Maker’s Tale : Tech Demo – First Release [ r07 Download ]

[mcbeth]

@thetoucher said:
@mcbeth perhaps that flickering is the Maker's Tale logo (can be seen in recent screen shots and videos) ? can you capture it in a screen shot for me ? and yes, building tiles hanging over the ground didn't happen by accident ;)

weird thing is it doesn't show in the screens but is most present especially on the loading screen and when gui elements are on screen my best guess is that it,s my monitor that is having the issue somehow......don't know

[thetoucher]

@mcbeth said:
it doesn't show in the screens

what about videos ? You can easily capture from in game by pressing F4.

[mcbeth]

@thetoucher said:
what about videos ? You can easily capture from in game by pressing F4.

yeah pressing F4 or alt+V my afterburner video capture shortcut effectively stops the flicker ....so again my best guess is vid cards or monitor issue probably refresh rate..... max on mine is 60......so this might be unique to my hardware

[lwsquad]

Everything seems to run well with R03 on my machine:



AMD Athlon II X3 440 3.0ghz 4gb ram. Nvidia 460 gtx. winXP 32 bit.



Nice job, assets look and render well, as well as the filter variations.



One thing I would like to see is some changes to the gui though. The basics are all there. but perhaps organizing them a bit different could help with the players experience. Imo maybe make the fonts and gui elements a bit larger. And perhaps move the current constructing element to a more visible space, or maybe have a selection plane of all available building materials along-side the side of the screen in a vertical fashion. And possible avoid frame overlaps, as in hitting f8 seems to overlap current available options,



Just a bit of feedback so far, Love the idea, and the way your project has been progressing! Great work! Can’t wait to see more!

[knucklesandwich]

i took a few days off from the internet, you went and snuck in a tech demo. nice!



everything ran perfect on my system without any kind of struggling. i really like the feel of the editor - everything is very intuitive and the controls are nice and smooth. excellent work!



[Edit] System specs:

Wnidows 7 HomePremium

AMD Athlon II X2 215 x64, 3GB DDR

GeForce GT 520

[thetoucher]

Hi guys,



I’ve taken on board a heap of your feedback and bug reports thanks, rolled them up into a new build (r04) and updated the download links in this topic.



The most notable changes:

• Large GUI overhaul including eliminating all overlapping and obscuring panels at 1280x720+; minimum functional GUI resolution requirement has now dropped to 800x600 (well it nearly fits now, sorta)
  
• The building system was wonky … targeting a neighbour tile for building had stopped functioning at some point… now it’s fixed and working properly again the tile building system feels much more natural again, far less awkward.
  
• Graphical Options GUI (f8) has been improved so incompatible shader combinations can no longer be made (causing effects to break or appear to do nothing)
  
• f12 is now an alternate key binding for opening debug menu (regular binding is `).
  
  
  
  I’ve also made loads of other usability and performance tweaks, which I hope should improve the overall user experience. I’m still looking for anyone keen to test and give feedback, and would really appreciate it if any of you that have already tested for me, had time try out this new build and give me some feedback on the changes / improvements… this really helps me figure out if I’ve introduced any new bugs with such an aggressive round of bug/memory fixes.
  
  
  
  This build should hopefully mark the end of the launch fallout period, so I can finally get back to working on features not bugs
  
  
  
  Cheers
  
  James

[thetoucher]

To conincide with the public release I put this little video together, which I can now share since the release is done



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP26a3oKdro

Unfortunatly it doesn't include the plethora of improves that resulted from the recent testing, so it may not compeltely line up with what's in the most current release.

Changes :
-face fight - actors face each other in battle
-spine bone rotation override for vertical aiming
-enemy melee unit animation updates
-new archer animations / poses
-archer + enemy melee highlight map
-projectile (arrow) firing
-arrow ‘bullet trail’
-chat logs
-migratedfull source to svn
-splash screen
-water cost made infinite.
-path finder improvements (display path + unreachable tile handling)
-terrain movement cost now influence character speed
-fixed transparent shadows
-added slidable debug type
-added sun lamp intensity
-sun lamp direction, elevation, intensity & hue sliders
-loading sequence improvements
-added tips
-cloth toggle
-actor HUD/GUI toggle
-added title to tile preview
-button hover state
-fixed texture atlas defalt issue
-fixed double hero spawn bug
-structures now avoided by pathfinder


... and cheers @lwsquad and @knucklesandwich :)

James

[jmaasing]

@thetoucher said:

I've also made loads of other usability and performance tweaks, which I hope should improve the overall user experience. I'm still looking for anyone keen to test and give feedback, and would really appreciate it if any of you that have already tested for me, had time try out this new build and give me some feedback on the changes / improvements... this really helps me figure out if I've introduced any new bugs with such an aggressive round of bug/memory fixes.

