Enter the engine limitations on TNR Project.

After some time I begun implementing the new monster sprites, I've been worrying about the fact that while making sprites, there were a moment where the width of the spritesheet would pass 2048 pixels, being that the 2048, is the XNA max texture dimension for both width and height, higher than this, and the texture would have problems to load, if would load correctly at all without error.

Well, I found out a while ago after checking out the project, that I've set the game profile of the project to hi-def, so It will load textures up to 4096, so that is already a good increase in max texture size, but the problem still exists and may limit me on what I can do with the monster sprites.

Where the problem kicks in? That you ask, let's take for example the sprites of the Big Foot monster, It's sprite size is of 64x64 pixels, being that the first row of sprites is reserved for the front animations, and the second row is reserved for the back animations, due to being 64 pixels size of sprites, that means I can make up to 64 frames for the monster before It reaches the 4096 pixels cap.
That will possibly make impossible for me to add some extra animations to that monster sprite when they are necessary, leading to either short animation frames, or even missing animations at all.

But you may wonder, "Wow, 64 frames is a lot, you're exagerating a bit", not really, some monsters may have their sprites bigger, for example, one of the monsters I'm still sketching, the Kaiser Raccoon, has 64x80 pixels size animation, that not only means the height is taller than the one of the Big Foot, but also means that in the future, I may end up adding bigger and bigger monsters to the project, that's where the problem kicks in.

At least some time in the future of the project, I'll have to think how I'll solve that sprite limitation problem, and potentially lead to a good skill animation when under effect.

On other news, I've added an effect to the monsters, to make them feel more alive, their sprites will somewhat shrink and grow to look's like they are kind of... Breathing, so isn't a "stop motion" animation in combat.

I've also did some extra hud work on the battle action selection system, tell me what you think of it, if possible, and if something could be change on it.

Anyway, two videos in a day, nice :D.

The skill system may pass through another rework, to include more complicated effects, so you can torment more your foes, aswell as be tormented in case you're unlucky enough to be hit by one of the future skill effects.

After finishing the battle system, I'll move to the out battle systems, like reworking the maps, I want to make so structures actually have height, so It doesn't need to eat some of the tiles in the world to say that the structure is tall, aswell as working on some systems, like for example, giving back the functions of the npcs that offer services to the players in the towns.

I just remembered, and I changed the monster spawning system in the fields to the new system I mentioned some time ago, and filled some maps with the monsters, It still has some empty maps, or a lot of maps with just one monster on the area, but as I make new monsters, they will be populated.

Anyway, I got to go sleep, see ya, and until next news.

Cheers!