Lots of Buildings (with lots of pics)
by Dracola · 06/02/2007 (3:44 pm) · 5 comments
It's been a long time since I posted a blog. Before I get to the subject I'll roll through what I have done in the last year or so.
1. bought TGEA
2. decided to learn C++
3. downloaded DirectX SDK and started a game
I do want to say that learning Torque Script can help miles with C++ and I would urge any beginning programmers to learn Torque script first as an intro language.
I plan to post milestones on my game which will hopefully be a mouse controlled sword fighting game.
these pictures are of a test city to see how many boxes I could get in the game, no culling is being performed. If people are interested in the details this is being pulled off using hardware instancing.
this picture is a good close up but to see how many there actually are we need to fly above the city.
there are 360,000 buildings, way more than I will ever need in the game so I have a lot of room for particles, debris, and lighting computations.
I plan to have all the game art be these boxes. I'm no artist and I figure its better to not try and let people know it then try and fail. That's the main thing I've learned over my indie years.
the next step is to get the sword in the players hand and have him swing it around. Once I accomplish this I plan to post screens and such here.
1. bought TGEA
2. decided to learn C++
3. downloaded DirectX SDK and started a game
I do want to say that learning Torque Script can help miles with C++ and I would urge any beginning programmers to learn Torque script first as an intro language.
I plan to post milestones on my game which will hopefully be a mouse controlled sword fighting game.
these pictures are of a test city to see how many boxes I could get in the game, no culling is being performed. If people are interested in the details this is being pulled off using hardware instancing.
this picture is a good close up but to see how many there actually are we need to fly above the city.
there are 360,000 buildings, way more than I will ever need in the game so I have a lot of room for particles, debris, and lighting computations.
I plan to have all the game art be these boxes. I'm no artist and I figure its better to not try and let people know it then try and fail. That's the main thing I've learned over my indie years.
the next step is to get the sword in the players hand and have him swing it around. Once I accomplish this I plan to post screens and such here.
About the author
#2
I am running a 7950 GX2 OC'ed which is a fairly top of the line card though, so your average computer wouldn't be able to handle as many.
06/02/2007 (10:32 pm)
I averaged 15 fps, not great. 200,000 gave me an average of 30fps. They have lighting computed on all the verteces (dot product of normal vector to sunlight vector) which is completely unnecessary so I figure I could run 360,000 with average fps if I didn't do that.I am running a 7950 GX2 OC'ed which is a fairly top of the line card though, so your average computer wouldn't be able to handle as many.
#3
06/03/2007 (5:49 am)
Hmm, If your looking for a city environment, I'd say you need at least a little more variation than simply height. length and width too. Simple boxs would be easy enough to texture and such, just you need at least a bit of variation other than tall towers.
#4
I started making Coruscant as a mod for Operation Flashpoint but never finished it.
http://ofp.gamepark.cz/news/pics2/Coruscant1.jpg
I was doing this on a very low-spec computer, with thousands of vehicles and buildings onscreen with absolutely no slowdown (even with fraps recording video).
The Flashpoint engine was able to sustain an absolute insane amount of objects/polygons. The problem with Torque is that I can never fit as many polygons into a scene as I would like to on a low-spec computer compared to the Flashpoint engine. Infact I find this to be one of Torque's weaknesses.
Of course you have to consider as soon as you get all the scripts and animations in there, things really begin to bog down. Most noticeable of this fact was with Rome Total War. You could have a massive battle going on and it would be laggy on a crap computer. But when the battle ended and all the scripts were stopped all the lag was completely gone.
06/03/2007 (6:19 am)
LODs come in handy too. I always wanted to make a massive city in Torque but never found the time.I started making Coruscant as a mod for Operation Flashpoint but never finished it.
http://ofp.gamepark.cz/news/pics2/Coruscant1.jpg
I was doing this on a very low-spec computer, with thousands of vehicles and buildings onscreen with absolutely no slowdown (even with fraps recording video).
The Flashpoint engine was able to sustain an absolute insane amount of objects/polygons. The problem with Torque is that I can never fit as many polygons into a scene as I would like to on a low-spec computer compared to the Flashpoint engine. Infact I find this to be one of Torque's weaknesses.
Of course you have to consider as soon as you get all the scripts and animations in there, things really begin to bog down. Most noticeable of this fact was with Rome Total War. You could have a massive battle going on and it would be laggy on a crap computer. But when the battle ended and all the scripts were stopped all the lag was completely gone.
#5
I'm still debating as to whether or not to have a city in my game. If I do I will definetely make some modifications to this.
@Mark
That is a very impressive scene, it looks good. I'm not sure how I would use an LOD as the only thing less complicated than a box would be a billboarded plane. And the computations required for the LOD system would not be worth that. If I did use a city environment in my game I would probably only be using 30,000 buildings max so I shouldn't have problems with rendering times.
06/03/2007 (10:52 am)
@francis,I'm still debating as to whether or not to have a city in my game. If I do I will definetely make some modifications to this.
@Mark
That is a very impressive scene, it looks good. I'm not sure how I would use an LOD as the only thing less complicated than a box would be a billboarded plane. And the computations required for the LOD system would not be worth that. If I did use a city environment in my game I would probably only be using 30,000 buildings max so I shouldn't have problems with rendering times.
Torque Owner James Dunlap