DF-21 Forums

[lucius]

Here is my current near term plans for DarkXL.

Build 8a
The next build will be Build 8a, which will fix the some of the most pressing issues - memory issues, the buffer overrun issue with the settings file, the bug where the app crashed on startup. There are also be some "behind the scenes" fixes that people won't notice but will make the program better in the long term.

Build 8b
After that there will be an 8b build that will fix less pressing but important issues such as getting stuck in certain doors. I'll get in as many bug fixes as possible within a reasonable time frame.

There may be an 8c and so on, but if there are it'll be in conjunction with working on Build 9. I don't want there to be as big a gap as builds 1-7f before there's new content.

Build 9
Build 9 will include the following features:
*TestBase will be playable including new AI and the new weapon.
*iMuse midi for music playback.
*Portal/Tesselation fixes so that all sectors will be rendered correctly - this'll fix rendering bugs in SecBase and Talay.
*Renderer optimizations and better support for GeForce FX-series of video cards.
*Secondary fire support.

This build is planned to smaller and much faster to implement then Build 8 was, but it is still a fairly major new build with new content.

Build 10
*Several new levels, including Gromas Mines. Hopefully from here on out, new levels will come in blocks as the last bits of functionality get ironed out. This includes any new AI, weapons and logics.
*Colormap support for levels, done by extracting "color curves" from the colormap then using that to get the correct lighting value. This means the color gradients will look just as smooth as they do now.
*Initial version of the level editor to test, probably just 3D mode with some limitations.

As usual any comments are welcome.

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

[sheepandshepherd]

Yay, thanks
Which build will support the custom jedi.lev file (the custom level names and list)?
On Build 10, what do you mean by colormap support?
Btw, are you planning on implementing a better interpolation method in DarkXL? A lot of the old textures look really blurry, mainly the menu textures, briefings, and HUD fonts. Unless you already have something planned yourself, it might save some time looking into DoxBox's opensource texture scaling methods . . . they won't help in-game, but they'll work wonders on the briefing screen and main menu.

[lucius]

[Burning Gundam]

Looking forward to it

Personally looking forward to the next build.

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

[lucius]

I just wanted to let everyone know that I've started working on the iMuse implementation. The player is using a streaming system on a high priority thread, so the music should still play smoothly even when loading or under heavy load.

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

[Patrick Haslow]

[lucius]

I got basic music playing in the levels. It doesn't switch to the "Fight" music yet and TestBase track doesn't sound right but nevertheless it is progressing...

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

[lucius]

Some of the SysEx commands are being processed now. For example iMuse tracks can have internal loop points that control how the in-level music is looping - that has been implemented. Soon I'll get the transitions working. Once that is complete I'll have to get the cutscene music working correctly too.

Once iMuse is working (in a couple of days most likely), I was thinking of releasing another build with iMuse being the only new feature. Does that sound like a good idea to you guys?

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

[Burning Gundam]

Something I just remembered. When reviewing a GOB, one will notice that there are aslo BOSS.GMDs that were never used. Would it be possible to implement those as well?

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

[lucius]

Eventually you'll be able to change the current GMD[s] playing through INF and/or scripting. So for your own mods, you could use the BOSS GMDs or whatever you want. For the main levels, I will stick with emulating what DF does in this case.

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

[Burning Gundam]

I just figured it might be neat to see that as an extended feature

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

[lucius]

Possibly, down the road.

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

[Marley]

[lucius]

Thanks for the feeback. I will make an "iMuse" build once it works well enough.

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

[Burning Gundam]

Yay! Classic DF Music!!!

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

[lucius]

I'm still working on iMuse. I've been tackling limiting latency enough to make switching tracks work well while still allowing the music to play smoothly all the time. The music does transition from "Stalk" to "Fight" and back based on what's going on. In addition its honoring internal music loops as well. Once that is complete I'll move on to cutscene music and then make a release. However, due to time constraints, I'm not expecting to make a release until next week.

