Ok, very nice to see that you folks still working with gamestudio and producing better and better results obviously !

After releasing my Corvitextu texture browser I am going to focus on finishing my other projects (I need to stay home, yes :-).

World editor: A texture/planning/heightmap infinite terrain creation tool with object placement for a 9 tile treadmill engine.
80% already done.

First release of a wmb lite-c 9 tile tradmill engine. 50% already done. Terrain engine may follow, if world edior is finished.

Recreation of my old lipsync tool.

Cutscene editor.

Finishing the 3D worlds I started.

And some other small tools

Best wishes !
Neodumont

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Don't waste your time because time is the stuff live is made from ! (Benjamin Franklin)

Hi everyone,

as always I am working on my strategy game. The last few days I reworked the code for terrain transformation to fit the trenches into the terrain (as it is a game set during World War One trenches are a rather important art and gameplay asset)

So a lot of games (like Company of Heroes) adjust only the z-value of the terrain-mesh vertices so the trenches fit in. In order to make this technique look good you need a very dense terrain mesh (like Company of Heroes ). Since I did not want to make the terrain mesh super dense (for various reasons, mostly for an easier workflow) I used a different technique and modified not only the z-value but also the x- and y-value of terrain-mesh vertices that are close to the trench model.



I implemented this some time ago but the result was very unsatisfying. The texture is stretched close to trenches and gaps in the terrain mesh appear at various places (red circles):



I recently came back to this and reworked the code. It is still the full vector-field displacement technique but I added some code for borderline cases (the places where the gaps appeared) and additionaly recalculated the uv-mesh after the deformation. The code for recalculating the uv-mesh

It took me some time to figure this out because the documentation for ent_getvertex, ent_setvertex lacks some information. Especially on the various uv-mesh deformations.

But the reworked code makes the terrain look way more clean:



Still not perfect in every single aspect but I am really happy with the outcome. Next I want to improve the terrain shader. I still think the normal maps don't "stand out" enough and dynamic lights doesn't affect the terrain at all by now.

As always: Feedback is very welcomed, wether it is about the terrain or any other aspect of the game!

Best Regards

Ok, here are 3 screenshots of the tools I am working on:

The first one shows the concept of my world editor tool : A 3 level bmp tile array developed for sketching, hightmapping and texture painting for large open worlds. Special feature seamless painting over borders of neighbourerd bmp tiles via half left and right tile parts (border is then right in the middle. Also features texture painting depending of the heightmap. i.e. painting a valley texture at the position where the heigthmap is 'low'= valley, and other textures where the heightmap is heigh. Quick changing of tile arrays with F1-F3. Hope the pic here is explainable.








Screen two and three show my new translated old Neomill7 endless tile world engine. It is now in Lite-C instead of c-script.
Tile treadmill engine (9 tiles) now uses 8192 quants tiles. Demo has absolutely border seamless terrain textures, I used Corvitextu to make the Terrain skin seamles as well as the detail skin. Terrain tile texture is 512x512 only but looks very good because of the detail skin, set to 128 pixels. Simple world editor script is included with selector for model to be created where the players pos. is ( will then be saved in a text file and used when the player reentries the tile he was on).
An Action ID selector is also included which determines the Action which shall be used with the created model or sprite.
The players facing will also be taken for the model or sprite, can be changed manually by editing the text .dat file in Notepad.


I will release a 3D Demo world in the next weeks when an optimised and tested new engine is ready.

Best wishes !

NeoDumont

Ok, here are 4 more early screenshots from my lite-c open world desert treadmill scenario.
Loading/Unloading routines of hmps and MDLs now work very reliable. Borders of hmps are are not visible.

Desert size 10x10 Tiles. For testing.
Tile size 8192 quants.
Pics of big (Ayers rock like :-)) montain shows seamless positioning of 2 tiles which had been created with mirroring meshes.
By mirroring neighboured tiles you can create big mountains or deep valleys .

Model and Action selector from positionig script work well.

Note: this is a open world engine still in early development status. There is still a lot of stuff to be optimised.

My goal is an engine which offers an open world game engine for everybody with at least the graphical quality of morrowind.
And in lite-c for A8 Gamestudio.

I will publish a demo world in some weeks.








Best wishes !

NeoDumont

OK, small report:

Problem with unwanted camera.pan and .tilt changes (because of mouse movent) during remove and reload routines solved. Player looks in the same dirction after entering a new tile.

Sun angle change tested in realtime. Looks nice, but needs probably some tricky level design to avoid visible seams.

Sun light changing tested. Looks also nice.

Still all hmp tiles and MDLs are loading correctly.

Concept for monkey lsland style dialog system (editor) started.

Next time I will move to 'projects with screenshots', yes here is the wrong place I know. Project needs its own thread anyway.

Regards !

NeoDumont

Hello Community!

I am working on an interesting project for a long while. This is a GUI Builder system.
The problem has been preoccupying me for some time, I can't find a tool that could use to design the GUI of my programs. Obviously in GUI.

Some years back I decided, I am going to make such a tool for me. After many pauses and restart from the scratch I achieved, I have a working Proof of Concept system. Naturally in Lite-C.
My older projects may posseses more functionality, but this one joins all my studies and results in one project.
What can do this program now?

It is able to load from a file and set the basic configuration of the screen and window.
It is able to load from a file GUI elements like panels and buttons.
It is able to place them on a workbench where I can modify them. Now only their positions.

What will can do in the future? Just few examples...
Will save the workbench content, and loads in later.
Will operate the elements automatically, as can.
Will use templates.
Will be able to handle projects, subprojects that contain a GUI layout, appearance.

Finally there will be an operating environment eg. a DLL or an include library, that will work in my program and will do all the tedious work with the GUI instead of me.

Interesting thing, while I worked on the design and implementation, as a side product, fell out a file format that contains now my configuration and project data.
I looks like the JSON format, but differs from that more or less to fulfill my requirements.

Whish me luck, time and patience to continue.

Hi everyone,

a small update on my progress. I finally added the possibility to compose your own army prior to some missions.



This gameplay mechanic can be found in a lot of similar real-time tactics games and it provides the player with some more tactical decisions.

The text to the right changes depending on wether the mouse touches an unit portrait or not. If not, a general description of the mission objectives is displayed.

As always: Any feedback is highly appreciated!

Best regards

@Jerome8911: Good job on the terrain deformation + UV fixes!

There was a project named: G.R.U.N.T.S.
It was a competitor in the Winter 2010 Contest.
Is there any chance to get the source code?

A small preview of my RPG Builder, created with Acknex A8. I created a small video of the most common features.