Hi folks,



Because of my work, i did not have time to post here on the forums anymore, however, i always keep an eye through FPSCR Forums and Lee`s Blog.



First of all, what i can say is that FPSCR is a very good and solid product, an awesome piece of software, indeed it is.



Lee comented that people made bad comments about FPSCR and saying it is not very good, the graphics are outdated, and so on.



Ok, let`s go:



I think that those guys who made these comments, indeed, they don't understand really what means a game engine (i am not making offensive comments here).



People must understand that what makes a game`s graphic look beautifull is not the engine itself, but the artist`s skill to create good graphics (modelling, texturing and animation).



Also people made comparisons between FPSCR and Titanfall`s graphics. But i ask, how can you compare a game`s graphics with an Engine?



What i think, in my humble opinion, is that what those guys want, it`s not a game engine, they want a Next-Gen Awesome Graphical Game and use it as a base to their creations. In resume, those guys who say FPSCR graphics are not good, they don`t want a Game Engine, they want a Game with Modding Tools.



I came from the Modding Community, a have made a lot of custom maps for Counter Strike Source and other Source Engine Games, and also some maps for Unreal Tournament III.



So if you guys want Titanfall`s graphics, so ask the Titanfall developers to release the Mod Tools for their game, so you can use it`s nex-gen graphics to make whatever you want (i doubt developers will allow more than the creation of custom maps).



I say, yes, if you have very good artistic skills, you can even beat Titanfall graphics, why not? You model, texture, animate and so on. If the lighting system on FPSCR is not very sophisticated yet, you can do like a lot of guys here used to do, like Rolfy, make all your lighting environment inside 3dsmax (or other software), and use baked shadows then export again to FPSCR. There are no limits, because FPSCR will render what you place on your screen, so, the graphics are up to you, and not to FPSCR.



If you don`t have skills, so hire a professional artist to make the models for you, or you can purchase some cool models from turbosquid, or even from FPSCR store.



I have seen lee comenting about Counter Strike Global and that FPSCR graphics are close to it.



I can say even more.



I can yes port an entire level from Counter Strike Global and import it inside FPSCR, i can rip (using a lot of Modding Tools) all the characters, animations, weapons, particles effect, level geometry, maps, sounds, textures, normal maps and reconstruct it inside FPSCR.



I can recreate Counter Strike Global inside FPSCR (but off course because of legal issues i may never do it, maybe, only to show off FPSCR power).



A proof of concept is that i have done it in FPSC Classic. On that time i did not reveal that i have ripped that level from another game, but yes, i have done it (just for studying purposes, i did not provide any download link, so i did not commit any crime).



I have converted the map Phantom Fury from Kumawar II game (a Source Engine Game) to FPS Classic. Take a look at this thread:



http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=208457&b=21



Now take a look at some screenshots from the original game from which i ripped the level (attached below).



So what that means, is that a games graphic will be as good as your skills to do this. We have in this community very talented guys like Rolfy, Wolf, Bond1, Wizard of id, Henry, Nomad Soul, Ertlov, and a lot of other artist`s whose names i don`t remember, but they do have skills to create some very cool models and visuals.



In short words, you want Titanfall`s graphics, fine, make them by yourself, because not FPSCR, not Unity, not Unreal Engine 4, not any game engine will do it for you.



So for Lee and all other TGC staff who are developing FPSC, you should do:



1- Do not focus in graphics, i think FPSCR Render Engine is fine



2- Give the right tools to us create good visuals, especially lighting. I think FPSCR should have more light options, not just light marker. I mean, omni light, directional light, spot light, sunlight. Also i think you should implement a Global Illumination Solver to FPSCR Lightmapping system. I am sure there are a lot of open-source global illumination rendereres that may be integrated into FPSCR (like http://www.kevinbeason.com/smallpt/)



3- Focus on game play features, like Mission Objectives System, very smart A.I that runs, cover, shoots, follows the player, and so on.



4- Also about animation, i think FPSCR reloaded standard animations are fine, because, anyone who is not satisfied with FPSCR animations, can use Mocap files and create his own set of custom animation



5- The most essential feature is the ability to import geometry models to be used for the level (buildings, custom terrain, walls, houses, and so on) also with the ability to have a custom model for collision detection (just like Unreal Engine), so getting rid of the worst bug of FPSC Classic, which is the problem with poly collision.



