Angelus blog

There is so much going on this year that I don’t have too much time to write posts. For this who don’t follow my other blog this is some summary of most important changes: In February I started working for Unity Technologies. Engine slowly transit to Physics Base Rendering (PBR). I released new video https://youtu.be/q6Ql9MX4baM with game progress. Been at Unity HackWeek XII (I’m even on one of photos at blog, find me if you can :P) Dropping kinematic character physics in game. Now that I think about it each of this points could be separate post. But well there is no point in thinking about past and let’s focus on present and topics I work on in the same time: PBR transition. Physics changes. Game not working smooth. PBR transition This slow down a little bit because I try to read in free time recommended by friend moving frostbite to pbr . I start to see how much knowledge I missing to do it properly. There is all this sections about lights par...

Well time fly by and animation system starting take shape. Thanks to it I could do even some not bad looking animations in game (http://coffemonsters.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/lba-preview-15.html) but well this is just another milestone in road to finished game.  Because of this thoughts I already moved to next issue: recovering of movie system. So far its going fine I added new movie resource, movie editor module. No I starting adding basic functionality: adding keys. This operation require list of selected objects in level. This part was designed great :D Because I can have N levels loaded in memory in the same time I created new level component which exist only in editor. It contain some editor specific data i.e. selection. It's added on loading from editor and it's not saved with level. When you want list of selected objects just pick component from level and I have access to selection. Great idea right ?  I thought this way when I was writing it. Right now I...

Welcome in namespace hell . In this place you will find annoying code and the best part: it is on demand. So lets start another topic base on one of my horror stories which ended with hours spend to straight things up. But let's start from begin. This words probably don't mean a lot for you:  s2d, s3d, world2d. world3d, fs, sound, physics, math, navmesh, utility, resources, game, editor, lba, wre, wr. Personally I know them really well. All of t his are namespaces that I used or using in my code. This is collection from 7 years of development and they are probably not all of them. When I start writing engine I wanted to do stuff right. So I created modules which then I encapsulate in namespaces. This was naive and stupid because I ended with annoying code. Who want to write physics::CPhysics for physics class? This is duplicated information. But well with time I got smarter and removed most of them using simple method :  Find and replace all. This was my first sin. Af...

Finally I have my stuff from Canada :] There is a lot of them but one of the important ones are my computers. Thanks to that I return to normal programming but well before that I needed to sync my projects. There was a lot of changes in projects in last three months so I expected problems and well there were :) First is my lack of normal internet connection :/ yep I still waiting for it. So right now I try to use hotspot option in android to be able exchange code between Linux laptop PC. Second was broken Windows build :/ I tried really hard to have working version of windows but without continuous compilation it's hard to switch systems all the time just to check if I didn't broke something. But well hour later the build worked. Third were missing manifest generations (TBD) which allow me to hold plugins to editor in separate folder. Because of that I needed to do some changes manually. My continuous compilation is still dead I need to recover it (I missing ...

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.

.. 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.

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.

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 time some more details about architecture of engine. First thing that I need to mention W.R.E. is not engine for L.B.A. project, I create tools that will be use in next productions. Because of that I take some decision that make it's structure more complicated but in the same time more flexible. In this moment W.R.E. is based on four modules: But as you see there is five elements :] Why ? Exe is only wrapper to game dll and do nothing else so I don't count it as module. Ok, so from begin: W.R.E. - Is main part of engine it's managing window, taking care of rendering, physic, sounds, file, materials and things like that.  Game Engine - It's the frame of game. Contain all templates for objects i.e. Models, Characters, Action objects. Other important function of this module is editor functionality. Editor GUI - It's interface of editor based on Qt. It's mostly call function that are inside Game Engine. Game - This is DLL so it could be simple connected...

In last post I wrote about how all this started. In this post I try to focus more on games and way of work on them. Lba is not my first game I played. But it have very special place in my memory. I tried to finish it at last twice. At first I think that I was to young to understand this game. But second time I was in haven when I played it. And from long ago I thought about remake, there was "Lba Remake" now is "Little Script Adventure" and there was and will be many other groups that try to create remake of this game. But I think that way of how they do it is somehow wrong. So I decided to create my own remake. I started to write games more than 11 years ago. This is one of many projects that I was developing in this time. On begin everything look quiet simple: you have some libraries and game and this is enough. What you need else to write "Noughts and Crosses", "Tetris" or simply plane on scrolling map (from right to left). But as time pas...

