TFIV Rebirth dev thread

[BPzeBanshee]

Fancy visual affects you're using there. Is that going to give me even more performance issues with the game than what I already have or should I not be comparing this upcoming result to the releases made before the 'big change'.

[wondersonic]

Firstly you'll need opengl 2.0 compatible video card + drivers (before it was 1.5).

Afterwards, maybe it will be slower indeed, maybe not.

I'm not currently working on the performance aspect.

[BPzeBanshee]

Performance issues is only going to deterr people from playing, so once you got yourself sorted with this new effects and stage material you really should be working on improving the performance on a program level.
I used to be able to run this game at 75 FPS in the early releases, I can't seem to do that at all anymore. I'm starting to get worried that by the time you complete this game if the issue isnt addressed I won't be able to play it at all.

Oh that reminds me: I blew up my legacy machine running one of my old game projects. Windows got corrupted beyond repair (at least by install disk) and one of my RAM cards no longer works properly.
Looks like there's no way in hell TF4R's going to be playtested for older machines now, the last time I did try the game on it, it was unplayable.

[wondersonic]

Performance issues is only going to deterr people from playing, so once you got yourself sorted with this new effects and stage material you really should be working on improving the performance on a program level.
I used to be able to run this game at 75 FPS in the early releases, I can't seem to do that at all anymore. I'm starting to get worried that by the time you complete this game if the issue isnt addressed I won't be able to play it at all.

Oh that reminds me: I blew up my legacy machine running one of my old game projects. Windows got corrupted beyond repair (at least by install disk) and one of my RAM cards no longer works properly.
Looks like there's no way in hell TF4R's going to be playtested for older machines now, the last time I did try the game on it, it was unplayable.

Oh, I forgot to tell you, I've reduced the framerate to 60 FPS (more standard on more computers).

BTW, maybe you should buy a new computer (no offense)

FYI, I was considering buying some new mini-laptop containing NVIDIA ION 2 video card.

[BPzeBanshee]

Oh, I forgot to tell you, I've reduced the framerate to 60 FPS (more standard on more computers).

BTW, maybe you should buy a new computer (no offense)

FYI, I was considering buying some new mini-laptop containing NVIDIA ION 2 video card.

My computer's not that old and should be more than capable of running the program if it is optimised properly. I can understand something like Crysis failing on my machine, but not this when every other program I've tried (including Java programs like Minecraft which have far more happening in it) runs smoothly.
In fullscreen the program seems to run fine but lately the FPS tends to drop a bit in windowed mode. This happens with Broken Thunder in the form of it's 'BLT' as well. Sometimes I seem to be able to fix it but I'm not sure how, so that much I can presume is related directly to something I've introduced.
Having said all this, the change to 60 FPS should make things run more smoothly still, the worst I ever got out of TF4R in windowed mode was around that area of FPS anyway.

[Makoto Sei]

Waw.....hard to believe that chaos are happened on this bright clear sky.....

[wondersonic]

Waw.....hard to believe that chaos are happened on this bright clear sky.....

A cloud is appearing...

[Makoto Sei]

Hohoho, it start to getting insterseting

[wondersonic]

Clouds at sunset...

[BPzeBanshee]

Looks nice, what's supposed to be happening? Player ship entering atmosphere from space?

[wondersonic]

Looks nice, what's supposed to be happening? Player ship entering atmosphere from space?

First 10 seconds:
- clear bright blue sky (with the "sun")
- clouds in bottom of screen viewed from above
- zoom in to the space gate arrival (much more complex than the entrance at the end of level 2)

During this, we have the music intro playing... maybe with some text between the pilot and the galaxy federation

- then the ship exits from the portal and then starts to land slowly (it will cross the clouds)

[BPzeBanshee]

Looks nice, what's supposed to be happening? Player ship entering atmosphere from space?

First 10 seconds:
- clear bright blue sky (with the "sun")
- clouds in bottom of screen viewed from above
- zoom in to the space gate arrival (much more complex than the entrance at the end of level 2)

During this, we have the music intro playing... maybe with some text between the pilot and the galaxy federation

- then the ship exits from the portal and then starts to land slowly (it will cross the clouds)

Sounds good, can't wait to see this in action. Still worrying about the bad framerate though.

[wondersonic]

Looks nice, what's supposed to be happening? Player ship entering atmosphere from space?

First 10 seconds:
- clear bright blue sky (with the "sun")
- clouds in bottom of screen viewed from above
- zoom in to the space gate arrival (much more complex than the entrance at the end of level 2)

During this, we have the music intro playing... maybe with some text between the pilot and the galaxy federation

- then the ship exits from the portal and then starts to land slowly (it will cross the clouds)

Sounds good, can't wait to see this in action. Still worrying about the bad framerate though.

