Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: Aardwolf on April 24, 2008, 01:17:19 am

Title: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Aardwolf on April 24, 2008, 01:17:19 am
From now on, I'm going to put everything in one thread.

If I make a game, I'll post about it here.




HLP-internal Links (As I Find Them):

FS Turn-Based Strategy Game:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,42596.0.html

2D FreeSpace:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,41433.0.html

S.E.Y.C. 0 and S.E.Y.C. Spheres:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,45701.0.html

S.E.Y.C.:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,50867.0.html

Azrael:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,51917.0.html

HardPoint 2-4:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,50867.msg1028215.html#msg1028215

JSurreality:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,48445.msg1067839.html#msg1067839

Sidescroller:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,53375.0.html



External Links:
Astral Legend:
http://www.game-warden.com/masterpokey/ALgnd/index.html

Attack of the Flying Squirrels 1:
http://www.game-warden.com/masterpokey/AotFS/index.html

Attack of the Flying Squirrels 4:
http://www.game-warden.com/masterpokey/AotFSSequels/AotFS4Demo.zip

Attack of the Flying Squirrels 5:
http://www.game-warden.com/masterpokey/AotFSSequels/index.html

Arcade Style:
http://www.game-warden.com/masterpokey/ArcadeStyle/arcadestyle.html

Contested Systems:
http://www.game-warden.com/masterpokey/ContestedSystems/index.html

Hive Gate:
http://www.game-warden.com/masterpokey/HiveGate/HiveGate.jar

Mjollnir RTS:
http://www.game-warden.com/masterpokey/m-rts/index.html
http://www.game-warden.com/masterpokey/m-rts/MjollnirRTS004.zip

Nephosphere:
http://www.game-warden.com/masterpokey/Nephos/Nephos002.zip

Orion 37:
http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=489941

Super Space War 5:
http://www.game-warden.com/masterpokey/SSW5/SSW5b004.zip

The War of Co'zath (Screensaver)
http://www.game-warden.com/masterpokey/Surreality/TWoC%27zR5.zip
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Aardwolf on April 24, 2008, 01:20:01 am
This is Cel (working title). It's yet another 3D space shooter. Originally it was going to have realistic physics (that is, Newtonian), but then I gave up on that because the relative speeds of bullets messed stuff up, and because I couldn't make an AI that knew how to turn to face something.

Videos, in chronological order:
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/Cel/th_Cel.jpg) (http://s93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/Cel/?action=view&current=Cel.flv)
The video doesn't properly show the star backdrop, and barely shows the debris from the exploding fighter.

Screenshots:
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/Cel/s01.png)
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/Cel/s02.png)
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/Cel/s03.png)

See this thread on gamedev.net for more info:
http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=492092
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Mika on April 25, 2008, 05:56:02 pm
Quote
This is Cel (working title). It's yet another 3D space shooter. Originally it was going to have realistic physics (that is, Newtonian), but then I gave up on that because the relative speeds of bullets messed stuff up, and because I couldn't make an AI that knew how to turn to face something.

What does "relative" mean in this context? Relative, as in approaching the speed of light or simply the addition of the bullets velocities? I would like to know what factors you have considered here. If you don't mind, I could help you to figure out this stuff. I already think there are a couple of factors that could be added to turn rates and turn radii. Also, how did model the vessels? This might seem like an arbitrary set of questions, and it might be exactly such. Probably I can figure out the most consistent approach to this tomorrow. What is necessary to take account and what is not and so on.

Could you write pseudo-code that you used to turn the AI ship? Also, what kind of "angle of attacks" are included (angle of attack = the angle between the velocity vector and the actual nose direction vector)

If Mr. Doctor (Herra Tohtori) happens to stumble upon this thread, we could get it somewhere.

Mika
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Aardwolf on April 25, 2008, 08:44:36 pm
Relative as in, if one ship is moving very fast, and the shot speeds add, you might have to lead by an insane amount to hit the target, or unlead just as much.

By model, I'm assuming you mean what program I used; it's Wings3D, but the drone was modified by Turambar in whatever he uses (just a tiny bit) and textured by him as well.




Ship AI:

compute the vector to the target
compute lead time
compute vector to the lead impact location
take forward, right-facing, and up-facing vectors and dot them with that vector
turn right if the right-facing dot is positive, left otherwise
ditto for up and down
don't bank
accelerate based on the dot of the velocity and the difference in positions



Edit: I've decided to make this into Astral Legend 2, and I posted about it on gamedev. See the bottom of the first post with the screenshots for a link to that post.
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Mika on April 26, 2008, 07:55:45 am
With model, I meant what physical factors are taken account in the "flight" model? For example, how is the ship direction controlled, small thrusters scattered around the hull or thrust-vectoring engines at the back? Also, would you like to factor in the human tolerance for the accelerations, with the maximum of say 9g's?

