QuickStartEngine Work Item Rss Feed

Commented Feature: GUI Editor [4111]

LordIkon — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 15:03:24 GMT

This issue should not be started until XNA GSE 2.0 is released, which will include support for windows forms.

The GUI Editor will likely be vast, so this issue will begin as a vague outline.

* Will need to be able to place entities into a scene.
* Should be able to edit any entity in a scene, for example, the user should be able to click on any entity and move, rotate, scale, or delete it.
* Selecting an entity should bring up statistics on it in a window or table. An example of stats would be its position, rotation, scale, and any specifics to that entity type, like health, strength, defense, etc.
* Editor should support customization: If the user creates an entity type of "DumbBot" and gives it a runningSpeed float value, then that should pull up in the Editor . This is debatable, it may be easier to allow the Editor to access a database-like table of values for editing.
* Editor should be able to save all settings and changes to a scene. Editor should be able to load saved files. The editor should save in a fashion such that the game can load up the saved file to load a scene as well.
* Editor should be able to edit the scene itself, like placement of the water, or its elevation. Or the sky rotation, scale, elevation. Position of the sun.
* Terrain editor should be built into the editor. If the terrain is based on a model then this may not be a requirement, I don't expect the editor to be a 3d modeling program. However, if the terrain is a heightmap then it should be editable.
* I could go on for hours, but I won't.....not now at least.

Obviously this won't all come at once. Once XNA 2.0 comes out, the gui editor will be broken up into separate tasks, and bits and pieces can be finished over time.
Comments: ** Comment from web user: LordIkon **

XNA 2.0 did not end up supporting WinForms, I'm not sure about XNA 3.x.

Closed Feature: Physics component: Rigid-body dynamics [3644]

LordIkon — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 15:01:06 GMT

Well need physics that can work with shapes and meshes of different types, and easily be integrated into the Entity heirarchy without the user having to put much thought into it. This will likely require some custom processors for the model, and of course, an entire physics component.

Physics contributors can add more details here if they would like.
Comments:

Our physics engine integration took care of this for us. It would've taken quite awhile to write the physics engine ourselves.

Commented Issue: Video support [4147]

LordIkon — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 14:51:09 GMT

I've seen projects for XNA that support video playback, it would be a great feature for us to have. Not sure how feasible it is. Thought I'd post it in case someone wanted to take it on.
Comments: ** Comment from web user: LordIkon **

XNA 3.1 supports video playback, so this should now be very easy to implement.

Closed Issue: Loss of mouse on window switch [4262]

LordIkon — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 14:49:49 GMT

For some reason, occasionally switching windows will cause the mouse movement to no longer register. The mouse itself is acquired because you can use the buttons, and the cursor is still being centered each frame, only if the window is active, which means it must be.
Comments:

This was fixed in the new engine architecture (v0.19 and above)

Closed Issue: Fog on older video cards [4329]

LordIkon — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 14:49:01 GMT

Fog is going to be re-written in HLSL eventually, but for now it is a known issue that fog will not work on all older video cards. Sorry.
Comments:

Done!

Commented Issue: Fog on older video cards [4329]

LordIkon — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 14:48:46 GMT

Fog is going to be re-written in HLSL eventually, but for now it is a known issue that fog will not work on all older video cards. Sorry.
Comments: ** Comment from web user: LordIkon **

As of version 0.2, fog is implemented in all major shaders, using SM 2.0. The engine does not officially support SM 1.4, because it is going on 8+ years old at this point anyway.

Closed Issue: HUD Component [4741]

LordIkon — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 14:46:59 GMT

We will need a HUD component. If you've ever used the Ogre you'll notice it has debug information plus the logo displayed. The HUD should have the ability of easily displaying messages we want, like FPS, or error messages, as well as the logo.

The HUD should probably integrate with the Console system as well, which allows for input commands/messages.
Comments:

The compositor can display stuff like this, and we have a debug component displaying the info mentioned in this work item.

Closed Feature: Arbitrary Terrain size [4985]

LordIkon — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 14:45:43 GMT

Terrain should allow non square terrains.
Comments:

There are a great deal of optimizations that are made based on a terrain being square. However, once we allow the running of multiple scenes, each scene could have a terrain, and the scenes themselves can be positions however the user would like, which could result in rectangular terrain. Even multiple scenes, if completed, will probably not be any time very soon, with me being the only developer, and this engine being in dire need of a world editor.

Closed Task: Game - Minotaur [5157]

LordIkon — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 14:41:00 GMT

We need a low and high poly model of such a creature, so I'll happily assign this task to me.
Probably an animation set, too. But not sure how to setup the rig and animations within the 3dsmax scene as of yet (pre 0.20) so that it performs well codewise.
I'd suggest sticking to something like CAT for the rigging/animation part.
Comments:

Cancelled long ago due to inactivity.

