Top-Down View XNA Engine

Source code checked in, #15698

scypior — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:04:32 GMT

Some cleaning.

Source code checked in, #15695

scypior — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 21:20:09 GMT

Moved whole project to XNA 3.0 CTP and VCS2008 Express.

Updated Wiki: Home

scypior — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 08:36:29 GMT

Project Description

A simple 3d top-down view engine developed using XNA Game Studio 2.0.

Introduction

This engine aims to be similar to the engines of unreleased games such as: Van Buren or Troika's "Mystary". Besides, it's rather educational project. It is currently in very early development stage and is being actively developed in a rather hobbistic way:) But I hope to implement new things as fast as I can, and even faster with other contributors' help.

Goals

Easy to extend
Easy to develop

Design ideas

The main parts of this engine are different managers, which take care of managing the in-game objects (entities). These managers aren't connected with each others, and they operate on entities via interfaces (through events etc.) This allows easy adding new manager, and new entity as well. Think of the manager as GameComponent and the entity as Control in WinForms (for a lack of better comparison).

Currently Implemented

RenderingManager

Keep entities in Octree for frustum culling
Interconnects effects with the light environment

Renderer

SAS v0.86 parameter binding + extended set of semantics
PipelineBuffer - tries to minimize state changes
Multipass rendering that handles any number of lights(although it's not as efficient)
Top-Down View Camera
Shadow maps

World

Few entities for testing that shows how to use the framework provided by interface and managers

GUI(using WindowSystem for XNA)

ReflectionWindow - gives access to the managers and entities to easy in-game debugging and interacting

(Note that even things which are listed as implemented are still requiring lot of work)

News

July 2008

Renderer is currently being rewrited to support SAS, and whole thing is a mess now.
More: News

Media

Launch in another window

Shadow mapping and multipass lighting

Scene filled with test entities, few reflection windows opened up.

Maybe it's not easily seen, but besides some strange new model, and something like ground, there is also normal mapping here. And all is lit by something that mimics sun.

Docs

Some documents which help me understand what I'm doing.

Updated Wiki: Home

scypior — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 08:35:37 GMT

Project Description

A simple 3d top-down view engine developed using XNA Game Studio 2.0.

Introduction

Goals

Easy to extend
Easy to develop

Design ideas

Currently Implemented

RenderingManager

Keep entities in Octree for frustum culling
Interconnects effects with the light environment

Renderer

PipelineBuffer - tries to minimize state changes
Multipass rendering that handles any number of lights(although it's not as efficient)
Top-Down View Camera
Shadow maps

World

Few entities for testing that shows how to use the framework provided by interface and managers

GUI(using WindowSystem for XNA)

ReflectionWindow - gives access to the managers and entities to easy in-game debugging and interacting

(Note that even things which are listed as implemented are still requiring lot of work)

News

July 2008

Renderer is currently being rewrited to support SAS, and whole thing is a mess now.
More: News

Media

Launch in another window

Docs

Some documents which help me understand what I'm doing.

Created Issue: Syncing entities properties change with needed recalculations

scypior — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 11:29:56 GMT

Currently, there is Transform method which is called after entity has been transformed. This allows to perform some calculations, assigning new world matrices to geometries and stuff.
But not only in case of Transform we need to perform such recalculations. For instance, after light direction change, we need to:
- mark shadow map as dirty
- recalculate boundingfrustum for spotlights and so on

Currently code for doing this is scattered among objects, and it's not ensure that proper recalculations are done always when needed.

Created Issue: Recalculating light's range based on attenuation and vice versa

scypior — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 11:26:00 GMT

This two values have to be tied together. Attenuation is used in light calculations, and range is used in creation of shadow maps. Having these two values not synchronized causes:
- visible end of shadow map(area out of bounds of shadowmap isn't lit)
- inefficient shadowmap (too big)

Created Issue: BoundingFrustum inside BoundingBox

scypior — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 08:21:15 GMT

The truth is - testing for containment of frustum inside bounding box will never return ContainmentType.Contains, but rather Disjoint or Intersect. Thus entities with BoundingFrustum as bounding volume always fails the tests for containment and are "Out of bounds" of the octree, thus they are placed in root.

