of shots as all enemies in Metroid Cubed (except the newly added Metroids wich require freeze + 5 missilles). I would be very interested if someone had already made a doc with all enemies shot counts (I'm not sure it made sense, but you know what I mean), I just dont feel like finding it all manually.

Another thing still missing in my engine is a way for enemies to spawn other sprites, that will be usefull for Kraid, Ridley and dragonas that spit fire and projectiles and those weird things that always looked to me as horizontal red doors on the floor but that instead throw laval balls.

Talking about these, anyone noticed how they behave in the Japanese fds version? They shoot things on both sides at the same time, alternating from left to right in a random way, making them much harder to jump over without being hit. In the US version it shoots a lava ball stride on one side at a time and then pause much longer.

Maybe it was intentionnal to make it easier, but it seems as likely that the random number generator in the US cart version was broken when doing the conversion. That would explain also the "bug" in the cart (us) version that sometimes make the lava things and dragonas stop to shoot projectiles for the whole time you are in a given room, and that never happens in the japanese fds version.

Metroid Cubed is at http://pages.infinit.net/voxel

VL-Tone
---Everything counts in large amounts---

Quote from KennyMan666:

When it's finished, I promise you that I'll play it through ^__^

Something that I don't know if you have fixed in version 0.97 - I went to Kraid, and I killed him with about two shots... I even think I used Ice Beam.

Cool :)

Yes Kraid is for now more of a placeholder, he doesnt shoot anything and is killed by the same number of shots as all enemies in Metroid Cubed (except the newly added Metroids wich require freeze + 5 missilles). I would be very interested if someone had already made a doc with all enemies shot counts (I'm not sure it made sense, but you know what I mean), I just dont feel like finding it all manually.

Another thing still missing in my engine is a way for enemies to spawn other sprites, that will be usefull for Kraid, Ridley and dragonas that spit fire and projectiles and those weird things that always looked to me as horizontal red doors on the floor but that instead throw laval balls.

Talking about these, anyone noticed how they behave in the Japanese fds version? They shoot things on both sides at the same time, alternating from left to right in a random way, making them much harder to jump over without being hit. In the US version it shoots a lava ball stride on one side at a time and then pause much longer.

Maybe it was intentionnal to make it easier, but it seems as likely that the random number generator in the US cart version was broken when doing the conversion. That would explain also the "bug" in the cart (us) version that sometimes make the lava things and dragonas stop to shoot projectiles for the whole time you are in a given room, and that never happens in the japanese fds version.

Metroid Cubed is at [url]http://pages.infinit.net/voxel[/url]

VL-Tone
---Everything counts in large amounts---

[quote="KennyMan666"]When it's finished, I promise you that I'll play it through ^__^

Something that I don't know if you have fixed in version 0.97 - I went to Kraid, and I killed him with about two shots... I even think I used Ice Beam.[/quote]

DarkMaster625

2004-05-05 09:13:55 am

fun but i never really liked the original metroid.

Red Scarlet

2004-05-05 05:15:10 pm

I('d) like to watch (some MP3 runs)

You are a bad person.

Chet Rippo

2004-05-06 05:10:19 pm

Quote from DarkMaster625:

fun but i never really liked the original metroid.

The power of Christ compells you. The power of Christ compells you. The power of........

Rox

2004-05-07 01:45:16 pm

Ooh, nice! Hey, I never called you stupid. I just said that isometricy is silly when there's really no point in doing it. But I understand why you keep working on this. It's just like my literally hundreds of game projects that I've started with, made some levels for, come up with cool concepts, then ditched for something more fun a week later. Sometimes wasting time experimenting is just plain fun.

I really like the idea of an actual "3D" Metroid, though. Many many times I've been wanting to recreate 3D games like Halo or Metroid Prime in a 2D environment (Halo 2D is still on my "stuff-I-wanna-do" list), and equally many times I've been tempted by the idea of sculpting out rooms from Super Metroid in full 3D in WorldCraft (for Half-Life). If I knew how to actually program, and in three dimensions, I'm sure I'd already have most of Brinstar done in an FPS-style newb-game...

Remaking things is just so much fun. Good luck with ze experimentation and stuff! Hope you can get started with a project where this third dimension will come to use!

Ooh, nice! Hey, I never called you stupid. I just said that isometricy is silly when there's really no point in doing it. But I understand why you keep working on this. It's just like my literally hundreds of game projects that I've started with, made some levels for, come up with cool concepts, then ditched for something more fun a week later. Sometimes wasting time experimenting is just plain fun.

I really like the idea of an actual "3D" Metroid, though. Many many times I've been wanting to recreate 3D games like Halo or Metroid Prime in a 2D environment (Halo 2D is still on my "stuff-I-wanna-do" list), and equally many times I've been tempted by the idea of sculpting out rooms from Super Metroid in full 3D in WorldCraft (for Half-Life). If I knew how to actually program, and in three dimensions, I'm sure I'd already have most of Brinstar done in an FPS-style newb-game...

Remaking things is just so much fun. Good luck with ze experimentation and stuff! Hope you can get started with a project where this third dimension will come to use!

bartendorsparky

2004-05-09 01:28:15 pm

always move fast

lol i sequence broke into tourian without fighting either boss via bomb jump.

i like it!

professor_scissors

2004-05-09 02:10:52 pm

Just FYI: Having Alt as a button seems to cause problems on some browsers.

MeTrOiD1115

2004-06-06 03:17:33 pm

that is so addicting after just playing it for five minutes but the controls are spread everywhere on the keyboard

Fyeten

2004-06-08 02:32:44 pm

Lemon Zinger Weapon

I think it's fun :D. But the problem with speed is annoying. Otherwise it's the best fan made metroid game I've ever played.

Sasuke_Kun

(user is banned)

2005-04-15 08:25:47 am

Metroid Cubed is an online Metroid game-simply put Metroid Cubed into the Google Search and it's the first site in the list-or, don't, because it really is crap. But if you don't believe me, then play it and make your views known.

RT-55J

2005-04-15 10:12:36 am

Armor Guardian

Here is VL-Tone's site if anyone cares.

I like Metroid Cubed but prefer his Star Fox Level Editor.

DominicanZero

2005-04-15 12:46:27 pm

直死の魔眼使い

http://www.metroid2002.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=699

SERIOUSLY old news, really.