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DF4GL4ever
Gamorrean
Joined: 15 Apr 2004
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 Posted: Mar 28, 2008 06:55 Post subject: |
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Is 8-bit color necessary at all? If the textures are already being alpha-blended then there doesn't seem to be a point in using 8-bit color. As it is I'm not quite sure I understand how the textures are going to be rendered in the game. Are shaders being programmed to modify the base textures for the 32 different lighting levels so that they follow the original 256-color palettes? As in blue shades turning to dark grays as the light dims?
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Darth Oosha
Trandoshan
Joined: 24 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Mar 28, 2008 15:10 Post subject: |
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I don't know what any of that means, but IMO the overall goal shouldn't be to be simple or to conserve effort, but to accurately emulate the original game.
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klasodeth
Trandoshan
Joined: 03 Mar 2008
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| Posted: Mar 28, 2008 18:00 Post subject: |
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It is possible to emulate the game TOO accurately. I'm really not interesting in preserving the original color banding that reduces darkened areas to less than four colors. I also don't want to see the lack of mouselook emulated, or the need to exit the program to change key bindings. And I don't want to see emulation of the warping textures on 3D models in the game. I've had the ability to experience all that for over a decade now. I just want to be able to experience the original gameplay with enhanced keyboard/mouse control and support for modern hardware. Having look commands mapped to the mouse, as well as higher resolutions and texture filtering, are not going to wreck the game for me. Those features made jDoom that much more fun to play over the original, and I think those same features will make DarkXL that much more fun over the original Dark Forces.
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Emon
Ree-Yees
Joined: 10 Aug 2007
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| Posted: Mar 28, 2008 19:13 Post subject: |
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klasodeth is right. If you emulated DF exactly, all you'd have is DF that runs faster and without a VM. That would be kind of pointless. Playing DF with mouselook, high resolution with AA and some nice texture filtering, on the other hand, would be magnificent.
As for how to work with saved games or player lives, I see no reason why the original system as well as something more modern (like one life with unlimited saves) can't be chosen by the player.
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TheBowerbird
Dianoga
Joined: 16 Mar 2008
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| Posted: Mar 30, 2008 18:12 Post subject: |
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As someone who has played Dark Forces since its inception, I am really, really excited about this project. I wish you the bet in this endeavor! Thanks to the DF-21 team too for keeping this community alive : )
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Darth Oosha
Trandoshan
Joined: 24 Sep 2003
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klasodeth
Trandoshan
Joined: 03 Mar 2008
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| Posted: Mar 31, 2008 09:39 Post subject: |
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Darth Oosha wrote:
You don't seem to be grasping the fact that an engine can be capable of emulating DF accurately and support new options like mouselook and anti-aliasing. If you read the rest of the thread, you'd see that I wasn't making any complaint about any of lucius's proposed additions to the engine; just suggesting something that so far he hadn't mentioned.
(Also, original DF *did* have mouselook and in-game control settings, if you count the Mac version.)
I do recognize that faithful emulation and an extended feature set aren't mutually exclusive. It's just that I consider 8-bit color to be a simple technical limitation, rather than a feature that defined Dark Forces. For me, emulated 8-bit support would be like emulation of 486-era load times and frame rates. Sure they may make the experience feel more authentic, but I have yet to meet a person who longs for lower frame rates and longer load times. If it didn't take much in the way of extra effort I wouldn't see a problem with 8-bit mode, but getting such a feature into the game means either requiring more powerful graphics hardware to emulate the lower color depth, or creating a software renderer which means manually coding all the features that otherwise would have been handled on the GPU.
If I may ask, what advantages do you see in support for an 8-bit color mode? When I compare lucius' screenshot of the darkened alcove where the revive powerup is hidden to that same area in the DOS version of Dark Forces, I find myself preferring the look of 24-bit color. It produces the darkened room effect without having to throw away almost an entire palette to do it. But of course, that's just my opinion. I'd like to hear the reasoning behind yours.
