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DarkBASIC Professional Discussion / Environmental Plugin - Who'd be interested?

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Sid Sinister
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Posted: 30th Apr 2008 23:46
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Wow, this is very nice stuff. If you can match the CryEngine, I'll buy it . A big selling point for me would be if you actually had a professional GUI system. Sasuke was on to something in his Creating a Level Editor Thread, and I think he's shown his menu's somewhere else too.

In short, I think you have Van B's Tersculpt on a run! On the other hand though, Tersculpt is open source, so it wins by default

"If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants" - Isaac Newton
-Computer Animation Major @Baker.edu-
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bergice
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Posted: 1st May 2008 12:54
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lol, editor controls = google earth

- Will this be free?

- Will you include your own objects for animals?

Altough, looking awesome, and you are going really fast!


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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 1st May 2008 19:33
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Sorry guys, it's been a while since I've got my GCSE mocks coming up.
Quote: "
lol, editor controls = google earth"

Ye lol, just a quick fix until I made my own, everything else though I made from scratch

Quote: "- Will this be free?"

I am planning on releasing two versions, a free version and a commercial version. But I'm not sure what limitations there will be on the free version yet.

Quote: "Will you include your own objects for animals?"

Definatly, all models will be royalty free obviousley so you can use them how you like (as long as you don't sell them) And there will be vegetation models etc. as well. Might include add on packs.


I am re-working the editor at the moment and have stopped work on the engine for the minute. Once the editor has had some more progress made to it then I will try and release an alpha for you guys to test It should include:

And once again, thanks for all of the comments They are most appreciated.

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bergice
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Posted: 1st May 2008 19:45
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Thanks for that reply.

Will it be possible to sync between this plugin (retrieving data, setting data etc...) and standard DBP?


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RedFlames
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Posted: 1st May 2008 20:44 Edited at: 1st May 2008 20:45
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Quote: "Will it be possible to sync between this plugin (retrieving data, setting data etc...) and standard DBP?
"

As long as it is a dba-include-file you can use any variables used by it or modify the code

and this sounds awesome, i think ill defenitly use some parts of it

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jason p sage
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Posted: 1st May 2008 23:44
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I'm doing this same sort of stuff in DarkGDK for my Iron Infantry Game. Looks good man. Are you doing your Frustrum Culling or just LOD and distance based alpha?

If you'r frustrum culling, I'd recommend doing small "groups" of things versus testing each object as to whether or not its in the frustrum. I find its a good booster to do groups.. frustrum check the "group" like its in an imaginary box, and then handled all of the objects in the imaginary box at once.

This is advantageous if your frustrum culling because the cull is more expensive than one would hope for. It helps frames rates to frustrum cull, you just have to be slick about it.

Good Luck. Keep up the good work.


http://www.jasonpetersage.com/?PAGE=ironinfantry&SECTION=ironinfantry
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Ajahn Patisallano
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Posted: 2nd May 2008 06:23
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I´d certainly be interested in this plugin! Very cool project. Good luck with it.

I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of tennis socks, not my style at all; but it was necessary for what I was aiming for.
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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 3rd May 2008 16:54
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@Jason
Hmm, I'm guessing that it would fit under distance based alpha. Any objects that are within the radius bounds and 3/4 of the radius are alpha mapped depending on it's distance.

I'll do some reading on frustrum culling though as it sounds as if it is worth looking in to. As I am hoping to improve it as much as possible speed wise.

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jason p sage
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Posted: 3rd May 2008 17:25
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Then search for LIT (Lost In Thought's) Frustrum Culling port. He basically took some frustrum culling code he found on gamedev.net I think, and ported it to DBPRo.. I've since ported it to DarkGDK.. its REALLY AWESOME... HOWEVER... as I mentioned above in different words... its a balancing act!

Frustrum Culling Gives you speed from not rendering objects if they are not "visible" anyways... sounds silly... but important. Also, once I got LIT's code working, I modified it to "HIDE" limbs... but EXCLUDE objects... and I also made it so for limbed objects I'd FIRST check if the OBJECT was in frustrum... if not... like other object's I would just exclude... but if limbed... then I "drill into" the limbs hiding the necessary ones out of view.

I say balancinf act because you need to figure out a way to make it so you aren't looping through hundreds of Frustrum checks... or the speed gain is lost in processing horsepower being used for the culling.

