The Shining Source

Holy COW! This stuff rocks big time!!

I love the quality, especially of your more recent screenies! Keep up the good job

really look forward to seeing what you put together
this is choice stuff

Thanks everyone,

I'll do my best.   

While I'm at it, here's another video. When I started Dark Resurrection (when it was still 2D ) I always wanted to include a battle on the train (just like the one in SFIII. )
One of the problems was how to move the train and keep using the same scenery throughout the battle. I started working on a system where tiles moved from left to right, and when a row of tiles left the right side of the screen, it was put on the left of the screen (naturally outside of the screen). Alas, when I switched from 2D (DIV) to 3D (Blitz)
the problem returned  .

I soon started working on a train in 3D. The train itself has changed quite a bit.  The result  is what you see here.

I also solved the aforementioned problem. Although you see the wheels rotating, the train itself doesn't really move. It's the groundtexture and the tracks that are moving!!! Quite a neat trick, yes ? 

I've already shown the vid to a number of people, and they all thought that the train was moving  . So, I'd like to think that I've succeeded !!!

That's really smart!

I love the train battle from SF3, so it's exciting to see that something similar will be featuring in Dark Resurrection.

wow, some very nice work going on here.. the tempo of the project is pretty amazing, i tend to be seeing something new everytime i return to the site, very promising and keep up the good work 

Here's a screenie of a scorpion. As you can see, it's made in Gamespace, and it is past it's modelling stage.

The green cylinders represent the bones. The yellow cubes are the joints.
The skin [of the model] is already attached to the bones. Currently busy with adjusting DoF (Degrees of Freedom) of the joints. This is basically the "maneuverability" of the joints.

Things left to do:

1) Tweaking the vertices, so that you have "nice" mesh deformation. This tweaking is done by manipulating the joint , so that you can see which vertices are connected to what bone.

By attaching the skin to the skeleton, Gamespace automatically attaches a vertex to the nearest bone. While this takes a lot of work out of my hands, it is recommended to check everything manually.

2) Setting up the model for animation.

This is the tricky part. I already had a complete low-poly version of the scorpion.
This version was already animated. Now, to make this model work in Blitz3D, first I must load it with LoadAnimMesh. I experimented with this model, such as exporting it as a B3D-file , X-File , 3Ds-File and Md2-file, exporting bones/not exporting bones , exporting animation (naturally )

From all these tests , the B3D-extension works the best. There is ( I think ) one limitation. The model must be one single mesh or else it will not work. Also it is possible to add animation sequences to a model (something to do with that most meshes/models have one single animation sequence, or something like that.)

This means that I must create multiple files of the same model, and each file has a different animation sequence. This also means that I need to write down a lot of info ( type of model , how many animation-files the model has, filename in B3D , filename in Gamespace (for backup)

A handy feature of GameSpace is, that it is possible to save each skeleton I create. (including animation !!)

This way I can:
- Create a skeleton
- Tweak the joints
- Copy the skeleton a number of times for different animations
- Tweak each copy for a certain animation.
- Create a model and plunk in a skeleton
- Load model in Blitz3D and add necessary animation-sequences.

I'll post some more info when time permits. ....and don't worry, I'm still working on a test-version. It's just that I like to work on a couple of things at a time.  ... Keeps me sharp

That's all for now

The top-part of the carriage can be flipped inside-out.
This way, you can see the inside of the carriage without obstructions.

Four of these [carriages] will make a nice "moving" battlefield.







This is one of the "inhabitants".
Warning: completely ignore the head (skull), laugh at it's "naffness".
I'm working on a much better skull.

Here are some more houses. Different models , same supertexture 





The skull is nearly complete, hold on to your hats !
Screenies very soon (Film at eleven)

Also: Puzzle-Dungeons are nearly complete. I'll make some screenies of these dungeons this weekend.

See ya in a few days. 

Ta!

i just wet my pants =O

Happy New Year everyone,

Here are some screenies:






It's a work in progress at the moment.

I'm busy with placing (and positioning) the houses .The streetlanterns are up next. (There are already a few on this map, just to see if these fit with the rest of the scene.)

To do: bushes, trees, crates, benches,fences. My goal is to create a datafile for each collection of objects (one file for the houses, one for trees, etc)

I've written a function that takes care of reading these files.
The idea is to give each map a unique name.

Like this:

Function Create_Town ( MapName$ ) 

create_house ( MapName$ )
create_lantern ( MapName$ )
etc
etc

End Function 

The "Mapname$" parameter is where the unique name is entered.  It's transferred through all the other function-calls. This way it's easy for me to load the data for all these different objects.

All files are read until the pointer reaches the end of the file.

So, it's possible  to have a very large file with data for positioning trees, or a very short one with data for crates.

Also , not all maps need houses, and not all maps need trees ( dungeon maps for example )
I've taken care of this problem. 
There's a check to see if a file exists for a certain object.
If there IS a file then the contents are read.
If it isn't there, then it simply skips the reading part.
This way I can avoid reading-errors.

