Skybox like GLtron - selectable choice of movie packs

[Z-Man]

Or is it merely an issue of dropping performance from 3200 FPS to 1600 FPS?

On normal PCs with a decent video card, yes, that Maybe it wouldn't be that much of an issue on the kind of hardware actually showing performance problems, those laptops with integrated intel GPUs and the like. The additional CPU cycles won't hurt them too much, and the GL drivers are crap anyway and I don't know how much of a speedup display lists are with them.

[Game Zone]

I have decided I will be using GLtron for the first project, after that I will start with Armagetron after the GLtron project is done, I picked GLtron as the first choice because it looks like it would require the least manipulation in the short term, I plan on making very full large project, and I like to work quickly, the first project I would really like get 100 skyboxes, I have 30 all ready, perhaps I will get bored before 100, I don't know yet, I will also be adding new models, new sound tracks and sound fx, and new custom maps, so it will be quite a large project overall, I also need some minor code changes to GLtron, move a HUD element, add a map image to the desktop screen when one selects map arenas one can preview it, also rather than have to change the whole graphic desktop image when one changes artpacks, it would be nice to have an image placed on top of the menu background art, rather than change the whole menu image like it is now, the menu image would be taken from its own directory, this way we have a menu graphic, and then the map/arena and artpack, which contains the skybox is also loaded as a separate graphic, this way one has a better way to select 'maps/arenas' and 'skybox/artpacks',

The skybox that's in the engine distorts, I may have to look into using a model instead, you can see the second image below for distortion, look at the building in the second image, bottom right, can you see how the lower section moves away at an angle, that's the distortion effect, I would like to get rid of that.



Also I need information on what versions of GLtron are compatible across peoples computers, I had a lot of trouble on my PC version, only tested on one dodgy PC, I need to build my other machines for more testing, the very latest version for the mac didn't work on my mac book, the prior version did, I will test on my other mac a G5 mac that has a better graphics card for 3d games and see what happens. I will also have to get in touch with the author of GLtron to ask him a few questions etc, I mailed him a while back but I think it may of ended up in his spam folder. If anyone wants to help with the coding changes for the project please get in touch.
I will be posting a lot more info and a bunch of screenshots at this address as soon as I get the new site up for this project, its address will be on my web space at

http://www.avantivitastudios.com/solarcycle.html

When its put up, which should be in a few days time Ill make a thread on the project.
Like I said, after I finish the GLtron version of this project, I will be doing a project with Armagetron, the only things to work out with Armagetron is either get skyboxes in, and if they will not go in, then Ill switch to plan B, which is no skyboxes, but I will need some pixel shaders as I will want to get some depth to the textures, so some sort of bump/normal/parallax shader, something to give shine or illumination may be nice but I'm not held to them, but something to give depth to the texture is a must if no skyboxes are used, I need more than a flat diffuse texture if I cant use a skybox.

[17na]

gamezone I seriosuly want to download gl tron now that looks amazing...

[Game Zone]

I have got a web site up for this, the address is at the bottom. Ill make a new thread as well for the project seeing how this one is for skyboxes for Armagetron.

Here is is the link for the web site
http://www.avantivitastudios.com/solarcycle/

[Phytotron]

Wait, are you developing a separate branch, or fork, or whatever? Are you familiar with all the GPL legalities and whatnot?

[Game Zone]

Phytotron - Nothing illegal is being done, you can check this web page, it is also linked on the GLtron web site
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

I have a question about Armagetron, I know you can use a texture for the ceiling and also pan the texture (can it be one single textue or does it have to be a repeating texture?), also can we use one big texture for the floor, then have a repeating texture of a grid with a transparent grid above it, would be nice to have some of parallax effect so the bottom texture of the world below pans a little when moving, if you know what I mean, they use this in 2d games, I dont mean parallax as in normal mapping. This way I can have a skybox of sorts, just not the walls, as the walls would have to be just arena walls.

Also possible to select what walls/ceiling etc we use for the player? Its not much fun just having one choice and having the player go out of the game, swap files over, re start etc, just to get a new choice of textures to play the game with.

Also some questions on the Bike models.

- Texture Format png, dds, bmp, jpg, tif etc
- Texture support Emissives, transparent, normal maps etc..
- Model Format .x md2 3ds etc..

Thanks for any help on these issues.

[Jonathan]

Phytotron can't respond right now as he's sitting out a one-week ban. I think he just wanted to make sure you know what you cannot do with the GPL, but apparently that wasn't needed.

Of the things you said, about nothing can be done without hacking the code. If you just fiddle with the settings for a minute, you'll find most of the things Armagetron can do.

