Development Log

[+kendo353]

Hi Folks... the dogsquad website is moving servers, and may be temporarily unavailable (hence no pictures).

normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. game development is ongoing. no worries on that score.

 

regards to all.

waves @ Catch

 

ken

[Uriah]

Kendo,

 

I am delighted to see your effort, big cheers!

 

But, here is my wish list...

 

For me what a new sim will have to have is as little lag as possible when flying online AND be able to see planes (as dots or even stick figures) as far away as 41,000 feet. Proper stall and spin will be needed and ground starts. Then it would be nice if the ground objects were big enough for a dogfight that included 'dodge the trees and building'. Right now CFS3/OFF have to much lag for me and IL2+ could have much better mid and long distance view of aircraft.

[+kendo353]

Hi Uriah,

 

as little lag as possible when flying online

absolutely.

 

AND be able to see planes (as dots or even stick figures) as far away as 41,000 feet.

current comfortable viewing distance is 8192 m = 26876.640 ft

i hope to be able to bump that up, but there is no LOD on terrain at present.

(the DDS textures are being mipmapped, but the geometry isn't being culled).

LOD does work well for models though, and changing them to different meshes/sizes based

on distance is no biggie. the game can have unlimited levels of LOD.. the only caveat is the

time needed to build them all. is 41,000 scientific ? I'll gladly aim for that distance if it is.

seems to me that planes are going to be 'one pixel', or virtually invisible at that distance ? but i'll give

it a go.

 

Proper stall and spin will be needed and ground starts.

ground starts are already done. ODE physics tracks the wheels along the ground pretty well.

the correct stall and spin is definitely something to aim for. i appreciate that much smarter

people than me have had immense trouble getting it right. but as this is a dedicated WW1

sim, it's defintely on the "TODO" list.. thankyou for bringing it up. As a reference, i've been

looking at the "simple slope soarer" (glider simulator available as open source).

 

Then it would be nice if the ground objects were big enough for a dogfight that included 'dodge the trees and building'.

big enough? you can fly through hangars, and under bridges. the trees have collision on them too. i don't understand what you mean?

As Catch pointed out, a lot of flying will be fairly low level, so i've juggled as much realism in there as possible. up high, you can just

turn it all off, or hide it.. isn't that how most sims do things?

 

cheers..

[Uriah]

Good things to see Kendo.

The big thing on distance is to be able to see planes much better than in IL2. Compare EAW and Aces High. As far as 41,000 feet you can see a WW2 bomber against a cloads at that distance. Blue sky is more difficult and against the ground - no way.

 

As far as playing 'dodge the trees and buildings' this is something that can not be done in IL2. Some buildings are big enough but most of the ground objects are a much smaller scale and so playing dodge does not work well.

[+kendo353]

Some buildings are big enough but most of the ground objects are a much smaller scale and so playing dodge does not work well.

lol... why did they do that?

surely the objects are going to be the same amount of polygons if they are huge or tiny ?

[+Gr.Viper]

Any progress lately? Or new screenshots?

[+kendo353]

Hi Gr.Viper,

 

Any progress lately?

not as much as i would have liked. the only thing the engine developers have developed is some

strange form of madness. they're "rebranding", and haven't released any bugfixes or pushed the

engine forwards in 8 months. they also don't seem to have any interest in this project at all.

 

so... i have no terrain LOD, or multiplayer capability. it's a closed engine architecture, and i can't

add those things without paying them something like 64,000 dollars for the source code. lol...

which leaves a bit of a smell.

 

I have made some good progress with understanding the maths, and converting some useful AI functions

over from C++, but nothing that i can wrap up and call a "game" yet. a couple of people have volunteered to

help, and i'm grateful to them. but it's still early days.

 

rewriting it completely, with GL/dx9 renderer and shaders isn't out of the question.

in fact, it might be quicker to do that than wait around for other people to deliver.

 

so progress hasn't been great, but the spirit is still strong.

 

 

regards.

ken

[catch]

I say .... bally poor show regarding these "rebranding" chaps ! Mutinous rabble ! In my day they would be shot for sedition, lack of moral fibre and a distorted sense of duty ! Carry on ....

