Glest Advanced Engine

[ZaggyDad]

What's key mapping? *impatient*

Btw, I love the disclaimer. XD

[hailstone]

@Daniel:
Are you able to include a changelog on the website for each release?

[daniel.santos]

hailstone, that would make entirely too much sense!

[hailstone]

Also to add to changelog. I saw one where they used characters in front of each item to represent different things. Something like + for added feature and - for bug removed. I forget if you do this already.

[modman]

! OK I have a new idea.  What about booby traps specific to each tileset, or even [advanced, far, far ahead] ones that you can build and are specific to each faction.  Like for Dark Magic I was thinking of spikes that jut out of the ground when someone steps on them.  It could then act like a normal unit other ways...the trap would have attack damage, attack on and off, etc.  But it would not have HP hence it could never be killed, and the spikes would for instance have range zero.  Also I guess they would in essence have to be completely invisable to the AI, and that goes for AI teams and also AI that takes over when the unit is stopped.

[ZaggyDad]

Having the factions able to make "booby traps" would be nice, but ones specific to each tileset would be just plain annoying. There wouldn't even be anybody making them. Unless you're going to turn the tileset into fantasy, and make there be some sort of evil "mother nature" thing, then that just wouldn't work out at all (and if you did make a fantasy tileset, I would undoubtedly never use it. ).

[modman]

No.  They are defined by each faction.

You do happen to make a habit of crashing my ideas to the ground, don't you?

[ZaggyDad]

When I get annoyed at them, yes. Glest isn't a total Warcraft mod, anyway.

[modman]

I don't even play Warcraft, so please don't get mad at me when I mention one of my ideas that happens to occur in Warcraft. :x

[ZaggyDad]

The point isn't that you're trying to copy it, it's that most of them involve creeps. And that would make it more like Warcraft. Not that this is all about Warcraft. But still.

[modman]

Here is a new idea that would probably reduce game lag, but I'm not sure if it's already done.

What if units that no human can see aren't rendered by the graphics card, they are only computed.  This includes anything within fog of war.  To make it easier, maybe the computer could just switch out an invisible model (none.g3d in the forest/models directory) so no animations happen.  Also the entire tileset doesn't need to be rendered at all, unless you have explored that region.

Another annoying thing is that I can always tell when there are a lot of troops afoot because I can hear their sounds when they cross the rivers or go over water.  Also, you can see the ripples in the water even when it's supposed to be invisible.

[verarticus]

I get warned about  big attack when everything starts going in slow motion XD (has only failed me 2 out of 20 times) and also I noticed that when I move the cammera to an enemy place but I have no guys there a red circle flashes real quick at an enemy building on screen. (not sure if this is related to what you said modman)

[Omega]

Modman's right. That lags my computer a lot too...
Regular glest too...

[modman]

Speaking of lag...

Maybe it's a mood my computer was in (I got a bluescreen a boot before ) but it was not handeling the particle systems very well at all.
To fix this, maybe there could be "canned" particle systems.  During the unit load before game, the computer (with some setting set on) would "can" the particle proj and splash, if applicable, for all applicable ranges the unit will have (max range with range increasing upgrades ----> zero range).  Then it would save them and forget all about the thousands of particles it has to create over and over and over.  I had to set game speed to slow to get remotely smooth graphics, and I have a GOOD graphics card.

[wciow]

Maybe it's a mood my computer was in (I got a bluescreen a boot before

To fix this, maybe there could be "canned" particle systems.  During the unit load before game, the computer (with some setting set on) would "can" the particle proj and splash, if applicable, for all applicable ranges

Having it done dynamically is much better IMO. Otherwise its a choice between a few set particle animations or seeing how many minutes it takes for my entire RAM to be filled with all possible predicted projections!!

I had to set game speed to slow to get remotely smooth graphics, and I have a GOOD graphics card.

If changing the game speed had a big effect I would say that its your CPU that can't handle it not your Graphics card?

