topo and willy are doing a thing

[topo]

yeah it was, going with prolog instead

but i'm actually using c++ :p
i might be embedding a small scripting language at some point to help handle ui and animation stuff but idk that's way down the line

sorry for not doing anything for the last couple of weeks, just put in map loading and 2d overlays last night check it out

(that's island.vxl which i chose because it's the best map)

Concerning opengl, it's probably bearable as a default renderer if it works at least as fast as in Iceball, although one can't really influence the speed of opengl. It will probably be possible to make a hack that will use Voxlap.

the goal is to first get it running. once i have a base on which to work and some benchmarks i'll be putting a fair amount of effort into optimizing not just the renderer but everything else too - my personal goal is to have this perform similarly to q3a (although a little overhead due to the dynamic terrain is unavoidable), and to have similar minimum hardware requirements. eye candy is definitely not my focus.
i don't believe that combining opengl and voxels necessarily makes for a slow program. there is a ton of stuff that you can do that will influence opengl's performance. i get a stable 300+ fps on openspades with lowest settings on an integrated gpu on a laptop i got 2 years ago. i can't tell what is causing your poor framerate, but i don't think that opengl is the (only) culprit ;(
that said, maybe (as a very low priority, and no promises) i could get around to adding a voxlap renderer.

[LeCom]

yeah it was, going with prolog instead

but i'm actually using c++ :p
i might be embedding a small scripting language at some point to help handle ui and animation stuff but idk that's way down the line

I don't think that it will be good either. For animation, it's possible to use animation files and maybe let the server play a specific animation. For UI, you can make it server-side so you won't have to implement any scripting engine and people will be able to display stuff on the screen (idk how much you emphasize on flexibility). If you still want client-side scripting, I hope it will be Python (since PySnip uses it too and it's masterrace).

Concerning opengl, it's probably bearable as a default renderer if it works at least as fast as in Iceball, although one can't really influence the speed of opengl. It will probably be possible to make a hack that will use Voxlap.

the goal is to first get it running. once i have a base on which to work and some benchmarks i'll be putting a fair amount of effort into optimizing not just the renderer but everything else too - my personal goal is to have this perform similarly to q3a (although a little overhead due to the dynamic terrain is unavoidable), and to have similar minimum hardware requirements. eye candy is definitely not my focus.
i don't believe that combining opengl and voxels necessarily makes for a slow program. there is a ton of stuff that you can do that will influence opengl's performance. i get a stable 300+ fps on openspades with lowest settings on an integrated gpu on a laptop i got 2 years ago. i can't tell what is causing your poor framerate, but i don't think that opengl is the (only) culprit ;(
that said, maybe (as a very low priority, and no promises) i could get around to adding a voxlap renderer.

If you don't care about eye candy shit, idk why you don't like Voxlap. I can say that opengl doesn't only slow stuff down for me, but also for many other people (it's probably different from PC to PC), since openspades's sw renderer works better than opengl, and the algorithm used in opengl wasn't made for voxels (voxlap != opengl on your CPU). Though, as I said, if you make it run faster than in Iceball, it will be fine.

One thing I'm interested in is the game itself, and gameplay. I guess you don't want it to be CoD or headshooting gallery with voxels. What will prevent it from turning into that, and especially, what will you do against shitty, but populated servers (like the hallway servers in AoS)?

[ThisFrickinSite]

If you don't care about eye candy shit, idk why you don't like Voxlap. I can say that opengl doesn't only slow stuff down for me, but also for many other people (it's probably different from PC to PC), since openspades's sw renderer works better than opengl, and the algorithm used in opengl wasn't made for voxels (voxlap != opengl on your CPU). Though, as I said, if you make it run faster than in Iceball, it will be fine.

Do you even know how opengl works? How could you possibly be imagining how it works to reach the conclusion that it's not good at rendering voxels?

[shaz]

ok topo ur pro

[topo]

I don't think that it will be good either. For animation, it's possible to use animation files and maybe let the server play a specific animation. For UI, you can make it server-side so you won't have to implement any scripting engine and people will be able to display stuff on the screen (idk how much you emphasize on flexibility). If you still want client-side scripting, I hope it will be Python (since PySnip uses it too and it's masterrace).

sure, all that's possible. as i said, it's way down the line. i'm not locking anything in yet, but i'll be weighing up several options when it's time for that

If you don't care about eye candy shit, idk why you don't like Voxlap. I can say that opengl doesn't only slow stuff down for me, but also for many other people (it's probably different from PC to PC), since openspades's sw renderer works better than opengl, and the algorithm used in opengl wasn't made for voxels (voxlap != opengl on your CPU). Though, as I said, if you make it run faster than in Iceball, it will be fine.

openspades' software renderer (and for that matter the voxlap renderer) runs much slower for me than the opengl renderer. how familiar are you with opengl? you don't just pass in voxel data and say "render cubes thanks". there are many algorithms with which you can implement isosurface extraction (look up marching cubes for an example) and thus improve rendering speed dramatically compared to just drawing a cube in every solid voxel position.

