Plan for Pat Wilson
by Pat Wilson · 08/05/2004 (3:55 pm) · 13 comments
Now that the cat is out of the press-release, I can talk about what I've been working on since my arrival at GarageGames. Marble Blast for XArcade is coming along pretty well. I am using a heavily modified version of Marble Blast FX for this codebase right now, though it will be possible, in the future, to compile TSE for the XBox.
Right now I am running up against a few issues. One is the limitations of the XBox hardware. XBox shaders are limited to ps/vs 1.1. As you can see from the screenshots, the shaders look pretty good. The problem is occuring with the specular highlight 'warping' across the large interior polygons. I am hitting the instruction cap for Pixel Shaders, and multipassing is not going to be an option most likely. One possibility is to do an automatic tessilation on interiors upon load, this will just make the problem much less evident.
Another issue I am wrestling with is memory usage. Right now we are up to around 50-55MB of memory, and XBox has 64MB. This is closer to the cap than I'd like to be, and I'd really hate to have a game crash on some near-impossible to duplicate situation on the highest memory-consumption level or something.
Re-working the GUI's has been way easier than I thought it would be, though it's a lot of grunt work. Turning the Marble Blast GUI's into something console friendly has been the great work of our very own Alex Swanson who, when he's not battling the hoards, is doing some pretty sweet work on making our colors NTSC friendly.
After work on Marble Blast is complete, I will be turning my attention to TSE XBox development.
Right now I am running up against a few issues. One is the limitations of the XBox hardware. XBox shaders are limited to ps/vs 1.1. As you can see from the screenshots, the shaders look pretty good. The problem is occuring with the specular highlight 'warping' across the large interior polygons. I am hitting the instruction cap for Pixel Shaders, and multipassing is not going to be an option most likely. One possibility is to do an automatic tessilation on interiors upon load, this will just make the problem much less evident.
Another issue I am wrestling with is memory usage. Right now we are up to around 50-55MB of memory, and XBox has 64MB. This is closer to the cap than I'd like to be, and I'd really hate to have a game crash on some near-impossible to duplicate situation on the highest memory-consumption level or something.
Re-working the GUI's has been way easier than I thought it would be, though it's a lot of grunt work. Turning the Marble Blast GUI's into something console friendly has been the great work of our very own Alex Swanson who, when he's not battling the hoards, is doing some pretty sweet work on making our colors NTSC friendly.
After work on Marble Blast is complete, I will be turning my attention to TSE XBox development.
About the author
#2
This is awesome,
I think that I will buy an xbox just for this.
Thank you Pat, Alex, and the other GG employes!
08/05/2004 (5:07 pm)
Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!This is awesome,
I think that I will buy an xbox just for this.
Thank you Pat, Alex, and the other GG employes!
#3
The last thing I want to see on an X-Box is an FPS because it is really really hard to use a gamepad for such movements...
Marble Blast should be alright...
Just please no FPS'!
Thank you for your time...
Thomas Copeland
08/05/2004 (5:12 pm)
I bought an X-Box mainly for the Legacy of Kain games...The last thing I want to see on an X-Box is an FPS because it is really really hard to use a gamepad for such movements...
Marble Blast should be alright...
Just please no FPS'!
Thank you for your time...
Thomas Copeland
#4
@Thomas, We've had Marble Blast working on a dual-analog pad since GDC 2003, and the first time we played it we said, "Dude, we gotta put this on a console..." A year and a half later, here we are. I will say, without any kind of bias or hype, I sit and play Marble Blast on the TV next to my computer here because it's so damn fun to see it on the screen, see my scores up on PartnerNet (The XBox live test service), and watch this game get ready to launch the indie revolution up to new levels. Some games are just made for gamepads, and Marble Blast is only one of them.
08/05/2004 (7:25 pm)
@David, if you just walk up to MS and ask how much for a dev kit, I think the price is $10k. However, that's assuming you are footing the bill for everything. I will see what information exactly I can post, but I will say that the XBox is no longer out of the league of indie developers.@Thomas, We've had Marble Blast working on a dual-analog pad since GDC 2003, and the first time we played it we said, "Dude, we gotta put this on a console..." A year and a half later, here we are. I will say, without any kind of bias or hype, I sit and play Marble Blast on the TV next to my computer here because it's so damn fun to see it on the screen, see my scores up on PartnerNet (The XBox live test service), and watch this game get ready to launch the indie revolution up to new levels. Some games are just made for gamepads, and Marble Blast is only one of them.
