My word it's been ages since I've been on here. For one reason or another it's been almost a year since I was here on a regular basis. But thanks to some aspects of my life sorting themselves out I'm finally back at my C64 blog and getting into it the way I wanted when I bought one off eBay last year.

Well, recently after starting up my blog again a fellow by the name of Flanimal on here emailed me out of the blue to tell me he'd made a 3D Construction Kit game called "A Chance In Hell" (he'd read that I'd made one years ago when I had my own 64) and that he'd also discovered two old games created the same way. A few emails later and it turns out one of these was the 3DCK I'd created many moons ago called "The Time Crystal"!

Small world!

Well, playing on my old game on my laptop brought all the old memories back, of endless nights listening to the radio while glued to my portable TV and my 64. (There's still some songs which remind me of that piece of software.) Having finally fixed the broken key on the 64 I now own, along with completing my collection of Commodore Formats, I'm eager to get stuck in to everything I used to do, starting with programming (from scratch! It's been a lloonngg time!!) but also I'm looking to the 3DCK.

Am just wondering if there's anyone else out there at the moment who has either created a 3DCK game or is even creating one now?
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I would love to create more 3DCK games, but I doubt I can commit the time required.

I created "A Chance in Hell", which has recently been preserved, and also "Eskape" which is probably lost forever.

I'd like to share 3DCK development ideas and tips though, and do anything I can to help 3DCK users. The 3DCK User Group Newsletters, which is a very helpful resource, should be going up online soon.

I also have a project that I hopping to start later in the year (I'm just bugged down with an PC project right now).

NintendWho wrote:

I'd created many moons ago called "The Time Crystal"!

You made Time Crystal! I had that game on my website for some time now, with other Freescape games, plus "A Chance In Hell" just been added. I hope you don't mind me having it on my site
http://www.commodorecheetah.co...escape.htm
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thee Commodore CHEETAH.....

I created a few playable games using the 3D kit on the C64 (out of all my fellow C64 friends at the time, I was the only one who was impressed with Freescape), and have quite a large number of unfinished datafiles spread out on quite a few cassettes!

Admittingly those games were made whilst learning the kit - by the time I got to grips with the FCL language, I had already moved on to the Amiga. I made three complete games on that system.

Always good to see any C64 3D kit developments - Flanimal has done a great job locating some 3DKit gems I didn't even know exist!

Hi Phil,

Good to hear from you!... I remember seeing you guys turn up late in Commodore Format to try and save things along with EBES. Unfortunately was only about 11 and had no money to support all of these start ups and new releases.

I was just wondering on a separate note - but i'm guessing your "1541 Util" tool that was mentioned in Commodore Format is currently missing? ... But did Parallel Logic have plans for any other games which are currently missing compared to The Time Crystal?

I found "The Venus Trail" here: http://www.gamebase64.com/game...18&h=0 ... This was a SEUCK game, but I thought there was a Text adventure part to the game (which is missing it seems).
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Thanks Phil,

So was the 80% complete game by Colin something which was part of The Venus Trail or another game completely?

Also is there anything I can write about regarding your adventure game for our unreleased games site? ... http://www.gtw64.co.uk ? (On there btw is a game called Colony which you might remember - apparently Jon Woods approached you to release it? ... there is one version with Parallel Logic as the distributor )

It sounds like everything is completely lost from those days which is a shame - unless you're still in touch with Colin and he may have kept anything from them days?
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I have cheekily copied Richard of TND's post from the Lemon64 Games 3DCK thread so that all 3DCK developers are recorded in this thread:

Richard of TND wrote:

After finishing (I think) one of my game projects for Psytronik Software. I had some time spare and yesterday I thought that I should have a play around with the 3DCK and work a little more on Escape from Zaphod. At the near end of last year I created the rooms. Yesterday I was playing around a little with the conditions editor. Really tricky stuff - apart from entering the rooms. Here's a screen shot of one of the rooms which I have done for the game. The whole background/border looks plain but that is because I am using the conditions editor. Using 3DCK is like playing around with a new programming language . I have create 8 rooms and only got 2 rooms working so far, and I sort of enjoyed working on this as well. It was something completely different I wonder if it is possible to hack the 3DCK to be able to play in game music from music editors such as DMC, Goat Tracker, Music Studio, etc. As one of my contacts has secretly been doing some atmospheric music for this game. Otherwise I'll have to use it for the intro. I'll still have to go through the instructions manual on how to score points, hide objects at the start of the game and also check whether or not the player has picked up anything. 3DCK's pretty interesting to explore