I made a system where there are regions... and these regions are not REAL OBJECTS... but they are described (position and size) like an object... and they are really big blocks. If the "Big block" is in the frustrum... then I would drill down and see the objects in that "block" etc.. in other words.. First frustrum check if a chunk 3d realestate was on screen ... then check individual items known to be in that "block" or realestate chunk.

Its a lot of work... but it helps the speed... surprising though how adding a few hundred lines of code actually speeds up your program! This little oddity amuses me (I know why... but it still amuses me)


http://www.jasonpetersage.com/?PAGE=ironinfantry&SECTION=ironinfantry
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Duffer
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Posted: 10th May 2008 18:32
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@ The Wilderbeast,

Howzit coming along?

a long time dabbler with DBC and DBPro with no actual talent but lots of enthusiasm...
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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 12th May 2008 21:51
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Had Ten Tors since Thursday, we came first on our 35 Mile route. For those of you that don't know what Ten Tors is (the vast majority of you) it's a 35 mile walk around moorland area infested with bogs, swamps, elephant grass and all kinds of other annoying stuff that makes it difficult to walk in

So i'm kinda knackered from that.


Anyways... I still haven't been able to actually do anything with it for a while, at the moment I am just milling through thoughts in my mind as to how I am going to do everything. I should have some more progress to actually show in about a month.

So sorry for the lack of progress guys, but I've been real busy lately

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luke escude
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Posted: 13th May 2008 01:58 Edited at: 13th May 2008 01:58
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This is really looking fantastic... For a very long time, I have tried to find a way to create realistic-looking water... I think you have what I am looking for!

The video swepped past the water so quickly that I couldn't tell if it was right.

How did you get the water to work like that? I haven't found any really good shaders, yet. Nor have I found an efficient way to move the water plain in a wave-like fashion...

Good Work!

Vector3 3D World Creator - By Luke Escude
http://www.lujogames.com/luke/vector3/vector3.html
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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 13th May 2008 19:01
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I take no credit for the water shader, it was merely one that I used while creating the early demo video, of course all water shaders will be my own work when released, but...

The wave effect was done using the sine function, so basically if you recorded the value of the water height to a graph it would look like a wave. I am hoping to include proper waves later on, rather than just a flat plain that just rises and falls. But that's a long way off yet.

If you wanted the shader I used then search for mental mill water and you should find the right topic. If you want a more realistic, but processor intensive one then check out the two in the ultimate shaders pack.


I am guessing that there will be an alpha version released within a month or two, so look out.

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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 22nd Jun 2008 18:32 Edited at: 22nd Jun 2008 18:33
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Just a little update for now. First I am announcing our partnership with Turbogames in developing the FPS ONE, so this proves that it really is possible to get these sort of environments into a game while retaining a decent framerate.

As you will have noticed, Dark Environment actually has a logo (took me all of 10 minutes to make )

And I am currently working on the sky and weather system which will support one-touch weather conditions (being able to change what the weather does in one command) as well as dynamic changes.









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luke escude
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Posted: 22nd Jun 2008 18:38
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Looks good! Although I have one question...

When you are making snow fall, are they actual particles in a 3D world? Or are they just white dots moving at different speeds on the 2D screen?

Vector3 3D World Creator - By Luke Escude
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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 22nd Jun 2008 18:41
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Thank you

Erm I am guessing you are referring to that last picture, which is slightly misleading. The white dots are actually stars, but...

When I do get round to making the snow, it will be done using a special particle system. This is because:
a) The default DBPro one is extremely slow
b) They detect collision, so if you go under cover then you won't get snowflakes falling through the roof.

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luke escude
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Posted: 22nd Jun 2008 18:45
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Oh, OK that makes more sense... A particle system like that would be extremely slow with a huge world, though.

Vector3 3D World Creator - By Luke Escude
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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 22nd Jun 2008 18:48
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If you had snow filling the entire world, then yes it would be. But what is usually done in industry (and what I intend to do here) is where the snow only falls around a certain radius of the camera, and the player can't tell that say 50m away there isn't actually any snow falling. Basically the snow is randomly generated within a certain radius of the camera to give the effect that it is going on to an infinite distance.

The same goes for rain as well.

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luke escude
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Posted: 22nd Jun 2008 18:59
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Interesting... That's a good idea. Will the snow build up? Or will it destroy each particle when it hits an object?

