Page 3 of 4

Re: Cello Fortress

Posted: Mon Dec 21, 2015 11:27 pm
by Oogst
Working on the tech for making the Cello Fortress concept art actually work in-game. Here's an in-game screenshot of some test objects (no real design here). Lots of stuff to do but the basics are coming together! :)

Image

Re: Cello Fortress

Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2015 12:00 am
by Oogst
Getting more and more pieces in place. :) This is a screenshot of what it looks like in-game right now. Obviously the white stuff needs to be replaced with real art, and those big blobs at the centre are also temp-art that I added to test the newly added curve-based collision detection.

All lightning is baked lightmaps so that I can get those perfect penumbras and bouncy lighting.

Image

Re: Cello Fortress

Posted: Sat Jan 02, 2016 7:40 pm
by Oogst
Here's a little in-game GIF of the lighting I have now. The colours are extreme for testing purposes, the point is the sexy soft shadows and global illumination I have going here. Note the shadows on the ground and on the catapult itself:

Image

This is made using an extremely dirty trick: I've made 32 lightmaps for the rotation of the object and pick the right one depending on the rotation of the catapult. To smoothen that I always blend between the two lightmaps at the closest angles. This object is destructible, so its ground shadow is a separate plane set to multiply so that I can make the shadow disappear when I remove the catapult.

To make this work I've written a plugin for my 3D modelling tool that generates all the lightmaps, and then passes it into a separate tool I've made that combines the lightmaps in atlasses per object. It also calculates the diff of lightmaps-with-catapult and lightmap-without-catapult to figure out the actual lighting contribution of the catapult.

Re: Cello Fortress

Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2016 12:06 pm
by Germanunkol
Might be "dirty", but the result is awesome, well done :).
I like the idea, too. It's cool how you can have baked maps and still let things rotate...

Re: Cello Fortress

Posted: Sun Jan 10, 2016 9:44 pm
by Oogst
Fascinating to see: animated lightmaps. Object rotates, this happens to lighting. :)

Image

These are the lighting for two different tanks and for the shadow on the ground of a catapult (similar to the one I've posted above).

I've so far baked some 6000 lightmap animation frames for all kinds of things. At 128*128 pixels for most of them that isn't even that much texture space, especially on DXT1. I think in the end the game will have some 10000 of these. I've made automated exporters and an atlas builder to keep this all manageable. 8)

Re: Cello Fortress

Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2016 9:38 pm
by Oogst
I've been experimenting with colour and light for a bit and came up with a lot of variations. Which ones do you like best?

Image

Re: Cello Fortress

Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2016 8:08 am
by Daixiwen
E and J are my favourites. It looks awesome!

Re: Cello Fortress

Posted: Sat Jan 16, 2016 4:53 pm
by Thyrion
Is the light relevant for gameplay or fix?
If it's fix, i would like a light, where all regions are uniformly illuminated and don't have too dark regions (someting like picture G).

Re: Cello Fortress

Posted: Sat Jan 16, 2016 8:17 pm
by Oogst
Here's something crazy: I've made a stop motion 3D explosion made of wood!

[youtube]dvsvNpRd7iQ[/youtube]

Sigh, for some reason the Youtube embedder doesn't play the last frames here on the Ogre forum...
Thyrion wrote:Is the light relevant for gameplay or fix?
If it's fix, i would like a light, where all regions are uniformly illuminated and don't have too dark regions (someting like picture G).
The light is not relevant for gameplay, I can do with it whatever I like. :)

To add some variation to the level I think I'd prefer not making it equal everywhere: using colour and brightness is an easy way to make different spots in the level look different. :)

Re: Cello Fortress

Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2016 10:41 pm
by Oogst
Here's another little development video for Cello Fortress. The moving walls are now based on the bridge of my cello and split and combine dynamically depending on what they're passing. Notice especially the smooth shadow on the ground beneath the moving wall. Technically: it's a correct area light shadow for a very big area light. Normally this would cost insane performance to do in real-time, so I've baked a series of lightmaps for various angles of the light and blend between those in-game. Basically the same kind of trick I've been using everywhere in this game so far. :)

[youtube]ExHFpL01iWw[/youtube]

Re: Cello Fortress

Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2016 9:03 pm
by Oogst
Real-time caustics and soft shadows!