Source code checked in, #13974

scypior — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:20:45 GMT

I thought I will redesign renderer almost entirely, but I came to conclusion that it works quite nicely this way it's now (base Renderer class and derived ViewportRenderer, ShadowMapRenderer). So this changeset brings following changes: * extensions to the SAS 0.86 binding system: - SHADOWMAP, WORLDTOSHADOW, RANGE which allows bind shadowmaps and some light parameters * shadowmaps are created during rendering process, not during drawing(pipelinebuffer's draw method), thus we need visibility tests for lights to test not the lights model(sphere) but frusta for spotlights and so n(currently only testing for spotlights is implemented) * LineDrawe is brought back to life, and draws spotlight's frusta :) * other minor changes

Created Issue: Making shadowmaps dirty/rendering themass

scypior — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:27:54 GMT

Don't know where it's better place for it:
- in Light class
- in LightEntity class

Source code checked in, #13687

scypior — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 21:15:39 GMT

It was supposed to be major changeset, but it isn't yet. Renderer isn't fully rewritten yet, I just have added SAS parameter parsing/binding system to that, so: * SAS parameter binding (SAS v0.86), version 1.0 considered too, and own extensions (in the future). It isn't fully supported yet, it just wait for fully developed material loading system to have the ability to load that all SAS compliant shaders * Batch is now known as Geometry (to similarize it with the typical DCC scene graph design) * Geometry is know general object, no need for specific ones to handle some effect (that is why SAS is here) * No need to different effect classes * Camera class now is parent to two basic camera classes: Perspective and Orthogonal * Shadow maps doesn't work now, they wait for further rewrite of the renderer, and for the extended set of semantics and annotations to bind things up(at least that's my plan)

Created Issue: Setting values of effect parameters using SAS

scypior — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:09:46 GMT

Currently, the value is set directly by calling EffectParameter.SetValue(desiredValue). This might cause problems when the types of the values aren't the same, but could be reasonably converted.

Updated Wiki: Home

scypior — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 10:11:49 GMT

Project Description

A simple 3d top-down view engine developed using XNA Game Studio 2.0.

Introduction

Goals

Easy to extend
Easy to develop

Design ideas

Currently Implemented

RenderingManager

Keep entities in Octree for frustum culling

Renderer

PipelineBuffer - tries to minimize state changes
Top-Down View Camera

LightsManager

Interconnects effects with the light environment.

World

Few entities for testing that shows how to use the framework provided by interface and managers

GUI(using WindowSystem for XNA)

ReflectionWindow - gives access to the managers and entities to easy in-game debugging and interacting

(Note that even things which are listed as implemented are still requiring lot of work)

News

July 2008

Renderer is currently being rewrited to support SAS, and whole thing is a mess now.
More: News

Media

Launch in another window

Docs

Some documents which help me understand what I'm doing.

Created Task: SAS compliant renderer

scypior — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 12:53:40 GMT

The shaders needs easy integration into the engine. First thing that come to mind is SAS. But there are two versions of SAS. I think it would be useful to support both - only for parameters bindings (scripting won't be supported, this will make rather simple to support these versions).

Of course it isn't possible to use just everyyone SAS compliant shader in the engine, so more semantics should be provided - this will ensure minimal changes are to be made in the shader code in order to use it properly.

Closed Feature: Deferred renderer

scypior — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 12:23:21 GMT

This is rather big task. It may requires some refactoring, so that we will get IRenderer interface, or some base Renderer class.

It have to be done in a way that will allow not only deferred renderer, but the normal, forward one.
Comments: There won't be one.

Updated Wiki: Media

scypior — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 13:55:13 GMT

Media

Screenshots

Entities in an octree

Bloom? Not. Unnormalized vectors...

