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Work in Progress / Ulidia update 2013

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Chris Ritchie
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Location: Norn Iron
Posted: 20th Jan 2013 22:27 Edited at: 20th Jan 2013 22:29
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Update on the game engine for my dark ages hack n slash RPG Ulidia.
The lighting is only just completed and requires optimisation and a few tweeks. I am currently working on the quest system, inventory and combat at present.




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MrValentine
AGK Backer
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Playing: FFVII
Posted: 21st Jan 2013 09:56
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Wow, impressive, what are you using to put this together?

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Matty H
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Posted: 21st Jan 2013 11:00
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This is amazing, very nice looking environment. When can we explore for ourselves?

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Chris Ritchie
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Posted: 21st Jan 2013 11:02
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@ Mr Valentine

Thanks its entirely programmed in DBPRO.


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MrValentine
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Posted: 21st Jan 2013 11:11
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Quote: "Thanks its entirely programmed in DBPRO."


Which plugins

This has me even more motivated

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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 21st Jan 2013 11:42
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Nice terrains, I like how spaced out things are it feels more natural. How do you put the road on the matrix?

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Brendy boy
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Posted: 21st Jan 2013 12:19
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the best stuff i've seen in years

BBB GUI Plugin
Landscape & Map Creator
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Chris Tate
DBPro Master
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Location: London, England
Posted: 21st Jan 2013 20:07
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Really impressive work. The content is seemlessly transitioned, looks real proffessional. Love the lightmapping.

It takes alot of effort and discipline to program even the smallest of features and getting them to work together, yet what you have has many things happening to get the level to run so smooth. It's really great to see stuff like this around here; especially something created in DBPRO.

Do you create the models or did you outsource? They look good too.

Whats the FPS and PC spec? You where able to record video whilst running it so smooth at the same time; obviously you have good programming skills.

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Chris Ritchie
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Posted: 21st Jan 2013 23:55
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Thanks all for the kind comments.

@ Mr Valentine
I use a lot of plugins most notably in this Dark lights, sparkys, AT, built in shadow shader(slightly modified) and a lot of LOD.
@ Ashingda
The roads are textured flat planes with the vertex points repositioned to match the terrain heights.
@ Chris Tate
The building models and the main grass models are my work the rest have been purchased or are freebies.(Any time saved modelling is a bonus in my opinion.) The engine is running quite steady between 40 and 50 fps and my specs are quite old AMD dual core 2.6, Radeon 5450 and 4 gig of ram. Fraps dropped the framerate down to about 30 when recording but all movement including animation is timer based.


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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 22nd Jan 2013 01:23 Edited at: 22nd Jan 2013 01:24
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Quote: "The roads are textured flat planes with the vertex points repositioned to match the terrain heights."

Thanks, interesting method. I'm inexperienced with 3D so I have no idea how alot of these tricks works. Does this only work on flat terrains?

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Chris Ritchie
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Posted: 22nd Jan 2013 18:07
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@ Ashingda

No the road will transform to whatever shape the terrain is. I use a matrix utility command which gives extra vertex points to a plain, so instead of make object plain 100,100 the new command is make object plain 100,100,10,10 the last two digits are the number of x and y vertexs. I then calculate the terrain heights from these vertex points and reposition them to sit just slightly above the terrain.


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Juggernaut
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2013 15:20
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Hello Chris,

Chris Tate just advised me to talk to you regarding what I am fumbling right now. I think he has referred me the right person as apparently very clear from your video depicting your work.

What I understand -

1. Blitz Terrain plugin to render the vast landscape.

2. Dark Imposter to render large number of trees and foliage using LOD.

3. Dark Occlusion to do occlusion culling for trees and foliage that overlap each other partially. Correct me if I am thinking wrongly. I do not know yet if Dark Occlusion will work on trees and foliage or not.

I will also use Evolve's Shadow mapping shaders to cast the shadows
for trees that are within visible range.

What I do not understand -

1. How to design such a vast level and have access to individual trees, rocks, foliage and houses. Because I will need to add shader effects to those 3D objects at run-time through code when they are within the visible range. If you say I will have to do it using code only then the question is how to ascertain the precise location on the terrain - where to put the houses and how to create foliage and trees of varying density ?

2. If I apply shadow mapping shader to 10-15 trees visible within frustum area, will Dark Basic Pro be able to handle the rendering so that the frame rate does not drop to something non-playable.

Can you please shed some light.
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Chris Ritchie
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2013 20:27
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@ Juggernaut

Hi, I wrote my own editor to suit my own needs when I started this project. When I am placing an object in the editor it will save a text file containing all the objects info, i.e. object number, rotation, position, scale or what ever info you want. When I am loading these objects back into the engine I load the text file giving me all the info that object needs.
I treat different object in different ways as far as LoD is concerned. For the like of larger objects that are visible farther away I use different object models of a lower poly count but the smaller things like grass I just fade in at a particular distance from the camera.
As for the trees they are static I would use light mapping but certainly shadow mapping only the trees that are close to the players view would keep the frame rate up.
I hope some of this helps as I know how much work is needed for big open landscapes, I am fours years into this project and I am just scratching the surface.




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Clonkex
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Posted: 24th Jan 2013 11:09
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I am amazed!

I've been using DBPro for years and I can instantly see you've put in an enormous amount of work!

Keep going, I think you can finish this off beautifully!

Clonkex



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Ortu
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Posted: 26th Jan 2013 02:47
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I'm glad to see this is still going! I remember seeing a WIP thread years and years ago and just figured it had been scrapped.

Awesome work man.

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Chris Ritchie
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Posted: 26th Jan 2013 15:05
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@ Clonkex and Ortu

Thanks for the kind words. I know I dont update as much as I probably should but I like to have something significantly different to show from the previous update. A lot of the engine work is now complete to my satisfaction so I can delve into the fun parts of game play now. I'll try to update a bit more often in future.


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Ashingda 27
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Posted: 28th Jan 2013 05:13
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How do you get your terrain textured so well? Is hard to even get mine seamless lol.

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Chris Ritchie
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Posted: 30th Jan 2013 00:06
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@ Ashingda

I use advanced terrain for my terrains so nothing special. I just spent some time on the texture maps.


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Chris Tate
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Posted: 30th Jan 2013 06:17
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So, how will it play? First/Third person? Usual RPG mechanics? I am figuring out how to get my AI organized.

Started off with Dark AI, ended up prefering my own methods; although I might use it for local area path finding.

Don't want to waist too much of your time answering my questions, no hurry at all.

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Chris Ritchie
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Posted: 30th Jan 2013 23:03
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@ Chris

I am currently thinking of a first person view that pans out into third person for combat. This is by no means set in stone and I will see which one lends itself better to the game. The mechanics will be a mish mash of all the best elements that I like from rpgs, I will have stats although I am not sure if armour or weapons will affect these stats as that is too close to fantasy and I am trying to stay historical. But rest assured there will be a lot of blood . I am sure as time goes on I will find out what works and what doesn't, I am playing around with combat at the minute so hopefully will have something to show quite soon.


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