As for Mac Dark Forces, never having owned an Apple computer, all my comments regaring 'original' Dark Forces are about the DOS version. Had I known back then that they had mouselook, I might have been envious. Then again, I wasn't exactly an early adopter of mouselook, so I probably wouldn't have realized I was missing anything until it was too late. Oh, well. At this point I'd rather hold out for lucius' DarkXL than try to get a copy of Mac Dark Forces and figure out how to make it run.
And finally, what emulation issues does DOSBox have with Dark Forces? I haven't noticed any, but then again I haven't had access to a legacy PC lately, so I can't do a side-by-side comparison between DOSBox and MS-DOS.
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Nottheking
Kell Dragon
Joined: 29 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Mar 31, 2008 13:36 Post subject: |
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The_Mega_ZZTer wrote:
Hey, PNGs are good for abso-freaking-lutely anything, except for photos. PNGs are especially good when you have a low number of colors or large areas of solid color in an image (IE screenshots). And I already told him about his silly PNGs that were bigger than BMPs.
Technically, they'd be smaller than 48-bit BMPs, as those files were saved as 48-bit ones, from what I saw. And technically, screenshots can more or less be in the same category as photos... Even for simpler stuff like Dark Forces architecture, (try to find more "large areas of solid color" in Crysis than a real-life scene, kthxbai) while you'd still wind up with better space efficiency using something OTHER than a .PNG... For one, there's a format called "JPEG-2000" which, as I tested, even when I made the largest screenshot LOSSLESS under that format (JP2s offer a "lossless" compression level) it came up to 292KB, compared to 350KB for a maximum-compression .PNG.
And of course, for a screenshot, you can accept some lossiness; for the standard end-user in mind, I went with a 90% JPEG, and made sure to disable color sub-sampling... (the general cause of most image artifacts) The end result is an image that achieves, by my opinion, general transparency. It'd be possible to notice artifacts if you compared it with a lossless version (such as the .PNG or .JP2) very, very closely, though most people would NEVER notice a difference... And in doing so, I cut the image size down to less than 92KB. For your own reference, Here's the .PNG and the .JPG:
The_Mega_ZZTer wrote:
Yeah open-source is horrible.
Hey, that was not quite what I was intending, though I could prove that point if you'd like... (Actually, I may as well) Given what Lucius was talking about, I was speaking toward the "work" in the literal sense, meaning "work" not "work*s*." I.e, speaking of the projects themselves... Which are, indeed, fraught with problems that cause roadblocks for their completion... See the very Open Project here under my supervision that's pretty much been dead as perhaps some evidence.
The_Mega_ZZTer wrote:
That "Firefox" thing is a bust. So is OpenOffice.org...
Actually, FireFox is arguably the worst browser out there. The only program I've seen that fits the definition of "bloatware" better would be Windows Vista. It's also barely more secure than Internet Explorer, and only offers a handful more features... All of them implemented in very innefficient ways. Sure, you could edit it yourself to fix the problems, but by then you may as well have made up your own browser. Or you could just ditch it for a non-open-source browser that's superior, such as Opera, a browser that 99% of FireFox's boasted features were ripped from (which Opera had had for years before) is FAR more efficient in terms of computing resources, and is lightning-fast by comparison.
Similarly, OpenOffice.org is inferior to Microsoft Office in most respects in terms of speed, usability, flexibility, and memory footprint; it's chief advantage is that being open-source software, the licensing (read: cost) is much easier to deal with.
The_Mega_ZZTer wrote:
and that "Linux"? Please! No one believes that most web servers run on it along with that "Apache" web server software!
That doens't speak much about its problems, particularly in the especially relevant desktop realm, where it's infamous for having such a poor software library. Especially when it comes to the variety of games that can work on it... And just because it can EMULATE things like DirectX (at great computing cost, I might add) doens't equate to it being able to actually SUPPORT such things.
The_Mega_ZZTer wrote:
Don't even get me started on "PHP" or "TrueCrypt" or... I think I'll stop there before I list every excellent application I've used.
