3D Ancient Arena Demo

[Ian Kerr]

Here is a triple alpha version thing of a 3D fighting game that I'm working on called "Ancient Arena". It's not going to be called that when it's finished because I hate that name :) It should run in OS 9, Classic and OS X but I've only tested it on my computer so chances are it won't work on everyone's. Anyways here's the link.

http://www.mnsi.net/~rkerr/source/AncientArena_CW.app.sit

I think it's about 2.4MB. Comments are welcome, but do realize that this isn't near complete.

-- Ian

[Ian Kerr]

I just made an update that adds animation speed control for super slow-mo or super fast-mo as well as a cheap bullet-time effect. I also cleaned up the resources so the file is only 2.1MB now. It's at the same address, http://www.mnsi.net/~rkerr/source/AncientArena_CW.app.sit As for instructions:

1) Double click on AncientArena_CW after you've unstuffed it. This should be the only file.
2) A new window should pop up and give you a spinning cursor while it loads the models/textures.
3) The main game screen should come up next. Look in the bottom right hand corner for a button surrounded by leaves. It should change colour when you put the mouse over it. Click the button.
4) You may be taken to a black screen. If this happens click the mouse button once more. This is where the character selection screen is going to be.
5) You should now be dropped into the game. Look at the top left hand corner for a list of controls.

I'd like it if you can tell me what FPS you're getting and what kind of machine you're running.

Enjoy!

-- Ian

[sealfin]

Doesn't get passed point 2; cursor just spins and spins ad nauseumÖ oh, and the window was too large for the screen (and I've got the screen set to 1024x768.)

System specs are X1.5, 400Mhz, 128Mb, Rage128 with 8Mb

[ibullard]

Ditto here on a Pismo 400Mhz but it worked on my 450Mhz Sawtooth. Both MacOS X.2.4

[OneSadCookie]

Nice animation! What package/file format did you use?

145-150 FPS (!!), 2x867, 256MB, GeForce4MX32MB, 10.2.4

[DoG]

I am getting 70 fps on G4/400 Gf2mx with about 40% of the CPU hogged by other things. I assume that the graphics card is the bottleneck, since the app does not use too much CPU.

Anyhow, this app is seriously bad. It keeps bouncing in the dock, I cannot get the window to be in the foreground, the spinning cursor stays until i quit. The name is "SimpleAlert" as shown by AMS.

I have no idea what you do, but I strongly suggest fixing these things, before you do anything else. Try creating a normal window instead of an alert. I have not used CW for OSX programming, therefore I can't give any tips how to fix this behavior, except fixing the code.

There is a good intro to Carbon programming on MacTech.com. Try to see if you can find out what's wrong. I can't recall if there is anything about using OpenGL in there, though.

- D.G

[Ian Kerr]

First, thanks for checking it out and giving feedback. I'll try to answer some questions here.

Sealfin and ibullard - I'm not sure why it didn't work. I have a new version now that shows loading progress, so if you want to try it and tell me where it gets to that would help me track down the problem.

OSC - I used Animation Master for the animation. The formats I used for the player models were .ply (mesh and bones) and for the animations I used .mot (keyframe matrices for the bones). Then I interpolate between the matrices to smooth it out. Is 150FPS good on your machine?

DoooG - You're right about the crapiness of the app. I don't handle any window events so if you lose focus you can't get it back, etc. The version I just uploaded is fullscreen so you shouldn't have these problems. It uses DrawSprocket debug mode though so the menu bar will be visible.

http://www.mnsi.net/~rkerr/source/AncientArena_CW.app.sit

--Ian

[Mazilurik]

170-180 FPS (G4/933, 512MB RAM, GeForce4Ti)

[sealfin]

Your game doesn't seem to like my MacÖ the app bounces, the screen (excepting the dock and menu bar) flicks to black, then flicks back to the desktop as the app quitsÖ :?:

[macboy]

Originally posted by sealfin
Your game doesn't seem to like my MacÖ the app bounces, the screen (excepting the dock and menu bar) flicks to black, then flicks back to the desktop as the app quitsÖ :?:Same here. Even happened when I tried it under Classic. :blink:

[ibullard]

I'm getting the same result from my laptop as sealfin. One bounce, quick flip to black screeen, the dies without any info.

