Getting together for developing a Game?

[pmprog]

When slaeshjag posts his demo (and I get home), I'll update mine for comparison


I'm wondering if we could also make use of the dynamic library loading in libDarnit for something, but that might just be me making things complicated

 

[slaeshjag]

Hmpf, just because of this, I find soem rendering bugs on GL|ES. And more disturbingly, I get no Vsync


This needs investigation...


EDIT: Okay, I partially found the cause. At least for the rendering errors; Our GL|ES implementation does not like getting a load of vertex coordinates with no area. Skipping one of the layers stops the rendering errors from happening. In a real game, this would be avoided since sprites are drawn inbetween layers.


However, I still get no Vsync

 

[fusion_power]

Is the "expencive" alpha blending really needed for just an parallax Effect? I mean, "smooth, semi transparent blending" and not the much "cheaper" blending with just full transparency or no transparency at all, I call it gif transparency. ^^"


With the "line scrolling" technique, you even could do impressiv multi layer scrolling basicly "for free" and without any transparency at all. Just a matter how it's visualy solved. I remember Megadrive Games with many many Parallax layers, impressive tec for the fact, thet the Megadrive only was able to do 2 or 3 Game layers in hardware.


Since Semi transparency (alpha blending) seems to be a general problem with ARM, I'm sure, the other techniques would be much more efficient, without much speed loss at all.

 

[ekianjo]

Since Semi transparency (alpha blending) seems to be a general problem with ARM, I'm sure, the other techniques would be much more efficient, without much speed loss at all.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing when looking at the discussing for alpha blending - you can implement other techniques similar to what was done on 8-16 bits machine and still manage to get a similar kind of effect, for the purpose intended.

 

[pmprog]

Alpha blend is overused anyway

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

Im guessing no one has stepped foward and claimed to be the game designer cos it probably is a big commitment with lots of work with all kind of things, or did some one do it and I just missed it? You cant prototype air, there needs to be something there to try to achieve. Will someone be brave and commit to game design?

I can commit to delivering a game design document, describing in details what the game would be like in terms of mecanisms/display/interface and so on.


Of course, get inputs from the team members after I have a first draft.


But if someone else feel like they want to take a lead on this, I have no issue with that.

I have some ideas about how the game might look visually and in terms of story and atmosphere.I was thinking of a haunting vibe to the game.Crypts,Ancient crumbling cities mixed with technology,Some space levels,A final level set on the ancient homeworld of the aliens etc.Music could be haunting in places and melodic also.Music and graphics could echo each other to a degree.Also what do you think of the warp-ram idea I suggested earlier in the thread?The ship would boost forward , strike enemies and return to its point of departure.It could be powered up by holding down a button or such.Im willing to commit a story and work with you on game ideas etc.I can devote alot of time to this game as im very interested in working on it.

Game design = game mechanics. Thats what we need at this stage. I recommend you take a look at how game design documents are written so that your ideas can be used in an efficient manner.

I will look up about game design documents and put together a few ideas for you to look at. I will give some thought to the various themes of each level+ the overall theme.etc

 

[ekianjo]

If you want to know how a game document looks like :


http://www.runawaystudios.com/articles/chris_taylor_gdd.asp


That's just a template. Of course the contents are essential. I don't mean to discourage you, but it's better to know a bit about programmation when you write a game design document - because you get a sense of how to give "cues" to the programmers in their work - as you kind of understand what they need.


There are probably other examples of design documents out there, this is is just one of them.

 

[notaz]

However, I still get no Vsync

It might be related to update to the Nokia driver. You can always do vsync yourself too:


http://pandorawiki.org/Kernel_interface#vertical_sync

 

[slaeshjag]

Yeah, I searched and found that. Works great.

 

[erico]

hey Ian, about your scroll demo, do you get things faster without using rotating sprites?


I find rotating and zooming sprites to be a bit of frame killer when glb coding with the caanoo.


It can be done, but requires a lot of optimising, it is faster to create the rotated frames first place, maybe it is similar on the pandora? Something to do with software renders for zoom and rotation instead of the open gl stuff.

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

If you want to know how a game document looks like :


http://www.runawayst..._taylor_gdd.asp


That's just a template. Of course the contents are essential. I don't mean to discourage you, but it's better to know a bit about programmation when you write a game design document - because you get a sense of how to give "cues" to the programmers in their work - as you kind of understand what they need.


There are probably other examples of design documents out there, this is is just one of them.

Ill take a look.Yes i know what you mean about having programming knowledge.I don't.I will put some basic game ideas together for you to look over. I will look at level themes and the feel of them and how the story might fit.Just a smallish document that you can look at and consider/tailor to your needs. Perhaps if the absolute basic premise of the game is prototyped ie the ship and level screens and the accompanying art style+placeholder music of the kind we wish plus a basic synthesis with the story this would be useful.The more complex and deeper mechanics/innovations can then be added to a second version.This can be tweaked and serve as a guide for everyone.

 

[slaeshjag]

Here's my quick test of parallax scrolling using libdarnit: http://t.rdw.se/para...rolling.tar.bz2 (Pandora build)


Press ( B ) to exit.

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

^^^^^^Dont have a pandora now.Will have a 1ghz model next week though.Can try out stuff then.

 

[iprice]

Here's my quick test...

Is this a Pandora executable? Trying to execute "parallax_scrolling" doesn't do anything.

 

[slaeshjag]

you need to run "run.sh"

 

[fusion_power]

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing when looking at the discussing for alpha blending - you can implement other techniques similar to what was done on 8-16 bits machine and still manage to get a similar kind of effect, for the purpose intended.

And it can look just great, here is a quick example, found on the internet, no transparency or overlapping layers needed, just different scrolling lines

some simple shooter demo with parallax linescroll Background:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/BYwP7g4iDIY?feature=oembed

 

[iprice]

I think I tried that...


Nope. No workee.


Am I doing something wrong? I extracted and placed the file in the "apps" folder on the SD card. Neither double clicking Up on it ("run.sh") or trying to "Execute" made any difference.


As for that river scene - I did something like that on my Shadow Of The Beast demo for Wiz (obviously had other elements too, but the ground was just strips -

https://www.youtube.com/embed/58O59UIP73I?feature=oembed
Runs at between 55-60FPS

 

[slaeshjag]

I accidently the run.sh script. Same link.

 

[iprice]

Yep, that worked. 60 FPS, but only one (partial) layer of parallax and the scrolling background.

 

[slaeshjag]

Hmm... Added another layer, and now, the GPU doesn't want to cooporate anymore :/


Only getting 55-56 FPS now.