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Topic: Hardware accelerated display, OpenGL back-end & Simutrans 3D (Read 235734 times) previous topic - next topic

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #70 –
Quote from: itec – on
before this gets to far along could anybody give an example of a commercial game that was isometric and then moved to 3d and get better? I personaly cant think of any!

I don't know any either. And given the fact that we talk since years about Simutrans 3D but neither have any code nor models, I'd not fear this gets too far along before ... I don't know. Currently the situation is that he official dev team does nothing in this direction, and volunteers all have stopped their work, if they even started.

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #71 –
GTA 3, Fallout, Warcraft 3, Command & Conquer, Starcraft 2, MMORPGs like Ultima Online, Football games like FIFA or PES...Perhaps they didn't improve the gameplay, but at least they look different... ;)

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #73 –
The only instance I can think of a business game where making it 3d improved the game was Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 - but that was still grid-based (improvements in gameplay were mainly based around more flexibility in track shapes and more different slopes - all the rest was eyecandy).

You must notice, through, that recent discussion have not centred on making Simutrans 3-D, but using 3-D technology to improve the isometric graphics system (more flexibility in slopes, for example)

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #74 –
going full 3D would make content creation less effort in the long run. as i understood it is quite a lot of work to create the images, with all rotations, from the 3D models, since a lot of postproduction is required. i guess this is also likely the reason why almost all the commercial game developers created only 3D games from the late 90s on.

3D should also provide higher performance and higher detail if LODs are chosen well.

the huge workload will be on the code side.

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #75 –
Quote from: sdog – on
going full 3D would make content creation less effort in the long run. as i understood it is quite a lot of work to create the images, with all rotations, from the 3D models, since a lot of postproduction is required. i guess this is also likely the reason why almost all the commercial game developers created only 3D games from the late 90s on.

It depends. To me it seems that full 3D usually means more work for the artists. Also it locks out all people who paint, instead of modeling items.

If there is no option to use painted sprites and tiles, I can immediately dump my plans and ideas for things like pak.Excentrique. Nothing there is made with a 3D program that would be compatible with the polygon-based way to display images that nowadays graphics cards and all 3D games use (well except the few voxel and raytracing based ones).

The reason for 3D in commercial games was not saved work for the developers, but marketing, in my opinion.

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #76 –
from other mod projoects i've noticed that there's never a lack of 3D artists. maybe because creating 3d models is not an art at all and requires not a lot of imagination -- so it's more nerd compatible. back in the low texture size days people who could do good textures were really rare. now with photo based textures and shader effects it also became a technical instead of an artistic challenge, so there's no lack of textures either. The 3D models typically also got shared between games/mods, further reducing the workload. (Well, i guess more than half of the repositories are filled with weapon models, but there are also plenty of buildings)

i don't want to suggest making* simutrans 3D, i just think that creating the 3D content is not the real problem.

but of course going 3D would just mean swimming with the stream, excentricism is something i value very highly. And there's quite a lot of content in the available paksets.

the players response during the switch from painted 2D to modeled 3D was mostly negative, it just looked really ugly with the primitive 3D back then. being excited with new technological possiblities has also been a factor in game industries, i think.


* the key word is also 'make' i don't do anything, so i don't have a right to suggest anything anyway.

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #77 –
Sorry, I just wanted to say, I had/have a bad day, and my message was a bit over the top, also I missed the point a bit. I'm sorry. Another day I'll try a more reasonable response.

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #78 –
no offence taken, and no need to be sorry. i also can't see where your message is over the top. my footnote was also not related to your reply, just me in general feeling that since i don't contribute to the project i'm a bit too much of a smart**** by being so vocal.

ps.: reading my posting again, it sounds a bit offensive on 3D artists, wich i did not intent. See it less as a statement of their lack in creativity and more as my lack in writing skills (and creativity)

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #79 –
With pak128.Britain we have a set that is made in Blender in big parts. I ****ume that will help to get a 3D version of Simutrans started if someone wants to try, since there is a good number of models that can be used with only little extra effort.

I see OpenGL being used more and more also for 2D games, just because the hardware acceleration of current graphics cards helps so much. Maybe in a first step, someone could try to write a OpenGL rendering backend for the current Simutrans code, and in a second step this OpenGL backend can be expanded by full 3D capabilities?

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #80 –
ANy openGL render has very limited amount of images it can handle (less than 1024). Thus it would involve a lot of chaching logic. (Some people tried this for OpenTTD, which has even less unique images per set).

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #81 –
I'm no expert, but could this be solved by using image sheets (generated at runtime) as textures and drawing them clipped? After all, a 128*128 tile is not stored as a complete bitmap, is it...

My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #82 –
Quote from: prissi – on
ANy openGL render has very limited amount of images it can handle (less than 1024). Thus it would involve a lot of chaching logic. (Some people tried this for OpenTTD, which has even less unique images per set).

This is point that was mentioned again and again, but I do not quite believe it, because nowhere else I have heard about this, and I visit a lot of game developer forums.

Are there some references to back up this point? I have once made a small OpenGL renderer which worked fine, but had less than 1024 textures, so I wouldn't have run into the problem. Still, in all the documentation that I read, I never saw such a limitation mentioned. But that can just mean I didn't read it carefully enough ...

Quote from: VS – on
I'm no expert, but could this be solved by using image sheets (generated at runtime) as textures and drawing them clipped? After all, a 128*128 tile is not stored as a complete bitmap, is it...

