venomgfx | 
08 11th, 2008
So.. the project is coming to an end. 🙁 Today is 10th, Chris’ flight is August 30th, and mine is 31th, that makes 20 days of work from now, we made a daily schedule till the very last day.
With the time we have from now, we managed to split it in a way we could continue wrapping up the game, and still have enough time to invest in the most important aspect of the Apricot Open Game Project, Documentation!
Basically, on my side I will be working one more week (next one) in the game itself, then move completely to work full day on Tutorials/Documentation (the week after), then the last week will be for making the design for the DVD and content. On Chris’ side, he will work on the game for a bit more, since now there is mostly work to do in the Logic/Python and special effects, something he is very good on 🙂 with the online help of Campbell who is working from home back in Australia, he’s the most busy of all of us i think, among all the additions to Blender and fixes, he made literally magic with the logic, making the gameplay a charm, oh and by the way he already got the BlenderPlayer to work! So Runtimes are possible now with GLSL and complicated Python stuff (Mathutils), all in one double-click-and-run file! 😀
So, as said before, the most important aspect of the project is Documentation, because “ok.. is very nice to have this little game and characters and everything, now you say we could make our own levels and expand the game with more episodes, but how do you expect us to do that?”, and not only that, because you, the people, the main sponsors, need to have something back for your support, not only the finished game but a lot of documentation and tutorials up-to-date with all the new features in Blender, and clear instructions in how to proceed to make new stuff.
At this point, thinking about the DVD content, what is the best way to keep this project as open as it is now? and make it *more* open?, let’s ask them what they want to have in the DVD!, we are not making it for ourselves, we are making it for them!.
So here is the list of tutorials we have in mind till now, tell us what you think about them and drop any suggestions for new ones. We have scheduled to work on them the week after this one, so there is time to think about.
Me (Pablo):
- Lighting: Baking Lightmaps, AAO, Shadows..
- Characters: Pipeline, how to make from scratch the modeling, texturing, simple rigging, shapekeys (ipodrivers) in real time, linking. Tips.
- Overview through new features (there are so many! in UV editor, mesh editing, animation wise, GLSL and sooo on). Tips & Tricks.
- Logo?
Chris:
- Trees: *huge* topic in Game development, making trees from scratch, texturing them, optimizations.
- Extend YoFrankie!: Explanation in what you need to make a new level, put all the assets on, enemies, power-ups, making ledges to grab on, loop-the-loops, and sooo on.
- Overview through new features in the BGE, GLSL, splatting, etc.
Campbell:
- Overview of Frankie’s logic – Explain each state, property and object in frankies group.
- Break Frankie’s logic into 5-10 blend files each with an element of frankies logic, so its not as confusing.
- Tutorial on adding a new action – we have tailwhip, kick, throw, you might want to add another
- Enemies, overview of their logic – how to use the same logic for multiple enemies, adding some variation.
- New features in logic bricks and python api, and now we used them.
- If this doesn’t take too long Ill go into details for the enemies and do some screencasts too.
- There is some overlap with game logic and level design, Chris and I will share this.
Now is your turn to tell us what you think about this list, and don’t hesitate in leaving your suggestions for more tutorials/documentation.
On the Crystal Space side, Dariusz and Frank already made tutorials, that you will find in the DVD, covering Scripting (main character, NPC’s, interaction), Linking, Shaders making, and so on.
But feel free to suggest/request CS-related tutorials anyway. There’s some chance Frank or Dariusz might have time for them.
Is your DVD! you choose what to have inside, and if it is still not yours, go grab your copy here! and support this project, by the way the new Yo Frankie! t-shirts are already in the e-shop, among with the brand new design for the Blender ones. 🙂
That’s all folks! 🙂
venomgfx
PS: First picture: my schedule, slowly starts to get more annotations on it, next to it is my Pocoyo toy I got back in Barcelona, and the reason why I’m awake most of the time.. Coffee!, Red Bull and the nice caffeine gums I got from the guys in Denmark (yes, they are legal).
That looks great! The only thing missing (I think) would be a small primer on Python in the GE.
Just something to get people started on the fundamentals.
I think to ask becasue I would like to see one myself :3
Thanks guys! I’ll be buying one of them DVDs!
Too bad to know that Apricot is ending… In the other hand, I’m getting closer to get a Yo Frankie DVD!
Well, the tutorials seem great up to this point. By the way, will there be any one centered around Blender2Crystal? Other than that, I’d really be interested in a “Special Effects” tutorial, like Lava, Water… oh, and of course, Enemy AI! I want to see what Ramiro thinks!
