Storm in a teacup? take a look...
Community Forums/Showcase/Storm in a teacup? take a look...
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| After some crazed responses to previous posts I decided to keep quiet about the Storm Engine on the forums for a while. Now that I'm leaving for a week of vacation and Storm is has skipped pretty much completely to OpenGL (in preparation for BlitzMax), I felt it'd be a waste not to show you people any of the old engine material. So without further delay, here's the goodies, the last shots where taken pretty quickly so if you think they are lacking, feel free to bitch about it and troll all over the topic! ;P The first semi-public Storm Engine shot, showing a lake, some trees and a StormTerain (this was taken 4 months ago):  3 Shots taken today from the prototype MapEditor for StormGL, this editor covers a full production pipeline for natural and organic maps, using an intermediate weighted voxel representation to create any 3d shapes required with easy tools. Interface/console are hidden in the screenshots.  The editor allows for loading heightmaps, saving final products into several 3d formats and reducing polycount to the exact desired ammount automaticaly.  The terrain shown in these 3 screenshots was created in under 3 minutes using only add/substract brushes and configurable soil layers, the UV mapping is 100% automated and virtualy artifact free, using only 1 surface per texture.  Due to the responses I've had about the voxel based part of the MapEditor and it's capabilities I am concidering to release it as a seperate tool, should there be enough intrest. So if you like and/or would concider to buy a tool that performs the above functionalities and more, speak up... ;) I hope you enjoyed the show, should responses be positive, you may get a deeper peek next week, when I return from vacation. |
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| whoooaaahhhh.... nice Retro... --Mike |
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| Yeah, what RO said... 8^) "I am considering to release it as a seperate tool, should there be enough interest." Are you kidding? Where do I sign up? |
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| Very impressive, but i was expecting more :\ |
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| "Very impressive, but i was expecting more" Like the demo that was promised some months back ;) |
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| Was kindof hoping for something more graphically appealing. Do something about that foliage, it's icky. |
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| He's showing what the code can do. The art is irrelevant. |
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| Due to the responses I've had about the voxel based part of the MapEditor and it's capabilities I am concidering to release it as a seperate tool, should there be enough intrest Such an editor would be surely impressive if it works as supposed! About the screenshots guys, consider them as a tech demo: after all they are intended to show editor's capabilities (and these are showing its capabilities pretty well, in my opinion)... |
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| Fantastic. Superb stuff. Looking forward to the demo. |
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| look really really nice, thinking of the way the map was done makes the whole thing even better :) |
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| Looks Awesome! |
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| so it's a terrain engine? |
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| He's showing what the code can do. The art is irrelevant. It shows no code at all. It shows nice media though. Static, too.A rolling demo however... |
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| Cool :D Demo... Demo... Am I still gonna do the docs? I sent you an email retro but didn't get a reply. |
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| so it's a terrain engine? No, the terrain engine is only a part of the engine, read the post carefully and you'll see I'm concidering offering the terrain editor component as a stand alone tool, seeing how the Storm Engine is moving to OpenGL and the exported meshes from this editor will work fine wether loaded into Blitz3D or StormGL. It shows no code at all. It shows nice media though. Static, too. I think we need that statement underneath every screenshot in the gallery people! ;) If no one is interested in the editor, this will stay static media for a few months, because then I have better things to spend my time on (StormGL). Should people want the editor (and some seem to) and what they can see/read it will do for them, then I'll turn this prototype editor into a demo and a full version. Which is on the grand scale of things, still quite a bit of work. So if people aren't interested I'll have saved myself some trouble, if they are I'll have some insurance that this is actualy worthwhile to finish before continuing StormGL. And BotBuilder, I didn't get your mail, but I'll mail you as soon as I'm back from vacation. |
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| I'd rather you spent your time on 'StormGL', myself. |
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| I might point out that should it be brought to completion this map system will also be available with StormGL as soon as it's released, which aint too bad a deal either. ;) Ofcourse should that happen anyone who already owns this system when StormGL releases would be entitled to a price reduction on StormGL. This might not change Noels oppinion... but still. |