I see this done often. There are even "image packers" that try to fit as many small images into one large texture as possible (which is tricky if the small images have arbitrary sizes) and create offset lists to blit the small images from the big texture onto the screen as needed.

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #83 –
About the images issue, as far as I know, what people usually do is to unwrap 3D models into a single image, so you can have just a texture for all the elements of the object. If you want to go further, as Hajo said, you can use wad-style files, that gather all textures in a single huge file.

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #84 –
Quote from: vilvoh – on
If you want to go further, as Hajo said, you can use wad-style files, that gather all textures in a single huge file.
Umm, that isn't exactly what both of us meant. The thing with opengl is, you can't have many textures (as prissi says), but you can have them large. But drawing only parts of the texture is cheap. So it makes sense that when stuffing the pictures into graphics card, you combine many small pictures into big ones.

My projects... Tools for messing with Simutrans graphics. Graphic archive - templates and some other stuff for painters. Development logs for most recent information on what is going on. And of course pak128!

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #85 –
OpenGL has issues (which can be solved of course)
- sometimes small spritebuffer
- does not handle images with a sizes!=power of 2 well
- no good 15 bit support/player color support
- do work good with partial screen rendering
- do not work on many devices (like iPod touch, Haiku, ... )

http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=38151&hilit=OpenGL&start=0 (OpenTTD GL patch from 2008 working, then abandoned)
http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=36780&hilit=OpenGL&start=0 (some discussion about OpenGL blitter)

And this shows nicely the haggles with 3D construction ... (and nice graphics)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCD3FFcbtmM&feature=related

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #86 –
Then, what are the alternatives to OpenGL? Ogre, Irrlicht, own 3D engine?

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #87 –
Irrlicht seems rather portable ... Orge may do it too.

Imho modelling and usability issues (not to mention the pathfinder) and movement code must be sorted out first.

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #88 –
Quote from: Hajo – on
It depends. To me it seems that full 3D usually means more work for the artists. Also it locks out all people who paint, instead of modeling items.


Not always the case. There are game out there that painters excel at.  Just as examples Rfactor Or the 18 Wheels of Steel Series. Both allow incredible freedoms when it comes to painting or creating Skins as most are referred as. I am no good at the 3D modelling side, But I have created many skins for both of those examples with realitive ease. Granted it would first be upto the Modellers to prove templates for such things.

On the other hand this would mean the Modellers would be the on the hook for new content. Paint takes minimal effort and can be produced much quicker then great models.

Just a thought :)

Cheers Joker
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #89 –
Iris2 is open source ultima online client that works with free serververs.

It uses ogre for graphics rendering and has 2d and 3d mode.

It might be helpful if someone wants to make openGL version of simutrans.

http://www.iris2.de/index.php/Main_Page

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #90 –
I think that full 3D may be sometime helpful but I also saw how it can give very bad result (on RCT3). So I vote for staying in isometric.

Chybami se člověk učí - ale někteří lidé jsou nepoučitelní

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #91 –
Prissi told in a recent interview at the official blog that in the future, Simutrans might need to go 3D in order to survive.

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #92 –
Well, not by me of course ... but somebody might try.

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #93 –
I don't think so ... that 3D is needed to be Simutrans alive. If I am right, at this time only one silimar game use 3D - Sid Meyer's Railroads. And it was published in year 2006.

Chybami se člověk učí - ale někteří lidé jsou nepoučitelní

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #95 –
Simcity 2 is not in 3-D. It's isometric 2-D with layers, similar to Simutrans.

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #96 –
Please note that nitromefan has been changed to a "Lounger"; therefore, any followups for them from this thread should be directed there.

For more information, see here: http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=5620.0

If this post is a double-post, it is intentional.

Please continue the thread. If you have any questions about this post, please start a new topic in the Help Requests board.

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #97 –
?

could you explain this a bit more please?
 

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #98 –
Hello. I was so busy, working in 4 countries, and I was unable even to be near my PC in 3 months, not to mention that I haven0t had time for anything else than saying hello to my gf over facebook and thats it. I was thinking about Simutrans in 3D. I would really like to make this game working, but I realised that it is impossible task to accomplish alone. I have programming skills, but not enough for makin game. I would really like someone to help me, because Simutrans in 3D wont have boundaries, it will be simply amazing. But I need a team, someone who ahs programmed before.

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #99 –
@Vaclav: RRT2 uses a similar 3-d system... but you may be right about the relative age.
--Skreyola
You can also help translate for your language with SimuTranslator.

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #100 –
@Eddielex:

Maybe it will help if you write up a little design document. Write up what you want to keep from Simutrans, what you want to change. Why the changes are good and how they improve the game.

With that, you might have an easier time to find helpers, particularly programmers.

Even better was if you could make a prototype or demo of how it will look like - an example landscape with a few sample models on it, and basic user controls. Doesn't need to do anything, just show off how it could look like. Such uses to attract peoples attention easily.

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #101 –
Okay, I will write down PDF file, with all the ideas, and upload it here. Okay?
And if u like it, I will try to make a preview.

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #102 –
Might be a start :)

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #103 –
Well, I had an idea of making city building game + Simutrans. What do u think about that? It would be unique? And if it is possible, to push that idea to real developers?

Re: Simutrans in 3D

Reply #104 –
In the past people have asked to expand Simutrans with SimCity'ish elements. So there seems to be some interest. But you know, you are combining two already big games there, and the resulting project will be rather huge.

A problem is, if you do not consider yourself a developer, you need good team building and marketing skills to get the project going. Usually people wait till someone gets something going and only jump onto the train if they see a certain chance of success.