The lists look magnificent! 🙂 I wish you much power and motivation to make the documentation as complete as possible! Its like Christmas in summer! 😉 I can’t wait to test all that assets and features with the ‘final’ version of blender and CrystalSpace on the DVD to get a feeling of the workflow of game making with blender!
Glad to see news back on the blog, I check it daily for news… about the project it self… I just miss some easy setup for particles, I think most of the games are using particles for different FXs (fire, smoke, bubbles, etc…) but for the moment there’s no any improve in this way with apricot, isn’t it?
I am an artist.
I would love to see tutorials on BGE coding and scripting.
Great! Aesome work till here, keep the great work!
Suggestion:
Make a Chapter on the tutorials dedicated to the lay-don’t-know-nothing-about-nothing with a list of links to good tutorials on how make a open source game. Make a ground-to-foot-on for the beginners do get exited and get hope and enthusiasm.
Just good tips, not detailed info, just tips, list of links, these kind of stuff.
And of cource, release that material for everybody 😀
I think this one is a very good idea:
“Characters: Pipeline, how to make from scratch the modeling, texturing, simple rigging, shapekeys (ipodrivers) in real time, linking. Tips.”
A tutorial about making good looking trees for realtime graphics also would be great, because this is much more difficult than it seems to be. But because this is not that Blender specific I think the character tutorial is the more important one.
I think they are all great and very usefull and they are exaclty what I’m looking for.
I think in the overview of new features section: Some basic demo’s and then some complex demo’s showing the power of the logic and system etc.
Basically I would like to know how to, not only model frankie with animations(tick), but how to make him interact in the game world like you have done. But maybe you have that planned.. Sounds exciting. 😉
Great thing to have a lot of documentation of the game engine but at the beginning Apricot was created to collaborate with CrystalSpace. Are there two games in Apricot, one with BGE and other with Crystal? What happened with original idea of the project?
Thank you very much.
i think a tutorial / workflow description of how to build levels on low to medium range computers is a must.
ie, how to block in a level with just the collision geometry, slowly making a complex level without it getting slow to manipulate. any ideas in this regard…
oh, and if there is time… it would be nice if every object in the .blend file has a logical name, not just circle### etc…
grea
ehm… just wanted to add great luck with the rest of the project, it’s looking great and will have big influence on blender/indy game dev etc…
oh, will the svn with the files be still up after the project completes? any plans to add on to it within foundation projects? maybe see what the community comes up with in a year, and then make some new compilation levels, with someone directing it for coherence?
I hope you’ll insert a complete tutorial about installing e initializing blender to crystal space work pipeline (CS, CEL, B2C and Blender).
Greetings
just one last thing… is there a main menu planned, with a splash screen, loading message, etc, plus options to set resolution and glsl settings before you start the game? this is a must to wrap it up and make it pro, even with just one level.
there could already be some hooks to select levels even.
it could be a very small 3d scene with the most basic 3d settings or some 2d screens.
so…
– splash screen
– play game
– options | video / audio settings, control map
– credits team / sponsors / contributors
– select level | sub of play game?
– select character? something for later 🙂
good luck!
another thing…
is there a startup menu planned?
ie, a splash screen with options to set glsl settings etc before you start the game?
this would really wrap it up, and make it professional, you could have a level select / character select for additional community levels maybe even let the game search online for updates?
– splash screen, with logo, blender logo, licence logo etc
– options, with audio/video settings
– keymap, just for info or configurable, also inside options menu.
– play game, of course !
– select character, maybe a community addition?
play as any characetr, this would require that you can exchange any character mesh/armature inside the franky control setup, with some additional configration properties to change the throw location etc, and have a minimum required animations list
– select level, also a hook for later
– credits, team, sponsors, contributors, foundation,…
– license, the full text
– etc…
It’s sad to hear it’s al drawing to and end. The forum was always good fun.
I hope this forum will stay online for people to share their levels and upgrades.
As far for wishes for things to be added.
YOU KNOW WHAT I WANT!!
But seeing that bribing yoy with a pie didn’t work i think this last futile attempt will not tip the scale either.
But on a more serious note.
kernel_script already mentioned it, but some beginners tutorials would be a welcome addition.
Maybe so guidance on rigging would be nice too.
Hola, Seems the tutorial list covered all important part of Apricot project 🙂
Sorry for off topic.
