Preview of Stair Dismount 2 tech

[tonic]

We're working on base tech for Stair Dismount 2 and having some fun w/Irrlicht...

Here's a Technology Test video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=royB5YMTqsg

A bit more details:
- We aim to restrict to DX8 driver on windows (much less pain with deployment when installing) - and of course OGL for potential mac port
- We use stencil shadows and a custom hack to get a soft blurry shadow in addition
- Physics engine is ODE
- Currently we're investigating if we can use irrEdit for creating scenarios - the test stairs are created with it.

[JP]

That looks pretty nice!

The ragdoll looks ever so slightly squishy which is a cool effect.

How are you getting on with the stencil shadows (presumably the built in ones)? They tend to suck your performance really badly so if you do have trouble with that then you might want to consider using some of the more optimal shadow shaders shown in the project forum.

[tonic]

How are you getting on with the stencil shadows (presumably the built in ones)? They tend to suck your performance really badly so if you do have trouble with that then you might want to consider using some of the more optimal shadow shaders shown in the project forum.

We quickly noticed the shadows perform quite badly, so we modified the engine so that we can give a simplified mesh to be used for the shadow volume. (submitting a patch is on my todo-list)

Edit: Using some more advanced shadow implementations typically require use of shaders. That implies requirement for higher-end hardware and DX9 (or OpenGL 2.0). Both require recent drivers which many "casual users" lack. In addition, one can't trust that DX9 is present on a typical machine (or a recent enough version of it with latest D3DX library). Because of that use of DX9 would require bundling of DX installer with game installer, and it is huge! Alternatively bundling dx web installer is possible, but that just forces a huge download while installing game, which is equally nasty.

[Dorth]

Or simplify and use OpenGL on all platforms?

[tonic]

Or simplify and use OpenGL on all platforms?

That's what I have done in the past. However, based on both my and others findings, OpenGL support is lacking a little bit overally.

Typical "hardcore gamer" person's PC is no problem here at all, but an average (and maybe slightly aged) PC whose user doesn't know what is a "driver" but still plays some games. For those people it's often case one has to help them to install recent drivers - if they happen to ask for help. If they don't ask for help, then the software simply won't work (or will run on MS default sw rasterizer which is really slow, so basically it won't work).

I like OpenGL but the business reasons drove me to look at DX as well (unfortunately DX9 is sucky deployment-wise)... the DX8 support is a strong reason why I chose to work with Irrlicht at all.

[hybrid]

Blindside was working on projected textures for the fixed pipeline, maybe that would simplifiy using simple shadows without shaders.

[BlindSide]

Yeah expect that to happen soon. I wasn't gonna bother doing it for DX8, but now I might have incentive to implement it there too.

Awesome video btw, the shadows and ragdolls are both professionally done. I'm suprised to see so little artifacts in the self-shadowing with the stencils.

[tonic]

Yeah expect that to happen soon. I wasn't gonna bother doing it for DX8, but now I might have incentive to implement it there too.

Awesome video btw, the shadows and ragdolls are both professionally done. I'm suprised to see so little artifacts in the self-shadowing with the stencils.

Thanks for the comments. It'd be great if you'd do the extra bit of work and support DX8 as well if you're planning to add shadow maps!

For now we'll keep using the stencils w/simplified shadow volume meshes. I just submitted a patch for that as well.