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Re: New game: Top down city!

Posted: 04 Jul 2019, 12:55
by Logofero
Deleted. Not relevant.

Re: New game: Top down city!

Posted: 27 Aug 2019, 09:01
by Logofero
Deleted. Not relevant.

Re: New game: Top down city!

Posted: 29 Aug 2019, 19:00
by JernejL
It's being worked on slowly - currently i'm doing AI updates, so far AI can navigate around simple vehicle obstacles and go around them, but cannot yet find long distance paths, which is where i'm implementing a complicated A* variant to work with the map geometry.

I've also replaces (improved) a lot of effects - explosions, fire now look far better.

Re: New game: Top down city!

Posted: 29 Aug 2019, 21:19
by Logofero
Deleted. Not relevant.

Re: New game: Top down city!

Posted: 03 Sep 2019, 05:44
by JernejL
I will have more videos, i just need to get the pathfinding working, to demonstrate it :)

Re: New game: Top down city!

Posted: 12 Sep 2019, 15:33
by Logofero
Deleted. Not relevant.

Re: New game: Top down city!

Posted: 16 Sep 2019, 09:02
by JernejL
Thanks for testing, i will comment some points, i can already say that a lot of this was already improved and fixed on my side, but just wasn't published yet, the rest of issues regarding feel of the game are adjustable to suit your need.

I was not trying to reproduce gta2 feel, which is why some aspects of it are set up a lot differently than what you might be used to, so let me first address bullets.

Weapons:

Bullets feel differently because compared to gta2 have a different "attraction" mechanics. They are not that slower than gta2, but are harder to hit things because bullet auto-aims slightly only when fired and does not home onto target afterwards like what gta2 does. I will try to change how this attraction works, but so far this is what i managed to do, once i get back to this part of engine, i will correct this and shooting will feel much differently.
As for speed of bullets, this is completely adjustable - any bullet can be fired at any speed.

Bullet exit point in sprites was messed up, but this was fixed - not in the old release tho.

Movement:

Car physics is ridiclous and not set up as realisticly. The good part of this however is - that it can be completly customized and made into realistic model if you wanted to, it's even possible to set up custom materials which correspond to how cars interact between each others when hit.

Character movement is same story: While i don't know if the last published build contains strafing, this was added and makes fighting much more refined, especially when used with rotating camera.
Same as with cars, all this can be adjusted for characters, including on-foot backwards speed and turning acceleration. If you want more responsive movement backwards, this can be changed.

The way actors touch and push cars is unacceptable - while current version of game has some workaround, it's kinda shitty - this is something i need to work on and change in the future.

Tank is improved in new version but still not quite ok, i think i will add a completely distinct class of physics parameters for tracked vehicles, including the whole "driving over other vehicles" component, this is a lot of work in itself, you can be assured this will be changed.

Police:

Police is very aggressive, it needs some tweaking, but generally is not as dangerous, i'm not sure about the old released version but for new one you can even hide and lose some wanted level.
I will continue to ballance AI, especially for police, there is a point where the game is fun any not too easy not too difficult.

Artefacts: a picture would be very helpful, but i have a feeling this is a bug in shaders on intel graphics chip, it's likely that you have gpu gfx quality set to lowest? a screenshot will help figure this out.

The crash with frontend gui resolution was likely fixed, the frontend is being removed, starting game will start directly into game and resolution & screen change will be integrated into main gui.

Server / client mode is still buggy, i did fix a lot of crashes and did some long-time tests. I think the networking library was also upgraded and it should work better with next release.


Camera:

Camera distance needs some more work, it is actually on purpose like this, because i tried to limit how much is seen because with highier view you need to also have more vehicles and pedestrians, and i was still saving on resouces.

You can try rotating camera, this works a bit better for high speed driving, but takes some time to get used to.

Re: New game: Top down city!

Posted: 17 Sep 2019, 01:20
by Logofero
Deleted. Not relevant.

Re: New game: Top down city!

Posted: 17 Sep 2019, 06:55
by JernejL
Next version has improved error reporting, hopefully this helps identify the crash if it wasn't fixed already, i fix a dozen of random crashes monthly.

walk-in doors: animation is not yet properly implemented, the doors work fully, but the animation is missing.

Regarding your experience on different cards: i will need a screenshot of the artefacts.
The fps drops on a 720m card however are probably fixed in new version, there were about 5 distinct stuttering problems that were fixed, game itself should also not be as hard on the graphics card anymore because i've optimized particles rendering.

All particles already have a limit on how many can be drawn per frame, this limit however is high, but after some tweaking can be set to a value that adjusts based on hardware.

Map editor:
when you edit map, game should load normally, but it will take longer to load as it is transforming the edited part of the map to physics engine format, this is normal on first-load after editing, but it should load.

Car editor has been improved, the dummy editor was improved already, especially the way dummies are added and deleted.

Car editor probably won't get undo system, it is too complex and cannot benefit a lot, as anything that is messed upy is so easily changed back manually.

Doors are currently generated one-way only, i know it would be much easier to have a polygon area to work with, but this prevents some other innovative ways of creating doors - for example gull-wing doors and other special cases like trucks with ladders.
I am considering polygonal doors, but i would do this another time after completing more game, i have left room in car file format to extend this in future.

