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JernejL
05-11-2003, 11:01 PM
Top down city is a GTA1 sequel project

- it is not open source.
- original gta1 gameplay featured
- physics and graphical demos up and running!

- coders wanted

Paulius
06-11-2003, 01:26 PM
Usually everyone is looking for artists rather then coders, and if the engine is done "physics and graphical demos up and running" why exactly do you need coders for?

JernejL
06-11-2003, 07:24 PM
for the rest:

scripting engine
sound fx programming
editors

i am a graphical artist, 3D modeler and programmer :)

but if i think again... i would need another artist for designing
game characters and frontend game art.

Shadowfax
08-11-2003, 02:55 AM
Delfi, have you finished Liero3D yet?

JernejL
09-11-2003, 07:23 PM
Delfi, have you finished Liero3D yet?

wtf :) :)

no, because it was going nowhere..
and was too much limited by glscene components - www.glscene.org
i won't finish it yet.. maybe i will restart it from scratch after i finish top down city

top down city is made completely from scratch and today the
particle engine was just finished, resulting in little debris particles and sparks
fliying all over the map witn almost no fps losses :)

Shadowfax
13-11-2003, 09:39 AM
Haha, didn't think anyone knew about Liero3D ;)
Im a liero supporter, i go waaay back..

But GTA is awesome, and your projects sounds like it will be great.

(Note: I do not frequent these forums because i have no interest whatsoever in Delphi.. C++ all the way ;))

JernejL
14-11-2003, 11:18 PM
Haha, didn't think anyone knew about Liero3D ;)
Im a liero supporter, i go waaay back..

But GTA is awesome, and your projects sounds like it will be great.

(Note: I do not frequent these forums because i have no interest whatsoever in Delphi.. C++ all the way ;))

i don't have anything against c++, but delphi is my choice,
the game is going together fine now, some map texturing has been done :)

btw, you use msn messenger - you have the messenger email set in your profile?

or irc or anything... ?

Shadowfax
15-11-2003, 05:20 AM
Yeh, i use MSN Messenger ( azzarius_69@hotmail.com ), AOL ( Shadowfax3000ad ) and IRC (Usually the GameDev.net channel or Liero channel). :)

Have you got any screenshots to show off yet?

JernejL
18-11-2003, 01:02 PM
i have some test screenshoots, but now i am doing a major rewrite
of the opengl map render unit, so the renderer will work without depth
buffer - gta1 had no depth buffer, and same with gta2.

this way i will get highier fps and be able to render things at same z level
without polygon corruption (cars in gta1 and 2 are drawn on same z value
if they are on same z block, but using same z value for all
sprites "corrupts" the rendering if the depth buffer is on. )

i'll get some screenshoots as this gets finished (can take maybe one week or less)

- i'll add you to m msn list :)

Paulius
18-11-2003, 02:12 PM
I don?¢_~t think it?¢_~s a good idea to dump Z-buffering, unless you?¢_~re doing everything in ortho mode. This corruption happens because you?¢_~re probably doing incorrect depth testing, just set it to test if Z is less or equal by calling glDepthFunc with GL_LEQUAL

JernejL
18-11-2003, 09:11 PM
I don?¢_~t think it?¢_~s a good idea to dump Z-buffering, unless you?¢_~re doing everything in ortho mode. This corruption happens because you?¢_~re probably doing incorrect depth testing, just set it to test if Z is less or equal by calling glDepthFunc with GL_LEQUAL

there was no corruption before, but sometimes if you draw more differently
textured primitives (let's say a single face) at same z value and YPR
they get that odd "zebra" effect. with no depth buffer everything goes drawn
over existing, and is actualy 20fps faster!!
there are just some minor problems with culling faces, which you need to do on your own.. but the game won't use any culling faces at all (except the doublesided drawing ) the map is made of cubes and the unused faces are
removed - culled in editing phase.

this way i efficiently gained 20fps :) on my P2 366 | riva tnt2 16mb computer

Alimonster
19-11-2003, 09:27 AM
It sounds like you're experience z-fighting, which means that the z buffer doesn't have enough fine-grained precision. The cause of this is setting the near and far planes too far apart. What values are you using? Try moving the near plane further from you (higher value) or moving the far plane closer (lower value). Moving the near plane will make a bigger difference, but changing either will help.

Of course, if you don't need the depth buffer and it makes your thing quicker then don't bother changing anything. :)

EDIT: Oh, and check the depth function mode as suggested by Paulius.

Almindor
19-11-2003, 04:26 PM
I don't like closed source projects. I'd love to help but NOT. Make it opensource and perhaps you'll finnish it this time

JernejL
19-11-2003, 07:08 PM
I don't like closed source projects. I'd love to help but NOT. Make it opensource and perhaps you'll finnish it this time

sorry - no, i mean - this game is commercial, i want to have something
out of my skills i have, still i decided i will be releasing parts of the code
for the delphi community, the first to be released is btw:
directx DDS surface loader for OpenGL, which can also decompress DXT data
for use on older graphic cards that don't have DXT support..

but you can join to the project as a commercial developer.

i will finnish this one day, even if i will have to do it myself, the only thing
that would change is the finishing date.. it will get finished, if you knew how
much i played GTA1... for 4 years - until i got gta: vice city, i also made 2
mods for it - UNknown and Back to the future:

http://www.infofeast.com/delfi/unknown/
http://www.infofeast.com/delfi/bttf/

this project won't be a mod, it will be a full new game!

and people need to live of something..



and to everyone that asked for a screenshoot:
http://www.infofeast.com/delfi/TDC/tdc%20renderer.jpg

this is the graphical engine without depth buffer, rendering some blocks
before you ask about the textures mapped on cubes - if are they just
single texture: they aren't, they are cutn off a larger texture and there are
already utility functions to mirror and rotate the texture on single block,
the cube faces have individual textures mapped.

Useless Hacker
19-11-2003, 08:38 PM
http://www.infofeast.com/delfi/bttf/
This looks pretty cool. What map editors etc. did you use? I once started making a map but it never really got very far...

JernejL
19-11-2003, 09:36 PM
http://www.infofeast.com/delfi/bttf/
This looks pretty cool. What map editors etc. did you use? I once started making a map but it never really got very far...

this is a bit off - topic, the maps were made with M1win , J25, and bunch of
other editors, i also wrote some specific editors myself...

Almindor
20-11-2003, 06:05 PM
Opensource doesn't necessery mean "free". You can make a good opensource license and sell the game as any other commercial product really. When will the developers realize this?

JernejL
20-11-2003, 07:09 PM
Opensource doesn't necessery mean "free". You can make a good opensource license and sell the game as any other commercial product really. When will the developers realize this?

when "opensource" will sound differently...

my understanding of opensource is that you can sell the finished product,
but anyone can see and use source code for his own use, and release and
sell the same thing..

and once you are in, you can't get the project out back to "closedsource" if
you change your mind...

if there are any errors in this, correct me..

Useless Hacker
20-11-2003, 09:01 PM
Please
* Use capital letters
* Do not start new paragraphs in the middle of a sentance

JernejL
21-11-2003, 08:57 PM
http://www.infofeast.com/delfi/TDC/tdc%20renderer.jpg

this is the new progress.. hello world thingie - tga fonts and text output, lol!

Mrwb
21-11-2003, 10:37 PM
this is the new progress.. hello world thingie - tga fonts and text output, lol!

Erm.. correct me if im wrong, but diddn't you post the same screen shot earlier in this thread? ;) :)

Shadowfax
22-11-2003, 08:40 AM
no its was different.. this one has a frame counter :wink:

JernejL
24-11-2003, 07:52 PM
well... i just updated the original image and re-posted it and so it was
reflected in previous post too..

Almindor
24-11-2003, 09:09 PM
Wrong. That depends on the licence you use. For example the GPL states that the source and project are free and MUST REMAIN SO. You can charge for addons tho. You can make a commercial license saying... Sources are free AS LONG as you don't use them in a commercial application. If you want to use them contact us and we can come to a deal.

It really depends only on the way you formulate the license.

The advantages to opensource are that you can get free bugfixes from the comunity and in the end the product will be much better. The disadvantages are the danger of thieves(they will take it and use it to make moeny) but you can always have the fun of sueing them :)

Anyhow one BIG disadvanteg(for us) of you not going OS is that we'll lose the project for good if you die(I mean software wise).

JernejL
27-11-2003, 05:00 PM
Wrong. That depends on the licence you use. For example the GPL states that the source and project are free and MUST REMAIN SO. You can charge for addons tho. You can make a commercial license saying... Sources are free AS LONG as you don't use them in a commercial application. If you want to use them contact us and we can come to a deal.

It really depends only on the way you formulate the license.

