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Multiplayer LBT RPG game

action9000 · 224 · 41104

SolarThreehorn

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Oh... I've got DirectX 10, then should it work ?


Mumbling

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I think he developed the game for DirectX 9.


action9000

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Quote
Odd.. Then it isn't just me..

http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/d3dx9_35.zip?0VDePDWKiR here we can download it.

Just copy the dll file and put it in C:Windows/System

I think you should add that to the zipped thing Tim. 
I'll be sure to do that for the next package I post here. :)


NeptuneNavigator2001

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That would save me from having to look up that link...

By the way, I already told Iris, but, for anyone else that might not know, DirectX 10 is backwards-compatible with DirectX 9...
"And the Most High said unto Moses, Ahayah-Asher-Ahayah.  And he said, Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, Ahayah hath sent me unto you...  This is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto all generations."

1953-2011...  One day, mother, I shall see you again...


Mumbling

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Well.. I have researched Land Before Time II. I uploaded a zipped file in which everything is explained.

In the maps you can find screenshots of that place the map is named after. Next to that I made a word document in which I tell about their place in the valley and how the place looks like. With the screenshots I try to make clear clear how it looks like. I also drew up a map/chart thingy with a key to make several places clear, though it isn't sure if those places are really there, they might be on different positions.

This is just how I thought they valley looks like in lbt 2 ^^ Not the creators own work, so if I were you I won't trust on me only.

Well.. here it is, finally.. Stupid slow uploading(and stupid driveway, again it didn't accept my file.. sigh)(that means I first have to wait til it's uploaded 100%(that takes 20 minutes) and then they will tell me the file is invalid.. That's very weird because they say they accept all files..).. Lot of brackets :lol

Land Before Time 2

By the way, I might have made some typos in the word document.. I've got a bad keyboard on my room haha.


Kor

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Mumbling

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Sorry for those of you who clicked the link and couldn't access the file, I now edited it =)..






SolarThreehorn

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That map you did is pretty spot on, i've got a screenshot that fit's the map perfectly


Mumbling

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Cool  :lol: Really that's awesome.. It means that my mind got the places kind of right.

I have done thesame for LBT3. Sadly enough I didnt get thesame result. I couldn't find any special places and the gang was mostly at the water place or in the forest. So I will not do it for lbt 3 and move on to lbt 4.


NeptuneNavigator2001

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Wonderful work, Iris!  Wow...  You really thought this out!  Heh! :P: Great job!
"And the Most High said unto Moses, Ahayah-Asher-Ahayah.  And he said, Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, Ahayah hath sent me unto you...  This is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto all generations."

1953-2011...  One day, mother, I shall see you again...


action9000

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Game update! :D
http://search3.idrive.com/driveway/jsp/dwa...p?id=l9n2i2y9a7


The following fixes and updates have been made:

New Stuff:

-Gravity!   :wow Press the Space bar to jump.  You will fall at an ever-increasing speed until you hit the ground (no air resistance, just the acceleration of gravity).  You are not able to jump while in the air.

-Frames Per Second counter.  The number in the upper-left quadrant of the screen is your Frames Per Second.  I limited the max framerate to 60, in order to keep it in sync with LCD monitors.  Ideally, that Frames Per Second number should always be 60, but as you'll see...it won't be. :(

-Included that DirectX 9 .DLL file that was missing and attached a .txt file explaining how to install the program.
[EDIT] the text file says to put it in Windows\System.  I believe that is supposed to be Windows\System32.

Fix:
-The camera now crashes properly into the ground, no matter where the ground is.  This should work for any ground shape now.  Before, it only worked if the ground was flat.

Known Bugs:
-Poor Framerate while a mouse button is held down (30 FPS on my computer).
I honestly don't know what I can do about this.  It takes all the code I have in there to move the camera properly.  I don't know how I can fix this.
There really isn't that much code...I don't know why it's slowing down so badly.  I'm still looking into this.
(Well...I guess my camera code is 350 lines long, but only about 100 of that is for any one mouse button. It shouldn't be *this* slow, should it?  It shouldn't cut my framerate in Half!  Besides, even with no mouse buttons pressed, a lot of camera code is executed.)



