Designing a new game, and have questions.....

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computerwhiz
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Designing a new game, and have questions.....

Post by computerwhiz »

I am developing a new FPS game, and I have a few questions about OGRE:

1. Can anyone suggest a physics engine that I should use?
2. Should I use DirectPlay for networking, or does anyone else know of a simpler protocol to use?
3. How do I generate textures and apply them to my objects during run-time?

I'm sure I'll come up with more questions, but this should get me started :D

Thanks!
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Post by JeDi »

1. Can anyone suggest a physics engine that I should use?
ODE (http://www.ode.org/) is quite fast and stable nowadays. When developing for windows only, and your not trying to make money out of your game, you can take a look at Novodex (http://www.novodex.com/) too.
Take a look at OgreODE (http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4696) to see how the engine can be integrated with Ogre.
2. Should I use DirectPlay for networking, or does anyone else know of a simpler protocol to use?
Take a look at these: Hope this helps a bit, and success with the game!

Greetz,
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sphinkie
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Post by sphinkie »

Hello

For the Network Lib, you have Raknet or Zoid

http://www.zoidcom.com

http://www.rakkarsoft.com

Both are free and easy.
Raknet seems a little bit more used .

For Physics, you need to determine if you want only "collision detection" or a complete physic model (with gravity, hits, etc):
For physic engine, you have a lot of choice:
The more used inthe ogre community is openDE : you have a lot of information in the forum, and an encapsulating library called "ogreODE" in the add-on.
Another physic Engine is Novodex: it is the most recent, and maybe the most powerfull.
In the middle: Tokamak (and his library "ogreTok" in the ogre-addon)
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thegame
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Post by thegame »

For physics I would suggest you look at Newton http://www.physicsengine.com, a tad easier (and stable) than ODE and I belive a wrapper for Ogre is in the works ;)
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Post by Sputnick »

Have a look at the Novodex (Nogredex) post:
http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5923
and the Newton post:
http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4271

Note: Newton is Windows only.

- Sput
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Post by Vectrex »

or you could check out www.yake.org they are making a framework with those elements (dunno about texture swapping). v0.2 will be out soonish so i'd wait for that as it's ALOT different to the current
computerwhiz
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Post by computerwhiz »

Wow! Thanks for all the responses! Just compiled ODE and OgreODE...not too fond of it....the landscape demo doesn't work properly (I can drive straight through the terrain!)

A member of my development team is looking over the rest of the engines, so that we can get a better understanding of what needs to be done.

Gotta love projects for grades....this game needs to be done for our final exam (close to 3 weeks away!)...lol. :shock:
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Post by monster »

Just compiled ODE and OgreODE...not too fond of it....the landscape demo doesn't work properly (I can drive straight through the terrain!)
From the OgreOde_readme.txt in the ode-0.5 directory;
If you want to use the Terrain collision primitive, follow the instructions in the readme file in $ODE_TOP/contrib/TerrainCallback and define OGREODE_TERRAINGEOMETRY in the file OgreOdePreReqs.h
It has been suggested that this define (and the planar joint one) should be defined by default. They're not, because then it wouldn't build with the "vanilla" ODE distribution, I kind of assume that people read Readme files, but judging by the amount of comments I've had regarding this it seems that they don't.
;)
Maybe the Landscape demo should pop up an error dialog or something if you haven't set that define ... hmmm.

Also, there are some comments towards the end of the massive OgreOde thread that detail some changes that can be made to the terrain demo to get it behaving much better. I've not had a chance to implement them in CVS just yet.

What other things aren't you too fond of? I'm always open to suggestions as to how it may be improved! (although actually I'm not currently spending much time on it, I'm busy with other things, like Ogrewton).
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Post by gerds »

I have used ODE and TokamakPhysics and I actually like Tokamak better.

I had problems with edge collisions in ODE, and in particular if two triangles are on the same plane and connected you can still collide with the edge connecting the two trianlges. This is very undesirable and there was not an easy work around.

The web page for Tokamak is www.tokamakphysics.com (i think).
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monster
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Post by monster »

I think the problem with Tokamak is that it now seems to be dead. Development seemed to cease after the last release and technical support evaporated some time before that! I know Mr. Staring Monkey seemed quite frustrated at the developer's lack of response to his (and other people's) queries.

I've heard ODE's development described as glacial, but at least it proceeds, slowly but surely and the mailing list also has a slow but steady stream of traffic. And it's also Open Source so you can fix things yourself if the core developers seem a bit slow!

Novodex is great, truly professional quality. But has some fairly strict licensing conditions and is very expensive (compared to "free") if you want/need to pay for it. It's also only available (for free) on Windows although a Linux version has been mooted.

And then there's Newton. It is free although not Open Source, currently it's only available for Windows but Julio (the lead developer) has just bought a Mac and a Linux port has also been talked about. Support is good, sometimes too good, Julio posts such comprehensive answers that I only understand about 10% of them! It doesn't have the raw speed of ODE, but it is much much more stable, you'll get decent results with much much less tweaking of esoteric parameters, and I guess that's more important when you're on a tight timescale. Of course there's nothing to say it won't go the way of Tokamak, but hopefully not as it really improves with each new release. I seriously suggest you check it out.