The advantages to opensource are that you can get free bugfixes from the comunity and in the end the product will be much better. The disadvantages are the danger of thieves(they will take it and use it to make moeny) but you can always have the fun of sueing them :)

Anyhow one BIG disadvanteg(for us) of you not going OS is that we'll lose the project for good if you die(I mean software wise).

no, i won't die :P

and btw, this thing is going to be availible for other os-es too, such as linux
and others..

the game could go opensource after finished, but the media would remain
copyrighted - like quake..

btw, i am now working on character animation,
i have player character in cursor .ani file, and i've made a converter to
convert it to tga image and sequence info files :)

and the dds loader i mentioned is now functioning nicely
even without a card that supports
"GL_COMPRESSED_RGB_S3TC_DXT1_EXT"
extensions, it has an internal decompressor which runs perfect :)

JernejL
30-11-2003, 01:16 PM
i've finally managed to load a map from actual file and render it:

http://www.infofeast.com/delfi/TDC/tdcware.jpg

you can see the cool features such as different textures per block side :)
just wait til you see the alpha transparent fences, they will make you faint or eat your microsoft mouse :P

i have also made a new map editor for this.. i call it CityCraft and it will be distributed with game.

you can also see the nifty particle system in operating state :)

JernejL
03-12-2003, 10:01 PM
more progress:

http://www.infofeast.com/delfi/TDC/tdcslopes.jpg

slopes :)

Alimonster
03-12-2003, 11:35 PM
Cool! But pretty please either add a little shading or use a couple more ground textures, because my eyes start watering if I look at the screenshot too long. :fuzzy:

Keep on rockin'.

JernejL
04-12-2003, 08:33 PM
Cool! But pretty please either add a little shading or use a couple more ground textures, because my eyes start watering if I look at the screenshot too long. :fuzzy:

Keep on rockin'.

why everyone wants to see shadows, i've posted that on multiple forums, and
soon i got asked when will there be shadows :)

the shadows will be soon, i am just finitializing the slope system and
texture mapping - ability to rotate and flip textures as gta did :)

i will make shadows after this, or at least some basic darkening of building
sides like it was in gta - to make everything look more 3D :)

edit:

just made shading for slow computers,
better computers will later use real shadows:
http://www.infofeast.com/delfi/TDC/tdcshade.jpg

EDIT 2:

http://www.infofeast.com/delfi/TDC/tdcmap.jpg

new: mirroring and rotating textures like in gta and some better textures :P

JernejL
08-12-2003, 06:13 PM
hello ?

Useless Hacker
08-12-2003, 08:52 PM
Hello :D

It looks very nice.

JernejL
26-12-2003, 10:29 PM
just that i note - i still haven't and won't quit this project,
i wiped out most of map bugs, and made the alpha transparency done:
http://www.infofeast.com/delfi/TDC/tdcware.jpg

note that the light transparency is not renderer bug but map file bug.

tux
08-01-2004, 11:08 PM
that looks great! the only bad bit is the stairs dont look like there going up :)

WILL
09-01-2004, 06:38 AM
Lookin' good so far. :)

A small suggestion would be to actually make the stairs 3D too. It might help with the problem of stairs looking like they are going in the direction of which they are actually going.

Keep up the good work. ;)

JernejL
12-01-2004, 08:12 PM
Lookin' good so far. :)

A small suggestion would be to actually make the stairs 3D too. It might help with the problem of stairs looking like they are going in the direction of which they are actually going.

Keep up the good work. ;)

no way - i can't make the stairs modelled - its the map limit and
limit of the map system.

holybyte
12-01-2004, 08:24 PM
Lookin' good so far. :)

A small suggestion would be to actually make the stairs 3D too. It might help with the problem of stairs looking like they are going in the direction of which they are actually going.

Keep up the good work. ;)

no way - i can't make the stairs modelled - its the map limit and
limit of the map system.

If the map engine doesn't - modify the texture.. at the top the stairs are bright (like on the screenshot) and at the bottom more dark. The 103fps screenshot shows a similar effect.. A thin spray layer with dark colour or a simple darkening filter can help.
------------------
keep on working !

tux
12-01-2004, 09:08 PM
are the stairs on a slope tile?

Goliatus
12-01-2004, 10:04 PM
Bump mapping somehow can help. You should think about lightining system in your game.

WILL
13-01-2004, 02:05 PM
Lookin' good so far. :)

A small suggestion would be to actually make the stairs 3D too. It might help with the problem of stairs looking like they are going in the direction of which they are actually going.

Keep up the good work. ;)

no way - i can't make the stairs modelled - its the map limit and
limit of the map system.

Well how small is this limit and can it be 'up'ed? Heck I've seen alot of other engines with a much more complex amount of polygons being used. And they handled well on my old 566 Celeron w/ 128MB of RAM. ie. Quake 1.

It just seems that stairs are big enough to make a rather signifigant effect if included in the 'real' 3D effect.

Goliatus
13-01-2004, 04:52 PM
just another lazy programmer waitning for miracle :P

JernejL
18-01-2004, 10:21 PM
sorry.. but i won't use any complex polygon soups - anyone that played
gta1 knows what i am talking about, this is a game for pure fun not a
benchmark game like quake 3..

altrough i will consider about bump mapping - the effect would just simply
make the game amazingly more detailed, and don't worry about the fps
the pics are made on a P2 celeron 366 and a geforce4 - it is the slow cpu..

at my other programmer it ran over 300 fps.. and i will limit this to
30fps at the end.

Goliatus
20-01-2004, 02:45 PM
sorry.. but i won't use any complex polygon soups - anyone that played
gta1 knows what i am talking about, this is a game for pure fun not a
benchmark game like quake 3..
GTA1 poor graphics or messy C/C++ syntax were not intended to be cool. Poor hardware in those times. Now people buy new hardware and expect more work from programmers. Dont worry about to complex scenes. Real problem are not number of triangles but fillrate so if you add few more triangles framerate wont go down.

JernejL
20-01-2004, 08:28 PM
sorry.. but i won't use any complex polygon soups - anyone that played
gta1 knows what i am talking about, this is a game for pure fun not a
benchmark game like quake 3..
GTA1 poor graphics or messy C/C++ syntax were not intended to be cool. Poor hardware in those times. Now people buy new hardware and expect more work from programmers. Dont worry about to complex scenes. Real problem are not number of triangles but fillrate so if you add few more triangles framerate wont go down.

thats exactly the problem - the game generates all the geometry from cube
map at runtime, i tried using pre-made display lists for all map cubes, but the
fps was cut into half.. vierd indeed!

the hardware is also my problem - i have poor hardware, 5 years old computer!

holybyte
20-01-2004, 10:07 PM
[..] GTA1 poor graphics or messy C/C++ syntax were not intended to be cool. Poor hardware in those times. Now people buy new hardware and expect more work from programmers. [..]

Do you enjoy a game only because it uses the latest 3d hw features ?

WILL
21-01-2004, 05:32 AM
I don't know what level you're engine runs on, but Quake 1 was quite simple in design, but it it rran rather fast for it's level of hardware it was ment to run on.

Then again, I'm no 3D graphics expert so I cannot tell if more poligons or faces, etc will effect what, but I'm sure that a few more values for natural effect won't hurt it that much.

Then again the other imitated method could work too. What is you're hardware again?

:) I have a x2 AGP with 8 MB of memory(ATI MOBILITY-1 Rage). Now thats old. :)

Goliatus
21-01-2004, 03:54 PM
[..] GTA1 poor graphics or messy C/C++ syntax were not intended to be cool. Poor hardware in those times. Now people buy new hardware and expect more work from programmers. [..]

Do you enjoy a game only because it uses the latest 3d hw features ?
Of course not. I'm not 3denginomaniac as You probably think. However I think that it is better to write game which uses not DDraw but DX9. On modern hardware D3D is much faster than DDraw. Think about players :wink:

holybyte
21-01-2004, 07:38 PM
Ok.. i agree todays 3d apis are faster than DirectDraw. I don't damn that technical view on gamemaking, no i'm interested in technical aspects too. Programming AI, adjusting player input or creating good textures/drawings /animations is important too.

Goliatus
21-01-2004, 09:08 PM
But saying that "i cant add stairs because of high polycount and low framerate" is a bit funny. Tesselation doesnt decrease framerate because it doesnt change fillrate. Key are details. In older games graphics with better sprites were advantage. Delfi should add more details to his game(?) graphics.


Programming AI, adjusting player input or creating good textures/drawings /animations is important too.
Yeah, and always key are details in game control or other gameplay elements. "Standard games" are not cool :))

JernejL
21-01-2004, 10:48 PM
the game is made with opengl..

i will repeat what i said; this is a simple game, made to be fun.

i will repeat the thing #2: the geometry in other games is read from file,
here all the info for one block is taken from a 3D grid and
each cube face has texture number, rotation, flip and transparent numbers.
and now i generate geometry for this thing at runtime, thats why my fillrate
is slow and would be even slower just because you want stairs to be
completely 3D..

Traveler
22-01-2004, 09:48 AM
I've been following this thread for some time now and I think the project is quite cool. The pas couple of posts however are all about those stairs, something that is completely not interesting at all if you ask me. It's just a detail, compared to the stuff Delfi is yet to do. There still is a very long way to go. Working on such details so early in the project is not only time consuming but give very little results.

Anyway, plz do keep up the work and I hope we can see a couple new shots soon.

Goliatus
22-01-2004, 01:53 PM
i will repeat the thing #2: the geometry in other games is read from file,
here all the info for one block is taken from a 3D grid and
each cube face has texture number, rotation, flip and transparent numbers.
and now i generate geometry for this thing at runtime, thats why my fillrate
is slow and would be even slower just because you want stairs to be
completely 3D..
You can generate it once and put in to some arrays of vertex buffers(not sure how this is called in OGL api). If changes its rotation or flip then just refresh part of generated data. Your fillrate is ok, but you spend a lot of time for generating same things RT.

lithander
23-01-2004, 10:57 AM
Not all people think that dx9 graphics are vital to have fun with a game. Why are emulator for atari, nes etc so popular? Not, because of the graphics, that for sure!

