Blaze

It was the Realtime lighting that made it crawl, and maybe the liquid. At least the fps dropped much more when I fired a projectile with a dynamic light over the liquid, than if I fired the same projectile over regular floor.

No idea how much particle effects drop fps. I haven't even touched them. They're basically the Quake defaults. Though I suppose sprites can be considered as sort of particles, but they don't disappear if someone turns off the particle effects.

--
Yea, maybe player could drop some stuff into the level when dying. I was thinking the respawn system can be nice for demo recording of difficult levels.

I've now also tried with disabling falling damage and self damage from explosions. It's sort of more fun...

Trying out the monsters ingame... as in how many there can be...




Not this many... Though the Plasma Storm & Fire Blaster could still sort of handle this amount with just a few shots... The monsters destroy player pretty easily too.

100 monsters were kind of ok. 100 fps when they were just idle. 60-80 fps when they started shooting. Maybe with some corpse/gib vanishing there could be some 50 monsters in one scene, and every time player kills one off, a new one is thrown into the fight, until player has killed some 200 of them.

I'm happy if I get a steady 35-40fps in a game.

Wow those are some crazy screenshots. Its almost art and still a mess in a good way. Like all of that 'mess' is a wall of enemies. Not just a mass of enemies, but a mass of enemies that I'd say 95% of our PCs can handle. Unlike an Unreal Engine game I just saw with a wall of enemies that I guarantee 1% of PCs can handle.

500 enemies idle make the fps 30 with these models, 50 with Quake models, 90 with sprites. When they all become active/attack, it doesn't matter what models/sprites they are.. fps drops to 10. I guess all the AI/etc stuff need some CPU power or something.

If that 35-40fps is acceptable, then 200 enemies could be active in one scene.

Maybe I could try making monsters become sort of inactive/think at slower rate if player is too far away.

http://media.moddb.com/images/games/1/20/19999/monsters_001.gif

<3

Haven't been following the thread really. Monster infighting?

There could be some amount of infighting. Settings for it could depend on the game difficulty. In lower skills they might start infighting unprovoked, while on harder skills they could be invulnerable to monster vs monster damage. Normal skill would be somewhere around Doom like infighting.

Also sorted out the 6 fps issue with RT lights.. it was the water with transparency. But if I have it additive/etc, then it appears transparent, but no fps issue. How weird.

Here's some Alien type character ingame:



It's pretty much the same as the Ants/Aliens in Abuse, including the color coding for different weapons. It has a 16 color 256x128 texture. Maybe it could have had some more colors in the main area, and less in the "skul gun". 614 tris. Not yet animated, but will probably be the first enemy to be animated. I'll probably tweak the polycounts on the earlier monsters to be somewhere around this level.

The aliens could also emerge from some cocoons. No idea if/how they could walk on ceilings or walls.

I really like them and their multi colorness. I guess for crawling on the walls and ceiling. Rotate them of course and instead of gravity pulling them down, gravity pulls them down to wherever their feet are angled at.... hmmm maybe that wouldn't work, because that would prevent them dropping off the ceiling to the floor with normal gravity.

You'll figure something out. I'm happy there are clinger enemies.

Here's some more.. with better UV map and texture, and some glow in the eye/mouth. Also got a few frames of animation to try out the skeleton. These are also in Q3BSP, so they get better lighting without needing RT lights.



That sort of gravity thing should work ok.. When they need to get up, I push them up. When they need to get down to the floor, I just let them fall down like anyone else. I already kind of did this sort of thing when I was trying to make some alternate flymode for flying monsters...

Well, here's a video of them animated, etc. They don't have new sounds or gibs yet, and don't jump into ceilings (but they have ceiling crawl animations). Doesn't include the unanimated monsters either.

I also disabled whatever I had going on in the upper HUD, didn't seem like adding anything interesting to the gameplay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTaQPQWu01Y

http://www.moddb.com/games/blaze/videos/aliens#imagebox

I thank you for the video but everything is dead before I see it. I do like the fact they at least fire back. I think you need to be no clip and fly by the enemies just doing their thing. Maybe have them attack some undefeatable enemy to really show them off. Do they fire from their eyes? Can you have a tougher version with shoulder mounted guns?