Texture format: PNG (alpha channel used to color the cycle, as I said in an earlier post, so no transparency)
Model format: its own .mod, or a hacky parser that manages to extract some information from ASE for moviepacks

Note that parallax is the cause of distortion of skyboxes. So even if you manage to code them into the game, your way, you can't have distortion-free parallax. You'll need full 3D models.

[Game Zone]

Texture format: PNG (alpha channel used to color the cycle, as I said in an earlier post, so no transparency)

You can have transparency in a png graphic file, make a new layer above the background, pain in what you want, leave areas blank, then delete the background, export with transparency checked, and you have a png with transparency, the png file can carry it fine. Or can Armagetron not render transparency.

I can see it in this screenshot?



I have been playing around trying to get a single texture on the floor with a grid on top of it, I know you can use two textures, but it is tiling them and not having it as one texture.

Someone has done it here
http://forums3.armagetronad.net/viewtop ... &start=240

I really need to get a texture on the floor just once and not be repeating, is this possible?

Do see what I am trying to do, without adding extra code, armagetron straight out of the box, floor 1, 1 image covers the whole floor does not repeat tile, its one image, layer two, grid, transparent inside the grid, this texture tiles, lower sky, single texture, does not tile repeat. Arena walls are fine, I just do as everyone else does here.

Then when people play, they can make the arena bigger and smaller as I am sure they will do, or play the maps, the textures map just the same as above.

I would even settle for one texture lower sky and one texture on the floor, none tiling/repeating. Just put the one texture down filling the arena floor and lower ceiling, even when people fiddle with the arena bigger and smaller functions and the maps.

[sinewav]

The only textures that have a working alpha channel are the cycle trails and lower sky. The second image you posted does not have overlapping textures, but one real fancy texture, stretched to the size of the grid. That texture will repeat outside the grid walls too.

There are clever things you can do with floor mirroring (and it's intensity), so look into that too.

[Game Zone]

but one real fancy texture, stretched to the size of the grid. That texture will repeat outside the grid walls too.

That's what I want to do, one fancy texture stretched to the size of the grid, if it goes past the walls it doesn't matter because you cannot see past the walls as they have just a flat diffuse on them with regular texture on them. Now this stretching technique, I don't know if that has any problems, for example, using different maps, changing the size of the arena, or if the user has to tweak a lot to make it work, as I don't know how to do this, I am not sure if the user will have problems with it. Your all experts here, but any new users will not be as knowledgeable or as forgiving if they have to tweak things, or any effects get broken or are not user friendly.

I know Armagetron has reflective floors, I would be keen to see if others have used them in a special way and how they have pushed Armagetron creatively. Any links would be appreciated to see what others have done to push the boundaries with there creations. Not sure how to change its intensity, I only can see an option for floors, floors wall, objects etc in the menu. Perhaps this is what you mean by intensity.

I have been doing some tests with basic textures first, just to see how things go in Armagetron, I put a non square texture for the walls, ie 128x256 or 256x512, the bigger number is the width, it made an odd effect with some kind of stretching, at the top, as if the ceiling carried on going up and the last few pixels get stretched upwards. (edit, fixed that odd bug, not sure what it was, I changed a few details setting, then changed it back and it was fixed, so no idea what happened there)

Also I used just a plain texture on the floor, and its very dull for some reason, much darker than it really is. Would be nice to also scale the texture up as well, its a bit small. The reflection map looks super though, shame the floor is so dark.

Just did some more testing, if I can get the floor to stretch over the whole arena then I can pull off a nice effect, I think it holds on that really. I really hope I can get some input on that one as I feel it really holds to that at the moment.

Also for the GLtron version, has anyone here ever gotten new 3d models or levels into the GLtron game ( I have a 3d modeler ready to make some to put into the game, but cannot do so because in my tests it failed to show in the game), I have emailed the author Andreas Umbach but get no answer, so either his email is down, or he has abandoned the project and does not answer emails to it.

[sinewav]

Now this stretching technique, I don't know if that has any problems, for example, using different maps, changing the size of the arena, or if the user has to tweak a lot to make it work, as I don't know how to do this, I am not sure if the user will have problems with it.

It's challenging to make a replacement textures (moviepacks) that look good on all servers. Take a look at this one designed for Fortress servers. It had a very functional floor texture that looks great in Fortress servers, but has no use anywhere else. Download the moviepack and look in settings.cfg to see what settings make it possible.

I know Armagetron has reflective floors, I would be keen to see if others have used them in a special way and how they have pushed Armagetron creatively. Any links would be appreciated to see what others have done to push the boundaries with there creations. Not sure how to change its intensity, I only can see an option for floors, floors wall, objects etc in the menu. Perhaps this is what you mean by intensity.

