Started Coding

The land-based version of Allegiance, under construction.
Post Reply
Virex
Posts: 129
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2007 2:42 pm

Post by Virex »

Finn Bryant wrote:
QUOTE (Finn Bryant @ Apr 6 2009, 04:23 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
WOO!! panda3d 1.6.0 is out!
all my assignment work is in!
im on easter break!

ive got more assignments actually, but they're not in until after easter sometime, so ive still got a good amount of time left over.


so what does 1.6.0 do for us?

It gives us threading (this means that some extremely slow calculations ive been fretting about can be run in the background, this means the game can play as normal, this is only useful for things that are expected to take a long time in game, but you want to game to go on despite that. (in particular - building bases *should* be possible on rough terrain now, since the 5-10 second calculation to flatten the terrain for it can be done in the background whilst the bulid sphere is up, of course if any players have a really slow computer, they may have problems, but it should just be that the base looks really stupid and floating off the ground a bit for a few seconds until they catch up)

The collada importer will allow people to use sketchup to create models for the game.

ill be able to modify the game engine code to fit our game better without the horrible anguish of knowing ill have to do it all again for the next version (not for a while at least).


EDIT: oh, 1 more, appartently i will be able to use 16 bit grayscale heightmaps now, that will mean much more interesting terrain, with more subtle slopes and huge mountains possible at the same time, plus less (hopefully 0) danger of hitting the max value and losing the data :)


Could threading also be used for slowly readjusting the shape of the landscape. So no craters, but slowly eating away at the mountain, creating a pass over the course of several minutes. Would it work?
finnbryant
Posts: 360
Joined: Sat Feb 17, 2007 11:18 am
Location: England

Post by finnbryant »

... perhaps, it would only update every 10-15 seconds at most, so its not going to be the most amazing effect, but could certainly occur during long games, but unless your ok seeing the landscape flicker every now and again, it would have to be slow.


and if we have nuclear weapons, they could damage the landscape, as long as they have a 15 second timer before they go off...


however... this is all irrelevent at the moment, since i discovered a few days ago that the guy that compiles this messed up and forgot to enable threading :rofl: its in the code, just not available to me :bang: , the plan is to compile the damn thing myself the moment i get home, but ive already got the code set up for it, it checks if threading is available and uses it if it is, cant test it though. unfortunatly im on a mac here and im not really willing to go through the complex process for compiling for only 2 weeks of use, especcialy since the mac code is new and probably not the easiest to use yet.
Threading will be enabled in 1.6.1 which i hope will be out sooner rather than later (theres usually a few bugs discovered soon after a release)


btw, my 15 second assumption at changing the landscape is based a guess, so it may turn out to vary a bit in the real thing, plus if the calculation on how to change the land is difficult, that could slow things down.



Anyway, im still trying to work out pathing atm, its turning out to be the hardest thing ive done so far, but i know how to do single pixel lines, i just need to find an algorithm that has width and im good to go. (ive been trying to find pre-made image manipulation modules to use but none have a function to vary the color of a line in the way i want from what i can tell, i guess its not often needed. it is in photoshop, but i think bundleing photoshop would be very expensive overkill)
Last edited by finnbryant on Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Parasitism
Posts: 652
Joined: Sat Oct 13, 2007 8:37 pm
Location: Anonymous

Post by Parasitism »

fuzzylunkin1 wrote:
QUOTE (fuzzylunkin1 @ Apr 12 2009, 01:20 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
I'm currently busy with school and work. End of my senior year's coming along quickly, and I'm taking four Advanced Placement tests.

Currently working on my first game (2d zombie shooter). It's coming along great and is teaching me a lot more about programming. It's written in C++.

Hopefully that will help me a lot with design factors and understanding of Quantus :) .

BTW, I know Factoid works in a game [small] development company/[startup?]. Maybe we could get some tips from him.


Psh. 2D I assume you're using SDL?
ImageImage
Anime-Planet.com - anime | manga | reviews
fuzzylunkin1

Post by fuzzylunkin1 »

Errrm Allegro but I don't see why it matters?
Adaven
Posts: 1958
Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2003 7:00 am
Location: Greater Ozarks

Post by Adaven »

Finn Bryant wrote:
QUOTE (Finn Bryant @ Apr 14 2009, 11:14 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
... perhaps, it would only update every 10-15 seconds at most, so its not going to be the most amazing effect, but could certainly occur during long games, but unless your ok seeing the landscape flicker every now and again, it would have to be slow.


If you guys do decide to go this route, there are probably some tricks that can be done to mask the "flicker", like having a small stack of dust sprites sprout up during the "landslide" to mask the transition.
the_dare
Posts: 481
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2007 11:10 pm
Location: Bath, UK

Post by the_dare »

just a quick update

i spoke to Radruin today. he said that he is unlikely to rejoin our efforts (exams etc.).

so i think we can safely ignore all of the old work

EDIT:

on a side note: i still have a copy of tgea and was thinking we could import the shaders across to give better graphics. what u think?|
Last edited by the_dare on Wed Apr 22, 2009 2:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Image
Image
finnbryant
Posts: 360
Joined: Sat Feb 17, 2007 11:18 am
Location: England

Post by finnbryant »

thanks for the update on rad, shame that we won't be seeing him again.

hmm... who wrote them? there could be license issues if they are made by garage games, but if they're yours/rads/open sourced then they are certainly worth looking through!

as an update, ive got lines with width going, but my method is ugly and buggy, so im going to have to rewrite, but i understand how to do it now, though my method isnt the most efficient, im just not experienced enough at optimizing my code, i know there's a better way, but i have no idea how to go about it, almost as aggravating as proof by induction back in maths classes.

but once im done with that, ive got gradienting and a pathing algorithm to go, then ill be able to show you guys my first completed landscapes.
Last edited by finnbryant on Wed Apr 22, 2009 9:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
the_dare
Posts: 481
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2007 11:10 pm
Location: Bath, UK

Post by the_dare »

its garage games code but i will look at the licensing, i think it should be fine though.

+ 10th of june onwards i will start learning python (when my exams end)
Image
Image
finnbryant
Posts: 360
Joined: Sat Feb 17, 2007 11:18 am
Location: England

Post by finnbryant »

great!
ill have to get my code into a sharable state and stick it up before then :)
Last edited by finnbryant on Thu Apr 23, 2009 4:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
muman42
Posts: 167
Joined: Sat Aug 07, 2004 7:00 am
Location: Mu
Contact:

Post by muman42 »

Great to see that you folk are still chipping away at this mountain :thumbsup: lookin good
Post Reply