Legends from the Lost Realms News
12/5/2004 - A new website has been created to host the new version of Legends and can be found here ... Lost Realms. As a result of this change the website you are currently viewing will no longer be supported.
2/3/2004
- Just to provide a small update. Despite the lack of any news, any demos or any new screenshots Legends is on the move again. Recent additions include a revamped user interface system which will reduce development time and significantly reduce download sizes. It also tidies up the existing architecture of the code very nicely. In game itself there have been two significant changes. Firstly the terrain engine has been reworked to improve the rendering speed and allow for a greater variety of terrain features (roads and fields for example - anything you want really). Secondly and most importantly the 3D object code has been completely reworked. Not only does this speed up rendering, but it also brings in fully skinned texturing and the possibility to animate objects. As a result of these changes I am currently working on a new demo to show off the new graphics and try to find what's possible with these new features. This does involve quiet a lot of art work as the existing models need to be reworked and re-textured (with new models introduced) so the demo may take a while to complete. Don't hold your breath, but watch this space!4/7/2003
- Following a long pause (due to the arrival of my daughter Marie!) things are gradually getting back to normal with some progress being made for the first time in months! More news soon...26/3/2003
- Still making good progress. Maps for the first proper campaign are coming along nicely. The first map at least will show some dramatic changes from the demo map (where the landscape was very rounded). This time there are some nasty cliffs and mountain ranges, more highland areas and a few deep gorges. The first map is much smaller than the demo map, partly because the aim is to have the first scenario being almost a tutorial, before things get more complex later on. With the coding things are getting closer and closer to being finished with most parts of the engine now working as they should.11/2/2003
- Work is still progressing nicely and an update on the demo may be finished in a few weeks. In addition I've been working on the multimedia aspects of the first scenario and a few screen shots of the intro film can be found here, here and here.
7/1/2003 - An Alpha Demo of the Legends game is finally available. It's not complete yet, but it's time to get some feedback on things as they stand. To try it out please download the three legends zip files in the Lords of Midnight section of the following webpage. Many thanks to Thomas Rode (aka Xajorkith) for kindly hosting the files. Total download about 7.5 megs - please read the READ ME FIRST.doc (in the legends_a04_exe.zip file) for further instructions.
10/12/2002
- Fame and glory at last ... well sort of. The Legends Engine has appear as an image of the day on the Flipcode website. The link is available here while the forum discussion resulting from the submission can be found here. Thanks for all the input from everyone and sorry for the web site being down a lot over the last few days - the site was blocked due to all the traffic - I never expected so many people to be interested!28/11/2002
- Another month has flown by and to be honest it has been difficult to find the time to work on the Legends game. Fortunately I had a good coding session over the weekend and the AI code is taking shape - it's working already, but can be very slow in complex situations. I'm currently experimenting here, the choice being to find a faster algorithm or have a two tier system where the better AI is used when needed and a simpler AI is applied when the precision is not vital. Hopefully with the AI sorted I will be in a position to release a beta version of the game - as they say, watch this space.28/10/2002
- Despite a nice bout of the flu things have been moving along slowly. Thanks to loads of help from Andrew Smart and Chris Wild a lot of the image data has been converted to jpeg format making a download version of the game a possibility. At the same time I've been sorting out AVI handling - not quite finished, but coming along nicely. For those that are interested the first Legends AVI can be found here. It's a scaled down version of one part of a longer film - the camera is a bit bouncy in the middle (this will be cut out later). Other than that I've been adding more content to the first scenario (and I'm beginning to regret having decided to go with a 1000 x 1000 location map!) and making changes to various parts of the code.30/8/2002
- It's been a while, but the summer was busy with holidays and business trips. Since the last bit of news a lot has changed. A lot more game code (as opposed to graphics code) has been added and it has been possible to separate the game data even further from the program itself. More visibly the 'Front End' has been added, this being the menu system for selecting the type of game. In addition all the game settings (resolution, language, interface, controls) are all now definable in game, rather than through hacking a settings file manually. Most recently the skeleton of a events handling system has been added to the game which will allow events such as cutscenes, changes in strategy or scenario goals, victory or defeat, etc to be triggered during the game. All triggers and responses to triggers are defined using a script so while there are a limited number of types of triggers and reponses the actual triggers and responses themselves are not hardcoded into the engine, but definable in the scenario file.In addition a very limited beta test has started to check for problems with the stable parts of the code. Most importnatly these tests are using different PC equipment, including low specification machines.
30/6/2002
- Tidied up the selection menu a bit and added coats of arms finally. Also added the coats of arms to the main game screen and improved the user interface icons so they can be switched on and off as required. Most importantly added the character recruitment handling code - for the moment it is fairly basic (more or less the same as in Lords of Midnight), but this will be changed once the basic game engine can be tested.Three new screenshots added to 'show off' new interface changes.
21/6/2002
- Completed collision handling including grouping of friendly characters if occupying nearby tiles. Also now have proper multilingual support with all text displayed in English and French. Will add place holder functions in the code so that for example German and Spanish could also be suported (but I will need help with the translations!). Examples of the multilingual code in operation are shown in the following two screenshots ... English and French.
9/6/2002
- Added proper 'collision handling' between characters. Previously rival characters could pass each other without any problems. Now movement is stopped and an options menu is displayed allowing the player to 'Approach ...' or 'Attack ...' for example. While not terribly exciting this is probably the most important and tricky thing to get right outside of the graphics engine (as the 'tile' size in the Legends Engines is much smaller than those in the Lords of Midnight per tile movment and collision detection was not possible).Enemy collision detection is working well and the next step will be to do the same thing for friendly characters so that they will tend to group together (making them less vunerable to recruitment and attack).
3/6/2002
- This website went live.
