Kaftan's development thread of doom

[Kaftan Barlast]

I dont have the full SDK on my workstation, just a modeleviewer and some thingammabobs, so I cant take any sweet screenshots. I have been asking the programmers but they're keeping all the good stuff to themselves

 

 

And also, you know how it is when you dont want to show something until its really really really awesome

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

I dont have the full SDK on my workstation, just a modeleviewer and some thingammabobs, so I cant take any sweet screenshots. I have been asking the programmers but they're keeping all the good stuff to themselves

 

 

And also, you know how it is when you dont want to show something until its really really really awesome

 

I know exactly how it is... I'm sure I'll get to see something in engine at some point naturally, and when I do... I'll happily do an exchange .

Edited March 8, 2008 by @\NightandtheShape/@

[kirottu]

Well... THE FROGBOX IS IN!! Everyone loved it so much that we convinced the producer to allow me to make it. The animations are going to be cool as hell to do. Regarding personality, much of it is going to be in the behaviour and animations since the box will be quiet small. Not sure if its going to have a face or not

 

Uuuh! If the Frogbox poops make it

[theslug]

Are you able to disclose what sort of game this is going to be? Story and genre wise?

[Adam Brennecke]

Wednesday 27th of February

14:16 - After yet again struggling with DDS, we decided to go with ordinary *.tga files instead. It will take longer to load, but thats acceptable at this time. We also ran a test with a staggering 25,000,000 triangles (and diffuse, normal and specular maps) scene in our engine with a crappy graphics card and it can take it, which is pretty sweet. Obviously we're going to have to cut it down, but it means we can have a lot of objects on screen.

 

You know, I'll be shocked if the difference in load speed is ever felt in any sort of dramatic fashion. TGA is widely used.

 

DDS's only benefit is that it stores data in the same way as its stored in memory in DX, or if you want to use a 3D texture or Cube Map.

 

There's not very many reasons not to use DDS texture maps. It sounds like they are having issues with different DXT compressions and standardizing on how texture maps are generated.

[Kaftan Barlast]

Are you able to disclose what sort of game this is going to be? Story and genre wise?

 

It's a quirky third-person action/adventure game for PC and perhaps Xbox 360. It has the PC leaping between different classic litterary works that have been corrupted by a very naughty person, thwarting enemies and solving neat physics-based puzzles on the way

 

What we're working on now for the vertical slice/demo/whateveryamightcallit is the "Don Quixote" level.

 

 

 

There's not very many reasons not to use DDS texture maps. It sounds like they are having issues with different DXT compressions and standardizing on how texture maps are generated.

 

Photoshop is not a good way, that we have established. We'll probably write an app for automaticly converting TGA to the proper DDS format later on.

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

Wednesday 27th of February

14:16 - After yet again struggling with DDS, we decided to go with ordinary *.tga files instead. It will take longer to load, but thats acceptable at this time. We also ran a test with a staggering 25,000,000 triangles (and diffuse, normal and specular maps) scene in our engine with a crappy graphics card and it can take it, which is pretty sweet. Obviously we're going to have to cut it down, but it means we can have a lot of objects on screen.

 

You know, I'll be shocked if the difference in load speed is ever felt in any sort of dramatic fashion. TGA is widely used.

 

DDS's only benefit is that it stores data in the same way as its stored in memory in DX, or if you want to use a 3D texture or Cube Map.

 

There's not very many reasons not to use DDS texture maps. It sounds like they are having issues with different DXT compressions and standardizing on how texture maps are generated.

 

Artists not being able to get the desired response is good enough a reason as any! Going from TGA back to DDS isn't really that big of a deal.

 

Kaftan had mentioned they were having problems, is it not more sensible that progress is gained via a change in texture format? (even if its only temp), than to spend days upon days fiddling around trying to get a desired result and halting a projects progress? Such a problem can be resolved at a later date if so required, where time cannot be won back, an entire team on their first serious outing(which I assume this is), will suffer most likely enough set backs without adding another one to the list.

 

If it is a major problem, and for some reason DDS is a requirement, then a single solitary fellow can undergo the learning process and pass the knowledge along, the worst thing that will happen is someone will spend time converting textures, a dull job indeed, but much better than no textures working correctly.

[Adam Brennecke]

Wednesday 27th of February

14:16 - After yet again struggling with DDS, we decided to go with ordinary *.tga files instead. It will take longer to load, but thats acceptable at this time. We also ran a test with a staggering 25,000,000 triangles (and diffuse, normal and specular maps) scene in our engine with a crappy graphics card and it can take it, which is pretty sweet. Obviously we're going to have to cut it down, but it means we can have a lot of objects on screen.

 

You know, I'll be shocked if the difference in load speed is ever felt in any sort of dramatic fashion. TGA is widely used.

 

DDS's only benefit is that it stores data in the same way as its stored in memory in DX, or if you want to use a 3D texture or Cube Map.

 

There's not very many reasons not to use DDS texture maps. It sounds like they are having issues with different DXT compressions and standardizing on how texture maps are generated.

 

Artists not being able to get the desired response is good enough a reason as any! Going from TGA back to DDS isn't really that big of a deal.