But im afraid that the antialiased baking features wont be implemented 🙁
I try to solving/avoid this problem with a lot of other tweaking, but a result not so good or ugly when i use multiple high-resolution objects to baking to low one.Any chance to implementing this last important feature before the 2.47 is out?
Hey Pablo!
Im really looking forward to the release of this DVD, very exciting stuff. The work you guys have done will make a lot of dreams possible.
As for the documentation/tutorials:
The lighting/baking/AOO/shadowmaps tutorials would very nice, along with an overview of all the new Blender features.
The ideas for the other guys sound awesome also, ive been having issues making trees, its a very tricky subject.
Perhaps a document on the new updates of Blenders GE would also be good. (and i mean focusing on all the ‘under the hood’ stuff, that us as users cant really see). Stuff like the alpha fixes, logic fixes and specific optimizations. I think youve mentioned that stuff in the list, but i thought id mention it again.
The CS stuff is very exciting also!
It sounds like you guys have it all under control though so im not worried about it, i just thought id add my 2c worth!
Again, amazing work.
Regards,
Alex
haha, just did a svn update… i guess menu_options_text.png and options_menu.blend confirm my question…
great work!
Awesome! Just love the topics covered.
It would be awesome if you publish something related to “How professionals test and fix games” Please share something about your know-how on tracking problems: solve logic issues; avoid crashing inside different systems…
Thank you very much!
Probably a dumb question: how do I make a svn update?
Is there anywhere a detailed description? (I have WindowsXP)
pappenheimer, see this post:
http://www.yofrankie.org/?p=234
on windows, get turtoisesvn, it integrates in explorer
the svn log itself it a treasure to see how the project develops and discover new stuff 🙂
this was a great idea to open it up.
rebuilding apricot,… can’t wait to check out the new additions in level 1, curious how the separation of lava section will make it more manageable.
Hey all! thanks for the nice feedback, it really help us.
@ BlenderLovingSquirrel, nice idea! yes some small primer on Python for basic things in the GE is something that will be worthy, sometimes you need some python at least very basic.
@ Vexelius, well as far as I’ve seen yes there are some tutorials about Crystal Space and B2CS, but don’t know really what they explain, will poke some of the CS guys to come to the blog and answer that.
@ SamCameron, CrystalSpace have a nice/simple way for doing particles, i’ve been playing with it a bit before, but not for the BGE, BGE is not a delivery platform, is a prototyping platform 🙂
@ Todd A McCullough, there will be tutorials about this 😀
@ kernel_script, yes, since there is not a lot of documentation for the BGE, not even for begginers, we will try to make it in a way all people can understand, the simple stuff, and the more complex stuff. And yes the links section would be nice, but personally I don’t like to link to external resources because with the time these links get lost, maybe the authors should try adding them to the blender wiki?
@ Baum, thanks! I’m glad you like that.
@ Kirado, yeah that’s planned, interaction and setting up environment for it.
@ nodoy1, yes, in the Yo Frankie! DVD there will be 2 games, one compatible with Crystal Space, and another one made specially for the Blender Game Engine. For more information search in this blog for the production updates months ago.
@ cyberdigitus, yes thats planned in the “explanations on how to make a level”, about the naming.. I’m trying to pay attention to that, we all try, the essential things have logical names, and the things we use for linking (assets) specially, because if not it would be a pain.. but yeah i can’t say we may miss some object with .001 , .002, .003.. but I will put an eye on it.
Yes the SVN will be online after the project, we will find a way, we could ask the nice guys of GraphicAll 🙂 (they are hosting the SVN files of Big Buck Bunny now).
@ Zuck, i think that’s already there, check the SVN files and the /doc folder. (here in the sidebar there is a link to “get the apricot files!“.
@ cyberdigitus again, yes, we are working on it 🙂 , the character selection would be nice for the community to do it, shouldn’t be very hard (the logic for Frankie is done in a fashion you could replace without much hassle)
@ MrE, we know we know! :(, the project is still not finished, lets have a little bit of hope, i’d love to have that too.
@ squareline, do you know how to compile blender? if so, go to the /sources/blender/src/buttons_scene.c I remember seeing the code for the UI at least there, just uncomment that and try! haven’t tried yet but maybe it works, unstable or not good enough but is there for a reason.. (how did i get there? well sometimes when I feel my artists skills sucks very bad, i give a try to read the code and try to understand it a bit..something in which i fail in every attempt 🙂
@ AD-Edge (Alex), hey! yep thats more or less what we have in mind for the tutorials, but is also nice to see it that way you explain, thanks!
