DF-21 Forums

[lucius]

I've been working on the INF system for DarkXL. So far I'm parsing the INF file (though still not supporting everything) and supporting sectors with the door flag. I should have enough of the INF system for the first level to be beatable within the next couple of days. Here's some screenshots of various working doors:








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DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com

[Darth Oosha]

Nitpick: Stormtroopers should be dropping blaster rifles, not ammo.

[lucius]

...Removed text, I was mistaken - see my post later on

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DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com

[The MAZZTer]

Uhhh... your screenshots in PNG are larger in filesize than if you had saved them as BMP.

I resaved one of them as PNG and got the file size down from 1.3mb to 230kb... you should max out PNG compression in whatever library or app you're using. :X

Also I had another small idea for future extensions but I'll keep it to myself this time until you request such things or until a more appropriate time.

Maybe getting SECBASE playable would be a good spot to release a public alpha...

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[lucius]

[The MAZZTer]

PNG uses lossless compression. There are no rendering artifacts. There is no reason to not use maximum compression other than to speed up PNG generation (like when dumping video to individual PNG frames). For individual pictures there's no reason not to.

You're probably thinking of JPG's lossy compression, where lowering the "quality" setting decreases filesize but also discards picture information.

Think of PNG as using a similar compression to ZIP... if you use higher ZIP compression options you don't lose random paragraphs from the essay you put inside the ZIP, it just takes a little longer and you get a smaller file (full screen PNGs take a couple seconds to save on my five-year old computer with maximum compression settings).

I've heard conflicting reports of lossy compression modes for PNG but I was pretty sure the people who told me that didn't know what they were talking about. Even if it were true I doubt any library or program uses them simply because I don't ever remember running across a PNG with artifacts in it.

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http://www.mzzt.net/ | I am a respectable admin with a respectable sig.

[lucius]

Ok, the program I was using doesn't allow me to alter the compression settings - I just checked - so I'll have to use GIMP or something. Thanks for the heads up.

I haven't used PNG's before, but photobucket automatically converts other formats (such as BMP) to JPG but doesn't convert PNG's which is why I started using them. I just never looked into how their compression was accomplished. Looking at it now it turns out to be the exact same system as used by zlib (DEFLATE). I'm just so used to lossy block based compression schemes, especially in graphics, such as JPG and S3TC.

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DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com

[Emon]

Interesting. How are you dealing with floor triangulation, massive texture sizes and non-power of two textures?

[Tsophika]

PNG and TGA are usually used in situations where the image quality has to absolutely be maintained, such as in rendering out a sequence of video. A JPEG compression of about 60% - 75% will give you a good quality image while keeping file sizes down.

Anyway, it's good to see the update! Kudos for consistently showing your progress.

[klasodeth]

[lucius]

[lucius]

As for stormtroopers dropping blaster rifles all the time, did you try other difficulties such as Easy?

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DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com

[klasodeth]

Yes, it wasn't nearly as thorough a test, but I did try the first level on medium and easy. I shot some of the Stormtrooper outside and didn't see anything different (except for less of them). I can try a more thorough check on easy and medium.

Edited to add: I just ran all the way through the first level on medium, then easy and saw no difference. The Stormtroopers drop blasters on those difficulties as well. The run-through included the secret area with the Interrogation droids and the hidden armory behind the rotating wall.

[lucius]

[Emon]

[lucius]

The large texture sizes you are talking about may be outside of the game. The briefings and cutscenes may have these. I can handle that easily enough by splitting them up in managable chunks, I've done that kind of thing in the past to support hi-res textures on older hardware. If I do find rediculously large wall textures then I'll just have to split the walls as well as the textures to fit. However I've tried several levels of the game so far and not found any of these textures.

As for triangulation, I've thought about the stencil trick you mentioned but actually triangulating them properly will be faster on some (older) hardware. Although if I run into specfic cases that can't be solved otherwise then I can use it. In my case the stencil buffer is used to "clip" portals so it can handle rooms on top of each other and other weird affects without having to actually (in software) clip the geometry.

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DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com

[lucius]

I just wanted to add that all the cases I've found so far are solvable using my triangulation system, which is why the stencil trick isn't necessary. The only areas that are tricky are those involving moving or rotating sectors. In many cases my previous solution should work fine. So my current system will handle almost all the cases now - and any case where this isn't true I can detect. So in those particular cases (when I find them - the first couple of levels don't have them at all), I can run some backup code, such as "stencil clipping" or run-time retriangulation to solve the problem.

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DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com

[Darth Oosha]

[lucius]

[Burning Gundam]

This is fantastic! Keep up the good work!

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I don't think outside the box... I customize it.

[lucius]

INF update: I have some of the elevators and doors controlled by switches working.

When you fall in the shaft in the beginning and hit the ground, the bars open up (triggered by the "land on floor"). When you leave that the door that needs the red key is closed but cannot be opened yet (you don't have the red key). The main doorway is opened using the switch on the wall (the one on the otherside works too). When you go outside the doors work, the ones that lead to the interior with the officer with the red key. Once inside you walk on an elevator and it automatically goes up (the enter sector flag, nudging also works). Then you can kill the officer and he drops the red key. At this point you can go back to the red key door, open it up and take the elevator to the top.

Anyway I'm still missing a few elevators, mainly the circular elevators and the giant walls outside (for the secret) but it's getting closer

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DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com

[lucius]

Another INF update: More INF classes work including ChangeLight Elevators. Messages and all the triggers work, so the red key door will now send a message to the elevator to goto the first stop, for example. The level is almost fully functional now

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DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com

[lucius]

Another small update: the more complex INF systems work, for example the "iris" door in one of the secret areas work. I'm now finishing up "morphing" sectors (such as elevator doors), they are usable now but have a glitch that I'm working on. After this the INF will be complete (atleast enough for this level to work correctly).

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DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com

[lucius]

The INF system is pretty much complete - all of the INF classes/sectors/lines in the first level work properly. This includes all the elevators, including those with the circular rotating doors. Even the "complete" elevator works, you can now actually get the Deathstar plans, take the final elevator and achieve the "mission complete" state. So while there is still more work to be done before the demo is released, the first level is now completely beatable and all secrets can be found as well. I'm now finishing some cosmetic issues with moving sectors/switches - basically handling anchored textures (almost complete) and properly changing/aligning switch textures.

Next up is sound, I'll make a full update (update 4) once that gets far enough along

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DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com

[CoinCollector]

[lucius]

Yes a demo should be available soon

Update 4 will probably be the last update before the first alpha demo.

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DarkXL....http://darkxl.wordpress.com

[CoinCollector]