6- Focus on performance, because the Escape level run very slow on my PC with Highest Quality. My PC is an ASUS Gaming Notebook G60 with 6GB RAM, GEFORCE GTS 360M CUDA 1 GB RAM and intel core i7 Q720 1.6 win7 64 bit. I can run FarCry 3 more smoother than run the Escape Demo.



7- Add support for vehicles, remote explosives, and everything that makes a good action game.



So my final comments are: go straight TGC, because FPSCR is a very good product, and please, don`t delay development of FPSC just for getting better visuals.



And by the way, i simply LOVED THE ENEMIES DEATH ANIMATIONS, ALSO WAS VERY COOL SHOOT THOSE BAD GUYS WITH A ROCKET LAUNCHER AND SEE THEM FLYING AWAY. I THINK THE RAGDOLL SYSTEM IS THE BEST FEATURE OF FPSCR!



Best Regards,



007.

I agree with 99% of what you say. The main problem (for me) is that it is difficult to import characters into the engine (the character shader seems to be the main culprit), which does limit the engine. As it stands, with static entities, everything you've said is spot on. The mistake some are making is to compare a demo level made by a handful of people in a couple of weeks to AAA titles made by hundreds of people over several years. If hundreds of highly skilled developers played around with FPSCR for a few years, I'm sure they'd come up something spectacular too.

I am going to chip in here.

As said in another thread you going to have to put serious effort into getting a awesome level going.The biggest problem with FPSC, game levels assemble like lego blocks meaning it is symmetrical in design, and in the general scheme of things, symmetry is very bad from a visual point of view.

It is the holy grail of level design is to mix symmetrical with non symmetrical elements.This where FPSC generally falls really short, thought I don't blame the engine or the users but more the content that is being supplied that users use.

Content supplied with the engine has one thing in mind, easy to use and the ability to reuse, which results in lego block levels, which generally don't look that appealing, The other problems is textures, more than often they are seamless so one block can fit the next block, proper level design and hiding of symmetry and seamless textures.

So it's not the fault of the engine and users often complain that they can't create a stunning looking level with what has been supplied, it's takes some effort and habits to move away from the blocky world creation, I often think users are scared or not imaginative to experiment a bit.

Reloaded is more than capable of creating some really awesome scenery it just requires some imagination proper planning, research, and will not settle for less attitude, and willing to learn how others have done it in the past or busy doing it.

Level design comes natural to some people and have a knack for, other have to put in some serious hard work and a can do attitude, I will say it doesn't happen over night, and will take a tremendous amount of effort up to the point where you burn out.

I take at least a month break every two to three months just to relax play some games, get ideas even watch a few movies to get some inspiration, I especially like taking real live pictures of interesting buildings shapes,sizes and have personally come to a point where I trained my self when I see some like I like to, think of ways how I can model this object in a 3D editor.

How two completely different textures compliment each other, I think it comes down to having a specific mind set and training your self to take in the bigger picture and imagining how you will create this in your game.

It also requires some know how, it's unfortunately some thing you will have to learn and practice, and practice, and don;t be afraid to copy some one else work, I happened upon my greats ideas my copying styles and ideas of what other people did before me and in the process learned a thing or two.

However now it comes back to, age old problem of can FPSC make a half-life 1 game, not taking graphics taking about level design and game play.There is positively no reason what so ever you can't create a level looking just as good as any game out there, game play elements will definitely be different and unlikely be on par with the pro games, but there is no reason why you can't create a great looking game with some effort.

It all comes down to trickery, symmetry and good use of models and textures.One thing I have learned is you can make a great visually stunning level without using a single shader.It's all up to the user and his or hers skill level, engine limitations are minor if there is a will there is a way.

Eventually it will be second nature and it doesn't come easy, requires blood, sweat and tears.

It all comes down to trickery, symmetry and good use of models and textures.One thing I have learned is you can make a great visually stunning level without using a single shader.It's all up to the user and his or hers skill level, engine limitations are minor if there is a will there is a way.

- wizard of id

copied and quoted so its harder to miss.