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 :]

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.

No więc mija kolejny pracowity tydzień. Trochę czasu na wszystko brakuje no i dlatego trochę mniej jakichś bardziej widocznych zmian. A co się zmieniło:  Doszły nowe animacje/czynności postaci. Dopracowałem trochę fizykę, oraz poczyniłem dość spore zmiany jeśli chodzi o wyświetlanie grafiki. Aktualnie pracuję nad uzyskaniem jak największą zgodność z nowym standardem OpenGL. Czyli mówiąc prosto pozbywam się całego forward renderingu. Powoduje to wiele zmian, materiały stały się teraz podstawą funkcjonowania całego silnika. Musiałem przebudować system rysowania geometrii pomocniczej gdyż stary system dość mocno zamulał całość. Wizualizacje fizyki i obiektów śmigają teraz, aż miło :]  No i co mnie jeszcze czeka: przebudowa fontów, wsparcie do dynamicznych obiektów np. systemów cząsteczkowych. Stworzenie jakiegoś sensowniejszego sposobu na wyświetlanie geometrii. Gdyż na chwilę obecną mam wrażenie że, posiadam jeszcze zbyt małą kontrolę nad tym wszystkim. Czekają mnie też troc...

Święta, święta i po świętach zawitał już nawet nowy rok. I tak wprzerwie świątecznej się: obijałem. Z gry powstało niewiele zmienił sie za to edytor. W ostatnim czasie wprowadziłem parę poprawek które od dawna chciałem wprowadzić. Pojawio się w końcu normalne dodawanie obiektów, teraz mam już podgląd gdzie mam wstawiać nowo dodany obiekt możliwe też jest anulowanie tej operacji. Zmienił się sposób obsługi fizyki dzięki czemu obiekty nie muszą już być tylko boksami. Ogólnie zmian jest dużo ale w praktyce wszystkich nie pamiętam. Zmieniła się też lokacja na której grę testuję. Zaczyna ona przypominać coraz bardziej grę. Poniżej znajdziecie pokaz z nowej wersji gry. Mam nadzieję, że zmiany się spodobają :]

Ostatnie tygodnie były dla mnie dość ciężkie większość czasu poświęcałem : życiu prywatnemu, pracy i uczelni. Dlatego dość mało udało mi się zrobić w projektach ale zmiany są, jak zawsze :] Obecnie realizuję projekt na uczelnię oraz pracę magisterską w oparciu o swój silnik. Jako, że fajnie jest mieć środowisko do testowania algorytmów w warunkach jak najbardziej zbliżonych do tych rzeczywistych postanowiłem stworzyć grę. Posiadając ograniczony czas zdecydowałem się na stworzenie remake'a starej gry. Dzięki temu mogę skupić się głównie na pisaniu i tworzeniu rzeczy bezpośrednio potrzebnych do tej produkcji nie martwiąc się wymyślaniem fabuły i mechaniki. Dodatkowym plusem takiego rozwiązania jest posiadanie konkretnego celu i założeń które w trakcie prac nie mogą się zbytnio zmienić gdyż chce aby gra była podobna do pierwowzoru.  Pierwsze efekty można zauważyć już poniżej : Na koniec dodam tylko : Wesołych Świąt Bożego Narodzenia  w końcu już dziś wigilia :]

No więc rozpocząłem pierwszy konkretniejszy projekt na swoim silniku, oto efekt co da się już szybko osiągnąć  dzięki edytorowi: w trakcie pracy nad tą wstępną wersją mapki wyszło parę rzeczy które można jeszcze poprawić a parę musiałem poprawić aby praca szybciej szla :] No ale jak widać nawet się udało coś porządnego uzyskać :]  Dodatkowo dzisiaj przeprowadziłem pewne optymalizacje w wyświetlaniu grafiki a gDEBuger bardzo mi w tym pomógł :] dodatkowo uświadomił parę moich złych nawyków. Mianowicie przyzwyczajenie do standardowego pipelinu OpenGL. Widać ciągle przede mną długa :] no ale gdyby jej nie było to bym się pewnie nudził :]