Know that I'm taking care of performances (I'm using all possible optimizations I can find)!

More realistic clouds thanks to whiter textures:



Sunset impacting clouds color:



And now very basic shading (dot product between center cloud to particle vector and center to sun vector):

[BPzeBanshee]

Looks much better indeed! I'm interested to see how this will turn out.

[STG~PASI]

fps 20

[wondersonic]

fps 20

[BPzeBanshee]

fps 20

That either makes two people worried about the performance state of this next release, or STG~PASI is having performance issues with the current release.

Protip: Run it in Fullscreen, seems to have a higher framerate for me.

[wondersonic]

WIP for the sky:

Flat method to render sky: (5,000 FPS !!!)


Billboard based (perfs killer):

[wondersonic]

A new video

[Makoto Sei]

That`s a nice video. How about adding some cloud on the front layer, so some time the ship will looks hidden behind the cloud ? could be some bonus in there too

[BPzeBanshee]

Looks good, and assuming you were using the same computer as you took the screenshots with it must perform much better.

That`s a nice video. How about adding some cloud on the front layer, so some time the ship will looks hidden behind the cloud ? could be some bonus in there too

If any serious action occurs on this part of the stage the foreground must remain completely visible. Technosoft hid their bonuses well but I dont think itd be appropriate to place bonus stuff like key upgrades within the clouds where you'd otherwise have never known they were there.
As an intro part BEFORE the action begins however, would make that a brilliant idea to immerse the idea of travelling through the clouds to the scene of the action.

[wondersonic]

Looks good, and assuming you were using the same computer as you took the screenshots with it must perform much better.

Nope, the usual computer I use says: 24 FPS!!! but I have now to work on perfs as my cloud implementation suits me

That`s a nice video. How about adding some cloud on the front layer, so some time the ship will looks hidden behind the cloud ? could be some bonus in there too

If any serious action occurs on this part of the stage the foreground must remain completely visible. Technosoft hid their bonuses well but I dont think itd be appropriate to place bonus stuff like key upgrades within the clouds where you'd otherwise have never known they were there.
As an intro part BEFORE the action begins however, would make that a brilliant idea to immerse the idea of travelling through the clouds to the scene of the action.

Agree with BPzeBanshee

And flying through clouds is the idea

[nicolasbol]

Wow wow wow !!

Those clouds are magnificent !! I will have to check your source code soon. An please add some light scattering !!!\

[Makoto Sei]

If any serious action occurs on this part of the stage the foreground must remain completely visible. Technosoft hid their bonuses well but I dont think itd be appropriate to place bonus stuff like key upgrades within the clouds where you'd otherwise have never known they were there.
As an intro part BEFORE the action begins however, would make that a brilliant idea to immerse the idea of travelling through the clouds to the scene of the action.

Is that so ? Hmm....`i remember on TF 3 on hydra stage where we get the Saber (severe) upgrade behind the giant tree, right before the first group of giant flower.

Well, maybe no need for very thick Cloud or better idea....just leave it to the creator
Hmm...another idea.....raining of metal scrap from battle above ?

[BPzeBanshee]

If any serious action occurs on this part of the stage the foreground must remain completely visible. Technosoft hid their bonuses well but I dont think itd be appropriate to place bonus stuff like key upgrades within the clouds where you'd otherwise have never known they were there.
As an intro part BEFORE the action begins however, would make that a brilliant idea to immerse the idea of travelling through the clouds to the scene of the action.

Is that so ? Hmm....`i remember on TF 3 on hydra stage where we get the Saber (severe) upgrade behind the giant tree, right before the first group of giant flower.

Well, maybe no need for very thick Cloud or better idea....just leave it to the creator
Hmm...another idea.....raining of metal scrap from battle above ?

Well I'll be damned...there is indeed a Sever upgrade making Stage 1 even easier than what it already is. And I thought AC was stupidly easy... I suppose I'm not being entirely accurate when I say its not a Technosoft thing, especially since there is a secret shield upgrade at the second stage of TF4...
My point still stands however, especially the way Wondersonic has set everything up so far, having a secret upgrade in the clouds would essentially unbalance the game at that stage. Maybe we could reconsider that possibility once that stage and future stages are completed to get an idea of the game's flow first.

[wondersonic]

And a new video demonstrating Light Scattering effect.

[Makoto Sei]

Whoa ! that`s very cool !!
but...do the light must affected by the bullet too ?

[wondersonic]

And now a procedural thunderstorm...

[BPzeBanshee]

Looks nice!

Is there going to be an option to turn all this fancy stuff off for lower performance PCs?

[wondersonic]

Looks nice!

Is there going to be an option to turn all this fancy stuff off for lower performance PCs?

Even better, it will be automatic! If your video card doesn't support opengl 3.0 then low performance PC is assumed