SABRE - (Stable Actor Based Raycasting Engine) - UPDATES!

[Lacotemale]

I was thinking about the floor/ceiling. It seems in your demo that the canvas erases with solid black. Would it be easy to erase that with a transparent color? That way, one could add a new canvas underneath and add some mode 7 code to give a cool ceiling affect (or maybe you'll figure out a way to do it all in one canvas, that would probably be better). If not, at least one could change the color of the ceiling / floor.

I already asked about that! I think it will come in the future.

[lcl]

Sabre is such a good acronym btw

That's good to hear, you don't know how stressed I was about whether it was good or not..

Why wouldn't it be? there are so many cool things associated with sabres!

That's true.

You or someone should make a game called Sabre with the Sabre engine. Some kind of dungeon crawler.

I already have plans on making a game with Sabre when it's ready. And I have a plan on what kind of game I'll create, and it's not dungeon crawler, but something new in a way.
But the game won't be named Sabre..

I was thinking about the floor/ceiling. It seems in your demo that the canvas erases with solid black. Would it be easy to erase that with a transparent color? That way, one could add a new canvas underneath and add some mode 7 code to give a cool ceiling affect (or maybe you'll figure out a way to do it all in one canvas, that would probably be better). If not, at least one could change the color of the ceiling / floor.

It would be really easy to erase with transparent color, just change the last 0 to 1 and it will erase it with fully transparent black -> it will be transparent.
It would then be possible to place a normal actor with some color or texture in it under the canvas to make a still ground.

BUT, as Lacotemale said, I am going to try my luck at floor and ceiling casting too, so it is possible that those are included in Sabre, too.

I am also working on adding support for animated textures. The textures just must be done like so, that the animation frames are on top of each other. Then Sabre will be able to calculated the correct frame and the correct vertical stripe from that frame to be drawn.

[moonforge]

I just took a look at this and, well...

Next we're going to have geminecraft!

[lcl]

.

SABRE World Editor progress updates - (newest update first):

-----08.01.2015-----

• Smooth rendering of the blocks drawn on the grid, the editor won't start lagging when you draw bigger maps
• Colors represent different textures, later on you'll be able to modify the colors, add new colors and tag the colors with a texture name so that you'll always know what texture each color means.
• For adding new colors, I've programmed a color selector that uses HSV (or HSB, depends on what you want to call it) color system. That is because normal RGB system makes it kinda difficult to find a specific color. But don't worry, you'll also be able to use the normal RGB colors
• Bresenham's line drawing algorithm is now implemented for placing blocks in straight lines
• A middle-point ellipse algorithm is implemented for placing blocks in ellipse-like formations (this one still needs some adjustment, but already works basically)
• The editor has an automatic system checking for errors in the level structure, and it warns you for example if the player spawn point is placed inside a wall, or if the level edges have a "leak", i.e. the walls don't form a closed shape, which is a problem because it would allow the player to walk outside of the map array causing undefined behavior, most likely crashing the game. But yeah, the editor won't allow you to make mistakes like that. In case you're interested, the piece of code that checks this utilizes an algorithm similar to a recursive flood fill
• The level testing in 3D works, too
• A video about these updates:
  

-----31.05.2014-----

• The editor project has been rebooted due to bad coding of the first version.
• This means that all features the editor had have to be recoded to fit to the new editor, so there's quite a lot work to be done for getting back to the same level with the new editor where I was with the old one. However, this time the editor will be a lot nicer to use and it will support zooming in and out.
• The new editor will also be easily usable in any resolution you wish. All you will have to do to set the resolution to you liking is to change the project's resolution from the Game Editor's Config -> Game Properties -> Game resolution.
• Below is a screenshot of the new editor at it's current stage. The GUI is just for testing and may be completely different in the final version.
  