[DoG]

If it's supposed to go full screen, it didnt for me.

[Ian Kerr]

Ok, everyone seems to be having trouble when the app tries to get an OpenGL context. This updated version aquires the context with DrawSprocket and AGL. Before I was just using AGL and I don't think OS 9 likes that, not sure about other OS's. The new build is at the same address:

http://www.mnsi.net/~rkerr/source/AncientArena_CW.app.sit

[ibullard]

Same thing but this time I get a message:

"Unable to create AGL pixel format!"

[Feanor]

Yeah, sorry, unable to create an AGL pixel format. I did not know it was possible to take over the screen so quickly!

[sealfin]

I get an "unable to go fullscreen" message? (oh, and by the way, StuffIt 7.x really dislikes whatever you do to your .sit'sÖ)

[macboy]

Under Classic it works now.

Under OS X, same error as sealfin.

Suggestions: Remove the black box around the characters. Make trip work from both directions. On the main menu, the button that changes when the mouse is over... after moving it over, you have it move it almost to the middle of the screen to get it to change back.

And of course (but I'm sure you'll do this anyways) ADD AN AI!

Other than that, it's very cool. Nice job.

[griffin239]

dual g4 450 nvdiaMX 1.5 gig of RAM
15 apps open
works 90 percent here
first load half the intro screen (top) was blank
second load AOK
3rd load it hung looked like a little console with prompt character for 30 seconds
then game ran fine.

I laughed first time I saw it running.
I remember an animation demo of this knight months
ago ...I know I do. Nice model.

how to find the framerate?

If your going to have bullet time (rocks!) maye as well
get that AI jumping and doing flips and kicks so we
can run this as a screen saver :)

this is your own .obj loader?

[Ian Kerr]

OK now we're getting somewhere, those error messages are handy :)

ibullard - you're getting stopped at aglChoosePixelFormat(NULL, 0, attribs). In my newest build if this fails then it takes AGL_FULLSCREEN out of the attributes and tries using DrawSprocket (I use DrawSprocket for OS 9 but it also works on X, just not quite as fast).

Feanor & sealfin - you guys are getting stopped at aglSetFullScreen(m_aglContext, m_width, m_height, 60, NULL). Can you check to see if you're monitors support 800x600 @ 60Hz?

Feanor - You can take over the screen quicker in X by using AGL_FULLSCREEN. In OS 9 I draw to DrawSprocket's front buffer which also works in OS X but it's not as fast.

I haven't uploaded my newest build yet. I'm going to try to figure out a way to get all the possible resolution/refresh rate combos.

-- Ian

[Ian Kerr]

macboy - That's puzzling as to why it won't work in X, I must be requesting a resolution/refresh rate combo that's not available (800x600 @60Hz). The black boxes are the collision boxes. I'm keeping them visible for debugging purposes for now, but in the release version they won't be drawn. The controls for moving are a bit whacked when you move to the other side of the dwarf or go into bullet-time because they're based on the right vector of the camera, also something I need to fix as you said. Thanks for testing!

griffin239 - Yes you probably saw that guy a while back :) I moved some code around in the last update and forgot to add the FPS display. I'll get it in for the next build. The loader for the dwarf is .ply, the loader for the brick arch thing is .obj. I wrote them for the CEGL Engine which is basically the same code that is used in this "game".

Anyways, I have to run, I'll try to get a new build up later today.

-- Ian

[Feanor]

Originally posted by Ian Kerr
Feanor & sealfin - you guys are getting stopped at aglSetFullScreen(m_aglContext, m_width, m_height, 60, NULL). Can you check to see if you're monitors support 800x600 @ 60Hz?


Yes my monitor does support that setting.

[macboy]

I'm using OS X 10.1.5 and my monitor supports 800 x 600 at 95 Hz. If it matters at all, I'm using a Classic iMac.

[sealfin]

Ditto macboy, my monitor supports 800x600@95Hz, my iMac specs are in my first post to this thread.

[Johan]

The first version (windowed) worked like a charm for me. (Except pizza of death). However the fullscreen version quits and gives me:

"Unable to create AGL pixel format!"