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| Trust me, it didn't -_- |
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| There is considerable warping going on in the textures on the terrain. Is that correctable? |
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| The top screenshot doesn't shows an old terrain, any warping there is nothing to do with the new terrain tool. The new terrain tool in "Fast texture mode" (3 bottom shots) delivers a 95% warp/stretch free UV solution, which is then run trough an algorithm that fixes 95% of these warps/stretches, anything that is left after that are small spots which can be hand corrected at the touch of a brush. If all this doesn't satisfy you needs you can use the "Quality texture mode" which is 100% stretch, warp and artifact free. |
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| Looks well, reminds me "a bit" of far cry... ;) |
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| I'm glad everyone thinks it looks good, however it'd be helpfull if you could also state wether you'd be interested in the editor... To summarize, it's a full featured realtime voxel based volume editor that allows you to use 3D brushes such as substract and add to make any organic/terrain shape, like normal terrain, caves, cliffs, asteroids, allien structures etc. Offering assisted texture placement as well as hand painting and fully automated UV mapping. Then exporting these models to 3d fileformats with automated optimalization and polygon reduction. |
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| mm. Odd. oh well. I'll try again. Is the email in your profile correct? |
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| Basically I would be interested in the editor as the way it works is quite usefull for cave creation etc which takes quite long in 3D modeller. But it depends on it's ability and price |
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| I would be interested. There is certainly a need for tools which are capable to create vast terrains which are not dull heightmaps, let alone with ease and such results. I think it would be an important addition, as editors of this kind are quite 'next-gen' compared to the ones we already have for Blitz. |
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| It does look very impressive actually :) Im really looking forward to the demo though, as with most people. Any form of release date for that? (hehehe >:) ) Is that voxel editor (or maybe i misunderstood that and its going to be in the main editor) free or costy? If its costy I'll wait for koekjesbaby's :) |
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| If the editor exported to B3D then yes, otherwise, a resounding "no". Of course lets see a demo of the editor as another chap on these forums is doing a volume based editor alse. |
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| I have to admit I'm confused. the media shown is certainly impressive, no question. But what does storm have to do with it? |
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| If the editor exported to B3D then yes, otherwise, a resounding "no". Yes, B3D and other formats. Is that voxel editor (or maybe i misunderstood that and its going to be in the main editor) free or costy? If its costy I'll wait for koekjesbaby's :) Relatively cheap, but not free, you get what you pay for, I have looked at koekjes voxel editor and it's speed and mechanics and I can pretty much guarantee the this editor is far more advanced (polygon reduction, weighted isosurface voxels for better shapes, seamless single surface UV mapping etc.) and far faster in performance, it allow you easy (dragging and hold) and fast (over 50 opperations per second) realtime editing of voxel based objects and comes with numerous presets, specific optimalization forms and voxel as well as polygonal filters. the media shown is certainly impressive, no question. But what does storm have to do with it? All this media besides the textures has been created using Storm engine modules, such as Storm Terrain, Storm Liquid, etc. so they are infact showing off some of the stuff Storm will allow you to use as easily as you'd normaly be able to use built in blitz functionality. (for example, create an advanced storm terrain, set the soil types and their textures and the storm engine handles it's updates, LOD, cutoff, effects, lighting etc. for you automaticaly. Sorry if there's typo's I'm currently on vacation and the keyboards are different here, hope this answers your questions and undoubtably will lead to a new round of questions... |
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| How long does it take to make a terrain? |
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| The terrain on the screenshots took 1 minute of setting up and 3 minutes to mold with just 2 brushes (add/substract), a random terrain with caves and cliffs takes a minute or two of setting up of textures and a few minutes of configuring the random generator, a manual large sized terrain that is worked out in the utmost detail takes maybe 30 minutes to an hour for the really massive ones. (talking X square miles here) The artists I work with are raving about it, I'm afraid I won't be able to get em modeling stuff again... ;) Suddenly they all want to handle the terrains. To put it short, an eight year old could make an impressive terrain with this system, it's like playing with intelligent clay. |
