My current project

[Zivouhr]

Cool. Yes, SABRE is the priority since it's the foundation the other game will depend on.

[lcl]

Cool. Yes, SABRE is the priority since it's the foundation the other game will depend on.

Exactly.

[Zivouhr]

Lcl, what would be the biggest programming challenge you've had creating SABRE? What are some of the limits you've reached if any, and can they be overcome?
I like how you can have an overhead map in SABRE, and then enter the blocks in 2D space, then test it in 3D space. Very nicely done.
I wonder how big of a maze or land you can create within the 3D realm? Nice range of textures too.

[lcl]

Lcl, what would be the biggest programming challenge you've had creating SABRE?

Well, so far the biggest challenge may have been the sprite drawing.
Even though I followed a good tutorial when implementing the sprite drawing, I still managed to fail it three times in a row and always had to start over because I couldn't find where I had gone wrong

The tutorials SABRE is based on are made by Lode Vandevenne and can be found from his Computer Graphics Tutorial -page under 'Raycasting'.

Those tutorials are for C programming in general, and not for Game Editor, so I've had to find alternate ways of doing some things, and to come up with shortcuts to speed up the drawing process, as Game Editor's drawing functions can't handle pixel-by-pixel drawing with enough speed.

Of course, the tutorials only cover the basic parts of the raycasting and drawing themselves, and SABRE already has much more features for games than the raycasting engine in the tutorial has.

When working on the World Editor for SABRE, I obviously don't have any kind of tutorial for doing it, so I have to write everything from scratch, and so far it has made me study dynamic memory allocation, linked lists, line drawing algorithms and ellipse drawing algorithms etc, all kinds of interesting stuff. I've learnt a lot during the development of both the engine and the editor.

What are some of the limits you've reached if any, and can they be overcome?

Well, the most notable limitation in Game Editor for this project is it's poor drawing power. But at some cases, like for vertical walls, that can be overcome by splitting animations into vertical strips and then calling draw_from to draw that piece scaled into the desired size. But this trick can't be used for floors and ceilings, because they aren't vertical nor horizontal in the required sense. That of course limits what kind of shapes the 3D world can have, as only vertical surfaces can be drawn with good quality and speed.

Another limitation is the fact that Game Editor doesn't support importing 3D models, so all 3D objects have to be imported as pre-rendered images taken from different angles from the object. They can then be used to create an illusion of a 3D object.

I like how you can have an overhead map in SABRE, and then enter the blocks in 2D space, then test it in 3D space. Very nicely done.
I wonder how big of a maze or land you can create within the 3D realm?

Thanks.
In terms of limits to a map size, I can say that there practically isn't any limits. This is why I had to study dynamic memory allocation. Instead of using a pre-defined array with certain limits in size, I can let the user of the World Editor to paint their level how big they ever want, and then the engine allocates a big enough chunk from the memory and stores the map there. So practically speaking there is no maximum size for the levels made with the editor. Of course there is some kind of theoretical limits, as I'm using integers to define the size of the level in blocks, and integers can only hold values up to 2 billion + something, but practically speaking there is no way for that to become a limit, because even a 100 x 100 map is already pretty huge when converted to a 3D world.

Nice range of textures too.

Thanks. This game, including all its textures and graphics will be given free for everyone here to study and work with. I want to give people some assets for them to get started working with SABRE.

[Zivouhr]

Thanks for the detailed response Lcl. Very complex stuff but I'm glad you've learned more from this process.
As big as the user can imagine, that sounds good. I can imagine making a Phantasy Star sized dungeon, or a forest to walk through using texture maps to simulate the forest blocks. I like how in your demo you have the sky appear and wrap around the world seamlessly.
For the enemies, even sprite based enemies like from the early Doom or Wolfenstein would fit in well here. Scaling them would be the next thing, so they would appear closer as they move towards the player. Keep up the great work.

[lcl]

I like how in your demo you have the sky appear and wrap around the world seamlessly.

This will also be one of the features of the engine, the possibility to use any panoramic picture as a seamlessly looping background that rotates according to the player rotation. And then, of course, different width panoramic pictures rotate with different speeds, which allows for creating parallax scrolling panoramic backgrounds with multiple layers.

For the enemies, even sprite based enemies like from the early Doom or Wolfenstein would fit in well here. Scaling them would be the next thing, so they would appear closer as they move towards the player.

This is already supported. Sprites can be used as enemies, and they do scale by distance. Of course I've yet to implement any systems for handling enemy movement etc, but the basic drawing is not really any different from how sprites are drawn.

Keep up the great work.

Yes, sir!

[koala]

Great work, LcL. I am repeating myself, but I love SABRE. Are you still working on it?