@ Francisco Ortiz, thats a wide topic I will tell the coders guys here, but i think it will be covered eventually, is something you can’t miss, the workarounds!
@ Pappenheimer, in the sidebar there is a link in the “Interesting Topics” part, which is “Get the Apricots Files!”
* eeek this took time, I hope to answer all your questions. thanks for your feedback! 😀
I knew that link etc., but was fooled by the ads on the site! O_o
Thanks, I guess I got it working know! 🙂
thanks for your response!
what are you guys going to be doing when the project is over?
HAWAII!!!
I say, feel free to suggest/request CS-related tutorials anyway. There’s some chance I or Dariusz might have time for them.
Thanks Frank!, I’ve updated the blogpost. 😀
@ venomgfx thanks for tip,i try to build with uncommented part of code but have a compiling error:
/buttons_scene.c:2172: error: expected ‘(’ before numeric constant.
Im not a coder but seems it contain the osa baking code but not finished yet, i hope it will be added. 🙂
@ squareline: it compiles OK here, just delete the lines 2172 and 2179, nothing else.
Im delete the 2172 and the 2179 (#if 0 and the #endif) rows and i managed to compile it but the osa button not take effect.
now we know why it was commented out! 🙂 , there are lotsa features commented inside the code, or hidden in rt.
I could help with DTP in scribus, if you need.
seems need a coder who finishing it 😀
I would like to see the “Why’s”, not just the “How-To’s”. There are many different methods for modeling something one way, or texturing it some way, or setting up the logic this way, but many tutorials leave out the “Why-this-way-is-better-than-that-way”. This is very important with the GE especially when it comes to FPS.
Have a nice day,
-Brian
One of the best things that could be documented are the sheep. They would cover a lot of things I’ve never been able to wrap my head around…
1. How do you have Frankie follow pick up any sheep without a logic brick mess?
2. How do you re-use a sheep’s model and variables without making a data mess? And how on earth do you manage data between scenes for multiple levels?
3. How does all this mess translate to Crystal Space?
4. Why wont my phone stop ringing today?
Games have so much to do with how objects interact that I am BEGGING for more on this topic. Campbell’s area I guess.
Hey Cool Work.
thsi will be so great when I get the DVD in my Mailbox.
A Tutorial an:
– how do Render to Texture would be great.
– Water efects
– I somone would make a Frankie with differen “Bandana” on his head… I would try to make a MultiPlayer Mode for YoFrankie. Using the WSAG setup (www.wsag.ch.vu)
Very nice points by Bmud (as usually) inside comment 35.
Awesome idea by Brian Treacy inside comment 34! Very important!
Thank you for your huge response Venom!
Oooo! And Pocoyo rulez BTW! :))
I would like to get a playable game on my DVD, is that planned?
What will the minimal specs be?
Godspeed on your final lap!
thanks for answering our questions 😉
Hi res, can you make some begginer tutorial for PyCrystal? Thanks
Well that’s sad, your days are literally numbered for this project! All in all though, it looks great!
@venomgfx:
Hey! Thanks for the meta-reply to all…
Now, on to the CS Tutorials Wishlist!
1) Installing CrystalSpace (from scratch), and configuring it to work with Blender (Install B2C, other ways?)
2) Making basic gameplay features in CS: Moving a characer, setting up a camera, and levels.
3) Special effects in CS! Specially water, please!
4) I remember that, in one of the previous posts, someone said that “Games are always cheating”. Could you make some tutoriales around those “cheating” techniques?
Hello Pablo, Chris Campbell,
I do not have too followed the recent updated recently, and jobs old version
beta blender dating from about July 1,
It seems to me that for the moment, only spots are capable of producing shadows
in real time, in the windows of work and the engine of games. The use of a large number
materials seems small, often barely crash of the software. Maybe in the future
projected shadows not be limited to the most spots and that is endless material
available in blender?
If you go to my site apostroph3d.com (site under construction),
then you will understand my obsession for light!
Bonne continuation to all and an eternal gratitude for all that work!
Hello, I made tests with the svn files. I opened and tried to open several blend files with the builds for Windows Apricot 15606 and Apricot 19532. All of the level files from pro/bge/levels need minutes to load or don’t load at all. While some simple files are opening instantly. The most significant difference is that between sheep.blend and ram.blend: while the first opens almost instantly, the second needs at least 30 seconds and has huge delays of responding when I push any button within blender.