One thing I'm interested in is the game itself, and gameplay. I guess you don't want it to be CoD or headshooting gallery with voxels. What will prevent it from turning into that, and especially, what will you do against shitty, but populated servers (like the hallway servers in AoS)?

again, the gameplay is not something i'm committing to before i do a LOT of testing. i don't think that forcing my own opinions on players is a good strategy (while it's unavoidable to some degree i have no intention of taking it to the extremes that GM did with iceball), so i'm not going to do anything to inhibit the creation of servers like hallway. if that's what people want to play i'm not going to stop them. all i can do is hope that people end up liking the same style of gameplay that i do :)

ok topo ur pro

thx ))

[Willy]

Creatively we'll exude the same ethos as the current beta -- if you can build it, make it, script it or shoot it, go right on ahead. (unless you're hacking)
The major difference will be that we're able to alter the base gameplay based on our own vision and community feedback. I can't stand Hallway, but I wouldn't stop people from recreating that sort of gameplay if they want to.

I definitely like the idea of trawling through the forum archives for ideas, both topo I and were around for these forums and I distinctly remember some of the ideas being more thought out than current ones by quite a degree..

[Mr.Torch]

Good luck. As with a lot of the community there are a lot of talented modders, artists, map makers etc. So, feel free to ask for any help.

I personally can help design any GUI, make scopes, logos, etc... basically anything that has an image. :)

[Willy]

I've talked to a couple of people already re: UI, models etc. and I'm more than happy to take some names down. If we do contact you in future,I hope you understand that it's likely that you won't be or will be minimally compensated for your time and effort beyond making something for the game -- we're both poor students with varying but small incomes :b

Should your work feature in an (unlikely at this stage) paid release we will endeavour to compensate a portion of profit proportionate to the work provided, however we will also need your express permission to use your work free of charge beforehand and you would need to figure out how such an income would factor into your country's taxation laws -- I'm not 100% on the legality of such things, so I'll be looking into all this today. :)

edit: we now have a running devlog on the second post!

[Mr.Torch]

I've talked to a couple of people already re: UI, models etc. and I'm more than happy to take some names down. If we do contact you in future,I hope you understand that it's likely that you won't be or will be minimally compensated for your time and effort beyond making something for the game -- we're both poor students with varying but small incomes :b

Should your work feature in an (unlikely at this stage) paid release we will endeavour to compensate a portion of profit proportionate to the work provided, however we will also need your express permission to use your work free of charge beforehand and you would need to figure out how such an income would factor into your country's taxation laws -- I'm not 100% on the legality of such things, so I'll be looking into all this today. :)

edit: we now have a running devlog on the second post!

I'm a poor college student as well lol, don't feel the need to take your money. I would do it for free. :) Better things to worry about in life then just earning a quick buck. I would however like to receive a free copy of the game (and future versions) if I did quite a bit of artwork though.

[Warp]

Hello,

I'm quite busy at the moment (I hope that it will ease up), but I would be happy to help with some parts of this, if required. There are many talented people on here, and I don't feel like I am, but I can make UI and models and can do CSS/JS/HTML/PHP (A little).

I am earning and have no need for money, all I hope is that this project revives AoS.

[Mr.Torch]

I am earning and have no need for money

Send some my way...

But seriously, hope this project actually gets finished unlike a lot of the other attempts. :(
That's more important to me personally. I'd rather have another finished game than a bunch of fancy graphics. *Cough* Openspades *Cough*

[Warp]

I am earning and have no need for money

Send some my way...

But seriously, hope this project actually gets finished unlike a lot of the other attempts. :(
That's more important to me personally. I'd rather have another finished game than a bunch of fancy graphics. *Cough* Openspades *Cough*

Agreed.

I was a penniless student until a coupla months ago, i feel your pain

[LeCom]

Do you even know how opengl works? How could you possibly be imagining how it works to reach the conclusion that it's not good at rendering voxels?

Opengl does polygon rendering, while Voxlap does raycasting. Opengl has to do visibility checks for every open side of each voxel, then try to render an according rectangle on the screen. Voxlap only has to calculate simple things for every visible voxel.

In any case, I think people are making shit servers because AoS is kinda supporting that. Aiming is OP, you can freely headshot anybody, SMG is very powerful. If you make your game like pre-.60 AoS, players probably will make according servers. Making the players feel like in a war that happened a long time ago is going to change their map selection, and many other things.

[topo]

hopefully our conversation on irc convinced you that it's worth waiting and seeing how my renderer turns out before raising issues with it :p

In any case, I think people are making shit servers because AoS is kinda supporting that. Aiming is OP, you can freely headshot anybody, SMG is very powerful. If you make your game like pre-.60 AoS, players probably will make according servers. Making the players feel like in a war that happened a long time ago is going to change their map selection, and many other things.

yeah, raw aim is far too powerful in the case of the rifle and not nearly enough of a requirement in the case of the smg. being able to aim better than your opponent will win you 80% of your fights in .75, regardless of your positioning, your health relative to your opponent's, etc. which is a really bad thing imo... i did say that i wasn't going to force my opinions on players but i very strongly believe that there should be more to an fps game than just aim, and that belief is going to have an impact on some of my design decisions.

tldr players are rewarded far too much for being able to move a mouse around and that's something i'm looking forward to changing :-)

i'd like to thank the dudes who have offered to help out so far. feel free to come hit me up on irc (either at quacknet.org where my nick is topo, or at quakenet.org where my nick is tp). i'm definitely going to need a lot of help where any sort of creative artwork is concerned, and more people to chat with about this is always a plus!

[MushieWarden]

I dont see a reason on why i shouldn't test it when it's ready for alpha. Also, do you guys have an idea for some artwork for this?