Vector3 3D World Creator - By Luke Escude
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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 22nd Jun 2008 19:01
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I would imagine that each particle would settle on the ground for a couple of seconds then get destroyed, otherwise you are trying to coat an object in particles, and that would hammer the GPU. But it would be very cool if it were possible. I'll look into it, perhaps Dark Physics could achieve something like that.

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luke escude
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Posted: 22nd Jun 2008 19:05
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Dark Physics does have a particle engine, and I don't think that snow piling up is an important feature anyways...

Rain puddles, though, that would be interesting... Maybe a small pool that builds up and reflects its surroundings, and when you leave that camera radius, the puddle is destroyed

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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 22nd Jun 2008 19:09
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That might also be worth looking into at a later date. There will be splashes where the rain hits the floor, perhaps a shiny plain on the ground would look good, as if the ground was wet and reflective.

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luke escude
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Posted: 22nd Jun 2008 19:38
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Yes that would be interesting... Keep up the good work


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jason p sage
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Posted: 22nd Jun 2008 20:43
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Why not "register" objects for snow fall - and when a snowflake hits it - you "write" onto the texture - make it white or some shade thereof.

as particles "cover" the ground - you're really "realtime" paint the textures.

Could leave this to individual programmers by giving them a way to get the "collision" hits and maybe the normals - as snow might not cling to real steep "things" then again - it might - depends on the weather. (e.g. snow on SIDE of a stone wall in winter)


http://www.jasonpetersage.com/?PAGE=ironinfantry&SECTION=ironinfantry
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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 22nd Jun 2008 21:34
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Quote: "Could leave this to individual programmers by giving them a way to get the "collision" hits and maybe the normals - as snow might not cling to real steep "things" then again - it might - depends on the weather. (e.g. snow on SIDE of a stone wall in winter)"


Yes I would probably do this because it isn't really an essential feature, but it does leave expandability for other developers.

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luke escude
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Posted: 22nd Jun 2008 21:34
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That would take a buttload of proccessig power, to repaint each texture as snow hits it... YOu have to convert the snow's XYZ position to an XY coordinate on the texture, and open the texture, and put a white spot. But if there are over 32 textures being hit, then the program will fail, because only 32 files can be opened at the same time.

I guess that problem could be solved by designing an array that stores what textures need to be edited next. (I.e. a queue)

Vector3 3D World Creator - By Luke Escude
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jason p sage
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Posted: 23rd Jun 2008 00:57
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Good Points luke - one could do the Queue idea coupled with a snow score though... Or simpler still - have various textures prepainted -- no snow, some snow, some more snow... and WHITE LOL... and over time just change them. Reverse this process for melting LOL


http://www.jasonpetersage.com/?PAGE=ironinfantry&SECTION=ironinfantry
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luke escude
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Posted: 23rd Jun 2008 01:05
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MELTING! Yes, that would be awesome! Although our programming term for "melting" is getting destroyed, particle by particle

This environmental plugin has opened a world for me... A world with snow, that is

(I know, bad joke)

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Outscape
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just an idea for the trial:
the game /map area is restricted to a small area
but let the player still export/save so they can test the software out in their games before they buy
have less features, maby without your animal models etc
maby less things like no snow and not as realistic rain.

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Xenocythe
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Posted: 2nd Jul 2008 22:43
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I think you guys are getting a bit unrealistic. You'll need an engine like the PS3 to be able to handle snow building up and melting

It looks good though. I like how its coming along.

3.11 We do not tolerate posts made for the purpose of putting down another forum member, group of members, religion, our company, our staff or any of our moderators, past or present.
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jason p sage
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2008 01:42
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NO WAY! You could change textures - for one - Use shader that slowly blends various textures - Like Take GG terrain shader and make it blend both on angle of terrain and "length of time snowing" or "melting"

PS3 for that? I must disagree. I won't deny that a busy scene with all objects having this going at once might chug on a less than stellar gfx card but - unrealistic? I don't think so.


http://www.jasonpetersage.com/?PAGE=ironinfantry&SECTION=ironinfantry
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Uncle Sam
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2008 08:35
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Looks nice!