  Click to view full size image

The old, cancelled World Editor:
-----24.03.2013-----

• Converting the 2D map to 3D world now works without issues.
• Made a video showing the current stage of the level editor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5oz9D3nae4
  
  -----20.03.2013-----
• I've begun testing the 2D overview to 3D rendering and it works at some stage.
• Also worked on making the world dimensions dynamic. Works ok now. This means that the editor will be able to create any size levels/worlds.

[RippeR7420]

WOW. This is ridiculously awesome! Reminds of the early Elder Scrolls games!

Keep up the great work!

[RippeR7420]

Like this!

[moonforge]

I don't think adding enemies is possible in a 3D game with gE. I could be wrong, but I don't think there's any way to rotate the actors like that just yet.

[lcl]

WOW. This is ridiculously awesome! Reminds of the early Elder Scrolls games!

Keep up the great work!

Thanks RippeR! I will keep u the good work, the engine is making progress every day.

I don't think adding enemies is possible in a 3D game with gE. I could be wrong, but I don't think there's any way to rotate the actors like that just yet.

While it is not possible to use 3D models in Game Editor, it still is possible to use pre-rendered sprites.
So, enemies can be added by making a 3D model with animation and then pre-rendering it from different angles.
Or one can just draw the character in 2D but make animations of him from different angles. Like walking left, right, up (forward), down (backward) and diagonal directions.
Then it is possible to draw the enemy with the correct animation, and it will look ok.
You will see how this works when I publish my example game made using Sabre.

[moonforge]

Okay, you definetly get a +1 for this. If you get the level editor fully working, I will be jumping for joy! I'm hoping for a possibility of the common gE user making 3D games. I know that's looking a bit into the future, but it would be pretty incredible.

[lcl]

Okay, you definetly get a +1 for this. If you get the level editor fully working, I will be jumping for joy! I'm hoping for a possibility of the common gE user making 3D games. I know that's looking a bit into the future, but it would be pretty incredible.

I will get the level editor fully working, it's nothing hard. It just takes some time since there is quite a lot to do.

When Sabre is ready, we will be pretty close to your wish. Only disadvantage is that there is no support for movement on y axis.
This means that it is not possible to have multiple floors nor move between them.
When the level editor is ready, I will look into it, if there was something to make it possible, but for now it seems that Sabre won't be able
to have more than one floor per level.

[Jagmaster]

The map editor looks pretty neat. And those drawing functions will make map editing pretty efficient (especially with huge maps).
So if I understand correctly, each tile in the map file is projected on all four sides of a cube? What will be the maximum map size?

[lcl]

The map editor looks pretty neat. And those drawing functions will make map editing pretty efficient (especially with huge maps).
So if I understand correctly, each tile in the map file is projected on all four sides of a cube? What will be the maximum map size?

Yes, if you've taken a look at Sabre's codes, you can see the world being a 2D array, in which one number means one block, and the value of the number
represents the texture number. And there will be no maximum map size, the editor will be capable of creating levels with any size wanted.

[lcl]

I updated the post explaining about the world editor for Sabre.
Some new tools have been added.

Direct link to the post: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=12644&p=90376#p90376

[lcl]

* Triple post! *

Sorry for that guys, I just felt I HAD TO write this update post about one more great feature I've managed to get working.

I experimented with the way Sabre draws the game world, and I found out that it is possible to move the view on y axis.
What I mean with this, is that I've found a way to simulate the player crouching/crawling by making the level be drawn like as if the player
was watching it from a lower position than his normal eye level is.
(My explanation is bad, I know. That's why I let images do the further explaining.)

Standing:


Crawling:


And, well, one more thing..
With little tweaking of this thing, it might be possible to have Sabre support multiple floors in levels.
So that there could be staircases that would lead to higher floors!

[kickstart]

Those are both really awesome! I do not know how you will pull off multiple floors, but I am sure am excited to see. Do you think that you would be able to make the view have a weapon or some sort to make a Call of Duty like game, well any first player shooting game in a 3D level?