Sauerbraten engine development

by Aardappel on 03/03/2004 05:18, 1571 messages, last message: 03/14/2008 18:53, 1351355 views, last view: 12/09/2021 06:35

This thread is for discussion of Sauerbraten coding issues / implementation ideas etc.

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#773: framerate smoothness

by Aardappel_ on 06/05/2005 08:12

I noticed that even though I get 100+ fps, the framerate is not smooth. There are 2 things going on...

first of all, the physics is wobbly somehow, especially when using strafe only. Strafe a bit around aard3 and see how that feels.

Second, even if my average frame time is 8-10 msec, there are frames in between that suddenly last 20, 30, or even 50 msec. I have tried to isolate which part of the engine does this, but all show the same behaviour. Maybe its something in my system. You can try modifying the printf in the main to see if you get similar issues. Also try uncommenting the priority call (win32) in the init code. If anyone can tell me what it is I'd be interested... I want smooth frames, dammit!

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#774: sparkies

by Aardappel_ on 06/05/2005 08:19

since sauerbraten renders the full skybox unlike cube, sparklies are more noticable than ever.

Sparklies can be solved in one of the following ways:

- remove T-junctions in the meshes generated. Seeing how meshes are made in the engine this is very hard. If anyone has smart ideas let me know.

- using a dark coloured skybox :)

- for indoor levels, only have small parts of sky being rendered using an inverse depth buffer trick (this is what Cube does).

The last option is worth investigating, it however doesn't work with sauer's current system of having levels float in midair, it requires that walls be textured as "skybox" specifically.

What I propose is that in sauer the mapper can choose between 2 kinds of maps: "floating level" (default, as is now, full skybox, ideal for open levels & floaters), or "indoor". In this last mode, no global skybox is rendered at all, but surfaces can be textured with a sky texture as in Cube, and the level will be rendered using the inverse depth trick. This requires the LM renderer also to recognize these surfaces and make them fullbright, and the renderer to make a seperate VA of all sky textures so they can be rendered seperate from the rest of the geometry.

Anyone want to have a go at this? eihrul maybe?

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#775: Good idea, that pistol

by Pxtl on 06/05/2005 08:23

Biggest problem in Cube is that in many maps, normal gameplay could be described as "shotgun gib" - the whole game relies on getting a pointblank shot with the shotgun in, and picking up additional weapons is not on the itinerary. A weak, general-purpose starting weapon would fix that.

Now, since you're also weakening startin armour, may I point out an esoteric approach to the "weak start" gameplay: in a really bad FPS called Shogo, you could transform into an unarmed highspeed hover vehicle. This was a thoroughly useless ability except that it let you run away from combat.

This was really, really friggin' handy when you first spawned in with your peashooter. The first thing you did on a map was transform and bolt for the nearest weapons. In the meantime, you provided all the heavily armed and armoured players with amusing target practice. Which is somewhat better than in old Quake 2 (which your pistol seems to emulate), where you just sat there and were blown to small pieces.

Perhaps that could be a good approach for Sauer? not necessarily a transformation, but a small "adrenal tank" or something? Replace the starting shotgun altogether with that.

Other thoughts - how about converting the fist into a full-fledged pickup weapon? Like a blowtorch - a close-ranged super-powerful autofire hitscan weapon. A plasmagun would be nice as well.

I agree that too many modifiers are gimmicky in traditional DM. In Quake 3, the Haste and the Quad have the same functional effect on the gameplay: if your opponent has it, you're totally fucked. The regen: you're only slightly fucked.

Flight is a useful modifier because it actually makes the gameplay feel different. Same thing with cloaking.

Hell, if done very carefully, extremist pickups like invulnerability can be done right. How about an invincibility pickup that lasts exactly 4 seconds? Mappers would have to be careful with that one (it would completely change the flavour of a map) but it could provide some very fun and bizarre gameplay.

One fave pickup of mine that I've seen in some odd mods is a simple "survival" pickup. If you don't get one every N seconds, you feel pain. This usually works the best with acid floors or poison gas or some other regional damage effect so that the map can have safe zones. Playing under those lethal circumstances really gets your heart racing, at least if you're using a scoring system where death is a very bad thing (such as Last Man Standing).

The big thing about pickups is that they provide half of the character of a map. If a map basically has "one of each" in hard to reach places, then the gameplay feels random. Alternately, if each pickup is carefully considered then you can have a spectacular experience.

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#776: "pistol" concept

by makkE on 06/05/2005 14:19

Iīve moddeled a little and would like to hear what you think:

Iīve called it a needlegun so far (like the small brother of a nailgun :)
Itīs the size kind of a small smg or something.

What you see on this screenshot is by far not finished, it uses a temporary skin (the rifleīs) and isnīt too worked out yet.
Itīs more of a concept/suggestion.

Tell me how you like it.. :)

http://www.geocities.com/toke_gardens02/needlegun_concept.jpg

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#777: Re: "pistol" concept

by jean pierre on 06/05/2005 14:45, refers to #776

That is not a pistol it should look like Quake 2 pistol(I dont know about Q1 never played it and if Q1 ones look better i dont know,that is if it has pistols)

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#778: Re: "pistol" concept

by jean pierre on 06/05/2005 14:47, refers to #777

EDIT:At least it would look cooler and more realistick in FPS a one-hand pistol unless it's Dessert or Desert Eagle that is 2-handed.

