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Yeah, Fantastic, So Who is poaching the open source community?

 

Hope it all turns out for the best. For my two cents or dime I think some one is out to pouch some one else. Please any one on the TDM forums and developing for the TDM project Don't Stop.

The TDM project is the shiznick of open source free libre game development and IMHO is the best community bar none online in regards to everything.[Full Stop.]

If anyone is offered the chance to better their lives in any way then I say More power to you; But don't forget us, The little followers that need to learn from and stand on the shoulders of the greats.

 

So to some up: Don't forget about the small and needy populous pretty please!

 

PS> Please provide a link and Help every one you can [1]:)

Edited by Tr00pertj

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Yeah, Fantastic, So Who is poaching the open source community?

 

Hope it all turns out for the best. For my two cents or dime I think some one is out to pouch some one else. Please any one on the TDM forums and developing for the TDM project Don't Stop.

The TDM project is the shiznick of open source free libre game development and IMHO is the best community bar none online in regards to everything.[Full Stop.]

If anyone is offered the chance to better their lives in any way then I say More power to you; But don't forget us, The little followers that need to learn from and stand on the shoulders of the greats.

 

So to some up: Don't forget about the small and needy populous pretty please!

 

PS> Please provide a link and Help every one you can [1] :)

What the hell are you talking about? If you are afraid TDM will go to UE4 then you don't need to worry about that, the transfer would be a HUGE undertaking, and i'm talking only about the gameplay code and assets, the missions would be rendered entirely obsolete has porting them to UE4 would be impractical if not impossible, they didn't went to Doom 3 bfg engine and that was, considering things, almost the same engine, but i'm not a TDM developer so they are the ones with the last word, but i find it very unlikely.

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Has any amount of BFG code made its way into TDM 2?

 

No, not really I don't think, although I for one have had a read through the BFG renderer code recently on the lookout for good ideas and cheap upgrades. BFG is still an OpenGL2 renderer, so it's not the first place we'd turn for new features. There are no cool OpenGL3 tricks like instanced drawing and framebuffer use as far as I can see. It has half the job done for gpu vertex skinning, but when we tackle that we'll want to aim for more rather than just copy BFG and stop there, but that bit of code from BFG would be useful as a base. Its parallel processing system is a big upgrade (and looks correspondingly hard to digest), but what it's used for in the renderer (constructing shadow vols, cpu skinning, sillhouette detection, light interaction culling) would probably be easier and faster to do on the gpu using OpenGL3 techniques.

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It has half the job done for gpu vertex skinning, but when we tackle that we'll want to aim for more rather than just copy BFG and stop there, but that bit of code from BFG would be useful as a base. Its parallel processing system is a big upgrade (and looks correspondingly hard to digest), but what it's used for in the renderer (constructing shadow vols, cpu skinning, sillhouette detection, light interaction culling) would probably be easier and faster to do on the gpu using OpenGL3 techniques.

 

What do you mean by "half the job done on GPU vertex skinning" ? What BFG has for GPU skinning is one of the good performance oriented techniques available (coming from another engine author). I'd like to know what would be the other "half" of the skinning :)

 

I believe it's not possible to do all these things BFG currently does on CPU, on GPU. If that was possible, it would have been done on GPU. Afaik, shadow volumes (in any engine) are CPU bound by design. None managed to move all that to GPU.

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What do you mean by "half the job done on GPU vertex skinning" ? What BFG has for GPU skinning is one of the good performance oriented techniques available (coming from another engine author). I'd like to know what would be the other "half" of the skinning :)

I mean that BFG's approach to gpu skinning reduces gpu bus traffic for animated models by about 60% compared with the original doom3 engine, assuming 1 ambient light and 1 shadowcasting light hitting the model. For a mesh hit by more than 1 shadowcasting light, the benefit really is half or less of the total. Those numbers are measured using TDM models, but give or take a few % it'll hold for both games. BFG doesn't cut out any of the calculations for cpu or gpu, because its technique for gpu skinning is to duplicate the work on both processors rather than pass data between the two. That's an ok tactic because the performance-limiting factor is the data transfer, not the number-crunching. But more can be done using OpenGL3 techniques.

