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Title: Test project
Post by: MrTAToad on 2015-Oct-30
Been working on the basis for a pseudo 3D game - this is what I've currently got so far :



This is just the basis for things, as there are many (obviously) things missing at the moment.
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: erico on 2015-Oct-30
It is moving about pretty good!
What is with the vertical lines at the bottom of the screen?
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: Ian Price on 2015-Oct-30
Very nice :)
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: MrTAToad on 2015-Oct-30
Quote from: erico on 2015-Oct-30
It is moving about pretty good!
What is with the vertical lines at the bottom of the screen?
I suspect its the Youtube conversion process or Fraps doing something...
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: MrTAToad on 2015-Oct-30
Quote from: Ian Price on 2015-Oct-30
Very nice :)
Thanks!
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: erico on 2015-Oct-30
Ok, would it be too hard to actually blend 3d objects into this system?
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: MrTAToad on 2015-Oct-31
Display-wise there would be no problems - it is just a matter of trying to position and scale correctly.
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: Ian Price on 2015-Oct-31
It's a bit pointless making a 2d racing track system and then adding 3D objects on top - you might as well just make it all in 3D in the first place.
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: matchy on 2015-Nov-01
Looks awesome.  :good:  :coke:

The engine is looking good, nice dips and hills and I like that style. Now go rip the Outrun, Chase HQ and Lotus II graphics for a game demo already!  ;) ;/  :D
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: erico on 2015-Nov-01
Quote from: Ian Price on 2015-Oct-31
It's a bit pointless making a 2d racing track system and then adding 3D objects on top - you might as well just make it all in 3D in the first place.

I disagree, the 3d objects can be 2d based and it can move constrained to what a 2d sprite would.
The bonus would be that for art, that is a heck of a lot less work then doing it by hand, and you could pretty much export and pixel should you really want to.

Jaguar on the amiga kind of has a bit of 3d looks on its sprites.

But what I mean for 3d on mr.T´s game is more akin to Seiseki and Fejer´s low poly pixel vehicle, as appended here. No actual lights into that 3d for that oldschool look.

edit: by 3d, you could also easily have full spins and spectacular flipping crashes... ;)
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: Ian Price on 2015-Nov-01
Yeah, the 3D objects as sprites is a good idea, but really what would is the point? All the hassle of creating/faking the road in 2D might as well have been used to create a proper 3D road to stick the 3D objects on. If you can do 3D objects you might as well make it all 3D.

BTW I really like those low poly cars :)
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: erico on 2015-Nov-01
I wouldn´t be so traditional to require 2d on a 2d road and I´d take 3d to be more of a tool then aesthetics.
One of the points could be reduced workload and a very cute looks.
Like I said, you could move the object similar to a sprite, check how many rotations Lotus has and only display those fixed angles for ex.

I took seiseki´s example and did a quick block, indeed they are extremely charming.

edit: added ddd object and the texture too.
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: Ian Price on 2015-Nov-01
The trouble is, 3D on 2D stands out a mile.

I do understand the reduction in workload, but you have to be very careful when mixing 2D and 3D. If the lighting differs or the pixels aren't as chunky or have a wider palette etc. these things scream loudly at the end-user. You've got to be consistant in all areas too.

While incredibly charming, even those 3D images show inconsistancies with regard to angles and pixels - look at the rear window compared to the side windows (or number plate and side wings etc.) These stand out and will do so even more on a 2D background. A drawn 2D image of the car would be more consistant.
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: erico on 2015-Nov-01
I agree with the consistency, most of latest retro racers don´t quite follow.

As highres as the road lines are on the video, I would not see much trouble using this car. No lights, the map is 100% bright, no shading. While pixel texure would appear at diagonals, which I dislike, in the specific case of these cars, I would not bother.

There is always the render to 2d, thought that would require lots of clean up.

edit: oh, if you mean the inconsistency of my model don´t worry, I knocked it out in a minute, I did not even bother aligning the pixels. :P
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: Ian Price on 2015-Nov-01
While it is now consistant (probably), you've also lost most of the charm that made the original 3D models so nice. :(
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: erico on 2015-Nov-01
Sure shot, but it could be used by mr.T should he think it better than the placeholder or to generate sprites or some experimentation with the engine.
Little changes to the uvmap and you get a more or less new car.
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: Ian Price on 2015-Nov-02
Indeed.
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: spacefractal on 2015-Nov-02
3d in 2d is fully legal. It's how 3d is used.

we used 3d models in Karma Miwa, but created as 2d sprites.

