APOX - Post-apocalyptic RTS Game - OGRE Engine -- Updated

[Beauty]

Thanks again for your answers.

We are not using cloud system at all.

Oh, but I can see clouds in your screenshots.

In the case you don't know Caelum or SkyX - have a look to it.
I never used it, but saw nice screenshots and videos. Also in general it's easy to add it to an Ogre application.

[braza]

Hi rakeshj,
Nice project!I`m waiting for the release Well, I`m interested in the answer tho this question too:

I have a question related to the attached picture:
But I'd like to know how you evaluate if the soldiers should be painted green. Is there some rendering to a depth buffer involved checking if the soldiers are visible and if not, change the material?

Thanks!

[vitefalcon]

Hi rakeshj,
Nice project!I`m waiting for the release Well, I`m interested in the answer tho this question too:

I have a question related to the attached picture:
But I'd like to know how you evaluate if the soldiers should be painted green. Is there some rendering to a depth buffer involved checking if the soldiers are visible and if not, change the material?

Thanks!

This is my best guess. For every selected unit, add a pass with no depth check and with a plain green texture or 'selection coloured' texture (that could be generated during runtime). This would be a bit nasty because then you'll have to create individual materials for each unit. Alternatively, they could be using shader in a pass, which has depth-check off and with a custom-parameter to mention if it's selected. If the parameter is set, then the fragment program can use that to decide whether or not to paint the selected unit with the selection colour. I didn't find selection in other screenshots. So I'm assuming all selected units will always have depth-check off if they're selected.

It would interesting to know what the actual process is

Btw, a similar but more complex rendering of character hidden behind objects was seen in Torchlight.

[Jabberwocky]

I have a question related to the attached picture:
But I'd like to know how you evaluate if the soldiers should be painted green. Is there some rendering to a depth buffer involved checking if the soldiers are visible and if not, change the material?

Btw, a similar but more complex rendering of character hidden behind objects was seen in Torchlight.

Yep, discussed here: http://www.ogre3d.org/forums/viewtopic. ... 82&start=0

If we want to continue talking about that technique, we should probably take it to another thread, so we don't hijack this showcase posting.

[vitefalcon]

If we want to continue talking about that technique, we should probably take it to another thread, so we don't hijack this showcase posting.

This isn't trying to hijack the thread. This is discussion about how they implemented certain graphics in their game. I'm just making an assumption of what I think they might've done. Again, that was for this project. I mentioned Torchlight because that was the first time I saw it in an Ogre-powered game.

[Jabberwocky]

Agreed Vitefalcon, you're right. I just figured in case we get into a long in-depth technical discussion (which we haven't yet) about a minor graphical feature, we should move it elsewhere. I think it's nice if showcase threads don't go off on long tangents that not everyone is interested in.

I didn't mean to imply anyone had hijacked it already. Unless it's me, hijacking this thread with a discussion about how you shouldn't hijack threads.
I'll shut up now.

[spacegaier]

I guess it's a projective decal

Sorry, spacegaier, it's not projective decal at all.

Selection ring is just a single billboard rendered parallel to terrain.

I always thought that that is exactly the definition of a projective decal: Projecting a texture on the ground or any other object.

A billboard however is always facing to the camera / player per definition. So I'd say you are not using one here . But enough of these details...

[Beauty]

We can set direction of billboards to face anywhere, in case of selection ring it is perpendicular to terrain instead of camera.
We used Ogre::BillboardSet to render this FX and Ogre::BilboardSet is derived from Ogre::Renderable so we can render them according Render Queue Group and material parameters like ( Depth Check ON/OFF Depth Write ON/OFF ) etc.

A billboard however is always facing to the camera / player per definition. So I'd say you are not using one here . But enough of these details...

Ok, good to know. I corrected the description on the Ogre wiki page about Billboard. (I hope now its right)
Additionally I added the helicopter screenshot as an example and added some technique notes and added links to external pages about billboards.