[daniel.santos]

modman,
the engine doesn't render many units that aren't visible GameCamera::computeVisibleQuads() still lies however, so there are some units, tilesets, objects, etc. that are getting rendered that are indeed off screen.  Omega actually gave me a the trig formulas for this a while back but I've yet to put them in, if you know C++ and the trig (or copy Omega's formulas from a posting back around March).  Currently, it's not that far off, but it's ugly IMHO.

The reason you lag before a big attack is the path finder that's on the list to be fixed.  When a lot of units are moving, they are all using the path finder and it's inefficient.  And finally, the water noise is annoying and needs to be fixed.  All that needs to happen is that when a unit moves through water, see if they are in the visible quad (again, computed in GameCamera::computeVisibleQuads()) before deciding to play the water sound.  As for the visuals, that sounds like a bug as well.  Maybe you can enter a bug report?  I might split it into two bugs, but one is fine for now.

I'll be back in town in a few days and will give the bug database, etc., more attention.

Also, on the lag issue, attempting to "can" the special effects caused by particle systems is pretty useless in a 3d world because some of the particles will be covered up by other 3d objects in the world.  As wicow said, it does indeed sound like a CPU limitation.  Regardless of which CPU you have, it shouldn't lag that hard it's a problem I'm actually hoping to address more in the future.  I've actually made some performance optimizations on 0.2.11, but I intend on many more.

verarticus,
This problem is unrelated to the bugs modman pointed out.  I actually took a quick stab at fixing this and broke the red circles on other things so I backed out the change.  This is annoying because any time any unit issues a command with another unit as a target, a red circle appears, and it should only do that for orders that YOU issue yourself and not even for "auto-commands" (auto-repair, auto-attack, etc.)

thanks to both of you for reporting bugs!

[dannylee]

hi, i was using normal glest, and now i want to try GAE, but how do i use it and how to install it? and i already installed the new factions (colonies,Indians,dark magic and Norsemen), are they going to work with GAE, too?
please help and thanks in advance
danny

[mictes]

Yes the factions work with GAE, too!
If you use windows simply download the windows-binaries and put them into the Glest-directory (where Glest.exe is for example).
Now start glestadv-sse2.exe or glestadv-1886.exe, depending on your system.

[dannylee]

ok, great, but how do make it in full screen, it always appears windowed and i get a command line, and the mouse doesn't really work too
oh what do i do?
please help
danny 

[dannylee]

oh ok i already fixed the problem with the window, (just had to change the setting file), but why do you have glest and glest advanced engine, why don't you put the all together and have only one glest instead of GAE and Glest, i think GAE is better. well guys keep it up :-)
danny

[daniel.santos]

...but why do you have glest and glest advanced engine, why don't you put the all together and have only one glest instead of GAE and Glest, i think GAE is better. well guys keep it up :-)
danny

I'm glad you like GAE.  GAE is not developed by the same team that wrote Glest, it is a fork and they are kind enough to allow us to use their forum for discussion.

[modman]

I'm wondering if I should focus on C++ or finish my mods first...
If I take the C++ route then the mods are dead until I'm done.  Also, not to look too far down the road, but once I do learn, then I'm working with the origanal Glest engine, probably not with GAE much.

[John.d.h]

I'm wondering if I should focus on C++ or finish my mods first...
If I take the C++ route then the mods are dead until I'm done.  Also, not to look too far down the road, but once I do learn, then I'm working with the origanal Glest engine, probably not with GAE much.

Can't anyone on this board every start something and actually finish it? :lol:

Don't worry, I'm including myself in the "can't finish anything" camp too.

[wciow]

I'm wondering if I should focus on C++ or finish my mods first...

I would finish those mods!

Learning to code well is long and difficult

I'm not trying to be negative just letting you know that programming is not something you an learn in a few months.

EDIT:
this is going off topic...

[John.d.h]

Sorry if this is the wrong thread to ask this question, but could there be a "capture" function?  While some people might like to do this for enemy buildings, I was thinking more along the lines of having neutral buildings that can be captured and would provide some sort of benefit or be required to achieve victory.  Examples could include an orchard that produces food, a market that produces gold, or a scenario in which you have to capture three villages before the enemy does in order to achieve victory.