-Wolf

We keep seeing trickery, ability and skill. The program is supposed to be easy right? So, if one can't model, don't know anything about shaders, can't easily port third party m

You can make so that a single celled organism can use it, still not going to allow you to build a exceptional great game.

You still need to learn how to model ect, it is just one of those things and it applies to ANY 3D game development package out there, I don't think it can be any simpler, every one had to start some where, some have the knack for it some don't, if you don't have it, use what is available the to best of your abilities.

Game development is a learned skill, you will just have sit down and learn it much like programming, there is isn't an easier method, requires hard work and dedication.

I agree with some of what is being said here, but just attributing it all to programmer and artist talent is not the end of the issue. If you have a bare level with crappy art and it runs at 15fps with FPSC-R and you have Titanfall running at 60fps on the same machine with drop-dead gorgeous graphics then therein lies the problem.

Yes, you need brilliant artists, level designers, programmers, and game designers to make a great game. But yes, you also need an engine that can take anything you throw at it and run smooth as silk. That's not to say you can create poorly designed models with over-budget poly counts and expect it to run good, but you should be able to get comparative performance from comparative assets. And we just aren't there yet.

I expect that the gap will close before this product is released, but not sure it'll ever be apples to apples on that issue. I'm just hoping that the final performance is good enough on modern hardware to be a product that people will buy and enjoy.

That is the most important point i think TGC should focus: Performance.

I think FPSC should have a monster performance and always run at 60ps.

This way, FPSCR having an excelent performance and allowing us, artists, to be able to perfectly import our models and level geometry easily with no collision problem, then yes, i think FPSCR will be one of the best Game Creation Softwares Avaiable.

ok... Where did you learn this? Engine limitations are there and not always there is a way. That´s why there is no big engine where everbody develope in. Or you do not like the way you must go. Sometimes we must go another way to get there where we want to be. Maybe this is harder in some case, but at the end I must be happy and not the engine developer...





I said something similar and I didn´t want a game with modding tools. As a fact I hate the far cry 2 editor. There was my creativity locked in a small cell.





You hate us because we want a better shader system, some graphic tweaks and optimized background system and then you drop this sentence. Now I should say:"Go to unreal or another engine!" because this will never happen...



I would say calm down. We just want to say what we want. Also the most shooters a defined over the graphic.



I want that FPSC Reloaded get the attention it´s deserved. And we just get attention when we have good graphic. This should be also in the interest of Lee, of everyone in this forum!



My last statement to this topic:

I will buy FPSCR even when it is not what they promised, because I can develope my dreams, my game, my expectations and my own work. So why I should not say what I want for my money. I easily can abdicate on AI or multiplayer. I didn´t need it for my small dream. But did I say I hate all guys who want this. NO. Why you do it? Do you need a hug?



Everybody want the best for FPSCR... So sometimes we are allowed to say:"This is not how we(a small group of people) want it"



Thanks for reading!(This is a nice little text, it is just as harsh as it sounds, because I didn´t speak english very well)



Marc

Thats so true,if you look at my huts models they are not that good but mixed with good vegitation
and the right lighting they look quite good .

Dave

What "bad reviews" are we talking about? Is it local to this forum, or are we talking about on the internet in general? If it's local to this forum I wouldn't worry too much about it. Most here know that this is still in alpha/beta and they don't expect it to be ship ready. There will always be those who are impatient or unable to comprehend the time and process that goes into something like this.

If we're talking about bad reviews on the internet/YouTube/etc, how/why are they there?

It is not reviews being spoken of but comments being made around here and on Lee's blog, Facebook.



The main problem here is lighting, which users currently have no real control over so it is stifling their creativity, this is a different kind of artistic talent and no less relevant than modeling. It is the most interesting and creative part of level design for those who don't model or code. I agree it takes some work to create a visually stunning level and have pointed out myself that you can't compare assets and level design in Reloaded with those of pro teams with huge budgets and everything created and tweaked to sit perfectly with their vision.



I can understand it may wear off quickly with users when all the design control is an open world terrain and vegetation with some buildings to put into it. It's the reason the Conkit and Character Creator are so often mentioned. I can also understand the need for patience as these things are useless to create a serious game level without the performance required to run it. It is going to be like this till more features are introduced which will give users more input into their own visions and I reckon V1.008 and following releases will go a long way in helping with this.