This build should hopefully mark the end of the launch fallout period, so I can finally get back to working on features not bugs :)

Sorry but there still seems to be some remaining bugs in r04 :(

Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4, AMD Radeon HD 6770M 1024 MB. Running windowed 1280x720 24bpp.

Press f8 and choosing either: Motion Blur, StoryBook Shader, HDR or Alt Tone Mapping the main window disappears (like the app crashed) but the process is still running. Have to ctrl-C to get it to end. SSAO, FXAA works as expected.

All I see in the console is:
At app-launch:
Jul 9 09:41:49 Violet.local JavaApplicationStub[53846] : CGContextGetCTM: invalid context 0x0
Jul 9 09:41:49 Violet.local JavaApplicationStub[53846] : CGContextSetBaseCTM: invalid context 0x0
Jul 9 09:41:49 Violet.local JavaApplicationStub[53846] : CGContextGetCTM: invalid context 0x0
Jul 9 09:41:49 Violet.local JavaApplicationStub[53846] : CGContextSetBaseCTM: invalid context 0x0

When it has finished loading:
java.io.FileNotFoundException: HexEngine/maps/demo6 2b fort.hmd (No such file or directory)
at java.io.FileInputStream.open(Native Method)

then nothing until I select a borked shader and the window goes away when I get:

here is a click, the mode is SINGLE_ACTOR and capturing path is true
select single actor at Tile at 7,1,8 type: Grass actor count is []
cleanupPathCapture
cleanupPathCapture

[memonick]

@thetoucher, Great Awesome Amazing!



Some small critique:

the ogre moves too slowly

the way it dies is kinda weird

animations for when the archer shoots

[thetoucher]

Hi guys,



I’ve got a new build for you : r05 - I updated the download links in this topic. Also have another video to go along with the release :



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgFZkZHsatg

Loads of changes, most notable :

- fixed baked ao slab related bug
- fixed neighbour selection bug
- removed stats view and linked fps view to GFX options
- linked GFX GUI toggles depednacies together
- added f12 as alternate binding for debug menu key
- tiles on lowest level cant be removed
- overhaulled RTSCam mouse controls
- lowered min res requirement to 800x600
- now loading a default map
- new tiles - ice, snow, lava
- vertical skeletal aiming fixed
- actor "face tile" added
- arrow firing animation synced to projectile release
- FlashControl - flash on damage
- DiffuseRamp colour added to shader
- Status Info floating contextural dialogue
- LineTrailControl for trails
- Cloth flagpoll collision hack - lvl 2 flag
- Tile slowdown effect scale added
- live mini map with cam + cursor
- HUD reshuffle
- edit/play master mode
- freeze time
- resource hud
- added cost to buttons
- tiles menu functionaility
- right click to focus

Hope you enjoy :)

Cheers
James

[thetoucher]

Cheers @memonick.



Thanks to @jmaasing’s help, managed to track down a few Mac bugs, and an HDR shader bug that was causing a crash on some systems when switching on some graphics settings. So I made a little patch (r04a) to cover these off.

[xenexes]

@thetoucher



Did you anything about the DXT compression of the textures?

[thetoucher]

@xenexes we have not changed the DXT textures yet sorry, but the issue is not forgotten.

[shirkit]

Dragging the camera now is pretty bad. Try start dragging the camera on some corner, after you stop moving the mouse, the camera is still moving because of that 1-right-click move ^^

[thetoucher]

@shirkit good point, I don’t use drag camera much so didn’t notice, thanks.

[thetoucher]

Hi guys,



It’s been a while, new update video for version r06, hope you like it :



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obnTpQ8JtZk

Cheers
James

[pspeed]

Just beautiful. Now I want fur, too.



Two random thoughts: the maps are starting to feel claustrophobic but it seems like part of the style. It could also just be because they are already built up.



It occurs to me the graphics would also make a really great team dungeon crawl like a modern version of the old-school Gauntlet. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauntlet_(1985_video_game))

[wezrule]

haven’t played it yet, but looking awesome! congrats

[roleary]

Hi,



I just downloaded your tech demo r05, and it looks awesome - this is going to be a great game - congratulations!



R

[monkeychops]

This must be in the top 3 for the title of best JME3 game so far