There's going to be a Demon's Souls resurrection from November 23 to December 1, more details are in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td8xeK96ArY

I'll be playing a royalty character named Heather (Silent Hill character).

Hello!

About a year ago, I was working on a tool for image viewing and simple effects, it was called Ultimate Image Viewer... A bad name now that I think about it.

I decided to bring my source code back out and do a little work on it, since I found it while I was looking for my ISO of king's field on my HDD.

I opened it up and found that it was rather plain, with only supporting .PNG, .JPG and .BMP completely. I searched for a few hours for some DLL, and came across Image Magick, a conversion command-line program, with c++ source available... I Complied the available source into some .exes, and found a silent dos dll, so I could call the commands in Image Magick without it coming up... Now, we have...

Alternate Image Viewer - [Ver-0.5_D]

Hello, guys!
Recently, I learned about the release of Animaniacs for gamecube and it appears that Google Sketch Up have some 3D models.

It's possible to convert them to another format or there are more reliable ripped models around the web?

- Project status: active
- Current task: Map Editor, .MRF specs, and documents.

I finally finished the separate tools enough to start doing basic concepts for a new SoM, since I want to work on KF style games, but SoM just refuses to work on my PC, and I'm sure there's a few others with problems like this.

All the tools I've worked on will tie into this one project, alternate image viewer will have texture converting tools for most formats too a new format I'm creating as we speak, including tools to convert old SoM .txr to the new format. Alternate model viewer, a tool which wasn't spoken of much will have tools to view .x, convert SoMs, .mdl/.mdo to .x and various other things relating to models.

A lot of SoM will be passed into this tool, far too much to list, but I also have a lot of improvements.

Because I know there's always someone in the world who likes to write custom editors, the engine will be completely seperete from the tools. This means you'll be able to eventually write custom tools to use it, and I'll be adding full specifications on all the file types to this top post as I'm finished with them.

For now, while it's in the prototype it's mostly going to be ideas all thrown into a big mess of projects, and it'll be using a small 'game maker' built engine to render with.

Oh, and one thing which I'm sure people will think I'm crazy for. Free of Charge. Nothing, not a single coin. You don't even need to say you used this engine if you don't want too.

What's coming from SoM
- Part files; I love these things -- But I also notice that their a pain in the ass to deal with, since they're in binary. I'll be changing that by making them human readable, then when you finally compile the game, it'll re-write them in binary, so you can have ease of use, but anyone trying to steal your stuff won't.
- Simplicity; The SoM tools aren't a walk in the park, but making items, objects and maps is simple, until you start scripting.
- Some of the assets MIGHT be coming from SoM.

What's coming from the SomEx extension frame work.
- Shaders; They make games look amazing, and any game should have them.
- Modes; SoM is just KF1, that's it. So I'll be taking the idea of a 'switch shadow tower' function, and expanding it to work with most From Soft games. These included Switch KF1, Switch KF2, Switch KF4, Switch ER (Eternal Ring), Switch ST (shadow tower).

What I'm adding
- Linux and MacOS; When I finally write my own rendering engine using c++ and OpenGL, I'll make a way for users to export their games as MacOS and Linux runnables, so the games created can hit a bigger audience.
- OpenGL; see above.
- Better scripting, full documentation on everything.
- Assets; Modern HD assets, though this is limited to static stuff right now, I can't animate or make things that live. (humans etc)
- Sound; An advanced sound engine, which will enable the user to make atmosphere that is equal, or better to the original King's Field games.
- Projectiles; This is a big one, and I say projectiles because it won't be limited to just bows. Crossbows, short bows, long bows, stones, guns, throwing knifes... If you really want, you could even set up throwing cheese!

LIMITATIONS
- As of now, SoM 2.0 IS NOT a game development platform, non of it will be of any use for making SoM games. Right now, it's all going to be tech demos and technical features. This is because I need to learn OpenGL to make a rendering engine. When I enter the alpha phase, I'll probably still be using Game Maker, but I'll be using a compiled version (which has set me back a good $500, which will be capable of competing with SoM, but it won't be cross platform, and it'll still be slower then OpenGL.

For the community
If anyone, like me is interested in understanding files, here -- I'll release these so no one will ever need to figure out SoM 2.0 formats on their own.

