What's the best way to do a Myst type game?

I was thinking of creating a game with my digital camera around my neighboorhood where you could click around and explore it kind of like the games Myst or Riven.

My question is, in your opinion (since I would be dealing with so many image files) what would be the best way to have them change. I was thinking about them having their own form but the forms would add up quick.

Simply store the paths in an array, and load them into the picturebox with LoadPicture when needed, if you're not a speed freak. There might be a 1/2 second delay when you do this, however.

I think I've heard of people loading mass images into memory as binary, then pulling them when they're needed. Could be wrong, but who knows. This would be much faster than LoadPicture.

What if you loaded the pictures themselves into an array, then used BitBlt to flip through them?

that would use up too much ram, sastraxi has the best idea for this situation

Myst was made in HyperCard (or some such mac program). Anything animated was simply a quicktime move... You could probably do something like that...

Z.

i always thought they would have used a big 3d file like .x

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Originally posted by Mushroom Realm
that would use up too much ram, sastraxi has the best idea for this situation

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Oh, I thought he wanted an animated look, actually seeing the character move through space rather than just loading up another picture from the HD and displaying it!

If you just wanted to move through your neighborhood frame-by-frame, then sastraxi's idea is the best. Otherwise, you would have to load several images and flip through them, or load a whole animation like an AVI or MPEG and show that.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Mushroom Realm
i always thought they would have used a big 3d file like .x

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It wasnt a 3D game. Simply pre created art, displayed at the appropriate times to look interactive. Ever wonder why there were no people? =).

Z.

wow, thats neat, and a good idea. do they still do that, or are the new ones 3d?

I know that Real Myst was actually 3D. Ive never played or seen Riven, so I dont know how that one was done... Most games nowadays are true 3D, however.

Z.