-Game goes out of sync when the framerate is below 60 frames per second.
Basically, the lower the framerate is, the slower the code runs.  Ideally, the code should always run at 60 FPS no matter what the video framerate is doing.  The video shouldn't slow down the entire program.
I am researching a timer/sync system which may solve the sync issue.  This MUST be resolved before the game can be made multiplayer, or else players will be out of sync with each other.  Hold the mouse button and move.  You'll notice that you suddenly move slower than when you're not holding the mouse button.  That is the sync issue I need to address and fix.
Here is my solution.
http://www.thegamecreators.com/data/newsle...ssue_42.html#13
I just need to figure out how to impliment it.

-If you walk/jump off the game world, you will not fall properly.  This is because I use "raycasting" to calculate where the ground is.  Basically, I fire a "beam" straight down from the player, in order to find the distance to the ground.  The beam tells my program how far away the nearest object is that the beam touches.  If there is no object (aka.ground), it gives me a value of 0.  Therefore my program thinks you're on the ground (distance of 0 to the ground, therefore you must be on the ground, right?  RIGHT? :p) and you don't fall.

This won't be an issue for the actual gameplay because there will ALWAYS be some kind of ground eventually. :p  I made sure to make the beam long enough that even if you're falling off the highest mountain into an ocean, it will be able to see the ground.  B) (you may not survive the fall, but hey, at least know how far you fell!  :lol )

Anyone who wants to mess around with this program and let me know how it works, that would be awesome!

The controls again are:
W = move forward
S = move backward
A = turn left
D = turn right
Q = strafe left
E = strafe right
SPACEBAR = jump
Left-click the mouse to control the camera with the mouse.
Right-click the mouse to rotate your player while controlling the camera with the mouse.

[EDIT] I fixed the framerate issue when holding down a mouse button.  That fix will appear in the next release. :)  It was actually an easy fix: using a different function to check for collisions.  The one I had in there was disgustingly slow. :p

I haven't yet been able to get the sync issue resolved.  I've ben fighting with it all evening with no success. :(


Mumbling

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sadly enough it still says that the dll is missing, stupid computer searches in thesame map I open te game.. So if I have it in my documents and the dll both in my documents and system/system32 folder it says: 'the application of DLL-file C:\documents and settings\kuppen\my documents\d3dx9_35.dll is not a valid windows-copy. Control this on your installationdisk.'

O yea.. Deleted it from that map, then it goes searching in windows32 folder. Still says it's not valid. somehow, your dll was a bigger file then the one I downloaded before. Maybe it has to do with that. I'll download the old one again.

edit: Yes.. the one I downloaded does work.. Hmm.. Sad

I tried the game, with me the number kept on saying 29, except for when I jump(it goes around 45) and when I am on the green part(makes it 51) but never 60.. might be my computer.


action9000

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Hmm, okay.  Thank you very much Mumbling, for your feedback! :)

Quote
I tried the game, with me the number kept on saying 29, except for when I jump(it goes around 45) and when I am on the green part(makes it 51) but never 60.. might be my computer.
29 frames per second when rendering a cube on a flat map in 800x600 resolution...I really hope I can get the code better than that. :p  That's going to be brutal when we have the code for a whole game around this, too.

I tried running this program on my older computer and I get a lousy framerate on that, too.  This code obviously needs to be optimised, I just don't know what I can do.  I need all my code!

[EDIT] I found the source of the slow framerate: the .x files (the files that contain the map that you move around).  In other words, I need to find either a new way to make maps or a new way to render maps in the game...not sure which just yet.  Good start though! At least I know where to start looking.

I made an interesting discovery today: The game runs smoother when it's not running fullscreen.  I set up a timer which times how long it takes to run through the code and calculate the rendering for 1 frame.  This number varies between 16/17ms ( = 1/60 of a second = 60 Frames per second, which lines up with the game clock) and 36ms.......

