Cave Demo

GpUcv.png512×512

This is a small demo I’ve put together and I need Your help to test it!

Can’t test it myself - my laptop running windows vista is… well like windows vista, must I say more? I managed to build the p3d file with it, but it has trouble running anything in openGL and Pandas directX support is a bit behind. My desktop is of the olden days and with no SSE2 support, so currently no (new) p3d file will run on it.

At this time the game is a wee bit silly, all you can do is move a rigid metal spider on a stick through a cave like labyrinth.

Controls:
W - forward
S - backward
A - turn left
D - turn right
X - take screenshot (didn’t test it after packing, no idea where or if the shot gets saved)
Right Mouse Button (mouse3) - turn on/off camera control.
Mouse wheel - zoom in/out

The camera control is a bit unorthodox. Moving the mouse pointer rotates the camera, the closer to the edge the faster the rotation.

Configuration:
the game is packed with a ‘config.cfg’ file. It works just as any panda3d prc file and all the options valid for a prc file are valid inside this config file. But there are some extra options:

shadow-mapping 1 or 0
Turns on/off shadow mapping (setShadowCaster)

shadow-map-size 1024
The size for the shadow mapping buffer

per-pixel-lights 1 or 0
turns on/off the shader generator (setShaderAuto)

animated-water 1 or 0
turns on/off the water animations (there’s a topic somewhere on my water if someone needs more info)

bloom 0 1 or 2
When set to 0 the bloom filter is off, 1 enables it at minimum setting just to get the glow working, 2 is a more like proper bloom

Any feedback is welcome, but I would like to know if it even works. Can I show it to people outside the Panda3D community without being ashamed that it won’t even start?

Does resizing mess it all up with bloom on? Is it a mess with bloom on anything but 640x480 ? (bloom won’t work on my laptop at all)

Is the terrain normal mapped with a bit of gloss? (it looked like setting the autoshader didn’t do anything on the dreaded vista laptop)

Download link again:
sendspace.com/file/f54no1

Linux distributions are free. Just kidding…

They are correctly saved into the Panda3D’s runtime folder.

Tested on my MacMini (Lion), it works. As for feedback, providing an Options menu would be better than talking about that config.cfg file. Moreover, even if now you can’t do many things inside the game, providing a kind of tutorial (even if now it would be very simple) would be better: the player would be very happy to know what (s)he is supposed to do. Moreover, graphics look cool so far, gratz!

It looks like resizing and bloom don’t work.

Yep.

I think the bloom-resize-doom is a panda bug, not sure if I can do anything about it.

A options menu is a good idea and I should add one, but a config file is a must-have. On my laptop it only runs via directX if the default was openGL I coulden’t enter a in game menu to change that.

As far as goals and gameplay…well got me there, there is none at this point. It’s just a cave tour. But you can try to find all the stuff I put there. There’s a keep, a city, crystals, 4 types of fungi, 2 lakes, some metal ore, stairs and stalactites (single and in groups).

What about the camera control? Is it ok? I find it annoying to allways drag my mouse with a button pressed, so I made it a on/off switch.

Is this demo going to turn into a full game or is this just something you’re testing out? If you can add shadow casting to your demo (if not already), that would be cool.

Casting P3D shadows is something I am yet to get right. I won’t use P3D shadow casting for my current project since performance is on the table. However, I may consider it in the future; if I continue to use P3D for an engine.

Learning how others are setting up shadow casting (with P3D) is something I’m working towards.

I hope it will evolve into a full game.

For shadows I’m using panda build in ones. I can post the code, but it’s just a spotlight that moves with the mouse collision ray over the terrain.

Tested with default settings and it worked quite well. I noticed also that movement/control is way easier once you zoom out and look at everything from top.

To be honest, I would prefer to drag the mouse, so I would prefer an option for that. Anyway, it’s a subjective thing!