Vampire Flatshading Experimenting

[VladR]

Originally Posted by grond

Well, it is an intro. We can only guess how much of it is precomputed.

Yeah, it is theoretically possible that intro is just a movie, as in a simple array of triangle edges, hence :
- no 3D transform
- no frustum culling
- no clipping
- no Z-sorting
- predetermined Clear Screen area dimensions for minimum clearing

At run-time, all that would then remain is to do the scanline traversal and feed the Blitter (or use SW fill for short spans which would be ineffective on Blitter).

It is entirely feasible that a very short code might interpolate between the frames, so only a fraction of the frames would be actually stored.

And it's not like the storage costs would be outrageous. A road has about 6 segments, which could be stored in just 18 bytes, yet it covers most of screen.

[VladR]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

I will try to research more about engine, it would be amazing if we could get a source code of it. I mean, not amazing for me, because I know nothing about coding, but coders could learn a lot from it, I guess.

If you could find some interview with coder it would indeed be great

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by VladR

If you could find some interview with coder it would indeed be great

Well. I only found this:
http://thalion.exotica.org.uk/corpor...is_jungen.html

http://thethalionsource.w4f.eu/Artik..._Stallions.htm

[VladR]

Originally Posted by grond

There is no need for any type of collision checks, AI or whatever. It also seems there are less objects in the intro than in the game.

Actually, the cost of that would be negligible compared to transform &clip&render.

My game has very similar visuals and scene complexity on Jaguar and from my benchmarks, 95% of game code is executed on 13.3 MHz 68000, yet it only takes 10% of frame time and leaves 90% of 68000 available as it merely waits for GPU to finish rendering.

While GPU was busy, in a tight scanline traversal loop, feeding Blitter, after the transform, the 68000 did everything else:
- Input
- collision detection
- spawning enemies if the spawning condition was met
- full AI with 8 different states, each having lot of conditions and computation
- Z-sorting
- up to four enemies on screen, each had interpolated (slow division) ypos above the track and Xpos collision detection
- double buffering of the polygon render list (GPU was processing last frame list)
- Hud: timer, speed
- Hud: HP, armor, level
- RPG statistics
- Damage equations
- randomization of enemy's RPG parameters (Hp, armor, level, damage)
- collision detection of lasershots with enemies
- Object Processor List management

I probably forgot dozen other things 68000 does right now, but as long as the 3d scene was doable at 60 fps on GPU, the 68000 finished all of the above at 60 fps, with 90% of 68000 frame time still available and unused.

So, if on 13.3 MHz 68000 all that took 10% of frame time, then on 7 MHz A500, it shouldn't be more than 20%, meaning without rendering, all that logic would run at 60 fps with 80% CPU time still available for rendering.

Of course, not much could be rendered at 60 fps on A500, no argument there.

[VladR]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Well. I only found this:
http://thalion.exotica.org.uk/corpor...is_jungen.html

http://thethalionsource.w4f.eu/Artik..._Stallions.htm

Thanks! That was an extremely entertaining read!

[VladR]

I have reached a great milestone today. Enemy AI + Behavior has been fully rewritten from scratch and my automated unit testing has finished first level while the enemies were properly spawned, strafed, evaded and died (some, not all died as some managed to escape as expected during gameplay).

Also, the combination of nonshooting enemies and shooting enemy works fine.

All procedural RPG parameters seem to be computed correctly too. Those will aid significantly with the replay value.

Checking my to-do list, it looks like there's less than two weeks of work remaining before I would have enough content for a gameplay video and a launch of PreOrder Phase 1 (highest discount, longest waiting period). Unfortunately I have to travel to Europe in a week so it's doubtful I can cut features and implement online shopping cart in that timeframe

[Pyromania]

It's nice you are making progress VladR.

[Tigerskunk]

So much looking forward seeing what you are cooking up there..

[alexh]

Dunno if this would be applicable but for testing the low-poly models for PS-One Wipeout have been fully decoded and viewers created.

https://phoboslab.org/wipeout/

[VladR]

Originally Posted by Pyromania

It's nice you are making progress VladR.

Thanks, getting there, slowly

Originally Posted by Steril707

So much looking forward seeing what you are cooking up there..

It's not even about the first game, but more about the games built on this whole framework/toolset.

I've spent a great deal of effort on breaking down the coding/art workload for features in games like Need for Speed, WipeOut, OutRun, Pole Position, Final LapR, etc.
And it is entirely realistic even for a single coder.

I could progressively build the missing features over the course of 2-3 additional games and a year from now, assuming you guys bought my games, Amiga could have its own exclusive WipeOut or NFS. Technologically, of course. Not the licenses (for cars or music), obviously, which would eclipse any of my development costs by several orders of magnitude

[VladR]

Originally Posted by alexh

Dunno if this would be applicable but for testing the low-poly models for PS-One Wipeout have been fully decoded and viewers created.

https://phoboslab.org/wipeout/

Thanks, it's important to see this, for me. If we get to that point, I will have to make sure that my ships are safe from legal standpoint (e.g aren't a copy of Sony's ships).