If so, the fighters cannot use yaw to change their heading quickly (human will have difficulties to withstand acceleration in this direction), but first they need to bank to correct angle (so that both turn in the same plane), and then pull as hard back as possible (pitch control). The difference between flight simulator and this is that in space the speed will not drop, and a constant g can be kept up.

Also, the mass of each fighter has an important role, if there is no fuel, the fighter will continue to whatever direction it was going, with no chance of turning or accelerating. Each maneuver will take its share of fuel, and the amount of fuel and ordnance dictates the turn performance of any fighter. Which could lead to several interesting things in dogfights, like dumping fuel to improve turn rate.

But, here comes the good part, not seen in space shooters (which I actually would like to see): velocity vector and direction vector of each fighter have nothing to do with each other, i.e. the fighter can change the nose position vector without affecting the velocity vector, at least by much. So that a fighter that is being chased can suddenly reverse the situation so that it can shoot behind while still going forward. It can do it as long as it wants, and even more, it can actually continue turning the same circle!

So, I have these crazy ideas, but since it's yours, tell me where you would like to limit the physical model, and then it is possible to go further. The above model would change the space shooter closer to a space simulator. It is also physically feasible to make such fighters where the angle difference between velocity vector and the direction vector is minimized, this is actually what digital flight control computers do in modern jets.

Regarding leading, it is no surprise, with speeds of 200 m/s in both fighters and bullet speed of 1000 m/s, the lead must be huge, and the probability of hitting anything is practically zero, unless a laser type point-and-click weapon is used. The way modern fighters use their guns mainly from a controlled position; both fighters must turn in the same plane in order to reliably hit anything, and the fighters must be flying relatively slowly, as speed equals maneuverability.

Missiles would have quite interesting properties, they will not lose the initial velocity, but the may run out of fuel that is used for course changes. This means the effective firing range of missiles is radically improved, and the target must be constantly changing it's direction to make missile run out of fuel to change it's course. Lasers could be more range limited than the missiles, due to the beam diveregence. A spot with 1 a radius of 1 metre will not achieve anything if it hits a target (but could be used to saturate detectors), while in close range (make it several kilometers), it could literally cut fighters to pieces. If the distance is shorter, the laser cutting speed would be much higher. If the laser was pulsed, then this would simply cause smaller holes that go deeper in to the hull.

But, I have to check through the AI to find out if it really works that way or if there is something missing. However, this might take some time since the 1.st of May is coming, and the party vibes can already be felt. After that I check through the Maths of that.

Mika
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Nuke on April 26, 2008, 11:02:21 am
i think the main problem with realistic physics in games is floating point precision. on most 32 bit systems sizeof(float) seems to be 4 bytes, but i noticed that on 64 bit cpus, sizeof(float) is usually 8 (as is double). so its less of a problem there. but if you really want something as big as space and still want to keep any kind of precision you can either use long doubles (which will probably give you issues with opengl, since most of the ops run on the gpu which has different architecture than the cpu), or you can create a sectoring system, where by every time you move say 100,000 meters, the value is set to something like -100,000, and an int is ++ed. essentially storing an extended integral vector that represents a larger scale. for small objects the renderer need only concern itself with the nearest 3 sectors, large objects would need to be rendered with a larger scale.
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Aardwolf on April 29, 2008, 02:13:53 am
(http://www.game-warden.com/masterpokey/Cel/s04.png)

Those purple things are missiles.

Edit:
I've uploaded a new version that makes use of Cg shaders. Tell me if it works, or if not, what it does wrong.
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Mika on May 02, 2008, 01:29:12 pm
Good evening gentleman!

I thought over the AI code, I at least found a single error regarding the use of dot product, but I won't even try to describe it without additional sketches. I would need a image sharing service or e-mail address where I could send the drawings. PM me about this, if you want to further develop the shooter. Also, there is something fishy how AI calculates the accelerations.

I'll refresh my memory about differential equations governing the movements of object that "lose" mass first, so that I can write an algorithm that will turn the AI ship so that AI is able to arrive in reasonable weapons utilization parameters in shortest time possible.

Mika
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Aardwolf on June 21, 2008, 05:03:41 pm
I DON'T CARE ABOUT THREAD NECROMANCY IT'S MY F***ING THREAD!