My spec from Apple System Profiler:

System version : Mac OS X 10.2.4 (6I32)
Kernel version : Darwin Kernel Version 6.4
Machine speed : 667 MHz
Bus speed : 133 MHz
Number of processors : 1
L2 cache size : 256K
L3 cache size : 1MB
Machine model : PowerBook G4 (version = 2.1)
Boot ROM info : 4.3.7f3

SODIMM0/J16TOP SDRAM 512 MB
SODIMM1/J16BOTTOM SDRAM 256 MB

ATI Radeon 7500 (AGP):
Card Type : ATY,DDParent
Card Name : ATY,CrownParent
Card Model : ATY,RageM7
Vendor ID : 1002
Device ID : 4c57
ROM# : 113-XXXXX-119
Revision : 0
Card (Video) Memory : 32 MB


.johan

[Ian Kerr]

Alrighty, I uploaded a new version with a whole bunch of control fixes as well as much more error checking. It should now cycle through different screen refresh rates until it finds one. If you still can't get it working it should display a more descriptive error that will tell me exactly what went wrong, hopefully :) Thanks for the help!

Oh, one last thing. If you could try it in both Classic (not OS 9 just Classic) and OS X that would be helpful as it may work in one or the other or both. Simply check or uncheck "Open in the Classic environment" in the "Show Info" window in the Finder.

http://www.mnsi.net/~rkerr/source/AncientArena_CW.app.sit

-- Ian

[sealfin]

I now get the message "Error 5: Invalid fullscreen drawable specification"; I'll try the game in Classic as soon as it starts upÖ

[sealfin]

The game seems to run in Classic but very slowly; that's probably due to Classic itself and the age of my iMacÖ I got ~10fps

[Ian Kerr]

It runs slow in Classic for me too. However since it worked in Classic the DrawSprocket method must be working (that's what it uses in Classic). I reworked my code a bit again, and this time if it initially fails (like it seems to be doing on your computer) it will try using DrawSprocket. Hopefully I got it right this time :)

http://www.mnsi.net/~rkerr/source/AncientArena_CW.app.sit

-- Ian

[macboy]

Originally posted by sealfin
The game seems to run in Classic but very slowly; that's probably due to Classic itself and the age of my iMacÖ I got ~10fps I have 733MHz so that's not really a problem for me :D

[macboy]

Now under OS X I see flashes of the menu bar + the dock can still come up and the app just keeps bouncing. Couldn't get the game to work past the menu (e.g. the button did nothing).

Under Classic I get about 33 FPS. Also in the keys list, I think you meant to put "] + away" instead of "d + away" ;)

[Ian Kerr]

Ok, so if I understand correctly, it faded the screen and then eventually got you to the menu screen where there was a dwarf, goblin and a button? I'll fix that text.

[sealfin]

The screen flicked to black, then flicked back to the desktop, and the app remained bouncing in the dock for a couple of minutes til I force-quit it.

[Ian Kerr]

Can you do me a favour and download Mark Szymczyk's "Fullscreen Graphics with AGL" tutorial? It's on this site at:

http://www.idevgames.com/content/download.php?id=351

In it he has several applications, one is called "AGL Fullscreen". The path is to it is:

AGL Code (CodeWarrior)/AGL Fullscreen/AGL Fullscreen

My code is loosely based on that tutorial, so if you can get that application to work then I can use his code as a reference to see where I'm going wrong. Thanks again for you patience and help.

-- Ian

[sealfin]

The 'AGL Fullscreen' app doesn't run either; I choose the 'Run' option, and nothing happens, except that 'Run' is replaced with a 'Resume' option (I also tried the same app built with Project Builder.)

[Ian Kerr]

That's really strange, I could swear that it should work in OS X. Did you try the "AGL and DrawSprocket" application? If so did it work? Does anyone know why the "AGL Fullscreen" example wouldn't work?

[Josh]

Originally posted by Ian Kerr
That's really strange, I could swear that it should work in OS X. Did you try the "AGL and DrawSprocket" application? If so did it work? Does anyone know why the "AGL Fullscreen" example wouldn't work? I don't know but AGL Fullscreen has never worked for me. I thought it was just my old iMac...

[Mazilurik]

AGL Fullscreen works fine for me under OS X, so there's probably some sort of hardware issue involved.