Any suggestions hwo to get rid of such problems are wellcome. 🙂
Hi , cant wait to get the dvd ,i would like tutorias to learn how to use the game engine , to make new games or just interactive 3D to do for example live visuals , make things react to audio , tempo sync them to ableton live for example.
I know it gets a little bit off topic , but yes , i would like the apricot dvd to be a blender interactive 3D,games training , from basics to advanced stuff.
Thanx !! you guys rock !!!!!
@venomgfx
Hi venomgfx, yes, the authors put it to the Blender Wiki is a good idea 🙂
And i know a good Blender beginner/advanced tutorial that are around for while without get link-lost:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro
You can read it on the Wikibooks, or download the PDF, just great!
Thank you for reply, thanks for the great efforts on this amazing game, and thank you all who are involved in this. Keep the great work!
Have a good work and good day.
See ya.
@ Manuel R. Ciosici, err don’t know really about DTP, it is Desktop Publishing? (I googled for it).
@ Brian Treacy, nice highlight Brian, we will surely rely on this when making the documentation. thanks!
@ Bmud, 1 and 2 are planned already! :D, the sheep is a good example, for point 3 we need to ask the CS guys, and for point 4.. try unpluggin the little cable behind it, or use a bazooka.
@ oldjim, what do you mean with render to texture? Bake textures/shadows/lights into images?, about the water effect there is not much to do about it in the BGE, but i guess you talk about CS’s water, which is awesome, i bet there will be doc about it, is a nice addition.
@ Francisco Ortiz, Pocoyo is awesome! and Pato FTW!! 😀
@ Jan de Vries, Playable Game is one of the goals of this project yes :), you will get 2 games in the Yo Frankie! DVD, one for playing with Blender’s Game Engine, and another one with Crystal Space, although they are made in the same topic they are a bit different (gameplay wise, controls, etc). So you can expect diversity.
@ Kirado, thanks for taking the time to answer and show interest! is motivating to us.
@ motorokr, yes .. sad 🙁
@ Vexelius, you’re welcome!
@ Deloince jp, what an awesome work you have there! so much detail i love the mood that environment creates. Do you have more material about it? is an open game or commercial?, i love how you put effort to design almost everything, looking forward to this project!
@ Pappenheimer, ATi? Nvidia? the delay in selecting stuff was an ATi thing, about the time loading the files, what are you opening from? /pro/chars? or /pro/bge/chars?, there is no ram.blend in the bge folder so i guess you’re using the CS version (there will be explanations about the use of the files in the documentation, of course). The loading time for those files could be the exporting to CS, the 3d content itself is not that much. Try the ones in the BGE folder and please report any problem.
@ tweakingknobs, yes i think the tutorials will be suitable for all purposes, some more specific some others less.
@ kernel_script, thanks for the link!, and the kind words 🙂 have a nice day too!
thanks once again for all the feedback people!
Hi venomgfx, thanks for your answer! I actually have an ATI x300. I loaded the levels from the pro/bge/levels direction. The characters from pro/bge/chars work, except the rat.blend, this shuts blender instantly down. The ram.blend is that one from the ‘Animate Ramiro!’ link. When I uncheck ‘Enable Lights’ in Game -> GLSL Material Settings, blender reacts immediately again. Saving the very same file with that setting, results in an immediate loading!
Venongfx (Do you have more material about it? Is an open game or commercial?)
Yes there are more material, I have several different environment to create a blender,
the village of mushroom, the refinery égoutiers of the village of the caldera,
the central steam engines and many other places.
I do not know yet if this game will be open game or commercial, but there is a strong
chance to become free, because I want to succeed in designing entirely with
Blender. But another commercial project would be interesting in terms of income
economic and professional adventure
I thank you also to respond spontaneously to all!
@ Pappenheimer, good to know!, nice tip for the owners of similar cards, the rat crashes blender? What version are you using? remember, the latest, the better.
@ Deloince jp, that sounds good! and sorry I just talked about your game but didn’t actually answer your question about spot lamps, no support for shadows other than Spots lamps for now, but i think a sun lamp to make shadows to everything would be very heavy for the gpu, but maybe there are workarounds for this, you can always bake! 🙂
I made several tests with installing different drivers for the ati card, although not everything looks as it is supposed to, I can load now almost all blend files from the svn folders. What are ‘fragment shaders’? – when I load the piranha level blender can’t link them – do we need shader model 3.0 for the piranha level? The piranha level is unbearable slow. Is it possible to sort the textures similar for all models? – this way one can use at least blender multitexture for low end computers.
