Re-works and refinements
by Dave Slezak (Ninjadave) · 04/26/2009 (8:02 pm) · 9 comments
The thought finally occurred to me I haven't linked everyone here at Garage Games to our profile on Moddb.
You can find the specific site here.
If you don't know, Moddb is a general game/mod site used mostly by development teams as a way to reach the public.
In fact, I'm a manager of a small group dedicated to interviewing and previewing indie projects. If anyone is interested, make a Moddb profile and fire me an e-mail, and we'll talk from there.
Anyways, onto the pictures!
I changed the tint of the sky to a light pale blue, compared to the original "purple", took out some decals and added others, moved/added detail props, and the like.
I like the look of the buildings in the distance. The difficult part about these scenes is keeping the entire thing optimized since much of it is outdoors.
Remember the older fence picture? Well I added more fence pieces to make it a full fence instead of the unusual half fence. I even flipped a piece over to leave a gap.
This road is to the right of the previous image, if that puts perspective onto the map.
This is a new screen shot of me observing a passing helicopter. The helicopter itself is based off of the Comanche, and is roughly 1000 polys. I don't have animations or sound effects for it yet, but its an interesting sight!
I personally believe sound is the next major step into making something more realistic. Its a shame now-a-days sound is 'tossed aside', well most of the time.
Its been an interesting week, and I hope I eventually have some more media that really shows some in-depth game play or something of the sort.
At this point, who knows?
Certainly not me.
Thanks for reading!
You can find the specific site here.
If you don't know, Moddb is a general game/mod site used mostly by development teams as a way to reach the public.
In fact, I'm a manager of a small group dedicated to interviewing and previewing indie projects. If anyone is interested, make a Moddb profile and fire me an e-mail, and we'll talk from there.
Anyways, onto the pictures!
I changed the tint of the sky to a light pale blue, compared to the original "purple", took out some decals and added others, moved/added detail props, and the like.
I like the look of the buildings in the distance. The difficult part about these scenes is keeping the entire thing optimized since much of it is outdoors.
Remember the older fence picture? Well I added more fence pieces to make it a full fence instead of the unusual half fence. I even flipped a piece over to leave a gap.
This road is to the right of the previous image, if that puts perspective onto the map.
This is a new screen shot of me observing a passing helicopter. The helicopter itself is based off of the Comanche, and is roughly 1000 polys. I don't have animations or sound effects for it yet, but its an interesting sight!
I personally believe sound is the next major step into making something more realistic. Its a shame now-a-days sound is 'tossed aside', well most of the time.
Its been an interesting week, and I hope I eventually have some more media that really shows some in-depth game play or something of the sort.
At this point, who knows?
Certainly not me.
Thanks for reading!
About the author
Recent Blogs
• Another article!• A Real Blog!
• Comparison screenshots - Old and new
• Sneak Peek Screen-shots
• More work done!
#2
John K.
www.envygames.com
04/26/2009 (8:42 pm)
Looks great! It has a nice spooky Fallout feel to it. John K.
www.envygames.com
#3
How is the performance, and what measures did you take to keep it ticking over?
04/27/2009 (12:18 am)
Indeed, really impressive.How is the performance, and what measures did you take to keep it ticking over?
#4
04/27/2009 (1:23 am)
I'm impressed. Great look you're developing here. 
#5
And as Rob said, how's performance.
04/27/2009 (2:30 am)
That little change to the fence really makes all the difference. When you're going for run down atmosphere it's little details like that, that really count towards the ambience.And as Rob said, how's performance.
#6
04/27/2009 (6:53 am)
Nice looking game map, keep us posted. 
#7
04/27/2009 (11:22 am)
Wow Looks awesome keep up the good work! i love your work!
#8
The performance is around 58-65 frames a second, which I'm happy with until we bombard it with decals and more props.
Though ultimately its going to be the players, gun shots, and the chaos that will be hurting the frame rate. Which is why its important to keep it optimized.
As for optimizing, any un-seen side of any face in the BSP shapes has to be 'NULL'. A lot of this is the under sides of the shapes and the tops.
In every screen shot, your looking at very 'fake' architecture of mostly optimized BSP work.
Farther background buildings are flat DTS shapes, and since they won't need collision boxes, are great for placing in bundles to make it 'look' like you've done a lot with the buildings.
If I was going to take this one step farther (Which I will, eventually), I would make the buildings an alpha map and add a transparent edge on the side to give the buildings a more of a 3D effect. Such as cutting out sides to give it balconies and satellite dishes. These small and subtle features give it a much more detailed look.
As for the detail props, we rarely go over the 256 texture mark. A rare exception is the fence in the second screen shot, which is a 512.
Large textures, like the ground textures, are 1024 since they are used often and will take up less space that way. Things like decals are around the 128-256 range, and usually look fine a little stretched anyways.
I think a big issue right now is the stock trees. Don't get me wrong, I like they way they look, but when several of them are placed together I usually run into some serious frame rate problems.
As this map is more of a forest on the outskirts of the city, this poses a serious problem. In later screens, you'll see a much more optimized tree as well as a fixed collision box. The "Square" collision box that stock tree has is fine, but if you ever place it on a BSP shape and have it cast shadows, you end up with an ugly square shadow.
It might be the elevation of the sun, but either way, its going to need to be fixed.
On that note, I disabled shadows. Not only to optimize the scene a little more (And the load times), but since its a foggy condition that would have little to no shadows in the first place.
04/27/2009 (2:16 pm)
@Rob and Steve:The performance is around 58-65 frames a second, which I'm happy with until we bombard it with decals and more props.
Though ultimately its going to be the players, gun shots, and the chaos that will be hurting the frame rate. Which is why its important to keep it optimized.
As for optimizing, any un-seen side of any face in the BSP shapes has to be 'NULL'. A lot of this is the under sides of the shapes and the tops.
In every screen shot, your looking at very 'fake' architecture of mostly optimized BSP work.
Farther background buildings are flat DTS shapes, and since they won't need collision boxes, are great for placing in bundles to make it 'look' like you've done a lot with the buildings.
If I was going to take this one step farther (Which I will, eventually), I would make the buildings an alpha map and add a transparent edge on the side to give the buildings a more of a 3D effect. Such as cutting out sides to give it balconies and satellite dishes. These small and subtle features give it a much more detailed look.
As for the detail props, we rarely go over the 256 texture mark. A rare exception is the fence in the second screen shot, which is a 512.
Large textures, like the ground textures, are 1024 since they are used often and will take up less space that way. Things like decals are around the 128-256 range, and usually look fine a little stretched anyways.
I think a big issue right now is the stock trees. Don't get me wrong, I like they way they look, but when several of them are placed together I usually run into some serious frame rate problems.
As this map is more of a forest on the outskirts of the city, this poses a serious problem. In later screens, you'll see a much more optimized tree as well as a fixed collision box. The "Square" collision box that stock tree has is fine, but if you ever place it on a BSP shape and have it cast shadows, you end up with an ugly square shadow.
It might be the elevation of the sun, but either way, its going to need to be fixed.
On that note, I disabled shadows. Not only to optimize the scene a little more (And the load times), but since its a foggy condition that would have little to no shadows in the first place.
#9
04/27/2009 (11:41 pm)
Awesome work Dave. 
Torque Owner Bryce
Tactical AI Kit