YASS - Yet Another Space Shooter

Ronin · Post by **Ronin** » Mon Dec 13, 2004 10:35 pm

We like to announce our first project using the irrlicht engine. We are three hobbyists, playing around with irrlicht for nearly one year by now. It is our very first attempt in programming generally, so don't expect too much, but have a look at http://www.yass.de.md, it is truly worth a look.

There you find some infos about the project, screenshots and a relatively stable running techdemo.

Have fun with it and make sure to leave us your opinion in our forum.

Ronin

DarkWhoppy · Post by **DarkWhoppy** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 3:02 am

That looks VERY nice.

Is this going to be similar to X-Wing Alliance?

Ronin · Post by **Ronin** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 5:17 pm

Thanks.

I never played X-Wing Alliance, so I can't say if it's going to be similar. But we don't know yet exactly what is going to become of this project at this stage. We do think a lot about it and we are open for anything. If you have proposals or ideas, let us know, there can't be to much inspiration...

MasterD · Post by **MasterD** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 3:30 pm

With the techdemo it is also possible to make your own levels and to add your own spaceships* to the game

There is no level editor, but if you want to, you can create (or modify existing) .xml files.

If you're interested, just ask how!

Greets and please post any comments or opinions!
Matthias

* in this case, you would have to overwrite existing models but that should not be a problem

arras · Post by **arras** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 7:51 pm

I was downloading it but was not able to run it.
Here is output of console window:

...
...
...
DirectX9 Renderer
Error initializing D3D.
Could not create DirectX9 driver.
Error: Could not load build-in Font.
Press any key to continue . . .

afther pressing key program terminate.

Radeon 7000/Radeon VE videodriver
AMD Athlon(tm) procesor
Windows XP / Windows 98
DirectX 9.0 Software Development Kit Update (Summer 2003) instaled

perhaps you can ad config screen at the begining running under software mode where player can choose between DX and OpenGL.

Ronin · Post by **Ronin** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 9:04 pm

Thanks for your advice.

You're right, we made the assumption that everybody has DirectX 9 driver installed. DirectX 8 would been the better choice I suggest.

You can choose your preferred driver before startup though, just not as comfortable as a config screen. You have to edit the config file. But since it is XML it shouldn't get you in any trouble.

Just open ../bin/data/config.xml with notepad and find the following line:

<DriverType value="DirectX 9"></DriverType>

Replace "DirectX 9" with "OpenGL" or "DirectX 8". That should do it.

If you have any further problems, just ask.

edit: I overlooked you already have DirectX 9 installed. Maybe it runs with OpenGL or DirectX 8 though. Would be interesting. I wonder if someone else experienced similar problems, on all pc's we tested it it ran without probs.

Ronin · Post by **Ronin** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 9:17 pm

Now I remember!

I had the same problem a while ago. It is a problem with dx9 sdk summer update. Installing the newest non sdk release of dx fixes the problem, at least it fixed it for me. It is worth a try.

Do you have problems initializing directx 9 irrlicht devices in other irrlicht apps?

Phenix · Post by **Phenix** » Mon Dec 27, 2004 9:46 pm

very nice project!
Unfortunally I haven't tried it in multiplayer mode. It should be very enjoying to go in portals searching for your friends to destroy!
It would be good to add a lot of enemy and some spectacular arcade-style weapons to kill them.
I like the meshes,too.
By the way,are you using f64 or f32?

Mr_Bloodworth · Post by **Mr_Bloodworth** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 4:40 am

Wrong thread

arras · Post by **arras** » Fri Dec 31, 2004 12:53 pm

Ronin >> well yes it was with dx9 sdk. I was reinstaling diferent wersion and it works now

Nice project. Are you going to implement some AI for ships or is it focused on multiplayer only?

Ronin · Post by **Ronin** » Sat Jan 01, 2005 6:55 pm

@Phenix: We are using f64 for position.

@arras: We planned to implement some basic AI in the future, but what exactly we focus on is not exactly clear currently.

arras · Post by **arras** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 1:36 pm

What kind of scale are you using for your virtual space? ...1unit in irrlicht = 1 meter, or 1 kilometer real ???

Ronin · Post by **Ronin** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 4:06 pm

By now 1 irrlicht unit is 1 kilometer in real, but that is not satisfying. I would love to have 1 irrlicht unit = 1 meter, because than we could scale the spaceships accordingly. By now they are roundabout 500 km long.

The problem is, that the precision of the z buffer is not high enough to simulate such large distances. You can see z fighting even with that scale when you look at the earth from moon for example.

I don't know what I can do to get a higher precision, except for using a w buffer. I hope the precision of the w buffer would be enough to draw objects very near to the camera without artifacts, because the linear raising error of the w buffer allows the distances we need. I really would like to hear something about that issue from someone who already used a w buffer in some 3D application.

Phenix · Post by **Phenix** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 9:52 pm

Have you tried a 24bit ZBuffer?
It SEEMS to work for me.
Have you ever seen this page?
http://www.sjbaker.org/steve/omniv/love ... uffer.html
Quite interesting.

arras · Post by **arras** » Sun Jan 02, 2005 11:10 pm

Ronin >> yea, thats what I am fighting too + I want to be able to simulate whole solar system ...thats gona deal with some very huge distances. I dont know howe I gona do that right now....