(I use Apricot 15606 and Apricot 19532.)
For now, I’m stuck with an Intel Mobile card, which is the main reason I’ve been unable to do anything valuable… Not even render sometimes! But in a few days I’ll be returning home, and my PC has an ATI… So, Pappenheimer, does Blender has issues with that card? Do you think it would be better to get an nVIDIA?
I still hope to solve the issues with the right driver, but when I’m going to buy a new card then I probably choose a nvidia.
@ venomgfx
Thanx for answering the Questions so fast.
With Render to Textur I mean that what a Camera reders is displayed on a Texture:
http://www.ash.webstranka.info/?p=41
Special the part whit the mirror at the end of the video…
@Pappenheimer:
Alright, thanks… As soon as I get home, I’ll start trying drivers too. Though, as I’ll be on a videogame project soon, maybe it’ll be better to start thinking on an nVIDIA for me… 🙁
Venongfx,
So I will experiment with bake, but that it will not slow down the games if there is
two textures by object in the level, one for the area and the other for shadows,
with the addition of adding bump maping?
Thank you for your valuable answer (and everyone said)
I would like to see as many video tutorials as possible that demonstrate the production work-flow from Blender to Crystal Space.
For example, a video that shows a simple level with game logic and a character that is exported to the Crystal Space Engine and published as an .exe executable.
Cheers,
Patrick
When loading the piranha level from pro/bge/levels blenders notices ‘LIB ERROR: can’t find MAMaterial.001’ and ‘LIB ERROR: can’t find TEI.radialblend_01.png’.
The other notice is in detail: ‘GPUShader: linking error: Fragment shader(s) failed to link, vertex shaders linked.’
Hi
The game is looking great! Me and my friends are looking for a engine + editor. Does “Yo Frankie” use BlenderGameEngine or CrystalSpace? If not CS then why did you guys switch to BGE? Was there any problems with CS and Blender?
Thank you
/FG
Working with lights in the current blender2crystal is very hard
the lights doesn’t look exactly like you see them in blender..
so i would like to see more tutorials about lights in blender2crystal
Thank You !
@venomgfx on August 12th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Yeap, DTP = DeskTop Publishing, I thought you might need some for the text tutorials .
@BMud & friends,
Regarding game logic, here’s a brief rundown of what Id like to document.
* Overview of Frankie’s logic – Explain each state, property and object in frankies group.
* Break Frankie’s logic into 5-10 blend files each with an element of frankies logic, so its not as confusing.
* Tutorial on adding a new action – we have tailwhip, kick, throw, you might want to add another 😉
* Enemies, overview of their logic – how to use the same logic for multiple enemies, adding some variation.
* New features in logic bricks and python api, and now we used them.
– If this doesn’t take too long Ill go into details for the enemies and do some screencasts too.
– There is some overlap with game logic and level design, Chris and I will share this.
PS – Will use http://txt2tags.sourceforge.net for all docs, great markup tool.
I think it would be neat if you guys could host the New Levels people create (Or at least a page with links to new levels).
yea that idea of J is great.
Have a site where all the new levels and Modes of YoFrankie are Hostet.
Hi
First I want to say that I am very happy to see such massive progres in BGE and
related areas.I have some questions regarding final version of tools and BGE
(Blender 2.50 if I remember correctly).I know that this topic is about DVD content, but time
is short so here we go…
First question: resolution.
Usually when you play game and framerate is too low you can set screen resolution
to lower and that often helps(I suppose this has something to do with:
Lower resolution of the screen mean less pixels to draw so less processing power needed
and in effect faster time of drawing frame).
The problem is that when I tested performance of Blender exe game(compiled from modified
version of famous FPS template from blenderartist) using BAT file to change resolution
of window to lower and lower there was no noticeable(or at all) changes in framerate.
(I think it has something to do with predefined resolution during compilation).
The other thing is that when you regulate 3d window in Blender by hand framerate
can change.I would like to ask if you can implement some kind of function for resolution
switching(triggered from Python or Logic Brick) with predefined set of resolution to chose
(640×480, 800×600 and so on) and use without need to restart game. I dont know if external
window would be needed for that purpose but I think that something like that is
VERY IMPORTANT for performance testing and of course for end user.
Second question is(again) about performance.It often happens that people with similar setup
and the same operating system have very big difference in frame rate using exactly the same BLEND
file even with proper drivers and configuration. Can this problem be solved?
