Texture Atlas technique plus better working Shadow map

Well, jcrpg now has texture atlas technique integrated. It's currently used for the tile system only. It means that a big texture is used for different tile ground types instead of multiple textures. This requires tweaking of the texture coordinates of a given tile before adding it to the batch. The bonus is that I can add different looking tiles to the same GeometryBatch (which has to use the same texture for all its polygons). Needless to say it means really a lot in performance - less meshes, less CPU load, and for the extra effect render passes it means less spatials to process. Big step ahead! (Probably I'll try to add it to foliages as well, mostly to grass effect.)

Also some tinkering around with the shadow map resulted in a nice screenshot. Beware - only nvidia cards have the smoothing effect by default, ati cards won't do this only if a shader is added...which I don't know when will be done because I'm noob at such things (as well). :) Also it is not perfectly integrated yet, it needs some more work and experimenting with it (when to add occluders, spatials to render pass etc.)...

Depth Of Field, extensive VBO, partially ShadowMap

After previously getting some good advice from MrCoder @ jme, now I've discussed a few things with Momoko_Fan @ radakan.org plus again with some hints from MrCoder - two major things could be achieved in one day - meanwhile a third is on the way to perfection. First it's depth of field effect. I love it definitely, far away things get blurred - and it's really nice that the shader used is a merge of bloom + DoF effect - two things at once! :) Now at last it pushed me to add a better handling of UI in a separate RenderPass so that bloom/shadow and other effects won't conflict with each other so much.

Also previously I've tried to use VBO but I remember having problems with it, some crashes or so, but now again by the advice of Momoko_Fan I revisited it and it seems things have become cleaner in jClassicRPG because now VBO seems to work pretty well... meaning a boost of FPS again! The situation is that it has come really at the good time 'cause I removed a 'cut off of rendered parts behind you' optimization to be able to reenable mouse-look.

So yeah, mouse look is also enabled now.

Meanwhile a new user contribution to jme is being done, so as a test I've integrated it - the ShadowMap render pass created by kevglass @ jme! It's working quite good although it has some smaller problems yet - probably they can be solved soon.

Good! :D All in SVN.

Continental Renewal

I've changed some models, added some new textures and models in continental climate area to shape things to the aesthetic level of the jungle probably. Maybe it can suffice the needs of the classic style, some better base bush + small bush texture could be added later, but for now I'm rather content.

Starting Echoes

The released snapshot is starting to get some attention around the net. Some of you may have tested it, some of you certainly did and even reported me back with suggestions or bugs. This is really nice. We hope to get much feedback - even if you just tried and have something to say or just report success - that would be cool!

Qubodup at freegamer is one of the testers - a thorough tester indeed! :) He even made a video of it and made it public on freegamer blog! Thanks! I will embed it here too. On the suggestion of an anonymous reader I've added jcrpg to the retroremakes.com's list of games and forum.

Now here's the video at gamerstube.com for the ones who want an indirect look at the game:



PS: jClassicRPG has been listed on a recently created good looking Linux game database site LGDB. Check it out, new design and nice features!

The 'Vigilante Eye' Release

Yes, we're ascending to the next level of our destiny through the obstacles of the great dev-eater beast of Tiredness and Desperation. We have entered the sanctuary of the miraculous Release again. Here we stand astounded and in silence, holding back breath. We are aware that something great surprising and of elemental effect may happen anytime. As we are there awaiting for some never-ending minutes, a booming sound starts to cite something strange, slowly - pressing each word. Listening carefully you try to memorize what's being told:

