But it still would be great if the game could be supported by ScummVM in the later future.
Runaway - a road adventure
Moderator: ScummVM Team
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Adventureguy
- Posts: 162
- Joined: Sun Dec 25, 2005 4:09 pm
- Location: Karlsruhe, Germany
Yeah, I know. Sorry for jumping so fast to conclusions. Even if there would be plans for supporting it to ScummVM, I bet it wouldn't be that easy, even if you have the sourcecode from Pendulo Studios. Since 16-bit graphics don't run that well afair, maybe the game's still not ready for it.
But it still would be great if the game could be supported by ScummVM in the later future.
But it still would be great if the game could be supported by ScummVM in the later future.
Iago wrote:Runaway always crashes or doesn't work at all for me. I've tried some German patch I found, anyone got a link for another patch?
Hi. As I posted that 2 days ago somewhere, here is what I know:
Runaway.exe (often) crashes with a segfault (Want to send the error report to Microsoft?) on Windows systems with newer graphics hardware, because it assumes that the front- and back-buffers are laid out in memory one behind the other. Unfortunately with most newer graphics drivers this is not the case (and it wasn't at any time contained in the DirectX specs), so it writes to/reads from invalid memory locations and forces Windows 2K/XP to kill that app.
Some guy had found that out and made a patch. You could also make this yourself by utilizing a hex editor and changing one or two bytes. The game runs perfectly that after (it seems).
Unfortunately I don't recall right now where I saw that patch.
Just to make this clear: This was NO OFFICIAL patch made by Pendulo Studios or something!
If I recall, I will post it here...
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eriktorbjorn
- ScummVM Developer
- Posts: 3558
- Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2005 7:39 am
The 3D looks pre-rendered to me so that would just mean a whole lot of 2D image resources to achieve that smooth animation. I'm not 100% on this but I would be very surprised if it was actual 3D.eriktorbjorn wrote:(From what I understand, though I could be wrong, the Runaway games use a mixure of 2D and 3D graphics which would be far more technically advanced than anything ScummVM does.)
Btw, I've not had stability issues on Windows 7 (x86) and the only thing I'm using is a no-CD patch to eliminate disc swapping.
Is seems you're right. It's been almost 8 years since I've played it, so I didn't remember it well, but now I watched few minutes of gameplay on Utube, and I have to admit I was mistaken.kelmer wrote:I think you're both wrong. The models were rendered into sprites using cell-shading. But it's completely 2D, and it's pretty obvious, frames are not that many, especially when the character makes a turn.
From wikipedia:
According to the developer, the game was developed using a mixture of external and internal produced tools to achieve the combined 2D and 3D graphical look of the game.[2] Internally, the game engine utilised three dimensions to model the characters and objects[3], but then a special filter was used to render them two-dimensionally to the screen. This gives the effect of making it look like a traditional cartoon-like 2D adventure, while enabling real-time lighting and shading effects, camera changes, and panoramic shots[4].
So it seems we are both right in some aspects. But mostly me:P
According to the developer, the game was developed using a mixture of external and internal produced tools to achieve the combined 2D and 3D graphical look of the game.[2] Internally, the game engine utilised three dimensions to model the characters and objects[3], but then a special filter was used to render them two-dimensionally to the screen. This gives the effect of making it look like a traditional cartoon-like 2D adventure, while enabling real-time lighting and shading effects, camera changes, and panoramic shots[4].
So it seems we are both right in some aspects. But mostly me:P
I agree. It looks that they created animated 3D models and then rendered using cell-shading 2D animations. So the game displays 2D sprites on 2D background and it would seem that ScummVM would be capable of handling it. However there are those "real-time lighting and shading effects" Longcat mentioned. Looking at gameplay movie from the internet, they either doesn't look like they have anything to do with 3D - when Brian walks through dark area, his sprite simply is darkened and that's it - Indiana Jones and the FOA had something similar too.kelmer wrote:If you played the game and have seen just a few "2.5D" adventure games, you'll end up concluding that in no way the characters in this particular game are real time 3D.
No matter what Wikipedia says.
So to sum this up, I'd say that the game could be implemented in ScummVM, though it works well on present computers, and I think there are betters candidates to include.
EDIT: typos
From what I understand, the characters and objects are rendered in 3D within the game engine, then rendered to a 2D sprite surface which you will see on the screen. If this is the case, then yes, what you see in the game is most definitely 2D sprites. But if they are rendered on the fly from 3D objects(i.e. NOT prerendered rasterized images) it would mean ScummVM would also have to implement this, and I am not sure that it is within it's scope or not. To me, it seems more fitting for Residual.
Please don't make this a childish argument about who is right or not, try to be constructive;)
And yes, I both own Runaway, have played it a bunch of time and have played mostly every 2.5D adventure game out there.
edit; I just fired up my copy to check out the settings. There is an anitaliasing toggle for the characters, though I am not sure if this only smooths out the 2D surface.
edit; "Technically, the game is made to look like a cartoon. The characters are drawn in a bright but limited color palette (as cartoons are usually). The game is set in the real world, and the characters are written to portray real people. However, the story has a few supernatural elements, and it is refreshing to see that the characters inside the game are as surprised to find out about them as the players who play the game. Despite the characters are all rendered in only 2D, the game engine is capable of rendering sophisticated 3D visual effects such as soft edges, real-time lighting and shading effects, dynamic camera changes, and panoramic shots. In effect, it is a 2D game built using images modeled in 3D (as claimed by the developer). The characters cast shadows when they move or waive their arms when they stand still. The pre-rendered cut scenes are more detailed, but they are still animated to feel and look like the same cartoon. The games is released in both CD-ROM and DVD-ROM versions."
http://www.adventureclassicgaming.com/i ... views/278/
Please don't make this a childish argument about who is right or not, try to be constructive;)
And yes, I both own Runaway, have played it a bunch of time and have played mostly every 2.5D adventure game out there.
edit; I just fired up my copy to check out the settings. There is an anitaliasing toggle for the characters, though I am not sure if this only smooths out the 2D surface.
edit; "Technically, the game is made to look like a cartoon. The characters are drawn in a bright but limited color palette (as cartoons are usually). The game is set in the real world, and the characters are written to portray real people. However, the story has a few supernatural elements, and it is refreshing to see that the characters inside the game are as surprised to find out about them as the players who play the game. Despite the characters are all rendered in only 2D, the game engine is capable of rendering sophisticated 3D visual effects such as soft edges, real-time lighting and shading effects, dynamic camera changes, and panoramic shots. In effect, it is a 2D game built using images modeled in 3D (as claimed by the developer). The characters cast shadows when they move or waive their arms when they stand still. The pre-rendered cut scenes are more detailed, but they are still animated to feel and look like the same cartoon. The games is released in both CD-ROM and DVD-ROM versions."
http://www.adventureclassicgaming.com/i ... views/278/
What was that about??? It was you who started talking about who is right???Longcat wrote: Please don't make this a childish argument about who is right or not, try to be constructive;)
I don't know the games interiors, but now that I refreshened my memory I don't believe it is realtime. All those "3D effects" look rather like they are calculated in 2D space. I'm pretty confident that all animations are prerendered: it's not fluent and there are no 3D lighning effects to speak of - simply the brightness of the whole sprite is changed - look here (time: 00:12:00)Longcat wrote: But mostly me:P
They wanted to save money on animations so instead of hiring dozens of animators, they rendered all frames of characters' animations, but to give them cartoony old-school look they used cel-shading. And that's it.