ToB2

Re: ToB2

Sorry for being off-topic too, but the new screenshots are great!

The title page is still wrong

Re: ToB2

Remind me please... What was wrong on the main page? (The only error I could find was endorsed which I had spelled indorsed).

And thanks for the compliments

Re: ToB2

Zitat: chrizb


Remind me please... What was wrong on the main page? (The only error I could find was endorsed which I had spelled indorsed).

Re: ToB2

Lol... It took me a while to find where I had put that... thanks I think it's fixed now. You guys are very good!!!!

Re: ToB2

Hi,

Just a quick note to let people know that we have added two new screenshots to the ToB2 site. We've posted the update on the forum:
https://www.tob2.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=25

All the best and a happy new year from the ToB2 team

Re: ToB2

It looks interresting. Because I'm most curious about the technical details, I'm wondering, if you are also using bump mapping and "ZFail Shadows". It looks like so... Do you have enough FPS, if there are big towers with many objects, which are casting shadows?

Currently I'm working on a complete redesign on my Remake version. Maybe I plan to write the whole game in Java (if it is fast enough, but meanwhile, i hate to write in C++). I wrote a new (and object orientied) engine DLL (with a module for the Java Native Interface).


____________________
ToB Remake - http://www.tower-of-babel.info
Homepage - http://www.latzig.de

Re: ToB2

Framerates are low. test level is already down to 149fps so we are getting hit for rendered shadows. On the other hand we have always said that we are making it for high end machines (my machine is low tech with 1400MHz, GForce 3 and 1GB memory).

The real killer is anti aliasing (not used for the screenshots) and the texture size (these are the low res ones). Glow and bump seem to be ok. we are still to introduce full specular and emissives.

Luckily Truevision3D is flexible here, and we will offer grafical detail as configurations within the program. Annimations seem to be more tricky then expected, due to some timing issues. We have decided on l*m*n levels, as well as non standard custom objects for the levels. So you can have large non standard levels and new objects (not found in the original) customizable (model, textures, bumps, behaviour,...) so that the game can grow.

Levels are driven by themes, which include all aspects of configuration, based on xml (game will include an editor for the xml)

Thanks for taking an interest

-----------

Re-writes are frequently necessary, everytime the underlying structure changes. But it can be painful. Hope you have things going the way you want them to be soon I want to play your full game

Kind regards
ChrizB

Re: ToB2

How times have changed. Once, programmers worked to save as much speed, memory etc as possible - when you're working in 8K, you need to take some extreme shortcuts. These days one can just code what you like and wait for technology to catch up.

Sigh...

Some of the tricks Pete Cooke used in the original were rather good. The thing with shadows, for example - rather than involve complex light ray measurements and shadow perception, just have two lots of colours (light and dark). Clever. And you save a TON of problems when all your views are orthogonal.

My old A500+ couldn't manage many 3D games. TOB was special.

Re: ToB2

Yeah, I sometimes feel the same about old school coding. I remember writing a little program in some kind of assembler simulation language back at school where even the source code looked like 1s and 0s only (actually there also were some 'l's and 'O's in it, but let's not be nitpicking).
But performance (and sometimes even data size) is still an issue today. Some of the programs I did for Bosch still have to run on ridiculously outdated hardware with Win9x, because years ago they built some kind of cheap garage notebook for oil stained mechanics with thick greasy fingers. It's not easy to work with fat databases on crap systems like that...
Another problem are big frameworks. Today's applications have to be almost omnipotent, have to look good, and have to be created within weeks. You need to use more and more complex frameworks for that, and those can be quite slow. My current web application, based on J2EE/JSF, is not very satisfying in terms of speed, and that's not just because I never did anything like that before.
And, if you look at it realistically, the 3D graphics were not quite the biggest strength of ToB (or Pete C.?! *g*). Star Glider II for example, which was developed even a little earlier, had much more beautiful graphics and ran far more fluent. And let's not talk about bugs in ToB! All in all, I'd say ToB was not a technically brillant program. But luckily that never was what made good games special. Same with music.

Re: ToB2

hear, hear! I can only agree (especially given the comment on Music)
For some reason I have this stupid desire to make it as beutiful as we can. Not because it must be, but if you are building a monument (or homage) to a game you loved, you want it to be the best it can be, to do it justice. realtime shadows, luminescence, emission, bumpmapping and stuff like that are now expected. I don't want to see the thing laughed at.

I believe the game's strength is in the gameplay, but todays players require a bit of eye candy too. I want people to want to play it. Maybe even to get a decent review or two