 

Measurements in bytes for the bus traffic in 1 frame, for one TDM City Guard seen close-up and hit by 1 shadowcasting light and one ambient:

  • R_CreateAmbientCache 273120 (All verts for the AI, enriched with extra info like normals and texcoords for drawing light interactions)
  • R_CreateVertexProgramShadowCache 74176 (Vert positions only: 2 copies to enable shadow vol projection)
  • idInteraction::AddActiveInteraction 190560 (For light interactions: Indexes of tris hit by each light + the shadowcasting silhouettes for shadowcasting lights)
  • R_AddAmbientDrawsurfs 66312 (Indexes to all verts)
BFG does the verts positioning on both CPU and GPU, so it saves uploading that 350kb for the first two items to the gpu. But it still calculates and uploads the interaction indexes for each light each frame (item 3). Those can be done in OpenGL3 by geometry shaders.

 

Afaik, shadow volumes (in any engine) are CPU bound by design.

I don't think that that's true from what I've read (admittedly, not done it (yet!)). That first book I read on rendering (Real-Time Rendering) describes a technique for shadow volume projection using only vertex shaders, i.e. an OpenGL2 technique, and in OpenGL3 we have geometry shaders that can both discard tris that face away from a light and project shadow volumes without needing the 2nd and 3rd copies of the mesh verts which are used by both doom3 engines. BFG postdated OpenGL3 by a few years but it doesn't use any OpenGL3 techniques in the parts I've looked at so far.
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Well when something is free there is always a catch, first black mark? having to create an account just to download the launcher, second black mark? not very user friendly launcher..

 

Lol, what's wrong with registering? I am sure you had to create account for games or some other software. Epic needs to track usage and whatnot. Kinda a no-brainer to me - I will require some sort of registration for my games just so I could track people back for feedback and whatnot.

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Might have to download this just to see what the editor enviroment is like.

Already did, i could not find a way to make levels on it like on DarkRadiant but i'm a total noob at it so that is expected, was able to make a small map following the online tut's, i like that it has the Maya viewport controls alt+mouse btn's (something that could be implemented in DarkRadiant nice to orbit around a selected object) plus WASD+ mouse btn, just like DR, i also like the way you have interactive tuts right inside the editor, very useful, not even Unity and Cryengine have that, from my first test i could not find a way to copy materials from a surface to another, (but i'm sure that's in, i hope) i like that i can scale models right inside the editor (also something DarkRadiant could do if possible), import a single rock and make a seamless rock wall just by duplicating, scaling and rotating a single mesh!. Don't like the way you change to the orthographic views compared to DR, you have different keys to the different views, drag and drop stuff to the level would sometimes freeze for a little, but loved that you could see a preview of the model, has you dragged around, and it would lock to the surfaces, very useful to put stuff on walls and ceiling, what i found worrisome is that one sun light and one or two point lights, can take minutes to compile on my PC, i can imagine a more complex level taking hours. Just like the Unity 5 video i found the lighting, the extreme shiny surfaces and glaring light a tad over the top.

Edited by HMart
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I think if an indie team wanted to make any kind of stealth game, they'd do well to use TDM engine as a base, especially with the AI state system that's so complicated and pretty robust now. When we get the rendering upgrade, it'll be even more competitive.

 

I agree building with our engine is probably more friendly for an indie team than UE4 too.

 

I'm pretty sure teams debating which engine to use probably won't even think of the TDM engine as a viable choice, or know how advanced it is over the id4 engine.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Mind that i'm a complete noob regarding game engines, or editors. But isn't the big issue with TDM, and its engine the performance of outside levels, and the limited amount of AI's you can have in your levels? And lack of multicore support?

 

I'd really like to see some Thief-, Deus Ex- or stealth like game made on a modern engine. Hope someone will take on that one day.

Edited by chakkman
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The amount of ai is not that limited. You cannot have 100 of them in a single room, but if spreaded out enough and using interleaved thinking (which I think was implemented by grayman) can help a lot.

 

Regarding outside levels, we have LOD. The issue is that most mappers do not excessively use it. The deal is that idTech 4, the base of our engine wasn't designed for large outdoor levels. In return, other engines (for example those who are suited for large outdoor levels like CryEngine) are in return not that powerful in regards to high-detailed interiours.

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Regarding outside levels, we have LOD. The issue is that most mappers do not excessively use it. The deal is that idTech 4, the base of our engine wasn't designed for large outdoor levels. In return, other engines (for example those who are suited for large outdoor levels like CryEngine) are in return not that powerful in regards to high-detailed interiours.

 

You should probably play Crysis 3 to see how detailed interiors are.

