Angelus blog

I took some break from writing on this blog but I had busy last few months. In this time I done a lot of changes in engine one of biggest "finished" one are changes in file system. But this time I don't to talk about what I done but more about what will come and what I working on right now. And I do some stuff with which I'm not feel most comfortable: Animation system. So I decided to seek some advice and explain what I do, why and how I would like to improve it. So be free to comment and critique. I don't fell that system I have right now is what I really want to have. This is this weird felling when you fell that system that you created is working but you fell that it's limiting you. Because of this felling recently more often I turn of computer and sit down with pen and notebook and think what I really want to do with this system. So far my conclusion is because I'm iterative develop White Rabbit Engine technology I didn't notice till n...

Like topic of post say there will be small delay with releasing of build. I initially planned to do it this weekend but well I didn't make it (in this moment I expect month to finish everything what I want ). This post will be my summary what went wrong (-) and what went good (+) so it should be funny to read.

Time is something funny we don't notice when but it pass by so quickly. Few months ago I announced release of this pre-alpha build. Then it was so far away right now only a little bit more then month left. You probably wondering what changed in this time. So below you will find some summary of biggest changes (from my point of view): Component base architecture  Decision on big changes in engine architecture aren't easy. I think that transition from class base approach which looked like that : class CGameObject class CModelObject : public CGameObject class CPuppetObject : public CModelObject class CChcaracterObject: public CPuppetObject  to component base ( like in Unity 3D ) was one of the biggest and most problematic changes that I done in White Rabbit Engine in last years. I needed to change a lot of code, don't break the game that I have and in the same time change my approach to resolving problems.  Level Editor : New com...

And once again I will use one of your comments as topic for post (I will try to keep it short because I'm in meantime of work on project). LBA is arguably the best game created. A true remake of this game, therefore, would not be easy. Keep up the great work! I really agree that LBA have some unique charm which you can love all your live. Because of that I'm almost sure that I will fail in recreating it for you. Probably you wonder why I said it that way ? Answer is easy, each of as like different aspect of the game. I know what I liked about it and few other people that described their thoughts in comments. But I don't know what you liked the most. That's why what I will serve you will be only my interpretation how this remake should look. Some of you will probably like it other will hate it. I'm prepare on that, such a life. But I want to believe that after I will release tech demo there will be really allot of people that will share their thoughts about it...

.. and so some news related to L.B.A. Remake and I think it's something good. This last few months were I would said pretty tough. A lot thing changed in this time I changed my job and with it place where I currently live but there are things that never change. One of them is my family other are friends and the last one is that I never stopped doing L. B. A. remake :]  So once again : project is still alive. But this time I have some proof for that :]  This may look not too much at first sight but truth is that behind a lot of things changed and changed on better. But better solutions came with price: doing them consumed more than two months of work. This is a lot of time at last for me. But this time is behind me and from now one there should be only better. In the fact effects of the changes that I mention before are still visible and not everything work the way it should but each day stabilize everything and even make some things work a lot better. S...

Today when I was looking on my blog control panel I find out something surprising. On Frédérick Raynal website:  in Little Big Adventure section I found out link to my blog. For some people this probably not mean to much but for me it's really something (I wasn't expecting this). Things like that really help a lot in tough moments of development. I will also add in this place that project is still alive  :] I only don't have any proof for it right now. But as history of blog shows this is not first and probably not last situation like that. In most cases this long time of silence is due to my programmer nature. I try to focus on game development itself rather than trying showing each week stuffs that not necessary are made because of need. Good thing about this is that after break I try to return with new stuffs that should show that this time of waiting was worth it. So till next post folks.

Really tough times came to project. To be precisely it's developed on really powerful netbook acer Aspire One 522. Right now I don't have access to my normal computer and this is only hardware that I have. But don't worry project didn't stop but only going a little slower. To show how much: on my PC project fully recompile in around 3 minutes on netbook the same thing take more than 20 minutes. The same problem is with loading of game which time also extended few times. So it's not easy but I use this time to speed up everything so I could normal work. It's going really nicely: Right now loading time decreased. In the same time performance increased. Everything mixed with stability changes which are done every time when there is occasion. Only problem right now is that game is in a little stagnation but I believe that in few nearest weeks this state should change.  I think that in next post I will return to multithreaded rendering topic. Right now...

