A Look at QRT

After threatening several times, I'm finally going to sit down and blog more about my QRT project.

So what is QRT? In short, QRT stands for "Quasi RPG Toolkit" and is a project I've been working at off-and-on for the past couple of years (already? gee...) which will (hopefully) eventually become an integrated set of tools for creating RPGs in the style of what one might have seen on the SNES, back in the day, like Final Fantasy VI, for example.

This makes it similar in its goals to the RPG Maker series of editors, for those who are familiar with them. So why, one might ask, make my own version of RPG Maker? Other than simply "because I feel like it", basically, I have several ideas for improvements over the RPG Maker series that I think would be, well, improvements, especially in the areas of flexibility and customization. I think it's also a good programming and design exercise.

The QRT project also serves as a sort of updated version of my FR project. Not only is QRT much, much, much better designed, it's also much more flexible and, more important, reusable which my much older and inferior FR code-base would not have been.

Without going into too many details, let's do a brief overview of what I've done so far and what I'll be working on in the near future. (Note that the graphics in the screen shots were downloaded for use with RPG Maker 2000 from various RPG Maker fan sites and are serving, for the moment, simply as placeholders. The plan is to eventually replace these with original graphics.)Above is the main editor window. I had a map editor for FR, but it was *only* for map editing. The QRT editor will be an integrated editor for maps, scripting and the like - as one would expect from any sort of modern development toolset.

One of the ways that I am making QRT more flexible that the RPG Maker counterpart is including a tileset layout editor to allow users to create custom tileset layouts, unlike RPG Makers' pre-defined layout (to the best of my knowledge). It is also possible to use a different layout for each map in a project, if desired. One of the things that I am currently working on is improving the "auto-tiling" feature (used to automatically draw terrain feature like deserts, swamps, rivers or whatnot) to allow the use of animated tiles in all auto-tiling groups. (RPG Maker 2000 only allows animated tiles in auto-tile groups for its special water/shore groups - I don't like the rectilinear shorelines that it limits you to.)

Another customization feature is the inclusion of custom created fonts. Fonts can be created from scratch or can be based on any installed Windows font (though the import function still needs some work).

Scripting in QRT is initially going to be via a point-and-click script interface (as I feel this is easier for novices to pick up), but I plan to eventually include an actually scripting language as well (probably Python, but we'll see when I get to that). Another feature that I'm planning for scripting is a scripting API which I'm calling "Quartic" - QUAsi Rpg Tools Interface Component. The plan is to allow users to develop scripting plug-ins for custom functionality.

Above shows a (very simple) text box showing the font display and colouring at work. This is the (humble) beginnings of the in-game UI. My plans for the UI is to make it highly customizable, including a UI layout editor as part of the QRT editor. I hope to make it fairly easy to create custom game UI (which will help give each QRT game a unique look and feel). While custom UI can be make in RPG Maker, it's very inconvenient, not to mention tedious.

So far, QRT is coming along slowly, but, I suppose, somewhat steadily. As far as important functionality goes, it's roughly equivalent to where I had FR all those years ago but, as mentioned, much better designed and ultimately more flexible, powerful and reusable. At the moment, my focus is on revisiting some of my existing features and improving and/or simplifying them before continuing on with the scripting and UI systems.

I may eventually post more as I continue to progress on the project.

Freak Out
-TFitC

Project Preview

Back during my month off between work and school I started a new programming project. (Yes, another one - for me the trick isn't starting projects, it's finishing them.) This project I have dubbed the "Quasi RPG Tools" (QRT) and it is intended to be similar to RPG Maker 2000, at least in its goals, though it will likely vary in a number of key points on its implementation.

I haven't spent a lot of time on it since starting back at school, though I'm still plugging away at it from time to time. Now that FASS is over and I've more or less settled into my school routine, I'll probably start spending a bit more time on it.

The project itself will use 2D tile-based graphics (as with RPG Maker). I decided to go this route as it makes it a bit easier to deal with the graphics, both programming wise and for me to create them (or borrow them from elsewhere until I've had a chance to create some) and lets me focus more on the design tools. I think I would eventually like to do a 3D version, but if I design things well, much of the back end stuff like creating character classes, items, scripting and so on should be more-or-less reusable with other graphics engines in the future.

So far, I've been working on the tile set editing features which is almost finished. As is typical of me, I decided to make things more difficult for myself by allowing tile sets to have a flexible layout rather than a fixed layout like RPG Maker. While I think that this added flexibility will be a good thing in the long run, it does complicate the UI design an implementation somewhat. It will also make use of the tools more complicated, which is one thing I'd like to avoid, so I'll also include a simplified fixed tileset layout to allow for ease of use with the flexible layouts offered as an advanced feature.

While the project as a whole is still a long way from being complete, what I've got so far is, I think, more advanced than the map editor I created for my FR project back in highschool.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Projects on the Go (With Pictures!)

So, I thought to myself, why don't I do a post about a couple of my projects I was working on this weekend, just for the heck of it! And seeing as it's my flog(*), I'll do what I want to. Narf.

First up is my graphics programming project. I was poking at the particle system stuff a bit (which is about as far as the project has gotten thus far), namely converting it to render point sprites, instead of a textured quad for each particle, which meant writing a point sprite shader (w00t). I also acquired a better test texture for particles so they look a bit snazzier now, over all. There's still some tweaking I want to do and no doubt some further optimizations, but I might leave some of that until later so that I can start working on other stuff. (I can be impatient like that.)

A short clip for the curious:



I've also been poking at my RPG Maker 2000 project, known as "The Kyoujo RPG" (working title). Specifically, I've been working on the latest dungeon, which is still in progress seems to be turning out well. As I seem to have been on a bit of an RPG Maker kick lately, I found some videos on YouTube of various RPG Maker projects which, of course, made me think it'd be cool to whip up a trailer for the Kyoujo RPG, despite the fact that it's nowhere near complete and will likely never be 100% complete, at least in its RPG Maker incarnation. Still, its fun to think about and tinker with from time to time.


And because I can:



Well, that's all for today.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

(*) Flog = Freak Log