That 36ms comes in every so often in fullscreen and temporarily kills the framerate (every, like 50th frame or so is rendered twice as slow as a normal frame for an unknown reason).  I have no idea why.  I also have no idea why when I run the program in windowed mode (not fullscreen) that 36ms goes away and the rendering time is a consistant 16/17ms: exactly what it's supposed to be.

for example, in fullscreen I see:
16,17,17,16,17,17,16,17,17,16,17,17,36,17,17,16,17,17,16,17,17,36,17,17...

in windowed mode I see:
16,17,17,16,17,17,16,17,17,16,17,17,16,17,17,16,17,17,16,17,17,16,17,17...
No 36's :p


action9000

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Okay, I have some really good news for everybody:
Get this....
The basic engine WORKS! :D  :D  :wow

Here is a list of the updates:

New Stuff:
None this time.  I just made everything work.

Fixes:
-Fixed the issue where the game speed was dependant on the video framerate.  No matter what your Frames per second is now, the game will run at exactly the same speed.  This means....multiplayer is now possible to synchronize!

-Found the source of the poor framerate bug.  This has not yet been fixed but I at least know where to start on it now.  It relates to the maps, not the engine itself.

-Much better framerate when moving the camera.

Known Bugs:
-The camera won't go below 0 degrees relative to the Z axis.  I will address this when I can more easily address it (when I have more complex maps to test the camera on).  It is not a concern for me at this moment.

-Very poor framerate.  This is related to the maps, not the program itself (if I turn the maps off, the program runs really good).  I'll try to address this in future versions.

With the fix of the sync issue, the completion of a basic camera system and the introduction of gravity, I think we're ready to start making stuff that's more fun than little cubes on flat planes!  

Coming soon:
-Title screen
-Host Game / Join Game
-Options menu, with a few things in it for now.  More to come later.
-Character Select Screen
-Loading screen(s)
-a 3d mini-world for testing, more complex than a flat plane.


Kor

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I am not sure if I understood the technical stuff, but good luck.  Sounds like some of it will be a headache and currently is.


action9000

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I'm proud to announce that, as of now, our game has broken the milestone of 1,000 lines of code! :D

I'm working on getting a main menu system implimented now.


action9000

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Verion 0.00004 (we're getting fewer 0's every time! :D :lol ) is available for download now!
http://search3.idrive.com/driveway/jsp/dwa...p?id=l4u2u9x5a5

The following is a list of updates in this release.  Combine these with the updates found in the previous post to see all of the changes since the last program I posted here.

New Stuff:

-I actually included the correct .DLL file this time.  :p This should work by simply extracting everything to the same location.  I think the issue with my old .DLL file is that I'm using 64-bit version of stuff because I'm on a 64-bit version of Windows XP and your computers weren't liking my 64-bit directX files. :p
I could be wrong....anyway, this one has worked on every computer I tested. :P:

-I replaced the black loading screen with a graphic that actually tells you that the program is doing something, rather than just staring you in the face. :p

-Added a (useless at this point) menu system.  Move your mouse around it, click on stuff.  You'll see where I'm going with the menu system in the future.  You can exit the game by pressing ESC on the menu or during gameplay.

-Added a bunch of (temporary) graphics files to go along with the menu system.  Simply leave them in the Images folder and the program will sort it all out. :)

-I just polished the look of the program a little bit by getting rid of all of my random text that pops up on the screen and putting a comment next to the framerate indicator.

Bug Fixes:
None this time.

Known bugs:

-Still a very bad framerate.  Again, this is because of the maps we're using.  I've taken the maps out of the code and the framerate is awesome when I do that.  The player movement/camera movement code is all fine.

-The "Resolution" option in the Options menu doesn't do anything at all.  I'm still playing with how I want to do that.

-You still can't move the camera lower than 0 degrees on the Z axis, I don't think.

(btw, we're at 1,141 lines of code now. :p)


Mumbling

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eh, o my god it's slow. Ok I know I play in fullscreen which is 1280x720, but it hardly moves eh. framerate is 2 or 1. Well that I can hardly move is all I can say, the menu idea is working fine.

With the new maps: 57/58