Turret center is planned, similar to how there is already a truck trailer hitch dummy point, this is a bit complex as off-center aiming for AI has to be again a special case that has to be written, so this would be a complete distinct feature that will be created together.

I don't understand the thing about collision, collision size does get set in the car editor, but this was added later, so it's possible i already made this before you mentioned it, but it's in my unreleased version.

I'm glad that you are getting used to the feel of the game, still - nearly all of the feel is adjustable, also some mechanics are not used yet - there are animations for a few things not yet used, like for crawling on floor.

Regarding API, there are some example javascript files in the data folder. The api is currently still very limited, but will grow when the rest of things are prepared for another beta release.

So, for the next release what is missing now is, the AI pathfinding put into its own thread (so that AI / police can find long-distance paths) and some more fixes to AI / police - it's getting closer!

Re: New game: Top down city!

Posted: 17 Sep 2019, 15:01
by Logofero
Deleted. Not relevant.

Re: New game: Top down city!

Posted: 19 Sep 2019, 09:23
by JernejL
This what you describe exactly are the little details that are missing, and trust me this is not even everything. A LOT of this was already fixed, and will work far better in the next release - it's a lot of little things syndrome, so let me answer some:

Car creator does have door pivot that you can set - all the options are there. They might be a bit odd to use because it wasn't made very friendly, the car editor had a lot of fixes and friendliness improvements.

You will need to test a new citypaint, the old one was very buggy and i did a lot of fixes to it since, it's likely that most of bugs you shown were already fixed.

Scripts / API

The whole scripting is not yet complete, as said in previous post.
The whole architecture is not yet complete - how it will relate to game objects and all - this is why there is zero documentation too, there are no proper actions - just spawning chracter and basic checks.

Please don't design maps in the version you have, the file format of maps and texture sprites has changed and will not load in editors or game in the next release.


Regarding data model: it is expected that sqlite file will be herarhical - there will be a base file, and then additional files that you can add for your game - this is still incomplete.

Vehicle colors are not based on indexes, all vehicles should be red for coloring to work correctly. Some cars like police should not be changed, it's currently a hack, but i will add that to sqlite - it's on the list.

Molotovs are incomplete - i will tweak this in the future, it'll take a lot of work for it to look good.

Weapon scattering was fixed a short time ago on my side, it's not yet released, it was some sort of dumb problem with randomization.

blood stains: i would add them if i had sprites for the animation - i've looked for blood splatters with hemmoraging but it's not easy to find.
The only thing that looks proper is https://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/888 ... -mask.html
but this looks too cartoonish and lacks gore.. i think an artist will need to be hired to make this effect, it is not difficult to add it once i have an animation.

dropped items are intended to be scripted and not automatic, when a player dies, script should create pickups for dropped items in player's inventory.

realtime editors for everything in sqlite files are planned - i cannot give an timeline for this, because it will be a lot of work that was barely started.

sound effect differences are in the config files already - see table system, it tells which audio effect (or audio_variant) to use. this will still be upgraded, as not all object are of same material.

map editor: i think both of your problems (crash with objects and physical landscape not being affected) are fixed.

regarding material: this is somethign that was recently implemented in physics engine that i use - current game has a big change in how materials work, each tile now has a material associated with it.
and the editor also has visualization of this too.

Image

Pencil is not yet fixed to draw continously, as for the bucket drawing - you can do this via selection + drawing on the right side (draw into the block's tile)

Re: New game: Top down city!

Posted: 19 Sep 2019, 20:16
by Logofero
Deleted. Not relevant.

Re: New game: Top down city!

Posted: 20 Sep 2019, 09:16
by JernejL
please note - files you might edit will not be readable in new build, the file format changes are not backwards compatible.

colors: there is no color palette in the game, you can use any color via RGB mechanism.

Re: New game: Top down city!

Posted: 20 Sep 2019, 14:00
by Logofero
Deleted. Not relevant.

Re: New game: Top down city!

Posted: 21 Sep 2019, 14:27
by JernejL
Standard colors could be something set via scripting, i do not wish to limit this in any way, just set hue, saturation and lightness and you can get any color.

Re: New game: Top down city!

Posted: 22 Sep 2019, 07:47
by Logofero
Deleted. Not relevant.

Re: New game: Top down city!

Posted: 23 Sep 2019, 05:16
by JernejL
None yet - there is no method yet to override colors, like i said, API will be part of next upgrades after i release the work i made right now.

Re: New game: Top down city!

Posted: 24 Sep 2019, 13:14
by elypter
will it support cmp/gmp, sty and raw files from gta1&2 natively? this could give modding a great head start. it would be great if it worked like one of the doom engines that just need one of the many wad files available

Re: New game: Top down city!

Posted: 24 Sep 2019, 18:35
by JernejL
A 1:1 conversion from cmp,gmp and sty,g24 files is possible without any loss, it's certainly not high on my todo list but it is doable.
In theory it is even possible to merge multiple maps into one since TDC map size is not bound to just 256*256 blocks.

Maybe there can be a issue converting some stuff related to materials and roads, because TDC uses vector roads not bound to full blocks and handles traffic very differently, but the textures and map should not no be a problem.

Re: New game: Top down city!

Posted: 01 Oct 2019, 06:40
by JernejL
1 blocker bug/feature left to new release (background audio transitions) - pathfinding is finally finished (more or less)