Illusion

[Angelo]

Hi all,

Since a few months (roughly 4) I'm trying to rewrite GLScene, to have my own 3D engine.
So far I don't have too many troubles and it's still progressing.

Team:

I'm the only programmer and artist (if I may call myself so, although I don't deserve that name yet), my friend is the storywriter.
We call usself, team Illusion. I know, how original can we be...

Nontheless we are creating a game to promote ourselfes.

Project:

Story:
The holidays are coming, you, your wife and your 2 little children want to have a good time.
You want a luxurious hotel, your 2 children want to camp in the wood.
Naah, that can be too dangerous, with those wild animals.
But as stubborn as kids are, they want to go to camp in the forest, ok ok, you admit, the children won.
"Okay, we will go camp, but there are some rules, okey? First of all, do not go out of your tents while we are in! And never leave without us."
Your children nod, they are ok with these rules, they will have the time of their lifes.

Once in the forest you try to find a good spot, near a lake, which is not too deep.
You set up the tents, the children are happily playing, "relax, nothing is going on".

The first night... Nothing happens, everyone wakes up and is doing their things.
The children are perfectly listening, you can be proud at them.

The second night is different, there is something with the moon, the wind.
You hear weird sounds deeper in the forest.
Then you feel a hand on your shoulders, you are terrified.
"Are you coming to sleep my dear? You are too worried, I thought moms were always worried, relax honey".
Again you were frightened for nothing.
Then you go have some sleep.

In all of a sudden you wake up, the sounds are coming closer...
Your wife is gone, you hear your children screaming for help...
This can't be true, can it?

Gameplay:
The game will be 3d and in first player.
It's not one of those other million horror games, believe me.
We'll try not to use any blood, and the end will be different than you expect!!!


Well, I hope I didn't make too much promises, we'll do our best!

Thanks for reading (screenshots will follow as soon as possible),

Angelo.

[Angelo]

I've got a question...

Currently I'm working on a pc with these specs:
AMD Athlon 2400+
GeForce FX5200
1280 mb memory.

The terrain is counting around 102.000 triangles.
FPS is around 22.

My game is supposed to work on next gen hardware (I know, my oldie certainly isn't).
Should I tweak it a bit more (the graphics) or decrease it a bit?

[Traveler]

Hi, and welcome to PGD

Your story so far does sound promising! I'm interested to see where this is going to.

As for your question. You should ask yourself what your target audience is and then decide for yourself whether or not the hardware demands are too high.
That said, I don't think we can even give you a fair judgement, only by knowing the triangle count of the terrain, and not having seen more of your engine. For example, what about objects, shaders, or perhaps even physics? Are these implemented already as well?

Anyway, I'm looking foward to any screenshots.

[Angelo]

Thanks, I've been on this forum a while, but it was about time to register.

Hehe I hope I (and my team of course) can make it happen.

As I mentioned, the game will be for newer hardware.
So far, no objects in it, only rough terrain and water.
But I've decreased the viewdistance, which means it has to calculate less triangles.
This results in a FPS of 70 (with my hardware).

What I've done so far:

- Terrain rendering
- Fog
- Moving (with gravity) including jumping.
- Sky (with moving clouds)

And that was about it, I think.
Currently working on terrain/water.

But it can't match the Genesis Device Engine, that one is really... No words for it!

I'll post screenshots as soon as I think it will match my promises

[Angelo]

Update:

- Clouds have been removed ( They slowed down the engine way too much, first I have to find a better technique ).
- Moon added
- Polished terrain
- Viewdistance adjusted

Resolution: 1280x1024.

And here is the first screenshot (don't watch the box, it was for testing fog):


(Click to enlarge)


BTW: My friend tested it for me, he had 100 fps with I think a lil' bit better pc then mine...

[Traveler]

Looks good!

I'm not sure what your plans are, but I believe the fog is way too dense.
I like the tree a lot though.

[LP]

...My game is supposed to work on next gen hardware (I know, my oldie certainly isn't).
Should I tweak it a bit more (the graphics) or decrease it a bit?

If you are targeting next gen hardware (by "next gen" you mean DX 10 capable stuff? GeForce 8800 and so?), then you shouldn't worry about game running slow on GeForce FX 5200. This video card has such low fillrate that even though it supports pixel shader v2.0, its low performance makes shader code pretty useless. I've been quite amazed when my oldest Radeon 9000 with v1.4 shaders outperformed GeForce FX 5200 by more than 50% in frame rate.

[Angelo]

Thanks.

@Traveller: It just looks like that because there is too much light (It's supposed to be night).
So it will be a bit darker, but you might be right it's a lil' bit too dense, but that's just a matter of finding a balance.
There are things that are more important on my to-dolist.
I've been struggling with a few problems (just solved one), and it's still progressing.

@Lifepower: Yes I think you are right. I shouldn't be too worried, but if I can make it run well on a geforce FX5200 it will well on almost every computer.

I'm curious if the engine would be able to generate 1.000 trees or something...

Update:

- Intro possibility added
- Gamemenu with settings
Currently working on a tree builder (yes trees are important since it's in the forest!).

How many trees does an average forest have anyway?
I'm talking about a forest that will take +/- 1 hour walking from the one side to the other... (maybe I'm gonna make it a bit larger tho)

I was thinking about 1.000 trees, but it could be 10.000 aswell, I actually don't know...

[Angelo]

It has been a while since I have posted in this topic.

I would just let you know that this project is currently paused.

I really have no idea why, but somehow I have had enough of it, so Ill let this project rest, untill I found the spirit again.
In the meanwhile I have been busy creating a Pascal Network Library...
And I am not sure if I will release it or not, since it only is my style and the most would find it a so called amateuristic application.

I havent been busy with the library for nothing, it will be used in my next project "TunerZ".
This project is currently under development and I hope I may announce it one time...

At the moment I am doing the documentation and logo's and database structure, etc.

I will let you know how things are going!