Homeworld-->An online chat room. (Unfinished)

MikeR · Post by **MikeR** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 4:12 am

Thought I'd show you what I've been working on.
Homeworld<--link
This is a work in progress. No networking yet. No chat window yet.
Still a bunch of bugs to work out.
The readme tells more about it. The whole world was built using
-->DeleD Scene Builder<--
Enjoy.

dhenton9000 · Post by **dhenton9000** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 4:40 am

How'd you do the mirror?

Is that render to texture? Cool!!

The lighting and modeling is very nice, reminds me of second life. I only go 30 fps in windowed mode for some reason. I'm thinking you should print the talk to the screen.

Learn something new every day. I would have never thought of Irrlicht as an alternative to 2nd life. Very interesting.

disanti · Post by **disanti** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 4:55 am

Nice, gotta love the mirror!
However you should work on slowing the elevator a bit (more like a freefall than an elevator.)

You could also put some time into making the binaries a little smaller for the next downloading. Look into UPX and (if using MSVC) use the multi-threaded dll feature. I got my EXE down to 12kb with both of those, with the Irrlicht DLL down to 384kb after UPX.

Very nice start! Also a nice idea to put controls as the first thing seen.
________
Herbal Vaporizers

MikeR · Post by **MikeR** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 10:46 am

Thanks for the feedback.
Yes, the mirror is RTT.

I only go 30 fps in windowed mode for some reason.

Yes, if you noticed, while in the upper area, you should have been betting around 50fps. The spinning sign in the lower area took about 20fps off. (still trying to figure out why)

I'm thinking you should print the talk to the screen.

I've been looking at the demo (irrlichts) and some other libs to do that. I was thinking "freeze the cam, add transperant billboard, mabe rotate cam around a little during playback, place voice as text on billboard". (have to shorten the voice over tho)

However you should work on slowing the elevator a bit (more like a freefall than an elevator.)

It's actually set to take 40,000ms to make that move. That's irrlichts flyStraightAnimator doing that.

You could also put some time into making the binaries a little smaller for the next downloading. Look into UPX and (if using MSVC) use the multi-threaded dll feature. I got my EXE down to 12kb with both of those, with the Irrlicht DLL down to 384kb after UPX.

Yes. I need to do a lot of code cleanup. First tho, I need to seperate it into different h/cpp files.

(it's currently in just 1)

Very nice start! Also a nice idea to put controls as the first thing seen.

Thanks. Wish I could take credit for the signs, but can't.
Eventually, the camera will work the same way as it states in the signs tho.
Thanks for the feedback. This is something I've wanted to build for a long time, and have been studying and learning C++ so I can.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 2:18 am

I also get the feeling the world isn't and octree... My graphics card is not great an I only get 1 FPS in windowed mode, which is, you know... unplayable... Other games I have no problem going atleast 32 FPs which is more then enough... The maximum number of frames our eyes catch is 24... but I mean, you know... do the octree...

Eternl Knight · Post by **Eternl Knight** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 3:09 am

I too am getting 1-3 frames per second, on an ATI Radeon 9600!

bitplane · Post by **bitplane** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 4:13 am

i was getting 30fps. perhaps you should also split the world in two, cos there's no point in drawing downstairs when you're upstairs. love the mirror.. i never realised how happy i was until I looked inside!

MikeR · Post by **MikeR** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 3:54 am

I also get the feeling the world isn't and octree

It is an octtree, but I think the problem is that I made the whole world wayyyy too large. There are places where you can get stuck in the walls.

Code: Select all

 //world mesh
	scene::IAnimatedMesh* q3levelmesh = smgr->getMesh("media/old_Homeworld.dmf");
	scene::ISceneNode* q3node = 0;
	
	if (q3levelmesh)

		q3node = smgr->addOctTreeSceneNode(q3levelmesh->getMesh(0));  
              
     scene::ITriangleSelector* selector = 0;

	if (q3node)
	{		
		q3node->setPosition(core::vector3df(450,-1530,-450));

		selector = smgr->createOctTreeTriangleSelector(
            q3levelmesh->getMesh(0), q3node, 128);
		q3node->setTriangleSelector(selector);
		selector->drop();
	}
	
	if (q3node)
	{

	q3node->setMaterialFlag(video::EMF_LIGHTING, false); // disable dynamic lighting
     q3node->getMaterial(0).Shininess = 20.0f; // set size of specular highlights
     q3node->setMaterialFlag(video::EMF_BACK_FACE_CULLING,false); //some parts need their backsides
     }

If you walk into the elevator and turn around, you'll notice the entry wall goes missing.
Thanks for all the feedback. I will remake the world again, but this time to a proper scale.

perhaps you should also split the world in two

I may end up doing this. Shouldn't need to, but might have to.
Also, if you aren't using up to date OGL drivers, it may be a little slow or not work correctly.

Dark Rain · Post by **Dark Rain** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 5:12 am

Well, a simple portal system should take care of the upstaire/downstair problem no? I don't know how well portals are supported by irrlicht tho.

jam · Post by **jam** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 5:38 am

neat!

Getting 30fps here too. I have a hard time believing that the deled level is too large, I've made larger ones than this in deled and gotten 100+ fps. Maybe it has to do with the backface culling?

Anyways really cool project.

MikeR · Post by **MikeR** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 1:58 am

Dark Rain wrote:Well, a simple portal system should take care of the upstaire/downstair problem no? I don't know how well portals are supported by irrlicht tho.

I'll have to look into the portal system. Currently, I know nothing about it.

jam wrote:neat!

Getting 30fps here too. I have a hard time believing that the deled level is too large, I've made larger ones than this in deled and gotten 100+ fps. Maybe it has to do with the backface culling?

Anyways really cool project.

Thanks. It could be my mess of code that's causing the fps problems. It could also be the render to texture. There is a lot going on in that place.
I'm still learning, and once I can get things cleaned up, the fps may improve. I do know that when I added the spinning sign that the fps dropped by 20. That shouldn't happen.
Anyway, thanks.

dhenton9000 · Post by **dhenton9000** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 2:23 am

I watched RTT eat my fps alive.

MikeR · Post by **MikeR** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 4:15 pm

dhenton9000 wrote:I watched RTT eat my fps alive.

Lol. You are correct.
I have cleaned up my code as much as I can. I took out the RTT and now am getting an fps constant of 60fps.
No mirror tho.

Niko suggested that the RTT was causing a meteor anomaly, but that hasn't proven the case. I still get it on occasion.
The elevator doesn't work any better eather.
If you want to try out the new version, it's the same link as the first post.
(I also turned up the lava volume a tad)

I've decided to redo the dome. I think it may be giving me some problems too as some of the polys are insideout.

Anyway, suggestions are welcome.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 4:21 pm

i tried your demo yesterday and got 23 fps. it also had a very long loading time (30-40 seconds?).

my system:
pentium4 2,8ghz
ati radeon 9600 mobility
512mb ddr ram

tested on windows xp sp2 with directx9.0c and the newest radeon omega drivers.

downloading your new version right now (download is slow at 15kb per second o.O")

MikeR · Post by **MikeR** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 4:51 pm

it also had a very long loading time (30-40 seconds?).

That is becouse Irrlicht is converting Deleds internal color codes as .bmp files. It's looking for textures that don't exist. I don't know why it's doing this.

As for the download time...that's slow. The server must be running slow. I purchase server space, so have no way of checking that.

This world is using OGL. Some day I may add the directX sdk to dev-cpp and add directX, but don't have any plans for that at the moment.

Yesterday, I was getting 50fps in the upper section, and 20 in the lower section. Today, it stays at 60.