PHP is not an application or piece of software; it's a language and set of associated libraries. As for TrueCrypt, while the end-resulting source code is available, it could be alleged that it's not an open-source piece of software in and of itself; the source was written by a single person, and the license forbids derived works from calling themselves part of the same project.
The_Mega_ZZTer wrote:
I find AA is good for screenshots but just slows down gameplay. I tend to leave it off. You can't really tell when the camera is moving.
Perhaps you just don't bother paying much attention. Then again, I know that my eyes don't see the same that most people see. As an example, I cringe when playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl or Super Mario Galaxy, where the lack of AA is painfully apparent at numerous times when playing. (and the Wii does not use AA for its games)
As for "slows down gameplay," I'd wonder what ancient kind of video card you're using. Most cards these days can readily handle x4 MSAA pretty readily with only a minor drop in framerate. I'm doing quite fine with my Radeon X800XT here, which I run at x6 MSAA for everything.
The_Mega_ZZTer wrote:
You don't want to render in 8-bit color. It would just screw up Windows most likely. Better to render in the desktop color depth. If you want your shadows and flashlight and such to look authentic I'd be surprised if you could do that with DirectX and OpenGL... at least easily. Probably would need a software renderer to properly render 8-bit. Don't worry about it. If I want authentic 1995 experience I have DOSBox.
As noted, Outlaws (which, coincidentally, used an upgraded version of Dark Forces' "Jedi" engine) was able to do such a thing just fine, including use of hardware acceleration. The original engine only included support for 3dfx Glide, though plenty of wrappers exist so you could run Outlaws today on a modern Direct3D or OpenGL graphics card.
The_Mega_ZZTer wrote:
It would be nice to, instead of having lives, have an in-level saving system (THIS is a must, even Doom had this!) and have safe points be (one-time maybe) autosave spots. That would replicate a checkpoint system very nicely.
Yes, this is indeed important. While save+reload will make the game's challenge infinitely cheaper, to be honest, not everyone has the time to tackle a 2+ hour mission like Ironfort in one sitting.
The_Mega_ZZTer wrote:
More difficulty could be tweaked by adjusting the AI so you don't have to add extra level data. Not sure if DF does this any already, other than adding more enemies, which isn't really the same.
The only difference in difficulty settings is determined by the .O (objects) file. It merely determines what "objectS" show up. Of course, it can be used a little creatively; for instance, for my re-make level, the only difference between "medium" and "hard" is that the player takes tripple damage, accomplished by having it replace the default player object with one that had three "logic: player" lines.
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Wake up, George Lucas... The Matrix has you.. |
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DF4GL4ever
Gamorrean
Joined: 15 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Apr 01, 2008 02:08 Post subject: |
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I really think debating the merits of 8 bit color and the quirks of the original game is a moot point... right now DarkXL is in alpha and has a lot of development to go. I can still run Mac DF on my G4 (and a Quadra 700 and various other old macs) so I'm covered there  Yes Mac DF has mouselook, but it wasn't particularly useful in a game with very limited vertical rendering capability. Maybe some time down the road the limited color palette can be implemented but that's not important right now. It won't be necessary to run in 8-bit color to do that. We don't need to see blocky textures either, as we can run Jedi Knight on software rendering for that  Antialiasing is a non-issue as my old GeForce 4 card could run 4x AA with the X-Plane flightsim. In conclusion, this is an exciting project with lots of promise and let's worry about various quirks when the time comes.
EDIT Mac mouselook being the cheesy side-side one that was overly sensitive...at least from what I remember...
Last edited by DF4GL4ever on Apr 01, 2008 03:22; edited 1 time in total |
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Burning Gundam
Kell Dragon
Joined: 28 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Apr 01, 2008 03:16 Post subject: |
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Mac DF had mouselook? Since when!? 
_________________
I don't think outside the box... I customize it. |
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The MAZZTer
Death Star
Joined: 25 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Apr 01, 2008 04:16 Post subject: |
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Nottheking wrote:
For one, there's a format called "JPEG-2000" which, as I tested, even when I made the largest screenshot LOSSLESS under that format (JP2s offer a "lossless" compression level) it came up to 292KB, compared to 350KB for a maximum-compression .PNG.