Maybe it's not easily seen, but besides some strange new model, and something like ground, there is also normal mapping here. And all is lit by something that mimics sun.

Videos

Launch in another window

Basic lighting
{video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v="qaQDgGALxKw",type="youtube"}
Shadow mapping and multipass lighting

Updated Wiki: Home

scypior — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 13:50:28 GMT

Project Description

A simple 3d top-down view engine developed using XNA Game Studio 2.0.

Introduction

This engine aims to be similar to the engines of unreleased games such as: Van Buren or Troika's "Mystary". It uses the power and simplicity of XNA to create engine that will be able to utilize the power of modern graphics cards, in order to create specific atmosphere. To show that graphics is the tool, not the goal.
It is currently in very early development stage and is being actively developed in a rather hobbistic way:) But I hope to implement new things as fast as I can, and even faster with other contributors' help.

Goals

Easy to extend
Easy to develop

Design ideas

Currently Implemented

RenderingManager

Keep entities in Octree for frustum culling

Renderer

PipelineBuffer - tries to minimize state changes
Top-Down View Camera

LightsManager

Interconnects effects with the light environment.

World

Few entities for testing that shows how to use the framework provided by interface and managers

GUI(using WindowSystem for XNA)

ReflectionWindow - gives access to the managers and entities to easy in-game debugging and interacting

(Note that even things which are listed as implemented are still requiring lot of work)

News

July 2008

Renderer is currently being rewrited to support SAS, and whole thing is a mess now.
More: News

Media

Launch in another window

Docs

Some documents which help me understand what I'm doing.

Updated Wiki: Home

scypior — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 12:30:56 GMT

Project Description

A simple 3d top-down view engine developed using XNA Game Studio 2.0.

Introduction

Goals

Easy to extend
Easy to develop

Design ideas

Currently Implemented

RenderingManager

Keep entities in Octree for frustum culling

Renderer

PipelineBuffer - tries to minimize state changes
Top-Down View Camera

LightsManager

Interconnects effects with the light environment.

World

Few entities for testing that shows how to use the framework provided by interface and managers

GUI(using WindowSystem for XNA)

ReflectionWindow - gives access to the managers and entities to easy in-game debugging and interacting

(Note that even things which are listed as implemented are still requiring lot of work)

News

July 2008

Renderer is currently being rewrited to support SAS, and whole thing is a mess now.
More: News

Media

Launch in another window

Basic lighting

Scene filled with test entities, few reflection windows opened up.

Maybe it's not easily seen, but besides some strange new model, and something like ground, there is also normal mapping here. And all is lit by something that mimics sun.

Docs

Some documents which help me understand what I'm doing.

Updated Wiki: News

scypior — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 12:29:28 GMT

News

July 2008

Renderer is currently being rewrited to support SAS, and whole thing is a mess now.

May 2008

Started implementing own shader with per-pixel Phong lighting and normal mapping.

April 06, 2008

Started creating lighting using XNA BasicEffect.

April 03, 2008

Project's page started, first version of the code uploaded. Although this version needs a 'retouch', there is a mess in some places, but it should be forgivable - project is in the very early stage of development.

Source code checked in, #11676

scypior — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:13:10 GMT

Lots of changes: * Multipass rendering that can handle all numbers of lights with my trivial shader(although it's a performance killer) * Shadow maps (only working for spotlights) - not filtered yet * Other minor changes needed to set the above things up

CLOSED ISSUE: Existing lights don't have an impact on newly created entities

scypior — Fri, 30 May 2008 17:06:06 GMT

When you create the light, it lights the existing entities, but when you create new entity after the light was created, this newly created entity is not being lit.

It has something to do with the events, and the fact that newly created lights are added to the lightscape, thus added to the entity's illumination. This has to be performed every time the content of lightscape changes, not only when light is being add/removed.
Comments: Fixed in changeset #7536