Screens from my master thesis app :)

If some of you were curious how my master thesis app may look like, here are some screens. Both screens represents the same volumetric data from the same patient, but on the first screen all regions with low density were removed. My CT data is 217 frames 512x512 each.

SM2 and 100th blog post :)

Wow, this is my 100th post on my blog, somehow I managed to torture you with my "messing around" for over a year now :D.

Recently I've added two things to Sigmore Mines 2, both of which don't exists in Sigmore Mines 1. One is the ability to go not only down, but also up the stairs to previous level along with remembering which parts of dungeon have been visited and how many monsters were slew. Second one is more important I think. I added something what I call "rest time". For example if you use heavy weapon like battle axe which has rest time equal to 1, after attack with this weapon you will have to wait one turn before you can make action again. Also I can slow down very powerful monsters, so they must rest every move they make.

I need to work on my master thesis now, so I will not touch (must resist..) Sigmore Mines 2 code again for let say few days. I'm just curious. Is anyone waiting there for release of SM2?:)

SM2 : Video from 21 April 2008

What was added :

• Most significant addition of the recent days : Fog of War
• Herbalist shop and potions
• Monsters drop items with different chances for different item types
• New sprites for shop owners
• Stairs to previous dungeon levels

Here is video :

SM2 : Steady progress

Now, when I have overcome problems with balancing items, development progress is rather steady and proportional to the time I'm devoting to the project (I'm switching back and forth between SM2 and my master thesis). Yesterday I have implemented selling items to the blacksmith. My question is : should items you are wearing, be listed also as items for sale?

More about tools : Graph Editor

Few posts earlier I was writing about Cayra - a mind mapping software. Now I have stumbled upon a bit different, but also very useful application. Ladies and gentlemen, meet yEd, a java graph editor. Looks powerful and is for free.

SM2 : The defense from armors

I have decided which approach should I use to handle the defense from armors. But before I will tell how I implement it (yes, it's already done), allow me to bore you a bit with the explanation of the process of how I come to this. My battle mechanics look like this :

calculate if attacked unit was hit ->(if yes)->calculate damage done to target

In the Sigmore Mines 1, armor reduced only the chance to hit attacked unit, but they didn't reduce the damage done to wearer if he was hit. This was easier to balance, because I have put a rule which said that you had always a 5% chance to hit any monster, no matter how great his armor was. At the beginning I have tried to reduce damage directly by the armor factor, but if armor factor was greater then maximum damage you could made, you ended up facing monster to which you can't do any harm (or opposite situation when all monsters on the level are too weak for you).

Even if SM1 solution works, I don't feel that this was "right". In SM2 armor don't affects hit chance. It reduces damage, but not directly. Armor strength is not measured in points or class, but in percentage of how much it reduces damage. So 20% steel plate means that 20% of damage will be taken by armor. I just need to make sure that there won't be any perfect 100% armor.

In addition to this, I also look at how tall the attacker was. If you were attacked, by a rat there is no chance that you will be hit by him in your head. The opposite is also true, boots are no use if you fight with flying creature like for example bat. That also means that armor will not be cumulative. You can have super-duper adamentium plate and get killed by on hit in the unprotected head.

SM2 : Weapons balancing

I love when things suddenly start to click into place. For many days I was struggling with weapons balancing problem. I just didn't know if my close combat weapons are to powerful compared to distance weapons, or maybe vice versa. Besides of balancing issues I was also thinking about system which would allow me to place weak items in early levels of dungeon and gradually introduce more powerful ones. And just today, during the lunch break, when I was waiting for my meal, I just did it.. I can't say that I invented this, because there wasn't any "invention process". It was like one of those Terry Pratchett's idea neutrino hit my brain :-). Now I feel stupid, because it's so simple, yet I needed about two weeks to come up with this solution. But straight to the point. I've created a formula which calculated a "power" score for each weapon. It take into consideration such things as minimum and maximum damage, attack range of weapon, one or two handed. Thanks to this I can see how much one weapon is stronger from other, thous making balancing process much easier. Also, I can use this score to place items in the dungeon, for example at the beginning I could only generate items with score less then five. Additional and free feature of this is that I can generate prices for items basing on that score. Nice, isn't it?