I had an amazing idea a few hours ago. I'm currently working on a program that will take a picture and derive RPG stats from it. For example (at this stage):



This picture of Al P. garners the following stats:

HP: 12335
MP: 22870

ATP: 331
DFP: 2061
MATP: 2375
MDFP: 6322
SPEED: 1991

FIRE: -3%
ICE: 14%
BOLT: -7%
WATER: 1%
EARTH: 7%
WIND: -5%
DARK: 3%
LIGHT: 3%

MATP and MDFP are magic attack and magic defense, respectively. I'll have better names for stats and what not later, as I'm still working on the main aspects.

I already have some ideas floating around about extending this to include weapons, armor, and techniques, either from the same picture, or maybe you load a picture of a piece of armor, or weapon, or technique, and it will give you that items/techniques stats based on that separate picture. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to go about this. Hell, if I get far enough, I may even be able to make an engine for player and CPU picture duels or something.... but I'm not going to promise anything as I'm terrible at finishing what I start.

Anyway, any support would be appreciated. If you have any ideas or suggestions, let me know and maybe I'll implement them. Any questions? I'll answer them to the best of my ability.

This could turn into something that a battle engine could be built for, but I'm definitely going to take my time with it, mainly so I don't exhaust myself programming and then never touch it again for 25 years or something.

I was thinking that if this gets flushed out, we could have another character battle on the forums using the engine, but there again I wish to state that this isn't a promise... just an idea, a dream, and a hope. I'll definitely be implementing equipment and techniques before building an engine, else all the magic stats would be for naught.

Tyop wrote:

How do you compute the stats from the image data?

Trade secret... besides, it would take away all the fun.

By the way, that picture actually gets...

HP: 10520
MP: 10860

ATP: 213
DFP: 2185
MATP: 2064
MDFP: 2099
SPEED: 2135

FIRE: 2%
ICE: 0%
BOLT: -6%
WATER: 0%
EARTH: 1%
WIND: -2%
DARK: 0%
LIGHT: 1%

Keep in mind also that, at least for right now, the stats tend to be higher if the picture is bigger. I may fix that as well, or maybe have picture limits like weight classes.

If I did do that, I'd have to have everyone select one photo, as different photos may yield greatly different stats. I still have to work on it some more, but I just crushed my left middle finger at work an hour ago, so I'm probably not going to be doing much for programming for the next few days. It'll give me time to take a step back and ponder on it a bit more.

Aqua Hedgehog wrote:

Post a demo at least.

Vald asked me to do that as well, and I've been lazy. I'm getting to work on a functioning demo today.

Also, that name thing gives nothing that looks like me for any variation of my name. Poop.

EDIT: My program probably works similarly, except instead of setting parts of a face from letters of a name, you get RPG stats from pic data.

I have a workable demo now, but we're having trouble with downloading files from our site since WP upgraded, so if you'd like to check it out, PM me and I can e-mail it to you or something. It's only a 675k zip file.

When I get a working link going, I'll put it up.



---DESCRIPTION AND INSTRUCTIONS---

Any pics you want to look at, put into the "Pix" folder which needs to remain in the same directory as the exe. If there isn't a folder there when it is run, it will create one.

I plan on making it look much nicer, but this is what I've thrown together. I'm sorry about the Pix folder inconvenience, but I spent 2 hours working on a file loader and it still has issues, so I've worked around it for now. At least with this, you get access to stats on multiple pictures quickly, as well as being able to copy and paste them out of the text area with ease.

If you have any comments, questions, suggestions, or whatever, feel free to let me know. I'm open to any and all LOGICAL criticism.

Finally have a download link available. Another small note, the program is PC only.

http://www.use-bombs.com/wp-content/upload/RPGPix.zip

Valdronius wrote:

And here's my constructive criticism: Magic Points should probably be 1/10 or even 1/100 what they are. But that's speaking from an FF point of view.

Understandable. I still have so much I want to do with this concept, building it up into its own battle engine so you can battle pictures... I guess sort of like Monster Rancher with pics. Because it'll be it's own engine, I have no idea where stat values will lie at that point. I'll probably look through some FF algorithms though to use as a base, possibly even Disgaea.

I also still want to add items, weapons, and techniques and have ideas on how to implement that. That means I'll be making lists for all of those abilities... and if I get to that point, I'll probably ask for feedback from the forum in terms of names and shit, although I may do it on my own since I've been making lists like that since I was 5.

I still need to devise a way to balance stats so the size of the picture doesn't affect a great variance in stats.

So much to implement still...

docinsano wrote:

I have a quick suggestion: why not make something for weapons implemented in the program. Or maybe something for items, whatever. The possibilities are endless. This will be a lot of fun, and once i get off my ass and get that ol' PC out of the garage, I'll hook up this Picture RPG thing. It's lookin' good.

Agreed, and I hate to be a douche, but check the post right above yours. It mentions my plans.