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SE on Vavoom?

Thu, 03 Jul 2003 17:04:39

RambOrc

After having checked with Janis for basic possibility, I hereby open the discussion on releasing Scattered Evil on Vavoom instead of Doomsday. I list some of the pros and cons, feel free to add other ones: Pros - More possibilities for SE, especially for me as mapper. With Doomsday, building the city was kind of a nightmare, most of my ideas were not realizable. Also, large outdoor maps with endless plains or "rolling country" (small hills all around) should be possible, the very type that makes for great interconnecting maps between hubs. Also, Vavoom skyboxes allow us to landmarks being posted in a certain direction (i.e. you can put a volcano towards the north and a lake towards the east, they won't both be replicated 3-4x all around like in Doomsday). - Development on Korax Arena can start a lot earlier (indeed instead of indefinite starting date it can be as soon as August or September). - As KMOD 3.x contains everything ever coded for SE and artwork is fully compatible with both engines, nothing goes to waste despite the engine switch. - Vavoom is supported in-team (Janis is both Vavoom author and Korax' Heritage programmer), unlike Doomsday for which support was never available (in 2001 and early 2002, I tried to get SkyJake to help us with minor issues and put questions to him but he always brushed me off). Cons - This way, SE will be postponed even further (which is IMO not so bad now that KMOD 3.0 with a lot of new RPG features is being developed and released continously). OTOH this can actually have advantages, like some features that wouldn't have been finished on time this way can still make it into the game. - Everything needs to be ported we have for SE this far (OTOH it's not that much that would be kept in the current form anyway, seeing that much of the gameplay is to be changed). How do I imagine the engine switch? - Currently, the art team is working on stuff that's compatible with both engines w/o modifications (I think Vavoom has actually even support for more than 256 colors for a sprite, or am I wrong?). For them, nothing really changes, except that they have now more time to finish stuff. - The coding team should make the switch later on, once KMOD development is mostly finished (i.e. 3.x is released, patched, tested, and proven). This way, no parallel work is needed to be done, which simplifies matters. My proposition is that the complete code for all damage skins is inserted now into KMOD code, and for the damage skin frames the original frames are duplicated in the wadfile. This way, no matter when moster DS are finished, they only need a wadfile update to work. - The mapping team should start the work at once already with Vavoom in mind. I realized only lately how much work the maps will need anyway (adding extra exits, changing ACS, in most cases retuning monster/item placement, rebuilding some parts of some maps to make them fit the neighboring ones etc.) that it won't be much more work if a couple of extra niceties (like slopes and 3D floors at places where they enhance gameplay and/or looks) are added. Not to mention those outdoor maps I could never do in Doomsday because of engine limitations. So what about TSP, you ask? Well TSP concept calls for not much more than a sequel to SE with a different engine, an enhanced highres GUI with mouse interface for inventory and stuff, a different storyline, and a seemlessly connected huge world. The engine can be used already now for SE, and for the rest I anyway had a somewhat different kind of game in mind for a long time now which fits the concept better than an FPS. Indeed, TSP concept is not fit for an FPS with the kind of human resources we have, whereas the idea I have can well be realized with a team like ours (I don't want to overcrowd you with info, so I'll post about that project idea in a separate thread if someone requests it). This would make public releases look different from current plans: as already decided and announced, KMOD releases will continue for some time yet. Right after the last KMOD release or even parallely to it, the first Korax Arena release could be out, which would help us a lot in keeping interest in our projects alive. This would mean we could take a lot of time to polish SE, which in this way would become in many ways what TSP would have been, but with the SE story (which can be modified a lot still), and with more emphasis on action and less on epic RPG (which could be kept for the project afterwards, which would still be called TSP but would have a different concept). OK I stop before I get so confusing even I myself won't know what I want to say. <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif" alt=";)" title="Wink" /><!-- s;) -->
Thu, 03 Jul 2003 20:54:42

Moose

Sounds good, and in the long run it doesn't actually meen all that much extra work. Oh and could you share your vision of TSP with us.
Thu, 03 Jul 2003 21:12:17

RambOrc

OK, I'll post a new thread about the "new" TSP concept.
Fri, 04 Jul 2003 06:54:14

dj_jl

OK, here's one correction. Vavoom isn't very friendly with wide open areas, because network buffer can overflow more (i.e. you can get flickering objects) and also PVS building will take much longer. So you must be carefull when designing open areas.
Fri, 04 Jul 2003 09:37:02