Hello Richard,

Your game, "Escape ftom Zaphod" is looking fantastic! The shading of the scene looks interesting - makes me want to explore it:)

Yeah the 3DCK FCL is quite a challenge to master, but learning it takes a snowball effect, with knowledge accumulating rapidly as you unravel the art of it.

The 3DCK User Group newsletters contains tons of tips and advice. If you don't have a copy of their scan files yet, PM me and I will email them out to you.

Of course, this thread is the very best resource for 3DCK questions, as it has brought togethor all of us to one place. I can only speak for myself, but I'd be happy to tackle any 3DCK question you would like to place.

I had a similar thought to you about hacking the compiled standalone kit games to play music. I never did it, but I do believe there is a substantial amount of memory unused in a compiled standalone game. I found the following, and I think this is just for starters: It is the memory where the eight editor sprites were, from $C400 to $C5BF, and also $C640 to $C67F. A total of 512 bytes, but there is probably much more that is available.


I'll attempt to provide some quick answers to your questions:

Q. How to score points:

Say you wish to use variable 2 to be used as the score byte. In general condition 1 (which is only executed once at the start of each game), add command SETV 0 2 to zero the variable. (This is probably not actually necessary as I do believe all variables get cleared at each restart.)

Whenever the player performs actions to score points, use command ADDV 1 2 in local/global condition to increment the score variable by 1.

You can create the score instrument for the game in the condition editor menu. Allocate a numerical instrument to your score variable 2, specifying the x y character coordinates.

Q. How to hide objects at the start of the game:

In the environment editor, open the attributes for any object. This allows you to set the initial state for the object, VISIBLE or INVISIBLE. It also allows you to change the current state of the object, which includes the additional attribute of DESTROYED.

When you exit the attribute view, there is a bug in the editor which draws the colours incorrectly. Don't worry, this isn't a crash or corruption. Simply access the menu and exit the menu to see things drawn correctly again.

Q. Check whether or not the player has picked up an item.

The easiest method doesn't even require the usage of variables. Say you have a key, object 5 and 6. Enable the player to pick up this key with a local condition containing
IFSHOT 5
OR
IFSHOT 6
THEN
DESTROY 5
DESTROY 6
--PRINT "FOUND A KEY"
ENDIF

When the play tries to open a door, you can test whether the player has picked up the object in any area with
IFSHOT DOOR
THEN
ELSE
END
ENDIF
IFVIS 5 [area]
THEN
-- PRINT "NEED A KEY")
ELSE
-- OPEN A DOOR
ENDIF

The messy bit at the beginning is necessary because you can't nest IF ELSE statements in FCL. So the END stops this local condition dead if the door is not shot.


One hack that I attemted was to expand the view window size, which is limited in the condition editor to 32 by 14. I found the memory locations for these, $4A17 and $4A18, these did increase the view size, but unfortunetly resulted in corrupted graphics above the 32x14, so I suspect the Freescape code is hard-coded for the maximum sizes.

Richard, great work so far! .... Keep it up!.... Would be great to see a 3DCK game on the Psytronik label maybe?....

What would be really cool is to have a Matt Grey'esq tune like Driller had to go with the slow pace and a really nice drawn panel.
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Hi Phil,

It would be great to learn about both games if you are up for it. I'll create some entries on GTW64. You never know, we might recover them some day
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I used the 3DCK on the CPC and Amiga since 1991 - mainly created a few envioments but nothing survives to this day.

NintendWho, Thanks, I'll hold it there as long as my site is running.
If you fancy adding some comments about the game then e-mail me the text and I'll put it in.