Today I get really interesting comment to Preview 12 from Renkin Hayato. It so interesting that I will respond to it here. "What do you think about make a team to construct the game? Remake a great game like LBA alone it's kinda suicide! There are very small details that you can forget and i know, do something like this is very wearing and take a lot of time. I hope the project goes forward, unlike other projects remake that were made just to make stupid videos ten thousand years ago!I'm waiting for that since 2009, and i nearly lost the hope of some news about LBA, that stoped to be mentioned at this time." Question from begin I will leave on a little later :] But about rest you are right. I really know what it's mean to make some good remake it really isn't easy job. Sometimes I even fell little like masochist because my expectation about results are really high. It's event worse because I work in Professional Game Dev as programmer. But thi...

As title say a little brief what was happening in this last few weeks. First part was really nice I took two week of break for vacation and was traveling a lot. Thanks to that I meet interesting peoples and I believe that in future there will be a loot of occasion to meet again. Of course this was only begin because after that I started to finalizing some big changes that will happen for me in near future. I will write about them them at some other occasion. After this short and boring part lets move on some more interesting topics: what changed  :]  *** I started work on some few bigger elements. Not all of them were directly connected with game but I would call them "made for fun" i.e:  LBA Remake on Oculus Rift It was funny experience but in the same time it pushed my tech a little forward. Mostly because it need this specific way of rendering and also oculus is optional device of multiple purpose (it control parameters of 3D rendering and in the sa...

Here come another info from progresses. I spend a little more time in this weeks on development. One of the reason is weather (it's really hot in Poland) second is that I played and finished new Tomb Raider. But don't worry everything is still going forward.  And I still do some fixes and changes in technology. A lot of them is could be put in box with label "re-factoring of s2d". S2d was original name of my engine (there still could be find some places in code where I have it in comments)and I try to do some cleanup in code that was write around that time. It's not nice job but must be done earlier or later. I prefer do it now because I will not have to think about later. Other thing is I returned to making some assets. Below you can find some early wip of new location. Right now it's mostly placeholders that I use to check size and feel of location. So that's all for this post till the next one.

Ok, this time two weeks breaks so a little longer than normal. But somehow I were lost in my work and forgot to write some post last week :] Yesterday I finished doing initial implementation of memory manager. Thanks to it engine have another powerful tool to help me in development. Why I moved for this two week on some more engine related stuff? Because good engine is not only rendering, input, audio like some people may think. Of course this is enough to do some small game but in case of bigger projects things start to be more complicated and because of that we need a lot more technical stuff that make our lives as developer easier. It's influence may not be so visible in game as new full screen effect like Motion Blur or Depth Of Field but they are still there. They help us tracing our bugs, making development easier and in the same quicker. Of course creating them take a lot of time so some people don't decide on creating them but in bigger perspective it's almos...

This time I have some good and bad news, I will begin from good and bad I will left for the end, that way will be better.

Few day ago I bought netbook with ATI Radeon graphic card. Before I always used cards from Nvidia and Intel. After day of installing tools to programming and profiling I ran for test L.B.A. Remake. And of course it didn't work. But after removing CUDA support that I needed to my thesis work, it started without problems. But when app started i saw other problem: There were some weird stuff on my screen, they didn't look like they should. After two days of searching reason behind it I found that: Nvidia allow more then it should. - I had invalid code (I probably write it very late in night because it was so stupid and when I saw it I thought how I could wrote it :] ). Code for each type of input to shaders (position, normals, texcoord0, ...) set glBufferData with size of all inputs and  data set to NULL. On NVIDIA worked fine on ATI not. NVIDIA and ATI have different bindings of Inputs - POSITION is always ATTR0 but other not. On end I decided on using in sha...

I thought about adding new preview from around two weeks. I had very evil plan to create from it some kind of parody what I don't want to do. But I endure this thoughts and in final create it in somehow normal way. But get to the point. What is happening ? Is project still exist is it grow ? And answers are yes and yes. Project is growing well but probably not the way that could be topic of full preview. Because how to show that I fixed system of object managing or extended mechanic of engine ? There is no way that I can do that. Of course I could do like some other projects (how I hate post like that): I could create on fast some sketch and put very detailed information what I will do in final release. I will write it but in some next post I probably would wrote other things about how this all would look. But who care ? I wrote my vision that changed in a  few weeks. But where project ? I could make other movie about models I created but how long I can do that ? For each m...

