AGE Engine

Just like my mom's

2009-04-22T17:05:00.003-05:00

Quite a long time since the last post (again), but you'll see, it's worth it (kind of). Many things ahve been accomplished since then. Mainly, the terrain part is fully done. After working on the skybox and more responsive controls, I decided to go a little more "graphics" and start on shaders. The first shader I did (and that I'm actuallay proud of) wasn't easy to build. It's a nice water effect, just like those you see in recent games (well, not that good). It has reflection using a cubemap and some ripple perturbation added to it. Wave height and speed are customizable, as well as water color and transparency. I had great help from the Gamedev community (http://www.gamedev.net). The final result is a combination of many of their ideas and of my own conlcusions. Take a look !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgheU4_hcgQ

Now, back to work !

Slowly but... slowly

2009-03-16T19:48:00.003-05:00

I solved (sort of) the performance problems I had. Collision was still unperfect and even if I managed to make it more efficient, it's still acting weird in some cases. Anyway, I was tired of it(I mean, really f-ing tired), so I'm not touching it anymore, not for now. I decided to perfect the terrain system with multitexturing. What I first thought would be somewhat easy to do seems a little more complicated now. However, it's nothing I can't go over with, it's just going on slowly. There's also the fact that I'm not working on AGE as much as during the past few weeks, which doesn't make it go faster. Anyways, results are on their way, and even if they're not in a hurry, they'll come for diner. Just watch TV, eat pizza and be patient.

Uh-oh

2009-02-26T20:32:00.003-05:00

Okay, I thought everything was going well. In fact, it seemed everything was going well. Physics are now working and I was happy. However, I then decided to implement heightmapping (which is a way to generate terrain). When it was finished, and that I tested it, bad suprise : my engine has big performance problems. I still don't know if the problems come from the encapsulation or from the great number of buffers, I just began to dig it. I must admit, however, that it makes me lose some of my enthuiasm. Motivation is harder to find where you're doing optimization. Anyway, it has to be done, so wish me good luck. See ya !

It's aliiiiive !

2009-02-19T15:30:00.003-05:00

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orin. I've watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tanauser Gate. And I've seen my collision work !!! That's for real. That "destroy-and-rebuild everything" stuff sure paid. Okay, maybe that doesn't mean alot for you, but for me... The hours of headaches, of crying in pain alone in the darkness of my failure, are now finished. A new day is beginning my friends, and it's all for me ! No seriously, I'm happy I can finally walk over that obstacle and work on some new stuff. I plan on releasing a simple video showing the physics in action (impulse and collision) soon. Be ready to be astonished ! Time for the victory song !

Collision works la-la, collision works la-la, collision works la-la, collision works la-la, collision works la-la, collision works la-la !!!

Still Alive

2009-01-19T20:10:00.003-05:00

Well, I should say rising from the ashes, because after another year of inactivity, I'm back to work on my beautiful baby. Now, the major thing is I'm starting over from zero. You heard me. The old AGE is now buried deeply underneath to make place for the new-born, still named AGE. After so much frustrations and despair in face of total chaos, I had no choice. Moreover, some of the classes I had in software engineering gave me some help to give my engine a better structure. Except for the structure, AGE hasn't lost its primary goals. It will be an engine with classic graphics, sound, and physic functions, plus some more advanced game concepts, like AI for example. Currently, only the basic object structure has been done, and basic visuals are on their way. Prepare to be very soon astonished by the uncanny results of my hard work. Talking about work, I've got some waiting for me. I guess I'll se you soon. One word : Courage !

Something like progress...

2008-02-25T21:39:00.005-05:00

The project has been pretty much inactive lately, but hey, that's not my fault. You know the deal : job, school, friends; there's no time left for my sweet AGE. But I've done something that might help the project progression. It's a schematic outline of the "basics" of the engine. There's a nice color system so it's easy to find where I'm at. Well, to make things short, I hope this will give me the kick in the butt I need to continue my work.

There and back again

2007-12-05T21:38:00.000-05:00

That's it, I took my decision. I'm starting the collision detection programmation from 0. I just got too bored trying to make the current one working, I want to advance a bit at least. So this time I'll take my time to read the more I can about collision detection, and hopefully, I'll get something working. However, I'm still a coward so I kept the old one, just in case. Anyway, wish me good luck.

New logo

2007-02-26T10:08:00.000-05:00

I worked on something that looks like a logo. I was so frustrated about my collision detection that I spent some time on it. Does it look right ? I'm not sure. I wanted to give it an old style (the concept of age), so the marble seemed the good choice. The little glow around is just here to give some punch to the final product. I'll probably make a little animation with it to put on the actual engine opening (like the pros !). So, I'm waiting for your comments.

P.S. : Am I the only one who got a problem with the hole over the A. That is really bothering me. Any designer here has a solution ?

Some really early screens

2007-02-23T12:28:00.000-05:00

Those are screenshots I've took like 6 months ago. I'm not ready to take any other for now so I've put those ones to tease you. Well, that's not much but it basically shows some heightmap terrain, model integration and particle effects. Oh, and the config screen too. As I said, those screens are quite old and I've progressed alot since that. So, be patient and soon you'll see real screens and probably videos (and if you are really nice a tech demo !).

Next goal

2007-02-22T16:57:00.000-05:00

I'm not aiming that high. It's just that I've been working on collision detecting for several weeks (maybe months), and that still doesn't work. I'm sick of it. Anyway, here are some details : My collision detection is based on ellispoid-triangle collision. So, the characters or complex objects are represented by and ellispoid (si it as a sphere with 3 radius), and I test collision for each polygon of the "level" near the said ellispoid. Now, after many hours of hard work this part seems to work. However, now I have problems with the octree which is containing the level polygons. So, I must finish this. The problem is I'm too lazy to do it, just because it doesn't work (That's true, this evil code wont listen to any of my orders !). So, I'm writing here that I will finish it as soon as possible, so I have some motivator. I guess it's useless but heh, at least I'm trying.

Great opening !

2007-02-21T19:56:00.000-05:00

Today is a day to be remembered. I finally decided to open a website (well, actually a simple blog) to show to the entire world the progress made in the making of my homemade game engine : AGE. I mostly did this to convice myself to work on it. Now that it is done, you will gradually see new content appearing on the blog : progress made, to-do things, screenshots and videos, side stories, etc.. You can leave me comments whenever you want, unless it has something to do with my mother or the fact that i'm canadian. So, see ya !