EDGE 2.1.0 Discussion [RC-1 Released on 10.3.2018]

[Coraline]

Hey guys, sorry about the BUMP, but I had to share. This release marks the next major version of 3DGE because it mainly exists to introduce changes to the rendering engine.

The version I have uploaded is 3DGE 1.4a, and you can download that here.

Please note that the 7Z *only* contains the executable and MUST be dropped over 3DGE 1.36F. The EXE is named "3DGE14A.exe" so it wouldn't overwrite 3DGE.exe (1.36).

The BIGGEST draw to this release is that 3DGE finally has framerate interpolation! Though, this is still unfinished. See below:

At the moment, the only interpolation is when the position and rotation of the player is accessed by the camera, on the position of objects, and rotation of MD2/MD5 models. Everything else (HUD, doors/elevators, model animations, etc) is currently uninterpolated. There's no vsync yet, so it just renders as many frames as possible. Headbob is disabled because the way the headbob is currently applied caused it to be uninterpolated, and uninterpolated headbob really hides the high frame rate. Most of the obvious corner cases are handled, like making sure interpolation state is cleared on object creation and modifying teleporters to reset interpolation state to prevent interpolating between positions, but there might be others.

It seems to work pretty well on normal Doom maps with sprite objects, with the most notable flaw being that doors/elevators aren't interpolated.

Interpolation can be disabled by setting the c_var "r_lerp" to 0.

Another thing - there is hardcoded FOG in this release, mostly to get feedback on how that is handled - right now it has a blue tint to it and skies fail to render. There is no way to disable FOG in this test release (sorry).

Other minor things - the splash screen is disabled, the console reports this version as (1.36) but it was an oversight.

Major issues is that the gamecode is reverted to pre-1.36F and all important and bugfixed changes that were brought to 1.36F have not been integrated yet. This is because three codebases were worked on - one for Hypertension/Dreamcast (1.4), the Public (1.36+), and SLaVE (1.37). I'm very sloppy in tracking changes but I promise the next test release WILL be bugfixed. Eventually Hypertension/Public will be merged together.

In short, I would recommend to continue using 1.36F for general 3DGE use, and only use 1.4a to have a little fun and track the changes.

The screens below show Hypertension, a DOOM-engine based shooter which is render-heavy (+80FPS) and vanilla DOOM II (+900FPS).

[Peter Bark]

nice to see Edge is alive again, always loved DDF coding more than Decorate. Hyertension game looks really good, I just saw a trailer for it on YouTube.

[VGA]

Hmm, when I stand still and turn around it gets really jerky, not sure how to describe it. Also, strafing also causes some weirdness, it's like motion blur!

FRAPS shows me 35fps in the menu and 60 ingame. I checked my Nvidia control panel and I don't have a profile for 3DGE, so why is it capped at my refresh rate if there is no vsync?

With r_lerp 0 everything is normal again.

[chronoteeth]

Would this mean being able to animate stuff like weapons or enemies at a smoother framerate?

[Coraline]

Hmm, when I stand still and turn around it gets really jerky, not sure how to describe it. Also, strafing also causes some weirdness, it's like motion blur!

FRAPS shows me 35fps in the menu and 60 ingame. I checked my Nvidia control panel and I don't have a profile for 3DGE, so why is it capped at my refresh rate if there is no vsync?

With r_lerp 0 everything is normal again.

Yes, those are all a result of unfinished implementation (at the moment of release). Lots of screen tearing, etc.

Maybe because you have an Nvidia card? Does that control panel take over some games running on it? I have an ATI and leave everything on the game-side, so there's no way for me to tell what's going on there. Regardless, VSYNC and all improvements are coming at a later time.

Would this mean being able to animate stuff like weapons or enemies at a smoother framerate?

Yes, we are already working on a DDF rewrite to take advantage of the higher framerate:

For the animations, that's pretty much what I was thinking about. Mainly to make it easier for someone who wanted to use higher framerate animations without having to do a lot of shuffling things around when an animation gets tweaked and has frames added/removed. Something like this, specifying an animation and a range of frames to use over that period:

Code: Select all

STATES(DEATH)=CALB:CALBDIE,0,3 :3:NORMAL:NOTHING,
              CALB:CALBDIE,3,10:7:NORMAL:PLAYER_SCREAM,
              CALB:CALBDIE,10,17 :7:NORMAL:MAKEDEAD,
              CALB:CALBDIE,17,47:14:NORMAL:NOTHING,
              CALB:CALBDIE,47,47 :-1:NORMAL:NOTHING;

[/i]

So here, it's taking advantage of MD5 models, but spriting would be very similar. So, this will be an improvement especially when animating 3D models. The "old" way of writing the same code will become extinct, but it's nearly in the same format anyway. CALB is the THING, CALBDIE is the animation, 0,3 would be the number of frames tied together in a sequence.

But ultimately, whatever we chose to go with, you can animate EVERYTHING at a higher framerate now without it looking out of place. Smooth 3DGE, anyone?

[chronoteeth]

Well lets say I want a fast firing weapon

A base would be like

"AAAA:A:1:NORMAL:SHOOT"
but i would want it to be better and smoother than that, like going by smaller ticks
"AAAA:A:0.5:NORMAL:SHOOT"
ill be able to do something similar to that?

[Coraline]

Yes, you could even do like
"AAAA:A:0.5:NORMAL:SHOOT;
or even 0.25...however you'd want to do it. You could do this since forever, but it's more noticeable now because of the higher framerate.

I never understood why you guys always put EDGE down because of the lower framerate...until I started r_lerping through maps...damn.

[chronoteeth]

this is gonna make some really nice visual fidelity! Ultra smooth weapons

[Coraline]

Definitely. 1.4B should be out soon which will bring more improvements to interpolation, remove the blue-tinted Fog, and hopefully set us up for Decal support. After that, the new SPLINE library should be ready for testing as well. After these improvements, we'll move on to improving the RTS system for better scripting capability.

Also, we're fine-tuning 3D models to show the proper weapon placed in the hand, as well as the proper animations. They could potentially be linked to COAL as well, which would mean the equivalent of something like, say, Duke Nukem Forever, where you could see your player's body if you looked down, etc.

[VGA]

What's the SPLINE library?

[Gez]

Something to reticulate, I suppose.

[Caligari87]

Epic reference, bravo.

[VGA]

Oh crap I don't get the reference. And I still don't know what it is.

[Caligari87]

http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Reticulating_splines

[Coraline]

It's actually a library that will allow for cameras to be mounted in the level, behind the player, or wherever, really. Useful for in-engine cutscenes.

Any crazy bugs with 1.4A so far? Aside from the ones that were fixed in 1.36F (merging codebases together by next release). 1.4 will only exist for test versions, and the final version of that will be 2.0.0.

I've also started up a Wiki for 3DGE that you can view here: http://3dfxdev.net/edgewiki

The wiki has so far taken structural influence from Zdoom's own Wiki, but this will be the definitive place for DDF/RTS/COAL/SPLINE editing guides, as well as other information. This will be an ongoing project and some information will be merged from the original EDGE website, while mostly everything will be redone in greater detail. This will hopefully circumvent the need to have a physical website.