 

As for AI, I am sure any game with a lot of thinking smart AI will bog down performance. So I don't believe it's relevant to the engine.

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Alright, thanks for the heads up. :) Does LOD mean that far away stuff isn't displayed as detailled as nearer stuff?

That's right, far-away models automatically switch to a lower-poly version. We've had a small handful of LOD models for years, but Springheel added a load more in 2.03, plus LOD AI, which switch seamlessly to lower-poly meshes when further off.

 

There are other things we'd want to fix for wide-open outdoor scenes. Instanced drawing and (sorry to bring it up again but) shadow mapping for moonlight :)

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The amount of ai is not that limited. You cannot have 100 of them in a single room, but if spreaded out enough and using interleaved thinking (which I think was implemented by grayman) can help a lot.

 

 

Interleaved thinking was done by greebo and angua.

 

I corrected some problems w/it later on when I found out it was killing patrolling AI.

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The amount of ai is not that limited. You cannot have 100 of them in a single room, but if spreaded out enough and using interleaved thinking (which I think was implemented by grayman) can help a lot.

 

 

If anyone is ever bored with some time on their hands, I'd love to see a run-down of how many AI are used in various missions, and what the largest number is.

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If anyone is ever bored with some time on their hands, I'd love to see a run-down of how many AI are used in various missions, and what the largest number is.

This is just a search for "classname"<spaces>"atdm:ai so won't include script-spawned AI and custom AI, which I guess is why Ulysses is only listed with 6, for example, but to give a flavour of off-the-shelf AI use:

 

 

