[INFO] Development Journal

Post Reply
User avatar
Shadow
Masterful
Posts: 743
Joined: Tue Jan 29, 2008 12:00 am
Personal rank: Mad Carpenter
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: [INFO] Development Journal

Post by Shadow »

I don't understand what you mean xD

//edit: [youtube]EeCXCUBhMLs[/youtube]


Next Update will deal with a completely different Development Section: Gameplay Coding

I have started continueing work on the Unreal Avatar Gameplay System, for which I already finished Root and Basic Stuff.
Working on Gameplay Mechanics is surprisingly refreshing and inspiring after all this complex graphical stuff :ironic2:

I currently code a new Navigation System, like creating Points representing Nature Sight, Buildings, Shops etc.
Really different and makes a lot of fun.

A "Building" for example can hold several Owners, other Inhabitants, can be a Shop, can be locked/unlocked, could be public (always open), or opened only for a special amount of time (8.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m.) and so on.
Image
User avatar
VRN|C-18
Skilled
Posts: 168
Joined: Tue Feb 12, 2008 10:20 pm
Location: That one ray of light in Depression Land
Contact:

Re: [INFO] Development Journal

Post by VRN|C-18 »

damn this looks really nice. i play bt a lot and started mapping for it lately.. when the winter term pauses ill spend some time on mapping..
your DK gives me a host of ideas already! please finish it as soon as possible :)
at others: use your own imagination on how to use them visual effects.....
Needle + UT + Sex = Life and some Blood -_-
Image
banner made by myth 8)
what the fuck.. september11 woke me up.
User avatar
Shadow
Masterful
Posts: 743
Joined: Tue Jan 29, 2008 12:00 am
Personal rank: Mad Carpenter
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: [INFO] Development Journal

Post by Shadow »

oh thanks, it's really cool to hear that the SDK is inspiring people :D
I do my best finishing it soon, you could be Beta Tester, "playing" with it earliear then anybody else
Image
User avatar
Creavion
Godlike
Posts: 4497
Joined: Sun Feb 17, 2008 7:23 pm
Personal rank: About to be non-act.
Location: Germany, Lower Saxony

Re: [INFO] Development Journal

Post by Creavion »

I know I repeat myself. But I simply have to use your stuff in my next project (whatever it will be). You invest so many work in it. (:
About to be non-active
My very last UT map project: CTF-FacePalm (tropical CTF-Face remake)
Why do I leave? click here
What I want to do next: Joining an UDK team (uncertain however) and improve 3D modelling and texture editing skills
Thanks to those who visibly supported me until/at the end!
My reactivated account on indiedb.com.
User avatar
robin13
Experienced
Posts: 105
Joined: Thu Nov 12, 2009 5:05 pm
Personal rank: NaliSlayer
Location: Roosendaal,The Netherlands

Re: [INFO] Development Journal

Post by robin13 »

Shadow wrote:oh thanks, it's really cool to hear that the SDK is inspiring people :D
I do my best finishing it soon, you could be Beta Tester, "playing" with it earliear then anybody else
thats a really great idea,just make us all beta testers :P :D lol joke,but indeed VRN|C-18 is right,we all have to find our own ways to use the emiters etc :what: (now if i just could get a time machine and made time go fast so it gets released) :what:
Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.
Napoleon Bonaparte
User avatar
Shadow
Masterful
Posts: 743
Joined: Tue Jan 29, 2008 12:00 am
Personal rank: Mad Carpenter
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: [INFO] Development Journal

Post by Shadow »

JOURNAL DATE: 30.01.2010

CHANGES / UPDATES
  • Procedural Sprites finished
  • Procedural Coronas finished
  • Procedural Lensflares finished (revamped old Lensflare Code)
OVERVIEWS

The features of procedural sprites have been already shown with the Proc Sprite Emitter.
Proc Sprites, Lensflares and Coronas share similar rendering code.
The old code was quite bugy and not fully working, it also required Iterators (which is slow indeed, using UScript).
Now all these actors use linked lists so that much more such complex effects can be drawn than before.

Features:
  • each whole Lensflare effect may consist of up to 12 single Lensflares
  • each single Lensflare can have it's own color
  • each single Lensflare can be U/V stretched
  • Actors and World Geometry occlude Lensflares if not visible (simulates raytracing)
  • each single Lensflare has it's own ZBuffer Options (determining, how far or close a single Lensflare on the Lensflare Effect Axis is)
  • can be freely moved, attached and triggered
A developer can access the dynamic list of Proc Sprites and Proc Particles through the following variables in sdkUTPlayer.uc:

Code: Select all

var transient sdkRootParticleElement xProcParticleCache;
var transient sdkXProcSprites xProcSpriteCache;
All new Procedural Effects are rendered before HUD, before Weapon and before HUD Mutators.
This way it's made shure Procedural FX don't overlap HUD and Weapons etc.

