Dungeon Master Forum

Hehe, no problem I can get alittle annoyed myself that the whole diffrence between naming the two games are a '1' or a '2'. Especially when all the new versions comes out with all the numbers here and there.. Maybe I should change the name of RTC 2, no I mean DSB or CSB.. No wait.. DMT 2 to something else..

Insperation growing..
Okey, I haven't said anything in a while now because of school/work etc. Thought for a little while that I had put DM behind me, but that seems to be imposible
I have started working on DMT 1 again. This is a full game, but have some of bugs that I haven't dealt with yet. I have been working on some other projects in beetween like DMT 2 and CSBWin3D, and this have increseased my programming knowledge a lot since I worked with DMT 1 the last time..
Anyway, I have started working with DMT 1 again, and I have some new ideas to implent to make it better and nicer
- I have to fix so that the RTC maps can be loaded and played in the game.
- All graphics will be changed and used in a new way so that the download size, loading time and memory usage decreases.
- The 3d models should also be edited so that I use skinning as in DMT2, this will also decrease the download size, loading time and memory usage. Not to talk about looking better.
- And ofcourse some bugs should be fixed too and the menu system increased with more options etc.

The last month in school we have been working on some project using networking compabilities in games, and I did create a little Minecraft multiplayer game in java, it was really fun and not as hard as I thought it would be. So I will give this a try a little later too.

I should be able to show some progress in the next week, so until then

Btw my website have been down for a while now. This is because I had alot of problems with those who was hosting it.. I will setup a new website soon with my own domainname.

Good to know it isn't dead and you are still around!

Yeah - missed you already.

I have been working on improving the editor this weekend. It can only import DM and CSB RTC txt-files for now, but I will try to fix so that it can handle all the RTC output later on..

Here are some screenshots of my progress..


I decided to go for a editor 3D look, I thought it would be more fun editing when turning the map around in all directions
The red cubes are objects that hasn't been defined yet, even if I import the RTC files, there are some work converting it to work in DMT later on..


Here I define the objects, in this case a champion. I used one of gambit champion images (hope he don't mind ), and added normal mapping and specular mapping to it, this makes it alittle bit more alive when the cursor works as a lightsource.


The editors 3D look requiers some 3D objects attached to the items so that one can get a more overall look over the dungeon. Here I am creating a mummy. Nothing fancy, but it isn't suppose to be either, took less than a minute to create..

My goal here is to be able to make it so that everything can be created in the editor, nothing hardcoded. This would make it alot easier for everyone too use it

Ohhh, that looks very cool, nice work! I think you'd need to add grid lines to the map though -- I think it would be hard to navigate large empty spaces when you can't see individual squares.

I ever dreamed of a 3D-walkthorugh editor, so that you can place the wall in front of you.
Perhaps it isn't that hard to add at least the view.

Marvelous!

Good idea gambit, I will add a checkbox for that!
@Jan: Thanks
@Bit: It would be nice creating an editor and game all in one. But I think there will to much loading time everytime I had to debug something.. In this way I think I discover alot of bugs much sooner.. And it is more fun editing in 3D than in 2D according to me

Oh yes, I know about this loading problem!
However, a very nice project.

The loading problem will soon be a lost memory I hope
Hehe, I have been working on soo many DM projects soo far, this have increased my programming knowledge and experience with DM. So it is not like I throw all that time I have spent in the trash, the thing is that I only come back stronger in the end Personally I think the road to completing one of these games are the most entertaining.. So I hope you all don't think it is too frustrating me jumping between project

The big diffrence here if comparing to my previous projects is that I was going to give it a shot creating the particle effects in the editor, so that they can be attached to fireballs etc.
I was also going to try to insert 3D animations in the editor. Was thinking about giving the editor the ability to import some of the known 3D model files. And then in the editor attach "bones" to it and have the animation done like that..