Delfi, don't worry to much about the technology. At least you're doing stuff and are not just talking about what *could* be achieved...
High-End Graphics are an eye-catcher but it's the gameplay that hooks you up with a game.

-lith

Goliatus
23-01-2004, 11:21 AM
Improving gfx means destroying gameplay?

lithander
23-01-2004, 01:32 PM
No! But when programming a game improving gameplay should have priority over improvoing gfx!

The problem why so many people finish so few games, in my eyes, is that they want to much. You'll never be able to compete with the 5.000.000$ budget games on the shelves technology-wise. So why bother trying? Create a good little game, with graphics serving the gameplay, not the game beeing an interactive tech-demo. Or write a tech-demo from the start!

If Delfi's approach doesn't support stairs and if he states that they are not significant for his gameplay, why should he invest precious time finding a way to put them in? Just because it's possible?

-lith

Goliatus
23-01-2004, 01:42 PM
If Delfi's approach doesn't support stairs and if he states that they are not significant for his gameplay, why should he invest precious time finding a way to put them in? Just because it's possible?
That's his choice to not improve skills :P Surely that is not his last project :wink:

JernejL
23-01-2004, 08:35 PM
the website:
http://www.infofeast.com/delfi/TDC/

you wanted screenshoots..

showing off with particle system:
http://www.infofeast.com/delfi/TDC/tdcparticles.jpg

testing blood particles:

before:
http://www.infofeast.com/delfi/TDC/bloodstuff.jpg

after:
http://www.infofeast.com/delfi/TDC/betterblood.jpg

the map system with transparency and slopes, remember - this is without depth buffer ;)
http://www.infofeast.com/delfi/TDC/dsi_tdc_screen.jpg

well sure i will implement more features (including graphics) later
but first i need to finish the particle system and make new text
output system - as i seem to have "****ed" the one i made at the beginning.

WILL
23-01-2004, 09:41 PM
Well it's looking pretty darn good so far Delfi. GeForceFX4 isn't a bad card to develop on either. ;)

I cannot remember did you mention if you were planning on making a Demo or Shareware version before?

Goliatus
23-01-2004, 09:46 PM
the map system with transparency and slopes, remember - this is without depth buffer
Turn zbuffer write/read on and render geometry front2back. You will get some serious framerate increase :wink:

JernejL
26-01-2004, 10:42 PM
the map system with transparency and slopes, remember - this is without depth buffer
Turn zbuffer write/read on and render geometry front2back. You will get some serious framerate increase :wink:

you mean zbuffer with vierd settings is faster that no zbuffer at all?

Goliatus
27-01-2004, 07:19 PM
Overdraw kills fillrate of gfx card. Zbuffer main function is to eliminate this overdraw.

Alimonster
27-01-2004, 08:13 PM
Overdraw kills fillrate of gfx card. Zbuffer main function is to eliminate this overdraw.
Yep. The easiest example for this is as follows...

Imagine you want to draw, say, 10 rectangles over the same place in the screen, but at different z values. If you draw without a zbuffer then you'd have to do it back-to-front (painter's algorithm) to get your image, probably. This would result in you drawing the furthest away rectangle, then the next one, and so on -- in other words, you'd write each affected pixel 10 times over.

However, with a zbuffer, you'd do it front-to-back. In this case, the pixels of the first rectangle would be checked against the zbuffer value and the test would say "write these pixels". You update the zbuffer values for the area covered by the first rectangle and also the pixels covered. The next rectangle would result in the same area being checked -- but the test would say "do not update the pixels here" because they're further away and will be obscured by the closest rectangle already drawn. Neither the zbuffer nor the colour buffer needs to be updated. This continues, so in the end you're not drawing the area 10 times over. See why this is a good thing? :)

Of course, remember that the zbuffer is in hardware (otherwise it'd be pretty bloody slow). Using a depth buffer is quite likely to give a speed up (just remember to deal with translucent polys by going back-to-front with depth compare on but depth writing off).

Anyway, refer to the first page for a possible solution to your stated zbuffer dodginess (maybe z-fighting).

Also, keep up the good work mate!

JernejL
29-01-2004, 08:51 PM
so i should draw everything front - to - back but if
i encounter translparent tile i need to turn off depth writing?
how do i do that?

Goliatus
30-01-2004, 09:06 AM
First draw not transparent stuff front to back with zbuffer write/read and then draw transparent stuff back to front with only zbuffer read on.

Paulius
30-01-2004, 11:13 AM
I think what you wanted to know was:
reading:
glEnable(GL_DEPTH_TEST);
glDisable(GL_DEPTH_TEST);
writeing:
glDepthMask(GL_FALSE);
glDepthMask(GL_ENABLE);

JernejL
30-01-2004, 09:33 PM
well i just found out - that the game can't use any zbuffer
because it will draw corruptedly - imagine a 2d billboard "car"
sprite on a slope - it goes trough it and thats not what i want..

Paulius
31-01-2004, 11:24 AM
Why not decrease the sprite's z value as it goes up the slope, or you coul'd draw your sprites with depth testing off.

JernejL
02-02-2004, 08:48 PM
Why not decrease the sprite's z value as it goes up the slope, or you coul'd draw your sprites with depth testing off.

for the first i can't because it would go trough the car
but for second it would waste too much switching and asm code would go nuts..

it doesn't matter much - as the renderer will run its own thread from the
game that will be limited to 20 or 30fps (still thinking about it)

and look - the game now runs on 80FPS - normal conditions on a P2 366
hey! that is something, isn't? on better machines i say the fps will blow the
heatsink off the cpu :D

JernejL
05-05-2004, 07:24 PM
i'm still alive, and so is TDC!!

haha!!

tux
11-05-2004, 06:46 PM
screenshots! :D

WILL
11-05-2004, 10:16 PM
Yeah, this seems like such a neat game. Screenshots or some kind of update would be cool.

JernejL
22-05-2004, 10:15 PM
Yeah, this seems like such a neat game. Screenshots or some kind of update would be cool.

i'm working on this game alone, it goes slow, but i will provide new
screenshoots soon.

JernejL
07-06-2004, 07:57 PM
boom effect?

http://www.infofeast.com/delfi/PNP/TDC/tdcware.jpg

WiZz
07-06-2004, 08:11 PM
very nice :)

tux
08-06-2004, 01:50 AM
wow thats coming along very well :) looks great!

WILL
12-06-2004, 05:20 PM
Hmm... I think a small demo might be in order. ;)

Looks pretty good, though hard to tell from a static image. I'd say that if it grows quickly in size form it's first appearance that'll add more realisim to it's effect.

Black smoke durring and after the actual explosion will be needed for realisim to. ;) Depending on the kind of fuel for the object exploding more or less(even none with some devices, ie grenades and explosives for demoshing buildings) will be required durring the original plume. Rule of thumb: You'll always have black smoke, if even a little, but you may sometimes not have any flame.

I've seen lots of explosions first hand in my carrer, so maybe I can help with your tweeking?

This game of yours is getting rather exciting to see come together. Keep up the good work. 8)

JernejL
12-06-2004, 07:05 PM
i have gotten some better explosions generated with 3dsmax 6,
they are a lot better and do have black smoke ;)

i am doing speed-ups on low-level map rendering and i
am triying to get rid of ALL delphi vcl, because the game
will be in final form compiled with delphi and kylix for
windows and linux and with freepascal for amiga, apple and others (!)

also, i made up some better file formats for texture packs for the map
that will enable usage of bump-mapping and light-maps ;)

WILL
12-06-2004, 08:20 PM
MAX 6 is awesome! ;) I only have 5, though. :?

Awesome, can't wait for a demo. What you gonna use for music?

tux
09-10-2004, 01:26 PM
any news on this? :D

WILL
19-10-2004, 12:34 AM
Wow! 2521 views... :shock:

This is by far the MOST popular game in this entire site. This thread alone practically doubled the fame of that of Horrorween.

Seriously, you've gotta have an update kicking around. :)

noeska
28-10-2004, 12:37 PM
is delfi's site gone?

JernejL
13-11-2004, 06:36 PM
Wow! 2521 views... :shock:

This is by far the MOST popular game in this entire site. This thread alone practically doubled the fame of that of Horrorween.

Seriously, you've gotta have an update kicking around. :)

heh i AM kicking around the game with a new map renderer
and physics engine.. just wait for it, it is difficult to do such project alone..

this is temp site for TDC:

http://www.if-hosting.com/delfi/PNP/TDC/index.htm

http://www.if-hosting.com/delfi/PNP/TDC/tdcware.jpg

realy any help with coding would be more than needed :)

JernejL
13-11-2004, 06:53 PM
here is a view on new renderer:

http://www.gtatools.com/temp/tdc_map_mess.jpg

special blocks don't draw yet.. i am working on it, the cubes
are now actual 3D objects and can be manipulated easily
with effects like map buildings bending (cant't find any useful
usage to this but speed will improve a lot! ).

Traveler
14-11-2004, 03:15 PM
... is the city beeing bombarded? All we see is explosions and no cars/people? :D

Seriously though, its beginning to look real nice! Please do keep the updates coming!