startpack\startmap.pk4 -> maps/startmap.map 	160
naog\naog.pk4 -> maps/naog.map 	63
alchemist\alchemist.pk4 -> maps/alchemist.map 	57
nhat2\nhat2.pk4 -> maps/anoott.map 	55
rightful\rightful.pk4 -> maps/rightful.map 	51
ws3_cleighmoor\ws3_cleighmoor.pk4 -> maps/ws3_cleighmoor.map 	49
briarwood\briarwood.pk4 -> maps/briarwoodcathedral.map 	45
lordsnlegacy\lordsnlegacy.pk4 -> maps/lordsnlegacy.map 	43
nhat2\nhat2.pk4 -> maps/politics.map 	42
nhat2\nhat2.pk4 -> maps/forest.map 	40
requiem\requiem.pk4 -> maps/requiem.map 	40
ws1_north\maps\ws1_north.map 	37
ws2_homeagain\ws2_homeagain.pk4 -> maps/ws2_homeagain.map 	37
alberic3\alberic3.pk4 -> maps/alberic.map 	35
heartv2\heartv2.pk4 -> maps/heart.map 	35
penny2\penny2.pk4 -> maps/allthewayup.map 	34
blackbog\blackbog.pk4 -> maps/blackbog.map 	31
cathedral\cathedral.pk4 -> maps/cathedral.map 	31
lockner\lockner.pk4 -> maps/locknermanor.map 	30
samhain\samhain.pk4 -> maps/samhain.map 	30
innbiz\maps\innbiz.map 	29
business3\business3.pk4 -> maps/business.map 	28
siegeshop\siegeshop.pk4 -> maps/siegeshop.map 	28
betrayal\betrayal.pk4 -> maps/betrayal.map 	27
penny\penny.pk4 -> maps/penny.map 	25
returntothecity\returntothecity.pk4 -> maps/ReturnToTheCity.map 	25
houseoftheo\houseoftheo.pk4 -> maps/houseoftheo.map 	24
oldhabits1\maps\mc.map 	24
score_to_settle\score_to_settle.pk4 -> maps/spring13.map 	24
sound_alert_trainer\sound_alert_trainer.pk4 -> maps/sound_alert_helmet_trainer.map 	24
sound_alert_trainer\sound_alert_trainer.pk4 -> maps/sound_alert_trainer.map 	24
vfat1\vfat1.pk4 -> maps/pawn.map 	24
beleaguered_fence\beleaguered_fence.pk4 -> maps/beleaguered_fence.map 	23
holetower\holetower.pk4 -> maps/holetower.map 	23
phrase_book\phrase_book.pk4 -> maps/phrase_book.map 	22
rift\rift.pk4 -> maps/rift.map 	22
vfat2\vfat2.pk4 -> maps/art2.map 	22
follow\follow.pk4 -> maps/follow01.map 	21
knighton_manor\knighton_manor.pk4 -> maps/knightons_manor.map 	21
lockdown1_2_1\lockdown1_2_1.pk4 -> maps/lockdown.map 	21
transaction\transaction.pk4 -> maps/transaction.map 	21
breakingout\breakingout.pk4 -> maps/goneinsmoke.map 	19
kneipe24\kneipe24.pk4 -> maps/kneipe24.map 	19
lstl\lstl.pk4 -> maps/lstl.map 	19
sneak_destroy\sneak_destroy.pk4 -> maps/kneipe24.map 	19
mandrasola\mandrasola.pk4 -> maps/mandrasola.map 	18
reap\reap.pk4 -> maps/reap.map 	18
training_mission\training_mission.pk4 -> maps/training_mission.map 	18
windowopportunity\windowopportunity.pk4 -> maps/windowopportunity.map 	18
bh\bh.pk4 -> maps/bh.map 	17
bh\maps\bh.map 	17
flakebridge\flakebridge.pk4 -> maps/aboutpostii.map 	17
rake_off\rake_off.pk4 -> maps/thewall.map 	17
sons_of_baltona_1\sons_of_baltona_1.pk4 -> maps/sons_of_baltona_1_beta.map 	17
builders_influence\builders_influence.pk4 -> maps/builders_influence.map 	16
glenham_tower\glenham_tower.pk4 -> maps/glenham_tower.map 	16
living_expenses\living_expenses.pk4 -> maps/living_expenses.map 	16
somewhere1_1\somewhere1_1.pk4 -> maps/somewhere.map 	16
deceptiveshadowsv1_2\deceptiveshadowsv1_2.pk4 -> maps/deceptiveshadows.map 	15
delivery\delivery_l10n.pk4 -> maps/delivery.map 	15
delivery\delivery.pk4 -> maps/delivery.map 	15
remembrance\remembrance.pk4 -> maps/remembrance.map 	15
stalban\stalban.pk4 -> maps/caduceus.map 	15
trapped\trapped.pk4 -> maps/trapped.map 	15
madmountain\madmountain.pk4 -> maps/madMountain.map 	14
patently_dangerous\patently_dangerous.pk4 -> maps/patently_dangerous.map 	14
\angelx.map 	13
crystalgrave2_1\crystalgrave2_1.pk4 -> maps/krysztalowygrob1.map 	13
onesteptoofar\onesteptoofar.pk4 -> maps/onesteptoofar.map 	13
storm\storm.pk4 -> maps/storm.map 	13
thieves\thieves.pk4 -> maps/thieves.map 	13
chalice\chalice.pk4 -> maps/chalice.map 	12
anh\anh.pk4 -> maps/anh.map 	11
fauchard\fauchard.pk4 -> maps/fauchard.map 	11
lich_queens_demise\lich_queens_demise_l10n.pk4 -> maps/lich_queens_demise.map 	11
lich_queens_demise\lich_queens_demise.pk4 -> maps/lich_queens_demise.map 	11
broads\broads.pk4 -> maps/builderroads.map 	10
pandoras_box\pandoras_box.pk4 -> maps/airship.map 	8
solarescape1\solarescape1.pk4 -> maps/solarescape1.map 	7
antr\antr.pk4 -> maps/antr.map 	6
crown_of_penitence\crown_of_penitence.pk4 -> maps/crown_of_penitence.map 	6
exhumed\exhumed.pk4 -> maps/exhumed.map 	6
gatehouse1_3\gatehouse1_3.pk4 -> maps/ghouse.map 	6
outpost\outpost.pk4 -> maps/outpost.map 	6
parcel\parcel.pk4 -> maps/parcel_beta1.map 	6
poets\poets.pk4 -> maps/poets.map 	6
too_late\too_late.pk4 -> maps/too_late.map 	6
ulysses_genesis\ulysses_genesis.pk4 -> maps/ulysses_genesis.map 	6
timeofneed\timeofneed.pk4 -> maps/timeofneed.map 	4
thiefsden\thiefsden.pk4 -> maps/thiefs_den.map 	3
closemouthed_shadows\closemouthed_shadows.pk4 -> maps/closemouthed_shadows.map 	2
thecreeps\thecreeps.pk4 -> maps/003.map 	2
thecreeps\thecreeps.pk4 -> maps/shade.map 	2

 

 

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If anyone is ever bored with some time on their hands,

 

 

I can't think of anyone who fits less into that category. :P

 

 

 

I had no idea the numbers were so high for some missions.

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