These guy's are entitled to their opinion and I find it a little patronising to tell them to "Go learn and model if you want to create anything worthwhile", if thats the case then Reloaded doesn't do what it says on the tin. I would rather see Artists around here thinking "I need to create some awesome assets for these guy's to use" I have already said that Reloaded has an excellent render engine and immense graphic power, it is really me saying that there are no improvements to made on this other than more ability to easily adjust and use it, which will come in good time I am sure.

We all have our 'thing' with game design and working together and helping that along is the way to go, no need to be causing divisions between members who really want the same thing in the end.

http://fpscreloaded.blogspot.co.uk/

I hope you like the results

The truth hurts, rolfy you for one know very well, how content creation for mass use can be frustrating, Simply can't expect to assemble a none linear building or castle on their own pre assembling it for them also has some draw backs.

As with Classic content and with reloaded content it is still the same attitude towards it, building lego block buildings and walls ect.

The fundamental problem with reload and any previous version the lack of being able to create primitives in the editor, relying on prefabs is a recipe for utter disappointment, There is only so much your able to do before you have to start considering modeling your own meshes.

I should also state FPSC never intends for you to be able to create a BF3 or CS: GO level, no amount of prefabs with achieve considering the rather generic easy to use approach content creators employ, it's hardly because the content creators are bad they are really good, it's the impact of the engine that forces a certain design style that cause so issues.

What is really needed from out content creators is outside the box thinking, however it also requires TGC pulls their weight as well, and provide the proper collision system that actually works correctly for a change and don't hamper content creation with some as daft as space.

Thought I getting pretty tired of the indoor only games, TGC seriously needs to start working on the indoor environment system, so that content creators can get a better grasp of how the collision system works.

I can say in all honesty that we as content creators must move away from the classic design style and push for a different style of content creation, that suites us and suites the users better, and be able to create more visually appealing levels as a result.The big problem with that as I said before content has to be able to be reused and a number of different combinations and or styles, which makes none symmetrical prefabs really difficult to design, keeping in mind that the content that you create, should allow no two users with the same looking level.

We then find ourselves back at square on of having to create your own content to better suite your needs, it's not a mean or harsh thing to tell users they have to learn certain aspects of modeling should the wish to create some thing other than the standard content options and design styles.

I am not sure the conkit is going to change much in that aspect as it still applies the grid snapping style of classic style of combing building blocks and you still end up with a symmetrical 4 x 4 room, again it least back to creating own content to avoid a lego block world.

You are well aware of that, you are able to creates meshes and design levels to suite your needs perfectly, and generally standard content usage poses little problems to your self, it leaves the rest of the guys unlike your self and me and many other able to create content with a specific prefab style that can only do some much, eventually those users either in frustration give, or start the arduous journey of having to learn how to model.

There is simply no scenario where either the engine or users will be satisfied with what they will be able to do and create, other than getting their hands dirty.It is not a harsh thing, it's simply the truth of the matter you will need to get your hands dirty and messy if you want to stand from the rest.

So I am hoping that content creators can prove me wrong and provide users with a different style of content that breaks away from the lego block land and still easy to use the horror pack for example is a step in the right direction but it still applies linearity of the FPSC classic style, it's is not the content creators fault either it is just the general style that has to be employed to make the content easy to use.

I personally used the same style with my classic segment packs of pre assembling the walls ceilings and detail for the users all they had to do was plop in the editor.

So I don't see any thing wrong with trying to encourage users to learn modeling, it will just make for a more rounded developer any ways, it's a win win.

The ConKit is intended to snap to vertex not just grid and also some measure of scaling etc. Which will open up a lot of possibilities for users, I agree as I said that much needs to be learned to create a standout game I just don't believe that modeling is the answer to be honest. It is learning the engine and how to get the best out of assets you have that will make the difference. Many incredible looking games were created by non modelers in Classic a lot of which were far from the linear block segments...



