POV-Ray Animations Objects Items Specification Links

POV-Ray - Specification

If you want to send us an object, item or animation, please use the following hints and template files.

Generally, one unit in scene equals 1 meter in real world. This rule is broken for huge objects like trees or houses, which must not exceed a given size. Our trees, for example, are about 5 meters high, while they would be at least 10 meters in real life. This technique is used in nearly all 2D game engines. Otherwise, those objects would appear much too big.

Objects
are rendered from only one view. Camera and light settings must be identical for all objects. We created four different scene files for objects of various sizes. Please use one of the following example files:

• ground textures: 1m x 1m RPG_gnd.pov (2 KB)
• normal objects: 1.4m x 1.4m x 2.5m RPG_norm.pov (2 KB)
• big objects: 3m x 3m x 5m RPG_big.pov (2 KB)
• huge objects: 6m x 6m x 10m RPG_huge.pov (2 KB)

• jpg, 200x150, true color, about 10 kB file size
• jpg, up to 800x600, true color, max. 100 kB file size

Items
will be used in form of pre-rendered images, but may also be used as equipment for character figures or monsters. Please use the following template file: RPG_item.pov (2 kB).

If you want to be named in our item gallery, please send again two rendered images of each item you created in the following resolutions:

• jpg, 96x96, true color, about 5 kB file size
• jpg, 384x384, true color, max. 60 kB file size

Animations
Animations are quite complex and must follow a lot of rules to fit for the graphics engine. These are listet below:

• The animated object (like a figure or a monster or a tree trembling in the wind) must fit into one of the above mentioned example files, e.g. RPG_norm.pov. Like there, it must be positioned to be standing on <0,0,0>.
• Animations are displayed with 10 frames per second, altough refresh rate of the game screen is limited to 30 fps. For this, you can calculate the speed of your animation exactly.
• No transparencies are allowed, yet. This will hopefully change, later on.
• Non movable objects (like trees or flags) must either be rendered in loops (a,b,c,a,b,c...), or moving from point a to c and back to a (a,b,c,b,a,b,c...).
• All movable creatures must be rendered from 8 sides, rotating around the y-axis in 45 degree steps clockwise. On the first position it must look into -z direction.
• The frames must be numbered as follows:
  • position 1, directions 0-7: name000.bmp-name007.bmp
  • position 2, directions 0-7: name008.bmp-name013.bmp ...
  where "name" stands for something arbitrary.
• There are some actions, a monster or character figure should be able to do. All possible actions are listed below, each of it must be rendered for 8 directions, of course.
  
  

  no.	action	max. steps	example
  if not in combat:
  a	standing and waiting	16	maybe swinging or dancing or flapping its wings
  b	move	16	walk or fly or move in some way
  if in combat:
  c	switching to combat mode	16	pulling sword
  d	standing and waiting	16	with sword in hand
  e	move	16	with sword in hand
  f	attacking move 1	16	aiming at head
  g	attacking move 2	16	aiming at chest
  h	attacking move 3	16	aiming at legs
  i	successful blocking	8	by shield or sword
  j	beeing hit	8	splash of blood appearing
  k	dying	16	falling to ground or vanish or turn to ash

  
  Of course, not all actions must be performed with maximum steps for all creatures. By the way, this would mean 1280 frames. This would be too much any way.
  For monsters, actions a and b are senseless, because they are allways on combat. There is no need to work out three different attack moves, too. Maybe one would be enough.
  

• clock 0.0: basic standing position
• clock 0.4: swung back
• clock 0.6: attacking strike executed
• clock 1.0: back in basic position

For all these rules being quite complicated, a lot of questions may still arise. Please feel free to ask questions.

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