Plan for BobTheCBuilder
by John Kabus (BobTheCBuilder) · 08/17/2003 (8:35 pm) · 12 comments
Ding-dong blender's dead...
..well blender's not really dead. I suffer from extreme paranoia that my software won't run well on older hardware. Knowing that Torque's blender runs fine on older hardware I've left blender in the engine. Now the blender type (Torque, advanced, or advanced high res) can be switched via the console in game. Nice...
Universal lighting:
Ahh... the quest for quality lighting in Torque; the lack of a light that can be used with all Torque objects is a problem (IMO). The dynamic lights built into the engine would be a solution if they actual contributed any diffuse lighting at all (as opposed to the intense specular contribution that stands in sharp contrast to the matt diffuse terrain / interior lighting).
To solve the issue I tried creating a static light that could add it self into the lighting on the terrain and interior light maps. Seemed simple enough, just create an object from shape base, set it to ghostable / always scope, have it register a light, and bam! Well it doesn't work and after hours of tracing code I find that the light mapping only works with directional lights. After looking at the light mapping code I decided that it should stay that way. ;) But in an attempt to continue procrastinating I tried to find another way to do the lighting.
Well... as a compromise I decided that the trade off of loosing shadows by gaining nice dynamic lighting wasn't too bad, so I decided to upgrade the dynamic lights that were already in the engine (the option was only available to me because of the new blender, talk about lucky). This required rewriting the interior and terrain rendering code. As before I left the original code in place, so that the render path will change with the blender type. Unfortunately the lights are tied very heavily to the blender, so dropping into Torque blender mode sets the dynamic lights back to the old style.
Also on my list of things to do was to annoy the guys over at Cartography Shop until they wrote a map exporter. Thanks to a lot of help from Johnny H the exporter is done (beta). Not a bad week.
I was fairly surprised to see that anyone read my last plan, so in the interest of observers I'll include a few screen shots. Once again I'll be using Water World as the setting.
Btw: I've been having issues with my hosting, so if the pics aren't working try again later (sorry).
The first pic is just the scene with no extra lighting:
The next is with the new dynamic lighting emanating from the weapon:
The last is showing that the new dynamic lights can light up completely dark terrain, interiors, and TS objects:
Let me know what you think...
John.
..well blender's not really dead. I suffer from extreme paranoia that my software won't run well on older hardware. Knowing that Torque's blender runs fine on older hardware I've left blender in the engine. Now the blender type (Torque, advanced, or advanced high res) can be switched via the console in game. Nice...
Universal lighting:
Ahh... the quest for quality lighting in Torque; the lack of a light that can be used with all Torque objects is a problem (IMO). The dynamic lights built into the engine would be a solution if they actual contributed any diffuse lighting at all (as opposed to the intense specular contribution that stands in sharp contrast to the matt diffuse terrain / interior lighting).
To solve the issue I tried creating a static light that could add it self into the lighting on the terrain and interior light maps. Seemed simple enough, just create an object from shape base, set it to ghostable / always scope, have it register a light, and bam! Well it doesn't work and after hours of tracing code I find that the light mapping only works with directional lights. After looking at the light mapping code I decided that it should stay that way. ;) But in an attempt to continue procrastinating I tried to find another way to do the lighting.
Well... as a compromise I decided that the trade off of loosing shadows by gaining nice dynamic lighting wasn't too bad, so I decided to upgrade the dynamic lights that were already in the engine (the option was only available to me because of the new blender, talk about lucky). This required rewriting the interior and terrain rendering code. As before I left the original code in place, so that the render path will change with the blender type. Unfortunately the lights are tied very heavily to the blender, so dropping into Torque blender mode sets the dynamic lights back to the old style.
Also on my list of things to do was to annoy the guys over at Cartography Shop until they wrote a map exporter. Thanks to a lot of help from Johnny H the exporter is done (beta). Not a bad week.
I was fairly surprised to see that anyone read my last plan, so in the interest of observers I'll include a few screen shots. Once again I'll be using Water World as the setting.
Btw: I've been having issues with my hosting, so if the pics aren't working try again later (sorry).
The first pic is just the scene with no extra lighting:
The next is with the new dynamic lighting emanating from the weapon:
The last is showing that the new dynamic lights can light up completely dark terrain, interiors, and TS objects:
Let me know what you think...
John.
#2
08/17/2003 (11:59 pm)
Cool stuff!
#3
Thanks for the high rating!
Marco,
So far all lighting in Torque takes advantage of the light mapping or the dynamic lighting infrastructure. Originally I wanted to write my own dynamic light object, but then I would have to shoe horn it into all of the places that use the current dynamic lighting. Instead I updated the dynamic lighting, so now I can take advantage of any objects or resources that using dynamic lighting without any code changes.
Here is a better example of the stock lighting (fairly dark):
See how the light washes out the underlying terrain and interior? Now check this out:
It's even more apparent in pitch black conditions:
John.
08/18/2003 (6:46 am)
Ben,Thanks for the high rating!