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#779: ..

by makkE on 06/05/2005 14:53

Scroll up, Jean Pierre. Read.

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#780: ..

by Zer0 on 06/05/2005 15:56

i`ve just saw q-3 trickjumping movie, it`s very impressive!

so, how about JumpGun? it shoud "work" like a RL, but without dealing any damage (or just quite a bit).
if Sauerbraten will support secondary shooting mode, JumpGun can act like quake3_plasma_with_no_damage.

if (u see a lot of errors)
{sorry, i`m not naitive english speaker =(;}

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#781: Re: "pistol" concept

by sinsky on 06/05/2005 16:04, refers to #776

Looks good to me.

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#782: Re: ..

by jean pierre on 06/05/2005 16:58, refers to #780

I dont think Sauer would have secondry shots especially the 4 weapons dont seem to have secondary

Maybe the rifle 2nd shot would be zooming without the use of FOV command
but why the hell it is possible by doing FOV yourself so it is unrequired to make Rifle zooming as 2nd'ry

JumpGun:I also heard of Rifle Jump but doesn't go too good as RJ and JumpGun wouldn't be interesting i prefer a powerup like Extra Jumppad that you can keep it then when you want to activate it you automatticaly jump high however you have to collect another one then for another item.

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#783: smartflt

by Flamie on 06/05/2005 17:18

I was just wondering if anyone had checked out http://www.hiend3d.com/smartflt.html as an option for scaling textures up when you get close to them?

(instead of preloading bigger textures, this would mean an all in-memory technique, as well as making the game look better even with small or tiny textures)

Just something that crossed my mind, I'm no coder nor 3d expert, so take it with a grain of salt.

(and please tell my why it would/wouldn't work :)

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#784: Re: smartflt

by jean pierre on 06/05/2005 17:37, refers to #783

PSP is a good for scaling but that prog you just gaved us the link to looks pro.

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#785: The first Single Player map

by jean pierre on 06/05/2005 18:08

Non deathmatch style called Lava.ogz

Space Station level for SauerBraten i am going to upload it to Cube.snieb

To run it type mode -2 and then map lava also its short it's more like a test then playing but it is good as other speed maps style maps i made it in 1 day also.

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#786: Re: The first Single Player map

by jean pierre on 06/05/2005 18:39, refers to #785

As i said cube.snieb.com click on maps menu and you will see my map if you dont know how to change mode's then either click on read more or either here

/mode -2 and then /map lava in SauerBraten have fun.

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#787: Re: smartflt

by TOGoS_1u2kuhbui on 06/05/2005 19:31, refers to #783

It wouldn't work because no hardware supports it. That example looks really nice though. Personally I'm a fan of point-sample filtering. Reminds me of good old Doom. :)

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#788: Re: smartflt

by Flamie on 06/05/2005 20:08, refers to #787

software implementation isn't that much of a penalty hit, it claims to be just slower than ordinary bilinear, and since any snes emulator easily filters a 1024x768 screen 60 times per second with bilinear (or worse, hq4x) it should go just fine to filter only the small textures, shouldn't it?

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#789: ..

by pushplay on 06/05/2005 22:14

Algorithms like that and 2xSaI are pretty cool, but they're more intended for images with outlines and cells rather than photorealistic textures. Also, anything that close in Sauer is going to go by too quickly to notice while playing.

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#790: Re: ..

by makkE on 06/05/2005 22:48, refers to #789

Thatīs what I think too. Noone would have the tme to notice really, plus I think the sauer/cube textures have been designed and probably tested for and on bilinear filtering.

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#791: Gilt: need some help

by eihrul on 06/06/2005 02:36

Since you were working on remip, I was wondering if you could help write something that analyzes the faces of a cube in a similar manner for sharing lightmap vertices. I don't really understand the stuff well enough to write it myself.

Basically, if the child faces of some face (for some orientation) of a given cube are all visible and coplanar (can be sloped), even though it may look something like this:
_________________
| | |
| | |
| | |
|________|________|
| | | |
| |___|____|
| | | |
|________|___|____|

then, I need a function that will tell me if this cube's face behaves as a single visible face. The textures and materials don't matter at all since this is just for lightmaps. And in the event that it behaves as one face, I need it to also return the 4 world vertices of this face.

Currently each of those sub-faces generates 4 distinct vertices of its own. But if we can identify faces like these, we can reduce the number of vertices by 2-3x for atleast these cases, since internal vertices only need to be generated once.

You think you could whip something up for me that does the above?

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#792: Re: Gilt: need some help

by eihrul on 06/06/2005 02:37, refers to #791

Bleh, ascii drawing got screwed up by the forum... here it is again:

_________________
|::::::::|::::::::|
|::::::::|::::::::|
|::::::::|::::::::|
|________|________|
|::::::::|:::|::::|
|::::::::|___|____|
|::::::::|:::|::::|
|________|___|____|

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