IB (pc only, testbed) Development updates

Discuss anything in general about the IceBlink Engine + Toolset project (or anything else) here.
youngneil1
Posts: 148
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2020 9:01 am

Re: IB (pc only, testbed) Development updates

Post by youngneil1 »

Thank you guys :) - I am trying to uplaod v189 currently, but my connection is crawling these days...

The scrolling/camera panning is keyboard only currently, but mouse touch and drag would be really cool to have, too. Maybe I can pull it off later :) ... IB mainmap has a hold left mouse button down to move party system already iirc (I am so used to the keys), with movement speed depending on distance of mouse pointer to party.
youngneil1
Posts: 148
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2020 9:01 am

Re: IB (pc only, testbed) Development updates

Post by youngneil1 »

IBBeta v189 released - no liabilities, no warranties, use at your own risk:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bmsn0w1heegbc ... l.zip?dl=0

- this is just the engine .exe this time due to internet really slowing down here
- smooth combat camera scrolling via keys integrated
youngneil1
Posts: 148
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2020 9:01 am

Re: IB (pc only, testbed) Development updates

Post by youngneil1 »

Still alive and kicking here, I am head over heels into the lighting engine and have biten much more than I can chew this time :roll: .. but after stepping back and reducing complexity/functionality quite a bit, I start to see a light at the end of the tunnel. All these efforts revolve around smooth scrolling of light sources (party, props) and generally making light more relevant for level building.
User avatar
slowdive
Site Admin
Posts: 509
Joined: Wed Jan 15, 2020 4:37 am

Re: IB (pc only, testbed) Development updates

Post by slowdive »

Knowing when to back off on complexity and scope creep are learned skills, often through painful experience. You are now a master coder :lol:
I saw the recent Github push and started looking through it a bit, so I see where you are going. It'll be worth the effort. I still have some catching up to do with IBx, but RL has been busier than I expected lately.
youngneil1
Posts: 148
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2020 9:01 am

Re: IB (pc only, testbed) Development updates

Post by youngneil1 »

I feel more like a master fumbler :lol:, but true words.

I have to make some compromises, so the new approach for the lighting will be a give and take thingie:

Pros:
- smooth scrolling of party light in dark indoors; it feels so much better to move the party in complete sync with the light cone around the party
- Adjusted LoS system for determining visibilty around the party in dark indoors to work with smooth scrolling; it is great fun to see the lit area change shape dynamically around the party while you smoothly move, respecting walls, corners, generally lines of sight (it happens like 80% smoothly, a better coder woud have removed reamining bits of chunkiness by dynamically inflating/squishing certain parts of the dark/light mask)
- other light sources on props become only visible when in line of sight
- squares higher than height of the party square automatically block sight now; this makes setting up levels faster (no need to manually palce LoS state) and also allows for walking on a wall and looking down from itand especially along it while the wall at the same time blocks sight when standing in front of it (I will make this change optional via a module setting as it otherwise will screw up existing modules with manually placed LoS states)

Cons:
- I had to remove party ligths from outdoors areas, ie no torch in night time (the semi transparent layer of the night is trickier to handle than full black darkness due to double overlay situations, ie black on black is black, but two blue hues on top of each other form a deeper hue of blue); lights on props still work in the night though, so you e.g. can have fires of a city turn on at night time
- when the party (with lit torch) gets close a light prop in dark indoors I had to change to a simplified lighting model to prevent glitches - the lit area loses shades and shows as a combined rectangluar space arpound party and light prop, it also scrolls a bit blocky on the edges; well, this is the one I tried really, really, well like really, hard to resolve otherwise, but there comes a point where you have to let go for your sanity's sake (I am here to win the war, not each battle, or so I comfort myself, harf :mrgreen: )
- I removed the explored/visible/fog of war state from dark indoors as it only made matters more difficult to handle and had nota very relevant effect anyway (due to the always creeping back darkness)
- moving props are not fully in snych with the light around them, but it works well enough

More a side note, but I will use like 80% darkness for fog of war in outdoors (ie a bit transparent, like in Malkin). This makes the world feel larger and provides better orienttation. But this is just a customizable preference, not affecting other modules.