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

[swaaye]

I just want to say to you Lucius that I am really excited to have stumbled over to DF21 today and found out about this DF overhaul. I've been visiting this site sporadically since its inception but decided to finally register today, this year, to say WOW!!! Yeah the DF Mod for JA is nice, but this will be the real thing made clearly viewable and perty!

Since forever, I've been wishing that PC users had access to the 640x480 Mac version of DF. LucasArts really was cruel not to patch that into the DOS version. But, now you are going to blow that version away completely.

Very exciting. Your recreation here reminds me of the excellent Privateer Gemini Gold project.

[DF4GL4ever]

It's also cruel that us Mac guys don't have a DF equivalent of AlephOne... but DarkXL works

[lucius]

Last week was pretty busy and unproductive for DarkXL (and other things I'm supposed to be working on). I was working on the transitions for iMuse but I have decided to take a break from that. I'm working on finishing the rendering fixes (the portal changes I keep talking about) and working on the level editor. Once I get the geometry issues all fixed, I'll go back to iMuse.

The geometry fixes should allow all the geometry in the levels to render correctly. I'll be using the level editor (and real levels of course) to test different configurations. I'll probably release a build with the rendering fixes as well as an early version of the editor in the near future.

There are some interesting side-effects to the improved portal system:
*sectors only need to be triangulated based on their outer contour now - this means tessellation is much simpler, faster and more robust. It also means that fewer polygons are generated (which will be very useful in one of the future extended features) and that editing that geometry is very fast.
*There are some complex sectors that aren't tessellated correctly in some mod levels that will work fine now.
*Loading will be much faster in large levels since a lot of that time is currently spent on tessellation.
*All the funky sector tricks, like Perplexion will work correctly.
*Disconnected portals will be possible as an extended feature.

This means that viewing the level from outside in the 3D edit mode (in the editor) is a little weird, but it means that I have to treat back-sided walls as adjoins for rendering.

There's a bunch of reported rendering bugs that this will fix.

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

[Burning Gundam]

Right on, man. Thanks for the update and good news

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

[Marley]

Excellent news - I've been holding off working on my Project until the tessellation issue was fixed as there was a few sectors in my level that didn't load correctly (part of the problem was one of them had vertices on top of each other). Once this is uploaded I'll do an update on my level and get cracking... woot.

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*ZaP*

[lucius]

[Burning Gundam]

[Barry Brien]

Yeah ye're a lazy bunch alright. I'm lazy too. Kinda thinking about making one more level, but not sure yet. I've had a few intersesting things I'd like to try out. Anyway I can't wait to play some more of DarkXL. It's the best thing to happen to DF since wdfuse.

[Burning Gundam]

I wouldn't say I've been lazy, just busy and have a bit of a designer's block at the moment.

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

[lucius]

In case you guys have been wondering what I'm working on, here is a small update. I've been improving the portal culling. I've replaced my previous screenspace portal bounding boxs with the real screenspace portal quads. What I do then is when traversing the visible portals, I clip the portal polygons to the previous visible region. Basically the test is alot less conservative and leads to much less recursion and fewer rendered sectors. This is independent of the rendered portal clipping - which is done on the GPU using the stencil and depth buffer. Anyway some screenshots visualizing what I'm talking about:





Note that some portals appear to be "missing" from the top screenshot. Its only showing 1 polygon per-portal - the last one traversed.

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

[Ryuichi91]

Loving the screenshots Lucius. I can't wait till build 10 comes out and play with the level editor.

[Taton]

I'm so glad that lucius goes to such lengths to make sure that everything is done right. It really shows how passionate he is.

On a side note, in the first screenshot, why is the wireframe for the back console only showing on the left side?

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"A fight should be clean and elegant, without waste"
-Asuka Langley Sohryu, Evangelion

[lucius]

[Emon]

Jon`C did some interesting stuff for an editor for his own project a while back (watch the video). It's pretty similar to JED from what I can tell, but better. You might take some ideas from it.

I really like it. I've always thought that in-game editors are the way to go.