I always thought that that is exactly the definition of a projective decal: Projecting a texture on the ground or any other object.

There is also an other difference: Billboards are always flat (like a plane). With projective decals it's possible to add a texture layer to a non planar surface (e.g. rugged terrain).

Ok, I hope nobody kills me because to be hitch hiker

[spacegaier]

To keep this thread on its original track, I created a new thread to discuss the billboard thing.

http://www.ogre3d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=60455

[vinniereddy]

APOX -- Update:
Developers Interview on Rock, Paper and Shotgun - About APOX and Ogre Engine

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/09 ... interview/

RPS: What about the tech? Is this your own engine?

Currie: If a company attempts to make a modern RTS game from scratch, you are looking at at least four years to complete the game. We shaved two years off that time by starting with an existing game as a basis. We started production with my previous indie game Trash and completely overhauled it.

For our rendering engine we went with the open source engine Ogre. Torchlight proved a game can be successful using Ogre. One great thing about Ogre besides being free is that it makes it easier to port to Mac.

[Jabberwocky]

Congrats on the RPS interview. That's a great website.

[Slappy]

Nothing much to add, but this project does look amazing .

Few times ago I received a key into the BETA, but I am not very satisfied with the game.
Most of tries I cannot connect into the game, I always get some error when connecting to the server

[vinniereddy]

Hi All:

APOX is releasing on Steam today.

Store Page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/80000/

Thanks to the great team behind OGRE.

BlueGiant Interactive

[Jabberwocky]

Big congrats!
I'm a huge fan of Steam, I hope the launch is smooth and the game sells well for you.

[Beauty]

Congratulation for finishing your game

Today I was researching for game magazines in German language.
There are 11 print magazines (one is an IT magazine, which has contains some pages for game reviews).
Now I wrote e-mails to all of them and hope they are interested to publish information about APOX.
Additionally I contacted 7 German online game magazines.
On 2 magazine websites was no e-mail address and no contact formular. So I asked for an e-mail address by telephone.

Sorry, that I didn't do it before - the release date was my last chance to honour my promise.

I wish you a good start!
Feel free to give us more information in the future. (e.g. if game magazines did contact you, how many people did buy your game, etc.)

By the way - on your steam website I didn't found any prize. What does your game cost?

[CompulsiveDabbler]

Wow Beauty, that's wonderful of you!
Once the game is unlocked on Steam (in about 5 hours as I write this) you'll know the price

Thanks again

[shanefarris]

Hi friends,
I am Jadav Rakesh working on project "APOX" as a graphics programmer.

First of all, I would say thank you ogre forum and all guys who helped us through out the project.

Beauty wrote:
I have a question related to the attached picture:
There is a nice green marker.
How did you create it?
Is it a ManualObject? . . . . . If yes, which primitives did you use?
Or did you use something else than ManualObject?

As you can see that green marker is selection ring. We have our own in-house particle fx system, which is using ogre billboards to render particles.
Selection ring is just a single billboard rendered parallel to terrain.

spacegaier wrote:
I guess it's a projective decal

Sorry, spacegaier, it's not projective decal at all. We didn't use projective decal because it might be expensive to render and update lots of decals every frame. ( 32 player , High population limit ).

With the billboards, they will only work if the terrain is completely flat, or the angle is flat right?

[shanefarris]

I would love to hear a postmortem on the project as well. I think hearing your experiences and thoughts on the development process would be very interesting.

[Beauty]

Yes, a view "behind the scene" of your game development would be nice.

Here is a great example for a game postmortem:
http://www.ogre3d.org/tikiwiki/Experiences%3ATibor


By the way - What's the summary of the first month after publishing APOX?
Could you sell your game well?
Did you get any reaction of the German game magazines?
Did you get feedback of your players?

[Beauty]

Any news?
I would be happy to hear something about your success (see questions of my last post).
I don't know if any of my contacted magazines did publish a report of APOX.