A quick search of the mac-opengl mailing list turned up a few posts that might be useful; apparently problems with the aglSetFullScreen call are fairly common. Pre-Jaguar versions of OS X would fail on the call if the OS couldn't match the requested refresh rate, which may be what is happening in this case; in the second link here, there's some code for determining the available frequencies:

http://lists.apple.com/archives/mac-opengl/2001/Mar/31/agl_fullscreenandosx.002.txt
http://lists.apple.com/archives/mac-opengl/2002/Dec/12/aglsetfullscreenwith0ref.001.txt
http://lists.apple.com/archives/mac-opengl/2001/Apr/09/fullscreenglinosx.002.txt

[ibullard]

Originally posted by Ian Kerr
That's really strange, I could swear that it should work in OS X. Did you try the "AGL and DrawSprocket" application? If so did it work? Does anyone know why the "AGL Fullscreen" example wouldn't work?

"AGL and DrawSprocket" works for me but "AGL Fullscreen" does not.

[Ian Kerr]

This should be my last attempt unless I discover something completely wrong in my code. If this version doesn't work I'll have to post to the mac-opengl list. Can anyone who was having problems try out this one and report any errors they got or what went wrong if there were no errors. Also, incase the opengl list needs this information could you list your model (g4 tower, old iMac, new iMac, eMac, PowerBook etc), graphics card, and system version that you tested it in (OS 9, Classic, OS 10.1.5, OS 10.2.4, etc). Once again thanks for helping, I really appreciate it.

http://www.mnsi.net/~rkerr/source/AncientArena_CW.app.sit

-- Ian

[macboy]

Works under OS X now :cool:

I average about 80 FPS, and I'm sure you already know this (and possibly did this on purpose), but the people keep "walking" after you start them moving, but are standing still.

Classic iMac 733 MHz, ATI Rage 128, 512MB RAM, OS X 10.1.5, Mac OS 9.2

[Ian Kerr]

Woot! Well, that made my day. Wish I knew how I fixed it :) I haven't done the "stand still" animation yet so I had to throw the walk animation in there, that's why he keeps walking.

[ibullard]

That worked. The menu bar at the top of the screen is still there but otherwise everything's cool.

[sealfin]

The latest versions works (though with very bad texture corruption and other artifacts on the title screen) and at a much nicer speed, ~55fps

[Feanor]

After one try (I'm in a hurry) it launches but freezes at the key controls screen, and nothing I do makes it do anything else. I could not quit and had to force-quit.

[Ian Kerr]

Feanor, I had one other person who was not able to quit and also had to force-quit. As to why it froze I'm not sure. When you say the key control screen, do you mean the screen that shows both dwarfs and the archway? What operating system version are you using?

Oh BTW, this is a WARNING to everyone! I just realized that if you press "tab" it will start trying to save each frame. However, the screen resolution for the captures is hard coded in at 800x600 and the resolution is only 640x480. This doesn't cause problems on my machine but it's not correct AFAIK so be careful. That means that you should also avoid cmd+opt+tab to change programs while running Ancient Arena. This will also use up hard disk space pretty quick because it's saving 800x600 uncompressed tga images. All the images get saved in the resource directory of the package file. You can get rid of them by opening the package and manually deleting them, or by simply trashing Ancient Arena. Or you can try to make movies with the feature :) that's what I use it for. Now that all the animations are based on time it doesn't work very well though.

-- Ian

[Feanor]

I am running OS X 10.2.4 D867 512 Gf4MX.

[erazorhead]

runs fine on my g4 867, os 10.2.4

i see a whole lot of potential here, don't give up!

[Wrisc]

I get between 105 & 115 frames/sec in OSX on my G4733 (256mb RAM, GF2MX)

~ Is this something you've been working on for a while? I seem to remember trying out something *incredibly* similar a year or two ago (right down to the title screen kind of similar), or else my mind is playing tricks on me :/

~risc

[Ian Kerr]

erazorhead - I'm glad to hear it runs on your system, thanks for the encouragement!

Wrisc - I've been working on the engine that "powers" this game for over a year now, I think I started it last summer... As for the game, I've been wanting to work on it steady for the last six or so months but the engine was just too buggy. I released a little demo thing that had this dwarf character many months ago, perhaps that is what you're thinking of?