I believe we have already moved as far from Classic segments and into the realms of other less linear games design software as it is going to get, I also know full well how intimidating it can be for those new to modeling and not all have great talent for it, mostly Reloaded will be for those who want to design games and whatever the assets it isn't going to look very great without decent lighting indoor and out, I think maybe the fun factor and enjoyment of using Reloaded is being overlooked here for some users who really don't need to be told to 'pony up' at this point. Particularly when it won't make much difference how nice the models are without decent lighting.





Ir was one of the first things that stood out for me when I first used Classic was the look of my first 'lit' level and sucked me in right there, remember how we all loved it when they introduced decent Lightmapping, remember how it was always those games that had no lights in them were slated the hardest.



Don't get me wrong but I think some may never learn to model or even better to create their own textures and they are as entitled to ask for better features as those of us who don't even need it at this point to create their games.



Here's a screenshot of some 'trickery' and 'fakery' of baked radiosity lighting in Reloaded even the little guy's shadow is animated and baked, isn't this what we all want and an easy way to do it in the editor for everyone? I just feel the guy's have a valid point and from Lee's blog it seems TGC agree. I don't expect this tomorrow or next day but it will come soon enough and perhaps a little encouragement for those waiting would be better than throwing 'em in at the deep end of something which could take years to get good at and in fact has a higher learning curve than the game design software they are pledging for.







I know for fact I would rather have the engine handle all this than go through the tedious setting up and rendering times to create scenes like this for export



Maybe those who gave bad comment didn't really explain the point very well and this irked some folks but I know what they are asking for is vital enough to warrant attention.



Personally I have moved on cmpletely in my mindset now when it comes to creating for Reloaded and will be providing assets which are complete such as whole indoor buildings etc into which users can drop props, of course there will need to be some modularity to some of these so users can create their own designs. This appears to be the purpose of the Asylum for instance which,let's face it, was created in a sort of 'limbo' between Classic and Reloaded. This would make a great factory setting or whatever you wanted with some simple re-texturing. But it still won't look the way you want without some way to create the mood.....lighting.

"a bad tradesman always blames his tools"

but...

if the tool is so basic, how can we use that tool to create professional results.

i keep harping on about smoothing; but what what we got?

we have a BRUSH that can make smaller or larger to a limit - and have > RAISE - LOWER - FLATTEN <



the UI i hope is not final. it looks like its aimed at 8-14yo beginners.

im not asking for a UI like 3DMax, but if you want this to be taken more serious, then we need a more profession looking UI,

with more useful tools, Smoothing, Noise, Brush shapes, (even single or selected Vertex editing rather than a whole brush), brush falloff, more texture slots to paint with.

Looking at any/most terrain editors these days will have a host of options available.



FPSCR has now grown up to be outdoors - not segments/corridors etc. So terrain editing becomes a little more important; it is the CORE BASE on which your level is built upon. It sets the scene/mood.

Rolfy's examples using it relies heavily on custom meshes everywhere (basically hiding the real engine underneath)

Im Ok to model myself and drop them in over everything. but essentially you are just putting a pretty mask over an ugly face.

What you can see of the terrain is (what i call) FPSCR Lumps for terrain/hills.. nothing is close to what the outdoors really looks like.

eg. take the demo for example.

high bulbous hills everywhere - this is because the tools really cant do much else. - raise it.. lower it.. it just looks "naff"

where walls are, the ground is dead flat forming a sharp edge. i would normally raise the ground at the edges of all walls, lower a tiny bit where high volume traffic travels - there are no sharp edges in nature.



my thoughts are get a useful set of tools to work with. this has nothing to do with performance of the engine, nor the lighting of the engine - they are different subjects.



(edit) - im coming at this from this angle because i fear these things will be overlooked and what we get is a limited toolset on what will end up being a pretty engine, and not be able to use it, rather workaround and make our own assets to use.

if this is the way you intend to market the product, then OK, but i see promotional screenshots that are misrepresenting.

Hi Guys,



Rest assured we are aware that the editor needs some additional tools and these will be added eventually. It is important to remember that this is still a beta product, comparing it to Titanfall (A game) or any other more mature game development tool isn't really helpful. However, suggesting features from another tool would be useful to allow us to see what you all want. We recently drew up a list of all the feature creep suggestions and scanned other boards to ensure we had a global picture of your requirements.