Only problem there is I don't think any major browser supports it. At the very least I am quite sure IE doesn't, which is a major deal breaker right there.
Nottheking wrote:
Actually, FireFox is arguably the worst browser out there. The only program I've seen that fits the definition of "bloatware" better would be Windows Vista. It's also barely more secure than Internet Explorer, and only offers a handful more features... All of them implemented in very innefficient ways. Sure, you could edit it yourself to fix the problems, but by then you may as well have made up your own browser. Or you could just ditch it for a non-open-source browser that's superior, such as Opera, a browser that 99% of FireFox's boasted features were ripped from (which Opera had had for years before) is FAR more efficient in terms of computing resources, and is lightning-fast by comparison.
My Firefox 3 beta is fast enough thanks. It's beating every other browser in every benchmark I've seen including Opera, although Opera is still good and I would easily recommend it over IE any day. I just prefer Firefox.
If you took IE and removed ActiveX support you'd have removed most of IE's exploits. Firefox has this going for it and much more.
Firefox is not bloatware, the only way I see you could have gotten that false impression is the reports of memory leaks going around, which in itself shows the lack of understanding of how a web browser works.
When you view web pages, they have to be stored somewhere. This somewhere is usually memory, hence why you get high memory usage sometimes. Even when you close a page the page is usually cached in memory still in case you come back to it. Those who play the memory card also conveniently forget to mention memory usage of OTHER browsers... in my personal tests IE consistently used more memory than Firefox.
I'm sure there are also some extensions for Firefox that eat memory, and since it's impossible to tell an extension is eating memory, Firefox is blamed. Firefox 3 has a more intelligent cleanup for some types of objects which helps this, IIRC.
Despite this there have been some memory leaks in Firefox... just not as bad as has been conveyed by naysayers. I accept this because Firefox 3 has fixed over 300 leaks.
Another argument against bloatware is the whole add-ons model... install the features you want, don't install the ones you don't want. Keep your Firefox lean and fast or install a few extensions for added functionality. Your choice. Firefox 3 has less of a speed penalty for extensions, thankfully.
Nottheking wrote:
Similarly, OpenOffice.org is inferior to Microsoft Office in most respects in terms of speed, usability, flexibility, and memory footprint; it's chief advantage is that being open-source software, the licensing (read: cost) is much easier to deal with.
Speaking of bloatware, check out Office. Microsoft has admitted the interface was horrible... hence the redesign for 2k7 (which is much better IMO). I still find OpenOffice.org starts up faster. I haven't done many papers since I got 2k7 for free throguh a promo so I can't offer a proper comparison (I used OO.o before then). I also find your insults of OO.o amusing since OO.o more or less mimics Office's interface anyways.
Nottheking wrote:
That doens't speak much about its problems, particularly in the especially relevant desktop realm, where it's infamous for having such a poor software library. Especially when it comes to the variety of games that can work on it... And just because it can EMULATE things like DirectX (at great computing cost, I might add) doens't equate to it being able to actually SUPPORT such things.
The main program used for DirectX under Linux is ironically called Wine, which stands for Wine Is Not an Emulator. It's not an emulator, if you didn't catch that. I played a bit of Team Fortress 2, a very recent game, at a very nice speed under Linux... perhaps even better than Windows, and I've tweaked my Windows performance whereas with Linux I don't really know how to do that. I was actually shocked at how well TF2 ran, especially that its cheat detection worked perfectly (IE I didn't get b& for life for using Linux). I think I also tried HL2 which crashed but other people have gotten it to work... I need to try it again with the latest Wine.
Even a few years ago the best FPSs used the Quake 3 engine, which was actually coded with Wine as a target platform (before they made a native Linux port). I've found the Quake 3 engine games for Windows I've tried work flawlessly.