WILL
14-11-2004, 08:06 PM
I've posted a little news item on DelphiGamer to comemorate the launch of the TDC site. And said that you are looking for help if anyone is interested. Hopefully this will draw in some extra interest for the project.

JernejL
15-11-2004, 06:46 PM
I've posted a little news item on DelphiGamer to comemorate the launch of the TDC site. And said that you are looking for help if anyone is interested. Hopefully this will draw in some extra interest for the project.

thats ok but that email is dead, use new one in profile.

WILL
16-11-2004, 03:57 AM
ok I made an edit to my news post fixing the mistake...

JernejL
24-11-2004, 08:31 PM
nobody wants to help, should i opensource it or something?

warning: this code is REAL mess and is optimized for D4!

JernejL
26-12-2004, 07:03 PM
uhh.. you could have told me that you moved the forum with merging the
sites too, and not i had registered another user name, and then i fugured
that this is same delphi-gamer forum lol..

basicly if you will have luck you will be able to play top down city by end
of this or start of next year, i'm implementing newton physics engine,
upvector allows me to do nice proper 2d objects with physics.

the map system got rewritten, few times i wanted to use "proper" modelled
3d maps, but i finally sorted out some important problems, and found some
others ( texture loader will be under attack soon )

basicly merry x-mas (i'm a but late eh?) and a happy new year!

no screenshoots this time :P

maverick
10-01-2005, 07:40 PM
Hehe, hi there! :)

I told you that the game is really awesome! :P :P 8)

When can we expect new screenshoots? =]

JernejL
10-01-2005, 09:56 PM
Hehe, hi there! :)

I told you that the game is really awesome! :P :P 8)

When can we expect new screenshoots? =]

soon, very soon, i'm doing on implementing physics (Newton)

then i'll be able to move character around..

JernejL
06-02-2005, 07:54 PM
hi, are there any developers willing to help me with this project?

M109uk
07-02-2005, 11:45 PM
hi, are there any developers willing to help me with this project?


Im up for helping, but beware my artistic skills are VERY limited :) depending on what you need help on..

JernejL
23-02-2005, 10:22 PM
http://www.gtatools.com/temp/realcubeintdc.jpg

- above: newton is working in TDC :)

JernejL
25-02-2005, 08:28 PM
http://www.gtatools.com/personal/tdc/tdcware.jpg

this time the geometry is created at runtime instead of using pre-serialized geometry :)

hey, a suprise!!!!!!!!!!

DEMO:

http://www.gtatools.com/Personal/TDC/TDC DEMO 3.rar

it took a while to get working demo right?

well people on #PGD had been given few demos already :P

Robert Kosek
25-02-2005, 08:31 PM
Here's a fixed url, you didn't fully enclose the other: http://www.gtatools.com/Personal/TDC/TDC DEMO 3.rar

Nice work! I'll check it out.

JernejL
26-02-2005, 06:07 PM
oh no, download again new version that features.. a car sprite! duh..

edit:

your opinions please?

Traveler
27-02-2005, 12:24 PM
That's pretty good already! I'm getting a comfortable 700+ fps.

Too bad I can't really drive yet, was kinda hoping for that.
One odd, but humerous thing I discovered was that the car shrunk slowly after moving over the water, till it was nothing more than a miniscule blue dot on my screen. :)

Keep working though, you're definitely on the right track!

tux
27-02-2005, 12:29 PM
One odd, but humerous thing I discovered was that the car shrunk slowly after moving over the water, till it was nothing more than a miniscule blue dot on my screen. :)

thats because it fell off the map

Traveler
27-02-2005, 02:08 PM
thats because it fell off the map
I understand, but the thing is I was able to go back to land and 'drive around' for at least another 2 minutes.

tux
27-02-2005, 02:39 PM
my guess is, delfi draws the car sprite above everything else

JernejL
27-02-2005, 08:19 PM
my guess is, delfi draws the car sprite above everything else

thats becasue it was implemented around the usual renderers like the
one for particle engine and the engine has no depth buffer.. so that is really
the reason for the graphical glitch and the FPS speed ;)

don't worry, i've got the car rendering and car system done properly already ;)

see the updated screenshoot for more cars ;)

JernejL
10-03-2005, 08:24 PM
there are capable programmers here but nobody wants to help this project
that is successful already, it is just going too slow, thats why i need help..

JernejL
15-03-2005, 08:39 PM
wtf nobody again??

M109uk
15-03-2005, 11:37 PM
Heya Delfi,

What do you need help on, graphics, sound, physics, world design, etc..??

JernejL
17-03-2005, 07:47 PM
- newton physics engine help- implementing a raycast car
- implementing soft stencil shadows

this is all for now, any voluneteers?

i'm in #pgd to talk..

Paulius
18-03-2005, 08:55 AM
You can?¢_Tt have stencil shadows for sprites, it only works for closed meshes. Why bother with a physics engine that?¢_Ts confusing for you, why not make simple physics yourself?

JernejL
18-03-2005, 08:48 PM
You can?¢_Tt have stencil shadows for sprites, it only works for closed meshes. Why bother with a physics engine that?¢_Ts confusing for you, why not make simple physics yourself?

they should work for static world, but my static world has also transparent faces like fences..

about physics engine - if i knew how to i would!

JernejL
11-08-2005, 11:43 AM
boo, i was a little busy working on other things but i found quite some time to work on tdc and map editor:

http://www.gtatools.com/temp/tdcmapeditor.jpg
http://www.gtatools.com/temp/tdcshadows.jpg
http://www.gtatools.com/temp/cmped_shadows.jpg
http://www.gtatools.com/temp/CMPED3.JPG
http://www.gtatools.com/temp/CMPED2.JPG

anyone wants to be a part of history? help me then!

edit: if pics don't work go and copy the urls into another window..

Traveler
11-08-2005, 01:45 PM
:shock: Wow! That looks really nice! I wish my engine was already that far! I was wondering though since everything is made out of blocks, how are you going to implement things like trees, streetsigns and stuff. (Oh and plz DONT make it like you can drive them down as that's just plain silly).

Again, really nice work! Keep it up!

(And sorry can't help you become part of history, as I have my own plans for taking over the world 8))


PS. firefox users, to view image: -> rightclick -> view image

Robert Kosek
11-08-2005, 04:06 PM
That's awesome! Big improvement since I checked last... nice!

JernejL
11-08-2005, 08:00 PM
:shock: Wow! That looks really nice! I wish my engine was already that far! I was wondering though since everything is made out of blocks, how are you going to implement things like trees, streetsigns and stuff. (Oh and plz DONT make it like you can drive them down as that's just plain silly).

Again, really nice work! Keep it up!

(And sorry can't help you become part of history, as I have my own plans for taking over the world 8))


PS. firefox users, to view image: -> rightclick -> view image

simple, trees will be simply made of cube with top texture to resemble a tree like in gta1 :)

BojZ
03-09-2005, 10:40 AM
Looks great!

Keep the spirit. =]

BojZ

JernejL
20-10-2005, 09:23 PM
oh look, i'm still here, things are happening and animations are under construction, so is AI and car / object physics, i'm going to try porting this to SDL (because lazarus that other day decided that it doesn't like my project anymore because it became so sophisticated for it to be able to link it together).

i'm still searching for help, contact me by:

MSN Messenger (msn only, email won't be answered) stdcall@volja.net
EMAIL use: jernejcoder [A] gmail.com

what i need help with is vehicle dynamics (newton physics engine), speeding things up or are interested in porting to other platforms etc..

savage
25-10-2005, 07:18 AM
Thanks for the update Delfi, I'll post your call for help on the news page in the hope that someone contacts you. Keep up the good work.

JernejL
31-10-2005, 06:46 PM
Thanks for the update Delfi, I'll post your call for help on the news page in the hope that someone contacts you. Keep up the good work.

I'm still waiting for this to happen :roll:

savage
31-10-2005, 08:32 PM
I'm still waiting for this to happen :roll:

Oops totally slipped under the radar. Appologies for the delay! It's has been posted as a news item.

On the car physics side, can I suggest you contact Sascha Willems (http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=668) as he is the resident Newton expert.

JernejL
01-11-2005, 11:15 PM
I'm still waiting for this to happen :roll:

Oops totally slipped under the radar. Appologies for the delay! It's has been posted as a news item.

On the car physics side, can I suggest you contact Sascha Willems (http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=668) as he is the resident Newton expert.

Thanks, i'll post some new images and a new demo here:

This demo has some movement, action and i changed many things :)
http://www.gtatools.com/temp/TDC%20DEMO.rar

here are some new screenshoots to show that actors ingame actually have "some brain", well they aren't really that smart but they can usually kill their target, altrough they aren't capable of pathfinding yet, run the demo and look around.

http://www.gtatools.com/temp/tdc01.jpg
http://www.gtatools.com/temp/tdc02.jpg
http://www.gtatools.com/temp/tdc03.jpg

controls for demo:
right shift - switch weapons
right ctrl - fire weapon
arrows - move
enter - find and enter a nearby car
/ * - camera zoom
- + - drop some cars from the air (if they freeze in air add some more so they touch and fall)
F1 - debug physics geometry
F2 - debug display
F3 - processing speed histogram

have fun with it and try not to break it ;)

known issuses:
- if you get no picture or crash be sure to post here a screenshoot of the error, some known errors were fixed in this demo
- it will not work properly without hardware acceleration using windows GDI, this is windows bug, a workaround can be made but i won't attempt to fix this since it doesn't run at acceptable speed without at least Riva TNT2 gfx card

notes:
- TDC runs fine under linux using WINE - tested (but not by me)

Enjoy, and please let me know if you can help me with the project.

