Widerscreen [996x560]

[TheOnyxGuy]

A small upgrade to my old and honestly kind of dated graphics set "Widescreen mode [800x560]" with some additional little tweaks. Now the screen is notably wider, to the point where it's wide enough to fill 16x9 screen.

Besides the wider screen, there are some small tweaks and additional features that are now coming in this pack as "addons", the idea that was originally considered for currently discontinued (for valid reasons, at least in my eyes) R'n'D 64 project. Most of these addons are originating from other small graphics packs and even other projects of mine. Some are ON by default, some are OFF, but they can be toggled by renaming their respective files (check the file "!!! Addons !!!.txt" for more info).

For example, one of the addons is just called "Miscellaneous tweaks" and for the most part it just adds few little graphical tweaks I did in Rocks'n'diamonds 2013 gfx/sfx/mfx pack of all things, plus changes some of the editor icons to better distinguish some engine specific elements (that idea also technically originated in R'n'D 64). Plus there's the idea of displayed inventory slots I did in "Two last elements in inventory", but instead of just adding large empty slots both dynamite icons are gray and get replaced with the icons of whatever droppable explosive you have (NOTE: only dynamite, em_dynamite, sp_red_disk and dynabomb are adapted for that, custom elements won't work well with that). Another example is my EM-styled EMC gates and keys 5-8, which is disabled by default here, don't worry about that, but if you want, then of course you can enable it yourself manually (again, see the "!!! Addons !!!.txt" file).

There are also some BDX related UI features, but for now they're not only added as a separate addon as, but they're currently in the "EXPERIMENTAL" state as you can't really make them properly hide and show depending on the engine you're playing (currently only "mm_engine_only" exists, as far as I know), so if you want to turn them on, be aware that it won't combine well with everything else.

And at last there are some changes that aren't added by addon like the "SPELLS" bar that is usually introduced in "MM engine interface tweak" and display of all nine keys from "Rocks'n'diamonds - Show keys 2014". Unfortunately, yeah, I didn't make that a toggleable addon for now, although I'm not sure if that really matters. Maybe I'll make them a toggleable addon as well, but for now I can't be sure.

Screenshots:

Main menu

rndwider01.png (211.39 KiB) Viewed 165 times

Playing with four players

rndwider02.png (711.45 KiB) Viewed 165 times

Editor with quite a few element icon changes, for better recognition, ya know.

rndwider03.png (989.98 KiB) Viewed 165 times

Showcasing both key UI display and the dynamite inventory icons

rndwider04.png (1013.39 KiB) Viewed 165 times

The "Addons" tab seen in the INFO menu

rndwider05.png (206.61 KiB) Viewed 165 times

Playing with the EM styled EMC keys addon enabled and Player name addon disabled

rndwider06.png (306.7 KiB) Viewed 165 times

Video: [link]


Download link:

84071265__gfx_widescreen_2026_by_tog__70162583.zip

The file

(131.75 KiB) Downloaded 14 times

[BrownSky]

I like this a lot, I was just starting to play with it, and then the next day 4.2.2.0 was released and I changed to upgrading to that.

Do you have any comment to make about having a graphics set like this coexist with upgraded versions? I haven't done it yet but am not expecting any trouble because it uses one new/novel graphics file rather than changing existing ones, but you never know.

Any chance of combining this with a 64-square graphics set, so the user could choose from:

- square, 32sq
- widescreen, 32sq
- square, 64sq
- widescreen, 64sq

Any chance of somehow getting this embedded into the main development fork so that it becomes an official part of the app and all its files? Ideally it could be part of the gfx_classics set, and controllable through one or more options controls? That would help to make it permanent, rather than a neat idea that comes and goes from users' installations.

I guess this is only for PCs, there would be no point trying to use it on a phone. Maybe the opposite is needed for the phone - a Narrow graphics set

John

[TheOnyxGuy]

Do you have any comment to make about having a graphics set like this coexist with upgraded versions? I haven't done it yet but am not expecting any trouble because it uses one new/novel graphics file rather than changing existing ones, but you never know.

Do you mean the upgraded BDX graphics I drew for the new update? Yeah, I'm thinking of updating these, but for that I definitely need to change the elements themselves, because I definitely rushed some of the designs in such a way they may look clean on paper but don't exactly make the game more comfortable to play (check this topic for more info on that), plus I feel like there's a possibility we'll need to ask Holger to make game panel classes more versatile besides "always shown" (default), post-hatch (BDX exclusive), extra panel items (triggers the UI element to change when pressed the needed button) and MM engine only. The main reason why BDX related ones are experimental, as I think I already said in the topic itself is that there isn't really a game panel class that allows me to show (or maybe even hide) UI elements on specific engine besides the already mentioned MM engine only which does exactly what it says - it displays the element only in the Mirror Magic engine, which by default is used for energy and health bars when playing MM levels in R'n'D.

Any chance of combining this with a 64-square graphics set, so the user could choose from:

- square, 32sq
- widescreen, 32sq
- square, 64sq
- widescreen, 64sq

If you mean R'n'D 64, then although I hadn't really officially said that in it's topic besides a brief mention, I did mention in the Reflektor topic a while ago that I did lose few projects back then, including the old Reflektor version (which, honestly, is actually partly good in my eyes) and R'n'D 64 which I lost pretty much fully. While I did restore Reflektor and definitely made it much better than it's old version, the R'n'D 64 one... I think I'm not ready top rebuild it yet. Maybe in the next few years, but I'm not promising anything.

Any chance of somehow getting this embedded into the main development fork so that it becomes an official part of the app and all its files? Ideally it could be part of the gfx_classics set, and controllable through one or more options controls? That would help to make it permanent, rather than a neat idea that comes and goes from users' installations.

Well, on that I think we could potentially summon Holger again to answer that question, I'm going to say "unlikely", at least not as a separate setting, considering game's almost vacant community besides just few "old farts" that still want to participate in game's quiet life. Even if the levelset would come prepackaged with this, it would most likely be just a separate levelset, since technically that is just a one setting away from activating.

By the way, a little idea for Holger, I think there could potentially be something hopefully simple to implement as "artwork highlights" or maybe even "artwork packs". Basically the first idea is that you could bookmark few packs for them to always stay highlighted in the custom artwork settings to choose outside of these artwork groups like artwork from levelsets or artwork for certain levelsets. And the second one is if we could select the graphics, music and sounds of certain artwork set in just one move instead of individually choosing it's parts individually. Perhaps if the game detects you're choosing an artwork set/level set that has any combination of graphics, music and/or sounds, then it asks if you want to apply the whole pack or just the artwork type you chose. For example, I want to select custom graphics, and I choose a pack that has custom graphics, music and sounds, and the game asks if I want to apply just the graphics or the whole pack at once. But that's just suggestions for the game at this point, of course, so not exactly related.

I guess this is only for PCs, there would be no point trying to use it on a phone. Maybe the opposite is needed for the phone - a Narrow graphics set

Well, I do have the Android artwork set that is also kind of in a pretty raw state just called "Android viewport" (graphics+music+sound), except it's not the narrow one, it's more so adapted for the horizontal orientation (And to be real, playing R'n'D on phone vertically... Does anyone even do that anyways?)