-- Ian

[Ian Kerr]

I just uploaded a new build. This one has a whole bunch of new moves as well as a partially completed GUI and some other stuff if I recall. Anyways, if you want, dl it, try it and let me know what you think.

http://www.mnsi.net/~rkerr/source/AncientArena_CW.app.sit

-- Ian

[erazorhead]

coming along great. i think this game will be a lot of fun, especially with a gamepad.
one thing i found so far; i knocked the guy 'to the side' (towards the camera) a little bit, and could not hit him any more. this happens sometimes when i attack over and over again, especially close by
other thing (you probably know), selecting anything at the main screen, then selecting "back", makes game crash.

[Ian Kerr]

I made some pretty heavy modifications today including the addition of an instant replay feature! yay :)

http://www.mnsi.net/~rkerr/source/AncientArena_CW.app.sit

Here's how you can see the replays:

1) First play the game (the game will automatically record so you don't need to activate anything)
2) After you've played for a while hit the escape key to return to the title screen
3) Press the "Load Game" button. This will load the replay file and attempt to replay what you did.

If you want to save replays you're going to have to go digging in the Resource directory of the Ancient Arena package for a file called keyLog.txt. It is possible for the replay to go "out of sync" but I got it working almost 100% on my machine... I guess I'll see how it holds up :)

erazorhead - First of all, thanks for trying it out. I may have fixed the problem where the guy gets knocked to the side in the newest build. I'm aware of the other problem you mentioned... Basically what's happening is that when you click the back button and the previous screen loads up the quit button just happens to be in approximately the same location so you end up hitting that button too (unless you have fast reflexes and let up on the button quick enough :) ). I will fix this in a future update.

[erazorhead]

i'm having a problem where i launch the app and it starts, but the cursor is a neverending spinning rainbow and the app icon never stops bouncing in the dock

[griffin239]

WARNING!!! I had a total system lock down, had to power button reboot.
Ihad lock ups in at least 3 apps, and couldn't get rid of my iDisk.
I tested it about 10 times in a row before the damage was done.
I was unable to send mail to myself before the shiznit hit the fan,
but the following text was saved in the sent folder of Mail.app.


Here are the notes I was posting before it went down.

Sorry to say same here. Running OS X 10.2.5 on Dual G4 450, 1.6 gigs of RAM, Nvidia MX.

The application is not responding, the system appears to stay in Finder, even
while clicking on the application. I have to keep moving my browser window,
to test and post this because I can never really get into the app..anything else
stays in front of it.

I was able to get the practice session running.
I was able to fight..in practice mode, it took many clicks to get there.
I was able to escape key back to the menu, and when I hit quit, it quit
but I got an error dialogue: The operation could not be completed. An unexpected error occurred (error code -600)
OS error code for application isn't running.
OK...on a hunch I just killed Classic, and quitting no longer brings up that error.
Its still in a "not responding" beach ball state , but working.
Buttons are working with one click.
Practice works
New Game Button has no effect.
Load Game Button loads the AI, no player control..or is that the replay?
Registration Works, but no input
Quit Works, with no error.


Ian! I knew that knight was familiar, I was digging through some of last years emails when I found some email we passed back and forth, back when you had nothing up and running on this.
At some point you must have had a little animation up.
You have a level editor yet? I would love to build some goodies for this beauty.
Email me from my link.
Is that bump mapping you got going on? The art is really sweet. just one suggestion,
a decal or something to let us know which guy is which...its easy to get confused.
Maybe the "bad" guy could just have black helmet.

Ok..after you fix this bug.
I tried to find a prefs file, though maybe deleting it would work
but none was to be found.