After all , you can't read what isn't there, yes ?

That's all folks.

See you soon

villages!  awesome!!!
loving the smoke puffs

Thanks Elv,

Here's another one.

It's a building designed especially for the Item Shop, Weapon Shop & Depot

If I want an Item-shop then I'll disable the sign for Weapon-Shop and vice-versa.
And if I need a Depot then I'll just disable both of them

This time I've made the windows a bit bigger. They're shop-windows after all
A second texture will be added to the class-part of all the windows. It's a pre-computed cube-map. So, when you rotate the camera, you will notice the shininess of the windows



As for the town,

I've added a fountain , complete with sections of "falling water".

The church is added too, complete with moving church-bel.

The camerasystem is complete too. You can walk in one direction, and rotate the camera 360 deg. simultaneously .  

More houses are added. I've programmed it in such a way that not all chimneys will smoke and if you leave and re-enter the map, then it will be different from the last time.

I also made a few more textures for these houses, there are now different colors for the roof and walls. In short....  9 different textures for 1 house-model,  now.. if that's not efficient, I don't know what is.

More maps (almost complete):

The Harbour-map
This will map will feature a "slopey" terrain. It contains the Lighthouse , a dock , 2 or 3 ships , along with numerous crates and a number of Lanterns.
(I'll make a screenie of this one soon)

-#-

The Airfield-map (screenies coming soon)
This map will feature a landing-site for the air-ships. Ships will take off and land

I've modeled a new Battlecruiser (work in progress) . This will fit right in. (screenie!)

-#-

I've decided to make a seperate map for the graveyard.
It was scheduled to positioned in one of the sections of the main town, but it just felt
out of place. The graveyard is now located in a forest-area (wow , even more screenies to make )

-#-

I've also modeled a small part for a market (screenie..(this is getting boooriiiing )     
It's a market-stand complete with roof , and four crates with vegetables.
So, a few of these, a couple of carts , seperate cart-wheels ,  a lot of crates, and you have a nice market.

Phew , I'll rename this week the "make a few screenies week"

See Ya
   

This is simply AMAZING!
I'm loving the videos and graphics
I'm a total n00b at Blitz3D >_>...
Any chance of some advice?
Also, I take it that you are dutch too?

Good luck on this and any other project!

Cye,
Sol.

Thanks 

Of course I would like to help.
Just tell me what type of advice you need...( AI , programming in general , camera-code , etc)


Yup, 100% Cheesehead

If you need tips in Dutch ,  then that's okay too (mail me at: sodalee AT dso DOT denhaag DOT .nl )
 



   

Hi all,

Last time I promised a bucketload of screenies....well... here are at least two (it's a small bucket j/k )

Anyway,



Here is an update on how the town 'gets more busy'.
In the distance you see the church and there's also a fountain. The town is surrounded by mountains.
I've moved the mountains a bit further away [not pictured here], so it feels less 'cramped'.

The skybox is now in place. A skybox is just a cube, flipped inside out.
It's drawn first , so it's behind everything else.
It's also parented to the camera. So, when the character moves , the camera moves.
Ergo, it's impossible to walk towards the edges of a skybox.         
I have a couple of texture-sets that fit perfectly on a skybox.

There are also textures that look better when placed on a sphere. 
These textures take a fair time to load (they're quite large), and texturing the sphere with them
also takes its toll on performance. Luckily, that last part is becoming a non-issue.

The idea is to load these images as a brush instead of a texture.
Working with brushes [by painting entities]is much faster than texturing entities.
Next, load one skyBOX and one skySPHERE. Flip the meshes , and set their entityorder.

Now , when entering a map, a copy is being made from the original skyBOX or skySPHERE.
The appropriate brush is now applied to this copy. Very simple ..and very fast too

So far, everything you see in this picture , is loaded in less than 2 seconds.
The same is true when moving from one map to another.

ahem... the next picture(s)





This is the final model for the inside of the church.
It is the same model but I've applied a different lightingstructure to it.

The top picture has the lightsources placed between the walls and each column in high resolution.
The bottom picture has the lightsources placed on the OTHER side of the columns in medium resolution.

I hope you can spot the difference

So.,... the model is finished, but I have something else in mind. You see, in SFIII there isn't much lighting.
Well, there are a few shadows here and there, but that's about it. And I really want a bit of lighting for every
indoor scene.

The problem is: every [indoor] map has its own lightmap. This lightmap is just a bitmap with light/dark patches
for every surface in the model. 50 maps .... 50 lightmaps, etc etc.
All these extra bitmaps make the entire game quite big.

There are models, textures, sprites , images , sounds , music, heightmaps, datafiles and other assorted fluff.

As luck would have it , someone made a "portable lightmapper" in Blitz.
Now, if I can get this code to work for Dark Resurrection then I would be a very happy person indeed.
A lightmap could then be made "on the fly" with no extra media.

More coding news in my other thread.

See Ya