May 20, 2006
We have been working quite a bit on AG over the last month. Some of the major things accomplished include :
1) Perf improvements to physics
2) Better physics for capsule collisions
3) Perf improvements for non-shadowed lights
4) ambient and rim lighting for entities tweaked
5) better menus, including g…
April 20, 2006
Tons of fixes and improvements since my last update.
Some of the major ones :
- Weapons are now properly attached and oriented to entity hands.
- The main char's gaze & arms go up and down in response to aiming up & down
- the camera now follows the up & down aim as well
- a cool fluid cre…
April 03, 2006
I fixed several issues over the last few weeks that dealt with the difference between the visual & physical aspects of the game.
This is particularly important because of the way Ancient Galaxy handles physics vs visuals. Basically, the physics is run at a fixed frame rate of 60hz, and the visu…
This is particularly important because of the way Ancient Galaxy handles physics vs visuals. Basically, the physics is run at a fixed frame rate of 60hz, and the visu…
March 21, 2006
More fixes over the last few days. I really feel almost done with the graphics, but then something doesn't look right, and I find out things are quite broken, and have to go in and fix them.
The main thing I fixed this weekend was the entity lighting, which was, how shall we say - completely broken…
The main thing I fixed this weekend was the entity lighting, which was, how shall we say - completely broken…
March 21, 2006
More fixes over the last few days. I really feel almost done with the graphics, but then something doesn't look right, and I find out things are quite broken, and have to go in and fix them.
The main thing I fixed this weekend was the entity lighting, which was, how shall we say - completely broken…
The main thing I fixed this weekend was the entity lighting, which was, how shall we say - completely broken…
March 21, 2006
More fixes over the last few days. I really feel almost done with the graphics, but then something doesn't look right, and I find out things are quite broken, and have to go in and fix them.
The main thing I fixed this weekend was the entity lighting, which was, how shall we say - completely broken…
The main thing I fixed this weekend was the entity lighting, which was, how shall we say - completely broken…
March 16, 2006
Over the past couple of weeks I have been primarily working on the performance. I can finally say that I'm pretty happy with it.
The new LOD system sped up the rendering & animation a good bit.
The Cell / Portal / Anti-Portal system is working well also, really speeding up all 3 levels right now…
March 15, 2006
Well, my partner found a nice perf problem with the way we were using Cal3d. We suspected there was something wrong there, b/c it just seemed too slow considering how many folks are using it successfully.
Turns out we were calling setLodLevel() every frame, which should be called in discreet steps …
Turns out we were calling setLodLevel() every frame, which should be called in discreet steps …
March 14, 2006
Found yet another set of issues with the portal system, caused by a combination of two portals leading from one cell into another and one of them crossing the camera's near clip plane.
We tried to lay out a level making every cell only able to have one portal out of it per wall, but that was a pain,…
We tried to lay out a level making every cell only able to have one portal out of it per wall, but that was a pain,…
March 13, 2006
Well, I'm not going to claim the portal and anti-portal system is totally debugged, but it's definitely closer. I found a rare instance where some geometry would drop out when the camera's near plane intersected the portal.
I took out the clamping code for the portal, and instead test the portal's …
I took out the clamping code for the portal, and instead test the portal's …
March 11, 2006
Well, the portals and anti-portals are finally debugged. Yesterday morning I fixed the last of the few remaining issues.
There was a serious but with the portal traversal code that for some reason only showed up very rarely. I was recomputing a new projection matrix for each portal in view, in ord…
There was a serious but with the portal traversal code that for some reason only showed up very rarely. I was recomputing a new projection matrix for each portal in view, in ord…
March 09, 2006
As of last night, the cell / portal / anti-portal system is working in the engine and showing nice speed-ups.
I ran into some interesting bugs and issues while debugging it :
- My code initially didn't correctly handle two frustums pointing from cell A to cell B. If an object was only visible throug…
I ran into some interesting bugs and issues while debugging it :
- My code initially didn't correctly handle two frustums pointing from cell A to cell B. If an object was only visible throug…
March 08, 2006
Late last week I started running some of the older levels with the new camera angle. The crypt and poison levels had been running slow for quite a while, but I didn't really investigate.
When I ran the crypt through nvperfhud, I saw huge areas of the level being needlessly rendered that were in the…
When I ran the crypt through nvperfhud, I saw huge areas of the level being needlessly rendered that were in the…
March 04, 2006
This last week was one of the most productive weeks since I started on this fulltime in July.
Over the past couple of days we've made many improvements & fixes :
- New smooth lighting code for non-shadow receiving entities.
- Proper lighting for weapon models in character hands.
- One fewer renderi…
Over the past couple of days we've made many improvements & fixes :
- New smooth lighting code for non-shadow receiving entities.
- Proper lighting for weapon models in character hands.
- One fewer renderi…
March 02, 2006
Well, we made may performance and look improvments over the last couple of days.
I changed the particles, debris and needle rendering to occur in one large batch, which helped performance during battle sequences.
The debris changes ( from when you shoot a wall, causing visible damage ) made it so tha…
I changed the particles, debris and needle rendering to occur in one large batch, which helped performance during battle sequences.
The debris changes ( from when you shoot a wall, causing visible damage ) made it so tha…
February 28, 2006
The last week or so has been very productive. Many fixes and tweaks have made it into the build.
