i think he should join the team make it 3 programmers

Not really, correct me if I am wrong but graphically you could still develop your game using DX9 shaders if you wished to, I don't think being capable means exclusive when it comes to shaders. I think in this case TGC are looking forward and feel it best to implement now rather than later, that can only be a good thing as it means they view it all long term.

Some end users/players may even now have to install DX9 since they only have x10/x11 installed currently, installing X9 wont affect your X11 installation but an X9 game does require it.

Developers need the choice for their target audience and limiting it to DX9 may leave you sitting in the wilderness for those players who have the systems and demand the games with graphical quality they expect, they have the specs so they want the games that push it, it's why they paid out the bucks.

If there is one single reason to upgrade for me it would be 'instancing' which is an (old now) X10 feature which would in one fell swoop remove the drain of thousands and trees and hundreds of npc's. I reckon X11 does it all even better. Being limited to normal and specular related graphics for my models only in this engine has grown so old for me that I am bored out of my mind with it

Also lets face it currently an x9 terrain shader simply wont cut it as you will find when you turn terrain off, the poly surface is still present and still being calculated for collision but you will get up to four times the frame rate as it is no longer rendered.

@smallg Great video. But I want to know some things. Is it event based? Like you press a key, placed an entity there and test if your AI is near. How much AI can do this? One, two,....?

If this is really automatic than great script otherwise definatly a good optical illusion

Ok for real. How does it work. My head burns and I wanna know the solution. I test a lot of things, but I must study, so my head must focus on different things.

Maybe you can PM me or show us the scripts?

I not wanna sound harsh or anything. It is simply too amazing!!!!!!

Best Regards

as i dont have any control on the ai logic and where the "pathing" will go i simply added my own basic rotation depending on his current "state" and a forward movement to said destination.
the rest is done via a script to name each of the objects and in the AI script a check to detect if the AI character is near to whatever (with a few additions such as player height).
it certainly wont work as a general script in it's current form and i'm not sure how much control Lee has over the pathfinding for detecting when to move through windows but i would think and hope it's possible.
again, this was made in a couple hours and it's not meant to be anything more than a showcase for the animations in action.

short version is it's setup with good placement of the models used and by "luring" the AI character to the correct placement but it is not a set path or directly controlled by me (other than by my positioning... reacting to the player is after all what AI does.)

if anyone wants to play around with it you can grab the scripts and the map here (the walls and arch comes from the buildings/warhouse pack which i believe was a dlc? the rest is stock)

My only fear with DX11 is there is still people with out DX11 compatible graphics cards.

You only need to see the amount of whines from people who play Space Engineers who had to upgrade their graphics card to a DX11 compatible one to run Medievel Engineers.

I look forward with interesting.

With all these updates I will be able to load my old maps right. Or will I need to stick with the same version of GG until end of my game development?

Wow, that's definitely taking things to the next level!

I've be suggested some time their amazing thread, as sticky.

Smallg shows us the anim frames are there, we only has to play with, and have the smallg's knowledges of course.

3com

Sooner or later everyone will have to update at some point, as technology moves forward, 6 year old GPU's and older are not going to cut it. The option should be there for both and the developer of the game will have to choose a target audience.

It's almost 6 years now I come to look at when the first DX 11 cards were. Not sure when the last none DX11 cards were though.

I don't think you should worry too much about it, the only thing to suggest is that if you are building a game right now is to test and save out your levels with each new release so you keep them all up to date as you go along. This way you can catch it early if anything has gotten broken and don't be afraid to report it if it has, they should be able to fix it for you. The Development team would understand it isn't good for you to lose months of work
If you wanted to release your game using X9 that should continue to be fine, X11 would only be a choice for developers.

well done smallg, I agree with Synchromesh, your scripts would be a great asset as part of the GameGuru package.....

To be fair, Direct X 11 was released in September 2009, that's 6.5 years almost, any card that is less than 5yrs old should be Direct X 11 compatible, if anyone's still using a card that's not Direct X 11 compatible it's about time they replaced it as it will be coming to the end of it's life soon anyway to be really honest.

@SmallG - awesome! Are these scripts in the store?

i'm no expert but it does seem a bit odd that they were committed to keeping windows XP support for so long and now we'll get DX11 when XP can only support DX9.
i know DX9 is very capable but wont it cause issues?

Nice script smallg! I think that Res Evil example started your creative juices flowing You would think that if TGC actually spent a bit of time on upgrading the AI, they should be able to get it WAY better than it is currently, judging by your few hours work.

Back to the DX11 debate. I think it is good thing. People who do not have a DX11 compatible card will still be able to use the DX9 version. Lee hopes to possibly have both available when the time comes (This may not happen though, and is only under consideration as far as I know). As to benefits of DX11, Lee has often mentioned in his blog that some things would work out of the box with DX11, whereas he has had to code his own DX9 stuff from scratch. Occlusion and Quads were two of them, DX11 would have simplified the entire process from what I gather from the blog. So, if DX11 speeds upGG development, I'm all for it. I'm sure we will get slightly better visuals as well, which would also be nice.

Whatever happens with the direction of GG, I'm sure TGC will make sure people who can only use DX9 will have a version that they can continue to use in some way. I personally hope they go for the dual version that falls back to DX9 if needed, with whatever perks you get from DX11 missing of course.

Had to skim the thread but some good bouncing ideas here, thanks for the read! The roll-through-hole script is very cool, well done! For what is being coded, and planned next, please do check out my non-miracle worker dev blog which I add to every time I am in the office (which is most times). Plenty stuff planned for 2016 but a prediction of 2 years for a 'complete' engine is probably optimistic for what I consider 'complete' (which includes infinite worlds, space travel and making games with just your voice), but that's just my own wish list. You can, of course, make games right now, but I fully appreciate more customizability and tailoring is required at the user level so watch those features appear sooner rather than later. I only hope you like LUA

"Computer: Make game."

I'm willing to wait 2 years for that. Take 2 1/2 years if needed just to ensure thermonuclear war doesn't happen due to a bug!

i think the big advantage of Dx11 is draw calls and that is the most important thing for a more optimised engine
not just a graphical advantage . dx9 will not stop you using the game engine just wont be optimised as good as dx11
you can now get dx11 cards cheap enough. and if you machine is that old probably wont run gg efficient anyway. dx9 or otherwise.

very nice SmallG!