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Author Topic: Your thoughts on best advice for cross platform graphics  (Read 10350 times)

Eugene Loza

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Re: Your thoughts on best advice for cross platform graphics
« Reply #15 on: February 25, 2018, 08:09:01 am »
Maybe I can't find some good graphics on Castle, or I'm missing a great demo / game made with it?
Well, as pascal is less popular than C#, so Castle Game Engine is less popular than GODOT :) And the thing it really lacks (yet) due to this fact is cool modelers/painters who can create beautiful models/textures/sprites.
You might want to look at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMnSIupJB4A (2D)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKeMQah3sEA (3D)
But that's far from it's true capabilities.
My FOSS games in FreePascal&CastleGameEngine: https://decoherence.itch.io/ (Sources: https://gitlab.com/EugeneLoza)

Handoko

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Re: Your thoughts on best advice for cross platform graphics
« Reply #16 on: February 25, 2018, 10:49:29 am »
I think both LAMW and Castle Game Engine deserve more publicity. As free software, what they can offer are not too shabby to compete with the commercial software.

Maybe what they need are better documentations, tutorials and demos. First time I tried Godot, I was surprised that this free software has such good quality of documentations and demos.

Currently, when I have time I will explore more about LAMW. I was thinking to write a game using LAMW for the contest 2018, unfortunately I don't think I can complete it in this year. Hope there will be game contest 2019.

Maybe I can't find some good graphics on Castle, or I'm missing a great demo / game made with it?
Well, as pascal is less popular than C#, so Castle Game Engine is less popular than GODOT :) And the thing it really lacks (yet) due to this fact is cool modelers/painters who can create beautiful models/textures/sprites.

I checked the features of Caste Game Engine, it basically has capabilities to deliver great graphics:

Quote
Optimized rendering with a lot of graphic effects (shadows, mirrors, bump mapping, shader effects...).

I'm more interested with Castle Game Engines' Build Tool. Eugene Loza, have you tried it? Is it easy to use to export/produce to Android platform? Can the tool run on Linux?

Eugene Loza

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Re: Your thoughts on best advice for cross platform graphics
« Reply #17 on: February 25, 2018, 01:58:27 pm »
have you tried it? Is it easy to use to export/produce to Android platform? Can the tool run on Linux?
Yes, I've tried it in Debian and it works like a charm (I didn't try it yet with Windows). Compiling for Android is just
Code: [Select]
castle-engine compile
castle-engine package --os=android --cpu=arm
castle-engine install --os=android --cpu=arm
castle-engine run --os=android --cpu=arm
build-tool has been improved lately, so first two operations may be omitted. You'll also need to make a simple manifest file for Android like this https://github.com/eugeneloza/decoherence/blob/master/CastleEngineManifest.xml.

The most problematic part is actually setting up a cross-compiler for fpc. I believe FPCUpDeluxe may do that much easier, than making all the links manually, but I haven't tried its cross-compiler yet.
My FOSS games in FreePascal&CastleGameEngine: https://decoherence.itch.io/ (Sources: https://gitlab.com/EugeneLoza)

Handoko

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Re: Your thoughts on best advice for cross platform graphics
« Reply #18 on: February 25, 2018, 02:18:27 pm »
You'll also need to make a simple manifest file for Android like this https://github.com/eugeneloza/decoherence/blob/master/CastleEngineManifest.xml.

So the Castle Game Engine does not build the manifest file for us? Where can we find the info about building the manifest file for Android?

The most problematic part is actually setting up a cross-compiler for fpc. I believe FPCUpDeluxe may do that much easier, than making all the links manually, but I haven't tried its cross-compiler yet.

Did you mean setting up the cross-compiler is needed to generate Android app? I've already made my compiler to be able to cross compile to Android binaries, it works correctly using LAMW. So does it mean I can skip the step for setting up cross-compiler?

Eugene Loza

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Re: Your thoughts on best advice for cross platform graphics
« Reply #19 on: February 25, 2018, 02:27:43 pm »
So the Castle Game Engine does not build the manifest file for us? Where can we find the info about building the manifest file for Android?
It will try to. Thou it's standard, you can just copy it from anywhere, write app name and path to icon file. Maybe, also specify some additional packages or options required, like sound.
Quote
So does it mean I can skip the step for setting up cross-compiler?
Yes. It has been ~year since I've compiled anything for Android, but afair should work flawlessly.
You might also want to know, that to provide for cross-platform, your app should also be written in a cross-platform way, see here for more details: https://castle-engine.io/manual_cross_platform.php.
My FOSS games in FreePascal&CastleGameEngine: https://decoherence.itch.io/ (Sources: https://gitlab.com/EugeneLoza)

lainz

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Re: Your thoughts on best advice for cross platform graphics
« Reply #20 on: February 25, 2018, 02:47:45 pm »
Maybe I can't find some good graphics on Castle, or I'm missing a great demo / game made with it?
Well, as pascal is less popular than C#, so Castle Game Engine is less popular than GODOT :) And the thing it really lacks (yet) due to this fact is cool modelers/painters who can create beautiful models/textures/sprites.

Well that's not the point, textures are available for free online, and also normal map, bump map, or you can generate these easily with online tools.

Free 3D models online can help you also.

So the thing is that it needs a good demo showing all 3D features.

I Will give it a try to see by myself.

Edit: Installed and run demo of fps_game, well in the material .xml file I can enable normal map, it's a good start.

