Samuel Venable
Time Killer
I just now noticed you tagged me in this. Is there still a spot open for beta testing? Thanks for thinking of me!Hi everyone, I've got a quick update, I've made a few improvements to the engine while porting it to gms2.3:
Improved render batching system (slightly faster than before)
Batches are handled separately now,
(a "batch" struct is returned from "batch_create(list of instances)"
instead of only one global batch being possible,
so this allows say security cameras rendering a room the other side of the level in full detail.
Implemented a simple type of visibility culling using "zones"
You create rectangular zones for each say room or small area of the level,
and other zones nearby are flagged as "visible from that zone",
which, in the level init process a whole set of lists are created for instances
visible from each zone in the level, which cuts down draw calls a ton.
Also combined the zones into the collision system for dynamic instances (like the player, enemies, projectiles and anything else that actively checks for collision with things) in which instances only check collision in the zone they're currently in.
While testing collision with static instances(like items, ammo pickups etc.) and the precise triangles of the level model are still handled in the grid like before, as it's the fastest way.
Converted the entire gui to structs instead of instances. Before every button or thing you could click on was a separate instance of obj_gui, as it was way too complicated to do with arrays before, but I was able to convert them to structs in about 2 hours, just had to change a few instance_exists calls and other things where they had to be instances.
Made a few improvements to the model editor and the way "tools" are handled, which has made it easier to create new tools, so the list of tools should keep growing as time goes on.
I think that's it for now, I've mainly been refining all the code and thinking about it being a rock solid system, that's also easy to add things to. I'm very happy with how everything's going anyway.
Also, the new version is almost ready for beta testing. I'm going to invite a handful of people to beta test it, people that I trust and have spoke to before and some that've given constant support throughout:
@Amon
@Micah_DS
@TheSnidr
@JaimitoEs
@RujiK
@Yal
@Apapappa
@FoxyOfJungle
@Samuel Venable
@Xor
@flyingsaucerinvasion
If any of you are interested in testing the beta version, it'd be a HUGEE help, it will help with all sorts of angles to do with other people besides myself using it. Also in return for your help I'll give you lifetime access to the engine for free(via buying it on the marketplace and I then send you the money back on paypal)
In the meantime, I made a cool sky dome shader, it basically uses a flat texture(photoshop clouds in this case) and projects it onto a sphere, created by a single cube, where the position coords are passed to the pixel shader, then normalized to create a sphere out of pixels. Then all that's left is to do a calculation that uses the normal and create a uv, plus some uniforms to affect the curve and scale. It's similar to how the sky worked on Quake 1, but I added a couple of other things to stop it looking so warped around the horizon
Edit:
fails to read exe demo out now lol
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