[+kendo353]

yes, a jolly bad show, and dashed unsporting!

 

but it's not the end of the road yet, Catch.

i've been itching to build some more things recently,

and the prod from Gr.Viper is a good excuse.

 

regards to you.

[merlion]

Are you aware of the Delta3D engine? I don't know if switching engines is a useful option at this point, or if Delta3D has the features you need, but if you're interested, you can make all the changes you want to the engine. The license is LGPL, which means you can build a proprietary game or application on top of the engine if you want to, but any changes you make to the engine itself have to be distributed under the LGPL (so any improvements you make will be available to everyone else who uses the engine). The URL is http://www.delta3d.org/. There's a feature list here.

 

Also, do you need 3-view plans for any fighters? I have a book that contains 3-views for all kinds of fighters, many of which didn't get beyond the prototype stage. It includes 3-views of the DFW T 28 Floh and the Lohner 10.20A, among many others that are even less well-known. It also has plenty of photographs. If there's anything in particular you're looking for, I can scan it for you. I'd offer to help with programming, modelling, or skinning if I had much experience in any of those areas. I'm currently making my first attempts at skinning, and I may eventually be of some use in that area. Good luck with your game.

[+kendo353]

Hi Merlion... thanks for the kind thoughts.

 

yeah, i have heard of it, and i've been keeping an eye on it. the developers say that "client/server" will be fully implemented in 1.5.0

the downside of it (for me) is that there seems to be a tremendous amount of bloat, the infinite terrain doesn't support collision, and i

haven't been able to get it to compile cleanly. I was waiting for it to mature a little, when hopefully it will support VC2005. Nice to see

that it handles .LWO lightwave models though. it's a definite contender, should things go horribly pear-shaped with the present engine.

 

I'm currently making my first attempts at skinning, and I may eventually be of some use in that area.

thankyou again for the kind offer. I have all the books and reference materials i could ever possibly need, but when

we do get around to augmenting the skins, i'd be grateful for any help at all.

 

regards to you

ken

[hornetjock6]

Hey Kendo,how are you,do you have any idea of a release date for the game yet?Patiently waiting in Wisconsin

[+kendo353]

Hey Kendo,how are you,do you have any idea of a release date for the game yet?Patiently waiting in Wisconsin

Hi hornetjock6

 

things are fine here, thankyou.

sorry, no i don' t have a firm date i can give you.

i'm rewriting it with torque TGEA, because of the limitations of the current landscape system.

this direction should hopefully make things secure online, and allow people the scripting/tweaking

possibilities they want. obviously, this is a big step backwards to be able to go forwards, but these

features are now in place, which was a real concern...

 

100km x 100km landscape

networking

flying AI

 

i don't know how long it will take me to convert my models over,

rewrite the campaign backend, and have something workable to

show you... but i have the source code, and won't have to wait

for other people to deliver. i haven't given up.

 

 

thanks for the interest.

regards to you.

[merlion]

Does this mean OpenGL support is off the feature list?

[+kendo353]

Does this mean OpenGL support is off the feature list?

 

Hi Merlion,

 

only temporarily...

 

state of play

========

the BV engine is OpenGL, and is having DX9 bolted on.

the TGEA engine is DX9, and is having OpenGL bolted on.

 

i'm still confident the game can have both.

 

 

regards to you.

[merlion]

Well, that's good to know.

 

Do you know who's bolting OpenGL on the TGEA engine? I glanced briefly at the forums and, from what I could tell, official GarageGames support for OpenGL in the TGEA engine is stalled indefinitely. Or maybe people are just being impatient.

[+kendo353]

Well, that's good to know.

i'm liking it so far.. had a few teething troubles with the model format, but it's opened up lots of new possibilities.

 

 

OpenGL in the TGEA engine is stalled indefinitely.

from what i can gather they are taking their time, and won't be rushed on it.

some people have been waiting since 2004, which is a little disconcerting,

but i didn't see anywhere that GG have officially abandoned the integration.

 

regards.

[GabiLaser]

Hei Kendo, this is cool

 

[merlion]

Wow, it's looking very good, Ken—both the SE5a and the terrain. Have you been redoing the plane models?

