   Tons of Sprites/Tiles/Art Files: Do coders mind?
  If there was a game with thousands of tiles, sprites and their various animations, objects, etc., in a single game...and let's say the programmers love the style of art.Would it be the programmer's dream come true to code all of that stuff into the game, or their worst nightmare?  Does it depend on the depth of gameplay and information that each art file is supposed to represent?  In other words, does it depend on how many lines of code are associated with each object or each object's relationship to other objects?I assume the more art, the harder, and more programmers would be necessary.  I also assume that if one piece of information is stored for one object, that coders can copy and paste those lines of code to other objects and then punch in different coordinates/numbers, thereby making it easier, even when there are thousands of art files.  Am I right?I plan on making a game with thousands of art files: tiles, sprites, and animations, the works.  Wondering how hard it would be for programmers!Thanks.   
  Well, a good system wouldn't have the resources compiled in. A well-made engine would access a script or some other kind of external data files, which then instruct the engine how to load more files, etc. While it would be a pain to hand-write these scripts and such, inevitably you (or the programmer) will have to do it on some level. This could be in the form of a level editor which allows you to select tiles, or a unit creator in which you use the art resources to create units/objects for the game. These tools would then export the data to a more engine-friendly format, which could then be seen in-game.So, I guess the answer you're looking for is: depends on the programmer. Sure, if you're hard-coding all of your content (and some people do), then it'll be more of a pain than using tools (which take time to write too).Granted, I'd rather have the art already done then to try to make my own [wink]   ;Quote:I assume the more art, the harder, and more programmers would be necessary.  I also assume that if one piece of information is stored for one object, that coders can copy and paste those lines of code to other objects and then punch in different coordinates/numbers, thereby making it easier, even when there are thousands of art files.  Am I right?Not necessarily.  Loading 5000 textures is as easy as loading 5 textures in theory... the difficulty is that you can't load 5000 textures without running out of memory.With good programmers, it's pretty easy to write systems that handle the "normal" cases... it's those special cases that get tricky (Level of Detail, shared resources, media limitations such as CD-read speed...)   ;  There are several challenges in making a game, but in a simple tile-by-tile sprite RPG, the animations and collision aren't tough to do. Storing the world information is a little harder, but it's not that bad. You hit the nail on the head when you talked about using object code for many different objects. Usually, every object is the same "kind" of thing ultimately. That "kind" is called a class. For instance, LivingThing might be a class. Then, you would derive classes from the base class for specific functionality. For instance, Human would be a LivingThing, but it might also have the function DriveCar. Then, an instance of Human (perhaps with the Name property of "Stan") is called an object. Object oriented programming is a cool way to organize world objects. This is the kind of project that beginning graphics programmers should take on but, even with experienced programmers, it's still time-consuming.The fact is that turn-based RPGs are some of the easiest games to program, but the hardest to make the massive amount of content for. It's not exactly a "dream come true," because usually hobbyist programmers prefer designing their own games, but it's definitely more convenient to have art content ahead of time.If it's your dream to turn your sprites into a game, I'd recommend investing yourself in learning how to program. It's not that bad, and one of your first graphics projects can be your sprite-based game.   ;Quote:If it's your dream to turn your sprites into a game, I'd recommend investing yourself in learning how to program. It's not that bad, and one of your first graphics projects can be your sprite-based game.Not a bad idea, but if you're not so much interested in programming, you might consider checking out something like Torque Game Builder which is a game development platform that you can get into quickly to develop your own games.   ;  Ah, thanks guys!  All of you rule! Excellent, just what I hoped for.Torque Game Builder.  Don't have time now but I'll look into it.  It's not free, so it grabbed my interest!  LOL.Thanks!   