And yes, there's a Ogre + Newton integration layer in the works. In fact there's at least 2 or 3, and possibly one for Axiom too.
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Post by IoN_PuLse »

I plan on using ODE, if it's good enough for BloodRayne 2 and STALKER, it's good enough for me :)

Plus monster's ODE demos are amazing =)
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Post by PeterNewman »

I plan on using ODE, mostly because its free for commercial use. Perhaps later we will move to a different engine once we are raking in the mega-bucks :wink:

For networking, has any-one else used the ACE library? We are doing some other things that use it (TOA CORBA) so we might use ACE since we have it.
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Post by lgoss007 »

All of these physics packages seem to be short in one area or another (not open source, no linux port, slow development, etc.) I wonder how good the physics engine is on Wild Magic? I have the book but haven't tested the engine yet since Linux and Ogre have been eating all of my time (I wish Linux develpment was as easy as Visual Studio, trying to learn automake/autoconf is driving me insane).

But anyways the source code to the physics in Wild Magic looks pretty good (wasn't Ogre somewhat modelled after Wild Magic?) and may soon be released under a free license since Dave Eberly just released a new book and is shutting down and going back to NDL (in fact the physics code is no longer password protected on the site). Well I might try it out if it has about the same features as other physics engines (does anyone know?). That and if I can ever figure out the whole make/automake/etc. procedures on Linux (I don't wanna go back to Windows :( )...
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monster
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Post by monster »

All of these physics packages seem to be short in one area or another
Life's all about compromises isn't it! And, when talking about things like Havok there's also; "...are very expensive"
;)
I wonder how good the physics engine is on Wild Magic?
Dunno, as you point out the license has always been very restrictive, but if that's changing then that's great. From my 10 second scan of the API I can't see any support for "joint" type constraints, if so then that's no use to me, but I could well be wrong. And hopefully am!

But, if you're worried about engines having "slow development" why would you want to pick up something that's basically been abandoned, and will most probably never ever get developed further?
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Post by lgoss007 »

... are very expensive
:shock:
Yeah I forgot about that one. I usually think about that when I think of 3D modeling applications, game engines, development environments, and Microsoft :wink:

Well I wouldn't want to pick up an engine that's basically been abandoned and I guess that's the whole problem.
I've heard ODE's development described as glacial, but at least it proceeds
So if ODE has very slow development, what else is there for Linux since Tokamak, Newton, and NovodeX are all Windows only?
computerwhiz
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Post by computerwhiz »

Hey everyone!

Thanks for all of your help! We ended up deciding to go with Axiom because we didn't want the hassle of dealing with pointers...lol.

The game wasn't finished when we turned it in, but we could shoot a flaming projectile (which impressed our professor.) Ended up having to do a simple physics engine that only implemented gravity.

My development team is talking about finishing development on this game for our senior design project. We fully plan to use Ogre and OgreODE with it.


Got a few more questions though:

1) The game will have both outdoor and indoor elements in it. What scene renderer would you recommend? Can I use the ocTree manager for outdoors, then once I enter the indoor portion, switch to the BSP manager? Basically, I want a smooth transition from indoors to outdoors (no lag...lol.)

2) How easy is it to use Crazy Ed's GUI library?

3) I currently have TrueSpace 5.2, and have access to Discreet 3DSMax and Autodesk Inventor. Which would you think would be better for designing our maps in?

4) After our maps are designed, how do we get them into Ogre? Is this where we should consider using the dotscenemanager to do it?


Again, thanks for all of your help!

(Oh, and hey...to help all them people out there that don't have a 3D modeler, Caligari released TrueSpace 3.2 for free! http://www.caligari.com/products/truesp ... efault.asp)
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Post by eternal_harvest »

Hi everyone,
I have to complete a small project (…3d models etc…)
for my Computer Graphics course.
Not something extraordinary, but I have to find
a Collision Detection Library (C++, Microsoft .Net 2003 – I’m already using Ogre v1.0).
I’m not interested in any physics engine, just the collision detection and the penetration depth.
Any suggestions… :?:
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jacmoe
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Post by jacmoe »

OgreOPCODE maybe - from ogreaddons.
That is collision detection only. :wink:
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Post by nfz »

You can also use ODE just for collision detection. ODE has Opcode 1.3 built in.
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Post by eternal_harvest »

Thanks... I'm gonna use Opcode v1.3. I'm going to study the
source code of 9th life too.. THANKS once again..
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Post by oldfox »

Little up :D

I'm begginning a car simulation with a team, and will surely use ogre for graphics, but I wonder if somebody here can give me some clues about what physic engine to use (until I develop mine...).

I'm looking for a high level of details, so I won't put 4 springs in the 4 angles of a box :D
I first tried novodex, but results on the suspension geometry are really badly instable :
http://ouacaze.free.fr/eso/vache_folle.avi
http://ouacaze.free.fr/eso/vache_folle2.avi

As you can see rigid body constraints don't react exactly as I would like to :oops:

Somebody tried another engine with such details in physics?
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Post by walaber »

Newton was used for my Stunt Playground game, which has an intermediate-level simulation for the car physics, including a full gearbox, modelled engine torque curve, brakes, etc.

all of the actual vehicle physics (suspension etc) are handled by the Vehicle constraint in Newton. Obviously I'm very pleased with the results :D :D

NEWTON WEBSITE

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Post by oldfox »

Sure your work is amazing :shock:

I have no idea about how the newton vehicle physics are working, but I'll have a look on it, at least to quickly get a working car while develloping other sides of the project.

What does it simulate? Only grip and suspension and you must develop the brakes, engine etc... yourself ?

By the way I'm currently coding the engine part (basic one first, before getting into the thermodynamic mess later :roll: ) and I 'd be really interested in seing your sources... :lol:

Hope my team will quickly display nice loking cars with ogre :)
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Post by jacmoe »

In physics simulations you have to use forces instead of direct positioning - so it includes engine and brakes. :wink:
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Post by oldfox »

Of course but the question was do we have to do it or is it already done in the vehicle container :)