And I have all these 3D models made by myself:
https://www.artstation.com/lainz

I can share you anyone of these you need to make a proper demo, with good lighting, environment textures, normal map, etc.. (just the model, I think I lost some of these textures, but again I've downloaded them online, so easy to replace).
« Last Edit: February 25, 2018, 03:32:05 pm by lainz »

Handoko

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Re: Your thoughts on best advice for cross platform graphics
« Reply #21 on: February 25, 2018, 04:25:49 pm »
Nice works, lainz.
I do 3D graphics too but mostly for architectural design.

If anyone need 3D graphics for games you can contact me. If the game is created using Castle Game Engine, I will create the 3D for you for free. But I'm not very creative so you need to provide me the sketch/draft.

Below is the sample quickly created using Blender3D.

Sorry, for the shameless self-promo.

lainz

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Re: Your thoughts on best advice for cross platform graphics
« Reply #22 on: February 25, 2018, 04:31:30 pm »
Nice demo, well so you also understand the good graphics meaning I say is missing in the Castle demos.

You're aware of next blender 2.8 eevee, the new real time engine of Blender, it's like Unreal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mxJzQ9Jquk

That I mean with a good demo, it does not need to be a game, but a showcase of 3D power of the engine.
« Last Edit: February 25, 2018, 04:46:57 pm by lainz »

Eugene Loza

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Re: Your thoughts on best advice for cross platform graphics
« Reply #23 on: February 25, 2018, 06:16:15 pm »
Wow, you're cool, guys :) Much better than anything I can do. Some time ago I've been trying to include some models from OpenGameArt and BlendSwap in my games, but most of the time they appeared either non-game-ready (e.g. 30M+ tris) or too diverse to make a proper composition.
Unfortunately I'm not familiar with most advanced Castle Game Engine features, but if we could come up with a nice scene in blender internal render (there are some problems with exporting cycles-relative parameters with blender X3D exporter), I'll try to handle the programming part. It'll be a good exercise for me and if something will go wrong, we can always ask Michalis, the engine author, for help :)
My FOSS games in FreePascal&CastleGameEngine: https://decoherence.itch.io/ (Sources: https://gitlab.com/EugeneLoza)

lainz

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Re: Your thoughts on best advice for cross platform graphics
« Reply #24 on: February 25, 2018, 06:22:42 pm »
Ok, I will try to make an interior scene suitable for a demo room with all kind of materials.

I'm not familiar with internal render, but I will try, maybe it takes me a week or two, since I will do only on my free time.

lainz

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Re: Your thoughts on best advice for cross platform graphics
« Reply #25 on: February 25, 2018, 08:26:24 pm »
Hi again, this is all I can do today, I will try to expand it. Is just a piece of furniture.

https://github.com/lazarusccr/cge_demo/releases/download/1.0/CastleDemo_3D_v1.7z

This file has textures and normal map, try to load all of them in the castle game engine.

There are 2 lights on the scene, hopefully these can be loaded also.

How bad looks blender internal / game engine, these materials are really simple, hopefully Castle Game Engine has a better material set.

Eugene Loza

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Re: Your thoughts on best advice for cross platform graphics
« Reply #26 on: February 25, 2018, 09:13:56 pm »
This file has textures and normal map, try to load all of them in the castle game engine.
There are 2 lights on the scene, hopefully these can be loaded also
I've tried it and it exports/loads fine, lights are there. However, there's a problem with blender exporter for Normal Maps, I should consult the documentation - I remember I'd solved it before, but I've forgotten how. Also I couldn't get the shadows working from the first try, it has been over 2 years since I last worked with shadows and I've just forgotten where should I put "true" :) /yeah, that interface issue dragged me back into 2D for a long time.../
Unfortunately I'll be very busy till Wednesday, so I can't promise very quick response...
P.S. Maybe we should move to a new topic, not to flood this one?
« Last Edit: February 25, 2018, 09:22:43 pm by Eugene Loza »
My FOSS games in FreePascal&CastleGameEngine: https://decoherence.itch.io/ (Sources: https://gitlab.com/EugeneLoza)

fcu

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Re: Your thoughts on best advice for cross platform graphics
« Reply #27 on: February 25, 2018, 09:43:06 pm »
Castle game engine looks fine , but it has 2 annoying things ( at least for me )
- hello world app (release mode) > 5mb
- image decoding is slow (due to fcl)

lainz

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Re: Your thoughts on best advice for cross platform graphics
« Reply #28 on: February 25, 2018, 09:52:30 pm »
This file has textures and normal map, try to load all of them in the castle game engine.
There are 2 lights on the scene, hopefully these can be loaded also
I've tried it and it exports/loads fine, lights are there. However, there's a problem with blender exporter for Normal Maps, I should consult the documentation - I remember I'd solved it before, but I've forgotten how. Also I couldn't get the shadows working from the first try, it has been over 2 years since I last worked with shadows and I've just forgotten where should I put "true" :) /yeah, that interface issue dragged me back into 2D for a long time.../
Unfortunately I'll be very busy till Wednesday, so I can't promise very quick response...
P.S. Maybe we should move to a new topic, not to flood this one?

Ok, I'm making a new thread on the games section.

http://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,40232.0.html

And no problem on time, this will take time and at least we started it.  :)

michalis

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Re: Your thoughts on best advice for cross platform graphics
« Reply #29 on: April 19, 2018, 02:39:16 am »
- image decoding is slow (due to fcl)

We have a loader for PNG files using libpng instead of fcl-image, it is much faster. See https://castle-engine.io/manual_optimization.php#section_libpng .

By default we use fcl-image, as this is simply easier to use for many people (no need to worry where is your libpngxx.dll on Windows).

 

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