If anyone have any experience with this please tell me so I avoid the most common problems

That really sounds very interesting - bones as basics and then to think about how to spread and animate the 'flesh' from there.
One problem with bones that comes to my mind is, if you want a good result, don't even think to make the movement from one to another position linear.The muscles that move them accelerate and decelerate. Some kind of spline-functions could help - as with the creation of surfaces.
There are some scenes even in Avatar, where the bones' movement is far from being good, especially jump and land.

That is a good point, 3D programs like 3ds max uses this, didn't think of it.. The skin vertices have "weights" attached to certain bones, like how many percent of one bones movement should I follow. But I did forget about the bones and that they should have "soft movement" too. I am not sure, but I think this is a rendering thing, and that I don't have to think about it soo much while creating the editor. But I will look it up, don't want to be wrong on this one thanks bit

Okey then, big progress! Or maybe not.. Had to redo alot of things to get it to work with all the rtc mechanics.. So now it loads all RTC dungeons, even how modified they may be.. I have gotten thought half of the editor items modifications (set wallitem visible / invisible etc..) so I have a good flow going here I woun't post any screenshots because graphically there isn't so much diffrence.. But I must say that the editor are very simular to the RTC editor when it comes to the dungeon editing, I feel alittle bit bad for this because I don't want to copy GG:s work. But as I import RTC files I use the same dungeon system as RTC does, therefore the same editing.. But as I am almost complete with the editing and it hasn't gone more than two weeks since I started, I think alot of things will change..

Can't wait to start programming the game for editor, this time I will start it abit diffrently.. As I have been thinking about creating a multiplayer game I will start creating a server/client directly from the start. It may take a month or two before we are there, but it would be really fun debugging the game a checking for errors while playing it lan with you guys
I am just wondering.. Would it be posible playing csb, dm or dm2 multiplayer? I don't think it would be any problems with dm1 and dm2. But CSB would be really interesting!
Imagine all the coperation that could be done, one take ku and another take dain. Ones action effect the other ones dungeon. Really hardcore players would find cheats or ways to take advantage of this to complete the dungeon in zero time..

My goal is therefore to start with the CSB dungeon, creating a run thruable csb 3D dungeon is a easy fix. But to be able to do it so that several people can do it at the same time will be more difficult task. But also more motivating!!

I hope you guys in here think this sounds interesting

Okey then, big progress! Or maybe not..

May I take this as signature?

About multiplayer: the most funny idea I had would be: One player, or maybe two control the party - and one or two the monsters!
Biggest problem: Time. People probably can't meet soon again to continue a session, so they will look for a game that just lasts one or two hours - if no one gets disturbed. This probably just ends in some 'capture the flag'.
How/why would you make riddles if one already knows the answer. Except - you make the ultimate riddle generator...
I won't stop the show, but here something really new has to be added.

May I take this as signature?

Isn't this forum all about copying other peoples work

One controlling the party and one the monsters are a cool idea. It would requier alot from me as programmer. But lets say that the other player could jump from one monsters "soul" to another, or controlling them as as they where on a chess board having an overall view. One could be Lord Chaos and summon monsters. It is a cool idea, but it will have to wait untill I have created the ability having several players with their partys running down the dungeons..
I think the RTC mechanics will support deathmacthes or caputure the flag, so it is no problem there. The only thing is how I would handle the dieing of characters and partys. I was thinking something in diablostyle, no other can steal the other ones items. And that the partys will get resurrected in spefic points decided by the dungeon creator.

But I think a dm multiplayer game in general would be really awsome.. Even if the technical stuff are still to be concidered I think the ability of teaming up and playing dm or csb toghether with a friend for the first time ever will be an experience late to be forgotten

Finally got the particlesystem working, it is run entirtly on the gpu now, except that the cpu feeds it some information..

Here is a little screenshot of a flame I threw together, the editor still needs some fixes but this will do for now..


[EDIT] Changed the screenshot of the particleeditor..

The editor looks quite nice, do you use a specific library for the GUI components or did you code everything in openGL/Direct3d? The combo boxes, listboxes and sliders, that is?