Some of the highlights :
I added bump mapping to the cal3d models last night, and tweaked the entity lighting this morning.
Better blending of animations, especially for the AI characters. Basically we d…
February 17, 2006
Been a long time since my last update. Many changes and fixes have been added since last time.
One major improvement is the AI. One of the team members took out my old 'run at the player' ai, and replaced it with something more flexible, that has the ai alternately hiding and coming out to shoot d…
One major improvement is the AI. One of the team members took out my old 'run at the player' ai, and replaced it with something more flexible, that has the ai alternately hiding and coming out to shoot d…
January 31, 2006
Over the last couple of days I made some more changes, for instance, I modified the ambient occlusion calculation ( again ), and reduced the distance I shoot rays from 16 to 4 meters.
I was scaling the rays occlusion amount by how far away they hit something, but just casting multiple scattered ray…
I was scaling the rays occlusion amount by how far away they hit something, but just casting multiple scattered ray…
January 27, 2006
Made some decent progress since yesterday. Performace is a bit low right now, partly due to the new boned meshes not having a proper bounding sphere.
This was causing the shadow frusta to be made too large, which was causing the whole level to be rendered to a shadow map in some cases. Just fixed …
This was causing the shadow frusta to be made too large, which was causing the whole level to be rendered to a shadow map in some cases. Just fixed …
January 26, 2006
While plugging in the USB sync cable on my new Treo 650, my motherboard and/or CPU mysteriously and instantly died.
Luckily, I had just bought a new pc a couple of days ago, so only only lost a couple of hours worth of work, but I lost more hours just setting up visual studio, etc. all over again.
Ma…
Luckily, I had just bought a new pc a couple of days ago, so only only lost a couple of hours worth of work, but I lost more hours just setting up visual studio, etc. all over again.
Ma…
January 23, 2006
Sorry for the lack of updates. A combination of personal issues and non-interesting project tasks prevented me from posting as often as I'd like.
On the personal side, my older sister Sherry recently passed away from brain cancer, and that sort of spun me for a loop, and I took time to go to the me…
On the personal side, my older sister Sherry recently passed away from brain cancer, and that sort of spun me for a loop, and I took time to go to the me…
January 02, 2006
The Industrial game level is starting to shape up, and it features some new architecture that the AI hasn't dealt with before, including pipes that run along walkways, and others that have shown up previously, like walkways and handrails.
I placed some enemies in the level and tested them chasing me…
I placed some enemies in the level and tested them chasing me…
December 31, 2005
If Odin could do anything, could Odin create an object so heavy that he couldn't move it? Clearly not.
An object that was fully immobile would require an infinite mass, thus requiring an infinite amount of energy to create.
Even if an object was not infinitely heavy, but just maximally finitely he…
An object that was fully immobile would require an infinite mass, thus requiring an infinite amount of energy to create.
Even if an object was not infinitely heavy, but just maximally finitely he…
December 24, 2005
Yesterday I made several improvements to the flame particle system. It was an interesting problem. I wanted randomness, but not too much. Also I didn't want to do collision on them to avoid the runtime cost, so I wanted to flame particles to stay within their trigger box ( or nearly so ).
What I …
What I …
December 22, 2005
Things are still moving, despite the lack of updates. Bugs are being fixed, and new features added daily.
We now have a main menu system, and I switched the game engine to using the facets instead of the csv files in most instances. So now you can load a level, then switch levels, etc.
Today and …
We now have a main menu system, and I switched the game engine to using the facets instead of the csv files in most instances. So now you can load a level, then switch levels, etc.
Today and …
December 16, 2005
Yesterday a team member came over and we fixed the level loading code. It had been a mess for a while, partly because of the long history of the code - at one time all levels were loaded from a text file that had a character for each entity or wall/floor piece.
Over the past few months, as more thi…
Over the past few months, as more thi…
December 14, 2005
The project is still moving along. But not in ways that always make interesting reading. Received our first revenue recently, so the first team payments are going out next week or so.
Today I have fleshed out the facet system a bit more. Here's how it works :
We have .csv files, that contain data u…
Today I have fleshed out the facet system a bit more. Here's how it works :
We have .csv files, that contain data u…
December 09, 2005
Well, things are still moving along. Still having what is probably a stupid bug on my part with the physics integration, but hopefully that will be fixed soon.
Had a meeting with a local team member and we went over the code in person. It was productive, plus it forced me to clean up my office! ;)…
Had a meeting with a local team member and we went over the code in person. It was productive, plus it forced me to clean up my office! ;)…
December 07, 2005
Well, the team is really rolling right now. We have subversion & bugzilla set up and rocking, and the programmers and artists are doing good work.
The latest big change has been the integration of the facet editor into the game. We have a separate level editor, so before now there was no simpl…
The latest big change has been the integration of the facet editor into the game. We have a separate level editor, so before now there was no simpl…
December 04, 2005
I have been continuing to work on physics integration issues, but still spending most of my time on administrative things.
Yesterday I set up a gmail mailing list, and then a google group, wrote a team introductory message, worked on the work-for-hire and nda contract. Added some more folks to su…
Yesterday I set up a gmail mailing list, and then a google group, wrote a team introductory message, worked on the work-for-hire and nda contract. Added some more folks to su…
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