VoxelWar Discussion thread

[LeCom]

Well, in the video you see that I can join a server, see the map and walk around. The only things left are physics, drawing kv6 players/nades/stuff on the screen, and a small rest of the net code. So I wouldn't be that far from an actual client, if Voxlap worked properly.

I can't start with the physics without being able to see players, but my Voxlap version doesn't want to draw kv6. I can't write my own code for drawing players, because something is broken inside my Voxlap version, so I need the original one. This is the reason why I can't do any progress until I have a dll of Voxlap. There's a small hope that Ken Silverman will answer to the E-Mail I am going to write him. If I am lucky, he still checks his account, and will see it.

[bloodfox]

Well, in the video you see that I can join a server, see the map and walk around. The only things left are physics, drawing kv6 players/nades/stuff on the screen, and a small rest of the net code. So I wouldn't be that far from an actual client, if Voxlap worked properly.

I can't start with the physics without being able to see players, but my Voxlap version doesn't want to draw kv6. I can't write my own code for drawing players, because something is broken inside my Voxlap version, so I need the original one. This is the reason why I can't do any progress until I have a dll of Voxlap. There's a small hope that Ken Silverman will answer to the E-Mail I am going to write him. If I am lucky, he still checks his account, and will see it.

I hate to burst your bubble, but I don't think he is very active anymore... At least not these days...

[LeCom]

Well, in the video you see that I can join a server, see the map and walk around. The only things left are physics, drawing kv6 players/nades/stuff on the screen, and a small rest of the net code. So I wouldn't be that far from an actual client, if Voxlap worked properly.

I can't start with the physics without being able to see players, but my Voxlap version doesn't want to draw kv6. I can't write my own code for drawing players, because something is broken inside my Voxlap version, so I need the original one. This is the reason why I can't do any progress until I have a dll of Voxlap. There's a small hope that Ken Silverman will answer to the E-Mail I am going to write him. If I am lucky, he still checks his account, and will see it.

I hate to burst your bubble, but I don't think he is very active anymore... At least not these days...

I know, and I don't think the chance that he will answer is high, but it's still worth a try.

[bloodfox]

Well, in the video you see that I can join a server, see the map and walk around. The only things left are physics, drawing kv6 players/nades/stuff on the screen, and a small rest of the net code. So I wouldn't be that far from an actual client, if Voxlap worked properly.

I can't start with the physics without being able to see players, but my Voxlap version doesn't want to draw kv6. I can't write my own code for drawing players, because something is broken inside my Voxlap version, so I need the original one. This is the reason why I can't do any progress until I have a dll of Voxlap. There's a small hope that Ken Silverman will answer to the E-Mail I am going to write him. If I am lucky, he still checks his account, and will see it.

I hate to burst your bubble, but I don't think he is very active anymore... At least not these days...

I know, and I don't think the chance that he will answer is high, but it's still worth a try.

Very true.

[LeCom]

As no one has tried to help me with my problem yet, I decided to try to understand how Voxlap works. I looked a bit into all the stuff, and found the spots in the code, where the actual rendering is being done. You can see in the video, that all sides of a voxel have the same color. That's one of the things broken in the Voxlap port. It didn't take me long to find a good spot where I could implement voxel shading, so I added 3 versions: no shading, 1:1 Voxlap shading, and an experimental per pixel shading mode:

perpixelshading.png (90.94 KiB) Viewed 21487 times

I still would appreciate a DLL of the original Voxlap. It's a lot better to have kv6 sprites working, than a bit better looking graphics. Once I have a working client, it will certainly attract programmers that probably feel like fixing the Voxlap port. When that is done, it will be possible to improve its graphics quality. That picture was rendered with 60 FPS, and it is still going to be 60 FPS if I add some other small improvements (to compare, openspades runs with like 7 FPS on exactly the same machine, so you already see here, how unconvenient GL is for voxel rendering; just a short remark).

[_Frocs_]

Nice to see some news. Would you give out a download so that curious people could try it out?

[bloodfox]

I like it! I love how it looks more 3d! I can't wait till you put in kv6 models! :D :D

[LeCom]

Nice to see some news. Would you give out a download so that curious people could try it out?

Hmmm I could give it a try, just need some licensing shit.

I like it! I love how it looks more 3d! I can't wait till you put in kv6 models! :D :D

That smooth shading effect is actually the same for every voxel, basically just an illusion of "real" lighting. Also, it leads to some colors not properly being displayed, and rendering bugs. But it actually works for voxels that aren't far up (for the screenshot above, I had to find an area where colors are properly rendered ;D )
I have doubts that anyone is going to help me out, so I will have to do it on myself I guess. I am searching some data inside Voxlap, when I find it, I could try adding something like 2D sprites.

[bloodfox]

Awesome! Pm me if there is anything new happening! I would love to keep track of your progress because this could change into whole new level!

[_Frocs_]

Will there be an option to switch between no shading, 1:1 Voxlap shading and per pixel shading mode?

[LeCom]

Certainly. Per pixel shading is only experimental, so I'm not going to force anyone to use it. There are also some people who would prefer a better framerate over better look.

[bloodfox]

So what is your progress today? How is it coming? How will you find those 2d sprites?

[LeCom]

The main problem when rendering any kind of sprites, be it either 2D sprites or kv6, is overlapping with voxels, because Voxlap first renders all the voxels, then sprites. This is usually being solved by adding a Z buffer: for every pixel on the screen, it stores the distance from the player/camera to the corresponding voxel. My version of Voxlap didn't do that at all. Now I fixed it, which will also let me add fog (which didn't work too).
(In this picture, each pixel has the inverted value of the Z buffer)

ZBuffer_Pixels.png (42.32 KiB) Viewed 21393 times

[bloodfox]

sorry but the image is broken D: Please fix it :)

[LeCom]

On some screens, you may have to look exactly to see that there's a 3D corner in the black area.