We are discussing possible new approaches to development this month, that may or may not see the light of day, but at the end of the day, please remember that we do listen to you all and are constantly looking for further ways to bring you the product you want in the shortest time possible.



SC

As I've said on Lee's blog, the single most important thing to focus on at the moment is lighting.



A scene can have any old crap thrown in - low poly meshes, rubbish textures, no shaders, badly mismatched colours (and by the way I'm absolutely not suggesting FPSCR's current stock entities suffer from any of these problems) - and still look fantastic if it's lit well. Without adding a single polygon you can take a bargain bin game and turn it into something that looks half decent. Radiosity and bounce lighting, careful use of bloom and the sparing use of ambient light would improve the engine dramatically.



It would require some thinking outside of the box and an investment of time and money, but a look at a few demos I've seen links posted to and posted myself shows that very pretty lightmapping needn't be particularly taxing.



Someone called Dino posted http://madebyevan.com/webgl-path-tracing/ on Lee's blog which is realtime radiosity mapping in-browser.



It would eliminate the need for ambient occlusion (or any ambient light at all). The principle is that radiosity only bakes light to where it would naturally fall. No ambient is needed.



Lightmapping in the engine is something completely out of the control of the developer - it is what it is. Comments about the quality of the assets or anything else are at least partly irrelevant given that in most cases people are going to use their own assets. What people can't do is use their own lighting system.



For example:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/eqhohzsgoel4f1m/20140722_150512.jpg, in this photo I just took now, look how the light coming from the sun is hitting my shorts and bouncing off onto the arm of the sofa. It's this kind of thing we need to see in FPSC and would result in such a massive increase in the visual fidelity of the games it produces.

I totally disagree.

I think lightning/shadows etc are good enough for the moment.

The most important should be basic functionality and still performance.
FPSCR still lack some basic functionality like swim in water and place enimies on buildings etc.
I also think perfomance is still an issue. I got pretty good HW. But do an outdoor game, with grass and woods, with only 1/3 of mapsize almost kills the gameengine. With that in mind you will never be able to use the whole map.

When the basics are in place THEN you go to finetune the fancy stuff. What's the point with extreme good lightning and shadows if you still can't develop a good decent game?

I think Rolfy has summed things up really well here.

We are not saying that Reloaded has rubbish graphics and you only need to look at the gallery to see that.

However the lighting in Reloaded really does need to be improved and is simply not competitive with FPS games and that includes the likes of Counter Strike Global Offensive (2012) which Lee was using as a comparison in his blog.

The one thing that is apparent in every FPSCR screenshot is that regardless of the setting and assets used, the lighting of the scene looks very generic and flat. Nothing pops out and there is no contrast between bright and dark areas.

This is not a modelling issue. Even if you filled an area with AAA content, the scene would still look very average due to a lack of any depth or contrast in the lighting. I'm not expecting Battlefield 3 or Titanfall but the lighting engine desperately needs to be updated with some of the more recent techniques such as radiosity or global illumination and ambient occlusion etc.

I'm not even saying they need to be real time solutions which would be great but if we have to bake them to make a scene look good that is fine. I think the dynamic shadows in Reloaded have been a huge success but the actual lighting needs to be upgraded to match it.

We all just want the best for Reloaded and I think most people are being patient but if there is a fundamental quality issue like we have with the lighting it really needs to be addressed and sooner the better.

Just by way of framing the debate, what we're talking about with radiosity is the difference between a scene that is lit like this without it:





And a scene lit a little bit like this with it:







No more lights would be added to the game by the developer, it's just that the lighting engine would bounce light around the room off diffuse surfaces like in real life. In these screenshots I've placed extra lights to approximate that process.



I'm not sure I agree that Reloaded's lighting system is adequate as is. I mean in terms of developer-placed lights, there isn't really a lighting system. They don't cast shadows and they're so vague as to be pointless.



Introducing a solid, well thought-out baked radiosity solution might not only have the games looking good but might also operate so as to improve performance.

And therein lies the problem, you can only do outdoor scenes at present and these are choked trying to render the terrain. Have you ever removed the terrain and water to see how much performance is gained?...it is impressive particularly when terrain is removed from render, it quadruples the frame rate (at least). For indoor scenes this a massive boost in performance...something you seem to want.