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Krisper
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Posted: 12th Aug 2008 00:28
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How is Dark Environment progressing Wilderbeast? Any chance of a beta version some time soon?
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Pixel Paint
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Posted: 12th Aug 2008 04:57
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How much money are you planning on making it? If not free.
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Choinkees
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Wow, just read through the thread and saw your planned list of features and screenshots/video. I'm very, very impressed - good going

As for ideas/features, you've already had heaps of suggestions so far to keep you busy. However, if it's any help, here's how I imagine my workflow would go if I was to use this:
- Create the base terrain (and probably texture it) in a different program (T.Ed, 3DStudio, whatever..)
- Import that base terrain into the Dark Environment terrain editor
- Add vegetation (trees, shrubs, grass) using a mixture of directly painting them on the landscape as well as highlighting an area and saying "scatter 100 trees across this area"
- Defining the atmoshphere:
- auto creation of a sky box based off a sky texture I load in
- set the ambient light colour and strength
- create a directional light as the sun if I wish
- define fog settings if I want fog
- switch on/off any extra effects you can think of like heat haze, light bloom, godrays, falling snow, etc..
- Create a dummy entity/position for where my character/camera will be (this does not get rendered out, it is simply saved as part of an entity list or something to make it easy for me to position my player once I load the terrain)
- Export all of this as .x or a DBpro format or something useful to DBPro
- Create a DBPro program and be able to load in the terrain (with atmosphere and vegetation and everything) in the one LoadDarkEnvironment command, with the terrain being assigned a normal object number that I can use Sparky's collision DLL or DarkPhysics on. (trees/tree trunks should probably easilly assigned to a collision group as well)
- Set my character/camera position to that marker/entity that was defined in the DarkEnvironment terrain editor

That's the workflow that I imagine. For me, the main thing that I'd use it for is vegetation - everything else (skybox, fog, lighting, snow, animals that run around) can really be handled through direct programming or another tool/DLL. They would be an excellent bonus and would make your program heaps more attractive, easy and "complete"... but for me this tool needs an excellent vegetation engine - if you can cover an area in heaps of grass (and have it sway with a gentle wind effect?) you've got me instantly sold.

games and stuff that I've made: www.rickyvuckovic.com
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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 13th Aug 2008 12:02
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Wow, thanks guys

At the moment the engine is overgoing a complete re-haul. This includes implementing our new LOD Terrain system, and I am also in the process of coding the new vegetation algorithm which should speed up performance easily.

I was hoping to sell it through TGC, but they refused due to the upcoming DarkFOLIAGE plugin. But I still think I'll sell it for around £20. Of course a free Lite version will be released with limitations, but it should include most of the features of the full version.

@Choinkees
You pretty much got it sorted. Originally we were going to include a terrain editor, and we may still do in a future update, but for now there are plenty of good terrain editors. But textures are able to be applied to the terrain as well as multiple detail textures. Vegetation will be modifiable brush where you can change things like the radius, draw distance, billboarding options, animation etc. etc. The sky system is dynamic and does not need to be set up as it follows a random weather flow. Of course the weather can be changed from the editor, or within your program. And there should be an override feature as well so the user can choose their own skybox/skysphere.
One thing though is that when exporting the .env file, some of the media like terrain, vegetation maps etc. will have their own file format. But there will be the option in the editor to export as heightmap, .dbo etc.


But before any of that can be implemented we are working on getting the terrain system and vegetation perfect. By the end of the week I should have a new video out, or at least some screenshots showcasing the vegetation system.

Being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya punk?
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Krisper
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Posted: 1st Dec 2008 22:44
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How is Dark Environment progressing Wilderbeast?
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Mistrel
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Posted: 1st Dec 2008 23:51
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Your plugin contains features that I would like to extend for my own projects and I would be interested in purchasing it if you were to provide the source.

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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 2nd Dec 2008 18:31 Edited at: 2nd Dec 2008 18:33
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Ok, I will not disappoint any further by saying that there are any updates coming soon.

The project has been put on hold for the moment and I'm not expecting to be able to get back working on it any time before May (although I might to the occasional bit now and then).

If you were anticipating the LOD terrain then I suggest you take a good look at the ÜberEngine thread which is also another one of our products, and is the Terrain engine that DE will be incorporating.

In regards to what you say Minstrel, I can now see that it would be a good idea to release the source as it won't entirely satisfy everyone's needs. Perhaps this can be one of the price options.


I might wait to until DarkFOLIAGE is released so as to see what features it implements. This is so we have something to build on with our product.

Development of this will be very slow until sometime next year, but expect to find the occasional update or whatever. At the moment we are devising an algorithm for the vegetation rendering as this and terrain are the two most important aspects of the project...

Being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya punk?
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