Crisp_N_Dry
02-11-2005, 05:07 PM
Nice demo, I've been looking forward to playing this one since it was first announced. Love the flame effect. Are you using frame based movement since movement seems slow when zoomed out compared to when zoomed in. If not then perhaps you've got a multiplier that needs balancing. Well done on the frame rate btw, average 300fps on my Athlon 2800/1gb 400mhz/Geforce 5800. BTW, no error messages.

JernejL
02-11-2005, 07:09 PM
Nice demo, I've been looking forward to playing this one since it was first announced. Love the flame effect. Are you using frame based movement since movement seems slow when zoomed out compared to when zoomed in. If not then perhaps you've got a multiplier that needs balancing. Well done on the frame rate btw, average 300fps on my Athlon 2800/1gb 400mhz/Geforce 5800. BTW, no error messages.

Yes, it uses frame dependant movement for most of input, but animations and counters are FPS independant, the game should kinda behave properly on 450 FPS without vsync, but not the cars - those still need a lot of work and slide around like ice cubes :) still fps independant movement isn't a top priority right now since i have other parts to take care of first. And hanks for the feedback :)

Traveler
02-11-2005, 08:53 PM
I too tried it. The whole thing ran a bit too fast for my taste tho. Especially when driving a car. Fps avaraged around 900. I imagine this to be even higher at fullscreen.

In any case, it does begin to look really good. Be sure to keep it up!

tronied
06-11-2005, 12:04 AM
Excellent work... it looks fantastic what you have done. Though I have to agree with the person above. I was struggling a bit with the speed as I was getting 1800+ FPS... it reached 2300 in some places and although walking at 300mph is fun... its sort of hard to see whats going on. Keep up the good work :)

Traveler
06-11-2005, 11:56 AM
1800 fps?? That's really high. What video card do you have?

tronied
06-11-2005, 03:28 PM
7800 gtx... only single, not SLI. Im sure someone with an SLI setup would get more than me.

Huehnerschaender
06-11-2005, 03:59 PM
Hi there,

I tried your demo and here is some kind of summary:

It looks very nice, but I find it impossible to control player and car. I had approximately 1000 FPS in average and everything runs over the screen like haunted by the devil :-)

When playing the character, why can I push the car like its made out of paper?

When I walked into the water I got stuck.

When I drove the car, sometimes the steering stuck. Only thing I could do was driving back and forth, but steering didn't work.

I guess it depends on the FPS, but when I crashed the car into some building it bounced around like a snooker ball.

Ok, thats it so far :-)

Go on with your nice work, there is a lot of potential in this project.

Greetings,

Huehnerschaender

JSoftware
06-11-2005, 10:20 PM
gives me an access violation on startup :cry:

JernejL
09-11-2005, 09:24 PM
i've reworked the framerate issuse, the game will run on fixed on 60 fps now, i'll change that later to 50FPS and leave it as so, the engine will be completely linear and predictable for netplay, i am working on settings loader right now and will remake it so it will not crash anymore on some PCs.

EDIT - done:

Here is another beta, i made the game run with vsync ON, so if your driver will force vsync to off then this time nothing will move (opposite to what happened before you pressed forward and moved for half the world size) so be sure vsync is on since the game will need it, on around 75FPS the world simulation will work properly.

I also remade the settings loader that caused all those terrible crashes, so i would really appreciate if you can test the new version and tell me if it works properly, the new version also has some new things such as cars exploding and burning, the cars also behave more properly, and i added some other small tweaks :)

Download:
http://www.gtatools.com/temp/TDC%20DEMO.rar (2.25 MB)

some new stuff:
http://www.gtatools.com/temp/tdcexplodedcars.jpg
http://www.gtatools.com/temp/tdcexplodedcarsv2.jpg

JernejL
25-12-2005, 01:16 PM
I made an update - fixed bugs, added stuff and the best part: it has now random pedesterians wandering on the map!!

download new stuff from: http://www.gtatools.com/TDC/

http://www.gtatools.com/temp/tdcpeds2.png

WILL
25-12-2005, 09:07 PM
Nice! :)

Do they follow the rules of the road? Walk on sidewalks, etc... and random driving cars or stop lights yet?

JernejL
26-12-2005, 12:23 PM
they do appear only on sidewalks and try to find a random path, but the path finding is too stupid to be able to go somewhere, they usually just lock up into random direction after 2 steps and go straight lemmings-style :D ..

aniway, i implemented openal audio today, it is really going well, but does anyone know where could i get any good free sound effects?

WILL
26-12-2005, 01:25 PM
Hmm... why not give them(the people) random 'way-points' to head towards (allowing for some sidewalk sized deviation, of course) instead of a pure random direction. You could pick every street corner and/or major building enterance as the 'cardinal way-points' and they have to choose one other than the one they just had last. This type of way-point system might make them move about the maps nicer...

As for the free audio sites, I'd scroung some up for ya, but it's late. Perhaps if cairnswm doesn't beat me to it tomorrow, like he usually does ;), I'll try to find a link or so for ya.

JernejL
27-12-2005, 12:26 PM
it is not completely random, they have own waypath and they try to track pavement areas around them when they reach end of their path nodes they try to find new area around them and follow it, but it is buggy and i am not very talented ai programmer..

WILL
29-12-2005, 10:06 AM
Hmm... I forsee some more AI related articles being posted sometime in the near future. ;)

Well it's looking quite nifty so far! :)

JernejL
18-01-2006, 06:29 PM
Hmm... I forsee some more AI related articles being posted sometime in the near future. ;)

Well it's looking quite nifty so far! :)

i setup a new website for the game here:
www.gtatools.com/tdc/

i also uploaded a new version of demo with random pedesterians and audio (openal) :)

JernejL
22-05-2006, 01:57 PM
I fixed the website url, it is now http://www.gtatools.com/TDC/

I also worked on gui interface a bit (word wrap, color coding, line returns and stuff):
http://www.gtatools.com/temp/tdcguitexttest.jpg

Yes, it is still being worked on, and even a little help would be appreciated!!

savage
23-05-2006, 08:28 AM
Is the Linux Binary available?

JernejL
23-05-2006, 09:00 AM
I still havent come across doing that yet, but i have more free time in summer so you could expect a linux binary in near future. i guess it is only a matter of recompiling and changing linux api to use sdl, but if anyone wants to help with making linux version im taking all the help you can offer.

JernejL
06-07-2006, 11:09 PM
http://www.gtatools.com/TDC/OMGTDCTANK.jpg

A tank..

WILL
06-07-2006, 11:12 PM
Inspired by the 2006 PGD Annual competition no doubt? ;)

Very nice... I like the new cars too. Hey.. do you think we could have some advertizing space somewhere in your game on one of your billboards? ;)

Maybe some nice highway billboard right beside some car ad. :lol:

Huehnerschaender
07-07-2006, 10:53 AM
A tank..

This reminds me on something.... but I can't get it..... what was it? hmmmmm....


:)

JernejL
07-07-2006, 12:09 PM
Inspired by the 2006 PGD Annual competition no doubt? ;)

Very nice... I like the new cars too. Hey.. do you think we could have some advertizing space somewhere in your game on one of your billboards? ;)

Maybe some nice highway billboard right beside some car ad. :lol:

err, not really, tbh i didnt even try any of pgd competition games. it is just that every gta had a tank and so i had to put one in, and it looks cool :)

what do you mean with billboard space? sponsoring tdc? are you serious? i have made some spoof billboards for use but havent put any into game yet..

oh any does anybody have any experience with hunting bugs that randomly jump around? i have difficulty finding some bugs (which i suspect also prevents freepascal version to work properly) i get random runtime error 201 (range check out of bounds) i checked most of suspectable code but cant find any, are there any tools to assist with finding these? i also checked for memory leaks and there are none, what i think i need is a external debugging tool that loads delphi .map files, do you know of any?

jdarling
07-07-2006, 03:04 PM
MadExcept: http://madshi.net/ gives you a complete dump of the application space and gives you a nice decompiled version if you include the map file. There are others, but I don't like them as much :)

WILL
07-07-2006, 09:56 PM
Yeah, just use one of our competition posters. We don't mind at all. ;)

JernejL
27-07-2006, 03:15 PM
I cannot work on this fast enough.. i need help, any coders that like state machines out there?!?

some things you could work on:

TODO:
- Add vectorized roads to game, map editor and driving cars on the roads, train system (involves bezier curves)
- improve pedesterian wandering, add reactions (like OMG RUN AWAY FROM EXPLOSIONS AND CRAZY SHOOTING PEOPLE)

Please tell me if you are interested... if i get some help this game could be finished before 2007

EDIT: some screenshoots on my gui system:

http://www.gtatools.com/TDC/guia.jpg
http://www.gtatools.com/TDC/guib.jpg
http://www.gtatools.com/TDC/guic.jpg

That is - scrolling text memo element with word wrap and long-word-breaking! i will try to add window resizing and anchors in the future.

