got my export scripting working, now I am changing the AS3 code,- but before that I prepared already the test objects I created so far, most with 3 levels other with just 2.
in the most extreme situation I save with these models about 60+% so that cuts more than 1/2 of the triangles away without any engine overheat, just switching face, vertex and UV arrays.
hopefully I will get something running within the engine this night.
made some progress on the code, got the LOD working and it runs a fair amount smoother thanks to optimized LOD models in the background.
I also clipped objects with bounding volumes that are < 4 pixels on screen which removes a lot of tiny objects which are not visible within such a pixelated resolution.
I also changed the trees for ones with less triangles and nicer textures (a gradient on top of them makes them better pop out in the masses). I also did some interesting experiments with the textures like scaling them on the x-axis resulting in a similar effect like speed blur while requiring just 1/2 of the space.
there is also less popping now with close distances. Next I need to address some camera transformation issues - but it is progressing nice
I plan on creating a dutch track with farming houses and nature along the roads. In this context (low poly texturing) I created [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4JoseptQ-8"]some scripts for adjusting UV-islands on a pixel basis[/ame].
I need to dig into the 3d engine code soon again and fix some core stuff as well as improve the pipeline for exporting and reading stuff - so I can play faster and easier with new art content in the engine.
I once I have some of those models in the engine I will post some shots or a new demo.
some target shots of what I first want to aim for in the engine:
but for that I need to work more on the tech so that I can easier change and modify the track and the prefabs.
I updated some of the tools for this project:
And right now I am scripting a converter for the Track spline so that I can create those within max and also preview them there using PointCurves because that as far as I can tell using the same math as I did.
Brilliant stuff- really coming together nicely with the scenery now! Are you upscaling the lower res one somehow to get the blocky effect within flash, or was it just scaled up for the screenshot?
Brilliant stuff- really coming together nicely with the scenery now! Are you upscaling the lower res one somehow to get the blocky effect within flash, or was it just scaled up for the screenshot?
No I actually render just a fraction of the visible screen and then blow the buffer bitmap up afterwards. That way the flash renderer needs to render way less texels (pixel space of the visible texture triangles) + I get that old school effect so its booth a technical and visual choice (it really makes a difference, performance wise sometimes even +10 fps). The scanline effect is a bitmap that is overlaid over the whole composition.
I have my spline script working in max so that I can now read out the spline tracks and export them to the engine. Will post some screens again as soon as there is something worthy to show.
will put out some scripts and sample files once things are becoming more clear.
meanwhile the first online demo after a while: dmo07.swf
(no visual preloader,- wait till its loaded completely)
Controls:
- mouse move = rotate & zoom in / out
- mouse wheel = change rendering scale (up to crazy 16x)
- mouse click = switch to debug view on/off
This demo has some LOD models that are switched as soon as you move further or closer. In the debug mode you will see that all LOD enabled models have some kind of a needle like a clock. They represent the current LOD state, you should see some marks like in a clock that represent the individual states.
Some LOD stats:
- road tile: 5 LOD levels ranging from 64 down to 8 tris.
- ferrari: 4 LOD levels
- porsche: 4 LOD levels
- trees: 2 LOD levels ranging from 8 down to 4 tris.
the buildings don't have yet any kind of LOD levels
I really like the way this is going. Trees flicker a lot, but I guess you already know that. There's a hole when two pieces of road with different lods meet each other. The higher road lod doesn't add significant detail, IMO you should just leave they all on low and spend the extra polies fixing the trees, since they take so much screen space.
I know about the flickering,- its obvious. I think I will divide the Tree-planes for the closer LOD levels so they don't flicker and intersect that obvious when viewing close. When viewing objects from further away its not that visible that things either flicker or intersect not so nice.
Today I wrote some more Actionscript within the loading process code:
The code is not yet done but this is roughly of what I plan for or have in mind. Also some of the debug stuff has been enhanced so that I only see bounding box and LOD details on close objects- so that it is less chaos like in that mode.