 

Kaftan had mentioned they were having problems, is it not more sensible that progress is gained via a change in texture format? (even if its only temp), than to spend days upon days fiddling around trying to get a desired result and halting a projects progress? Such a problem can be resolved at a later date if so required, where time cannot be won back, an entire team on their first serious outing(which I assume this is), will suffer most likely enough set backs without adding another one to the list.

 

If it is a major problem, and for some reason DDS is a requirement, then a single solitary fellow can undergo the learning process and pass the knowledge along, the worst thing that will happen is someone will spend time converting textures, a dull job indeed, but much better than no textures working correctly.

 

yep those are good ideas. artists should always be working with uncompressed image files.

 

If texture memory is a concern during runtime (I have no idea what type of game this is), it would be best to figure out your texture pipeline earlier than later.

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

I've always meant to ask you Adam, what's your area of programming that you specialise in, or are you more of a jack of all trades?

[Adam Brennecke]

I've always meant to ask you Adam, what's your area of programming that you specialise in, or are you more of a jack of all trades?

 

More or less. Right now I'm doing animation gameplay programming on Aliens.

[Kaftan Barlast]

Lately, we've accomplished a ton of stuff on the tech side. Among the fancier stuff is multithreading(games goes fast on multicores) and rigid body physics(you can kick a ball into a pile of cans and theyll fly all over the place) and transparency shadows(leaves on tress casts realistic realtime shadows even though theyre really just flat squares with a texture on them).

 

 

And as always, the programmers realised that their shadow-thingie doesnt work on meshes with holes in them so now we have to revise every single piece of geometry we've done so far and fix them. Hooray!

Edited March 19, 2008 by SteveThaiBinh
Removed unpleasant image

[kirottu]

I thanketh thee Kafty for sharing insight on game development for us normies. It

Edited March 12, 2008 by kirottu

[theslug]

Yeah I enjoy this thread as well. I love development diaries, even of games that I have no interest in. It's just the front lines of the development cycle are pretty cool since art people are crazy or really annoying, or both.

[Kaftan Barlast]

Today our producer returned from Swedish Game Awards in Stockholm, with many stories of blatant ****tardism :D

 

-So, what do you think?

-Well, it would have been cooler on the PS3. Why dont you put it on the PS3?

-This is a Nintendo DS game, we would have to remake it completely for it to play on the PS3.

-No, you could just put it in there. It would make the graphics better.

-We would have to redo them completely and add alot of assets.

-No, the PS3 makes everything look good.

-So you're saying the PS3 itself creates the graphics?

-Yes?

[Hell Kitty]

Are you able to disclose what sort of game this is going to be? Story and genre wise?

 

It's a quirky third-person action/adventure game for PC and perhaps Xbox 360. It has the PC leaping between different classic litterary works that have been corrupted by a very naughty person, thwarting enemies and solving neat physics-based puzzles on the way

 

American McGee's Grimm?

[theslug]

This better have an awesome update Kaftan. You're late on payment.

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

Damn right slug...!

[Kaftan Barlast]

Im sorry, lads. But Ive got a cold and I have just spent the last few days playing vidogames and drooling like an idiot.

 

 

On the development front, there is a huge problem with exporting animations because somehow, our main characters nose and boobies just keep going all over the place. See, to make a character move, you first make a skeleton of sorts and then make the 3d model follow that skeleton. What we have here is some sort of bug that makes parts of the 3D model move randomly instead of following the skeleton.

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

I assume you've tried surrounding the mesh with a dummy... ?

[samm]

On the development front, there is a huge problem with exporting animations because somehow, our main characters nose and boobies just keep going all over the place.

Sounds funny. Vid?

 

It's cool to read some of a new dev's daily work.

[BIOShazard]

Have you tried different ways to export? That might help

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

Yeah kaftan, what methods have you attempted thus far?

[Kaftan Barlast]

My head is still all full of snot so Ive only spent about 2 hours in the office, but theres talk about using another exporter from max to the TV3D model viewer. However, it all workef fine when i exported another model thats also a biped with extra bones. So it could be something with the computer of the lad thats been doing the animation work on that character

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

I blame Max, I always blame Max, because it's always Max's fault! somebody probably forgot to reset and xform at some point.

[Kaftan Barlast]

And no matter how you try to escape max, it'll pull you back in! Because it seems 90% of all cool plugins and tools out there are more or less exclusive to Max. I think our SDK had tools for Maya aswell, but beyond that you have to write your own stuff.

 

It would be awesome to have XSI+Alienbrain, then things would just work so much better. A completely fluent art pipeline, asset management from heaven, a billion polys in the viewport, non-destructive editing and all that good stuff.

 

But one tool we do have that is sheer awesomeness is Crazybump! http://www.crazybump.com/ I dont normally try to push software on people but this is a friggin' killer app. It just blows every other image-to-normalmap tool clean out of the water. It doesnt beat projecting normalmaps from high-res meshes, but its close.

 

 

TODAY: back in the office from the cold.

 

0940 - the programmers cant get the collision detection to work on some of our models, so we have to chop them up into little bits and reassemble them in our nonexistant leveleditor. Could be worse, I suppose.

 

11:45 - I just heard that the programmers went binge drinking for two days while I was at home with the cold, so our pre-alpha didnt get finished on time. No one expected it to anyway, so thats not such a big deal.

 

12:14 - Lunch. Peasoup with pork and a banana.