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| Sounds good, looks good. I wonder how fast it renders. Especialy the fancy water with small waves and cubic map plus the gloom FX may be pretty slow. However, the molding system seems to be very fine, from what you say. |
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| Sounds good, looks good. I wonder how fast it renders. Especialy the fancy water with small waves and cubic map plus the gloom FX may be pretty slow. Actualy the water is not only cubemapped and having small waves (surface caustic) but it is actualy an entirely deformable water surface that responds to any physics enabled object tossed into it and changes LOD's based on distance. Since the calculus for all this is located in extremely optimized C(++) DLL's rendering and AGP bandwith determine performance, the scene shown in the first shot, which contains 200 trees, a terrain and a lake, totaling to some 120.000 tris (not all being rendered at a time ofcourse), runs at acceptable speed (50 fps) on a GeForce 2 in 800x600 32 bits. It speeds up to 120 and up when lowering the detail settings. |
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| Show a screenshot that isnt 4 months old... im sure it looks better than those ones, although those screenshots look pretty cool, I just dont get why people would choose to release screenshots that are old? |
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| entirely deformable water surface that responds to any physics enabled object tossed into it Wow, so this thing must have water that is comparable with some new and advanced games like farcry and hl2?! That sounds awesome! |
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| very nice shots! |
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| I want to see a snowscape, a rainy terrain, lightning etc =) |
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| how about a non-interactive demo with the camera flying about se we can see it all move? That water effect looks very nice, and I'd like to see it in action. |
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| Yep, demo demo demo demo! demo! (revenge of the damned...;) ) |
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| what about other environments, like: lava,beach,mountains can you place custom built objects and combine them with the terrain mesh? |
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| Looks like I found another computer to abuse for a bit. Show a screenshot that isnt 4 months old... im sure it looks better than those ones, although those screenshots look pretty cool, I just dont get why people would choose to release screenshots that are old? I would release more up to date screenshots, but since I'm currently working on StormGL (which btw. will also contain more advanced versions of the terrain and water seen in the first shot) and was leaving for vacation, these where the ones I could quickly get my hands on. how about a non-interactive demo with the camera flying about se we can see it all move? That water effect looks very nice, and I'd like to see it in action. Since I'm currently on vacation and this computer won't run over 640x480 at 16 colors... You'll have to wait a bit for that. But due to the reasonably positive feedback I've had I have decided to do the following when I get back: -Release a demo of a simple landscape built in the editor, which will feature maybe a few climate settings. (something which takes but a few clicks in the editor) Due to popular request I may add a little sneak peek at the Storm Liquid system to that demo. (the cool looking lake :P) -Build and release a fully functional, non save enabled demo of the voxel map system as well as a save enabled full version. If not in the first release the ability to add models and lightmap the whole level will be added shortly as this tool will eventualy become the main level editor for the StormGL engine. This editor will not only save to the simple b3d format, but also to a more advanced Storm3D format, that upon release will allow it to be loaded into the StormGL engine, which will unlike a simple B3D export allow for complete realtime deformation of your maps (Think Worms3D on a 5x5 square mile map ;), inside the game as well as automated LOD and culling functions! -Since this system will also ship with StormGL, any buyers will be supplied with a UserID that will grant them a discount on their purchase of the StormGL engine of the same amount as the price of this map editor. |
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| Sorry but since this is actually sounding better than all commercial engines, perhaps I will exercise doubt. |
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| That's ok locust, I'm used to it by now :) Maybe when I get home and release a demo, you'll be a bit less doubtfull towards things... Right now I mostly wonder what the other people are thinking. Tho the fact that you think it sounds better then most commercial engines is a nice compliment. I'm trying to create an extremely indy friendly development platform here, that gives small groups of people and even individuals with enough creativity the productivity and power to compete in todays games market. |
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| When do you plan on getting home to release? I'm not one of the doubters, yet..;) just interested. |