[lcl]

Great work, LcL. I am repeating myself, but I love SABRE. Are you still working on it?

Thanks! I do love SABRE as well I haven't worked on it for some time now, but you can rest assured that I will not abandon the project. It will take some time, but eventually I'll finish it. The motivation and my capability to work seems to come and go and I don't want to force myself to work on it, that way I could get annoyed at the project.

[koala]

Great work, LcL. I am repeating myself, but I love SABRE. Are you still working on it?

Thanks! I do love SABRE as well I haven't worked on it for some time now, but you can rest assured that I will not abandon the project. It will take some time, but eventually I'll finish it. The motivation and my capability to work seems to come and go and I don't want to force myself to work on it, that way I could get annoyed at the project.

Yes, I understand you. I am glad you will continue developing SABRE. I am looking forward to new updates.

[bat78]

I wish I had all the people interested in your project.. during these years.
I wish I had my topics brought as the first one in Game Demos.
I wish I had someone helping me.. creating a program to completely set 3D models and much more to offer.
And all that.. in a small community with the likes of Game-Editor.

And if motivation keeps being an issue for me. I would better abandon the project.
Because it seems.. like maybe it is not meant for me

[koala]

I wish I had all the people interested in your project.. during these years.
I wish I had my topics brought as the first one in Game Demos.
I wish I had someone helping me.. creating a program to completely set 3D models and much more to offer.
And all that.. in a small community with the likes of Game-Editor.

And if motivation keeps being an issue for me. I would better abandon the project.
Because it seems.. like maybe it is not meant for me

What are you talking about? Did I understand you right? Do you really think people don't find Bitfox useful and interesting? Really?
Well I know why I am not using it that much and why I am not recording my work in Bifox. It is because I have Windows XP and it seems Bitfox doesn't work there. I have access to Windows 7 where I can test Bitfox, try its possibilities, but not so often and I can't record on it anything.
But saying that your work and contribution to GE is inappreciable, that just doesn't make sense.

[bat78]

I wish I had all the people interested in your project.. during these years.
I wish I had my topics brought as the first one in Game Demos.
I wish I had someone helping me.. creating a program to completely set 3D models and much more to offer.
And all that.. in a small community with the likes of Game-Editor.

And if motivation keeps being an issue for me. I would better abandon the project.
Because it seems.. like maybe it is not meant for me

What are you talking about? Did I understand you right? Do you really think people don't find Bitfox useful and interesting? Really?
Well I know why I am not using it that much and why I am not recording my work in Bifox. It is because I have Windows XP and it seems Bitfox doesn't work there. I have access to Windows 7 where I can test Bitfox, try its possibilities, but not so often and I can't record on it anything.
But saying that your work and contribution to GE is inappreciable, that just doesn't make sense.

Nope I didn't mean this. (Also you can have bitfox library working on XP as well, but make sure you use the bitfox_merged.c - all you have to load to have it running).
(note that have several irreversible disadvantages and the demos are not meant compatible with it)

I meant that LcL complains about the lack of motivation, besides the existence of everything motivating possible.
If this motivation isn't enough for him to work on SABRE.. then I don't know if it worths.
Even I, without motivation can start working on the early gefox, learn the ray-casting and bring it to that stage for less than a month.
LcL can finish SABRE as well.. but if we have to wait for miracles.. I might consider adding 3D ray-casting in the list of priorities :/

[lcl]

I meant that LcL complains about the lack of motivation, besides the existence of everything motivating possible.
If this motivation isn't enough for him to work on SABRE.. then I don't know if it worths.
Even I, without motivation can start working on the early gefox, learn the ray-casting and bring it to that stage for less than a month.
LcL can finish SABRE as well.. but if we have to wait for miracles.. I might consider adding 3D ray-casting in the list of priorities :/

What do you know about me, my life and the things I'm going through? What gives you the power to talk me down like that? Why do you have to do this?

It is true that there are many interested people and general interest towards SABRE, and those are motivating things. But having motivating things doesn't necessarily grant motivation. If you don't have anything meaningful to say, I'd prefer you to stay quiet.

[420foxbot]

I'm just going to throw my opinion in here.

If you are so busy with real life, perhaps you could make your project open source? Revealing your "sacred" source code to the world early will not only allow people to see when you are commiting and doing work to the project, but everyone can help out on the project and it will grow and become finished a lot faster.

[lcl]

I'm just going to throw my opinion in here.

If you are so busy with real life, perhaps you could make your project open source? Revealing your "sacred" source code to the world early will not only allow people to see when you are commiting and doing work to the project, but everyone can help out on the project and it will grow and become finished a lot faster.

Well, I could think of that. The project is just a big mess at the moment and divided into multiple .geds, so it won't be that easy for others to start building on it. But maybe.