I’m asking because I’m very curious about effects of optimization mentioned in post
“Optimizing GLSL” by Brecht.Being unable to say if game will work properly on different
machine can be serious drawback. If optimisation can solve this problem that would be,
in my opinion, one of the greatest achievements of Apricot project.
Sorry if questions above were answered before or answers are so obvious that nobody would ask
but I really want to know and I think that asking questions here where people working directly
on Blender can answer is the best way.
With regard to tutorials – can you include information what to avoid during production
(like “remember that textures should be power of 2,so blender dont have to scale them in memory
what takes time” or information on proper setup of logic bricks(for example how to setup them
in a way without constant triggering every second when they need trigger only once),mistakes which can
kill performance but are easy to avoid.
Thank you for this project and best regards for whole team.
P.S. I know that my english is not perfect, hope you understand ^__^.
Great work Guys Glad to see BGE being amped up. One tutorial I would like to see, That I didn’t see posted in the comments was parallax mapping…I was just wondering if BLender had this capability?
@venomgfx
“@ kernel_script, thanks for the link!, and the kind words 🙂 have a nice day too!”
You’re welcome! 😀
Hey Guys,
I think a how to for creating Model Libraries for linking for a project. Also how to for doing duplicate link groups. Its simple but still very important. You might want to cover the differences from static mesh and other setups. I know I want to see as much as possible on the Python Blender Game API. How to make the Menus in the BGE would be wonderful.
How to bake out textures and do self shadowing. How to do animated shaders in real time and manipulate them in real time with user based interactions. Covering the Real Time shading going over the limitations so that we know what we can and can not do. Also would be nice if you could cover performance tricks on the art side and on the python code side. How bind the real time lighting to a character and make the light not visible in game.
How to turn visibility of objects on and off based on proximity of the character. How To LOD, Level Of Detail, if possible. Effects how to do them in the BGE. Your lava looks awesome and so does the spurts of lava flying into the air.
How to animate for games might be good for newbies to game development. Probably want to cover counters on characters for points and hit damage etc. How to for Spawning enemies.
A how to on LOD texture size based on the distance from the camera in the shading network if this is possible. I have an idea in my head on how to do this, but I have not tested it out yet.
I think most of the topics for how to with blender are already covered in the other DVDs on sale in the blender store. I think people just need to buy them and this DVD should not be the end all for all things in Blender. Not to mention if they buy them then it also helps fund blender further.
Cheers,
Nate Nesler
Oh yes I left out one more how to. A how to on end users computer performance test so that recommended default settings can be made in the Menus for the player.
Cheers,
Nate Nesler
DS-74, i did not have time to read your post, but it looks like you want to change the game res to get higher fps,
when you are in you buttons window, press f10, to go to your render settings, in the buble that says “format”, yo’ll see somthing called “game framing settings”, that should do it, at least i think so.
thanks a lot for your feedback, I already started working on documentation here, all your responses are very important, hope not to miss anything!
I don’t know if you have already covered this, but a level design tutorial would be awsome!
It’s actually pretty hard to take the right decision of which way to go from here. As I see it, Apricot has to do two main things:
1) Make a very good impression so it’s picked up outside the open source community – this is where graphics comes in.
2) Make the life easier for the new artist/coder – writing docs and tutorials.
I think the decision should belong to the developers (both artists and coders). They know what’s missing. And they should pay more attention to attracting new artists, because that’s where open source games lack manpower.
So I’d say optimizing is not too important. Given the fact that many commercial games are poorly optimized for what visual quality they offer, Apricot can afford to have a slow start here. Code improvements will always come, but it’s important to establish a userbase of gamers.
And here is an interesting fact that comes to mind here: gamers usually make good quality contributions, even to commercial games, in the form of mods. Probably higher quality than the casual open source art contributer. Making ‘Yo Frankie!’ easily extensible (either through writing good and easy to read docs, or by creating a content editor) will harness this manpower. And they will appreciate the game even more then.
To see what I’m talking about, just take a look at how Bethesda’s TES games (Morrowind, Oblivion) attract modders, which generate huge amounts and quality of content. Which isn’t all that different from how open source works.
Hope this helps.
Eduard, I don’t agree with you.
Even if game looks great, but is unplayable on most of machines
what will come from that?
Imagine hundreds of people on forums saying “I can play Crisis,
Unreal 3, PutAnyGameHere, but this
game is so slow that I didn’t had patience to continue 5 minutes after I started”.
I know many interesting Demos from Blenderartist and almost all of them suffer
because of low Framerate, and most of them have quite simple graphic.