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| What's the interface like? Do you just fly around adding and carving spheres in realtime? Or is there a more controlled, organized interface availible? (Front/Side/Top views, etc.) Also, the lighting looks rather odd in the later screenshots. In screenshots 3 and 4, for example, why is there that line of light and darkness all the way around the level? Especially in #3, since the sun (the actual source of light)is clearly visible BEHIND the cliff being illuminated. Was this merely an example of the person using Storm not taking into account the skybox when placing the light source? Does storm even DO the lighting, or did you use a different tool for that? I would instantly buy this tool without a second thought, just based on the screenshots, if it cost around 20 bucks. If I got a demo in my hands and I could figure out exactly what it does and doesn't do, then depending on the functionality and features, I might go as high as 50 bucks. I'm an independant, spare-time developer and Blitz is just a hobby to me. There are a lot of tools out there, and I prefer to stick to the free ones, but this one may be worth purchasing for my terrains. By the way, if all your artists are clammoring to be the guy working on terrains because the tool is so nice, then you should teach the tool to make indoor maps and 3D models, too. :P The indoor maps part wouldn't be too hard... just teach it to use cubes instead of spheres as the basic shape, and add features from there as requested. Creating a humanoid or monster model with this tool might not be too difficult, either... just add a function that can be used to force bilateral symetry. :) Of course, animation would be another story... and I'm looking at it from an oversimplified perspective. (For all I know, cubes might not work with the existing underlying mathematics. :P) |
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| hey retrobooster, is it okay to send you an email (in dutch ;) ), because we are doing quite some overlapping work i c/sh/would be interested in making my editor compatible with your engine (you know, export functions). |
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| . |
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| Quick response (actualy in a store display using their computer now ;) Warpzone, I have indoor brushes too :) I just have to add texturing tools for em, there is an extensive interface as well. Koekjes, drop me a mail I'll respond in a week. |
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| retro: don't use the back button to edit your post ;) and i'll mail you when you get back. have a nice holiday. |
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| "Right now I mostly wonder what the other people are thinking." Please take this in a positive way. I'm not trolling, flaming or alluding to anyone/anything specific, just a candid response. Please, follow through with whatever "promises" you make. That's all I think anyone would ask. There's enough hype about other "killer" products already and folks tend to get all twisted up and evil when someone says "I'll do *this*" and it doesn't happen, or makes excuses. As long as you stick to your word, I'm sure you'll get positive responses. Your engine looks very promising and I will certainly look forward to seeing your demo when it' available. Enjoy your vacation! |
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| Good thing we have a lot of family here, all these visits are giving me excuses for getting on a computer for half an hour and keeping in touch... I'm relaxing and generaly taking my time to set my goals and plans for the next year. Please, follow through with whatever "promises" you make. That's all I think anyone would ask. Thats actualy very well said CodeMeister, definately not flaming or trolling. I have every intention of following trough on these products, infact the reason I'm looking for some feedback/indication of intrest is because I'm planning a lot of my activities in the upcomming year around these products. I'll get a little deeper into that when I get back home, as I want to work on getting a solid customer base for the near future and part of that is giving people here some more insight in what I'm doing and how far I'm going for this and before BloodLocust jumps in, releasing a demo and showing I deliver, trough this voxel based editor as an introduction product, is just as important ofcourse. |
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| Looks like TerraED will face some competition. |
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| Sorry, lost inteterest after the previous "Demo coming by next week"! I stand by the previous advice I gave to 'Storm' (months back), and that was to 'have' something before you start hype. A load of -still- screens isn't showing anything of what you say it can do, nor will most believe it (those who know better anyhow). Nothing personal, but a first impression is-just that, and with me it was wasted sometime back. Making preparations for Blitzmax seems a bit usless to me since no one, with the exception of beta testers, knows anything about it past it's creators casually mentioned feature set. I would see completing it as is, or even putting out that demo of the as is, would be more of an expected step rather then preparing for something that isn't scheduled for release for some time. Just my 2 cents |