In Jungool we also used pure 3d sprites with 2d backgrounds. So to look 2d, the fov must been very low (I'm thinks we used around just 10-15 fov in Jungool). Same can been done in this game. Fov for 3d sprites just need to been quite low.

The road mind me somewhere the 2d engine used in ios game "final freeway", a nice Outrun clone.
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: erico on 2015-Nov-02
Exactly, low FOV is similar to using a high mm lens, makes for less perspective distortion and does help a lot blending the outputs.
I have done a bunch of 3d for the avocado game too the same way.

I´m typically a purist on style blend and will easily jump into the reasons Ian stated before with very little exceptions.
But these low poly cars are so charming that the mixed style does not bother me.

Heck, I almost feel like printing them in paper for decoration. :good:

edit: he might have to adjust the fov to match the line perspective on the road, it may be a tricky thing to match.
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: Ian Price on 2015-Nov-02
I'm not saying it can't or shouldn't be done, but that if not done well, the game can look shit as a result.
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: erico on 2015-Nov-02
Yep, completely.
Also, would it be easy to split screen with this system Mr. T? Today´s bigger and wider monitors/tv should provide a good local multiplayer experience.

edit: Also, should you try the 3d object to blend, add a black quad underneath it for its shadow, you might want this quad always on road, even if the car is jumping flipping about :) . (and please no transparencies on the black quad shadow :D)
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: MrTAToad on 2015-Nov-04
Oh yes, it would be no problem doing a split screen mode - probably up to 4 players at once, as its all very quick...
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: MrTAToad on 2015-Nov-04
Updated it a bit with the addition of being able to colour fading, as can be seen here :



So night time,morning and what-not can now be emulated.  The next thing will be fog

Tunnels are unique in that the track inside isnt affected by colour fading or fog, although I may do it so that it is until you are inside one.  The players sprite, will, of course change colour too.

After that, its getting the tile collision detection done, which will mean finalising the size of the players and finally getting it animated, after which I want to design and test the inital few stages.
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: matchy on 2015-Nov-04
Quote from: MrTAToad on 2015-Nov-04
The next thing will be fog
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: MrTAToad on 2015-Nov-10
Got the fog up and running - will post a video soon.

After which, I'll get the ingame font up and running along with re-arranging the status display.  After that, I need to get the players character resized properly so the tile collision detection works for the correct size.
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: erico on 2015-Nov-15
Gee! Looking super, scenery and all that, very nice engine! :good:
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: MrTAToad on 2015-Nov-15
The third test project is here :

Title: Re: Test project
Post by: quangdx on 2015-Nov-19
It's looking very awesome,
love the smoothness of the hills and valleys.
Do me a small favour and make the bounding box of that test ball sprite transparent ;)
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: MrTAToad on 2015-Nov-20
Its going to be replaced...
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: erico on 2015-Nov-20
Do you have a target resolution for the the game mr.t?
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: erico on 2015-Nov-20
A couple years ago, there was a job we did here that required many 3d car models, the agency simply gave us money to buy them from what was available  instead of modeling them ourselves, which would sure cost more and take more time. Within the lib we acquires, which I just remembered to have them here, I thought to make a couple sprite renders should you like to test.

Here they are, sprites are 214x90 in size, I dumped an image from one of your videos to try and match the perspective.

Personally, I find them very ugly and I particularly dislike in rage pre-render gfx as it was used on PC throughout the 90ties.
They seem so out of life to me, but maybe it is my formation with lotus, jaguar, crazy cars 3 and xtreme racing yelling. :P
My dump opinion aside, see if they can serve your testings better than the ball.
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: MrTAToad on 2015-Nov-20
The minimum resolution is 640 x 480, and will scale up as resolution increases.

At the moment, every status display fits nicely in the base resolution.

All graphics have to be done using polyvector as the sprites colour can be changed (especially the players one in a tunnel), so a loading system (that can load single sprites, animated sprites in multiple files, animated sprites of fixed cell size and possibly animated sprites who's size and position arent fixed need to be loaded and displayed.  Then I can convert the players display function to use polyvector and see how well it animates.

Polyvectors have to be used for clipping and scaling (I soon remembered that the function can do that after posting and wanting a clipping function elsewhere), so a graphics processing type needs to be developed now.  I've started on the loading system but nothing has been tested yet.
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: MrTAToad on 2015-Nov-20
Quote from: erico on 2015-Nov-20
A couple years ago, there was a job we did here that required many 3d car models, the agency simply gave us money to buy them from what was available  instead of modeling them ourselves, which would sure cost more and take more time. Within the lib we acquires, which I just remembered to have them here, I thought to make a couple sprite renders should you like to test.