If the gui works well i could as well release it as opensource.. i cant remember any other GUI written for pascal than Jan's on sulaco.co.za, but that one is based on classes, mine doesn't need any delphi RTL to work, TDC is RTL independant (no wonder it is only 155 Kb ;) ).

jdarling
28-07-2006, 12:19 AM
Delfi, are you using a scripting engine in your game, or is it all hard coded? That info would help alot when deciding :). Personally I love working with Statemachines and AI in general. While I don't have alot of time, if your project uses a scripting engine I might be able to help out a bit. It would be nice to have something to show off, my work with/on Phoenix is slow, work on my own stuff is also slow, so working on a functional game would be a rewarding process I could manage to put some of my time into :)

JernejL
28-07-2006, 11:07 AM
Delfi, are you using a scripting engine in your game, or is it all hard coded? That info would help alot when deciding :). Personally I love working with Statemachines and AI in general. While I don't have alot of time, if your project uses a scripting engine I might be able to help out a bit. It would be nice to have something to show off, my work with/on Phoenix is slow, work on my own stuff is also slow, so working on a functional game would be a rewarding process I could manage to put some of my time into :)

There is plan for a scripting engine, but i cannot decide which to use(lua, custom or something else?), so right now the ai is all hard coded, i just kinda finished the AI for pedesterian wandering so they walk around the city normally which is nice! all of ai is supposed to be hard coded, scripting would just control and apply ai types to actors..

jdarling
28-07-2006, 12:42 PM
Well, as you can see by my postings on the forums, I am a huge proponent of Lua and keep comming closer to an automatic wrapper generator for it. If you want to work with it, I'd be happy to help on that account as well.

Wrapping all of your AI into hard code has its advantages and dis-advantages. I think that following your route makes sense, but I would leave the door open to also writing AI and other things into the scripting engine as well. This way players can create new patches for the game that you never even thought of.

Anyways, PM me or post if you want some help. As I said I am pretty sure I can devote some of my free time to the project.

JernejL
28-07-2006, 01:57 PM
Ok here is the plan: implementing LUA, but with some customizations to the scripting, to make it look more like pascal code, could that be done? i cannot build my own versions of lua, i dont have any compilers to do so..

jdarling
28-07-2006, 04:11 PM
Well, it would be ALOT of work to make Lua look like Delphi/Pascal. If you want Delphi/Pascal then look at Pascal Script for Delphi or DWSII. The reson to select Lua would be more of that its more comming in gamming then pascal.

JernejL
28-07-2006, 06:00 PM
Well, it would be ALOT of work to make Lua look like Delphi/Pascal. If you want Delphi/Pascal then look at Pascal Script for Delphi or DWSII. The reson to select Lua would be more of that its more comming in gamming then pascal.

i dont mean totally like pascal, just := assignments and stuff like that...

JSoftware
29-07-2006, 12:19 PM
you could use LakseScript. My homemade script language:

Easy usable syntax
Types are only hardcoded but easily defined
Supports recursion, subvariables, branching and full execution control

function f(x)
if x <= 1 then
f = x;
else
f = f(x-1)+f(x-2);
end;
end;

for i 1 to 10 do
print(f(i));
end;

will print the first ten fibonacci numbers

nah i'm just joking :wink: It's slow as hell. Too slow to be used in a game

JernejL
31-07-2006, 11:14 AM
i think i'll have to go for lua, but i'd like to have some changes, i think i'll have to recompile lua for this.

jdarling
31-07-2006, 01:15 PM
You will have to re-compile Lua, as well as play in some pretty nasty C code. Finding the proper place in the compiler to make your change will be the worst part. I don't play that deep in Lua, mainly because I like the way it functions now :), and if you do make := an assignment operator make sure and also allow for the standard = notation. This way you don't turn away existing Lua scripters.

Andreaz
01-08-2006, 06:03 AM
Actually, it would be much easier to make a precompiler instead of rebuilding lua, say you want begin end and := instead you could just do:

Script:=Replace(Script, 'begin', '{', [rfReplaceAll]);
Script:=Replace(Script, 'end', '}', [rfReplaceAll]);
Script:=Replace(Script, ':=', '=', [rfReplaceAll]);

Nothing fancy and may be quite limited this way, but imo it's the easiest way of doing it, and you dont risk breaking the lua wm or compiler.

tanffn
01-08-2006, 08:06 AM
That idea is way too simple to be used, where is the challenge in that!? :D

JernejL
01-08-2006, 09:27 AM
That idea is way too simple to be used, where is the challenge in that!? :D

actually, that is genious!! i'm going to try that as soon as i get lua working!!

JernejL
01-08-2006, 12:33 PM
I wonder, can i setup lua to make like.. 10 or 20 commands per one frame and then wait until next?

jdarling
01-08-2006, 12:52 PM
Remember that lua doesn't use {}'s :). The pre-compiler would work, but you can't use replace, this is simply due to the fact that if you have someone type:

local MyVar = 'This is a test string, in Delphi we use &#58;= in Lua we use ='
Your stuff just broke the output :). Of course a simple parser for this type of replacement would be easy enough. PChar the input, walk it with 1 look ahead, replace := with = when not in string ('' or "") or string block ([[ to ]]) or comment (-- or --[[ to --]], can also be --[[ to ]]--).

The code wouldn't take too long, and haddent thougth of it before :)


I wonder, can i setup lua to make like.. 10 or 20 commands per one frame and then wait until next?
With Co-routines this is possible, but the scripter has to remember to do it. You can also throw lua into Debug mode and do it that way, but its not a recommended thing. Take a look at the latest post I put up, and you will find two examples (simple) of co-routines along with the units I've cleaned up for FPC and Delphi.

JernejL
05-08-2006, 07:21 PM
http://www.gtatools.com/TDC/tdcpaths.jpg

vector based paths added to map editor (note on the image there is no odd-shaped roads but it is fully vectorized).

JernejL
15-08-2006, 11:06 AM
http://www.gtatools.com/TDC/tdc-jackhammer.jpg

Oh dear, a shotgun!

NecroDOME
15-08-2006, 11:21 AM
Looks nice!

savage
16-08-2006, 11:50 AM
Oh dear, a shotgun!

Cool! Can you drive that tank as well?

JernejL
17-08-2006, 07:18 PM
Oh dear, a shotgun!

Cool! Can you drive that tank as well?

ofcourse, but you can't shoot rocket from it yet.

JernejL
05-09-2006, 02:10 PM
I am looking for tallented programmers to help me translate a batch of C code into pascal for TDC, it is the newton game dynamics raycast vehicle module that i was waiting for so long time, just around 1000 lines. MSN (stdcall@volja.net) or / PM me if you'r interested.

JernejL
10-09-2006, 02:02 PM
ok, then i'm going to do it alone (in 2 months).

savage
10-09-2006, 02:26 PM
Might be an idea to actually post the C code.

JernejL
10-09-2006, 03:49 PM
ok, this source code is free for all, the tdcvehicle was written by sergey / cyko74 from newton physics engine forum. i am trying to translate it to pascal, so it would work, currently it doesn't work like it should due to errors, and my code is awful, yes :(

here is the original library C++ code, it uses some newton's headers like vector.h and matrix.h:

http://www.gtatools.com/temp/tdcrcv.rar

this is my translated version, it looks awful, and doesn't work as it is supposed to, uses glscene:
http://www.gtatools.com/temp/rcvtestapp.rar

if you get it working - it is a very stable raycast vehicle with gearbox and differential with stable realistic suspension, you can freely use it with your projects.

if there is anything missing tell me and i will upload missing stuff (if any).

edit: i think the translation is free of errors, but my translation of some matrix / vector functions isn't, converting weird code from C to pascal makes it look even weirder, so i think it is one of following functions:

function RotateVector(v: vector; m: Tmatrix4FC): vector;
function UnrotateVector(v: vector; m: Tmatrix4FC): vector;
function TransformVector(v: vector; m: Tmatrix4FC): vector;
function dgRollMatrix(ang: single): Tmatrix4FC;
function VectorSqrAbs(v: vector): Vector;

edit: and i added something to forcetorque callback:
force:= MakeVector(0, -5000,0);
NewtonBodyAddForce(body, @force);

this shouldn't be there originally.. but without it it seems that the car doesn't obey gravity because of translation bugs..

Nitrogen
11-09-2006, 04:21 PM
Looks good!

JernejL
13-09-2006, 08:27 PM
I've added visual damage applying to the cars, so now the sprite gets deformed by the pre-drawn damage deltas, i also added a lot of misc. particle effects (like the sparks going off the wall in this case):

http://www.gtatools.com/temp/tdcdeltas.jpg

http://www.gtatools.com/temp/tdccarcollision.jpg

Robert Kosek
13-09-2006, 09:05 PM
Wow! Looks really good, Delfi!

Traveler
14-09-2006, 11:59 AM
Indeed, it's looking better and better with each update :)

Plz, do keep it up.

JernejL
23-11-2006, 11:10 AM
BECAUSE i don't have any new demo to show yet (car physics nowhere where i'd like them to be) i worked a little on the frontend, so i made this cool frontend for configuiring things when you run it, the big blank space is going to be multi-monitor screen selection. oh, and the opengl logo spins in background!

http://www.gtatools.com/TDC/configtdc.jpg

NecroDOME
23-11-2006, 03:21 PM
Nice!

savage
23-11-2006, 05:12 PM
Nice!