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| Actually, it is not useless to prepare. A: There will be a converter for Blitz-Blitz Max code made by Mark Sibly himself. B: I'm under the impression that a large part if not all of StormGL is not written in blitz. However, I could be wrong. A quote of RetroBooster's: Since the calculus for all this is located in extremely optimized C(++) DLL's rendering and AGP bandwith determine performance, the scene shown in the first shot, which contains 200 trees, a terrain and a lake, totaling to some 120.000 tris (not all being rendered at a time ofcourse), runs at acceptable speed (50 fps) on a GeForce 2 in 800x600 32 bits. It speeds up to 120 and up when lowering the detail settings. Since they could use this C(++) code in a blitzmax module there should be no problem in using it. Infact, it seems that it will probably be released before mark's 3d engine, although that's just speculation. |
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| B: I'm under the impression that a large part if not all of StormGL is not written in blitz. However, I could be wrong. Quite correct botbuilder, infact StormGL is written entirely as a C++ DLL and if no one noticed yet, BlitzMax is said to allow direct access to those as if they are part of the language... Since they could use this C(++) code in a blitzmax module there should be no problem in using it. Infact, it seems that it will probably be released before mark's 3d engine, although that's just speculation. Unless Mark suddenly decides to ship a full 3D engine with BlitzMax StormGL v1.0 will indeed get released before his engine is implemented. Making preparations for Blitzmax seems a bit usless to me since no one, with the exception of beta testers, knows anything about it past it's creators casually mentioned feature set. I would see completing it as is, or even putting out that demo of the as is, would be more of an expected step rather then preparing for something that isn't scheduled for release for some time. As stated above, this preparation is perfectly justifiable and is infact nothing more then he process of making a generic, commercial quality 3D engine which could be made suitable for use in ANY language not just BlitzMax. I'm just planning on releasing it for BlitzMax first. |
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| As far as stated you would have to translate it into BMax code and compile it as a BMax module to use it as if it was BMax itself ( which it would be :) ) Would be far more usefull anyway -> OS independent! |
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| No actually. You apparently haven't been doing your bmax homework - you can include C/C++ libs in BMAX modules. |
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| I just noticed the water in the first one... That reflection is funky. The mountains in the back aren't reflected. The skybox looks like it's reversed or something... Looks like a static image laid down on the water surface... They don't even match up very well. |
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| It's blitz3D, its a cubemap, I don't recall the specific settings this shot was taken on, but I think the reflection looks reasonably well, it could have been set to static reflections explaining the small discrepancy, the skybox is perfectly fine as is its reflection. Since this is still Blitz3D and thus not a pixel shader, it will look far more impressive in StormGL, but this should still function fine as a fallback system on lower end systems. The storm design aims to offer multiple levels of backup systems for every main component, so when you want dynamic water it'll run on a GF2 as well as on the latest radeon, without forcing you to worry about it! It just changes to cubemap mode rather then a reflect/refract shader. Anyways, I'll be home soon and then things will really get interesting... :) |
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| Will this type of terrain be available in StormGL as a primitive, or will it be necessary to have the editor to use it at all? I apologize if this question has already been answered. The reason I ask is that although I love the voxelspace technique, I prefer to create my own editors so that I can make them work together coherently, instead of the artist having to go from one tool to another to another... |
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| It'll be available as a primitive so you can write your own editor for it, but Storm v2.0 (the final commercial release and a free update to any Storm v1.0 owners) will include a full fledged plugin compatible editor that not only allows you to edit the terrain, but also place all the objects your game requires, run static lightmapping for use on the lower end systems, optimize the geometry etc. The voxel editor will also ship with Storm for free and people who have purchased it as a seperate product will get a discount on Storm to compensate for it. Anyways I'm about to leave for home, then I have 1 fairly busy week helping friends who are moving, followed by 6 weeks of fulltime coding. When I have time to spare I'll prepare and post a demo of these terrains and maybe post a wee bit more info/worklogs on Storm, it's quite a massive venture. |
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| Excellent! I'm definitely very interested in this. Is more information available concerning features, estimated availability, price, etc.? |
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