Hi everybody! :D
I was going to wait until 40 000 topic views, or until SABRE would have hit the first place on the Most Popular Game Demos -section,
but as I tend to be a little impatient, I decided to post this post now.
So, I'm sure at least some of you have been wondering about what the future of SABRE looks like at the moment. I was wondering about the same thing for a long time. But there's no need to wonder anymore. (Wondering is boring ) SABRE has been brought back to life and I'm working on it again! Not that the project would have been totally abandoned at any point, I've always been persistent about finishing this. I was having a long break from this project and didn't know when I'd continue working with SABRE, but now I'm back to work and boy does it feel good!
But anyways, to the actual news about the project.
I've been experimenting with adding textured floor and ceiling to SABRE (yes, I had previously stated that it would be impossible), and found a way to realize them at least on some quality. I still haven't found any magical trick for avoiding the need of drawing the floor and ceiling pixel-by-pixel, but even that can be done with decent speed if multiplying the pixels' size a little. (Yeah, I know, it's always bad when pixels get bigger, but hey, at least there'll now be a floor and a ceiling!)
There's still a lot to work on with the floor and ceiling drawing, and I may have yet to find some ways of making it more efficient. I'll also add floor and ceiling "layers" for the SABRE World Editor, so that you can paint the floor and ceiling textures from overview just like the walls are drawn in the editor (viewtopic.php?f=6&t=12644&p=90376#p90376).
I've also started making the template .ged which will be provided with SABRE for getting quickly into work with the engine without having to configure anything before hitting 'Game Mode'.
The template's beginning to function and it's pretty nice and easily usable so far. The template will allow very easy workflow with the engine. You won't have to worry about the raycasting codes, they'll all be hidden in the Global Code and only accessed with functions like SABRE_DrawScreen(); etc, all of which also will be set up correctly when you start, so you won't have to worry about even that. And when I get SABRE done, I'll release a thorough guide with simple examples of how to customize your game's settings, how to import your own textures and graphics, and how to manage the game project as a whole, it'll all be way easier than you'd think!
Just to demonstrate what the template does for making everything easier for you, here's a picture that tells more than my thousand words
Oh, yeah, the template also tells you which codes you shouldn't touch xD
Well, I guess this is all for now. Thanks again for the huge support you've shown towards this project, without all of you there would be no SABRE!