Yet Another Space Shooter - Techdemo II [updated]

[Ronin]

Hi,

we've uploaded the second YASS techdemo! -->http://www.yass.de.md<--

We spend quite some time during the last year developing on it, but I think it was worth it. We have learned a lot about c++ and game programming and we will soon have something worth called a game engine.
It is still our first project which we started as absolute c++/gameprogramming newbies two years ago and it made a lot of progress since then.

In this release you walk like in a 3D Shooter, but of cause you are still able to fly spaceships as well.

http://www.pltg-blacksun.de/yass/images/shot1.jpg

http://www.pltg-blacksun.de/yass/images/shot2.jpg

We've integrated the PhysX SDK for collisions and rigid bodys and RakNet for networking. We have also some basic AI with A* pathifinding through a graph of waypoints. In the small house you'll find a robot. If you are server you can give him simple commands like move to one of seven waypoints or follow you (Keep in mind that the robot actually must see you to follow you. Thus in the AI command gui you'll find the number of objects in sight, if it is one he can see you... ).

You can shoot trees, ai robots, spaceships and of cause human players in multiplayer. To see some particle effects you can look closely at one of three boxes lying around and press the USE button. Same procedure to get in spaceships.

We are looking forward to any comments in this thread or in the forum on our website.

Ronin

[dhenton9000]

Well, Transparency for the trees didn't work for me i have a Nvidia card 5700

I can't get the boxes to do anything
I can't fly the ships.

Trying to open the level editor sent out a network request blocked by my firewall (XP) and caused an error.

Nice physics though.

[MasterD]

The transparency (-> alpha channel) is currently not correct implemented by our engine. Maybe we put out some sort of patch some day, to fix that. For now, please imagine this

The boxes to use have a "rocky" texture on it and there are three of them, each scaled differently. You have to be quite near to use them. To be complete, please check in your controls for the correct key. The "blue-and-white" textured boxes which you can span are not useable.

Network in the Editor looks quite strange, I'll have to look after that, when I'm home again.

Anyway, happy new Year folks!

[dawasw]

I think I unfortunately have some error with my system specs.

I have : Duron 1.8 Ghz , 768 mb ram, GeForce FX 5200 128 mb 64 bit

Hmm I dunno why, but physics is 'swapping' on my computer. I mean it looks like I have sometimes from 1 to 3 FPS only ;/

Maybe my graphics card is not supported somehow or something?

[genesisrage]

transparencies worked fine for me, but many models fell throught the ground a bit. when piloting a ship the controls are erratic at best, and had no mouse control at all. made it completely impossible to pilot them at all, even to fly straight up the craft would start to pitch forward and completely flip over.

i have: P4 2.8Ghz, 2GB ram, ATI 9800XT 256MB

[boboS]

Didn't work at all for me!!!!
I can use the GUI system (wich is totaly cool) but when I press New Game a message appear under the GUI and stays like that forever and I dont see any disk activity.

My system: w98SE,Duron 1400Mhz,GeForceMx 440 (no pizel shader suport).

[Phenix]

Hi Ronin, I'm glad to see that YASS development is proceeding well!

[Ronin]

Hi, thanks for your replys.

@dawasw: Strange, I tested the demo on pc's with lower specs and it ran quite well. Physics are a bit slow atm, because we use a lot of trimesh collision shapes (with penetration maps) and a better way would be to approximate them with box shapes for example. This will change in the future, it just was the easiest way. But 1-3 fps only is really strange, I have such low fps only when physics debug renderer is active.

@genesisrage: Cool that transparency work for you, it doesn't even on my own pc. Some models are not right aligned with the collision bounding box, so they are half under the terrain. Though that should be the case only for 2-3 spaceships. Make sure you have the mouse in the middle of the screen, when you piloting with keys, because the more you are outside the center the more the spaceship will pitch/yaw. It is not an ego-shooter like control, more like freelancer...

@bobos: We always had problems with win98/winME and I'm not sure if even our first techdemo ran with those OS's. And what message appears under the GUI when you press New Game?

