The difference in computer speed

[NigeC]

the Beta vesion saves anyway, so right now i don't need to buy the full thing

I'm just on trying to recreate the street from Sam & Max, if you notice S&M in first one theres very few shadows
the edge on the window is my fault not the rendering, its ovelap on the wall lol

[ad7venture]

Nice. 

[Kickaha]

Promising looking work NigeC.  There's just so many skills one needs in one's 'toolbox' to do a game - modelling and texturing is something I've barely done.

[NigeC]

There's just so many skills one needs in one's 'toolbox' to do a game - modelling and texturing is something I've barely done.

its crazy what we need to know, 2D is bad enough but once you go 3D the bar is raised 100%, talk about "Jack of all trade, but master of none!"
But coming full circle to the original topic, as we get better, our computers start to struggle, the one i use now is 3 times faster than the one i built 3D Assassin with, twice as fast as the one i did HW with but now i'm left with a second rate video card so i'm not geting much benifit from more CPU/Ram power

[ad7venture]

But coming full circle to the original topic, as we get better, our computers start to struggle, the one i use now is 3 times faster than the one i built 3D Assassin with, twice as fast as the one i did HW with but now i'm left with a second rate video card so i'm not geting much benifit from more CPU/Ram power

I haven't upgraded in a long time except for a fairly inexpensive video card.  My cdrom is shot.  I was using a school license for xp (got a little free education when my plant closed) and now that expired so Microsoft won't even let me download directX9.  I used to look forward to an upgrade because of the games, but now the games seem all alike and too expensive.  I think when I finish this Wintermute game I'll be going back to linux.

[Imari]

I'm impressed with that Sam & Max set, Nige!  It's so tempting to make that move to a 3D realtime engine, but I keep balking at the learning curve.  Also, for the scenes that I want to create I'm not fond of the look of  low-poly models .   (I'm really into pretty.  )

I'm like a kid waiting for Christmas, right now, because my new computer is supposed to be ready on Friday.  I've upgraded the old computer in a piecemeal fashion over the past six years, but at its heart is an AMD XP2000.  I'd been saving for this new one for over a year, but the biggest hold up for me was being able to afford a Quadro card.  Once I discovered that Vue runs as well on a good gaming card, I decided to go ahead.   

Because I need my computer for other things than my hobby, I've been unable to devote it to rendering for weeks on end.   Part of the Vue package is a program called Hypervue Render Cow, which allows one to manage five render nodes.  As it happens, I will now have three left-over computers all running XP, and I plan to network them and give hypervue rendering a try.  I have so much made, but not rendered out at this point, and it will be nice to finally be able to "walk" my rooms. 

Since I'm still just converting my scenes into cubic panoramas for use in SCream, the end user's computer needs only to have at least 800MHz CPU, 128 MB RAM, and a 16 MB Open-GL compatible video card.   I think that most people should be able to play my game, if they have a mind to. 

   

[ad7venture]

Since I'm still just converting my scenes into cubic panoramas for use in SCream, the end user's computer needs only to have at least 800MHz CPU, 128 MB RAM, and a 16 MB Open-GL compatible video card.   I think that most people should be able to play my game, if they have a mind to.

I wonder what your download size will end up, though.  I would think it would be huge.  I'll be interested to see your game when it's finished.  Games are so much work no matter which way you go with them.  I've never been a really big fan of the circle type sky maps  or however you want to describe them.  There's a distortion in close-up objects because of the lack of parallax.  Maybe there wouldn't be parallax if you stay still and turn like that, but something doesn't quite feel right.   I haven't looked at Scratches, just the older ones, so maybe they're different now.  It's like those dome type theaters.  I always end up going to one every so often, and I always walk out sicker than a dog.  It makes me mad because it doesn't seem to bother other people.  I can't watch 3d movies either.  They look sort of 3d and sort of not and my mind just fights it the whole way.  I can watch a still shot and see a single image, but when the camera is moving like that I see two images a lot.

[Imari]

I wonder what your download size will end up, though.  I would think it would be huge.

That is a problem, yes.  A sample room that I rendered with three nodes and accompanying game files was 12 MB in size.   I have about 35-40 such scenes.   I just looked at the properties of the Scratches: Director's Cut disk and it's a total 672 MB.   Still, with broadband, I think it's do-able.   

There's a distortion in close-up objects because of the lack of parallax.  Maybe there wouldn't be parallax if you stay still and turn like that, but something doesn't quite feel right.   I haven't looked at Scratches, just the older ones, so maybe they're different now.

The closer areas of the actual renders do look distorted and the central areas look very far away, but once you assemble the node in SCream, the distortion is corrected and the room is back to its intended size.   At first the spinning also made me queasy, but once I got the hang of the controls, I was fine. 

[ad7venture]

The closer areas of the actual renders do look distorted and the central areas look very far away, but once you assemble the node in SCream, the distortion is corrected and the room is back to its intended size.   At first the spinning also made me queasy, but once I got the hang of the controls, I was fine.

They're  doing some kind of compensation, then.  That should be interesting.  I hope you do a demo, though, because it takes me about a week to download something that size and the odds of it not being corrupted are less than 50 per cent.

[NigeC]

talk about timing.. the hard drive in my PC is ready to die! i've never seen so many block errors in my life lol, so i'm just reformatting the hard drive out of my old pc... 18 gb, i'm so blessed 

[ad7venture]

I've got a couple hard drives, a 40 and a 20 that are quite a few years old.  I don't even know how many.  I know I carried them over in my last upgrade and that was about 4 years ago.  I  sure hope they don't fail because I don't back up anything.

[NigeC]

The computer i'm using, belonged to where the wife works but the power supply fried, its only 18 month old but it ran 24/7 so they bought a new one and i swapped the power supply out of my old one.. it ran a dispatch system and chatted to 3 other computers, so all it did was run the system and the dispatch software, it was constantly reading the same 5% of the drive, a week later its brother computer's hard drive failed lol

i did a demo with the street scene, its not perfect and the textures are a bit off, it was just to see how it handle a lot of edges and speed online.. but it wont work on the net for some reason 
http://www.nigecstudios.uk.to/demo.rar 1.6meg

i thought i'd post it now before the HD packs in lol

[Imari]

That was fun, Nige.  It worked very smoothly, though  I did notice a sort of sliding effect as though I was coasting to a stop at the end of each move.   Pretty cool.  It'll be intresting to see how you progress with that engine.

[ad7venture]

Yeah, I noticed I kind of kept moving a little bit after I let up on the key.  Looks good.  That's a pretty good idea for a control scheme, just having the mouse look when you hold down the left key.  That way it's free to look for hot spots when your not using it for looking around.  Looks like you've got something going there.   

[NigeC]

yeah if you don't quite go up the curb you slide back lol, actually i thing its because the street is slightly under sized and i scaled the "player" view down
i'll get my pc sorted tomorrow and i'll do a level or two