The Lensflares etc. than get a canvas call on "RenderProcSprite(canvas c)" to do the actual rendering.

Linked Lists will also be used for navigating through Vehicle List, Emitter List and Particle List, which makes lots of things easiear.

MEDIA

Image


[youtube]0oDol8nRpR4[/youtube]


I now start working on post-processing stuff.
Image
User avatar
Feralidragon
Godlike
Posts: 5489
Joined: Wed Feb 27, 2008 6:24 pm
Personal rank: Work In Progress
Location: Liandri

Re: [INFO] Development Journal

Post by Feralidragon »

When they aren't visible anymore, instead of disappearing suddently, they should fade out. Their disappearance is too sudden.
It should be smooth as like when you no longer see a corona for example.
Again, just my 2 cents.
User avatar
Creavion
Godlike
Posts: 4497
Joined: Sun Feb 17, 2008 7:23 pm
Personal rank: About to be non-act.
Location: Germany, Lower Saxony

Re: [INFO] Development Journal

Post by Creavion »

If you would use this as sun effect, it seems realistic for me. But it can not hurt to integrate a fade out option?!
About to be non-active
My very last UT map project: CTF-FacePalm (tropical CTF-Face remake)
Why do I leave? click here
What I want to do next: Joining an UDK team (uncertain however) and improve 3D modelling and texture editing skills
Thanks to those who visibly supported me until/at the end!
My reactivated account on indiedb.com.
User avatar
Shadow
Masterful
Posts: 743
Joined: Tue Jan 29, 2008 12:00 am
Personal rank: Mad Carpenter
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: [INFO] Development Journal

Post by Shadow »

Always these special wishes ^^

luckily color has alpha channel, which allows for smooth fading <3

//edit: uuuuh just another update at the same DAY

First Build of the PostProcess System:

Testing a sepia/oldpaper shader

Image
Image
Myth
Inhuman
Posts: 988
Joined: Tue Feb 12, 2008 5:57 pm
Personal rank: Low Poly Freak

Re: [INFO] Development Journal

Post by Myth »

oh wait, you said procedural sprites, why are they procedural? are they generated runtime based on a function or did they suffer some transformations?
User avatar
Creavion
Godlike
Posts: 4497
Joined: Sun Feb 17, 2008 7:23 pm
Personal rank: About to be non-act.
Location: Germany, Lower Saxony

Re: [INFO] Development Journal

Post by Creavion »

Played a couple of levels in L4D2 with a friend yesterday. If you are using those health-drug injections you have this red-fluid overlayer (50 % visible maybe) at the edges of the screen.
Question is now, how far is this feature configurable?

But before I forget it. Good work, as always. :thuup:
About to be non-active
My very last UT map project: CTF-FacePalm (tropical CTF-Face remake)
Why do I leave? click here
What I want to do next: Joining an UDK team (uncertain however) and improve 3D modelling and texture editing skills
Thanks to those who visibly supported me until/at the end!
My reactivated account on indiedb.com.
User avatar
Shadow
Masterful
Posts: 743
Joined: Tue Jan 29, 2008 12:00 am
Personal rank: Mad Carpenter
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: [INFO] Development Journal

Post by Shadow »

Myth wrote:oh wait, you said procedural sprites, why are they procedural? are they generated runtime based on a function or did they suffer some transformations?
yes, that's why I call them procedural, the SDK takes a base texture and changes it dynamically to the results in realtime
Creavion wrote:Played a couple of levels in L4D2 with a friend yesterday. If you are using those health-drug injections you have this red-fluid overlayer (50 % visible maybe) at the edges of the screen.
Question is now, how far is this feature configurable?