 

Well, I do have Windows XP, so I'll be able to play the game regardless—unless it exceeds my system specs. I just wouldn't mind spending all my time in Linux. So far only Targetware's Richthofen's Skies runs on Linux, that I know of, and even then, it's so outdated you need to work some black magic to get it to run on modern distributions.

 

GabiLaser: I'm not sure what I'm seeing here, but I'll guess: Is it the splash screen for the game? Is it being called The Flying Circus now? I actually rather like Down In Flames. I think it has an air of realism to it, moreso than something like "First Eagles" or "Knights of the Sky". (I'm only comparing titles, mind; not necessarily content.)

 

269 fps isn't bad. I bet it'd be less on my system, though.

[+kendo353]

Hi guys..

 

Have you been redoing the plane models?

yeah.. now i've figured it out, the model converter seems to work pretty well.

hopefully, i will not have to redo much, just convert them over. a few UV's are

broken, but it's not the end of the world.

 

GabiLaser: I'm not sure what I'm seeing here, but I'll guess: Is it the splash screen for the game?

no...it's the splash for an engine demo. I was considering using 'Apocalyx' for the project, but it would need much

more programming than i'm comfortable with. Leo (the engine developer) knocked up this little demo to show people

the new infinite terrain library he included.

 

I actually rather like Down In Flames.

so do i. :)

 

269 fps isn't bad. I bet it'd be less on my system, though.

same here... but bear in mind it's only a small demo with not much going on. the infinite terrain is clever, and doesn't

take much processing power, also there is only one biplane model in the world. if you started bunging in multiple

enemies and stuff on the ground, i'm sure it would drop (like most engines). that said, 'Apocalyx' is pretty swift.

i like it, but i don't think it's right for this project. never say never though. if things don't work out with Torque/BV,

i might have to go back. it's free... and Leo is a nice bloke.

 

 

regards.

Edited August 8, 2007 by kendo353

[merlion]

Ah, the oft-neglected Hanriot:

 

 

The plane sure likes to roll over and dive down to the deck. Then again, so do the planes in the Targetware games, so maybe the flight model's realistic. Fortunately, the ability of the Hanriot to fly underwater has saved me on several occasions.

 

To think, all of this (well, the game logic, anyway) is contained in a Lua script. It doesn't seem that long ago to me (Dark Forces era) that people were discussing the relative merits of C and Assembler for game programming.

[+kendo353]

To think, all of this (well, the game logic, anyway) is contained in a Lua script.

yeah, it is incredible isn't it. almost everybody seems to be using compiled scripts these days.

 

as you surmised, your FPS did take a nosedive. (26fps?) but if it's any consolation, my rig is

fairly mediocre too. so, the game isn't being written exclusively for dual-core pixel 2.0 shader

owners with 2GB of memory.

[merlion]

28fps, I believe. I am sort of resigned to the fact that I'll will need to buy more memory and/or a new video card soon. I hope to avoid buying a new system for now, though. 1.7 GHz Athlon, 512 MB memory shared with a 32MB GeForce2 MX.

[+kendo353]

Any more screenies to share?

Hi Buddywoof.. just some cheezy w-i-p.

 

 

been spending a lot of time programming, and reading about programming.

so, sadly, the eye candy and model creation has had to take a back seat.

 

on the positive tip, i've touched base with Warren @ NaturalPoint, and learnt more than i thought i would have to about DirectInput devices (shudder).

and i've found this.. -->The Silver Lining Cloud SDK<--, which i hope to be able to incorporate further on down the line. Aaron (the L3DT programmer) says

that blendmaps will be available for the terrain soon, so the more familiar fields and mud can be tiled in too.

 

regards.

[+kendo353]

the satellite heightmap import turned out to be less than spectacular.

but it did deliver a large (128km) gently rolling terrain to fly over.

the atlas pager can handle any size map, by seamlessly loading

up the chunk that you're flying over. which seems to work fine.

 

visibility is currently set at 40,000 meters, which is delivering 30fps.

flight model is still very much 'arcade', but even with 2 dozen bots, it's fast.

 

 

regards.