They were just so aggressive... There could be some big, boss and flying versions. I tried some guns for them, but that looked a bit weird, so they just shoot from the eye/mouth. It's possible that they will eventually just shoot some fireballs (and jump around), and some other enemies shoot lasers and missiles.

//=======
I added some alternate firemodes to the weapons, and decrease weapons to 7. Possible to do all the same attacks with 7 + alternate firemodes...





Power Sword:
Primary: Short range Plasma Blade (no ammo required)
Alternate: Stun Bomb (need ammo)

Laser Rifle:
Primary: Laser (can rip or bounce once)
Alternate: Mini Grenade (use 10 ammo)

Gauss Shotgun:
Primary: 16x Explosive Pellets
Alternate: Ripper Bolt (also explodes)

Plasma Rifle:
Primary: Plasma Bolt (explodes)
Alternate: Plasma Thrower

Grenade Launcher:
Primary: Impact Grenade
Alternate: Timed/Bouncy Grenade (3s timer)

Rocket Launcher:
Primary: Guided Rocket
Alternate: Dumb Rocket (flies straight)

Fireblast Cannon:
Primary: Fireblast
Alternate: Firebomb (explodes into multiple smaller fireblasts)

I may change the Gauss Shotgun model to be something like a combination of the Railgun and Shotgun, or something like the Gaussgun from Descent2. All other weapons can stay as they are.

//=======
Also decided on the Powerups. There's 3 Main Powerups. Player can have 1 at a time, but it can be used as much as player wants. The Main Powerups last one level or until player picks up a new one. There can be some Super Powerups too, which can be used together with any other powerup. The Super Powerups last shorter time.

Main Powerups:
Speed:
* Allow Mid-Air Jump (jump strength is still same as regular jump)
* Movement Speed x2
* Fire Rate Increase x1.5

Grapple:
* Fires a Grappling Hook/Beam
* Pull player toward it when it hits something
* If hits enemy: Pull, Stun and Vampire effect on the enemy

Flight:
* Allow Flying
* Movement Speed x1.5 (when flying)
* Explosive Afterburner (when flying, damages enemies)

Invisibility used to be a Main Powerup, but it was just so effective, that it becomes a Super Powerup. Invulnerability/Super Shield could be another. Then there could be some Environment Suit to protect player from slime and lava. Maybe some 4th Super Powerup too, but have not decided what that could be.

So, this project changed to a modified Chocolate-Doom engine. Don't know if anyone connected the pictures from the picture thread to this. Mmmm... I think I can program any gameplay related feature into it, but some level editing or rendering features may be too difficult for me.

Anyway.. here's a new video:

Player finally got the night vision. It use some energy. Shared with running, and later some other power ups. Movement speeds may change. Player can also jump and have air control. And Forward+Strafe doesn't increase player's movement speed.

Player has the 4 weapons. The models are made so that they can be reloaded. Reloading may be an option or difficulty setting. Self damage from own explosions could also be a difficulty setting. Possibly the difficulty settings would be totally customizable. Guided rockets can be guided with the "crosshair" for a while. Enemy guided rockets guide shorter time. In deathmatch player's guided rockets guide time gets halved.

The things can be over/under each other without any problems. Including making some crazy pyramids out of them. There is probably no limit how many can be piled. The only thing missing from this stuff is stepping up/down to another thing if the step is 24 or less. Of course for player or dropoff flagged aliens stepping down is no problem. Also the monsters no longer insta step/drop down, they fall.

Weapon damage can now do Z thrust. So, you can teach them the superman!

The game also runs at 40 tics per second. 35 ticrate of Doom has always felt a little strange.

The HUD got some minor improvements, but it's still kinda placeholder.





I think this level was more fun than what I had in DarkPlaces.. and would have taken ages to make with Radiant, even if I used Doom like level geometry. But other than the slow speed, Quake mapping is kinda fun too. Levels can easily become very vertical.

If you're going to take advantage of Doom's easier mapping tools, why don't you choose a Doom engine tailored to making total conversions, like 3DGE, Eternity, or something like that?

So you can use advanced scripting etc.

But it's crazy to read through the thread and looking at the images, it's a wild ride, more engine changes than Prey lol!

So is this what became of TigerCake?

