New DirectX9 DM clone - entombed

Tom Hatfield · Post by **Tom Hatfield** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 7:45 pm

I rather like the widescreen look. It feels more claustrophobic, which is one of DM's nicer qualities. The interface looks good, too. Just need to fill up those blank regions, either with more controls or visuals.

I have a programming question: what version of Visual Studio are you using? And which language? I registered and downloaded PhysX 2.3.2 so I could check it out. It's not a managed framework, is it? I want to know what kind of trouble I'm looking forward to. The sys reqs say you need VS.NET, but if it's not a managed library, I don't understand why you need a .NET-centric IDE.

More questions to come.

Post by **linflas** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 8:52 pm

wow !! i missed this post !! you did incorporate my interface into ! fantastic !!!!

DSE · Post by **DSE** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 12:37 am

Thought some of you might like to take a look at my project. I have finally got the physics working how I want, it shows level loading, creatures, locks being used, physics, pits, stairs, etc ...

Still to do/update ...
lock appears as a square brown block
key is a sphere

Hope you like it !!

I can show more of the game if people are interested. I have spell system working but I dont have any spell effects yet.

Dave.

http://s131.photobucket.com/albums/p300 ... dMovie.flv

L!ghthouse · Post by **L!ghthouse** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 1:45 am

WOW! Nice work! I love the lighting.

Are you going to have a beta test anytime soon?

DSE · Post by **DSE** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 11:31 am

A beta is coming, I just need to finish the skinned mesh animation controller .... its coming trust me, I am not doing all this work for it to just sit on my computer.

FYI - The video doesnt really do the game justice. I will try and get a higher res video for you :O)

Cheers,
Dave.

Post by **linflas** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 11:36 am

excellent ! totally excellent !

DSE · Post by **DSE** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 11:42 am

linflas, how are you ? I have been away for some time after my family increased in size by one :O) ... the game is really taking shape !!! Thanks for the gfx ... I may be asking for some little help in the new year if you fancy it ? Nothing major, just some little icons and stuff, whay do you think ?

Cheers,
Dave.

PS Is everyone on broadband these days, do you fancy seeing a higher res movie ? I can organize it tonight for you.

Starlick · Post by **Starlick** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 12:03 am

I have just got back into Dungeon Master, the last time I played it was when it was brought out on the Atari ST and I was like 13.

I just stumbled over this site and noticed your project. It looks very impressive indeed and I hope it gets finished.

Do you have plans so that people can make their own dungeons for it eventually? I would love to see the original Dungeon Master in 3d but any new dungeons of course are always something fun to play also!

Anyway looks great, would love to see a new movie if you have it.
Any eta on a beta to test with?

DSE · Post by **DSE** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 12:12 am

The beta will probably ship with the map editor that I use to create levels, its easy to use and fully functional so I cant see a reason not to give it to you :O)

I am having an issue with skinned model animation which looks like its going to take me a couple of weeks to finish. After that I think a small/short beta will be in order to see what the game runs like on your machines.

Cheers,
Dave.

Tom Hatfield · Post by **Tom Hatfield** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 8:55 pm

Looks awesome. I'm glad the project is still running. And congratulations on the proliferation of your gene pool.

Are you going to have smooth movement between cells in the final product? Because the jerky one-step movement doesn't seem sensible with a 3-D engine, and it dumbs down the work you put into the graphics. Also, any chance of creature/object shadows? (You've done so much already, it can't hurt to prod.)

Suule · Post by **Suule** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 9:03 pm

The video is impressive I must say. What other effects will you implement, besides those shown?

Any idea on how to do the gameplay? Closer to original DM mechanics? Or your own mechanics?

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 11:58 pm

What software are you using to get the animated mesh's in with? maya? max? XSI?

also I think that fast but not sudden camera movments would be more appropriate. The DM style movment I find jarring when I see everything else as smooth.

DSE · Post by **DSE** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 12:35 am

I wont be doing shadows due to the extra load on the gfx card/cpu and because i am bored of writing GFX code at the moment, I actually want to create a playable game with a load of content/puzzles/fighting/spells/etc.

I have mixed views on the flick screen or smooth scrolling. I dont want to write a fully 3d fps style walking game because i like the original DM (which I am trying to pay homage to). I have also tried 'scrolling' between quads and its ok but it interfeers with the gameplay a bit when running from creatures and stuff.

I am using directx .x files to store all the animations and the models are stored as skinned meshes exported from 3ds max 8. i have spent a bit of money getting the right tools for the job and the export program is excellent.

If by mechanics you mean the fighting and spell casting, etc and i want to stay as faithfull to DM as possible. I will be asking your help on level advancement, spells, etc in the near future.

I am glad you all like it ... trust me, in the flesh its much more impressive and I think you will like the beta when its released.

Cheers guys.

Suule · Post by **Suule** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 12:46 am

Oh, thanks a lot. I think you should ask PaulS about the mechanics as well since he knows them from the core, but I'm willing to help you if you wish.

DSE · Post by **DSE** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 1:09 am

dont worry, no pressure ... by 'your' i meant the forum :O)

How is your project going ?

Trakl · Post by **Trakl** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 2:11 am

AAhhh !!! Finally!

Keep on going! You will be legend.

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 11:16 am

I know slow movement will affect game play but I was thinking something snappy where it was visibly scrolling but still fast moving

as for the format I was debating perhaps donating an animated mesh.. perhaps

DSE · Post by **DSE** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 3:42 pm

well the good news is I have already finished the animation controller. just a few bits to clean up, etc.

cowsmanaut - I would really like any meshes people have for items like helmets, swords and especially creatures. I can supply the requirements if anyone is interested in contributing. Awesome.

cowsmanaut - Are you still ok with me using some of your artwork ? Do you have any new paintings that I can look at ?