Not that gaming is perfect. Plenty of games don't work, but with each Wine release it gets better. I've had fairly good success with games I've tried, the only one I can think of is RealMyst, which crashes if you look at it the wrong way, though you can walk around the landscape. DirectX 10 games don't work either obviously, since IIRC Wine is still focusing on perfecting 6, 7, and 8 support ATM.
Nottheking wrote:
PHP is not an application or piece of software;
Yes it is. I have the command line EXE for Windows right here.
| Code: | E:\Programs\Internet\xampp\php>php --help
Usage: php [options] [-f] <file> [--] [args...]
php [options] -r <code> [--] [args...]
php [options] [-B <begin_code>] -R <code> [-E <end_code>] [--] [args...]
php [options] [-B <begin_code>] -F <file> [-E <end_code>] [--] [args...]
php [options] -- [args...]
php [options] -a |
Not to mention the more commonly used Apache module DLLs, which are definitely program modules if not programs in and of themselves.
Nottheking wrote:
As for TrueCrypt, while the end-resulting source code is available, it could be alleged that it's not an open-source piece of software in and of itself; the source was written by a single person, and the license forbids derived works from calling themselves part of the same project.
What, you think anyone can stick a piece of code in encryption software and not have it checked? People protect sensitive data with software like this y'know! I'm not familiar with the specific license that TrueCrypt uses but I do like how it proves source transparency doesn't make a product insecure.
Nottheking wrote:
Perhaps you just don't bother paying much attention. Then again, I know that my eyes don't see the same that most people see. As an example, I cringe when playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl or Super Mario Galaxy, where the lack of AA is painfully apparent at numerous times when playing. (and the Wii does not use AA for its games)
I only noticed lack of AA in SSBB when the camera was stationary, when moving there is no problem. But then I have a POS tv tuner card that cost $30 so whatever. Also doesn't SSBB/SSBM have some sort of "filter" option? That's gotta be similar.
Nottheking wrote:
As for "slows down gameplay," I'd wonder what ancient kind of video card you're using. Most cards these days can readily handle x4 MSAA pretty readily with only a minor drop in framerate. I'm doing quite fine with my Radeon X800XT here, which I run at x6 MSAA for everything.
GeForce 6800GS, which is enough to handle the newer games, although I'm eying a 9200 I need direly to invest in a new CPU first since that's my performance choke point right now. And a minor drop in framerate means a minor boost in framerate if I turn it off, which sounds good to me.
I never said "significant" performance drop, so you pretty much agreed with me anyway. Until I have a solid 60+fps in the slowest sections of gameplay I don't turn extraneous stuff like AA which I usually won't notice anyway on.
The_Mega_ZZTer wrote:
As noted, Outlaws (which, coincidentally, used an upgraded version of Dark Forces' "Jedi" engine) was able to do such a thing just fine, including use of hardware acceleration. The original engine only included support for 3dfx Glide, though plenty of wrappers exist so you could run Outlaws today on a modern Direct3D or OpenGL graphics card.
Ir probably uses an 8-bit video mode. Using such a mode would drastically limit options for new graphical features later on. Newer wrappers might even use 32-bit modes... although some wrappers I never got to work right. *sigh*
The_Mega_ZZTer wrote:
The only difference in difficulty settings is determined by the .O (objects) file. It merely determines what "objectS" show up. Of course, it can be used a little creatively; for instance, for my re-make level, the only difference between "medium" and "hard" is that the player takes tripple damage, accomplished by having it replace the default player object with one that had three "logic: player" lines.
I am aware how the difficulty system works, I was simply stating how one might add additional levels of difficulty that will work with all existing DF levels.
Nice trick with the player logic, too.
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Darth Oosha
Trandoshan
Joined: 24 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Apr 01, 2008 05:44 Post subject: |
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klasodeth wrote:
If I may ask, what advantages do you see in support for an 8-bit color mode? When I compare lucius' screenshot of the darkened alcove where the revive powerup is hidden to that same area in the DOS version of Dark Forces, I find myself preferring the look of 24-bit color. It produces the darkened room effect without having to throw away almost an entire palette to do it. But of course, that's just my opinion. I'd like to hear the reasoning behind yours.