Looks pretty neat, I like the idea of having some agility to the monsters and lots of vertical player movement.

VGA said:

If you're going to take advantage of Doom's easier mapping tools, why don't you choose a Doom engine tailored to making total conversions, like 3DGE, Eternity, or something like that?

So you can use advanced scripting etc.

But it's crazy to read through the thread and looking at the images, it's a wild ride, more engine changes than Prey lol!

But this is one man's choices. It must suck to have an entire team have to change engines.

Anyway, Jimi, I finally watched the video, it looks awesome, but one dimensional, since the point is to test out the aliens. Its cool that they lunge and jump. I just didn't see any wall clinging. How do the other enemies run in the new engine?

.

Jimi said:

Don't know if anyone connected the pictures from the picture thread to this.

As soon as I pulled this thread up I was like "hey wait a minute, this looks like the same thing as in the pictures thread!". I didn't figure it out before that, though. It's looking great, also nice to see it in action. My only complaint so far is that the sounds can be a bit too loud and constant at times, like the fight starting around 10 seconds into that video.

Oh, and please check your private messages, Jimi.

This is shaping up good so far. Keep it that way, and you'll have at least one buyer!
Speaking, or rather writing of which, is it even possible to sell something based on the Chocolate DooM? I may have misinterpreted things, but wasn't the Strife Veteran edition based off it?

.

I thought I could use some other engine with the advanced features already there, but if I have to do them myself, I might learn something (if I succeed in doing them).

Also I'm a bit too much control freak that I want to be able to fine tune the gameplay just perfect, which might not be possible without C programming.

TigerCake sort of split off from this. I'll keep it with the DarkPlaces engine and it will have more modern looks (going to remove all the palette/posterize stuff from it when I continue). There may be some content shared with the projects. Like the alien sounds are the same in both, and the characters that use them are kind of similar in looks and behaviour. And for sounds... the sound code need some changes.


Wall moving aliens, maybe I'll try if it works. Ceiling move is definitely possible/easy to do. Also they have a crawl animation in the model that is intended for wall/ceiling move.

So far I haven't tried other enemies. Also they're still not animated. And not really sure yet what I want do with them, and which ones to use. Well, I want to add a turret. They would be something like in Abuse. They can either track player or fire into specific areas/directions, and can activate when player is in their "sensor area", some other trigger or with a switch. So they could either be useful for player or hazards.

I was thinking I'd make the main WAD into a functional IWAD before adding new enemies/weapons, and clean the code from any Doom related stuff.


And selling this.. no idea if that's still my plan. I'd like to start making releases as soon as I have it standalone, and update it once a month or something. Maybe just have a donate/pay what you like kind of thing?

And thanks everyone :)

One other thing; based on the last film, I think you've done a good job with the sound effects. They have a somewhat "dirty" feel about them (which I like), and they go very well together!
The same could be said about the graphics.

Are you planning to add muzzle flashes to the weapons? I think that the machinegun in particular looks odd without one.

Changed the engine again... back to DarkPlaces. The simple Doom model pack stuff made me inspired to try the low color look again. I experimented with it some year ago with a glsl post process shader. Now I tried 16 - 32 color palettes. Eventually decided to go for 16 colors. It could mimic some old VGA mode looks, if I also scale the view to 640x400 (or 640x360, 640x480).

I have all the textures use the palette too, so it's not just the shader doing it. This made me add some dithering into the textures, though maybe I'm not going to do it exactly like this on everything, kind of takes a long time to get it work right on the models. And one of the reasons for the 16 color palette was that it would be faster to make the textures...

So far I've made all the 4 weapons I made for the Doom engine version to work as ingame models, and modelled the player character from multiple parts that also became gibs. I did some stuff to make the lighting look a bit Doom like. I have some kind of contrast thing in the shader that makes darker areas darker, and then player gets a little light to light up the nearby areas. Player also has the nightvision mode (require energy), which changes the palette in the shader and makes the light big and green.


The plan for the gameplay has changed/refined. Player is going to go on semi-randomized missions. The map chosen for the mission is randomized, enemies and other things are spawned randomly too. Pretty much everything in the level/mission should be randomized. Between missions player can buy equipment, equip the character and choose next mission. There could be some openable boxes in the missions with some items, but not like every corner of the level filled with some health and ammo pickups (so I wouldn't even need to model any.. the weapons have ammo magazines modelled though, except not the rocket launcher).