RambOrc

- does this apply only when what the player sees is a large open area or also when there is a theoretical "engine line of sight"? (e.g. when the player is in one valley and on the other side of the hill there is another valley the player can't physically see, but since the sky is continuous over the hill too, for the engine there is a line of sight I guess). - does it help if rendering distance is limited to a certain value? - does this flickering depend on the number of objects or does it happen even if very few objects are present? - with objects, you mean only sprites/MD2 or also elements of the map built from sectors? - can't network buffer be increased? - what's PVS building? At any rate, a large part of the wide open area effect is achieved through the skybox that goes down to the floor (no enclosing walls), especially in a plains map or on the shore of a lake or sea.
Fri, 04 Jul 2003 13:45:26

dj_jl

- does this apply only when what the player sees is a large open area or also when there is a theoretical "engine line of sight"? (e.g. when the player is in one valley and on the other side of the hill there is another valley the player can't physically see, but since the sky is continuous over the hill too, for the engine there is a line of sight I guess).
It also applies when there's theoretical line of sight, i.e. sector heights here are ignored.
- does it help if rendering distance is limited to a certain value?
No, for server there's no such thing.
- does this flickering depend on the number of objects or does it happen even if very few objects are present?
It depends on the number of potentially visible objects.
- with objects, you mean only sprites/MD2 or also elements of the map built from sectors?
Only sprites/MD2.
- can't network buffer be increased?
Actually I've added a hack that uses a bigger (about 8 times) network buffer in single player mode, so in single player it might not appear.
- what's PVS building?
It's running glVIS (you need to do it for Vavoom).
At any rate, a large part of the wide open area effect is achieved through the skybox that goes down to the floor (no enclosing walls), especially in a plains map or on the shore of a lake or sea.
Yes, skyboxes will help.
Fri, 04 Jul 2003 13:59:32

RambOrc

Since the feature of very wide open areas is needed for SP only (no need for it in Korax Arena), I guess chances for the prob to occur aren't very high, right? Also, does it matter what kind of an object it is or that is all the same (i.e. a tree or a monster)?
Fri, 04 Jul 2003 15:01:13

dj_jl

Moving and animated objects will take more space in net buffer than the static ones.
Fri, 04 Jul 2003 16:09:25

RambOrc

Meaning that in a BIA-like map with SP only mode, maybe as much as 10x-20x more sprites can be displayed at once as in standard Hexen, right?
Sat, 05 Jul 2003 10:54:17

dj_jl

Yes, there shouldn't be much trouble with it.
Sat, 05 Jul 2003 21:58:54

RambOrc

Keeping a couple of things in mind, new maps shouldn't have any probs. The only unknown factor are the 3rd party SE maps - at worst, some of them might be thrown out, but that's not that high a price to pay for the extra features.
Sun, 06 Jul 2003 00:44:51

Firebrand

I also agree on the engine change, I think that the PROS are better than the CONS, and we can also keep releasing the KMOD 2.X versions so people can see that we are still working on them (of course just adding some small features like maybe the nes DS that keep coming, some new features, but also keep updating the 3.X versions too, so we can keep supporting both versions of KMOD) I don't know if what I say here is clear for you... <!-- s:? --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_confused.gif" alt=":?" title="Confused" /><!-- s:? --> In other news I haven't made anything for the Reiver, because of my exams (I hate exams <!-- s:( --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_sad.gif" alt=":(" title="Sad" /><!-- s:( --> ) but I will keep working on it when I get time the next week.
Sun, 06 Jul 2003 10:52:56

Moose

And when KMod can't be updated anymore I've still got a half compleat HeresyMod on my PC, shouldn't take to long to finish.So that could be released to the public to keep interest up.
Sun, 06 Jul 2003 12:23:29

RambOrc

Actually, HeresyMod should also be transferred to Vavoom as more than half of its codebase will be used in Korax Arena (the Heretic will be one of the player characters). At any rate, the way I see things by the time KMOD development finishes, Korax Arena releases will start to pop out, maybe even before that. That's one of the main pros for migrating SE to Vavoom, to be able to start working on Arena a lot sooner.
Sun, 06 Jul 2003 15:21:37

Moose

Well thats probabally easier to do anyways, seem as the heretic code is already in Vavoom and working.
Sun, 06 Jul 2003 15:32:13

RambOrc

Wow I haven't even thought of that. <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif" alt=";)" title="Wink" /><!-- s;) -->

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