I got the Atlas Texture fetching working and also the Textures itself are generated and assigned to the objects, though the UV offset is not yet implemented.
Here is a screenshot of the current build:
note that here it already compresses 99% because there is only 1 texture in use - so all triangle drawing calls can be merged together.
That is so fucking rad. No crashes here in Opera 10 and Win7. Getting a bit of flickering, as well as some sorting issues (most notable one being that large building, though that's visible in your screenshot)
edit: Frustum culling seems a bit aggressive at lower angles, too (to the sides, at least)
Replies
in the most extreme situation I save with these models about 60+% so that cuts more than 1/2 of the triangles away without any engine overheat, just switching face, vertex and UV arrays.
hopefully I will get something running within the engine this night.
I also clipped objects with bounding volumes that are < 4 pixels on screen which removes a lot of tiny objects which are not visible within such a pixelated resolution.
I also changed the trees for ones with less triangles and nicer textures (a gradient on top of them makes them better pop out in the masses). I also did some interesting experiments with the textures like scaling them on the x-axis resulting in a similar effect like speed blur while requiring just 1/2 of the space.
there is also less popping now with close distances. Next I need to address some camera transformation issues - but it is progressing nice
no demo update as of now
Good choice on the trees, alot of games still do it that way...
I plan on creating a dutch track with farming houses and nature along the roads. In this context (low poly texturing) I created [ame="
I need to dig into the 3d engine code soon again and fix some core stuff as well as improve the pipeline for exporting and reading stuff - so I can play faster and easier with new art content in the engine.
I once I have some of those models in the engine I will post some shots or a new demo.
but for that I need to work more on the tech so that I can easier change and modify the track and the prefabs.
I updated some of the tools for this project:
And right now I am scripting a converter for the Track spline so that I can create those within max and also preview them there using PointCurves because that as far as I can tell using the same math as I did.
I dig it!
ask me for an innovator and i will show you renderhjs
I have my spline script working in max so that I can now read out the spline tracks and export them to the engine. Will post some screens again as soon as there is something worthy to show.
Do you need someone to model the lovely Lotus Esprit? :poly124:
Regards.
i like doing lowpoly stuff
Though there is a high chance the track would be very phallic in shape.
meanwhile the first online demo after a while:
dmo07.swf
(no visual preloader,- wait till its loaded completely)
Controls:
- mouse move = rotate & zoom in / out
- mouse wheel = change rendering scale (up to crazy 16x)
- mouse click = switch to debug view on/off
This demo has some LOD models that are switched as soon as you move further or closer. In the debug mode you will see that all LOD enabled models have some kind of a needle like a clock. They represent the current LOD state, you should see some marks like in a clock that represent the individual states.
Some LOD stats:
- road tile: 5 LOD levels ranging from 64 down to 8 tris.
- ferrari: 4 LOD levels
- porsche: 4 LOD levels
- trees: 2 LOD levels ranging from 8 down to 4 tris.
the buildings don't have yet any kind of LOD levels
still same link:
http://www.renderhjs.net/bbs/polycount/raceEngine/dmo07/RaceEngine.swf
[ame]
Today I wrote some more Actionscript within the loading process code:
The code is not yet done but this is roughly of what I plan for or have in mind. Also some of the debug stuff has been enhanced so that I only see bounding box and LOD details on close objects- so that it is less chaos like in that mode.
Here is a screenshot of the current build:
note that here it already compresses 99% because there is only 1 texture in use - so all triangle drawing calls can be merged together.
here is a current demo:
online demo
note that the pink matted textures are the ones with the Texture Atlas usage:
this time the demo has 20 cars racing around
online demo
edit: Frustum culling seems a bit aggressive at lower angles, too (to the sides, at least)
working on some kind of rendersorting too atm.. this stuff is really nasty :poly122:
great work and cool graphics !!