No one is saying that performance should be dropped and the whole team should move onto something else and only that, all they are asking for is some additional lighting features, if this is such a huge task then by all means put it on the backburner till it can be dealt with. Why do people always assume when a feature is asked for it automatically means that everything else will be dropped in favour of it.



I believe what is being asked for here...even a basic lightmapper would do for now....would be the one biggest attraction for users at this time, without this Reloaded is bland. A game has no mood without lighting, many genres simply cant do without it.



I would also like to point out that this is not a biased or selfish request, I can get by perfectly well as I have shown above, this is something I believe would promote Reloaded in a big way.



The performance gains indoors and some proper lighting are exactly what is needed to make this a more viable game design product.

No one believes TGC are only working on one thing at a time - that's your own conclusion. But when you read the forum and the blogg you can get the feeling that TGC spends lot of developer time on making things top notch. As these discussions have being going on for quite some while now.
I suppose people come from different schools. My opinion is, basic stuff first - fancy stuff later. I rather have an engine where I can create a complete game the way I want, than an engine with AAA lightning/shadows/graphic that is years from something that resembles a finished product.
But some think otherwise.

I am very sorry But I am going to stop you there, it will kill the engine if you don't apply camera rendering distance or terrain LOD, then it will kill your level.

My Comp level has over 200 trees over 500 walls, 300 fences, 300 odd props and 40 AI, and I am still getting 34 odds frames, and use about 60% of the map area it's not like I have very high end hardware either, 570GTX and a 2500K with 8gig, ram.




it's not like the level is deserted on detail either the fog always helps to hide the LOD quite well.



I have to be honest and say it comes down to unoptimized level designing, at any one time there is only 250 000 polygons being rendered in my level.I find placing blame just on the engine is unwarranted.

All of the the elder scrolls games have terrain LOD and rendering distance and is adjusted based on the GPU and CPU.Must say that this post is defensive, and I have to say sorry for that, however I strongly disagree that you can't populate a level excessively and still have decent frames, just requires so forward planing and adjusting LODs and rendering distance.

However that said I do understand some people do have lower end hardware and they are the hardest hit on performance not every will be able to run the level at high settings or even medium, it leaves you between a rock and a hard place.....I just have to shrug and say oh well, hopefully lee can squeeze some more out of the engine, but eventually you will have to draw a line and say the level scale and prop placement will be proportional to what hardware is being used.

That said lee is running the escape on a HD4000, I can guarantee you that his levels isn't nearly as populated as some users created level, this really gives the a false impression on what hardware is really needed to make a decent populated level and I will say that it is unfortunately trade off reloaded will eventually be only so fast then no more.

The problem with that is that lighting isn't fancy stuff. It's an integral part of the engine and it doesn't work yet.

If it's worth doing it (which it is), it's worth doing it properly rather than going in half-cocked and producing something that looks second rate, which is why I and others are suggesting TGC bite the bullet and get proper lighting in and working.

Of course things like being able to put characters in buildings or being able to swim are important, but they're probably not difficult to code (in fact from Lee's blog he just posted I gather that's something that has just happened), and they're not as fundamental as lighting.

At a more commercial level, screenshots sell, and fantastic AI or stellar performance, laudable aims though they may be, won't generate interest in FPSCR even a fraction as well as a pretty screenshot will.

I agree danjo.
The terrain editor is very core basic and even I would like to see some major improvements of it. It will come sooner or later, that I'm pretty sure of. But perhaps it need some higher priority as it is core basic and very fundamental.
But at least we got the 3D view...

Well, my own opinion is that lighting is a basic core feature and not fancy stuff, of course you may feel differently, but I don't see how you could go about creating a complete game the way you want without it. I certainly couldn't.



This is what led me to the conclusion that you believe it would in some way affect development on these things, not anything said by TGC or anyone else. I reckon these things will still be worked on regardless, so I see no reason to present them as something which would be held back. Maybe you had another reason for bringing it up but didn't say what that might be



If it really isn't a problem and development would not be held back on core and this is my own conclusion...why are you arguing against this the way you are? It's a non issue isn't it..

Lightmapping is an essential core element of an engine, its part of what defines it. Swimming, for example, is not.