In fact, if anyone made a 3DCK game, I'm willing to put it on.

flanimal, I found this site http://www.the-tipshop.co.uk/c...tion%20Kit that shows some hidden commands for the Spectrum ver. May be the 64 ver mite have them as well. The command CALLMC could be handy.

One last thing, if anyone wants an PDF copy of the 3DCK manual then click hear: http://www.commodorecheetah.co...Manual.pdf
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I have read all 3DCK documentation, including the manual and the User Group newsletters, but there are things that I have learned that are not explicitly documented anywhere. I’d like to record these somewhere, so this thread seems like as good a place as any.

Starting off, I have some tips about the properties of the various objects that may not be obvious:

3DCK TIPS #1 - OBJECTS
There are two classes of objects, simple and complex.

Simple objects
Cubes and rectangles are simple objects, because the individual points of these objects cannot be moved within the bounding box. Thus, cubes and rectangles have surprisingly low memory requirements:

Cuboids – require 12 bytes, default bounding cube is 8x8x8. Simple object, points cannot be moved.

Rectangles – require 10 bytes, default bounding cube is 8x8x0. Simple object, points cannot be moved, but the bounding cube can be stretched in the 3rd dimension to give a tilted 3D rectangle.

Semi-Complex object
The pyramid object is semi-Complex, in that most points can be moved within the bounding box, but not all. Thus pyramids offer a high degree of mouldability, while requiring little memory.

Pyramids – require 16 bytes, default bounding cube is 8x8x8. Semi-complex object, the points of pyramids can be moved to create some interesting shapes such as wedges – pyramids do not have to be symmetrical!

Complex objects
The remainder of the objects are complex, because every point of the object can be freely moved within the bounding box, which is why these objects have higher memory requirements. Don’t be mislead into thinking that these objects are two dimensional, as the bounding box can be edited to any size, and the points can be moved around in three dimensions. Note that the 3DCK editor is not helpful in that it does not indicate which point is currently selected for editing. Also, the single view of the 3DCK kit makes it very hard to achieve desired results when editing points in three dimensions, so graph paper design is highly recommended. Bear in mind that there is no point making the bounding box any larger than it needs to be, so that other objects can be positioned flush against a complex object. Using these techniques, very pleasing non-boxy 3D objects can be achieved. A great example of good usage of the triangle complex objects is the palm tree of the Kit Game that comes with 3DCK. The leaves are actually triangles.



Hexagons - require 28 bytes, default bounding cube is 8x8x8. A complex object with six independently positionable points within the bounding box. Thus hexagons are not forced to be ‘hexagonal’ in shape, and can be any filled three-dimensional shape with six points. I don’t think this point has ever been exploited in any Freescape games.

Pentagons – require 25 bytes, default bounding cube is 8x8x8. A complex object with five independently positionable points within the bounding box. Thus pentagons are not forced to be ‘pentagonal’ in shape, and can be any filled three-dimensional shape with five points.

Quadrilaterals – require 22 bytes, default bounding cube is 8x8x8. A complex object with four independently positionable points within the bounding box. Thus quadrilaterals are not forced to be ‘rectangular’ in shape, and can be any filled three-dimensional shape with four points.

Triangles – require 19 bytes, default bounding cube is 8x8x8. The three points of a triangle are fully positionable within the bounding box. Thus triangles can be three dimensional. To make a triangle vertical or horizontal, shrink the bounding box to 0 size in one plane.

Lines – require 16 bytes, default bounding cube is 8x8x8. The two points of a line are fully positionable within the bounding box. Thus lines can be three dimensional. To make a line vertical or horizontal, shrink the bounding box to 0 size in two planes.

Misc. Objects

Sensors – require 10 bytes. Single point objects that can detect a player within a specified range.

Entrances – require 12 bytes.

thanks for extra info

Grate info flanimal

If any of you doesn't know, in the latest Retro Gamer mag in the UK has an article all about Incentive Software company and they interviewed the creator of the company. They do briefly go into 3DCK briefly.

I left the mag at work so I cant quote anything from it, sham on me
Other than Freescape was first thought up the idea in 1985, programming started in September 1986 and took 18 mouths to build. Then Driller was the first game to ever to use it. In fact it could be the first ever game to look even close to modern FPS.
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