This post will be beginning of series of posts about how L.B.A. remake is made. So lets starts with first part where I will try to talk about development of technology I use. Game is based on home made engine w.r.e. that use OpenGL as rendering environment. In this moment everything is controlled by shaders wrote in Cg.  But not always was this way, I started to write this engine five years ago on begin of study. In that time this was a merely 2D isometric game written in pure SDL. It was written on one of subjects and when I think about this now, earlier I wrote 10x better games. But it's was finished and from this everything starts.  Some time later after talk with friend which is very good graphic we decided to create 2D game. We based it on modified code of earlier production but this wasn't enough. Pure SDL is too slow so we switch to OpenGL. This was big step because engine from simply software 2D engine changed to fast 2D engine with support of some 3D objects. But ...

And time came when preview 8 is published. After a little break from publishing previews, new video show changes that I done to Citadela Island. Almost all models in this location were changed, I decided on this design after experiments with different styles. I think that it's pretty good so I don't plan to make bigger changes in most of things that are inside this video. In this moment from things connected to graphics I still fight with lighting parameters to create climat from orginal game, so this bright colors are only temporary. But I dont plan to do to much with this becasue probably everything change after I create render system with good support of shadows. What can I say more, there are no bigger changes in game mechanics because in last few weeks I mostly concentrate on engine, tools development and of course fixing of bugs. So then  like allways, have a nice watch :]

This week there will be no presentation either. I decided that the changes that are made in visual side of game are too small. If I would show the actual state you would probably see almost the same scenery that you see last time (plus 5 models from which 3 are placeholder) so I think that don't have sens. In last weeks I mostly focusing on learning to school and working. Things that I done in application and are connected to lba is optimalization of rendering. Now on my computer with GF210 I have around 200 FPS in prison location. And I think that I can get even better results :] other things that were developed are debugging and statistics tools. In normal circumstances I would do all that things later but right now I must do this to my thesis work which first version I must finish in next week. So I don't have too much free time to do other stuff.

Tym razem post w dwóch wersjach językowych :] No więc niestety z powodu nawału obowiązków w pracy i na uczelnie trochę nie wyrabiam ze wszystkim. Dlatego muszę na jakiś czas wstrzymać prace nad grą i skupić się bardziej nad rzeczami bezpośrednio powiązanymi z moją pracą magisterską. Dlatego kolejna odsłona postępów pojawi się najwcześniej za 2-3 tygodnie. Ale obiecuję, że czekanie się opłaci bo lista rzeczy które planuję wykonać do tej prezentacji jest całkiem długa :] * * * This time post in two language :] Because of work with job and my study I don't have to much time to do other things. So I need temporary stop work on game and focus more on things directly connected with my thesis work. Because of that next show of project will be released in 2-3 weeks from today. But I guaranty that this waiting will be worth of it, because list of things that I plan to do for this preview is pretty long  :]

Tym razem wyszła trochę dłuższa prezentacja ale wydaje mi się, że nie powinno wam się nudzić oglądając ja :] więc nie będę już przeciągać oto pokaz nr. 6 :

No więc nowy miesiąc i oto filmik pokazujący zmiany z ostatniego miesiąca, tym razem w zmieniło się dość znacznie zarządzanie geometrią.  Wcześniej miałem sytuację gdy lokacja składała się z obiektów aktualnie przeszedłem na system grup. Lokacja jest grupą zawierającą obiekty oraz inne grupy. Dzięki czemu o wiele łatwiej będzie można później zarządzać np.budynkami.  Kolejna duża zmiana to sterowanie w edytorze, przerobiłem przesuwanie obiektów gdyż stare było mało dokładne. Aktualnie wszystko śmiga jak należy.  Doszło też wiele wstępnych modeli które mają stworzyć obraz jak będzie wyglądać rozmieszczenie obiektów na lokacji. Pojawiła się też bardzo prosta woda.