I want to be able to point people to DXL and say "Here, this will run DF"; not "this is some fan's reimagining of what DF should have been like". It'll probably never be a completely exact copy without the original source, but graphics aside it looks like it's going to be close enough that I can say that, and that I dig.
If I were writing the engine, I probably wouldn't want to go to the trouble of implementing an 8-bit mode either, but I'd at least put it on a list somewhere as something to do later.
klasodeth wrote:
And finally, what emulation issues does DOSBox have with Dark Forces? I haven't noticed any, but then again I haven't had access to a legacy PC lately, so I can't do a side-by-side comparison between DOSBox and MS-DOS.
This is the biggest one I know of. I assume it affects other looping VOCs too. Other than that, I've noticed at least one cutscene where the music seems to get cut short.
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lucius
DarkXL Developer
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Apr 01, 2008 09:24 Post subject: |
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There is a new update: http://df-21.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php_p=13968#13968
I am now starting the final stretch for the demo. Originally I was going to implement VUEs, menus (including Inventory Screen) and the briefing first but I've changed my mind. The level will have all the weapons, items and enemies. Additionally all the elevators, doors, lighting, etc. works; all secrets are uncoverable and the level is completable although it only shows a text message to that affect now since VUEs don't work yet. While all sound effects are implemented, midi will also be missing.
All the missing features will be implemented for the next demo, but I feel that I need to get a release out. Early testing will be useful and the missing features really don't affect gameplay (atleast not in this level).
Before I continue along this plan, does this sound like a good idea to you guys or would you rather I wait and implement these features before releasing?
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DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com |
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ZOmegaZ
Dianoga
Joined: 28 Jan 2005
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| Posted: Apr 01, 2008 12:34 Post subject: Sooner is better! |
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You, sir, are my hero.
I say release it as soon as possible! I'd much rather see a demo missing some features than see no demo at all.
If I may, I strongly suggest you keep your code in an SVN repository. It's saved my arse any number of times while coding. And back up everything off-site! Losing a work of this magnitude would just be unacceptable.
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CoinCollector
Dianoga
Joined: 10 Nov 2007
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lucius
DarkXL Developer
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Apr 02, 2008 18:56 Post subject: |
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Just wanted to mention that you can see some early game movies (with sound) in the "DarkXL Update 4" thread.
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sheepandshepherd
Trandoshan
Joined: 01 Apr 2008
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| Posted: Apr 03, 2008 02:16 Post subject: |
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In the original DF, if you were in a really huge room, the walls on the far side wouldn't render correctly, and it looked really horrible. I forgot what it was called (HOMs or something like that). I doubt it'll be a problem, since you're rewriting the code from scratch, just wanted to remind you to fix that . . .
And I can't wait for the demo, I'll be sure to try every random thing I can possibly think of.
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The MAZZTer
Death Star
Joined: 25 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Apr 03, 2008 03:05 Post subject: |
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That is caused by a software renderer with hardcoded limits. OpenGL and DirectX and any modern engine don't have that problem.
Older engines had to get speed wherever they could, and that involved using internal memory data structures that were a fixed size. With faster computers, the overhead from using more dynamic sized structures becomes less and less. Welcome to the late 90s.
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lucius
DarkXL Developer
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Apr 03, 2008 07:44 Post subject: |
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What The_Mega_ZZTer said is correct. I've said this in the past, but if HOM exists in DarkXL it'll be because I decided to put it there. In other words the current renderer is incapable of generating the HOM effect without some unnecessary changes. If the geometry I generated had cracks or seams then not clearing the color buffer could help hide the artifacts (because the color would be close to the correct color especially if temporal coherence is high), however the current renderer doesn't produce any cracks in the geometry so I can safely clear the screen and set the clip distance to a (by DF standards) ridiculous distance.
