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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

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dteviot

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Turns out the standard Model class in XNA doesn't support animations.

Possible solution,

I've seen a .md2 (Quake 2) model importer that does support models.

And there's a .md3 importer on CodePlex.

So, look at using md2/md3 for the aliens/humans.

Might even be able to steal the models from UFO:AI, as that's supposedly Quake2 based.

I have confirmed, UFO:AI is using Quake 2 models (.md2) files.

And here's a .md2 file importer for XNA, that includes animations.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Me too! Nummy! LOL

 

- Zombie

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Assorted AI optimisation thoughts

  • If Alien forces are well away from human player's forces, (so player can't see the Alien forces) don't bother using path finding for the Aliens, just teleport them to their destination.
  • If do turn based game, then no point doing pathfinding for distances longer than a combatant can travel in a turn.
  • Allow alien player to know where all X-Corp players are. (It's not cheating, the aliens have MUCH better scanners than X-Corp.) Alternately, let the alien AI at least know where the X-Corp forces "center of mass" is.

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Had a bit of a thought about the Geoscape.

A number of people have complained that they don?t like the "push pin" geomarkers that show where aircraft, UFOs, outposts, etc. are located.

My thought was, for each item in the view, we have a block of text about the item (which is on the edge of the screen) and then a line going to the position on the globe where the item is.

That is, it looks a bit like those diagrams, where there?s a picture of something, with a set of labels, and lines connecting the label to the part of the diagram the label refers to.

http://insected.arizona.edu/lesson_01/smcricket.htm

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Although I do like crickets, I have to agree with Darkhomb. Though this might look cool for a few items, this could get messy very soon with an increasing number of items.

 

I kind of got used to the "push pins" but I think if they would be more slim, this would do good. Or maybe the old 2D markers from the C++ code, set ontop a line or very slim push pin (basically, texture the "bottom" of the push pin pyramid). This would combine the 3D effect of the push pins, with the nice looking markers (I imagine it like this: if you look top down you can see the marker, if you see the ship at the horizon, you only see the push pin).

 

Names/designations could just be added as free flowing text under or above the push pins like it is done in state of the art air traffic control consoles. (a bit like your idea dteviot, but with the text moving with the pin, see http://www.skyguide.ch/_assets/flash/skytrack/skytrack.html for an example)

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Guest Azrael Strife

Why not have the best of both worlds? (well, except the text too).

I think the best thing is to use the 2d markers from the C++ branch AND use... heh, Mad beat me to it :P FYI, that way (combine 3d markers with 2d icons) was the way it was done in UFO: Aftershock and I thought it was used quite effectively, the 3d markers when seen from a distance were faded, so they were not that obnoxious and were helpful to know where was what :)

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Guest Azrael Strife
Well, honestly I always thought the 3d markers were temporary, kinda like the old blue-ish interface was before you skinned it, being so incredibly ugly I never thought anyone considered keeping them... :)
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Why not just let the user have 3 options? :O

2D, 3D, or the hybrid model...

 

*The Aftershock idea was nice and practical, but I didn't really like it :/ (maybe I'm not thinking clear due to the whole interface of that game... YIKEZ UI NIGHTMARE)

 

*I think the Aftermath one is the best of all :O, 2D icon ON the globe and a veeeeeeeery slim line/marker normal to it... That way, when you moved around the globe you not only knew there was a base on the other side (even though you couldn't see the icon) but the whole interface was NEAT, NICE AND CLEAR.

 

* Still, there must be fans that would never replace the simple 2D model of UFO:EU

 

I adore the Aftermath one though :)

 

just 2 cents ^_^

 

edit: The Xenocide markers are UGLY :P (L)

Edited by kafros
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Guest Azrael Strife
*I think the Aftermath one is the best of all :O, 2D icon ON the globe and a veeeeeeeery slim line/marker normal to it... That way, when you moved around the globe you not only knew there was a base on the other side (even though you couldn't see the icon) but the whole interface was NEAT, NICE AND CLEAR.

That was the Aftershock way, don't remember AM but I guess they used the same method.

 

BTW, the Aftershock UI was pretty clear :huh: Though I did enjoy the simplicity of AM.

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According to Valve, approx 80% of PCs used to play games are capable of Shader 2.

It is a hardware survey on "Steam". Of course there are only the better PCs. My PC for example did have Problems with HL2 in minimum details. I am not playing online. So guys like me, who enjoy a good strategy game, and thus need lesser hardware are not included in this study.

Thus the group interviewed is not representative for your general Xenocide player.

Just my 2ct.

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Indeed, this is a survey focusing mainly on the hardcore action gamers.