Goal for player is to capture the Base back from the alien mutants who have invaded it. Every completed mission player captures one area, get more money and get access to more stuff to buy between missions. Eventually there could be some final mission with some boss/etc, win the game when this mission completed. If player fails/aborts a mission, player lose an area. If player lose all areas or money goes too negative, game over, the enemies win.

I'll start prototyping this idea as soon as I've reworked the alien model to be made from multiple parts like the player model.

These are a bit older... different colors, the rocket launcher shot here had the view scaled to 320x200, and dark/nightvision shots don't have any scaling.


And plans for the Doom engine version. I had thought to release it as it is at the end of the year if I hadn't continued it, or sooner if I continued it and added more enemies and levels into it. I might add a few levels into it when I feel like some Doom like level editing next time, no plans to add anything else into it. Ideally I'd like to release it at the same time as I release something of the DarkPlaces engine version.

Visually, it continues to look sexy

I'm getting a lot of Quake 2 vibes from this. That's a good thing.

Allright, I got the alien model reworked to be gibbable, have a gun and a mouth. The teeth are a bit blurry in these images, but I made it better later.



Also did a civilian/hostage model. So there can be more to the missions than just killing a lot of monsters.

Killing/harming the civilians/hostages result in minus score/money. More if player does it. They can appear in about every mission. If they get scared they raise their hands up, run erratic or stand paniced. In hostage rescue missions they appear kneeling, probably in groups.

There should be a timer in the hostage rescue missions, and when the time runs out, the enemies start killing the hostages. In other missions the enemies kill them randomly, but usually focus on player.

I'm happy that the alien can be gibbed, I'm sure a lot of people will be too. I'm even more excited about the hostage / captive prospect. Anything that adds depth like that instead of "kill em all." Even Doom had barrels that you had to intelligently kill.

You can also make things more interesting, shoot someone and then a different creature kills or hurts the hostage. Timer hostages are a good idea.

With your limited color pallet it can be difficult to even see them in all the chaos.

So about the particle effects in your previous posts. You mention they slow down the frames when over water. Possibly because of the reflection, but have you ensured there are no memory leaks that could cause not just slow down but permanent slow down. Particles and emitters are always tricky things.

geo said:

I'm happy that the alien can be gibbed, I'm sure a lot of people will be too.

Yes, a lot of people should be gibbed.

:)

Give! Give for all like its Thanksgiving! Dang auto correct. Giblets. Giblets for all!

Yea, a lot of people got gibbed :P

Random Mission Testing - Video
Random Light Testing - Video

Started testing the random mission stuff. Player/enemies/civilians are spawned randomly. Mission ends when player has killed all enemies or died too many times. If too many civilians died, the mission failed. Enemy/civilian counts can be set in the level editor. Game difficulty/mission type/player status should also affect the enemy and civilian counts.

I tested some random light changes. Sometimes a level can appear dark. I also tried some alternate palette, which could be used randomly or set in the level editor. Ambient sounds got randomness. Each ambient sound entity has a list of sounds it can play.

All the entities/lights in the levels should have some "group". At level start up, one or more groups are selected to be active. Only the active group entities spawn/appear, have light, play sounds. This way some parts of levels could be blocked without anything spawning into the blocked areas.

And about the water stuff.. it's the realtime lighting that makes it slow. If I have the water as brush entity and have transparency in the entity, and when RT/dynamic lights appear, it gets slow. If I have the transparency in the water texture, then it doesn't get slow. But that's not all the problems about water brush entities. If I use Q1BSP level format, and a Shambler size entity touches the water, the game crashes. And I decided to use Q1BSP, because I want/need the lightstyles without them needing to be RT lights. Much simpler to do the lighting when all the lights can be placed in the level editor, also RT lights are too slow with these enemy amounts.

Next steps are to have the Base level for between missions, mission types, selecting next mission, money/score, buying equipment and equipping player with them. Some of the next mission stuff should be randomized when entering the Base level, then there can be some info about the missions, to help player decide what equipment to take to the next mission. Like the rocket launcher is probably not the best weapon for a hostage rescue mission...