"
- Turn based playable Combat phase added
- New animated models (boarmen thug and mage by Zphr)
- New house and town models (by Zphr)
- New static monster model (kobold by Surt)
- Total redesign of jungle plants, new plants for continental,
- New Encounter Ground system that separates the encounter scene
- Inventory enhanced (equip,attach,give,drop)
- New Loot Window after combat
- Character leveling
- New ground tile generation system with smoothed ground
- New 2D elements, some refactored UI images
- Optional support for secondary ground textures
- Optional texture splatted ground tile blends
- New spells, skills, items, artifacts, objects
- Bard instrument concept available with one implemented item
- Particle system with lights for spells added
- Support for continuously playing sound sources like waters, forest ambient
- New environment & humanoid sounds added
- New Body Part system that enables critical impacts
- Optimizations: tree trunk batching, cutting of non-visible interior parts, more locking
- Bug fixes
- Far view mode is disabled till fixing it for the new ground system
"

Right after finishing these words, a glowing globe elevates from out of the darkness of Sanctuary. Yeah, now you know what awaits you, jcrpg next sneak-peek enchantment is in your hands like a crystal ball. It may be that it helps you to look into a distant Future... let the Trial begin!

Great Heroes, come and test your wits - play the game or create your own tormenting beasts! It's high time - because combat is ready to begin NOW!

Candidates for Testing and Modeling - don't hesitate!

PS.: Just this moment I decided to reupload the release with a bugfix - it was a major problem with non disappearing 3D models. The old one I've deleted so from now on the new and only one is the good one.

Complaints, New Models and Optimization

Zphr and me were working hard to finish the facelifting of jungle. Meanwhile Zphr provided the game with some extra nifty palm and bush models, I've started to look at optimization again. My new idea was to add billboardpartvegetations' trunk part to the ModelGeometryBatch. It is now handled separately of the foliage trimesh geometry batch - the trunk trimeshes are commited to a batch containing several other tree's trunk. This reduces number of meshes - reducing CPU and GPU load.
Also I've found a better way for handling internal Cave parts - there's now Cube's internalLight field which is used for cave entrance only. That part will use a turned off sky, while you move into the cave. This transition part will lead into the cave cubes' part which is now unnecessary to be rendered while you are totally outside (not in an internalLight cube) with the 'three-state' solution of ExternalCube / InternalLight / InternalCube. This whole boosted up performance again so much that I'm a bit happier with it running on my 6200Go.
Bad news is that I had to remove farview option because with the new smooth tiling generation the farview water is not working well just as the welding of farview geo and normal geo is not solved at all.

There were some complaints about the game on freegamer blog and here. About crash on OS X. If someone happen to test, please help out us on jcrpg forum!

Jungle Plants Facelift

It happened to me that the jungle trees are not cool enough, especially the foliage was lacking some perfection. Check the shots for the new version. Meanwhile some bugs were resolved. One more bug till we're ready! PS.:Don't miss the texture based new vegetation shots either - I've added some.. :)

More Sound is Cool

I've been working a bit on adding looped environment sounds and their sources. Now mostly all kinds of places have a gentle background sound - town, waters, jungle, forest. A lot of other new single time played sounds were collected and added - walking in snow, dog barking, crickets in the grass. It's pretty nice now walking around and listening to changing sounds. I love it! :D The new sounds are from freesound.org with no exception. A great place indeed! Zphr's been working a while to make his wooden house model even better! Now it's less polygon and the same good look. He's done a great job again! This is all in SVN. There are only a few bugs on my list now that separates us from releasing... Hurray! :)

InfrastructureBlockChecker - WaterChecker

These are a solution for not generating town blocks (street, houses) where a given geography part is not suitable for that. I've added some nice architecture for this: Economics (streets, houses, bridges) can provide a list of Checkers which are used upon generating the town structure in the AbstractInfrastructure class. The Population type also provides a list of checkers that should be scanning the geography at the creation of the Population at the given geography. Those results are stored and upon generating a given size level for the population the unavailable blocks for the given checker types of the Economic are checked and so it wont generate the Economic to unsuitable blocks. Now Rivers and Ocean is no longer overwritten by Residences and EconomicGrounds. But the nice is that Bridges will be able to be built upon the water - later, when we'll have them. :D

Now only a few other bugs till the release...