Here they are, sprites are 214x90 in size, I dumped an image from one of your videos to try and match the perspective.

Personally, I find them very ugly and I particularly dislike in rage pre-render gfx as it was used on PC throughout the 90ties.
They seem so out of life to me, but maybe it is my formation with lotus, jaguar, crazy cars 3 and xtreme racing yelling. :P
My dump opinion aside, see if they can serve your testings better than the ball.
I do like them - do you have any more of these?
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: erico on 2015-Nov-20
There is about 200 cars, if not way more, on many different 3d complexity levels.
Some are useless, some are really pro and have billions of points, I got 2 examples that are more or less low poly.
I never went through all of them myself.

The 2 pics I did is a result of a simple scene made to render the rotation on that perspective.
The actual render was 2x bigger, I scaled it down on photoshop.
I also had to clean up a bit of the surfaces, like the main color, reflections and specially the glass.

There isen´t much of photography going on at them as that takes time and the way they are surfaced is really crap.
The convertible ones also would need a human inside.

Glad you like them, I prefer the low poly ones from the pages before.
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: matchy on 2015-Nov-21
No more prototype ball vehicle because those test car tiled sprites are perfect.  :whistle:
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: MrTAToad on 2015-Nov-22
Quote from: erico on 2015-Nov-20
There is about 200 cars, if not way more, on many different 3d complexity levels.
Some are useless, some are really pro and have billions of points, I got 2 examples that are more or less low poly.
I never went through all of them myself.

The 2 pics I did is a result of a simple scene made to render the rotation on that perspective.
The actual render was 2x bigger, I scaled it down on photoshop.
I also had to clean up a bit of the surfaces, like the main color, reflections and specially the glass.

There isen´t much of photography going on at them as that takes time and the way they are surfaced is really crap.
The convertible ones also would need a human inside.

Glad you like them, I prefer the low poly ones from the pages before.
Could you make them available or is their copyright status dubious or public use ?
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: erico on 2015-Nov-22
The more complex ones I believe are really un usefull to you unless you are really proficient into a 3d package, you would also need a heavy machine to deal with it and lots of time to make it work out. These I´m not sure what the copyright stated when we bought, I´m not sure it was a buyout or that only those who actually acquired it are entitled to use.

The more low poly ones, like the couple I used here, are ok to distribute but not ok for commercial use and are from different artists.
These we got as references and placeholders, I think there should be no problem sending them to you.

They are about 120 files in lwo format (lightwave).
I think I also have some libs from VUE and other 3d softwares we acquired, but I´d have to search and check.

I thought I had your email around here, pm me it and I send you the models I believe are ok.

You can also check the mesh database to see if there is anything interesting (there should).
https://www.rocq.inria.fr/gamma/gamma/Database/index.fr.html
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: matchy on 2015-Nov-22
Quote from: MrTAToad on 2015-Nov-22
Quote from: erico on 2015-Nov-20
There is about 200 cars, if not way more, on many different 3d complexity levels.
...
Could you make them available or is their copyright status dubious or public use ?

Quite relevant for test project, not.  :doubt:
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: MrTAToad on 2015-Nov-22
Its always good to plan ahead...
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: matchy on 2015-Nov-23
Understandably as I have a similar issue with content vs functionality. To foresee, perhaps creating these in run-time from base 3d models to produce 2d sprites (ie. vector splicing) or even over-layer 3D.

For now, something more sensible in the next test video would be nice and I'm hoping as I'm just not a fan of the racing ball/sphere.

How important is it we worry about brand name cars in our games?
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: erico on 2015-Nov-23
If I understood correctly the content vs functionality, yep it always a chicken egg thing since some gfx can impose on code, like fine tunning the perspective and sometimes the other way around.

Lately I have been doing a lot of low res black and white graphics as place holders since they do hold a bit of the final idea´s intentions, I´m growing really found of them.
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: matchy on 2015-Nov-23
erico, Have you tried to produce animsprites with 3D to 2d? Do you have 3d models of cars, bikes or vehicles just to test with? I'd like to reconstruct one but need a frame to design by I guess.  :whistle:
The vehicle overlay function is really separate to how the track works and is displayed, even lighting. Presumably there are only left and right turning frames like in your tile-set, but maybe also jump and bump (yaw and pitch frames). Alternatively rather than a bitmaps, a smooth turning 3D motorcycle like Road Rash 3D would compliment the track more. (but then there's the rider animation). :-[
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: erico on 2015-Nov-23
I never tried to produce 2d out of GLB´s 3d, I have very little to no experience in 3d with GLB as of yet.
It is easier for me to render in Lightwave and export to Photoshop.