- Moonlight Room Format (.MRF) file specification (V0.3): - Link -
- Moonlight Part Format (.PRT) file specification (V0.1): - Link -

Pre-Alpha preview stuff
- Part system example, with .PRT creator (v1.0): - LINK -

Current road map! (-- = done, ++ = to do)
-- Build the base engine (GameMaker 8.1+DLLs).
-- Make basic map editor (GameMaker 8.1)
++ Implement custom object system.
++ Convert base engine (GameMaker: Studio 1.2)
++ Add LODs, model loading.
++ Convert base engine (GameMaker: Studio 1.3+DLLs)
++ Expand map editor to use my idea, the layer system.

Here's a full video walkthrough I recorded of Fall of Verdite for those of you who are stuck (or too lazy to play). It shows off most of the game's content, as well as all item locations and secrets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVC-8VNicvI

Haven't seen very many Sword of Moonlight videos on Youtube, so I went ahead and made a video to showcase some of the games available here, hopefully giving them some much needed exposure. The games played in this video are Diadem of Maunstraut, Dark Destiny, and my own game, Fall of Verdite (I still have yet to play Trismegistus ). I also do plan on making more Sword of Moonlight related videos (tutorials, playthroughs, ect.) in the future to hopefully get more people interested in the software.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cznxrADxaYo

Nah, Im not asking for money, hopefully something much simpler!

I have decided to change the host for all the big files to dropbox rather than loading the files directly on the backend of the site...there are several reasons:

1 - ipower (my domain service) frowns on big downloads, especially when folks decide to attach a botter to the link...so with dropbox, we get less site downtime so they dont have to shut me down and complain!

2 - dropbox downloads much more quickly than the domain servers, probably on the order of 50-100 times faster. ‎  Ipower's backend seems to disconnect alot and gives people bad files when finished downloading.

3 - dropbox is a super easy to use program for folks who want to just download it, it doesnt have a ton of ad popups to deceive you when you click a link and doesn't require any signup or payment to get good download rates. ‎  It is a must that whatever we choose, it stays free from viruses and such.

4 - heaven forbid ipower blows up and i lose everything on the backend of the site, its nice to have it backed up. ‎ 

5 - in special situations (such as hosting demos/updates of your games) forum members will be given access to folders for the official som dropbox so that they can manage their own files, updating their games and addons as they change and become available. ‎  THis is important, as games like Rathmor will likely undergo tons of demo patches and so on as its such a large game.

So to that end, I am converting my private account to the SOM's official account as I dont use it much anymore and rely on my server to store my files. ‎  I currently have unlocked around 5 gig of free space, its filling up quickly. ‎  Dropbox will give me an additional 500 meg for each person I refer who takes my invite email, signs up and downloads the service. ‎  Whether you keep it active or not is up to you, but I would appreciate if anyone is willing to accept the invite, pm me your email and I will sned the instructions, and thus increase the amount of free space we get from dropbox.

Thanks in advance for anyone who can contribute!

I didn't use SoM unfortunately... It won't run on my computer, since I'm using 64-bit windows 7...

I thought I might as well post a screenshot here, since I'd like to get some 'first impressions' although you can't really get much from a screenshot... Here... Some might notice the sky texture, from King's Field 2... It's temporary while I'm doing the programming.



A bit about the game; It's a 2D RPG/Platformer, with turn based combat, magic and all that good stuff... It has a free roam world, you can wonder around rather than do quests all the time... I scripted it all in Game Maker 8, using a few .DLLs like FMOD to enhance the sound capabilities...

I'm doing a graphics overhaul at the moment, to use less different styles, so it's all a little messy at the moment... I'm gonna use 3d-rendered graphics for most things though...

Funny story, this game was originally going to be my first SoM game... But because of the computer issues... yeah...

I've been trying to find 3d models for MQO quite a while.
I'm trying to find some models which can be used as refference for sprites made in tablet.

Some have awfull issues with keynote and others doesn't even move.

Any suggestions?

I searched on google, but the search engine doesn't give reliable results even with japanese keywords.

Hope everyone had a spoooky Haloween!! One thing I miss living in a remote area is the trick-or-treaters. But at least I got to disembowel a pumpkin.

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