But before I forget it. Good work, as always. :thuup:
The current alpha phase of the post-processing system features:
  • Dynamic Color blending
  • Dynamic Color fading
  • partial-Screen / Fullscreen PostProcess Materials
  • stretchable and movable PostProcess Materials (imagine a blood-splat on your screen that slowly and stretched moves downwards your screen)
  • All common texture styles
  • Zone-based, Script-based, Volume-based, Trigger-based Controlling of PostProcessing
  • PostProcess Effects are linked together in a chain (like in Unreal Engine 3)
  • Combiner support (mixing different single Effects creating complex Material Pipelines)
  • PostProcess Effects are objects, not Actors (saves memory)
  • PostProcess Effects receive a call when created, can be ticked and get destroyed call (allowing dynamically programmable PostProcessing)
  • You can render a single PostProcess Effect at four times (see render times)
Render Times (ZBuffer)

1. Before everything, Coronas, Sprites, HUD etc. overlay PostProcessing
2. After Coronas and Sprites, but before Weapon and HUD, HUD and Weapon overlay PostProcessing
3. After Weapon, before HUD, only HUD overlays PostProcessing (most commonly)
4. After HUD, PostProcessing overlays everything


SO basically what we do is : render a color map, text, mesh, engineportal or advanced texture to filter the scene, which is indeed Post-Processing.
Hardcore PostProcessing like Depth of Field, Motion Blur and HDR is only possible using C++ (which will come soon). Blur and Bloom might be possible yet, re-rendering the whole seen again on a texture (working on it). The actual rendering is done by :

Code: Select all

simulated function RenderPostProcessFX(canvas c)
in the base class "sdkCore.sdkXPostProcessFX.uc" (is a native class)

Well as you guess, this is again still (partially) UnrealScript, it is fast and it uses straight-forward techniques and functions, yeah nobody cares how it works, if it works, so this is still partially UnrealScript.

Currently only Zone-controlling is fully working. You add "sdkPostProcessZone" to your map and add (currently) up to 8 PostProcess Effects.
Image
Myth
Inhuman
Posts: 988
Joined: Tue Feb 12, 2008 5:57 pm
Personal rank: Low Poly Freak

Re: [INFO] Development Journal

Post by Myth »

Ok so of what I understood from your answer, the SDK takes a base texture and modifies it every tick resulting in a nice and dynamic texture. But in the videos I've only seen vertex transformations. What I'd really like to see are procedurally generated static textures from a function or script. Things v=cos(x*pi/2) h=0 s=1 for a nice gray gradient, v=max(0,1-d^2) h=0 s=v for a bright red corona, r=rand b=0 c=0 for red colored noise. This would be really awesome for those 300k maps and EVERYONE loves 300k maps. Meh, maybe this is too much to ask for.
User avatar
Creavion
Godlike
Posts: 4497
Joined: Sun Feb 17, 2008 7:23 pm
Personal rank: About to be non-act.
Location: Germany, Lower Saxony

Re: [INFO] Development Journal

Post by Creavion »

Myth wrote:EVERYONE loves 300k maps. Meh, maybe this is too much to ask for.
I hope this was sarcasm, otherwise...
Plz stop THAT. I hate them (at least 95 % of them, afaik Gen has done a nice one). Those generalizations are provocative.

"EVERYONE loves the FOT maps". Do you like the FOT series? Hell, no. You dont like them. (although I still dont know the reason, but anyway, it does not matter).

Do you think, everybody loves my giant Kamah map? No, and thats only normal. This thing has a shit performance and the requiered files are way to big (although I dont care about that to much), while others just hate jungle levels at all (maybe), or [insert any reason to hate/dislike it here].

UT is old. Let ut maps looking good like fragnbrags here:
http://www.unrealplayground.com/forums/ ... stcount=55
(although I have to be careful here with "looking good", its only my opinion)
About to be non-active
My very last UT map project: CTF-FacePalm (tropical CTF-Face remake)
Why do I leave? click here
What I want to do next: Joining an UDK team (uncertain however) and improve 3D modelling and texture editing skills
Thanks to those who visibly supported me until/at the end!
My reactivated account on indiedb.com.
User avatar
Shadow
Masterful
Posts: 743
Joined: Tue Jan 29, 2008 12:00 am
Personal rank: Mad Carpenter
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: [INFO] Development Journal

Post by Shadow »

Myth wrote:Ok so of what I understood from your answer, the SDK takes a base texture and modifies it every tick resulting in a nice and dynamic texture. But in the videos I've only seen vertex transformations. What I'd really like to see are procedurally generated static textures from a function or script. Things v=cos(x*pi/2) h=0 s=1 for a nice gray gradient, v=max(0,1-d^2) h=0 s=v for a bright red corona, r=rand b=0 c=0 for red colored noise. This would be really awesome for those 300k maps and EVERYONE loves 300k maps. Meh, maybe this is too much to ask for.
Oah common.. I write my ass off everyday, and you can't get enough ^^
Image
Post Reply