When I did the settings up there, I first thought to output car´s full rotation and some flipping for crashes, as well as a bunch of sets for going up and down the road, but at a resolution above the classic 320x200, the amount of frames needed for a simple car turn goes really high. That is why I thought about doing low poly 3d pixel art cars in the first place, to get rid of 300+ sprites per car. In fact, the 3d low poly cars works ace if your game is low res to boot.

I then took some time to examine my fav racer of old age and checked how they did it, specially on a time that scaling sprites was not common, it is a lot of work or you get hard restrictions with high amount of sprites. I still believe using 3d to try to display 2d styled cars is the best compromise, a 200km/h crash that simply slows you down does not impress on current age, and a flipping crash like outrun on higher res then 320 with just a couple of frames, going over a road that perfectly smoothly moves about, sounds too out of place.

I think what limits most the use of 2d is to want to have anything higher res.
Yep, the rider´s animation is a very complex job, you will need some sort of rigging to boot.
I can send you some models should you want, pm me your email.

edit: just noticed that the beadle up there looks strange with such thin tires, that would need some editing so that it feels more in place.
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: MrTAToad on 2015-Nov-23
Quote from: matchy on 2015-Nov-23
Understandably as I have a similar issue with content vs functionality. To foresee, perhaps creating these in run-time from base 3d models to produce 2d sprites (ie. vector splicing) or even over-layer 3D.

For now, something more sensible in the next test video would be nice and I'm hoping as I'm just not a fan of the racing ball/sphere.

How important is it we worry about brand name cars in our games?
Better not get your hopes up then!  I've got a partially animated ball that I originally planned to use (at the moment I've only processed 3 frames as I need to make sure my graphics system works), although if there are some cars that can be used (the problem will be animation), I may use them.  Whether I will keep it is another matter, but the important thing is to make sure the animation system works...

The reason for using a ball is you can jump (its slow at the moment), and would be odd with a car  =D

I've started intergrating the graphics system into the program - the first thing to do is update the static object type to have animation data in it...
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: erico on 2015-Dec-01
I was wondering, if a truly retro racer is what you are looking for, you could work with a base resolution of 320x200 fat pixel, like amstrad and c64, so actually 160x200. Probably use a 16 color palette preferably Dawbringer´s and no transparencies.

I came across this mock up by José Pereira and added my renders just to check, with a little clean up it could work nicely.
At this res, you would need at the most, 7 sprites to make the car turn so there is a lot of reduction on the art workload.

Gotta love the low res. :good:

Lately I stumbled by that amiga racer, http://distrita.com/amiga-racernews/
and while I don´t want to criticize that nice effort, I fell this is a perfect example of mixed styles that are fully incoherent, and therefore looks very ugly on my books. It is what we (me, Ian) were discussing on the other job thread.

A truly retro racer, with those aesthetics, and improving/updating on the formula would be just perfect for me. 
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: MrTAToad on 2015-Dec-06
Yes, they do look good.  I'm trying to go for a more Trailblazer type game (although there will hopefully be AI in there somewhere!)
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: erico on 2015-Dec-06
It is your call. I feel that trailblazers have been done to extreme lately, while a true retro racer is still highly on the needs and I´m sure there is demand, specially on a super fine engine as the one you did.

Did you see the AGS one Aprilskies did? It dosen´t have the perspective shift and plays a bit strange, but I love the gfx/music and it is a great effort considering the limits of the tool used.  :good:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1832/
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: MrTAToad on 2015-Dec-31
Yes, I saw that - is very clever!
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: erico on 2016-Feb-24
Quote from: matchy on 2015-Nov-23
... Alternatively rather than a bitmaps, a smooth turning 3D motorcycle like Road Rash 3D would compliment the track more. (but then there's the rider animation). :-[

Seems someone enjoyed this idea and steam released it  :D
Well, more like I stumbled into something that remembers me of the biker racer idea.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/444000

Seems like a nice smooth cash in on the 90´s racer theme.
The game dosen´t seem to have much into it other then driving and stearing, too little for me.
Title: Re: Test project
Post by: MrPlow on 2016-Feb-25
What is popular is that lovely speed feeling like you get from Outrun but with a stonking good soundtrack :)

That's a winning formula!! +1 for the low res - limited pallette style! :)