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Update 10/27/12
Topic Started: Oct 27 2012, 03:18 PM (286 Views)
Lucas
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Chief Programmer

Afternoon everyone :)

This week's progress was quite substantial.

First, I installed the new crafting panel, redid the crafting system, and re-sized the items and item support systems for the new cell sizes. While I was working with those systems, I also greatly improved the item system. Now, instead of having to code every single item in the game, a single file has to have the item and its properties declared in it. This will great down on item content addition by an exponential amount and is a huge time saver.

Next, I worked on the FPS system, adding a frametime display option aswell (since frametime is a better indicator of FPS for application performance). I also fixed a few bugs here and there, and tweaked the model loader some.

Then, I worked on the fun stuff...Vertex Buffer Objects (VBOs). Because FPS tests were still pretty weak with the new Display Lists (500k verts yielded only 60 FPS), I wanted to get the game to run even faster. The first thing I had to do was re-work the model loader; I removed flat lighting and face data, and reorganized the model data file into a format that could be used by VBOs. This file re-write also halved the file size of models. I also converted the loader to use only triangles instead of triangles and quads. This is because a mix, while easier to deal with sometimes modelling-wise, makes for a slower application. Using only triangles will make a significant difference in performance in the future. I then finished off my simple VBO implementation in my testing environment. While it was better than display lists (500k verts yielded 130 FPS) I was still not satisfied. I spent quite a few hours optimizing the code in order to get the following:

Posted Image

50 million vertices and still great FPS and frametime (over the course of 5 minutes) :D I was also able to get 800 FPS with 10 million vertices. This I believe marks the end of struggling to make sure that the application will always run smoothly with so many models.

I then also fixed a perspective bug that "stretched" objects along their width. The game is now able to fully support multiple resolutions, including custom set resolutions.

For this following week, I plan to work on applying the VBO implementation in my testing program to the actual game. After that is done, I want to work on the world generator some more, as well as start working on texturing for the terrain and models.

Until next week :)

Pictures:
The new crafting panel (left) and inventory panel (right)
Posted Image

FPS and Frametime test of 50 million vertices with smooth lighting and animation.
Posted Image

Oh, almost forgot to mention that we have a company site now at RockSplitStudios.com. Tis not much right now, but I hope to have an active blog on there soon. I have also installed a new theme on the forums too since we are no longer a company with "green" in the name :P
View the progress of the game here!
RockSplitStudios.com
My Blog
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TwentyThree
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Oh my this game is certainly looking up! I really like the inventory and crafting screens, but the Craft screen looks like it has wires sticking out of it, electrical wires. I humbly suggest you should fix that, as I'm sure all of this is far from the finished version.

Also, the FPS are looking quite good, above average for some of the games out there containing the same amount of vertices. You must be doing some good tweeking there ^.^
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Lucas
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TwentyThree
Oct 28 2012, 07:28 PM
the Craft screen looks like it has wires sticking out of it, electrical wires.
Those are intentional. We have moved from a mid-evil type theme to a more Victorian stream-punk type theme.
View the progress of the game here!
RockSplitStudios.com
My Blog
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TwentyThree
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Oh I see, well that works very well indeed!
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