#5
We've got an X-Box in the flat, so bring it on :)
I may as well edit this question in:
What screenshots are you referring to? Marble Blast specific ones? Or general TSE ones?
08/05/2004 (7:45 pm)
Its a sure hit concept for the console - me and my mates were playing Marble Madness on the Sega Master System recently when we were drinking ... great fun! Also played some Monkey one on the Gamecube when drinking, but my mate with that has taken off to Australia :PWe've got an X-Box in the flat, so bring it on :)
I may as well edit this question in:
Quote:As you can see from the screenshots, the shaders look pretty good
What screenshots are you referring to? Marble Blast specific ones? Or general TSE ones?
#6
As far as FPS's on Xbox goes, out of all the consoles Xbox has the most FPS user friend pad. I enjoy Halo on the gamepad just as much as with the mouse and keyboard pretty much.
08/05/2004 (11:39 pm)
Great news and great work Pat!As far as FPS's on Xbox goes, out of all the consoles Xbox has the most FPS user friend pad. I enjoy Halo on the gamepad just as much as with the mouse and keyboard pretty much.
#7
www.prweb.com/prfiles/2004/07/31/145848/MBXbox_dont_jump.jpg
08/06/2004 (4:31 am)
@ Vernon here is one from the press release.www.prweb.com/prfiles/2004/07/31/145848/MBXbox_dont_jump.jpg
#8
@Michael: Thanks for the screenie. It's looking real good, the iradescent effect on the marble is very well done. :)
08/06/2004 (9:19 am)
@Pat: That's encouraging to hear. And actually, $10k isn't as bad as I had thought. It's still completely out of my price range, however. :)@Michael: Thanks for the screenie. It's looking real good, the iradescent effect on the marble is very well done. :)
#9
08/06/2004 (5:41 pm)
Cheers Michael, I missed that somehow :) 
#11
-Jase
08/07/2004 (11:10 pm)
I'm not a big fan of xbox, but this is a wonderful achievment, no doubt.-Jase
#12
For once Microsoft is actually the one pushing the envelope instead of just aping more imaginative companies.
08/09/2004 (3:20 pm)
I do agree with Jase - I'd love to see it on the other consoles. Unfortunately, Nintendo and Sony are both completely in the dark as far as online distribution goes, and also quite exclusive as far as who they give out SDKs to.For once Microsoft is actually the one pushing the envelope instead of just aping more imaginative companies.
#13
Lets hurry with the xbox porting, we have only one more years before the new MS hardware comes out ;)
Cool project anyway, good luck!
08/13/2004 (11:14 am)
PatLets hurry with the xbox porting, we have only one more years before the new MS hardware comes out ;)
Cool project anyway, good luck!
Torque Owner Fenrir Wolf
LOL..
Great work on the Xbox port! Yes, a co-worker of mine asked me, "So will Doom 3 and Halflife 2 look as good on the Xbox as the PC?" I told him, probably not; When the Xbox came out, it had a Geforce card in it that nobody else had in their home computers. But now that's changed, we've got GPUs that are 2-3 generations ahead of the Xbox. (Of course, really, things haven't changed THAT much, other than the PS2.0/3.0 extensions, faster/more memory, faster clocks, and such.)
I have about a million and one questions for a TSE/Xbox partnership, but I will refrain from spamming you guys. I am curious about this, though: What exactly does it take to get a development license for the Xbox? How much money are we talking about, in a ballpark range, for the devkit and such? I've heard a few people say that one shouldn't worry about that too much, that if you make a game that is noteworthy and in line with what Microsoft wants to offer, that things can be worked out.
But as an indie developer who feels the walls of console domination squeeze him slowly out of existance, I am really interested to hear about what I can do to avoid this. I think it's great that GG is managing to find a home on the Xbox, but from where I sit, even GG's progress looks like a unobtainable goal.