Closed Issue: Camera rework [5031]

LordIkon — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 08:32:51 GMT

The camera system needs to be reworked, QSInterface and CamaraInterface do not provide any value, and a CameraCollection plus a Cameras and ActiveCamera on the SceneManager would be much more clear, and at the same time remove the need to pass Camera around to all renders.
Comments:

Jerkiness fixed, camera system cleaned up. CameraInterface no longer useless. :)

Closed Task: Create tutorial [5195]

LordIkon — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 08:31:46 GMT

We need a tutorial describing who to use our engine
Comments:

Tutorial has been updated for v0.2

Closed Feature: Camera<->Terrain collision [5250]

LordIkon — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 08:31:12 GMT

There should be an option to keep a camera from going below terrain. On cameras with a target this should also mean that the camera may need ray tracing against terrain to snap closer to its target. Ray tracing against terrain will likely require physics support.
Comments:

Implemented in v0.196

Closed Feature: Immediate messages [5315]

LordIkon — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 08:30:38 GMT

I have the need for messages that immediately fill my class/struct with data. So if I send a message, then by the time I get to my next line of code the info in my message data should be filled.

I could list a few examples, but I'll just list one. Let us say I want a player's movement to be based on a camera's rotation, such as in a control scheme like Zelda64. I'd prefer to do something like

Send message to get camera's forward.
Use camera's forward and player's forward to get a dot product.
Use dot product to rotate player appropriately.

Granted I could get this forward separately, store it, and use it elsewhere. But that means storing information in memory just to use it once, creating member variables to hold all information that cannot be used right when it is handled.

Finally, when performing actions to rotate the player after input, there cannot be a delay of a frame, or possibly more, especially when other things that come after those results can then send more messages. Imagine a situation in which you send a message, use those results, and from those results, send another message and need info from that message to continue. If you must wait a frame after each message then a single function with a structure that sends/recieves information based on the method directly before it would be required to take multiple frames to perform.
Comments:

Implemented in v0.20

COMMENTED FEATURE: Splash Screen

Sturm — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:34:11 GMT

We need a splash screen to show before the main game window is shown.
Comments: ** Comment from web user: Sturm **

I created a initial version of this in the "slash" branch. It's currently created in the sample game, but I will move it to be initialized in the QSGame once we have setteled that the functionallity is adequate. The splash screen will not ba visible on the xbox.

CREATED FEATURE: Splash Screen

Sturm — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:32:33 GMT

We need a splash screen to show before the main game window is shown.

CREATED FEATURE: Initialization - Mechanism for querying needed resources.

Sturm — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 17:09:58 GMT

We need a mechanism where the engine will query the system for needed resources, and if they are not found we need to fail gracefully.

COMMENTED ISSUE: The device creation parameters contain invalid configuration options

LordIkon — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:22:52 GMT

Trying to run the QuickStart Engine 0.19 using a laptop with a Mobile Intel(R) 945 Express Chipset Family. Fails to run, with invalid configurations options
this.graphics.ApplyChanges();

any suggestions would be appreciated.
Comments: ** Comment from web user: LordIkon **

Certain shader models are simply not supported by XNA, or not worth the huge engine re-write. Many of the integrated chipsets that will be or are having issue are already years old, and for computer programmers/games, that is quite awhile. I say we should support what is reasonable.

COMMENTED ISSUE: The device creation parameters contain invalid configuration options

KnightChris — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 12:54:09 GMT

I think we shouldn't say "*** on them!" we should rather add less beautiful, but nevertheless "there" configurations which make the engine work on those Laptops etc.

I think it's just a thing of a few optimizations (where we query for required hardware and if it isn't there, we run a less beautiful mode).

That would be more user-friendly. And I can work on my laptop then with that engine. Which I can't run games based on QSE now because of this.

COMMENTED ISSUE: The device creation parameters contain invalid configuration options

LordIkon — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 05:31:36 GMT

If specific cards and chipsets do not support all features needed, is there a way we can query for all of this during game/engine load and then throw an exception letting the user know their **** is too damn old or cheap?

CLOSED ISSUE: Physics - JigLibX backend

LordIkon — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 05:29:34 GMT

Create a preliminary implementation of the QuickStart physics interfaces using the JigLibX library as a back-end.

The PhysX back-end will be the "official" physics solution on Windows, but JigLibX would allow us to support Xbox as well as people wanting pure-managed solutions.
Comments: Shaw committed this