Well, yes and no. This gui is included with the DirectX SDK, it is good to use because it is drawn with D3D. In that way I avoid the hard and messy task with combining the regular windows gui with d3d.
I did change some of the code to fit my needs alittle bit more, and the gui textures has also been replaced.

Changed the screenshot in my last post to a newer one, didn't think the old one gave it justice
I remember the problems I was having with the particlesystem in my first DMT game, as soon as the particles went above 1000 the game started lagging.
I think I have solved this now, and this is the beauty of only working with a stand alone particlesytem with no other things interfearing..
Now I am doing almost all the calculations on the gpu, and this was a huge speed increase. As seen in the screenshot the rendering time is on 6.6ms with only rendering 1411 particles. The reason is that the only bottleneck here is that when getting to close to to many large particles they all have to be rendered over a huge part of the screen. In this case 8729947 pixels are drawn to the sceen, like drawing a fullscreen image over the screen 17 times.
As soon as the camera gets away from the closeup the rendering time get below 1 ms. I have also done some test, I can update and sort 65536 particles in the same time as sorting and updating 10 particles. This means that I can render 65536 particles with a speed below 1 ms. As long as the camera isn't in a closeup with them all. And this is still all checked in debugmode, so I think I will get a speedincrease in the releasemode to.

So now I just working on the what varibles that will control the particles.
Now I have included:
- Starting position
- Velocity
- Size
- Particles / Min
- Lifetime
- Colors
- Sprites to loop thru during lifetime
- Forces like gravity
- Antiforce (slowdown)
- Starting at random z-rotation
- Z-Rotation

I was thinking about releasing a little copy if some of you are interested in playing around with the particle editor, it would be nice to hear some suggestions

I've been trying to download DMT2, but the server that it's on is a bit questionable at best (It keeps resetting the connection to the server... I'm only getting 6kB/s, and with no resume) it keeps restarting the download, and it's beginning to drive me mad. I've been looking forward to getting my hands on this, and the fact that it won't download is just a tad frustrating.

Would it be possible for someone to upload it to a different server?

I agree, this is really annoying! I have gotten a mail for another guy that are having the same problem with DMT 1..
The thing is that I have downloaded both DMT 1 and DMT 2 from diffrent computers just to check if I am experiencing the same problem, but I am not.. It always download at max speed and completes it in the end :S

Maybe you can try downloading it from a diffrent browser..

Anyway, I can upload the game to some other place if that doesn't work, any good file sharing site suggestions?

I have tried using Bitcomet, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and even Opera... NOTHING is working
If my hair wasn't already beginning to fall out... I'd be pulling it out

Hehe, well that sounds irritating, I will start the upload to another server

Here is a link to DMT 2 download:
http://www.zshare.net/download/94144355eeabf208/

Thank you Rasmus. Would you be able to get an admin to upload your content to the DM.com server? By "your content", I'm meaning DMT1 & 2 and CSBWin-3D... I feel that this would be MUCH easier for other people down the track (not forgetting my own self-centered agenda, hehehe ).

Sounds like a good idea, but I don't want to bother the dm admins everytime I want to upload something.. Instead I am uploading all my contents to an alternative server, like zshare, so that there always will be a mirror download..

Btw. welcome back Bones, I have missed you at the forum

Rasmus wrote:Btw. welcome back Bones, I have missed you at the forum

Aw... you make me feel loved

I need to remind Gambit to give me the new ftp details again, but if you want a second mirror here I camn try to keep up
Alternatively, I'm sure I can trust you with my dmjump info to let you ftp copies of the files.

Thanks beo, it is good to know that I have a second option if there will be to much trouble using zshare or other sites
I am just so annoyed that there is a problem with this at all, I have paid for my domain so I expect it to work as it should...
I have been thinking that it maybe have something to do with the location, one.com has their headquater in copenhagen, and Bones lives in Australia, maybe this can create some connection problems? Maybe it is far fetched, I do know very little about these sort of things..