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Hi
I am considering purchasing Dark Imposters, because I am making a game inspired by Minecraft, (the hit Indie game) that uses a LOT of objects (9000+). They are only textured cubes, but I am finding that I keep running into problems designing my game, because whenever I try to expand it in terms of features, or terrain size, I seem to push DBPro to its limits, and the game goes from being playable to being horribly jerky. Ok, so, first question:

Will it really speed up my particular game?
I know Dark Imposters works by replacing the objects with flat, 2d plains that look like the original object after they are a certain distance away from the camera. But replacing something that's pretty low-poly in the first place like a cube, will it really make a huge difference? Next question...

Do distant objects still respond as they should to various commands?
For example, do they still respond properly to OBJECT COLLISION? And for objects with limbs or animated objects, will you see a change in a distant Imposter object if you use a command like PLAY OBJECT or ROTATE LIMB on it? And finally...

Is it compatable with Dark Occlusions?
If it was, they'd be a very powerful combination... But do they work together? I already have Dark OC, although haven't implemented into my game yet

Thanks for answers!

Hi SamKM,

You are correct that since your objects are very low poly Dark Imposters will not have the same impact on improving performance. There may be an increase, I'm just not sure, if I get some time I will try to do a quick test.

You should not have any problems with collision etc, your objects are still there, they are just hidden. Animation also works, but only updates when the imposter updates, the time varies depending on how you have it set up.

Not sure if compatible with Dark Occlusion, I too would like to know if anyone has something working with both. I would suspect any one situation would suit one more than the other, probably both ok in the same game but perhaps both used at different times.

Ok, thanks! A test would be good. Use this code for a basic terrain generation, it's what I used in my early tests of the game


I don't know what commands Dark Imposters uses, so you'll want to insert commands to add the objects to the Imposter system.
Thanks!
Samkm

I am on holiday right now, I am back on 7th April so I can take a look then, sorry about that.

Are most of your blocks hidden behind other blocks most of the time? If so then you may be better with an occlusion system.

Or, I`m afraid to say, a custom lod solution which would group similar cubes to one large cube as you get further away.

Another option would be to have one large object(or several for culling purposes) which contains all your cubes, you might want all your textures packed onto one image. When a new cube is added you add 8 more vertices to your object and set up the UV data for the given texture on your image.

That is all very involved and you were originally looking for a tool to speed it up for you but I`m not sure there anything which would be as fast as what I describe above.

I will still try imposters when I get home, might speed things up a little.

i have tried a few different forms of culling for a minecraft style world. I did get world of 256 by 256 by 128 (xzy) to work.

here is the download link. code and gfx included.
https://forumfiles.thegamecreators.com/download/2205146

warning there are only to test the different forms of culling. There still need a lot more of work before being usefull but should give you idears on what is possible.