I'll see your Nice! and raise it to a very Nice!

JernejL
07-12-2006, 06:52 PM
Just thought to let you have some news about the progress, i've made most of buttons in launch screen operational, that includes switching between window and fullscreen at runtime :) and trust me when i say windows multimon api is awful :P

S.Producer
08-12-2006, 07:14 AM
It looks like original GTA, but a little better. Good work.

JernejL
27-12-2006, 06:57 PM
I'll opensource this if few people are willing to work on it.

Chesso
08-01-2007, 02:36 AM
Delfi, do the best you can with it and then perhaps open source when you find some interest in continuing or improving it.

Like focus on the main things and throw it to someone else to fix any bottlenecks and such :P.

It looks really nice btw, I was reading this months ago back on older pages and looks like there is quite a bit done on it since then.

JernejL
08-01-2007, 07:36 AM
Delfi, do the best you can with it and then perhaps open source when you find some interest in continuing or improving it.

Like focus on the main things and throw it to someone else to fix any bottlenecks and such :P.


There's no "serious" bottlenecks.. it's well optimized, it even runs in no-shaders compatible mode on a geforce 4 mx440 on a playable framerate, all rendered in immediate mode :D



It looks really nice btw, I was reading this months ago back on older pages and looks like there is quite a bit done on it since then.

I've resumed some new work on it this year, and i fixed most of stuff i broke at the end of last year :D fixed the pedesterian logic and things like that. i had some trying with volume shadows but scraped them already because i couldn't figure out proper blending algorythm for them.

JernejL
12-04-2007, 09:09 AM
Implemented & testing explosion and shockwave, blast, etc.. a bit :D

http://www.youtube.com/v/BFtKPNuxW6s

Ofcourse the forces are a bit absurd and the actor should be killed on impact from such velocities.. i fixed that after making the video :D

WILL
12-04-2007, 02:29 PM
Nice video. :) It's the incredible bouncing man! :lol:

I've embedded it for ya!

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/BFtKPNuxW6s"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BFtKPNuxW6s" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

JernejL
19-04-2007, 05:56 PM
Just implemented real time dynamic stencil shadows, only in map editor for now, i'll port them to actual game soon:

http://www.gtatools.com/TDC/Development/shadowswork.jpg

http://www.gtatools.com/TDC/Development/advshadows.jpg

http://www.gtatools.com/TDC/Development/upclose2.jpg

NecroDOME
19-04-2007, 06:35 PM
Looks nice!!

Traveler
19-04-2007, 06:56 PM
I'll second that! Very impressive :D

JSoftware
19-04-2007, 06:58 PM
Looks nice!!
What he said :thumbup:

technomage
19-04-2007, 07:25 PM
Looks nice!!
What he said :thumbup:

What he said he said :eh:

JernejL
19-04-2007, 09:58 PM
Hehe, thanks, overwhelming feedback :D unfortunately i don't have such talent for other things, like physics that i have for rendering :roll:

Huehnerschaender
20-04-2007, 10:49 AM
As far as I know you are using sprites for cars and people, do you?

You should really think about using models for those objects. Your game scene looks a thousand times better when being watched from a slightly angular view like in your level editor!

savage
20-04-2007, 12:37 PM
This looks great.

You might also want to look at Pascal Mueller's site ( http://www.vision.ee.ethz.ch/~pmueller/wiki/CityEngine/Front ) for inspiration on procedurally generating buildings and cities. I'm quite impressed by his CityEngine stuff and think this sort of thing could also be used to populate a city with procedurally generated NPCs as well.

JernejL
20-04-2007, 01:31 PM
This looks great.

You might also want to look at Pascal Mueller's site ( http://www.vision.ee.ethz.ch/~pmueller/wiki/CityEngine/Front ) for inspiration on procedurally generating buildings and cities. I'm quite impressed by his CityEngine stuff and think this sort of thing could also be used to populate a city with procedurally generated NPCs as well.

That's not of any real use for such a game, such a generator might be useful for a flight sim game, but not something like this, where you need close-up detail. The editor i built is a powerful one and it's going to enable all sort of features, which is important since for multiplayer maps people will need all sort of custom maps which transfer fast. and my maps are not stored as geometry, but a kind of voxels.


As far as I know you are using sprites for cars and people, do you?

You should really think about using models for those objects. Your game scene looks a thousand times better when being watched from a slightly angular view like in your level editor!

That's something for the next version of the game, which will be fully 3D, but right now, i'm going to finish this using sprites, i can squeeze a lot more specific detail into sprites than 3d models, i want this game to be arcade with good graphics, and i think that's how it should be.

Chesso
20-04-2007, 02:19 PM
So Delfi, basically this initial version is very much 2D? and the next will be perhaps 3D (if you have time for it etc etc).

The 3D one perhaps would be different or a sequel? but well either way I really like the sound of it :).

Definitely keep us updated, Iv'e been keeping an eye on the thread here from time to time and your work is excellent to say the least, good luck!

WILL
20-04-2007, 04:11 PM
Hey Delfi, the game is really looking great! You can see a very vast progression from your humble beginnings to the much more advanced level of the engine now. :thumbup: for the hard work it's paying off, I'd say!

Also, does this game have a story or is it just a free-for-all?

Nothing wrong with that, just asking. It's a great demo for the engine if you decide to make a 'whole game' afterwards with a story and missions, etc...

JernejL
20-04-2007, 04:19 PM
A online game.. single-player only would be waste of the whole project (people would just play and dump it), i'm thinking of doing it something like mmo soldat crossed with gta :D

savage
20-04-2007, 10:00 PM
That's not of any real use for such a game, such a generator might be useful for a flight sim game, but not something like this, where you need close-up detail.

I could be wrong, but I don't think you've taken the time to actually look through the site. Have a look at this in engine screen shot...
http://www.vision.ee.ethz.ch/~pmueller/images/frontispiece_procedural_pompeii.hq.jpg ('http://www.vision.ee.ethz.ch/~pmueller/images/frontispiece_procedural_pompeii.hq.jpg')
[ click for enlarged version ]
and tell me where the lack of details is?

There are videos available here - http://www.vision.ee.ethz.ch/~pmueller/wiki/CityEngine/Documents

JernejL
21-04-2007, 10:12 AM
Ok, i admit i haven't checked the website completely, i just saw the website and it was familiar since i saw it few years ago, so i decided not to check it out further. this city generator may be useful for the next version of TDC, which i said will be fully 3d, and this which i'm building right now, is not storing maps as 3d geometry, but something similar to voxels, which allows very fast construction of cities in the editor.

savage
21-04-2007, 10:27 AM
This method could replace your 3D editor in the current version and then be part of your engine in the next version. But I realise that this it probably not a good I dea this far into your project. Best to finish this one and then desing and code the next version with a clearer vision, which you already seem to have.

WILL
21-04-2007, 08:57 PM
Well you could use the generator in your editor to create new cities at design time instead of load time. However it might also be useful to have a multiplayer setting for an auto-generated city instead of a pre-made one.

Would make the replay value of your game greater...

JernejL
21-04-2007, 09:08 PM
It'd be impossible to integrate that map generating library into current map format, and i'm keeping current map format, since it is a lot more productive for making custom maps, and i want custom maps to be easily created by anybody who wants to, without having to push any user at a 3d modelling package.

Angelo
28-04-2007, 01:48 PM
What about giving the environment ID's?

In example:
Warehouse is ID 1.
Lighthouse is ID 2.

Count the ammount of buildings/environment objects and make a random script that chooses numbers and place the chosen number at the spot.

In example:
Divide the map in 6x6 slices.
A1, A2, ... , B1, B2, ... F6.
Generate for each slice a number and that number is the ID of the environment object.

It's not a complete auto-generation, but it's very easy to create it and it will boost up your replay.

JernejL
28-04-2007, 03:42 PM
but this is supposed to be a multi-player game... have you seen a quake 3 or WoW or any other game (besides worms or C&C games (of which random maps suck) ) with random map generator?

JSoftware
28-04-2007, 03:52 PM
but this is supposed to be a multi-player game... have you seen a quake 3 or WoW or any other game (besides worms or C&C games (of which random maps suck) ) with random map generator?

Gangsters
C&C(I think the random maps are quite good :P )
Alpha Centauri
Can't remember the last one

WILL
28-04-2007, 04:36 PM
<strike>X-COM,</strike>(oops, I guess that one is just single player :?) AoE3, AoW1-3, Diablo 1&2...

JernejL
28-04-2007, 09:09 PM
Just NO.

And seriously, this isn't helping anyone, it is distracting me from doing things that this game really needs (like a new car physics module). if anyone wants a random map generator he can build one himself, ok?

WILL
28-04-2007, 09:37 PM
Saw the latest video, it was pretty nice. car bump and scrape noises and all. :)


Well if others have an interest would you release the map file specs? Might help promote your game to have a 3rd party Map Editor around. ;)


So to get more on topic of what you're doing for the game, whats left to do?