[Ian Kerr]

erazorhead: I uploaded a new build that might fix the problem you were having. If it doesn't, can you check the console for anything out of the ordinary?

http://www.mnsi.net/~rkerr/source/AncientArena_CW.app.sit


EDIT AFTER SEEING GRIFFIN'S POST:

I shouldn't have uploaded the windowed version that I use for debugging, it isn't user friendly in the least. The latest build at the link above is the fullscreen version. Hopefully people will have more luck with it. The "New Game" button won't have any effect right now, the "Load Game" button is a replay of the previous game for the time being (this will change when I make an "Instant Replay" button). The Registration screen won't allow input at this point as griffin mentioned.

griffin: At this point I don't have a level editor. Right now the scenes are too simple for me to justify spending many hours on an editor when I can code a level up in a minute or two. Perhaps when I release the game I'll also release an editor, it's just not my top priority right now. I don't have bumpmapping but rather "baked on radiosity" which gives the models the skylight look that you see in some cgi galleries. Right now I don't have a pref file so don't bother looking :) (that wasn't sarcasm, I'm NOT installing hidden pref files on anyone's system, just to clear up any potential confusion :)). If you want to mess with some of the textures and what-not all the resources are in AncientArena_CW.app/Contents/Resources

Texture Specs
------------------
*tga format (targa)
*power of two texture size
*24 or 32 bit
*no compression

-- Ian

[griffin239]

Wheeew! It's fixed!
I forgot to mention that last buggy build was not in full screen. This buggless one is in fullscreen, I thought there was something wrong when it was in windowed mode.

Good job with the fix! Mind telling us what that bug was?

[Ian Kerr]

I'm guessing it was one of two things:

1) the windowed mode is junk and does nasty things on different versions of OS X which is very likely because I don't handle any window events.

2) you don't have the OpenAL framework installed and the app wanted it (I was messing with OpenAL before I released that buggy build)

[griffin239]

I have OpenAL. So it's probably the window events.

I was digging into your contents while looking for the bugs.
I meant to do something with the replay file wanted to see if maybe it
was bloated or some such thing, then got distracted by
your .objs and related materials.

It's late now, but I'll take a better look with both eyes open tomorrow.
Again, good work on this, its really looking good.

Oh by the way my framerates were at 80 to 130 fps, even in the buggy version!

[erazorhead]

found no problems, 100-150fps
actually i did find some strange things, but they were all with jumping, which i found by accident and assume is still in a rudimentary phase.

[Ian Kerr]

For those interested this new version let's you jump and has two new aerial attacks. I also fixed the bullet-time camera so that it circles around the player rather than 0, 0, 0. Comments are always appreciated :)

http://www.mnsi.net/~rkerr/source/AncientArena_CW.app.sit

-- Ian

[igame3d]

Running fine.
I fixed your particle.tga:
circle select from center about 90% of image, feather 2, invert selection, delete.

Tried to give your dwarf some nice crimson armor, but he ended up looking like someone washed his clothes in kool-aid.

nice moves, he should be able to get more attack ability while in air. like the special attack !

That tab key thing needs to toggle!!! It wouldn't turn off until I quit. Would be interesting results turning it on and off and seeing your fight movie result change camera during the fight replay.


Well its comming along nice. Neat Knight suit there.
Seems things slowed down around here with the weather getting nice.
Don't these devs know the sun is bad??

[erazorhead]

devs should move to my town, it's still raining constantly

game's getting better all the time. no bugs i could find. when i went into bullet time, i noticed the 'residue' from a special attack was still hanging in the air (off-camera to the normal camera angle). should this have disappeared? also, if you want to be able to do specials in quick succession in the final game, you have to make sure it can handle more than one 'fireball' onscreen at once.
keep 'em coming!

[Ian Kerr]

Hi guys,

Here's the link again:
http://www.mnsi.net/~rkerr/source/AncientArena_CW.app.sit

igame3d - I tried doing what you suggested to the particle.tga texture, so I guess you can let me know if it looks right now. The plan is to give the dwarf another 2 or 3 aerial attacks, probably some throws and maybe another special attack. I fixed the tab key problem (now it toggles properly) and I changed the bullet-time keys so that you now use 'b' to both activate and deactivate the bullet-time camera.

erazorhead - Right now the residue from the special attack just sort of hangs around until the special attack is used again. Some day I'm going to get the residue to fade out and by the time it has faded out the dwarf will be "allowed" to use the special attack again.

As for new stuff in this version...

Instant Replay Interface (go to replay screen by pressing "Load Game" button)
Instant Replay Play/Stop button feature
Bullet-time fixes
Keyboard input fixes

Basically this update is all about the new instant replay features. Comments welcome as always! :)

-- Ian

[igame3d]

Nice replay interface! I used the replay to take the screen shots. Toggle is a lovely thing.