To be clear, I could still get artifacts if I'm not careful - but they'd look different. However, unlike the past, these cases are avoidable unless someone tries something truly absurd (a room with 3000 doors for example).
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DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com |
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The MAZZTer
Death Star
Joined: 25 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Apr 03, 2008 15:07 Post subject: |
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AFAIK no level purposefully uses HoM (well, none of the good levels I've played) as part of the gameplay so it's safe to ignore emulating it.
Time to go start on my new DF level; "Hall of 5000 doors."
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lucius
DarkXL Developer
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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Darth Oosha
Trandoshan
Joined: 24 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Apr 03, 2008 17:53 Post subject: |
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FWIW, there *are* two Marathon mods that use HOMing intentionally; Rubicon and a proof-of-concept called Heartbeat. I agree that there aren't any DF ones, although it's certainly an iconic part of Mines.
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lucius
DarkXL Developer
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Apr 03, 2008 18:40 Post subject: |
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Darth Oosha wrote:
FWIW, there *are* two Marathon mods that use HOMing intentionally; Rubicon and a proof-of-concept called Heartbeat. I agree that there aren't any DF ones, although it's certainly an iconic part of Mines.
Is this something that people actually want emulated? I can emulate the portal and distance limits - and just not render anything that goes beyond those limits (and not clear the color buffer of course). However I'm not sure I can emulate problems where walls are too long and cause HOMing (but are within the render distance). To actually emulate DFs HOMing issues exactly would be a lot of work - and I thought it was something that people wanted to avoid/get rid of anyway.
With the original plan the HOMing problems found in some mods would simply dissappear. Is this something people want? I suppose it could be an option but is it worth it to emulate a graphical glitch that I'm sure LA would have avoided if possible?
It's counter-intuitive perhaps, but the question isn't "should I fix DF HOMing issues?" but rather "should I emulate DF HOMing issues?" There were precision limits while rasterizing the sector geometry in DF that simply don't exist anymore - and I'm thinking that I'd actually need to use pixel shaders (higher-end hardware) or a software renderer to get that behavior down.
Just to note, DF HOMing behavior may be different from Marathon's. I'm not sure if long wall segments would cause HOMing in Marathon.
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DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com |
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Darth Oosha
Trandoshan
Joined: 24 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Apr 03, 2008 19:07 Post subject: |
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The only reason to emulate wall-length problems would be to help authors make sure their levels will run on plain DF. If it's complicated, I'd say it's probably just as well to just log a warning or something when a long wall is detected.
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lucius
DarkXL Developer
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Apr 03, 2008 19:15 Post subject: |
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It might be complicated to get the the artifacting to look the same but it's not complicated to calculate the wall lengths (which I do anyway for texturing) and give warnings if they might cause problems in DF. So consider it in the "todo" list 
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DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com |
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The MAZZTer
Death Star
Joined: 25 Sep 2003
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sheepandshepherd
Trandoshan
Joined: 01 Apr 2008
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| Posted: Apr 03, 2008 22:32 Post subject: |
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As successful as DarkXL is going to be, I doubt many people will still be playing original DF. And The_Mega_ZZTer is right, it's probably more convenient to put those things in the editor.
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Darth Oosha
Trandoshan
Joined: 24 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Apr 03, 2008 23:20 Post subject: |
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...except nobody's currently writing a new editor? Also, review 13690 and 13723 regarding DarkXL being currently Windows-only.
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Tsophika
Gamorrean
Joined: 14 Jan 2008
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| Posted: Apr 04, 2008 02:42 Post subject: |
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This seems like a moot issue to me. The reasoning behind constructing a new engine is to eliminate the original's limitations and flaws.
If anyone wants HOM effects, then play the original game.
The videos show great work, lucius. Everything you've done has been impressive to say the least!
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klasodeth
Trandoshan
Joined: 03 Mar 2008
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| Posted: Apr 04, 2008 03:14 Post subject: |
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If someone really wants to create a level that is compatible with Dark Forces, the person creating the level should test with Dark Forces, not DarkXL.
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