 

It may not be statistically accurate for the whole body of PC gamers (it takes into account mainly the higher-end action ones), but it can be taken into account in some aspects. The more "safe ones" are what dteviot said and the HDD part.

 

Anything else on the graphics capabilities isn't really a safe choice (except from the fact that quite a lot of people don't update their drivers, doh...)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Small research job for someone. Track down some NASA photos of earth showing the day/night terminator.

Reason for this is the existing Geoscape shader does a "twilight" transition period, going from Day to Night (and Night to Day.) However, it occurs to me that the transition in light might be so abrupt that having the shader do a twilight period is pointless, so I can remove that code. Which would make fixing the bug in the bump mapping trivial.

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Stumble across this library, even though it is GPL you can take a look to it for ideas :) ... It is pretty well coded.

 

------------------------------------------

AForge.NET is a C# framework designed for developers and researchers in the fields of Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence - image processing, neural networks, genetic algorithms, machine learning, etc.

 

At this point the framework is comprised of 5 main and some additional libraries:

 

AForge.Imaging ? a library for image processing routines and filers;

AForge.Neuro ? neural networks computation library;

AForge.Genetic ? evolution programming library;

AForge.Vision ? computer vision library;

AForge.Machine Learning ? machine learning library

 

----------------------------------

 

Greetings

Red Knight

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Guest Azrael Strife

Cannon fodder?

 

Besides, someone has to bring the coffee, you cannot expect someone to plot world domination and make the darn coffee himself!

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In the Bond movies, why do the villains have minions, when the villains have to do the job themselves if they want it done properly?

Actually, this was meant as a joke.

What happened was I asked StaffSargeant to go and do something for me. Then, due to pressing issues (Shinzon wanting to work on facility models) went and did it myself. Which made me think, what's the point of having minions (not that I actually think of you people as minions) if I go and do the job myself.

Also, I didn't do all of the task I asked of StaffSargeant.

 

But speaking of Minions, I do have a job for you. As you've probably deduced, I'm trying to find information on how to build a destructible terrain, and not having much luck. So, if you can do a hunt around and let me know, that would be greatly appreciated.

Also, if any of you can get your hands on any of the "Game Programming Gems" or "GPU Gems" books and have a look through for any items of interest, that may also be useful.

E.g. Game Programming Gems 2

'Terrain Reasoning for 3D Action Games'

'Simplified Terrain Using Interlocking Tiles'

'A High-Performance Tile-based Line-of-Sight and Search System'

 

E.g. Game Programming Gems 6

Spatial Partitioning Using an Adaptive Binary Tree

GPU Terrain Rendering

Edited by dteviot
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Just had a thought how to do pathfinding for different sized units. The AAS system used in Quake 3, Used to do pathfinding in 3D space.

The bit of interest is:

When a player crouches, another, smaller bounding box is used for collision detection calculations. This does not really provide a problem for AAS though. Multiple sized bounding boxes can be compiled into the same BSP tree. For each bounding box a set of brushes is created and expanded for that bounding box. CSG operations are only performed on and between brushes that are expanded for the same bounding box. From all sets of expanded brushes one BSP tree is created. After creating the BSP tree it can easily be determined which bounding box(es) can move in each convex sub-space represented by a leaf node. When a convex sub-space represented by a leaf node contains no expanded solid brushes then all bounding boxes can move around there. When a convex sub-space represented by a leaf node contains one or more solid brushes expanded for a certain bounding box, then that bounding box cannot move around there.

So, could use AAS to do 2D pathfinding, and use different size bounding boxes for the different sized units.

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In the Bond movies, why do the villains have minions, when the villains have to do the job themselves if they want it done properly?

Actually, this was meant as a joke.

What happened was I asked StaffSargeant to go and do something for me. Then, due to pressing issues (Shinzon wanting to work on facility models) went and did it myself. Which made me think, what's the point of having minions (not that I actually think of you people as minions) if I go and do the job myself.

Also, I didn't do all of the task I asked of StaffSargeant.

 

But speaking of Minions, I do have a job for you. As you've probably deduced, I'm trying to find information on how to build a destructible terrain, and not having much luck. So, if you can do a hunt around and let me know, that would be greatly appreciated.

Also, if any of you can get your hands on any of the "Game Programming Gems" or "GPU Gems" books and have a look through for any items of interest, that may also be useful.

E.g. Game Programming Gems 2

'Terrain Reasoning for 3D Action Games'

'Simplified Terrain Using Interlocking Tiles'

'A High-Performance Tile-based Line-of-Sight and Search System'

 

E.g. Game Programming Gems 6

Spatial Partitioning Using an Adaptive Binary Tree

GPU Terrain Rendering

Ignore the Game Programming Gems and GPU Gems books, I'm getting them from the library via interloan. However, anything else you can find would be appreciated.