Note the shadows and caustics on the ground beneath the tanks. Caustics are the colour splotches on the ground that are reflected by the mirror-like materials of the tanks. Also note that softness of the long stretched shadows of the tanks. These effects are faked by having a ton of lightmaps and combining those depending on the lights in the scene.

[youtube]_wmN9mEs8oM[/youtube]

Re: Cello Fortress

Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2016 9:14 pm
by xrgo
its looking extremely espectacular
really nice job, congrats

Re: Cello Fortress

Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2016 10:16 pm
by Oogst
Explosion frames for the new mines. Doing frame-to-frame animations of explosions made of wood is a wonderfully fun thing to do. :D

Image
xrgo wrote:its looking extremely espectacular
really nice job, congrats
Thanks! :)

Re: Cello Fortress

Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2016 10:22 pm
by Wolfmanfx
Awesome!

Re: Cello Fortress

Posted: Wed Feb 17, 2016 3:46 am
by dark_sylinc
Those are beautifully looking screenshots!

Re: Cello Fortress

Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2016 9:42 pm
by Oogst
Here's a development video of explosions and other stop motion animations in Cello Fortress, including near the end the explosion I showed above. All of these are hand-animated in 3D to look like someone made wooden stop motion explosions.

[youtube]s4hfK00maDI[/youtube]

The music is "Lament", written and played by me. :)

Re: Cello Fortress

Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2016 1:43 am
by spacegaier
I really like the art style. This simple clean yet sophisticated look is really good, combined with this stop-motion feel.

Will this game alter be playable without a cello as well? I guess any other monophonic instrument should work, but is there also a purely IT play mode (gamepad, mouse/keyboard)?

Re: Cello Fortress

Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2016 10:53 am
by Oogst
It's purely a local multiplayer game: you need one musician and 1 to 4 controller/keyboard players. It will be playable by most instruments, although I haven't tested which work well and which don't. I expect even voice can control the game! :D

The game's main purpose is for live performances, where a cellist on stage plays against the audience. But I'll also release the game for download for whoever wants to try it at home. :)

Playing the game without a musician kinda defeats the purpose. I could pre-record some cello tracks to play against, but if that's the kind of game someone wants to play there are better twin stick shooters around, and it removes the one thing that makes Cello Fortress unique.

Re: Cello Fortress

Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2016 9:25 pm
by Oogst
I kneel and offer you, my cello on a wing.

Image

(This is a screenshot of the not-finished-yet starting area of the level.)

Re: Cello Fortress

Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2016 10:25 pm
by spacegaier
Said it before and will happily repeat it: The look is absolutely superb! The wood looks so good/believable...

Re: Cello Fortress

Posted: Sun Feb 28, 2016 12:30 am
by Oogst
spacegaier wrote:... The wood looks so good/believable...
The funny thing is: I've been reading up on the details of PBR recently and I'm not using anything of that here. This is just baked lightmaps and a diffuse texture texture and that's it. I guess in the end my wood is not realistic, but stylised in a convincing way. I think "believable" is a good description of that, as you said. :)

Re: Cello Fortress

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2016 11:15 pm
by Oogst
The first part of the level is practically finished now, lighting and shapes and everything is there! :D

[youtube]FmggAO72V_k[/youtube]

Now time to move and actually make the rest of the level... :shock:

Re: Cello Fortress

Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2016 12:04 am
by xrgo
Oogst wrote:The funny thing is: I've been reading up on the details of PBR recently and I'm not using anything of that here.
yes! that's because you're not changing light conditions. PBR born so materials would look realistic and obey law of physics (energy conservation) at every light condition. In your case you don't need that and you happens to be (or have) a reeeeeaaally good artist! again congrats!

Re: Cello Fortress

Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2016 6:26 pm
by Oogst
Oh no more mines!

[youtube]k7fNtKsRet0[/youtube]

Re: Cello Fortress

Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2016 10:12 pm
by Oogst
Lightmaps can be fascinatingly beautiful in their own right. :D This is the lighting on the floor, without any of the actual objects on it.

Image