To do:
- remove night time modifiers (penalties on skill checks and in combat) from the gamesystem (wihtout party light in the night to counter them they seem a bit unfair); the torch is a tool for dungeoneering only now
- try my - reasonable -best to make the whole new system work cross maps (seamless world)... I already hate this one :lol:
youngneil1
Posts: 148
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2020 9:01 am

Re: IB (pc only, testbed) Development updates

Post by youngneil1 »

IBBeta v190 released - no liabilities, no warranties, use at your own risk:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/m4onscmmpt3ni ... 0.zip?dl=0

- changes to lighting system (see above for details)
- additionally to above notes, I am very happy :D to report the clash between party lights and prop lights in dark indoors is resolved much more elegantly now (think smooth scrolling until clash, then a more traditional blockwise set up of the light/dark mask)
- for existing campaigns, please make sure to set the new heightBlocksSight property (under module settings) to false in the toolset (especially before saving a game with the new version); otherwise all your manual LoS settings will get lost and only height determines LoS
- when buidling dark indoors with connected/neighbouring areas (seamless world) it would be a good practice to use the two outer square rings of each of each area as light blockers (height level above party/ground) and only allow passage between maps through short tunnels; it's not a biggie if you fail to do so, but it will then lead to occasional light glitches near area borders

The lighting system overhaul was truely painful for me, but it ended on a very happy note. I had to take a real big step back and from there I could approach the problem in a new, less ambitious, but much cleaner and simpler way. A wholesome experience.

It is so much fun to design the dark indoors for me now - a beautiful choreography of ever changing shapes, affected by party as well as props momevments (props can carry light, too, I even added an automatic little light source icon underneath moving props who are set to be lights at teh same time).

Ah, I still have to look into the night time modifiers... in the next version :) .
youngneil1
Posts: 148
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2020 9:01 am

Re: IB (pc only, testbed) Development updates

Post by youngneil1 »

IB v191 incoming very soon (preparing currently). It will allwo more (old) options for full size effect icons in combat and also (again) center around lighting big time.

Next up for me is supporting widescreen/ultrawidescreen resolution (as my main gaming pc is using such a monitor). I made very promising first steps and it looks simpy gorgeous to have such a large paly area full of IB glory :) .
youngneil1
Posts: 148
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2020 9:01 am

Re: IB (pc only, testbed) Development updates

Post by youngneil1 »

IB Beta v191 released - no liabilities, no warranties, use at your own risk:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/k75jsr58xo9mu ... 1.zip?dl=0

- (much) more work on lighting
- new module property: allEffectsUseFullSizeIcons (this returns all effects on pc/creatures to old full size)
- new effect property: thisEffectUsesFullSizeIcon (this can be used to make a selected effect drawn full size in any case)
- both new properties only refer to the icons on pc/creatures, the portraits always show small effect icons
User avatar
slowdive
Site Admin
Posts: 509
Joined: Wed Jan 15, 2020 4:37 am

Re: IB (pc only, testbed) Development updates

Post by slowdive »

youngneil1 wrote: Sun Apr 12, 2020 2:21 pm Next up for me is supporting widescreen/ultrawidescreen resolution (as my main gaming pc is using such a monitor). I made very promising first steps and it looks simpy gorgeous to have such a large paly area full of IB glory :) .
This sounds very exciting and hopefully adjusts for most all screen sizes and aspect ratios. I tried to make a few adjustments in IBx, but I didn't want to move away from IB too much so my changes were very limited and may be superseded by your work soon.
youngneil1
Posts: 148
Joined: Mon Jan 20, 2020 9:01 am

Re: IB (pc only, testbed) Development updates

Post by youngneil1 »

The groundwork is all there in your flexible systems. Most screens have some kind of glitch, but all in all it looks really promising after a few adjustments already. I will try to make it all fully flexible for all kinds of ratios and resolutions (up to 4k), but I guess alot of debugging and testing lies ahead.
Post Reply