Marco,
So far all lighting in Torque takes advantage of the light mapping or the dynamic lighting infrastructure. Originally I wanted to write my own dynamic light object, but then I would have to shoe horn it into all of the places that use the current dynamic lighting. Instead I updated the dynamic lighting, so now I can take advantage of any objects or resources that using dynamic lighting without any code changes.
Here is a better example of the stock lighting (fairly dark):
See how the light washes out the underlying terrain and interior? Now check this out:
It's even more apparent in pitch black conditions:
John.
#4
So your dynamic lighting does not wash out the terrain like fxLights does? Sweet! I've actually met that problem before in Trajectory Zone. We've got one weapon that is used like a flare, but unfortunately it totally washes out the textures. =/
Hope it continues to go well! =)
-EricF
08/18/2003 (7:34 am)
John,So your dynamic lighting does not wash out the terrain like fxLights does? Sweet! I've actually met that problem before in Trajectory Zone. We've got one weapon that is used like a flare, but unfortunately it totally washes out the textures. =/
Hope it continues to go well! =)
-EricF
#6
It's not the fault of fxLight. FxLight only uses the default dynamic lighting in Torque. Actually after Marco mentioned fxLight I took a look at it. Wow... it's not that any of the features are that complicated, it's the sheer volume of features; talk about a well developed resource.
Basically I've rewritten the whole rendering backend to make the lighting a little more natural.
Btw: Do you have any examples of your work? Your profile is kind of empty and I was wondering what type and style of game content you develop.
John.
08/18/2003 (8:45 pm)
Hey Eric,It's not the fault of fxLight. FxLight only uses the default dynamic lighting in Torque. Actually after Marco mentioned fxLight I took a look at it. Wow... it's not that any of the features are that complicated, it's the sheer volume of features; talk about a well developed resource.
Basically I've rewritten the whole rendering backend to make the lighting a little more natural.
Btw: Do you have any examples of your work? Your profile is kind of empty and I was wondering what type and style of game content you develop.
John.
#7
-Eric
edit: There's a link to more screenshots in that snapshot description, too.
08/18/2003 (9:20 pm)
This shows some screenies of what I've done with TZ. The inner screens are pretty well taken from the game itself, of which I'd done almost everything short of the player models. Apologies that I haven't actually made a portfolio yet. :-) -Eric
edit: There's a link to more screenshots in that snapshot description, too.
#8
John.
08/19/2003 (10:40 am)
Looks great, how long have you been working on this project? Is it just the two of you?John.
#9
08/19/2003 (10:41 am)
Btw: no sweat on the profile, I only updated my profile last week. ;)
#10
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr. lays claim to the project. He started it over a year ago, a couple months before I came on board. He's got a family and full-time job, so things kind of come in spurts. He's done a bang-up job, though, and fell in love with your lighting, above. :-)
Do you have a specific game you're working on? Or just making improvements until you decide on one?
08/19/2003 (8:22 pm)
Mike has done some great things for TZ, including 2D art, some of the 3D models, suggestions to our musician to improve our song quality, and got two of his professional voice buddies to come over and make up a bunch of voice tracks. His business is in multimedia and producing Indie music CDs, so he's been a great asset. We've also had two other modellers with us, and a musician. Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr. lays claim to the project. He started it over a year ago, a couple months before I came on board. He's got a family and full-time job, so things kind of come in spurts. He's done a bang-up job, though, and fell in love with your lighting, above. :-)
Do you have a specific game you're working on? Or just making improvements until you decide on one?
#11
Davis, I've seen a number of his plans. He works on the Panic series of puzzle games, right (FlipPanic, ...)? Wow he really stays busy (good job too).
You guys are doing an excellent job on Trajectory Zone, looking forward to playing it.
08/20/2003 (8:53 pm)
Yes, I am currently on a project right now. I finally added our company info to my profile. I feel a little silly having not done it sooner, but as you said; never enough time. That and I didn't expect my plans to have quite the impact that they did, so I'm trying to rearrange my priorities a little.Davis, I've seen a number of his plans. He works on the Panic series of puzzle games, right (FlipPanic, ...)? Wow he really stays busy (good job too).
You guys are doing an excellent job on Trajectory Zone, looking forward to playing it.
#12
Nice company profile. Man, I need to get on the ball. ;-)
Is it just your bro and you? I've tried getting my bro's involved. They are both programmers. Carl even still writes, produces, and sells some Atari Jaguar and Lynx games. Surprisingly, I understand it's a pretty lucrative hobby. Who'da thunk such old systems would still have such a fan base?
Anyway... that's a bit offtrack. lol... and long live Atari. ;-)
-Eric
08/20/2003 (11:11 pm)
Yep! That's him. He's got some puzzle games out.Nice company profile. Man, I need to get on the ball. ;-)
Is it just your bro and you? I've tried getting my bro's involved. They are both programmers. Carl even still writes, produces, and sells some Atari Jaguar and Lynx games. Surprisingly, I understand it's a pretty lucrative hobby. Who'da thunk such old systems would still have such a fan base?
Anyway... that's a bit offtrack. lol... and long live Atari. ;-)
-Eric
Torque 3D Owner Marco Meier
Slickware Games