I'm trying to get started on a 6dof sci-fi shooter, combining elements from Descent, Natural Selection / Tremulous, and a tad of Tribes.

http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=498482
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Titan on June 21, 2008, 05:46:23 pm
can you PLEEEEEZ finish FS:RTS first?
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: colecampbell666 on June 21, 2008, 08:26:53 pm
Yeah, I'd like to see that.
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Admiral_Stones on June 22, 2008, 01:56:09 am
What about a mac version of all these games ;7?
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Titan on June 22, 2008, 08:40:24 am
... FS RTS first  :p

i grew up with RTS's. they were the first games i played...
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: colecampbell666 on June 22, 2008, 09:36:10 am
... FS RTS first  :p

i grew up with RTS's. they were the first games i played...
Age of Empires was my first. Or it might've been Rogue Squadron. I believe that it was AoE, though.
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Titan on June 22, 2008, 10:38:23 am
It was eithr Civ III or the Age of Empires demo that came bundled with a bunch of others in CFS1
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: achtung on June 22, 2008, 03:18:52 pm
What about a mac version of all these games ;7?

Or Linux even!
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Aardwolf on June 22, 2008, 06:19:13 pm
Some of them are Java (and in theory work on Mac or Linux) but even some of the Java ones are a little buggy (because of differences like windows using \ and others using /
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Nuke on June 22, 2008, 09:16:10 pm
can you PLEEEEEZ finish FS:RTS first?

can you pay my bills?
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Aardwolf on May 23, 2009, 11:56:19 pm
:bump:

x several

So, I made another game. Or started one. And I was like "I wonder what this would look like if instead of using these sprites Turambar made for me way back when, before he ever even attempted to model anything, I uses a Colonial Viper Mk. II and a Cylon Raider for sprites?". And it looked decent.

(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/Small%20Games/Something2D.png)

http://www.game-warden.com/masterpokey/Something2D.zip << the game (may require the microsoft .net framework and the XNA 3.0 redistributable package thingamajig)
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: BloodEagle on May 24, 2009, 02:01:02 am
I get the non-descriptive 'it screwed up' error when attempting to run the program. :/
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Aardwolf on June 17, 2009, 02:26:15 am
:bump:

That silly XNA game with the particle smoke is on hold for now. I'm working on a new project instead.

NRel (Newtonian Relativity)

(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/NRel/001.png) (http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/NRel/001.png)
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/NRel/002.png) (http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/NRel/002.png)
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/NRel/003.png) (http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/NRel/003.png)
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/NRel/004.png) (http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/NRel/004.png)

Click the links to view full-size. And no, as far as a game, it doesn't do much yet.
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: asyikarea51 on June 17, 2009, 02:54:05 am
what on earth XD

Anyways, I have no idea what that ship is, but it looks like a Capellan supernova survivor :lol: :nervous:
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Aardwolf on June 17, 2009, 03:23:52 am
Because of the textures? Sort of random looking, I suppose...
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: asyikarea51 on June 17, 2009, 03:35:29 am
Yeah the textures. The first thing I thought of when I saw the ship was that "burned-out" look (or even that destroyed look from the X series).

I see some engine pods at the back?

Can't say much besides that but that's fine I guess :)
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Hades on June 17, 2009, 09:21:28 pm
I'd love to see the 2D Freespace game completed.

That ship needs better textures, because as of now it looks like a slab of burned-out metal.
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Aardwolf on June 17, 2009, 10:52:06 pm
Update, now the turrets actually do something!

(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/NRel/th_NRelVideo001.jpg) (http://s93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/NRel/?action=view&current=NRelVideo001.flv)

Edit: Another screenshot, while the next video is uploading:

(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/NRel/005.png)

Edit II: The video is done uploading:

(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/NRel/th_NRelVideo002.jpg) (http://s93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/NRel/?action=view&current=NRelVideo002.flv)

Edit III: Work on lighting, and also you can see I've been messing with the uv/textures on that ship. Also, I added two controls (for my benefit in making pics/vids), one is to switch which ship I'm viewing, and the other is to switch which one is able to fire.
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/NRel/th_NRelVideo003.jpg) (http://s93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/NRel/?action=view&current=NRelVideo003.flv)
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Aardwolf on June 23, 2009, 12:19:00 pm
I've been doing a bit more work on this. One of the biggest changes is some optimization I've done on the collision detection. Since lighting is still a slow spot, though, the screenshot with the 300+ shots has muzzle flash and explosion lighting disabled.

(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/NRel/006.png)
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/NRel/007.png)

I'm going to do a bit more experimenting to see how much of the slowdown (from 60 to 12 fps) is from drawing the shots, as opposed to the shot physics. I reckon a big part of it is.

