FPS Creator Reloaded

[...] to regular ones for the light mapping process, the MASSIVE news today is the launch of our App Game Kit 2 product on Steam: App Game Kit 2: Easy + Instant Game Development http://www.develop-online. [...]

[...] of imaginational fancy too far. As you know, my own active involvement in the launch of App Game Kit 2 on Steam was a dress rehearsal for the product that I am pretty sure is set to sweep aside [...]

[...] that, we've just received the release authorization for the forthcoming launch of our App Game Kit 2 product on Steam, penciled in for this Friday.  For those not in the know, AGK2 is [...]

[...] build is looking very nice now, and I am hopeful the alpha testing team will agree with me :) App Game Kit 2: Easy + Instant Mobile Development In other BREAKING news, we are about to launch our first [...]

[...] across the ages, and also to try and pinpoint why the feedback I am getting from the alpha testers suggests that visuals have gooten worser.  After balancing the GTTR level with the new sliders [...]

[...] of smaller issues but high priority, and then I can look at a new internal build for the alpha testers this week. Looking stronger every day! [...]

[...] figured out by now that it's not yet available. Due to the quantity and thoroughness of the alpha testers work we've decided to sit on it a while longer to make sure it's solid before we release.   [...]

[...] spent and means you will not have to go through the nightmare hell that we'll be putting our alpha testers through in the coming days. We released the alpha internal build over the weekend and the [...]

[...] focused on stability in anticipation of a V1.009 release, and I have returned to more system memory optimizations to ensure the engine does not crash due to insufficient wiggle room.  It took [...]

[...] one in that I followed some Intel engineer advice and now my engine can use up to 4GB of system memory. It's still a Win32 application, but thanks to a 64-bit friendly flag for modern operating [...]

[...] the lightmap resource usage from this morning. Ignore the title, it should have read "CPU System Memory" but you can see the worst offenders are terrain, and the 21% is the memory created [...]

[...] of lightmapped geometry and finding out why fonts are taking 64MB of video memory and 50MB of system memory :) [...]

[...] and surface colors. While I was coding and testing this, I set my machine off pre-baking The Escape level with ambient occlusion but with a single threaded approach. I did some experimenting last [...]

[...] in frame rate, and my mission Friday will be to apply this new batching technique to The Escape level, which is a real game level with real challenges when it comes to what renders are important [...]

[...] this explosion do not exactly settle and deactivate once the dust settles.  Right now my Escape level starts at 65 fps which means performance progress has been made, with some more to come! [...]

[...] version of the lightmapper and now we have a super fast light mapping bake process back. The Escape level used to take 'quite a while' with the old single thread approach but now it takes less than a [...]

[...] ; } Almost all the triple AAA issues solved, those remaining require more info from the internal alpha testers.  My next attack will be on the double AA's which are key fixes but not as urgent as [...]

[...] feature additions since the last public build so will be spending plenty of time with our internal alpha testers. [...]

[...] this version, remove any rough edges and refine the look and feel. My thanks to all the internal alpha testers, artists, coders and helpers who made V1.009 possible, and after my brief festive break, [...]

[...] now very cool, and it has been suggested that an early internal build can be made to our internal alpha testers in the not too distant future, lucky fellows! [...]

[...] major areas I think need work, but I will let the profiler be my guide this week (and my own task list of course). Before I started this week of speed, I had one last visuals related conference call [...]

[...] on the GPU side using the GPA Frame Analyser, and perhaps a little NSIGHT as well.  My task list still shows render ordering and object occlusion work as priority items, but it looks like I [...]

[...] -Out' I have decided to stay at home and have an evening of 'more work' which according to my task list on Wrike means I start the code which will allow the Uber Character to hold ANY weapon style ( [...]

[...] the office at 3PM today to celebrate someones birthday and help myself to the local mead. My task list is quite meager today with just three crash bugs to attend (and as I write this at 7:30AM I have [...]

[...] which accelerated the IDE to a nice smooth speed, and I also fixed a bug which restored all dynamic shadows to the editing process.  The afternoon was spent adding dynamic shadows to all dynamic [...]

[...] after 2 hours of lightmap baking (a horrible one to reproduce) and restoring the dynamic shadows for the editor and higher shader modes.  It's plenty to be getting on with, and is a [...]

[...] first of my major tasks on Friday, which according to my most current schedule is restoring dynamic shadows to the PRE-BAKE system for things like crates and characters (initially using the new glass [...]

[...] up on some coding tasks, and sitting at the top of my list is the re-introduction of dynamic shadows for crates and characters.  Using the new glass terrain geometry, I should be able to [...]

[...] what the community does with THAT, exciting times and let's hope we cover enough bases for our Steam launch (early access build). My Friday night plans are pretty typical of a bedroom coder, eat [...]

[...] middle of an empty car park on a Wednesday night is not a good idea on so many levels. If the Steam launch goes well, I can just buy a new bumper, or if it goes really well a new car (not really, my [...]

[...] tweaks before some seriously intense testing next week ready for the countdown to the actual Steam launch.  I hope the new pledger installer works for everyone, but don't worry if you get the  [...]

[...] Editor to prepare what is called a Translation Kit. I had not planned to do this before the Steam launch as it is quite pervasive to swap out lots of hard coded text for external file reference text, [...]

[...] deduct this value from the shader so I can effectively have negative light to apply the ambient occlusion effect again. For today, in the spirit of getting things done, I have decided not to [...]

[...] big LM chunks).  I am sticking with the lightmap resources for now as part of the ambient occlusion mapping work and then I will probably explore the terrain usage after I've done the [...]

[...] , so that was fixed up too. I also experimented with the new static baked lights.  Ambient occlusion is still O.T.T but you can start to appreciate the power of a few static lights for [...]

[...] what I am calling the light balance of the scene. Now all element such as static entities, dynamic entities, terrain, characters and other bits use the same calculation for both ambience and direct [...]

[...] 90 fps with dynamic lights and pre-baked good definition shadows, and dynamic shadows for dynamic entities to the floor, I'd say V1.009 is certainly going to leave it's mark. I know there are more [...]

[...] I would have redundant resources in there on both sides (i.e. secondary UV not required for dynamic entities, occlusion texture not required for static entities). I also like the freedom of being able [...]

[...] shadows to the editing process.  The afternoon was spent adding dynamic shadows to all dynamic entities while in the pre-bake mode. This means we get the visual quality and speed of lightmaps, but [...]