WipeOut is on my Technology Roadmap, obviously.
It is head-to-head with Need for Speed, actually, as both need these additional features:
- full matrix 3D camera
- landing physics after a jump
- advanced physics model
- textured environment
- textured vehicles

I actually believe NFS is more work due to the car rolling during crashes. WipeOut doesn't have that. And it's not a feature you can do in three days

[VladR]

Just a short update before my next post (that needs to be a separate post):
- 2D elements are now working: Main/Game Menu, Level Selection Screen, Messages, Statistics
- HUD (displaying enemy's level, damage, armor/health indicators) is displayed for up to 5 enemies

Today I will try to get some Keyboard Input working.

My SpeedLink Joypad arrived few days ago, but as I still can't make easy build deployments to my Vampire, so I will need to get keyboard working.

Besides, I believe it's going to be necessary for 060/040 releases anyway.


If I don't get stuck on those OS calls today (I don't know what I don't know), I could even try creating a specific Higher Detail Level art assets tomorrow and thus might have a video released by end of this week.

[DamienD]

Could we see a preliminary screenshot to see what type of game / how it looks?

[VladR]

This is a separate post - I don't know if there's a better way to address moderators, so anybody is free to let me know, but:

Yesterday I broke the news in Jaguar community that my Jaguar-exclusive game is not happening on Jaguar for reasons well known to all of them.

It went as well as expected, so it's highly likely most rabid ones (that find out about it today, from other forums) will start descending here and posting their typical inflammatory and highly hostile BS, accusations, and constantly spinning BS.

Some of them, last year, went through the trouble of impostoring me, registering accounts with my name in it, and posting ridiculous BS on other forums (then taking screenshots of their posts and reposting across FB pages I have no access to), so it's highly likely that the same will happen here. Please be on a lookout for suspicious new accounts.


I mostly want to ask if it's not too much to ask moderators, when that happens here, to take quick action against them. Two-page posts full of arguments, for the sake of arguments, don't help anybody.


I have left that Jaguar rabid toxicity behind me and I truly appreciate the ultra-civil (compared to Jaguar) way people behave on these forums.

Thank You

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by VladR

It went as well as expected, so it's highly likely most rabid ones (that find out about it today, from other forums) will start descending here and posting their typical inflammatory and highly hostile BS, accusations, and constantly spinning BS.

Some of them, last year, went through the trouble of impostoring me, registering accounts with my name in it, and posting ridiculous BS on other forums (then taking screenshots of their posts and reposting across FB pages I have no access to), so it's highly likely that the same will happen here. Please be on a lookout for suspicious new accounts.

I mostly want to ask if it's not too much to ask moderators, when that happens here, to take quick action against them. Two-page posts full of arguments, for the sake of arguments, don't help anybody.

They can try, I have my banning hammer at the ready

[VladR]

Originally Posted by DamienD

Could we see a preliminary screenshot to see what type of game / how it looks?

The first environment is very similar visually to StunRunner.


The reason why I didn't yet post screenshots of it is that the last time I did that in Jag community, it resulted in an endless tirade of insults, personal attacks and ridiculing the work I did, finally my thread being locked, because it was seen as "too simple", completely disregarding the fact it ran at 60 fps in higher res and bitdepth on a HW that has maybe 25 MIPS, while the Arcade version runs at quarter framerate, in lower resolution on a HW that has 160 MIPS (three 50 MHz RISCs with most ops executed in 1 cycle, plus a ~9 MHz DSP for Audio, plus 68010).


Of course, I don't expect the same sh*t-posting here, I spent weeks lurking here, watching how people behave, before I made the decision.




Now, 68060, highly likely will have that simple Stunrunner environment, but perhaps a fastest one could even run Vampire's in a simply lower framerate. Until I have real HW benchmarks, there's no way to know whether a fast 68060 can do 12-15 fps in same scene.




But, if I don't post in-progress screenshots, then I cannot be falsely accused of "seeking attention", so it's 100% safer this way.

[VladR]

Originally Posted by DamienD

They can try, I have my banning hammer at the ready

Thank you ! I'm sure they already searched for my nick and google does find this thread on first page.


So, when they get here, they should also see your response.


Which, hopefully, will make them think twice before attempting to get away with same hostility around here.




For whatever inexplicable reason, Jaguar forums are always the most evil, hostile ones within all the other retro platforms. It's like a war zone.




I thus came to conclusion that if I have to deal with plethora malignant and covert narcissists at Jaguar community, I might as well work at a day job for a corporation, for an order of magnitude more money than I could possibly make selling carts ...

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by VladR

I have left that Jaguar rabid toxicity behind me and I truly appreciate the ultra-civil (compared to Jaguar) way people behave on these forums.

Thank You

Are you telling me there is actually a retro computing community worse? o_O

[VladR]

Originally Posted by saimon69

Are you telling me there is actually a retro computing community worse? o_O

Surely you aren't attempting to convey the thought that these forums are in any remote way/shape/form rabid ?


The worst I've seen here in 3 months doesn't even get to 5% of what I'm talking about.


It's like a difference between HellRaiser III and Teletubbies. Surely we can all agree that Teletubbies aren't evil by design?

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by VladR

The worst I've seen here in 3 months doesn't even get to 5% of what I'm talking about.

Well, I also hear people comments that Amiga community is toxic, but from my 3-4 years here, I can tell that big majority of peoples are very nice, and helpful, and friendly.
There is a little bit "hardware war" here and there, vampire vs non vampire fans, but it never bothered me really.

On Topic:
I like the way you think.
I'd always prefer less polygons to run smother, then hi poly game that crawls.
Also, making something in less polygons that have nice design, is challenging, but could look very unique and artistic.