@phenix: Thanks, how is your project going btw?

[vermeer]

@dawasw: Strange, I tested the demo on pc's with lower specs and it ran quite well.

I noticed like -not exactly fps loss- non fluid when straffing...All world and ships did tremble to the sides.

@genesisrage: Cool that transparency work for you, it doesn't even

It does not work here either, but I was already aware as I read your post.

on my own pc. Smile Some models are not right aligned with the collision bounding box, so they are half under the terrain.

It happens just when start: they're well aligned, and some seconds later, they sink in th eterrain...thought was something of the game story..

Though that should be the case only for 2-3 spaceships. Make sure you have the mouse in the middle of the screen, when you piloting with keys, because the more you are outside the center the more the spaceship will pitch/yaw. It is not an ego-shooter like control, more like freelancer...

The biggest problem I found was that...when walking, I easily sunk under terrain, starting to stop seing the floor...Sometimes with a key hit I activated something, like a hollowed cube mesh in the middle of the screen.
Other times it appeared another untextured mesh in the lower part.
But I guess is just in debug mode.

Other than that, I hope all problems get solved, as the idea and game should have a bright future.


_________________

[boboS]

@bobos: We always had problems with win98/winME and I'm not sure if even our first techdemo ran with those OS's. And what message appears under the GUI when you press New Game?

Something like "The Game is loading" I dont remember exactly. But only sometimes. I tried DirectX & OpenGL and all resolution combinations and no work. Maybe I need to install a runtime file or framework something that Xp already has, I dont know.

[Ronin]

@vermeer:

I noticed like -not exactly fps loss- non fluid when straffing...All world and ships did tremble to the sides.

Yes, we noticed that, but weren't able to fix it before release. (We released it now, because both of us will have not much time in january and february)
All Objects except the terrain seem to get rendered with wrong positions. That has high priority on our bug list...

It happens just when start: they're well aligned, and some seconds later, they sink in th eterrain...thought was something of the game story.. Wink

Right, that behaviour is exactly as it should be. Alright, I explain: The spaceships are not effected by gravity like the other objects, because I implemented a simple flight model shortly before release. It is easier to add gravity force myself (dependant on current speed and damping), than compensate the gravity added by the SDK. Now it is like that: The more density the atmosphere has and the faster you are moving, the less you are pulled down by gravity. (should simulate buoyant forces from the wings)
The problem was, that this force downwards was already added, while the level was loading and the spaceships got pushed with high acceleration down onto the terrain and jumped high in the air, so we put a 5 seconds delay in. That is of cause only temporarily.

The biggest problem I found was that...when walking, I easily sunk under terrain, starting to stop seing the floor...

That is a culling problem with the terrain scene node. Polygons under your feet are getting culled to soon. (maybe when just 2 vertices are out of the frustum?) We currently have no clue, why it is so.

Sometimes with a key hit I activated something, like a hollowed cube mesh in the middle of the screen

I believe you hit the key to crouch, that only effects the camera hight atm and that cube is part of the player model. We weren't able to set the models in first person view invisible as they should be, because then the code to shoot something didn't work anymore.

@bobos:

I'm sorry that YASS is not running on your pc, but I think our programming skills are not sufficient to target system specs like yours. You know, the worse the skills of the programmer are, the higher are the system specs.

[Phenix]

@Ronin: development of my project is going on quite slowly; At the moment I'm rewriting again the planet generator

[MasterD]

We are happy to say, that a heavy bug has been fixed!

At lower Framerates (allready at about 50 frames), the game Objects did not stick to the terrain they stand on. So the feel was like having 10 fps.

But this is now fixed and you may download the

• fixed exe from here

or the

• updated package from here

If you allready have downloaded the package before, you only need the exe. Replace main.exe wich you allready have, with the .exe from that package.

Have some fun

[Ronin]

We have uploaded the full source code of YASS - Techdemo II.

You can get it here...

We highly appreciate any discussions, comments or suggestions about it in our forums.

[Guest]

Cool !!! Thank you for code. Will you release and the full source code of YASS - Techdemo I.