Thanks.

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 7:53 pm

yes, I'm all good with that.

are you exporting chracter studio rigged models? or did they need to have proper max bones?

DSE · Post by **DSE** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 1:08 pm

Character studio rigged is perfect, the current models are using biped animations.

Suule · Post by **Suule** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 1:18 pm

After a 6 month interval (personal problems). I'm picking it up again. During that interval I managed to get SDL properly running on FreePascal (Trying to get JEDI-SDL to run was a waste of time, I used another translation library and it works like a charm. ).

Right now I'm working for some tools for the alpha release, so I can compile a renderer. I'm also slowly going through the mass of information DM2 is built on. I have to modify current designs more and more in order to properly simulate DM2's behaviour. The biggest problem is the complexivity of DM2 'hack'. It seems that the whole game was wrote as a giant hackjob for the original DM engine. I doubt I will ever be able to properly simualate DM2 enviroment, but I just MIGHT get it better than RTC's version of DM2.

DSE · Post by **DSE** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 5:55 pm

well good luck with your project, its amazing how much time they can consume ...

merry christmas everyone ... well here is another short video for you. I wont be working on it much for the next few days, but its not far off now ...

link -http://s131.photobucket.com/albums/p300 ... Movie2.flv

DSE · Post by **DSE** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 11:53 am

new video available via the website showing the physics http://www.entombed.co.uk I have managed to get the pits working with objects, so if you put a load of items into the pit they are correctly placed into the level below. check out the third video to see this :O)

Cheers.

Tom Hatfield · Post by **Tom Hatfield** » Sun Dec 31, 2006 9:00 pm

It looks like you got a teleporter down there. So, objects that go through a teleporter retain their velocities, huh? That could make for some really sweet design opportunities, like shooting arrows at creatures on the other side of a teleporter, or dropping anvils on monsters' heads. How about an Indiana Jones boulder trap? I'm beginning to see possibilities. . . .

DSE · Post by **DSE** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 6:11 pm

yep, teleporters are working (new green mist/cloudy/thingy effect for them). In fact I have done a heap load of stuff on the game over the last 3 weeks. I now have collision detection working on all items in the dungeon, I never ever want to repeat the work to get collisions working with skinned meshes ... wow that was hard. I have started my items and player core system as well. Slain creatures can carry any number of items for the adventure. In the movie you will see the creature drop two clubs and an orb.

There is a new video and a bunch of images on my photobucket site -

http://s131.photobucket.com/albums/p300 ... ry%202007/

Thanks guys.

Trakl · Post by **Trakl** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 7:53 pm

Wow. This is amazing. Everytime you come up with something even better. Now the monster is actually carrying and wearing stuff and you really see it. I like the lighting and the mist.
That's what I wanted to see but no one wanted to deliver: original DM gameplay combined with high tech gfx.
Man, I can't wait to test the demo...
Let's hope my poor little old computer can cope with all that 3D gimmick stuff...
What do you think will be the system requirements now?

Post by **Gambit37** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 8:48 pm

Looking very, very promising indeed, certainly the best implementation of classic gameplay with modern tech that I've seen. Hard to believe you're doing everything yourself!

I do have a criticism about the walls / lighting though. On your older video, when you're turning on the spot at a junction, the geometry of the walls doesn't change, so the movement looks false. You need to either make the geometry more random, or implement the basic 'flipping' of wall textures that DM performed.

Second, the lightitng seems far too bright on the specular highlights that you could resonably expect to see in a dark dungeon lit by torchlight (or indeed magic light). It just doesn't look right to me.

Can you improve these issues?

DSE · Post by **DSE** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 11:10 pm

thanks guys !! the demo is coming, but because its just me doing this project and I have a normal boring job during the day ... its really hard work :O(

Gambit ... I totally agree about the flipping of textures working to improve movement but I if I flip the texture they dont blend together. Its on my list of things to look at, however I would rather get the rest of the leveling up and fighting done first before tackling that ... there is a lot of gameplay stuff still to do and I am a little bored of writing the 3d engine part of the game. Tweaking will be done at the request of the forum on the demos release.

I will leave the lighting as it is for now and then when the demo comes out people can comment after seeing it on their machines, its really easy for me to put a "slider" in the game for specular hightlights, no problem.

I am starting to get a little worried about the spec of machine required. It runs great on my machine (a solid 65 to 85 (capped) frames per second). I have used it on my other machine (laptop) which has a radeon mobility X600 in it, it runs well on this and is playable. The only other machine I have tried had a 9800 pro in it which worked really well.

FYI - my machine is about middle of the road, its not mega.

Tom Hatfield · Post by **Tom Hatfield** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 11:18 pm

My machine it getting stale. My 9800 Pro gave out recently, and I replaced it with the only thing I could afford at the time, a GF 7600 GS. Still running my Athlon XP at 1.8 GHz and a gig of RAM. After hearing about your project a while back, I went and signed up for AGEIA myself, so I've already got the latest core and SDK.

How are the walls generated? Are they procedural, hard-coded, or can you load geometry? If you can do geometry, I would suggest that. One of the things I never liked about DM and Stonekeep, and pretty much every cell-based game in the world, was the mindless repetition of scenery. That's what I want to avoid with my own project, but it'll cost in terms of memory and load times.

Trakl · Post by **Trakl** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 11:29 pm

Hmmmm maybe you want to include some gfx setting menu to lower the frame rate and/or colours and resolution.
I don't think my SiS laptop gfx with 900mHz transmeta will do a lot of rendering...