Intensity is actually a property (floor_mirror_int). Take a look at these two examples of floor mirroring:
http://forums3.armagetronad.net/viewtop ... 47&t=20593
http://forums3.armagetronad.net/viewtop ... 42&t=19213

(actually, the image you posted above with the concentric circles has slight floor mirroring.)

I put a non square texture for the walls...Also I used just a plain texture on the floor, and its very dull for some reason, much darker than it really is.

Stay square man. The dark, dull look of the floor may be due to:

Code: Select all

FLOOR_RED .2             # floor color (without moviepack)
FLOOR_GREEN .2           # floor color (without moviepack)
FLOOR_BLUE .2            # floor color (without moviepack)

These settings are in settings_visual.cfg. Open it up and have a look around. Change the floor values to 1 and your textures should be bright as you expect them to be.

Also for the GLtron version, has anyone here ever gotten new 3d models or levels into the GLtron game?

Naw. I I only messed with textures and cycle/trail colors. That was enough for me.

[andi75]

I have emailed the author Andreas Umbach but get no answer, so either his email is down, or he has abandoned the project and does not answer emails to it.

...I'm just not that fast at answering e-mails.

As for custom models: I just had a look at the default models in AA 2.8.3.1 and it looks like they use a simple custom text based format that doesn't support texturing either. Is the UV mapping in AA hardcoded?

[Jonathan]

As for custom models: I just had a look at the default models in AA 2.8.3.1 and it looks like they use a simple custom text based format that doesn't support texturing either. Is the UV mapping in AA hardcoded?

Yes and no. .mod is hardcoded, moviepack is not (but has no wheels).

[Game Zone]

Intensity is actually a property (floor_mirror_int). Take a look at these two examples of floor mirroring:
viewtopic.php?f=42&t=19213

Thank you for this one, I think this may be the way forward, I shall try this one out, I am having a little trouble with the mac version, on my PC I pasted in a folder called moviepacks, and put one of the movie packs for download, and it worked, I think the location was just in the main directory of Armagetron, now with the mac version, it is not so clear, I have been pasting files all over the place, and cannot get things running, just where do we place things, whats the file structure, ie
/Applications/Armagetron/Armagetron Advanced.app/Contents/Resources/moviepack/yourmoviepacknamehere

I want to test if we can have multiple movie packs and then select which one we want to use, also if we can have music selections like in GLtron.

...I'm just not that fast at answering e-mails.

Thanks for the email, I had mailed you about a month back, I included a zip file with a map for your site, as I didnt hear anything this time around for a couple of days I figured you had abandoned the project and moved on.

Here are some images of the maps I had sent you originally, I had some textures from a project I was involved with years ago, it was a Tron mod called Utron for the original Unreal Tournament, anyway, I have a bunch of textures and images left over so I stuck some together and made the Tron themed map below, its not a true skybox being 2d images not a real projection made in a 3d program, but it works OK for a quick demo of the program I was doing at the time. I then thought about creating my own universe using your game engine, I sent you some questions but didn't hear back from you, so I mailed you recently but after two days I just thought you had moved on from the engine onto other things that interested you.

Tron theme for GLtron


I will have questions on GLtron, but I am working very very fast, GLtron may get pushed past the Armagetron version and be done second, if anyone can help with above questions please do so, as it really saves a lot of time, this is what eats time, not content creation, but finding things out.

Another question came up, in GLtron one has a view from the bike, we can also do this in Armagetron, now in GLtron if we use the mouse we can see the bike, the camera is just in front, am I right in that Armagetron does view from riding the bike that there is no model, I had a look around at the perspective and could not see the bike behind me, the reason I ask is one could model window frames into the bike model, then in first person mode we can have a window effect, but I dont think this is possible, I think the only way to do something like that is with what in Armagetron is called cockpits/HUD which allow for a 2D graphic effect for windows not a 3D one we could have if the first person view showed the model and we had the window frames as part of the model.

[sinewav]

Heh, there is so much glTron stuff on the Armagetron forum it almost deserves a separate glTron sub forum.

...I think the only way to do something like that is with what in Armagetron is called cockpits/HUD which allow for a 2D graphic effect for windows not a 3D one we could have if the first person view showed the model and we had the window frames as part of the model.

Right. The cockpit in Arma supports transparency, so there is room to be creative with that. Cockpits are a feature of 0.3x branch, not the current stable one. The 0.3x branch also supports music (it has a built-in player and key-bound controls) - but does not support multiple moviepacks yet.

There is another lightcycle game that puts you inside a cycle model and allows you to look around (though not much to see). It's a Windows only app called "Game Grid Champions." It went out of development a long time ago, but if you haven't seen it, it's worth looking at because it's beautiful. It's easily the closest representation of the movie out there.