Edit: looks like it can keep up 15-20 fps with around 450 shots, but only if i don't draw them (or the muzzle flashes, or the explosions).
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Dark RevenantX on June 23, 2009, 12:53:07 pm
Yeah, rendering THAT MANY dynamic lights can be a huge performance hit.  Some way to combine or limit them would be helpful for you.
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Fineus on June 23, 2009, 01:57:22 pm
How about trippling the damage done by any shot, drawing each "shot" as a set of three shots, and combining the dynamic light. Then you'd only have one light for every three shots fired.
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Sushi on June 23, 2009, 03:25:15 pm
Out of curiosity, how does the FS engine handle this? It obviously isn't using real dynamic lights for every sun, laser, missile, and beam... but whatever it does results in a pretty decent simulation with little to no framerate cost.
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Aardwolf on June 25, 2009, 11:24:29 pm
Well what Kalfireth said is actually sort of similar to what FreeSpace does, at least as far as the lighting is concerned. Shots fired together (I think it requires that they have the same velocity) get a single light. It picks the (max 8) lights closest to the ship when applying the lighting.

I think.
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Aardwolf on May 06, 2010, 02:42:21 am
Youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U31M5IlIVdM) of one of my older games, for no apparent reason. Even though it's Java, the OpenGL bindings (JOGL) aren't as cross-platform as I'd hope.

Edit: Game Downloads:

Version for 32-bit Windows (http://www.mediafire.com/?ltk5jqtizzy)
Version for 64-bit Windows. (http://www.mediafire.com/?twtrtmi5ijn)

They require Java, run the .jar file to play them.



Be warned, it's challenging. As Galemp put it:
Quote from: Galemp
you can call me sir-die-a-lot
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Aardwolf on June 08, 2010, 05:30:43 pm
:bump:

I finally figured out how to make an applet version of some of my older Java games.

CLICKY (http://alubitz.aiwsites.com/other_work/hp2/)

Controls include: Arrow keys, Ctrl, S, and J

Edit: The sprites for the player fighters, the teal fighters, and the orange-red-magenta fighters were done by Turambar.
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: blowfish on June 10, 2010, 12:39:20 am
That one's not bad :D  ...though the gameplay has a few minor issues...
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: BloodEagle on June 10, 2010, 12:56:44 am
I honestly can't figure out what that radar is trying to tell me.  I did better by ignoring it. :/

Nifty, though.
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: blowfish on June 10, 2010, 01:01:01 am
I honestly can't figure out what that radar is trying to tell me.  I did better by ignoring it. :/

Nifty, though.

The thing you must know is that you are on the surface of a sphere...

EDIT: Aardwolf is a spelling nazi (http://www.uc-forum.com/forum/images/smilies/Nazi_Smiley.gif)
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Aardwolf on June 10, 2010, 01:47:24 am
I honestly can't figure out what that radar is trying to tell me.

As blowfish pointed out, the region you fly in, like the radar, is on a sphere.

Single-pixel dots on the radar are on the far side, and X-shapes are on the near side.

Blue represents jump gates. Or wormholes. Or whatever they are.

Shades between green and red are ships with varying degrees of damage. The original reasoning behind having it like this (instead of based on what team the ships are on) was because this way it forces you to get a visual on them before firing. Nonetheless, the AI is simple enough that if you know what team at least one of them is on (preferably a friendly one) you can track how they move relative to one another and figure out what teams they're on.
Title: Re: Aardwolf Presents "Everything in One Thread"
Post by: Aardwolf on September 01, 2010, 06:45:51 pm
:bump:

Working on a multiplayer game for my "Network Transmission and Data Compression" class. Basically I added multiplayer to an existing space combat thing I made. Screenshots in a moment...

Edit: technical difficulties... apparently the printscreen key does not generate a keypress event, and even if I try using another key, the output I end up with is buggy:

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/Quick%20Illustrations/thescreenshotiswrongwtf.png

:(

The game itself looks much better, but I was hoping I could get a setup similar to FS2's, where I can press the printscreen key in-game and have it generate a file (instead of having to paste it into an image editor in order to not have it be replaced by the next screenshot I take)

Edit, again: Yay, fixed. It was something stupid... I don't know why this didn't cause errors before, though... real screenshots in a moment ;)

Edit, hopefully the last? Finally got some screenshots. It's just me playing against some bots on the loopback interface, but whatever.
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/Quick%20Illustrations/screenshot-2010-9-1-20-23-9-583.png)
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l77/Aardwolf001/Quick%20Illustrations/screenshot-2010-9-1-20-24-59-743.png)


Yes, I borrowed nebulae and explosion animations from FS.