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Well, no luck so far finding anything useful on creating a game engine that handles destructible terrain.

So, my next thought is try e-mailing a programmer in a game company that built such a game (obvious games are Silent Storm and Freedom Force) and ask if they'd give us some clues on how they did it. Probably won't get any answer, but we might get lucky, and at worst, it's just going to cost some time. Can anyone track down some e-mail addresses?

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This is not easy... However, there are two things: One is, that on strategycore there once was a chat with the Silent Storm developers; maybe they have some more contact info.

 

Then I concentrated on Dmitry Zakharov, the head of the silent storm development team. Well, maybe I got something:

 

He is working at "Nival" atm. ([email protected])

 

This would be his email adress: [email protected]

 

Someone who has also been working on Silent Storm is Pavel Epishin: [email protected]

 

same goes for Alexander Mishulin: [email protected]

 

Source: http://kriconf.ru/2003/f/KRI2003_catalog.pdf

 

It seems to be a catalog to a russian games conference, and some of the nival developers held talks there. However, my Russian is a bit rusty, so I have no clue who was doing what. But I guess someone who actually understands what is written there could find out whom to email best...

 

Btw, Mr. Zakharov also does have an ICQ number and a telephone...

ICQ# 9-963-162

Tel: +7 (495) 363-9630 (ext.2152)

 

Hope that helps

Edited by Mad
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The other is to post in the Algorithms mailing list for that information: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinf...algorithms-list

 

Beware they are really PROs so if you are asking too an uninformed question you will get no reply. I suggest first to check out the archives: http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.p...algorithms-list and then if that doesnt help go and ask a question. I have been looking over the information and there are at least two interesting approaches. One is to create scripted destructable objects and destructable terrain (terrain deformations + soft particles for debris) and the other is freeform deformation and destructable environments... I would move toward the first approach because you can do the terrain deformation and soft particles first and then move into the destructable object (art scripted) and then to more procedural approaches for that last one.

 

Greetings

Red Knight

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Nothing on destructible terrain as far as I can tell. Given that we only have these abstracts, would it make sense for me to do a translation of "who did what"?

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The other is to post in the Algorithms mailing list for that information: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinf...algorithms-list

 

Beware they are really PROs so if you are asking too an uninformed question you will get no reply. I suggest first to check out the archives: http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.p...algorithms-list and then if that doesnt help go and ask a question. I have been looking over the information and there are at least two interesting approaches. One is to create scripted destructable objects and destructable terrain (terrain deformations + soft particles for debris) and the other is freeform deformation and destructable environments... I would move toward the first approach because you can do the terrain deformation and soft particles first and then move into the destructable object (art scripted) and then to more procedural approaches for that last one.

 

Greetings

Red Knight

Can you provide more focused links please. The archive is a vast area to search.

I did find a couple of snippets:

http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message...0mail.gmail.com

Silent Storm at least appears to use a fairly simple system of wall chunks, with each chunk having a certain number of damage regions. The holes in the chunk are only used for shooting and visibility calculations, leaving the physics side of things with just a box and a health value. Once that health value reaches a certain point, the chunk "pops", and a traversal of connectivity begins to see if that piece was a significant contributor to the stability of anything else (and they spread this traversal over multiple frames, making for some very cool staged collapses, and it helps performence as well).

 

Essentially, it looked quite similar to how X-Com did it, Silent Storm's addition being in how the damage for a wall chunk was calculated (vs X-Com's "either it's there or it isn't" system), and taking the locational damage of the chunk into account for vis and shot calcs.

 

And http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message...47b02a8c0%40mel

The major difference between the X-Com games and Silent Storm is that X-Com had no connectivity between the chunks. In the first games, if you blew out all the supports for a building, it just sat there hovering in space. In Apocalypse, the instant you destroyed a section, every section above it would crumble to nothing. Neither is really satisfactory. But I preferred the first version since in most games you couldn't destroy enough scenery to get the "hovering building syndrome" - it just looked cool. In Apocalypse, it was pretty annoying to have stuff crumbling to bits all over the place from a small hole.

 

But Silent Storm actually has a connectivity network and a (simple) stress/strain model, so small holes have no impact (apart from visibility, and easier shooting), but large holes cause collapses.

 

This suggests to me that SS uses cells with tiles for the walls (and floors) but the "tiles" are 3D models (Possibly with tri's in the mesh marked for deletion as the tile is damaged.)

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