In my opinion game don’t have to be the most beautiful in the world,but should not
be ugly.Keep in mind that greatest games in history not always had shiny graphic,
it’s often gameplay makes them unique, and when everything is lagging enjoying
good gamplay is almost impossible. I agree that good graphic is important to atract
new people but without proper optimisation it doesn’t matter much.
I think that bug fixing and optymisation are very improtant.
By the way, I’m very happy that everything is back online ^__^.
@DS-74
Optimization is surely important, I didn’t mean the game should increase visual quality without regard to performance.
What I’m saying is Apricot targets gamers and therefore it could be expected to have a, let’s say, GeForce 6600 as a minimum requirement. And gamers usually do buy better hardware than this. I don’t see making Apricot run on lower-end cards as a priority right now.
Eduard I know that, but as far as I know there are problems even on setup which meet requirements, if
you want example look at posts
number 56 and 57 under “Environment update, shadow maps!”.
What I mean is if BGEngine
will not work correctly it dosen’t
matter what highend computer you
have,problem will still be there.
Optimisation here is not only for slower machines, it is to make engine work PROPERLY.
@DS-74
Oh, now I see what you mean. If I understand correctly, this happens when running under BGE. I hope this gets solved once those levels get ported to run under a CrystalSpace-only environment. At least, that’s what I expect, since BGE is a rapid prototyping tool and CS is supposed to scale better.
Well, I suppose it’s going to be a lot of work to do _after_ the game is released. Porting the other levels and logic to CS could be an important milestone. This is harder for non-coders, but it’s nevertheless very important.
BTW… although I didn’t take a look at how Apricot reads logic in the CS environment, I think it would be neat to have scriptable level logic (describing goals and such). Let gamers work with a simpler level description language and let coders port worthy ideas into Apricot’s C++ core.
I want to see tutorials on how to make a game with just logicbricks. I am an artist, and the BGE being the easiest game engine to use with logicbricks is the greatest selling point. Show me low-poly cartoon character modelling, shadows, menus, projectiles, particles (rocket trails), animation, rigging, explosions, & an overhead map. The BSOD.pdf was more direct than the GameKit book & blenderartists.org. I want tutorials that are direct – without opinions, stories, extra fluff. Just show me how to shoot a projectile, change a health bar & make an enemy explode, & keep score, & spawn points. If you can show the world how easy logicbricks are & how easy it is to prototype a game in BGE more people will use it. Every other game engine is discouraging. Make some simple tutorials that people’s moms & little kids can use. Seriously. Plus, some python basics in easy to understand format. I am an artist, not a programmer.
Great job on YoFrankie. The animations and GFX bring it to life. Your game doesn’t run well on my dual-core Intel mobile GFX machine. Runs well in wireframe mode. I’ll try running the game in lower resolution, or make an .exe in lowres. Why does Intel give me 200MB+ of video-RAM and no Hardware T&L? Bad Intel. My 1.6ghz dualcore would have been a screaming workstation in the year 2000. Now Vista has to eat up my resources. Can someone please compile Blender/Apricot on BEOS/Haiku? I’m gonna buy a UMPC to turn Apricot into a gameboy device so my non-tech friends can play it. Apricot on UMPC/MID would be awesome! – someone try this plz. Most people who are gamers buy GameBoys/DS/PSPs & consoles, not $3000-AlienWare desktops. Great work guys, I’m buying a DVD. Hopefully you have superfast shipping.
@3D Artist
I think you’re right about making life easier. But please don’t bash Intel, their cards are (very?) low-end and they do advertise them as so. Having more video RAM is cheap and can get you running a few 3D apps and older games decently, but it’s not intended for gaming.
Regarding running Apricot on BeOS/Haiku… you might have better chances with Haiku (taking into account BeOS is discontinued). Since it’s open source, it could be expected Apricot will be picked up by the Haiku (distro) creators. But I doubt Apricot’s creators will build the full software stack needed to run the game on BeOS/Haiku by themselves.
I’m gonna start a Haiku Bounty for Apricot [haikuware.com]. I want a tutorial on flying – 4 both animate creatures and inanimate spaceships.
* GLSL:
– glsl_vertexcolor_ao.avi [01:31]
– glsl_ambientcolors.avi [02:43]
– glsl_multicolormist.avi [04:44]
* Lighting:
– lighting_bakingaoandshadowmaps.avi [04:41]
* New Features:
– nf_ipo_features.avi [07:19]
and the list continues..