Particle is clean now.

You haven't put damage in yet, but I think that belly flop move should temporarily stun the gun when he misses.
It sure looks painful when he hits the bricks.

Perhaps mouse control over the camera? I get lost at some angles. Would be good for the replays as well.

Heh-heh just changed your particle to a bubble I was using to entertain my daughter.

Prepare to be Battle Bathed!!!

[Ian Kerr]

http://www.mnsi.net/~rkerr/source/AncientArena_CW.app.sit

This latest build let's you play with another person on the same keyboard. It also has working health bars and a cheap death sequence :) This version is a fairly major update as far as coding goes and there will be a few problems (nothing that will crash it or do nasty things AFAIK).

-- Ian

[igame3d]

No bugs found.
Frame rates seem to drop after the particles are launched.
Also when the speed is increased.
I'm running a lot of apps in the background that might be a cause.

Still even with frames per second dropping there is no real noticeable performance loss in the game.

Those jump kicks are impressive.

Keep up the good work.

Nice cheesy death sequence.

[erazorhead]

no bugs, high framerates, and the death sequence doesn't even really seem cheesy to me. keep it up!

[David]

Pretty neat :)

One issue is that when pressing buttons it doesnt care if its the first time you press it or not, so if you click 'register' it flashes between the two screens until you let go.

It might be good to make the attack and jump keys only work right when you press it as well.

[AJ Infinity]

Ian Kerr: Sadly, your SIT wouldn't unstuff.

" An error has occured while expanding the file "Ancient Arena_CW.app.sit". The archive may contain damaged content."

[Ian Kerr]

Originally posted by AJ Infinity
Ian Kerr: Sadly, your SIT wouldn't unstuff.

" An error has occured while expanding the file "Ancient Arena_CW.app.sit". The archive may contain damaged content."

Hmm, I'm not sure why that happened...
*Downloads newest version of DropStuff and compresses again*

AJ, would you mind downloading it again to see if it works?

-- Ian

[AJ Infinity]

It unstuffed this time. Now I'm gonna to play....

[AJ Infinity]

Cool game. I had a bug to report but I can''t explain it now (I'm on the beta tester's list for Cosmic Encounter Online and I'm playing it now)

[Ian Kerr]

http://www.mnsi.net/~rkerr/source/AncientArena_CW.app.sit

Well, it's been a while but I have another update. There's a bunch of new stuff in this version, including...

End User Differences:
- platforms
- can fall off of things
- music and sound
- weapons

Internal Differences:
- map editor and map file format (check the resources folder for level1.lvl)
- finally got off my butt and updated some major internal classes to support multiple meshes for a model, texture sorting for multiple meshes
- ability to save any 3d object in the engine to file and reload it to the exact state it was at when it was saved
- big code clean up
- some other more boring stuff :)

Anyways, this is a big update, and it should be considering the time it took me to get it done :) As always, I'm looking for comments and bug reports. Oh, BTW, if anyone is interested in making some levels with the level editor let me know.

-- Ian

[igame3d]

Cool where is the editor? I tried to open the file you mentioned, but no go.

You have a smearing issue with the arches under the bridge. i took screenshots but somehow I can't find them.

Ok..mouse control over the camera rotation around the player. This game could have me occupied for too long if the camera didn't frustrate me so.

So maybe click enables the player to move the mouse to modify the camera centered on his warrior
click again to make it sticky

Wow platforms. That was unexpected. Mario Bloody Axe. Cool. But the player passes through them while jumping.
Should be..a button to grab the ledges...and fight moves you can do from them.(suddenly I want to play joust in this engine..with axes and flying kicks)

Been beating on that poor dummy for months, I have a feeling when you put AI into him..he's going to be very pissed off.

More more...if you need the screen shots to get the smearing let me know.

What file format are you saving out to?

[KittyMac]

Greetings,

This is the first time I've checked this out in a while, and I must say its starting to shape up nicely!