JernejL
28-04-2007, 10:34 PM
Saw the latest video, it was pretty nice. car bump and scrape noises and all. :)


Yeah, it drives, and audio, particle effects work, but the car itself drives and steers like a sponge :(



Well if others have an interest would you release the map file specs? Might help promote your game to have a 3rd party Map Editor around. ;)


Specs are no problem at all, but i even got a excellent map editor already, and i could let people build sort of plugins for it - it would make things much easier and error-proof.



So to get more on topic of what you're doing for the game, whats left to do?

particle system is almost golden, actor state machine still need few more states, gui is gold, with only few minor things to add, car dynamics need to be completely replaced for some enjoyable driving, and the rendering of sprites has to be changed to be much faster (got it all planned), there is also some graphics media that i need to add or replace, such as new, better, more detailed with more frames renders of actor animations, missing particle effects, like smoke, perhaps better fire sprites...

Basically, this topic here is what should be used for car dynamics in TDC, but i just simply cannot get the translated code to work properly (need your help people! ):
http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/viewtopic.php?p=33022#33022

As soon as that is done, and i implement cars driving on the roads, i'm releasing a gameplay demo, and then go implementing networking.

JernejL
01-07-2007, 10:27 PM
With posting this, i am expressing an extreme frustration, as up to now, i got almost no help whatsoever, i searched for the whole friggin web, it's impossible for me to get any serious reliable help on this project, it's like if the whole web has conspired against me.

Has anybody else had the same problem? how did you solve it? :/

p.s. that doesn't mean i'm giving up or something.. i'm still looking for people to help me with the project.

WILL
01-07-2007, 11:26 PM
Hey Delfi,

I think I've been there and back again myself. Taking a brief look back at my list; Cyber-Crisis, Subject 33, my old SkyBlast Engine game, etc... as examples. Finding help is hard.

I've made a post sort of in reflection of your situation along with my own and a few others on the site. I hope you find something useful in it: thread (http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/viewtopic.php?p=35972#35972)

JernejL
06-07-2007, 10:54 AM
HELP ME FINISH THIS PROJECT!!! with added extra bounty:

http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/viewtopic.php?p=36103#36103

WILL
06-07-2007, 04:21 PM
Why don't you try this;

1) Give a break down of all the remaining features/tasks left to complete your game.

2) Talk a little bit more about the inner-workings of the engine and what challenges you are facing still. If it's interesting someone might pitch in.

3) Make a full/proper job proposal in a post so that we can see that you are serious and that by working on your project we can expect things to progress in a somewhat organized manner.

4) Do a small tour around other forums with a general presentation of your game and above proposals.


I guarantee you'll get more A) feedback, B) interest in helping, and C) results than simply shouting out 'Help me!'. :)

Put forth the effort in organization and presentation outside of the actual game development it's self and you'll get about 10-25% of that back. This is the games scene/industry my friend. ;)


Oh and if you are planning on selling, etc... a design doc could help too.

JernejL
06-07-2007, 04:31 PM
Why don't you try this;

1) Give a break down of all the remaining features/tasks left to complete your game.


that's easy:
- car dynamics
- netcode
- porting code



2) Talk a little bit more about the inner-workings of the engine and what challenges you are facing still. If it's interesting someone might pitch in.


i'm going to setup a proper website soon and put up a developer's log, the developer's log goes back into 2003 or something, but was never public.



3) Make a full/proper job proposal in a post so that we can see that you are serious and that by working on your project we can expect things to progress in a somewhat organized manner.


Did that several times on gamedev.net, in old days even on devimg, flipcode.. and guess how much help did i find :(



4) Do a small tour around other forums with a general presentation of your game and above proposals.


did that already too, on several forums and websites (includes some old skool gta forums, gaming universe, gamedev, flipcode, devimg, etc..)



I guarantee you'll get more A) feedback, B) interest in helping, and C) results than simply shouting out 'Help me!'. :)


well, it's all described in the other topic.



Put forth the effort in organization and presentation outside of the actual game development it's self and you'll get about 10-25% of that back. This is the games scene/industry my friend. ;)

i have no real team, so there isn't much organization going on. but i'm planning to set up a website in near future.

WILL
06-07-2007, 06:07 PM
Why don't you try this;

1) Give a break down of all the remaining features/tasks left to complete your game.


that's easy:
- car dynamics
- netcode
- porting code

ok... now break that down further. This just makes me think, "oh ok" and not much thought goes into it. These by themselves only tell me there will be some car physics, networking and cross-platform code needed.

How about something more like this:

Car dynamics:
- simulate bumpping off curbs
- proper drag/drift effects
- simulate different alternator and gear configurations
- simulate air brake on buses
- etc...

Net code:
- server-host lobby
- multi-player syncronization
- online highscore system
- etc...

OS porting:
- Linux
- Mac OS X
- GP2X
- BeOS
- XBox 360
- WiiWare
- etc...

It doesn't have to be complete, but this gives us some idea of what you are going to be doing and if we know how to do this or what we can look up to get things started if we were interested.

Flesh out a full 'roadmap' for the project even. Diagrams and examples of what you want will improve your proposal too.




2) Talk a little bit more about the inner-workings of the engine and what challenges you are facing still. If it's interesting someone might pitch in.


i'm going to setup a proper website soon and put up a developer's log, the developer's log goes back into 2003 or something, but was never public.

Ok great, this will help. It's a definite step forward. It might be a good idea to include a set of forums for players to post bug reports suggestions. (so that they are NOT doing this in every other forum, plus you can also ignore them until you feel like taking them in. ;))

A section showing videos (from your YouTube account) and screenshots, preaching to the choir here, but it would be a BIG vacuum for attracting a larger user-base.

In addition to this reposting screenies and your videos (when you can --GameDev.net doesn't allow YouTube videos in their posts for whatever reason. boo GameDev! :P) help, but this stuff is more for the players than developers. But I guess you can get those too.




3) Make a full/proper job proposal in a post so that we can see that you are serious and that by working on your project we can expect things to progress in a somewhat organized manner.


Did that several times on gamedev.net, in old days even on devimg, flipcode.. and guess how much help did i find :(

I'd like to see these FULL proposals. :) I'm betting there are a few points we could improve upon. Presentation is key and it's also the most challenging thing to do effectively. I've read/listened to stories of how some of the most successful of indie companies have been rejected so many times based on good proposals alone.

Remember what I said in my last post 10-25% and thats not an exact figure, but more of a ballpark figure. So you can get way less or way more. (if your lucky) But you're more likely to get less. Sorry. :?




Put forth the effort in organization and presentation outside of the actual game development it's self and you'll get about 10-25% of that back. This is the games scene/industry my friend. ;)

i have no real team, so there isn't much organization going on. but i'm planning to set up a website in near future.

Not having a team is no reason to not be organized yourself. At least in one way or another. In fact I'd dare say it's reason enough to be MORE organized than if you did have a team. Not that you can be completely disorganized at all, but still.

If you are working alone, it is easy to get messy, but you have to fight that back every so often. Regroup and reorganize your plans into a form that suits your current situation.

My guess from what I've read of your thread here (and other places--yes I've been following your game's progress a bit) is that you've done a great job so far on your own, you have a working game engine with a lot of features and functionality, but your at the point where it is starting to drag into overtime and there are some things that you would like to do to finish it off, but are a little weak in the knowledge department on. How's my aim? ;)

What I would do myself, because I've basically been 'there' with one of my current projects, is regroup. Look at what you want to have in your end product. Write stuff down and create a detailed plan. Much like how I did above, but elaborate a bit more if you can. And see what exactly you need as far as manpower, time and the rest based on what you know now form the start of the project. Be realistic and honest about your estimates and leave a bit of breathing room too.

Once you have that done. Redo your proposal and include;

1) your DETAILED project plan (]Ahem, that said I'm going to start my write-up for my next project's design doc.[/size] :D

Chesso
03-01-2009, 04:57 AM
It's a bit old now, but I really would like to see more lol.

As always I would love to help, but I am scraping by learning the basics myself haha!

JernejL
03-01-2009, 05:22 PM
The todo list hasn't changed much in last 1.5 year.. but you can read some project "happenings" here: http://mathpudding.com/

Chesso
03-01-2009, 10:25 PM
Well it's still looking good, that 08 screenshot shows a bit of polish.

What type of things are you stuck and having trouble with at the moment? Or is there just a lack of time and such.

JernejL
03-01-2009, 11:03 PM
Well it's still looking good, that 08 screenshot shows a bit of polish.

What type of things are you stuck and having trouble with at the moment? Or is there just a lack of time and such.

Car dynamics and netcode.

JernejL
10-05-2009, 04:50 PM
Correction: just netcode now :D

chronozphere
10-05-2009, 06:00 PM
w0w.. do you mean you solved this problem??? :o

http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/forum/index.php?topic=4329.15

JernejL
10-05-2009, 06:12 PM
No, i wrote something new myself instead, here's a video of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ekceLilNmQ

User137
10-05-2009, 08:14 PM
Looks very nice 8)

chronozphere
10-05-2009, 10:54 PM
I second that. The real GTA2 feel. ;D

Wizard
11-05-2009, 06:32 AM
Wow, looks very good!! :)

arthurprs
11-05-2009, 12:57 PM
looks nice 8)

pjpdev
11-05-2009, 04:04 PM
Truly great man... Too bad you only squashed one dude. :(

:D :D :D