So, bug report ;)

On a 1 GHz TiBook, running the Panther preview (although I don't think Panther is the problem, but it may be), many, many textures are not being loaded properly and are the default white. Also, the menu bar is still visible when you take over the fullscreen, as well as the dock. Have screenshot if needed. It also crashed at exit:


Date/Time: 2003-07-02 09:41:28 -0400
OS Version: 10.3 (Build 7A179)
Host:

Command: AncientArena_CW
PID: 405
Thread: 0

Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001)
Codes: KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE (0x0002) at 0x00000273

Thread 0 Crashed:
#0 0x91b84250 in DisposeMovie_priv (DisposeMovie_priv + 48)
#1 0x001d6d14 in _dt__19CEGL_QTMovieTextureFv (_dt__19CEGL_QTMovieTextureFv + 84)
#2 0x001e4dac in _destroy_arr (_destroy_arr + 76)
#3 0x001b52a0 in _arraydtor$3377 (_arraydtor$3377 + 32)
#4 0x001e45a4 in _destroy_global_chain (_destroy_global_chain + 52)
#5 0x001e583c in exit (exit + 44)


Cheers,
Rocco

[Mark Levin]

Nice work... But I couldn't figure out how to get the key guide off the screen in practice mode. I also have the "full screen but not really" bug KittyMac describes.

The "loading..." texture when the game launches is usually corrupted and only partly readable.

Clicking "back" from the register screen caused the quit button to also activate (since it's in the same place) and dump me out of the app.

[erazorhead]

hit "H" to get rid of key guide.

[Ian Kerr]

Originally posted by igame3d
Cool where is the editor? I tried to open the file you mentioned, but no go.

http://www.mnsi.net/~rkerr/source/AncientArenaLevelEditor_CW.app.sit

No documentation for it yet...


You have a smearing issue with the arches under the bridge. i took screenshots but somehow I can't find them.

Should be fixed in newest version.


So maybe click enables the player to move the mouse to modify the camera centered on his warrior click again to make it sticky

Yeah, that would be a nice feature to add. Should this be available in all camera modes (regular, bullet-time, user controlled)? For now if you tap 'b' twice the camera will remain fixed and you can use 'i' (up), 'j' (left), 'k' (down), 'l' (right), 'u' (forward), 'o' (backward).


Wow platforms. That was unexpected. Mario Bloody Axe. Cool. But the player passes through them while jumping.

I allowed the player to jump through mainly for gameplay reasons. Perhaps there should be both impenetrable and penetrable platforms with some way to distinguish between them.


Should be..a button to grab the ledges...and fight moves you can do from them.(suddenly I want to play joust in this engine..with axes and flying kicks)

Would it be better if he automatically grabbed the edge while falling right close to it? I definitely do want ledge grabbing, I just need to work out how it will be activated by the player.


Been beating on that poor dummy for months, I have a feeling when you put AI into him..he's going to be very pissed off.

Most definitely :)


What file format are you saving out to?

The level format is one of my own, the player models are .ply and some of the static geometry is .obj.


On a 1 GHz TiBook, running the Panther preview (although I don't think Panther is the problem, but it may be), many, many textures are not being loaded properly and are the default white.

I really have no idea why this is happening. Are the textures that are being corrupted the same ones every time or is it random?


Also, the menu bar is still visible when you take over the fullscreen, as well as the dock.

That may be because I was in DrawSprocket Debug Mode. In the newest version I don't, so this may not happen anymore.

It also crashed at exit:

This one is a puzzler too :). I changed some of the QT code in the newest version so the crash might go away but this is bug is tough to debug since I can't reproduce it.

The "loading..." texture when the game launches is usually corrupted and only partly readable.

This happens to me too occasionally. I think later I'll just remove the agl text and replace it with a texture.

Clicking "back" from the register screen caused the quit button to also activate (since it's in the same place) and dump me out of the app.

This should be fixed in the newest version.

Newest version is at:
http://www.mnsi.net/~rkerr/source/AncientArena_CW.app.sit

[Ian Kerr]

This version has minor updates and a couple bug fixes. I had a very odd bug where an uninitialized vector w component was leading to heap corruption later on in the code, a very elusive bug :). Some people were having freezes at certain points, hopefully this fixes those problems. I think I'll work on documentation for the level editor today.

Game Link:
http://www.mnsi.net/~rkerr/source/AncientArena_CW.app.sit

Level Editor Link:
http://www.mnsi.net/~rkerr/source/AncientArenaLevelEditor_CW.app.sit

-- Ian